Sometimes, fans run clubs and disciples of the fans owned model are sometimes seen as sanctimonious little oafs who see themselves as holier than thou. On occasion there is perhaps some truth to this but with news of Farnborough F.C.’s alleged debt of £1.7million, which would be a staggering amount for a League 1 or 2 club never mind a Blue Square South side, breaking less than four and a half years after their formation following the liquidation of Farnborough Town F.C in the summer of 2007, I can’t help but think there is an awful lot of credence to these claims.
Farnborough aren’t the first club to be in peril and I would be enormously surprised if they were the last, this season even, to announce in roundabout ways that their immediate future is in severe doubt. The name of Spencer Day, the differently named but same man who drove Aldershot to their death in the early 90s, would do little to allay my fears. Some players who played under him at Chertsey Town have made some very interesting comments about him on Twitter.
Clubs seem to be going to the wall far more regularly these days with unpaid debts, in particular to Her Majesty, than they ever did in the past, and the really difficult thing is that in many cases, the writing has been on the wall to many outsiders long before the fan has been struck by faecal matter. Hornchurch, Telford United, Rushden & Diamonds, Windsor & Eton, Leyton, Chester City, Halifax Town, Ilkeston Town, Gresley Rovers, King’s Lynn, Enfield, Leigh RMI / Genesis, Farsley Celtic, Berkhamsted Town, Edgware Town, Fisher Athletic, Newcastle Blue Star, Withdean 2000, all clubs which in the past six or seven years have been forced out of business due to financial difficulties. Not all of these clubs have been reliant on one man’s money, but many have. Some have since reformed under a different name, some clubs have disappeared sadly for good.
Of course, this list doesn’t include those clubs who it is known are trying to recover from near financial oblivion, or who are sailing close to the wind as I type. Truro City, Croydon Athletic, Lewes, Harlow Town to name just a few. Can you imagine how hard being a Weymouth fan over the last few years must have been? Not so much a roller-coaster ride as a free-fall from 20,000 feet without a parachute. I’ve lost count of the number of owners they have had in the period since Ian Ridley and Steve Claridge left the club, I’ve lost count of the number of times there have been headlines surrounding the club and their parlous financial state. No matter who is holding the purse strings, the story seems to be the same. Likewise Lewes. Thankfully for the Sussex side, their transition into Community ownership looks now to be paying dividends, and long may it continue.
To the Terras’ credit, they have at least gone about things the right way on the pitch and taken their relegations on the chin and on the pitch. Accepting the beatings they handed out on the way up the pyramid as they return downwards. I don’t mind admitting it infuriating me when a club loses their main benefactor and is then able to pick and choose the level they play at. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to see a club put out of business, but I don’t think beating all and sundry whilst paying out wages that can’t be sustained in the long term and then choosing to play 3 divisions lower when the moneymen leave, rather than slashing their playing budget to £0 if absolutely necessary and accepting a couple of years of doom and gloom whilst returning to a level where they are able to sustain a side is a particularly fulfilling way of going about things. Of course, Canvey Island and Grays Athletic have done this in recent seasons after the departures of Jeff King and Mick Woodward respectively. Canvey were offered a place in the Premier Division of the Ryman League and chose instead to try their luck at Division 1 North. That reprieved Hendon from a first ever relegation in their history, and quite frankly, I was embarrassed to have not been relegated because we deserved nothing less. Of course I don’t know the ins and outs of things financially at either club but I can’t help but think that they both chose the easy way out.
Since the Hendon Supporters Trust took full control of Hendon as a debt free operation (all debts to the Arbiter Group I believe being covered by the money they would make from the sale of the freehold of Claremont Road) I have often wrestled with what I would want to happen if a man with a large wallet arrived on his silver horse offering us terraces paved with bronze. I enjoyed the years of football under Ivor Arbiter’s ownership, but the simple truth is that we were paying out more than we could afford to on player wages. The Supporters Trust’s submission last year to the CMS Select Committee as part of their investigation into Football Governance in England cited the case of one player’s wages only just being covered by the gate receipts for that season. Considering the figures quoted would make one’s mind boggle in today’s terms, the fact that they were from 12 or 13 years ago actually defies belief. Thankfully for us fans, Ivor had the club at heart and wanted to try and take it forward onto the next level. Plenty of benefactors elsewhere have had very different motives from the shady speculative investment from Karl Williams at Hornchurch to the downright illegal payments made by Mazhar Majeed at Croydon Athletic. However, despite Ivor’s best intentions, were it not for the fact that Hendon were sat on a lucrative piece of real estate, there is no way the club would be in the position it is now.
The idea of the club going back to being the potential plaything of one man scares me absolutely rigid to be quite honest. I don’t have a problem with people wanting to spend their money on football clubs and if they do it in an organic way, putting a structure in place that can help fund the club in the long term as Danny Hunter has done at Boreham Wood for example, then that is brilliant. But alarm bells ring whenever I see a club being taken over and the new owner suddenly begins outlining his 3 or 5 year plan for Conference football or beyond. And I get angry when I see fans of these clubs saying that they’re just going to enjoy the ride while it lasts. But what when it does end? You just hop off, and exit the place without giving it a second thought? Or will you be around to try and pick up the mess That kind of attitude drives me bonkers and leaves me with a lot less sympathy for the fans’ plight when the bottom falls out of the club and they’re all plummeting towards the murky depths of oblivion. You deal with the devil, expect to be burned. At least Carshalton fans are not burying their heads in the sand as Paul Dipre massages his ego in front of ever diminishing crowds in South London.
I’m ambitious, I want Hendon to progress and challenge for promotion to the Blue Square South, I want Hendon to be able to be playing in a ground they can call their own again, even if nothing will truly replace Claremont Road. But do I want that to come at a price that could see the club die? Absolutely not. Give me two relegations fielding a bunch of 17 year olds and paying absolutely nothing but a debt free club that is still in charge of its own destiny at the end of things and able to compete at a certain level over one that enjoys a couple of promotions before being left high and dry with unsustainable debts and no option but to wither away and die. If the latter ever did happen, would I be able to support a Phoenix club? Possibly yes, but they wouldn’t ever hold the same emotional place in me that Hendon do. Any ‘A’ in AFC Hendon would simply stand for ‘artificial’.
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