Newport County shuffle their pack while looking forward to their FA Cup day in the sun

Newport County are in their eleventh consecutive season in League Two, but it's their FA Cup run and their change of ownership that has really caught the eye.

It speaks volumes for the nature of modern football that, in the week that they came under new ownership, Newport County can only be seen through the prism of their upcoming FA Cup match against Manchester United. Open Google News and search their name, and the top nine returns also have the name of their upcoming FA Cup opponents in the headline. Gotta grab those SEO clicks.

This has been a busy couple of weeks for the club. After winning a tricky looking Third Round replay at Eastleigh to set up the United match, 9,500 people packed into Rodney Parade to see them beat Wrexham 1-0 in League Two, an outstanding result against the team in second place in the table. Tickets for their upcoming FA Cup match were sold out in just 45 minutes, and the club made headlines after having closed their ticket office and switching to online sales only after their staff received what was described as ‘abuse’.

And then came confirmation of the buyout. Since Newport were a trust-owned club, the decision to sell a 52% shareholding had been put to a vote of trust members, and 98% had assented to the decision. On the face of things, if the club is not to be wholly-owned by the Trust it seems like a reasonable deal. The Trust will retain a substantial minority shareholding which should allow members some degree of influence over the decisions to be made going forward. But at the same time the arrival of Huw Jenkins, formerly of Swansea City, may open the door for increased investment into the club.

The last set of company accounts provide some insight into why the decision was made to sell this stake was made by the trust membership. The accounts to the end of the 2021/22 season are the last that are publicly available, and these show an operating loss for that season of £1,232,726 as well as £375,417 cash in hand at the bank, a figure reduced from £836,551 the previous year. They’re not calamitous, but it would be a stretch to describe them as positive.

So, what of Huw Jenkins? His is a name that was associated with Swansea City for many years, and while the manner in which he ended up leaving the club might have tarnished his reputation, it’s worth considering what they achieved with him running that club. At the start of this century, ownership of the Swans was like a game of pass the parcel while the team flatlined on the pitch. The Swans Trust took ownership of the club in 2002. At the end of the previous season, a club racked by financial problems had been relegated into the fourth tier, and the first season and half was tough, while the new owners got to grips with the club’s situation. They finished 20th in 2002 and 21st in 2003, when they needed wins from their last two matches to finish a point above relegation into the Football Conference.

But Swansea’s lot improved. In 2004 they finished in mid-table, and the following season they were promoted on the last day of the season. It was their last season at The Vetch Field before moving to The Liberty Stadium, and the new stadium had its desired defect. Swansea’s average crowd for the 2001/02 season had been 3,690. At the end of their first season at The Liberty Stadium, just four years later, this figure had swollen to 14,112, an almost four-fold increase.

They were only in League One for three seasons before getting promoted again, and after three seasons in the Championship a 4-2 win against Reading in the play-off final took them into the Premier League for the first time, and into the top flight for only the second spell in their history. Five consecutive seasons in mid-table followed, with a highest final league position of 8th, in 2015. During this spell, they also won their first major English trophy with the League Cup in 2013, when they beat Bradford City 5-0 in the final. In the European season that followed, they beat Valencia 3-0 away on the way through the group stage of the Europa League before losing to Napoli in the Round of 32.

But the major asterisk hanging over Jenkins’ head regarding his time at Swansea is his departure. In April 2016, it was confirmed that Swansea were to be sold to american investors, with Jenkins and vice-chairman Leigh Dineen staying on and the Supporters Trust retaining its 21% stake in the club and a board seat. At the end of the 2016/17 season they finished 15th in the Premier League, only just above the relegation places. At the end of the following season, they were relegated.

In the five and a half years between July 2010 and December 2015, Swansea City had three managers; Brendan Rodgers, Michael Laudrup and Garry Monk. It only took two years for the next three—Francesco Guidolin, Bob Bradley and Paul Clement—to be worked through. Criticism of the new owners became more vociferous, with Jenkins blamed by many for having brought them into the club in the first place. In February 2019, with the club’s hopes of a quick return to the Premier League fading increasingly quickly, he resigned. Since then, other than a brief dalliance with the possibility of buying Charlton Athletic which ended up floundering, he’s been out of the game since then.

But can it work for him with Newport? This is the Exiles’ eleventh consecutive season in League Two since promotion in 2013, and after a couple of shaky seasons upon their return, they haven’t unduly troubled the wrong end of the table, and even reached the play-offs in 2021 before losing to Forest Green Rovers. And while their financial situation as of the end of June 2022 was pretty bad, by the end of this season there’s every reason to believe that it will have improved somewhat thanks to their FA Cup run. Their home Fourth Round match against Manchester United being shown live on the television will certainly help further, and if they could force a draw in that match and a replay at Old Trafford, the FA Cup’s gate receipt-sharing would net them another very large amount of money indeed.

Furthermore, things aren’t really going so badly on the pitch, either. After a decent start, a poor run saw them drop to 20th place in the table, but they’re unbeaten in the League since just before Christmas and are currently 14th, an extremely comfortable 17 points above the relegation places but only six off the play-off places. With League Two having been so tight this season—even now, just ten points separate 7th-placed Notts County from 18th-placed Tranmere Rovers—that hardly looks like an insurmountable difference to overcome, especially if they can retain their recent unbeaten run in the league. There are causes for optimism.

The Trust retains a 48% stake in the club, which should ensure that their voices are heard. And there stands in front of them to write a real piece of history for their club. In recent years they’ve come close, with home draws against both Spurs and Brighton (they only lost on penalties to Brighton since this match took place in 2021, when there were no replays in the Third Round), and were they to go one better this weekend their profile would dramatically increase.

It is undoubtedly a shame that another League club has divested itself of mutual ownership, but the realpolitik of it all is that Trust-owned clubs are at a clear disadvantage in comparison with privately-owned clubs under the current system. Football has various glass ceilings of varying degrees of thickness liberally scattered around its pyramid, but few are tougher to break through than being a fan-owned club getting into the EFL. With more significant constraints on their finances than other clubs, it can be difficult to ascend very far, as AFC Wimbledon have found since getting promoted themselves a couple of years before Newport.

But it cannot really be argued that this return to private ownership is against the will of the supporters themselves who make up that Trust in the first place, with only nine of those who voted going against it. Perhaps one day there will be a playing field which doesn’t ultimately reward spending your way up, or which makes it easier for Trust-owned clubs to flourish. At the moment, that day seems further away than ever.