Wednesday 10th March, 20104 months ago
A sad day for football, a good day for football fans?
Chester City were wound up in the high court bringing to an end a four year shame of an existence the 126 year club have gone through while Farsley Celtic were incapable of being accepted into administration and were liquidated.
For the better part of the last decade Chester City were struggling with financial problems partly caused by an underweaning lack of ambition but mostly by the actions of the owners of the club – The Vaughan family – who would make Richmond, Richardson and Risdale look like paragons of virtue and models of sturdy custodianship. I am no expert on the Vaughan family and so shall make no further comment on them other than to echo the comments discussed by Chester fans elsewhere. It was an horrifically drawn out demise, but it is not the end.
The 126 years of Chester City may have been pillaged by the Vaughan ownership but it is far from the end for the football club.
Chester City Fans United are already planning a new club – the popular AFC route as it is dubbed – and more power to their elbow. The rise of the AFC movement which started with the unloved and notoriously weakest fans in football who followed Wimbledon becoming the robust supporters of AFC Wimbledon dragging their clubs up from literally nothing.
The end of our neighbour Farsley Celtic is massively upsetting and to paraphrase “There, but for the Grace of God goes (John) Bradford (City)“. Trumpeted as the success story of local football three years ago the club that Stuart McCall signed for City from are no more.
Farsley are the first football club to have been refused administration because the possibility of a workable CVA paying more than liquidation would was too remote. Notts County – some speculate – would face the same situation.
Farsley Celtic‘s problems seem to have come from over-reaching to try grow a club to be bigger than would be sustained by the size of the current number of supporters but are not helped by the fact that the people who should have been looking out for a club founded in 1908 were – it is suggested – looking with envious eyes at the patch of prime Leeds land that Throstle’s Nest sits on.
Telford United and Halifax Town followed the AFC route and revivals for Bradford (Park Avenue) and Accrington Stanley while different in nature have drawn a new pattern of football. A map which separates the football club from the football business that operates it. The Farsley Celtic supporters who today look for something new to do with Saturday afternoon would do well to look at the AFC route which promises much reward.
The disgruntled Manchester United supporters who formed the ludicrously named FC United of Manchester – Newton Heath would have been so much better – have done similar and illustrate the practical successes of the supporter-centric approach. That FC United songs are now sung by clubs up and down the leagues says much about the impact that club is having and the growing protests of gold and green at Old Trafford shows a rising upset with the owners of the parent club.
The business of a football club can be owned by anyone who passes the much discussed fit and proper test – or in the case of Chester City and the Vaughan family people who do not – but the football club is not included in that business entity. The football club – being the historic traditions, the support, the icons, the status – is made up of the things around a club which cannot be bought and sold.
As Chester City Fans United look to follow a path trodden by AFC Wimbledon of taking over the history of the club despite being a different business it is worth reflecting that our football club has been run by the businesses of Bradford City AFC 1983 and Bradford City Football Club 2004 in the last decade. The switch of what is considered to be “Bradford City” from one business to another is done with the permission of the football club and in the case of Wimbledon/Milton Keynes that permission was not given.
So in almost welcomed demise and the instant rise of Chester City the owners of the businesses that run football clubs are given another example of this new pattern for ownership which gives them the power to run the clubs at the behest the supporters and with a remit to serve those supporters.
One can only imagine how horrific it has been to be a Chester City supporter over the last few years but the anticipated rise – and the lessons that illustrates to those people who own football businesses would seek to run clubs for their own benefit, and behave in ways that best suit them and not the supporters – are an example for all.
Football businesses can be owned by anyone, football clubs are always owned by the supporters and business owners would do well to remember this.
Excellent article Michael. I’d be interested to know your take on Portsmouth – it appears down here in the South that because they are a Premier League club they are above the laws of football and business.
In an odd way a club like Chester that has been slowly imploding is probably better off starting from scratch. They still have the name (all be it with AFC in front), they will still have the fan base and if well organised and backed could storm up from the very bottom tier. Ok it might be a long road even to the Conference, but what a journey it could be! As I said it is an odd way of looking at it and I don’t want it for us!
My Step-Father (Hi Nigel) is a Portsmouth fan and was warning about the implosion at Fratton Park before they won the FA Cup. It strikes me that when it comes to debt the bigger the club the more leeway they are given and considering the amazing leeway that the Vaughan family enjoyed at the expense of Chester City supporters it would seem that Portsmouth are going to enjoy limitless patience. As we saw at Farsley Celtic it seems a club will be eventually called time on if someone can find a fixed saleable asset that is bigger than the debts but because of the size of Pompey’s debts that is not going to happen and so the club continues to get limitless time because even if you were to liquidate the club tomorrow then the people owed money would still not get paid.
So in effect they are above the laws but – I’d say – only because the effect of enforcing the laws on them is pretty much the same as the effects of letting them carry on – i.e. no one gets paid.
From the supporters point of view as we have seen a decade of paying for the debts run up in a season is a painful experience and I think you are spot on with the idea that it is better to start again as Chester United (hopefully, the AFC name smacks of an abuse of the English language) and have your own club than carry on being the subjects of a corrupt King.
Farsley are dead because the Administrators refused to allow a takeover. They refused a takeover because they (the Administrators) would not have received 100% of their fee.
The other creditors, including the principal creditor who appointed the Administrators in the first place (and whose interests the Administrators were to look after above all others) were to have all been fully repaid.
A sad day for English football. I can’t imagine what the loyal Farsley Celtic and Chester City supporters are feeling at the moment.
The depth of English football is amazing when compared with other European countries; that the geographical size of England produces so many well supported teams in Divisions one to four and the non league pyramid.
Many a football supporter has a desire to visit all 92 league clubs and other non league clus. (As a side note a very good friend of mine is about to see their beloved Charlton Athletic play at a 100th ground; all be it Milton Keynes Dons. It would have been Bristol Rovers but SKY moved a Saturday afternoon fixture to a Monday evening and my friend couldn’t make it to the re-arranged date due to work.)
Anyway, I digress. Having been to Throstle Nest for both a pre-season friendly against Bradford City and to see Farsley Celtic play Whitby Town in what I think was an end of season play off, I and many other football supporters are now denied the chance of seeing football played there again.
As for Chester City, I remember watching them play Bradford City at Moss Rose, the home of Macclesfield when Chester had to play their home games some 40 miles from home. I also remember City playing Chester at the Deva Stadium very early on in the season in the early 90s and we came away with a 4-1 victory.
These are some of my memories of Farsley Celtic and Chester City.
Now all together “You are my City, my only City, you make me happy when skies are grey, don’t you notice how much I love you, so don’t you take my City away, you are my City…”
Yorkshire Post article on the demise of Farsley Celtic