With 18 games left and an eight-point gap to safety above them, having lost their last five matches in League Two, it would be one of the EFL’s best survival tales if Scunthorpe managed it now. That they have only won five of their last 47 league matches says it all — they will need the form of a mid-table team to stand any chance of staying up.
Fans are furious and one man is bearing the brunt of their
ire — owner Peter Swann. An estimated 500 fans are boycotting Glanford Park for
each home game. Managers have been hired and fired at a rate of knots — 11 in
nine years since Swann took over as owner and chairman — while the playing
squad has rarely been the same season after season. Local journalists have been
banned from the ground and everything points to the club dropping out of the
EFL for the first time in their history.
Scunthorpe’s model of finding diamonds in the rough — Hooper
was bought from Southend for less than £200,000 before being sold to Celtic two
years later in 2010 for more than £2 million — proved successful as they scaled
the pyramid with simple aims: “Reach the FA Cup third round and sell a quality
player for a good fee every other year to remain sustainable,” according to one
former manager.
It was a strategy that kept a club with an average league
attendance of around 5,000 during the highs of Championship football in the black,
even if reality eventually came knocking with a return to League One and then
further relegation to the fourth division in the early 2010s.
Swann has been ambitious in his plans for Scunthorpe. He is
not unique among EFL club owners in terms of investing large amounts of his
personal wealth in pursuit of success, only to suffer the consequences of the
gamble not paying off. Conservative estimates place his investment at £12
million, at least, over the last nine years. There were also grand plans for a
new stadium to replace Glanford Park, which has started to look tired in recent
years.
Former managers and players have estimated to The Athletic that
Scunthorpe are now operating with the smallest budget in the division, thought
to be just over seven figures, and another believes that the finances available
for player wages would be on par with the lower reaches of the fifth-tier
National League.
Swann was candid in a recent radio interview and said that
the club would have entered administration had he not taken the EFL loan during
the COVID-19 lockdown last year. The
loan means Scunthorpe are still under a monitored transfer agreement limiting
their activity in the window until the loan is repaid, which Swann said he
could not afford to do at this time.
Swann’s relationship with the supporters has become more
difficult over the years, and he has often been outspoken. He appears unafraid to
take on fans who are critical of his tenure.
Scunthorpe face a battle like never before to maintain their
EFL status and the odds are stacked against them. Selling the club at the
moment would be no easy feat with the looming prospect of playing non-League
football next season.
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