The Political Economy of Football V2

The weekend Financial Times has a fascinating review of a new exhibition on football stadiums at Tate Liverpool + RIBA North, Home Ground, sited perfectly in a football-mad city where the architect designed both Liverpool’s Anfield and Everton’s Goodison Park, and where the latter club’s huge new 53,000-seat ground sits by the waterside, on Bramley-Moore Dock.   It is on until January 25th. The article is written by an architect but one who clearly has a great knowledge of stadiums and a love of the game.   Indeed, he reveals himself as a Fulham supporter. 'In May this year I went to see Fulham, my team, in west London, walking through the red-brick facade designed by Leitch in 1905 (with its now almost laughably slender turnstile doors — early attempts at crowd control). Instead of standing on the terraces like I used to in the 1980s, I was taken to a new stand, an almost nautical construction now known as Fulham Pier, which sits on the riverside surmounted by a dra...

[This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in the Charlton fanzine, Voice of the Valley.    Almost all references to Charlton have been excised]. In his excellent book The Football Manager: a History Neil Carter shows how managers often started out as the club secretary with the board selecting the team.  Gradually they achieved greater responsibilities.  He argues that Herbert Chapman at Arsenal was the most important figure in the development of modern football management.   The other two key pioneers were Frank Buckley at Wolves and Jimmy Seed at Charlton. Carter points out how football and the role of the manager changed after 1992.   Success on the pitch became even more important commercially making football even more of a results business.   Managers assumed a much higher profile in the media. In modern football the manager is generally seen as being responsible for everything that occurs on the pitch.  ...

Player sales are becoming an increasingly important, if unpredictable, source of revenue for clubs.  This is even the case at non-league level as shown by the annual accounts of Leamington FC.  The National League North team is acquiring a good reputation for player development. The loss for the year was £22,284 compared to £52,282 in 2019. The accumulated loss now stands at £64,148 up from £43,814. Transfer fees were up from £20,000 to £62,500 without which the loss would have been much worse. The report notes, ‘It continued to be a challenge for the club to retain our National League status whilst operating on a playing and management budget that remains substantially below the average of our competitors. It is a credit to the structure and operational stability of the club and the manager that it continues to attract players when the financial rewards for them are greater elsewhere.’ The total revenue of the club increased from £331,000 to £359,800.    The p...

Jim Scott, chairman of National League North club Leamington, has said that non-league football will not be financially viable if it has to be played behind closed doors:  https://www.leamingtoncourier.co.uk/sport/football/non-league-footballs-return-not-viable-without-crowds-says-brakes-chairman-scott-2881022#gsc.tab=0 Reflecting the views of many in the non-league, the Brakes supremo said that it would be financial suicide for clubs at Leamington's level to play behind closed doors.

Cheltenham Town are currently in the play off positions in League Two and they had profits of £69,000 in 2018/19. This may be due to the sale of Mo Eisa to Bristol City for about £1.5m, notes Kieran Maguire of the PriceofFootball. The club has plenty of cash in the bank. Cheltenham did not sign any players for fees in 2018/19. Cheltenham loans down about £120,000. Local businessman and lifelong fan Andy Wilcox became chairman in 2018, replacing a chairman who had served for 21 years: New chairman Arguably Cheltenham as a club are punching above their weight. The population of the town is 115,000 and there are not many large places in the immediate hinterland. In comparison the Leamington urban area (Leamington and Warwick) has a population of 95,000 before counting some heavily populated villages nearby. Leamington, admittedly a phoenix club, are in the National League North. One would not think of Cheltenham as a natural football town. The biggest employer must surely be th...

Announcing this week that Bostik Premier Staines Town for sale, chairman Matthew Boon said: 'Non-League, especially at this level, is completely unsustainable. Unless there is help from above, I can't see how it can be sustainable. The outgoing costs, as they always have been in Non-League football, far outweigh what is coming in. But I think that gap is growing.' To some extent it does depend on whether a club is run prudently or whether caution is thrown to the winds in pursuit of promotion. Worcester is a growing and prosperous city and should be able to support a top level non-league club, as it once did. Worcester City are now in the Midland League and could be forced to go 'fully amateur' next season. They dropped two levels at the end of last season to cut costs. Club accounts revealed losses of £290,000 in the financial year to May 2017. It wiped out more than half the club's cash reserves. It is estimated that there will be £150,000 available ...

A blog on the political economy of football is not normally the place for theatre reviews, but plays on football are rare and especially on non-league football, indeed I cannot recall one. Last night I went to see The Red Lion at the Trafalgar Studios in London about a fictitious Northern League team of that name. One of the strengths of the production derives from the fact that the writer Patrick Marber has been directly involved in non-league football. He was one of a number of people who rescued Lewes FC in Sussex and served on the board for a number of years. There are just three characters in the play. The manager has done the rounds in the non-league game and is involved in various fiddles to augment his salary. The kitman was originally a player for the club and was involved in a FA Cup run which boosted their finances and allowed them to build a new stand. He was later an unsuccessful manager who got them relegated. After living on the streets, he was discovered by suppo...