Return to Farsley; a club only going from bad to worse

Things only seem to be going from bad to worse for a club which is already playing its home games almost 70 miles from home.

It’s been just over ten years since Neil Redfearn was appointed as the manager of Leeds United. Redfearn had been at Elland Road since the start of 2009, running the under-18s and occasionally being called in as caretaker manager, but in November 2014, albeit under the chaotic ownership of Massimo Cellino, he was offered the top job on a full-time basis.

He lasted until the end of the season, leaving the club in 15th place in the Championship, but in all honesty Cellino’s eccentricities were something of a Get Out of Jail Free card for anybody who had to try and manage the team under him. On 16 May 2015, Cellino told the Sunday Mirror that Redfearn was “weak” and “a baby”. Four days later he was gone, replaced by Uwe Rosler. It would be a further five years and a change of ownership before Leeds United returned to the Premier League.

Redfearn’s coaching career has never quite seen such heights again since. Six months at Rotherham United ended in the sack and a pivot into women’s football, where he had a go at Doncaster Rovers Belles and one game in charge at Liverpool (a 5-0 loss to Arsenal) before going to the Newcastle United under-23s. There followed a couple of years with the Sheffield United women’s team and a very brief spell at Oldham Athletic, before joining the coaching staff at Bradford City in 2023.

Evidently, the lure of a managerial position seems to have proved too great to resist, though whether it is wise for any coach who values the reputation to take a job at Farsley Celtic of the National League North is a question well worth asking, because Farsley have been one of our non-league crisis clubs du jour this season, a club which seemed to be stuck on an inexorable pathway towards oblivion.

He lasted four games in charge. His predecessor, Pav Singh, had lasted four months in the position before quitting in the second week of January. Another part of the pattern that marks out a football club in difficulty was starting to form.

The last time we stopped by here, in November, things were looking pretty grim. Delays over the installation of a new 3g pitch at their Throstle Nest ground—which had been renamed as ‘The Citadel” by the now-former chairman, but I’m choosing to disregard that—had forced them out, and a failure to get the work done in a timely manner had kept them away. Bradford Park Avenue, Alfreton and Guiseley had all provided temporary homes for the club, but eventually Farsley were forced to move to play their home matches at Buxton in Derbyshire, almost 70 miles away.

To the surprise of no-one whatsoever, attendances have collapsed. After all, who’s going to make a 130-odd-mile round-trip to the other side of an adjoining county to watch a team that’s pretty much nailed on to lose? In the middle of January crowds fell to two figures for the first time, when just 90 people turned out for their match against Scarborough Athletic on a Friday night. Eight days later that had dropped to 75 for a match against Warrington Town.

Redfearn was appointed on the 17th January, but the circumstances surrounding his departure were clouded in a degree of mystery. He was absent for the game at home to fellow strugglers Needham Market on the 8th February, with the team being led by women’s manager Izzy Roads and youth coach Phil Lake. They lost 6-1, a result which left them as mired in the relegation places as ever. There was no formal announcement from the club about this, of course. It took a phone call to Redfearn from the Bradford Telegraph & Argus to confirm that he’d quit the previous Thursday.

But there was an announcement of a replacement. The former Ipswich goalkeeper David Stockdale would be their fourth manager of the season. Stockdale is no stranger to chaos clubs. He’d joined Blyth Spartans at the start of August as assistant to the newly appointed Nolberto Solano, but following Solano's sacking three weeks later he ended up as interim manager before being given the job permanently on the 13th September. The club was sold at the end of October, and he was sacked after just 48 days in post. At least, it might be argued, he surely knew what he’s letting himself in for at Farsley.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the pressure was starting to grow. On the 10th January, a couple of days prior to the confirmation that Pav Singh had quit as manager, a video produced by Ellis Platten for his popular Awaydays channel appeared on YouTube highlighting the club’s plight. Within a few days this had been watched 200,000 times, and it’s almost up to 300,000 at the time of writing. This was enough in itself to be considered newsworthy in its own right.

It certainly seemed to set the cat amongst the pigeons within the club. Chairman Paul Barthorpe issued a somewhat rambling statement on the 26th January which didn’t really clarify anything, although he did claim that:

The truth is I have had a number of death threats hand delivered to my home address, I have been physically attacked, I’ve had my car damaged three times, my car tyres slashed, items thrown at my house and a number of other incidents that have happened directly after club posts or directly after other posts that are damaging and critical and as usual shared across multiple social media sites.

Considering the small size of the club’s support, it is to be assumed that identifying the perpetrators in this case shouldn’t take too long.

There was a degree of inevitability concerning what was to follow. An official statement from the club on the 11th February confirmed that Barthorpe had quit, citing “the significant impact this has had on my health, and the continued damage being caused to the club” as the principle reasons for doing so. Fortunately, the club had other directors who could step in to fill the breach. They issued a statement of their own the following day, confirming that this had all taken place. The Telegraph & Argus, meanwhile, had their own somewhat pithy take on it all:

Barthorpe then released a statement late last night, detailing the health issues he has suffered over the last few months, while also insisting he was not blaming anyone for the club’s current situation, but did then list his grievances with various individuals and organisations.

It seems reasonable to say that the first priority of the new board has to be something of a clean-up operation. Barthorpe had previously claimed that work was due to start on the pitch that has been the cause of so many problems was due to restart on the 10th February and would be completed by the 24th March.

The first action taken by the new board was the launch of a fundraiser to help to see the club through to the end of this season. It has a fairly modest target of £25,000, and at the time of writing more than £7,000 has been raised. But equally importantly, the club confirmed that it is abandoning its previous plans to get an artificial pitch installed and will be trying to get a grass pitch back into use at Throstle Nest before the end of this season.

This is an obvious and sensible step towards recovery. The club has confirmed that it retains the long-term aim of switching to plastic, but it is extremely obvious that they have far bigger matters to concentrate on at present. Playing home games at somebody else’s home can be ruinous for a non-league football club. Not only are fewer fans going to travel elsewhere to watch ‘home’ matches, but the ramifications of non-attendance for a club playing at this level are far higher than they are higher up football’s food chain.

Not only are clubs at this level heavily dependent on matchday revenues just to get by, but there’s also the small matter of the fact that other clubs aren’t going to let them use their facilities free of charge. Finding themselves in this position therefore put Farsley Celtic at the centre of a perfect storm; not only have their matchday revenues been devastated by having to play matches so far from their home, but they’ve had to pay for the privilege it. Getting back home has to be their first priority, and reinstalling a grass pitch is the best way of ensuring a quick return to something like normality.

But what will any new ‘normality’ actually look like? Farsley are currently third from bottom and six points from safety in the National League North, and with four relegation places at the foot of this division, it is surely at least as likely as not that this season will end in relegation back into the Northern Premier League following an absence of six years.

Does this really matter in comparison with the ongoing survival of the club, though? For a football club of this size, what really matters is that they do exist, that they’re a hub for their community, and that this all matters more than the results of their men’s team on a Saturday afternoon. Playing in Buxton, Bradford, or wherever was essentially stripping this football club of their context; their raison d’etre. What even is the point of Farsley Celtic if they don’t even play their home matches at home?

It is to be sincerely hoped that this will no longer be an issue by the end of this tortuous season. There will be difficult times to come between now and then, and there may be points between now and then at which survival feels insurmountable. Cloth will need to be cut accordingly. The previous incarnation of this club collapsed as a result of overambition just a decade and a half ago.

Farsley are a village club, and although it’s tempting to chuck cash at pushing up through the divisions, it’s equally true to ask whether it’s worth chucking all this money around in the first place if the upshot of it all is where they’ve been for the last few months. It is to be hoped that this season will eventually be looked back upon as being the season that really did turn the fortunes of Farsley Celtic. Over to you, new directors, and good luck.