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Fighting for survival is the new normal in non-League
The Journeyman on the National League
Gregor Robertson
Monday January 25 2021, 12.01am, The Times
Football
Aldershot Town won a 4-3 thriller at Wealdstone on Saturday
Funding disputes, quarrels with government, Covid-19 fears, league suspensions — is another National League campaign about to fall victim to the pandemic? “I think we’re looking at the collapse of the National League season, and with that, I fear that there are some clubs who won’t make it through the summer,” Steve Thompson, the Dagenham & Redbridge managing director, says. So how on earth did it come to this?
On Saturday the National League North and South fixture lists — Step Two of non-League football — were a sea of postponements, just 24 hours after the divisions had been halted for two weeks so funding and coronavirus testing concerns can be addressed. The National League, at Step One, elected to play on for now but its future is also in doubt if the government does not change its stance.
Back in October, you may recall, the National League only agreed to kick off its season because of a £10 million grant, brokered by the government and secured through the National Lottery promotional fund, to cover lost revenue over the first three months of the season.
Clubs say they were led to believe that grants would continue for as long as supporters were denied access to stadiums. In November, Mike Tattersall and Mark Bullingham, the chief executives of the National League and FA respectively, left a meeting with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) with the same impression.
Now, however, the DCMS refute that funding was “promised as all grants”, and have offered £11 million of low-interest loans instead. “The majority of clubs across all three divisions indicated that they didn’t want the league to mortgage its future, which would be a millstone round our neck for the next 20 years, to finish the season,” Thompson, who is also a National League board member, says.
By Thursday, meanwhile, a number of clubs, including Havant & Waterlooville, had already taken the decision not to play their upcoming fixtures until routine testing had been implemented in line with other ‘elite’ leagues. The Havant kit man, Richie Pope, spent eight days in intensive care with coronavirus before Christmas. Their chairman, Derek Pope, and his wife, Sue, were both seriously ill. The father of their winger Roarie Deacon died.
Fixtures are piling up and there are genuine fears. Darlington’s players and staff travelled 700 miles on one coach to play Weymouth in the FA Trophy nine days ago. On Tuesday night, the floodlights failed midway through Kettering Town’s FA Trophy tie against Leamington. After a two-hour wait in the cold, or in cramped facilities, the FA insisted that the tie be completed on the night and the game finished at 11.22pm.
All levels below the National League have been suspended since November, where another season looks likely to be lost to the pandemic. If the National League follows suit, however, the £10 million National Lottery grant may as well have been poured “down the drain”, as Marc White, the Dorking Wanderers chairman/manager, says. And as White suggests, the cost to the taxpayer of furloughing staff would exceed the cost of a grant by several million pounds.
King’s Lynn chairman, Stephen Cleeve, told The Non-League Paper: “Let’s just say this was a limited company, and I said it would cost £17 million to do this, or £11 million to do that, which would you rather do? You’d pay the £11 million,” he said. “What the DCMS say is, ‘We’ve got our budget and our budget is more important than the greater good.’ That’s wrong. They just look at their own little budgets. It needs someone at ministerial level to look at it.”
Football’s governing bodies, however, do not come out of this mess smelling of roses either. The distribution of the first three months of grant money, which ranged from £30,000 to £95,000 per club per month, was met with a wave of protests, with some clubs arguing that their losses were not covered, and others making substantially more than expected.
Tattersall resigned from the National League in December. There were calls for the chairman, Brian Barwick, to follow suit. Publication of an independent review into the saga, led by David Bernstein, the former FA chairman, was delayed and pointed to conflicts of interest. And now this ambiguity between grants and loans. “I just can’t believe that, when you’re talking about ten million quid, no minutes [of the meeting] were taken,” Jason McGill, the York City chairman, says.
So what to make of it all? The pyramid, woven between cities, towns and villages across the country, is a treasure. But in non-League it is also a vast, labyrinthine and disparate landscape. For most this is about survival.
“Unless some money, in the form of a grant, materialises, I don’t believe there will be the appetite in our league, or the National League South, to play on,” McGill says. And at Step One there may well be a split. “What if six or seven clubs say they can’t afford to carry on?” Thompson says. “Do you expunge their records, and ask the rest to continue? Or do you run them into the ground?”
In the coming week, clubs will be consulted about whether or not the season can continue and they are urging supporters to lobby their MPs to push for a government rethink. “The government have performed enough U-turns this last ten months. We want them to make one more — which is actually going to save them money,” Thompson says.
“This is my 40th year involved in the running of Dagenham & Redbridge. I’m passionate about my club, and I’m passionate about non-League football. We started off with 66 community clubs. We intend to finish with 66 clubs.”
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Funding Fiasco Another great write-up from Gregor
#2
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Posted 25 January 2021 - 11:57 AM
howardb, on 25 January 2021 - 11:32 AM, said:
Fighting for survival is the new normal in non-League
The Journeyman on the National League
Gregor Robertson
Monday January 25 2021, 12.01am, The Times
Football
Aldershot Town won a 4-3 thriller at Wealdstone on Saturday
Funding disputes, quarrels with government, Covid-19 fears, league suspensions — is another National League campaign about to fall victim to the pandemic? “I think we’re looking at the collapse of the National League season, and with that, I fear that there are some clubs who won’t make it through the summer,” Steve Thompson, the Dagenham & Redbridge managing director, says. So how on earth did it come to this?
On Saturday the National League North and South fixture lists — Step Two of non-League football — were a sea of postponements, just 24 hours after the divisions had been halted for two weeks so funding and coronavirus testing concerns can be addressed. The National League, at Step One, elected to play on for now but its future is also in doubt if the government does not change its stance.
Back in October, you may recall, the National League only agreed to kick off its season because of a £10 million grant, brokered by the government and secured through the National Lottery promotional fund, to cover lost revenue over the first three months of the season.
Clubs say they were led to believe that grants would continue for as long as supporters were denied access to stadiums. In November, Mike Tattersall and Mark Bullingham, the chief executives of the National League and FA respectively, left a meeting with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) with the same impression.
Now, however, the DCMS refute that funding was “promised as all grants”, and have offered £11 million of low-interest loans instead. “The majority of clubs across all three divisions indicated that they didn’t want the league to mortgage its future, which would be a millstone round our neck for the next 20 years, to finish the season,” Thompson, who is also a National League board member, says.
By Thursday, meanwhile, a number of clubs, including Havant & Waterlooville, had already taken the decision not to play their upcoming fixtures until routine testing had been implemented in line with other ‘elite’ leagues. The Havant kit man, Richie Pope, spent eight days in intensive care with coronavirus before Christmas. Their chairman, Derek Pope, and his wife, Sue, were both seriously ill. The father of their winger Roarie Deacon died.
Fixtures are piling up and there are genuine fears. Darlington’s players and staff travelled 700 miles on one coach to play Weymouth in the FA Trophy nine days ago. On Tuesday night, the floodlights failed midway through Kettering Town’s FA Trophy tie against Leamington. After a two-hour wait in the cold, or in cramped facilities, the FA insisted that the tie be completed on the night and the game finished at 11.22pm.
All levels below the National League have been suspended since November, where another season looks likely to be lost to the pandemic. If the National League follows suit, however, the £10 million National Lottery grant may as well have been poured “down the drain”, as Marc White, the Dorking Wanderers chairman/manager, says. And as White suggests, the cost to the taxpayer of furloughing staff would exceed the cost of a grant by several million pounds.
King’s Lynn chairman, Stephen Cleeve, told The Non-League Paper: “Let’s just say this was a limited company, and I said it would cost £17 million to do this, or £11 million to do that, which would you rather do? You’d pay the £11 million,” he said. “What the DCMS say is, ‘We’ve got our budget and our budget is more important than the greater good.’ That’s wrong. They just look at their own little budgets. It needs someone at ministerial level to look at it.”
Football’s governing bodies, however, do not come out of this mess smelling of roses either. The distribution of the first three months of grant money, which ranged from £30,000 to £95,000 per club per month, was met with a wave of protests, with some clubs arguing that their losses were not covered, and others making substantially more than expected.
Tattersall resigned from the National League in December. There were calls for the chairman, Brian Barwick, to follow suit. Publication of an independent review into the saga, led by David Bernstein, the former FA chairman, was delayed and pointed to conflicts of interest. And now this ambiguity between grants and loans. “I just can’t believe that, when you’re talking about ten million quid, no minutes [of the meeting] were taken,” Jason McGill, the York City chairman, says.
So what to make of it all? The pyramid, woven between cities, towns and villages across the country, is a treasure. But in non-League it is also a vast, labyrinthine and disparate landscape. For most this is about survival.
“Unless some money, in the form of a grant, materialises, I don’t believe there will be the appetite in our league, or the National League South, to play on,” McGill says. And at Step One there may well be a split. “What if six or seven clubs say they can’t afford to carry on?” Thompson says. “Do you expunge their records, and ask the rest to continue? Or do you run them into the ground?”
In the coming week, clubs will be consulted about whether or not the season can continue and they are urging supporters to lobby their MPs to push for a government rethink. “The government have performed enough U-turns this last ten months. We want them to make one more — which is actually going to save them money,” Thompson says.
“This is my 40th year involved in the running of Dagenham & Redbridge. I’m passionate about my club, and I’m passionate about non-League football. We started off with 66 community clubs. We intend to finish with 66 clubs.”
The Journeyman on the National League
Gregor Robertson
Monday January 25 2021, 12.01am, The Times
Football
Aldershot Town won a 4-3 thriller at Wealdstone on Saturday
Funding disputes, quarrels with government, Covid-19 fears, league suspensions — is another National League campaign about to fall victim to the pandemic? “I think we’re looking at the collapse of the National League season, and with that, I fear that there are some clubs who won’t make it through the summer,” Steve Thompson, the Dagenham & Redbridge managing director, says. So how on earth did it come to this?
On Saturday the National League North and South fixture lists — Step Two of non-League football — were a sea of postponements, just 24 hours after the divisions had been halted for two weeks so funding and coronavirus testing concerns can be addressed. The National League, at Step One, elected to play on for now but its future is also in doubt if the government does not change its stance.
Back in October, you may recall, the National League only agreed to kick off its season because of a £10 million grant, brokered by the government and secured through the National Lottery promotional fund, to cover lost revenue over the first three months of the season.
Clubs say they were led to believe that grants would continue for as long as supporters were denied access to stadiums. In November, Mike Tattersall and Mark Bullingham, the chief executives of the National League and FA respectively, left a meeting with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) with the same impression.
Now, however, the DCMS refute that funding was “promised as all grants”, and have offered £11 million of low-interest loans instead. “The majority of clubs across all three divisions indicated that they didn’t want the league to mortgage its future, which would be a millstone round our neck for the next 20 years, to finish the season,” Thompson, who is also a National League board member, says.
By Thursday, meanwhile, a number of clubs, including Havant & Waterlooville, had already taken the decision not to play their upcoming fixtures until routine testing had been implemented in line with other ‘elite’ leagues. The Havant kit man, Richie Pope, spent eight days in intensive care with coronavirus before Christmas. Their chairman, Derek Pope, and his wife, Sue, were both seriously ill. The father of their winger Roarie Deacon died.
Fixtures are piling up and there are genuine fears. Darlington’s players and staff travelled 700 miles on one coach to play Weymouth in the FA Trophy nine days ago. On Tuesday night, the floodlights failed midway through Kettering Town’s FA Trophy tie against Leamington. After a two-hour wait in the cold, or in cramped facilities, the FA insisted that the tie be completed on the night and the game finished at 11.22pm.
All levels below the National League have been suspended since November, where another season looks likely to be lost to the pandemic. If the National League follows suit, however, the £10 million National Lottery grant may as well have been poured “down the drain”, as Marc White, the Dorking Wanderers chairman/manager, says. And as White suggests, the cost to the taxpayer of furloughing staff would exceed the cost of a grant by several million pounds.
King’s Lynn chairman, Stephen Cleeve, told The Non-League Paper: “Let’s just say this was a limited company, and I said it would cost £17 million to do this, or £11 million to do that, which would you rather do? You’d pay the £11 million,” he said. “What the DCMS say is, ‘We’ve got our budget and our budget is more important than the greater good.’ That’s wrong. They just look at their own little budgets. It needs someone at ministerial level to look at it.”
Football’s governing bodies, however, do not come out of this mess smelling of roses either. The distribution of the first three months of grant money, which ranged from £30,000 to £95,000 per club per month, was met with a wave of protests, with some clubs arguing that their losses were not covered, and others making substantially more than expected.
Tattersall resigned from the National League in December. There were calls for the chairman, Brian Barwick, to follow suit. Publication of an independent review into the saga, led by David Bernstein, the former FA chairman, was delayed and pointed to conflicts of interest. And now this ambiguity between grants and loans. “I just can’t believe that, when you’re talking about ten million quid, no minutes [of the meeting] were taken,” Jason McGill, the York City chairman, says.
So what to make of it all? The pyramid, woven between cities, towns and villages across the country, is a treasure. But in non-League it is also a vast, labyrinthine and disparate landscape. For most this is about survival.
“Unless some money, in the form of a grant, materialises, I don’t believe there will be the appetite in our league, or the National League South, to play on,” McGill says. And at Step One there may well be a split. “What if six or seven clubs say they can’t afford to carry on?” Thompson says. “Do you expunge their records, and ask the rest to continue? Or do you run them into the ground?”
In the coming week, clubs will be consulted about whether or not the season can continue and they are urging supporters to lobby their MPs to push for a government rethink. “The government have performed enough U-turns this last ten months. We want them to make one more — which is actually going to save them money,” Thompson says.
“This is my 40th year involved in the running of Dagenham & Redbridge. I’m passionate about my club, and I’m passionate about non-League football. We started off with 66 community clubs. We intend to finish with 66 clubs.”
Good write up - and what a mess.
If true that the Grant will cost the Government significantly less than all clubs using the furlough scheme in the event of the season ending abruptly - then surely a U-turn and Grant is the logical way to go?
That being said - Logic and this government don't go hand in hand unfortunately.
#3
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Posted 25 January 2021 - 11:59 AM
howardb, on 25 January 2021 - 11:32 AM, said:
Fighting for survival is the new normal in non-League
The Journeyman on the National League
Gregor Robertson
Monday January 25 2021, 12.01am, The Times
Clubs say they were led to believe that grants would continue for as long as supporters were denied access to stadiums. In November, Mike Tattersall and Mark Bullingham, the chief executives of the National League and FA respectively, left a meeting with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) with the same impression.
Tattersall resigned from the National League in December. There were calls for the chairman, Brian Barwick, to follow suit. Publication of an independent review into the saga, led by David Bernstein, the former FA chairman, was delayed and pointed to conflicts of interest. And now this ambiguity between grants and loans. “I just can’t believe that, when you’re talking about ten million quid, no minutes [of the meeting] were taken,” Jason McGill, the York City chairman, says.
The Journeyman on the National League
Gregor Robertson
Monday January 25 2021, 12.01am, The Times
Clubs say they were led to believe that grants would continue for as long as supporters were denied access to stadiums. In November, Mike Tattersall and Mark Bullingham, the chief executives of the National League and FA respectively, left a meeting with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) with the same impression.
Tattersall resigned from the National League in December. There were calls for the chairman, Brian Barwick, to follow suit. Publication of an independent review into the saga, led by David Bernstein, the former FA chairman, was delayed and pointed to conflicts of interest. And now this ambiguity between grants and loans. “I just can’t believe that, when you’re talking about ten million quid, no minutes [of the meeting] were taken,” Jason McGill, the York City chairman, says.
So, Tattersall resigned but what does Mark Bullingham have to say and what action is he taking? He's CE of the FA for goodness sake!!
Get it on, bang the gong , get it on
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Posted 26 January 2021 - 12:46 PM
Nice one Gregor. Average left back we thought at the time, but in the light of experience since, a proper treasure.
But a notable article for what somebody else said. 'Surely minutes were taken at the time of the first offer of 10 million quid'. So was the league assured of a grant or a loan to follow?
On the answer to that hangs the rest of the season. Unless of course our wonderful Civil Service forgot to take minutes. Of a 10 million deal?
But a notable article for what somebody else said. 'Surely minutes were taken at the time of the first offer of 10 million quid'. So was the league assured of a grant or a loan to follow?
On the answer to that hangs the rest of the season. Unless of course our wonderful Civil Service forgot to take minutes. Of a 10 million deal?
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Posted 26 January 2021 - 01:30 PM
h again, on 26 January 2021 - 12:46 PM, said:
Nice one Gregor. Average left back we thought at the time, but in the light of experience since, a proper treasure.
But a notable article for what somebody else said. 'Surely minutes were taken at the time of the first offer of 10 million quid'. So was the league assured of a grant or a loan to follow?
On the answer to that hangs the rest of the season. Unless of course our wonderful Civil Service forgot to take minutes. Of a 10 million deal?
But a notable article for what somebody else said. 'Surely minutes were taken at the time of the first offer of 10 million quid'. So was the league assured of a grant or a loan to follow?
On the answer to that hangs the rest of the season. Unless of course our wonderful Civil Service forgot to take minutes. Of a 10 million deal?
More likely the NL board eyes lit up and saw the benefit to their clubs with the initial cash grant distribution thinking everything would be back to normal at the end of January and the loans wouldn't be needed so turned a blind eye to being told it would be loans from end of January. If no more grants they will vote to end the season to once again benefit their clubs who are awash with cash from overfunding already received.
Have passport will travel
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Posted 26 January 2021 - 01:51 PM
Benno Spire, on 26 January 2021 - 01:30 PM, said:
More likely the NL board eyes lit up and saw the benefit to their clubs with the initial cash grant distribution thinking everything would be back to normal at the end of January and the loans wouldn't be needed so turned a blind eye to being told it would be loans from end of January. If no more grants they will vote to end the season to once again benefit their clubs who are awash with cash from overfunding already received.
That is exactly how I see it, poor businessmen not doing their fiduciary duty to protect their fellow clubs properly. I hope as Directors of NL they have good D&O cover as I can see some great claims coming in...
Stay Home. Stay Safe.
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h again
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Posted 26 January 2021 - 03:22 PM
Benno Spire, on 26 January 2021 - 01:30 PM, said:
More likely the NL board eyes lit up and saw the benefit to their clubs with the initial cash grant distribution thinking everything would be back to normal at the end of January and the loans wouldn't be needed so turned a blind eye to being told it would be loans from end of January. If no more grants they will vote to end the season to once again benefit their clubs who are awash with cash from overfunding already received.
Yes, that rings true, but if the minutes (?) show that it was to be loans from January they're going to have a hard time explaining why they want to stop the season now they've been offered. And if they do decide to cancel the season after accepting that situation I can see some interesting legal battles from the bigger clubs who've already lost out because of the incompetent and partial allocation of the grants.
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isleaiw1
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Posted 26 January 2021 - 04:10 PM
h again, on 26 January 2021 - 03:22 PM, said:
Yes, that rings true, but if the minutes (?) show that it was to be loans from January they're going to have a hard time explaining why they want to stop the season now they've been offered. And if they do decide to cancel the season after accepting that situation I can see some interesting legal battles from the bigger clubs who've already lost out because of the incompetent and partial allocation of the grants.
My guess is the words used were that they govt would provide support starting with a £10m grant.... and they questioned no further.
Sack the lot and get some competents in!
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boot
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Posted 27 January 2021 - 12:27 AM
isleaiw1, on 26 January 2021 - 04:10 PM, said:
My guess is the words used were that they govt would provide support starting with a £10m grant.... and they questioned no further.
Sack the lot and get some competents in!
Sack the lot and get some competents in!
But the Government haven't given a penny never mind a grant !
This post has been edited by boot: 27 January 2021 - 12:31 AM
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Posted 27 January 2021 - 08:31 AM
boot, on 27 January 2021 - 12:27 AM, said:
But the Government haven't given a penny never mind a grant !
Well I am pretty sure he DCMS get a say in where lottery good causes money goes so I'd suggest its ok to treat that £1om as being part of the govt support.... not sure the National Lottery would have provided it otherwise!
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Posted 27 January 2021 - 10:02 AM
isleaiw1, on 27 January 2021 - 08:31 AM, said:
Well I am pretty sure he DCMS get a say in where lottery good causes money goes so I'd suggest its ok to treat that £1om as being part of the govt support.... not sure the National Lottery would have provided it otherwise!
Thanks for confirming that the Government have not so far given a penny.
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isleaiw1
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Posted 27 January 2021 - 12:39 PM
boot, on 27 January 2021 - 10:02 AM, said:
Thanks for confirming that the Government have not so far given a penny.
Well UK sport, one of the 12 distributors of national lottery money to good causes, is described as follows:
UK Sport is the nation’s high-performance sports agency powered by DCMS and The National Lottery.
See that, DCMS - part of govt. Close enough for me as they determine where the money goes in the agreement for how the lottery works.
But if you want to be pedantic carry on, it wont help replace the idiots who run the national league.
Stay Home. Stay Safe.
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