16 August ~ Blackburn Rovers fans have launched a petition demanding that the FA investigate the running of their club. Since the Indian poultry processing company Venky’s took over Rovers in November 2010 the club have gone from mid-table in the Premier League to bottom of the Championship. With reported debts now around £100 million, supporters have had enough of owners who they say refuse to communicate with either fans or staff.
The new WSC is out now, available in all good newsagents or to order from the WSC shop.
– Hibs’ first Cup win since 1902
– Edinburgh City break new ground
– Controversial League shake-up
– Who won the unofficial World Cup?
– Spain’s withdrawal from Euro 60
– WSC writers’ competition winners
10 June ~ They say France has ground to a standstill, but there was little sign of that as commuters poured out of Gare Lille Flandres into the June sunshine this morning. Strikes continue to take place across the country as part of the CGT union’s widespread protests against the controversial loi travail, which would change working conditions in the country – but you would never have guessed it from the number of people wandering down Rue du Molinel into offices in the usual manner or enjoying their morning cafés on the pavement terraces.
With no communication about an apparent takeover and stadium construction work stalled, Tom Shepherd explains how Northampton fans started to take actionWhen Northampton Town fans arranged a protest for the club’s home match against Oxford on September 12 – holding up question marks and chanting “We want answers” during the 12th minute of the match – a large proportion of the media coverage centred on the lack of information surrounding the Cobblers’ apparent takeover.
Chairman David Cardoza, who was not at the game to receive the protests, announced in June to some surprise that he had signed an agreement to sell his stake in the club to an Indian consortium – the identity of which was being kept under wraps. Three months later, at the time of the protest, little had been revealed about the selling of the club, the identity of the prospective buyers still no clearer.
But the mystery surrounding the takeover isn’t the only question Cobblers fans feel needs answering. The club’s Sixfields Stadium has been a three-sider for more than a year now, as work on the East Stand redevelopment has stuttered then ultimately ground to a halt. Fans are beginning to wonder what is being done with the £12.25 million the club borrowed from the borough council for the work. As, now, are the council, who – at the time of writing – have given the club just three weeks to pay back the loan in full, claiming the last two repayments have been missed.
“Work on the East Stand has been repeatedly delayed and the takeover negotiations were dragging on and on. People are now asking where the money has gone,” said Labour group leader councillor Danielle Stone. The club have been threatened with legal action should the loan not be repaid, leaving some fans fearing the worst. Cardoza has responded with an assurance the money will be paid back to this deadline.
Plans to redevelop Sixfields were first mooted in July 2012, with a fully worked proposal released just over a year later. The scheme suggested the complete redevelopment of the East Stand, incorporating the club’s offices and a range of hospitality, as well as the renovation of the West Stand. It also included a hotel and small housing project on land adjacent to the ground. The new stadium capacity was expected to reach around 10,000, having previously stood at 7,653. Planning approval was granted in late 2013 – along with the loan from the council to part-fund the development. The target was to have the stadium ready for the 2014-15 season.
Work began in March last year. However, shortly after it had started Cardoza announced that the original plans would need to be scaled back. The new designs were met by a cold response from fans, due to the prominent position of corporate boxes creating seats with restricted views, as well as a reduced capacity of just over 8,000. Fans were starting to question whether the work was extensive enough for the money being spent.
The progress of the East Stand’s redevelopment took a further knock in autumn last year, when work on the site ceased completely – which was put down to a legal dispute. This was later revealed to be the company with whom the club had a contract to complete the stadium works, 1st Land, entering administration. Its top creditor was Buckinghams, the sub-contracters carrying out the work. Six months passed before Buckinghams returned to the site, but work was quickly wound up when talks with the prospective owners surfaced. So the Cobblers have started this year as they played their entire 2014-15 season – in front of a shell of a stand.
For all the problems surrounding the development and takeover, it has been a lack of communication that has irked fans the most. Cardoza had enjoyed a healthy relationship with supporters since becoming chairman in 2002, but many feel that he has been too aloof during such a tumultuous period. Weeks after the initial Oxford protest, Andy Clarke of the supporters’ trust resigned as elected representative on the club’s board, having claimed he found serving as the link between board and trust too difficult to manage.
So far, manager Chris Wilder and his players seem relatively unaffected by the off-pitch drama. However, with the threat of legal proceedings looming, and more protests being planned, whether that focus is maintained remains to be seen.
From WSC 345 November 2015
A life in football
by Paul Fletcher MBE with Dave Thomas
Vertical Editions, £14.99
Reviewed by Alan Tomlinson
From WSC 315 May 2013
This is a book about life-changing moments, successful adaptations in life and survival in the football business, from player to executive. Paul Fletcher explains the title by saying that his “life and career has been magical; it’s as simple as that”. Fletcher’s three moments of life-changing experience were seeing a small player head the ball, inspiring him to practise jumping and heading aged 16; meeting his wife-to-be at Bolton’s Beachcomber Club; and attending a Dale Carnegie course in leadership training. The third Damascan moment was at the end of his playing career and, as a fan of Carnegie’s book How to win friends and influence people, Fletcher enrolled on a 12-week course in Bark Street, Bolton. There’s a deliberate evocation here of dead-end hopelessness, back in the stark, dark uncertainties of his early life in the town but now with a pair of worn-out knees and an unplanned future. The Carnegie programme changed all that for Fletcher, with the probing question: “Where do life’s opportunities lie, inside or outside of your comfort zone?”
Fletcher was born in Bolton and played football for his hometown club then Burnley and Blackpool, all in a state of decline or at best static during his playing days, which peaked in the mid-1970s. But the Carnegie course gave him the urge and the confidence to branch out into after-dinner speaking, from World Cup events to the Bacup Wheeltappers, India to Ramsbottom and an appearance at the Cambridge Union. He also moved into photography, the property business and marketing, which got him the job of commercial manager at Colne Dynamoes, a non-League outfit threatening Burnley’s local hegemony at the time.
After a year he was recommended for the commercial manager’s job at Huddersfield Town, where a derelict plot alongside the club’s old ground was available but undeveloped. He went there to introduce money-making ideas but found himself drawn into the process of modernisation of the game, by taking on responsibilities for the specifics of stadium design. The old Leeds Road ground was superseded by the modern McAlpine (now John Smith’s) Stadium and suddenly Fletcher was a man in demand – a former player with commercial nous and a pedigree of successful project management.
Fletcher’s is an engaging story with some good put-downs; Alan Ball, in charge at Blackpool, comes out as one of the worst managerial appointments of the era. But it’s a bit laddish, cultivating the spirit of the dressing-room and stand-up/after-dinner circuit. I’d have liked to know more about the minutiae of his departures from top jobs at Huddersfield, Bolton, Coventry, Wembley and Burnley (covering their season in the Premier League). But he holds back on that and tells another anecdote or reminds us that he’s a ukelele-playing stalwart of the George Formby Appreciation Society. “Magic” or “magical” gets a dozen or so mentions throughout the book and at the end “serendipity” too. Fletcher recognises that he was a chance-taker not just on the field; his life in football at his impressively wide levels of achievement is testimony to his determination, ambition, loyalty towards and sustained affiliation to his local roots.