A good week, at last, to follow an SUFC
Both the Shrimpers and the Iron are to be saved, and at each club, one different group of people has been involved.
In both cases it was close. Far too close. Closer than anyone should really have to be pushed, where something of enormous emotional attachment is involved. But in both cases, and both for the first time in a very long time, there are reasons to be cheerful at both Southend United and Scunthorpe United, where after years of neglect which ultimately resulted in the clubs being pushed to the brink salvation has been found. And in the stories of each, we can find one group of people who were more responsible for doing this than anybody else.
Southend United
The 4th October was the date in the diaries for English football’s biggest repeat offenders at the art of not paying your tax or national insurance on time. On Saturday, the team scratched out a 2-2 draw at Rochdale at Spotland, a result which left them one place off the bottom of the National League following their ten-point deduction for failing to exit administration.
The following morning, protesting supporters were back out in force again. They’d become a regular fixture on Twitter, the banners with messages aimed at Ron Martin, the doughty figures who’d been protesting outside his properties as their club started to feel like it was dissolving before their very eyes. Tuesday night and Oxford City at home could be the end, unless something could be sorted out in the next few days.
But by the following Tuesday, the atmosphere surrounding the club had been transformed. The rumour-mill had been circling for a few days that a deal with an Australian-led consortium was set to be announced. By the weekend, social media was simmering with rumours abounding that there was “good news” coming for fans of the club. But Southend supporters have been here before. We all have. Nothing was being celebrated until confirmation was received.
That confirmation was received on Tuesday afternoon, less than three hours before kick-off for the Oxford match, and the effect was immediate. More than 6,000 people packed—the biggest of the season—into Roots Hall that evening to party, and the team did their bit with a 2-0 win. This of all evenings was, of course, about considerably more than the small matter of three National League points. And when good news washes through a club like this, suddenly what had seemed dismal and desperate starts to look substantially brighter.
The win pushed Southend up to 21st in the table. This is a clearly talented team who have performed superbly under close to intolerable circumstances. Without that ten point deduction, they would now be in 7th place in the National League table, the final play-off spot and one place better than they ended last season, when things were already plenty bad enough. And they did so while regularly being unable to put out a full substitutes’ bench on account of the embargo they were under in the first place.
The details of the takeover looks like good news following good news. The make up of the consortium is as follows:
David Kreyling and Tom Arnold: Founders of CSL Group which drives ‘Sport for Social Change’.
Jason Brown: A Hong Kong based hedge fund manager who grew up in the Southend area and a lifelong supporter of the club.
John Watson: The owner of packaging and taxi businesses in Southend and a Southend United season ticket holder for the past 40 years.
Gary Lockett: Another life-long Southend United fan, chairman of the Southend United Community & Educational Trust (SUCET) and a member of the Shrimpers Trust.
Justin Rees: co-founder of an IT consultancy in Australia which he subsequently sold, and is currently based in Europe. Made his SUFC spectator debut at their 2-0 away win against Dagenham earlier this season.
The Southend Echo reported that, “the consortium regard boss Kevin Maher, head of recruitment John Still and chief executive Tom Lawrence very highly and will not be looking to make changes.” On top of this, it was confirmed that the consortium will also be buying Roots Hall, reuniting the club with ownership of its ground. The stadium is to be redeveloped, while extra houses are to be added to the planning permission application to redevelop the Fossetts Farm site. The following day it was confirmed that the outstanding liability to HMRC had been paid in full. For the eighteenth and hopefully final time, a winding up petition served against the club is to be dismissed.
It also means the transfer embargo hanging over the club can finally be lifted, and this should mean the fleshing out of an already fairly impressive squad. Manager Kevin Maher has done incredible work to keep his players focussed on what needed to be done on the pitch. A ten-point deduction can torpedo a club’s chances for a season. With many players being non-contract, there’s considerably less of a transfer window of substance in the National League—not until the latter stages of March, anyway—so the work of bringing in players to ensure that they don’t have to suffer the indignity of starting a game with just a couple on the bench again will likely already be under way.
The club’s supporters trust’s statement on the matter said, “The ‘Martin Model’ of football club ownership has had its day, and we hope this announcement signals a new dawn at Roots Hall, with all staff being able to look forward to receiving their wages on time, creditors being paid promptly and supporters being fully engaged with club operations.” It’s true. The future and growth of any football club at this level these days should always mean co-operation.
***
Scunthorpe United
In the end, they were there all the time, in plain sight. Scunthorpe United are under new management, but let there be no mistake about it; this is a club that was saved by its fans. It was confirmed at the end of September that, as per the previous threat of owner David Hilton to withdraw funding, Scunthorpe United’s players and staff were not paid at the end of September. The acceleration towards their complete demise was accelerating, with the man at the heart of it all either leaving or having left the club—at the time, it was unclear who would purchase the club in the condition in which it was presumably to be found—having behaved highly erratically, for a football club owner, and with little idea of what happens next.
A meeting of the players was held to decide whether they would play their match the following day, and it was agreed that they would. And elsewhere, something else was stirring. To try and cover at least some of the gap left by Hilton’s decision to pull the financial plug, two Scunthorpe United podcasts, Iron Bru and The Iron Hour, launched the 21st century equivalent to standing outside the ground with a bucket and shaking it; they launched a GoFundMe.
The following day brought a home match in the National League North against Buxton, a match rescheduled after being abandoned three weeks earlier after a torrential downpour in the 96th minute. This in itself had been a somewhat contentious decision, with Buxton leading 2-1 at the time, but rules are rules. If it counted for anything, it was an opportunity for further fundraising, this time by the very 20th century means of, well, shaking those buckets.
The team couldn’t rise to the occasion. Buxton won 3-0 in front of a crowd estimated at around 3,800—the last couple of home attendances have not been made public, though it should be added that clubs are under no obligation to do so—a result which continued a downward turn which the team had undertaken since the first Buxton match. In intervening three weeks, they’d been knocked out of the FA Cup by Brackley Town, drawn away to Chorley, and been told that their next home league match at Glanford Park, again against Brackley Town, on the 7th October, would be their last.
At that time, with Gainsborough Trinity having confirmed that their stadium was not fit for use in the National League North (as well as the small matter of the fact that they didn’t know anything about what Hilton was going on account beyond having had preliminary discussions with him), it was uncertain where they would even be playing their home matches after the 7th October. Again, as had happened at Southend United, there were rumours that something was moving behind the scenes but that nothing could be confirmed just yet.
But that bad result against Buxton wasn’t really the story of Scunthorpe United’s weekend. The story of Scunthorpe United’s weekend was played out outside Glanford Park, where the bucket shaking raised £2,480. But even that, a substantial amount for one afternoon’s fundraising, was eclipsed by what was going on online. The GoFundMe had caught social media’s imagination. There were incredible acts of generosity from fans, both of Scunthorpe United and other clubs, and by Sunday night the total raised stood at almost £60,000. At the time of writing, it has raised £67,725. A phenomenal amount of money. More than £70,000, in total. It has since been confirmed that this amount will be shared equally by staff, regardless of their pay level, as an act of solidarity and a reminder that they all came together as equals when their backs were pushed against the wall.
And on Wednesday the 4th, came the confirmation. Michelle Harness, who’d formerly served as the club's commercial manager from 2000 to 2015, was taking over ownership of the club from Hilton who, it would appear, was washing his hands of the whole affair and walking away. It seems fair to say that this is the best outcome for all parties. Hilton, the man who sought to give himself a ‘fresh start’, has been subjected to a level of scrutiny that he surely never would have believed he would find himself under, when he took over at Ilkeston Town, several years ago.
The future of Scunthorpe United is not quite as secure as that of Southend United would seem to be. Not quite yet. But Michelle Harness is local. She’s Scunthorpe through and through, and everybody knows it. The club is in the hands of somebody who cares about it, and when a football club is in a delicate position, that really does count for a lot. The club still face two winding-up petitions including one from HMRC while there are several CCJs against the club and several debts to pay to former players.
But there have also been reports that negotiations have also taken place over the club staying at Glanford Park, and even whispers that Harness could be negotiating to buy it. This is still huge progress. Scunthorpe United need to stay at Glanford Park. Anything else is just pie in the sky, and the club doesn’t need a new stadium. It may stick in the craw of some that the club will have to negotiate with former owner Peter Swann, whose bad decision-making really kick-started the sequence of events which resulted in them being in this position in the first, but the reality of their position is the reality of their position. The important thing is getting the club back to a more stable position, the developments of this week have been giant steps in the right direction.
***
It felt obvious, from the moment that the speed with which the GoFundMe started to rise. Scunthorpe is not a wealthy town at the best of times, and these are resolutely not the best of times. There have been some horrible things said about some of the club’s supporters in recent months, and perhaps there is still a lot of reconciliation work to do there, but when the club really did need something approaching a financial oxygen mask in order to carry on, that salvation from the one group of people whose best intentions for the club can never be doubted, for whom this means more than a land deal, an ego-plumpening, or an opportunity to have a flutter with the security of knowing that you can always get your money back through the club’s assets.
Looking at the number rising on Friday afternoon, one thought popped into my head. “Someone’s going to see this and think, ‘I can make a go of this’. This is the point at which Scunthorpe are saved.” And perhaps hindsight has twenty/twenty vision, but the potential in a club playing in the sixth tier which can still attract 3,500-4,000 crowds to matches is obvious. It’s likely a big part of what attracted David Hilton to the club. The hero narrative can be a persuasive one to some. But that’s just speculation.
Because if we do have heroes in this story, it’s the ordinary people. The supporters who protested Ron Martin, who have managed to get an agreement which secures the club’s long-term future. Those at Scunthorpe who arranged the GoFundMe which served as a timely reminder of just how strong Iron can be. The supporters of other clubs, including local rivals, who gave because they understand that football supporters have more in common between them than could ever separate them. The victories of this week came because these clubs are valuable community assets, because the potential is there to build a club of which that community can be proud.
Both Southend United and Scunthorpe United were always viable businesses, with thousands of paying customers. That much was never in doubt. All they needed was somebody who actually cared. Southend’s new owners have local connections and the full support of the supporters trust. There’s plenty of space to grow in the part of Essex in which they reside. And Scunthorpe United are now under the ownership of someone with long-time connections to the club, and who considers the town to be her home. This football club really has put the town on the map. At both clubs, it was the fear of the loss of that deep emotional connection which prompted supporters to act. And both are now in substantially better condition than they were just a week ago.