Derby fans see football as vital to 'levelling up'

Boris Johnson’s levelling-up agenda should focus on football as a way of boosting civic pride, a leading strategist has said.

James Frayne, a policy research specialist who has worked alongside top Conservatives including Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary, said that policies to protect football clubs from bad owners would have an “immediate impact on daily life” in towns and cities across the country, in contrast to the longer-term effects of plans to improve skills and infrastructure.

Frayne’s consultancy, Public First, conducted two focus groups this month for The Times in Derby with fans of Derby County.

The participants in the focus groups saw the survival of their club as a vital component of the civic pride that Johnson wants to sit at the core of levelling up. “It’s 100 per cent integral to the city,” one participant, James, said.   Another, Emma, said: “For a city like Derby not to have a football team, it doesn’t even bear thinking about. It’s what puts Derby on the map. Without Derby County football club, what else does Derby really have to let people know about?”

Almost nobody in the groups had heard of Tracey Crouch’s review, but there was broad backing for its aims once they were explained.   It will need vocal support from fans if it is to succeed in its objectives.