The Long Read: Scunthorpe United; the harder they fall
From League One to the National League in five years is a lot to take in.
There comes a point at which the central question surrounding a declining football club becomes, “for how much longer can they withhold this sort of strain?” For the supporters of Scunthorpe United, that fall has come hard and it has come fast, taking them from League One to the National League North in just five years, and for all the promises that have been made, or may have been made, there doesn’t seem to be much of a visible end to this decline yet.
At the time that the takeover of the club by David Hilton was completed in January, there was a clear upward spike in interest in the team again. Crowds which had dipped below 2,500 as the team floundered in the National League spiked back above 3,500.
Peter Swann, the previous owner who’d taken the club’s ground in return for betting it on a gamble which had conspicuously failed, was no longer the owner of the club although he did still own the ground, transferred into his company’s name in return for loans that he’d put into the club which had ultimately been to little avail, on the pitch.
So there was cause for optimism. There was still time to rescue a season which had already gone seriously awry. The day after the takeover was announced, 3,696 people turned out for a 1-1 draw with Bromley, their third-highest attendance of the season to that point.
But by the end of last season Scunthorpe were still one place off the bottom of the National League table and 15 points adrift of safety, and since then their position has only become even muddier, with the new and former owner getting involved in a social media slanging match and ongoing doubts over where the team will even be playing their home matches in the future contrasting sharply with a significant level of recruitment of new players as the club prepares for life in the National League North.
Few other clubs have had such a hard time of things on the pitch over the last five years as Scunthorpe United. Relegation from the National League at the end of last season was their third in that time, and in the other two of those five seasons they finished in 20th and 22nd place in League Two. Relegation from League One to the National League is a steep fall. In that space of time, they’ve gone from playing Peterborough United in the league to playing Peterborough Sports.
The very first signs from David Hilton gave cause for optimism. The day after the Bromley match, Jimmy Dean, who’d taken Peterborough Sports to the four promotions which got the club into the National League North, was appointed as their new manager. The next day, Hilton confirmed that a tax debt owed to HMRC against which a winding up petition had been issued against the club had been paid in full. Another bullet dodged. That Friday night, a season high crowd of 5,110 turned out for their National League match with Barnet. Five points adrift of safety, Scunthorpe needed a win. Barnet won 3-1. Scunthorpe won just three more league games all season out of 16.
Meanwhile, the first significant mumblings about Hilton came at the end of February, when Scunthorpe launched a scheme by which fans who purchased a lifetime membership for £1,899 were given an opportunity to buy a share in SUFCV (1899) Ltd, a holding company that would own Glanford Park. There was, of course, a lot of talk of fan-ownership and the like, but £1,899 didn’t sound like a very democratic amount of money–with the greatest will in the world, how many Scunthorpe supporters would realistically have that sort of money to burn at the moment?–and besides, if he’d just bought the club and the ground, why would he be selling chunks off to ‘secure its future’?
And that feeling that something simply wasn’t right only continued to grow. At the end of March, journalist Aidan McCarthy reported that Hilton had been involved in an argument with a Bury supporter–Hilton had previously been involved in an attempt to “revive Bury Football Club” and create a “self-sustainable model moving forward” which never came to fruition, for reasons that have never been made entirely clear–over the fact that he had previously changed his name by deed poll over what he described as “personal family reasons”.
Hilton was, of course, fully legally entitled to change his name by deed poll, and he doesn’t have to tell anyone anything about his private life that he doesn’t want to, but when you get involved in football clubs, and especially when you start repeatedly pitching up at financially distressed football clubs, you kind of waive a certain degree of that anonymity. Hilton is entitled to not explain why he changed his name, but this comes at the risk of a proportion of a large, perhaps suspicious and broadly unhappy fan base starting to regard you as evasive. Welcome to public life.
Just a few days after this came something of a bombshell, when Hilton confirmed in a lengthy interview on the club’s website that the club would be relocating to Ilkeston for training during the week and shutting down its academy in order to save costs. One not-insignificant outcry later, in the middle of April, it was confirmed that the club had performed a U-turn on both of these decisions and would be continuing to train on land adjacent to Glanford Park while keeping their academy open.
Again there was an obvious question. Moving your training base 70 miles from home and closing down your academy are big decisions, the sort taken by an organisation which needs to cut costs. All of this tied in with comments made by Hilton at the time that the decision was made in the first place. So…how come it could just be reversed in a couple of weeks? If they couldn’t afford it a couple of weeks earlier, how could they now? Especially since less than a week before the U-turn was confirmed, Scunthorpe had been relegated into the National League North following a 2-0 home defeat against Oldham Athletic.
Then in the middle of May, signs appeared on two pieces of land near the town centre suggesting that Scunthorpe United had bought them. At a fans’ forum held on the 19th, Hilton confirmed that the club intended to build a new stadium and would be working with North Lincolnshire council in order to secure this. Again, more questions. Firstly, how realistic was a two-year turnaround on delivering a new stadium, considering that to the best of anyone’s knowledge no planning permission has even been given for this to happen, or even an application made?
And secondly, who’s going to be paying for this thing? A little over a decade ago, when they were in the Championship, Scunthorpe United were getting crowds of 6,500, and it’s not unreasonable to suggest that they need to at least match the size of facility that they already have, which is 9,000. Some crummy little flat-pack non-league ground with half the capacity of Glanford Park isn’t going to cut it.
It starts to get expensive, when you build a new stadium. Chesterfield’s seems like a reasonable comparison to draw. It cost the club £13m (£22.3m, adjusted for inflation from 2009) for 10,000 seats and took five years from agreeing the development in principle and two from getting planning permission to finally moving in, and that was for a project that had already been refined on paper for three years. Are there detailed plans? Is a planning application ready to go? Is the funding in place for this Scunthorpe Hilton Hotel? If so, where is it coming from? If not, where will it be coming from? Hilton indicated that all of this was in hand, but two years is not very long under better circumstances than this.
The following week, it was reported that 24-hour security had been seen around Glanford Park along with a notice warning, “Any attempt to enter these premises is a criminal offence subject to section 6 of the criminal law act 1977” (a standard sign usually shown where squatters rights are being protected), which resulted in the club issuing a statement:
The notices put up at the stadium and 24-hour security are to deter any person or persons from acting outside the parameters of the law.
The club currently hold a lease for Glanford Park and have a legal right to operate from the premises. The club have not changed any locks and will remain at the property for the foreseeable future as stated in our recent statement.
The club would like to reiterate that there is no need for concern and it will be functioning as normal. We hope to reach an amicable agreement with the freehold owner in due course.
The implication between the lines was clear for all to see. The club–in other words, Hilton–was implying that Swann intended to evict them. Clearly the stadium purchase had never come anywhere near to completion, but what on earth was actually going on?
A post on Facebook from Hilton gave few answers, but a response was almost immediately received from Peter Swann through a post–confirmed as having been made by him–on the Iron-Bru Forum. In his statement, which certainly wasn’t light on detail, Swann claimed that:
He was told in the middle of January that there was serious interest in the club from Hilton, who wanted to step in and purchase both the football club and land associated with it. Their advisors had seen proof of funds. What these were is not made clear.
The land and stadium were priced at £3m and Hilton was notified that the club would probably need £600,000 of investment in order to finish the season.
The club itself was sold to Hilton for a nominal sum; he entered a 4-month exclusivity period and extended time-scales, both at Hilton’s request, for any extra due diligence and so that he could “liquidate the funds required to purchase” the stadium and land.
Swann considered the first “red flag” to be when the 1899 membership scheme figures “uncannily reflected the figures for the purchase of the club and stadium, as well as the likely liquid funds required to finish the season”. This indicated to Swann that “he did not have the funds to purchase” the ground and land adjacent to it.
Since then, according to Swann, “No new proof of funds, as asked for by me, or statement of wealth has been forthcoming.”
Swann received an offer for the full amount spaced over a period, which was agreed but only on condition of proof of funds and security over the property until the amount was paid in full.
Hilton asked to secure the balance payments on a personal guarantee, which would have been for just less than half of the agreed purchase price over 12 months or more, interest free. No proof of funds was forthcoming. Swann states that he believes that, “Mr Hilton does not have the money to purchase the site and in fact was ready to vacate after the May deadline as stated in the exclusivity agreement.”
Perhaps most concerning of all were Swann’s comments about Hilton:
To our complete surprise we received notification shortly before the deadline that Mr Hilton would be himself issuing SUFC a short term 7-day periodic lease, in contravention of the exclusivity agreement and where he had no legal right to do so. This lease will be challenged in the courts shortly and Mr Hilton and SUFC will be asked to vacate the land.
The lease he issued himself does not constitute a security of tenure required by the National League or the FA. We have made this point very clear to the National League alongside many other ongoing major issues, however they have refused to work with us or even communicate with us properly to discuss these concerns.
Hilton’s response to this didn’t confirm or refute any of the claims in Swann’s explanation of events:
Now isn't this surprising, the day I publish that I am uncomfortable with Iron Bru and I confirm their allegiance to your former owner and they issue a statement from the man himself.
Convenient.
I will obviously respond to this rubbish once I have had the chance to digest it., But it does seem my earlier post has smoked out some vermin and clarified a certain relationship status.
Seven days on from all of this, Scunthorpe supporters are still waiting for a fuller response from Hilton.
The release of the company accounts for the year to the end of June 2022 will have settled few nerves. They weren’t astronomically bad, with an annual loss of £170,000 which would have been much worse had a substantial loan not been written off, but they did confirm that the club is technically insolvent, with total losses of £11.4m.
Furthermore, the accounts showed just how little the club is actually worth, with the stadium and other land having already been syphoned off to one of Swann's companies. Total assets amounted to less than £200,000. Emotional or sentimental reasons are currently the best reason for keeping Scunthorpe United going. There certainly don’t seem to be that many good business reasons.
Hilton’s other club was Ilkeston Town, seventy miles from Scunthorpe, or an hour and twenty minutes in good traffic. The train is two hours and thirty-five minutes. Scunthorpe are playing there in a friendly on Saturday. Hilton resigned from his position as chairman there in January, but in the event that Swann gets permission to evict if the amount agreed with Hilton is not to be paid, who else would offer them anything like the sort of security of tenure they need to keep playing National League football at such short notice?
By such a point, alarm bells would surely be going off within the League itself, if they’re not already. The whys and wherefores of the dispute between Swann and Hilton are unlikely to trouble them beyond the fact that it is happening in the first place. They need guarantees that fixtures will be fulfilled throughout the season. These matches cost money to put on and commitments have been made to both broadcasters and sponsors. They will need cast iron guarantees that Scunthorpe can fulfil their fixtures at a venue that can safely stage National League football, according to their ground-grading and ground-sharing regulations.
The alternative may well be what ended up happening to Bury in 2019. The National League may be considered ‘tin pot’ by those who consider themselves to be slumming it by having fallen this far in the first place, but they can rest assured that the league does not think of itself that way. They have financial rules and protocols and ground safety rules which they expect to be followed.
If Scunthorpe are slumming it at the moment, they’re in the slums on merit, and were they to collapse altogether it would be far from the first time that a former Football League club has fallen through these trapdoors, only to be surprised at how competitive these ‘tin pot’ leagues they assumed they’d ‘piss’ have turned out to be, before drowning altogether in a sea of unpaid invoices.
Their pre-season friendlies for 2023/24 have already started. On Saturday, they drew 2-2 away to Brigg Town, of Division One of the Northern Counties East League. On Tuesday night, they lost 1-0 away to Winterton Rangers of Division One East of the Northern Premier League. Now there are always explanations for slow starts to pre-season. July is not a month to be playing club football unless you’re from the southern hemisphere or the extreme northern hemisphere. But it still doesn’t look great, to be failing to beat teams that are still two or three divisions below your current reduced status.
But there is another way of looking at all of this, because Scunthorpe have been bringing in a lot of new players this summer. At the time of writing according to Transfermarkt, there have already been eleven new arrivals plus the renewal of a loan at the club this summer. Now, this doesn’t really amount to ‘money spent’, if all the players were free transfers and they haven’t been paid yet, but it does at least indicate a change of direction on the pitch. And Hilton does still have supporters among the club’s supporters. After all, he paid HMRC off when there was no-one else who’d do it in January. They may have been relegated from the National League at the end of last season, but they do still exist.
This, coupled with a long-standing and deeply-ingrained desire on the part of many to get Swann out of their club no matter what the cost explains why many still seem to be supporting Hilton. If the ground situation does turn out to be a red herring, the squad being assembled is certainly capable of challenging in the National League North, although the supporters of other clubs such as York City and Stockport County may wish to warn that this division, just the same as the one above it, can be more difficult to get out of in an upwardly direction than it is to fall into in the first place.
The new National League season starts on the weekend of the 5th August, and with less than a month to go Swann has now issued possession proceedings against the ground. Hilton, meanwhile, Hilton had formally stated his willingness to pay £3 million for the stadium and pay rent of £10,000 a month while a sale is finalised in a letter apparently sent on the 7th July, but the terms of this are very different to those reportedly agreed earlier this year, and the fact that the possession proceedings have been sent five days after the date on the letter from Hilton’’s solicitors would seem to indicate that this is not acceptable to him.
This is hardly surprising. Swann has already stated publicly that he believes that, “Mr Hilton does not have the money to purchase the site and in fact was ready to vacate after the May deadline as stated in the exclusivity agreement.” There is nothing in the letter to suggest that Swann has agreed what would be quite a radical change to the original terms of the sale, still less to suggest how long Hilton might want this arrangement to last for, or what restitution to which Swann might be entitled in the event of Hilton breaching it. A contract is, and Hilton will already know this fully well, not formed by sending a letter to the other party saying, “this is how much I will pay you”, especially when said terms are not only quite vague, but also very different to what had previously agreed.
So, what happens next? A statement from Hilton is surely likely–as of the evening of Wednesday 12th there hasn’t been one–and the matter will presumably now be heard in court. In the meantime, the National League’s response is all-important. How convinced will they be that Scunthorpe United can fulfil their fixtures next season, if there is a realistic chance that they could get evicted from Glanford Park? And if that is to happen, what are the implications for the club? What funding commitments would Hilton be prepared to make, were gate receipts to drastically decrease as a result of having to play a distance away from their home town?
To say that there are more questions than answers over Scunthorpe United’s future feels like one of the understatements of the summer.
Note 12/07/2023: This is a breaking, developing story, and I will update it as and when there are further developments over the next couple of weeks. It remains the case that, having watched the collapse of clubs happening time and time again over the last seventeen years, you get a feeling for when a club’s existence really is at stake. The situations at both Southend United—who’ve had their winding up petition deferred for 42 days, which adds nothing to their story but further uncertainty—and Scunthorpe United feel critical, though in different ways.
On the off-chance that I’m accused of having an ‘agenda’, I’ll tell you what my agenda is. It’s the well-being of Scunthorpe United, as a football club, an asset to its community, and a point of local pride. My agenda is for the club to be financially stable and secure at its home ground, which I believe can only be considered ‘home’ if it’s in its ‘hometown’. I believe that Scunthorpe United, like all football clubs, deserve stable ownership which listens to and takes the time to understand critical voices—certainly from those who love the club—and which acts with the club’s best interests at heart, with honour and with transparency.
Nothing would please me more than for David Hilton to pull Scunthorpe United out of the mire; for anybody to pull Scunthorpe United out of the mire. Because the most fundamental truth of this club in the summer of 2023 is twelve wins in two seasons, three relegations in five seasons, and the lingering feeling that this story might not even have bottomed out yet.
Crazy situations at so many clubs, I bet there are more than a few who are technically insolvent or sailing very close to the wind, I really wouldn't be surprised to see more heading this way over the coming season.