The power truly is with the people according to Tom Davies
It’s a new season, hopes spring eternal (for a while anyway) and it’s time to dwell on some positive developments at embattled clubs. The fan takeovers at Stockport and Rushden over the summer bring the number of British clubs now owned and operated by supporters’ trusts to 12, with another, Brentford, run if not yet owned by fans.
David Stubbs on how the AFC Wimbledon story has been brought to the stage
Written by Matthew Couper, a local government arts officer and sometime stand-up comedian, A Fans’ Club is a modest theatrical undertaking but a worthy addition to that invidious yet strangely resilient genre – the football musical. It tells the story of a group of four Wimbledon fans who look on in passive astonishment as their beloved club is snatched from them by the seemingly larger, inevitable powers of commercial interest and dumped in Milton Keynes, their wishes ignored “like a tramp’s coat”. In the second act, however, moved by the spirit of the club that still lingers and pull together to form AFC Wimbledon. Commentating on this heroic turnaround are two “footballing Gods”, Hun-Batz and Hun-Choen, one of the play’s better devices, the “monkey twins” taken from Mayan mythology, who add both levity and a sense of the wider world of events.
Tom Davies examines the day to day struggle for survival of three clubs in the lower leagues
The wheels have well and truly come off at Barry Town. Mounting debts have caught up with the seven-times League of Wales champions, forcing the club into administration and the team to the bottom of the Welsh Premier table. The crisis came to a head shortly after shy and retiring John Fashanu quit in August. As reported in WSC 192, Fashanu took over at the end of last year with talk of using the club as a gateway to European football for African players for whom he acted as agent. But none of this came to pass and fans now see his tenure as just a publicity stunt.
Dear WSC
The Bristol City player captioned in the picture on page 32 of WSC 194 is Danny Coles and not Louis Carey as stated. Should you be inundated with correspondence from City fans claiming you should take note of his face as you’ll be seeing it playing for some Premiership outfit in the near future, fear not. He’s the usual average journeyman the academy turns out.
Tony Rogers, via email
Amid heated debates (no, really) over restructuring non–league football, John Carter explains why Ryman Isthmian clubs are stuck in the middle of a biscuit
Isthmian League fans reckon Claremont Road’s climate has more in common with the Yukon than Cricklewood. But bone-chilling temperatures alone don’t explain why only 243 fans turned up for the mid-December clash between long-time rivals Hendon and Enfield. Yes, there were special circumstances: most of Enfield’s fans have “done a Wimbledon”, deserting to breakaway new boys Enfield Town; the club’s travelling support now typically consists of three men sharing a cup of Bovril. Nevertheless, many of the terrace foot-stampers that afternoon remember times when the fixture could be expected to draw ten times the paying customers it does today.