The heartbreaking travails of Bury and Bolton Wanderers should act as a shot across the bows of English football. They should. But they won’t.
It’s not as though we’ve never been here before.
Near misses and eleventh-hour reprieves are far too common.
As long as there are clubs that attract punters through the gate and who can, therefore, raise sizeable chunks of revenue, who have assets and who have the potential of promotion to higher divisions where the rewards are greater and where the value of the assets increase, there will be “successful businessmen”, like Steve Dale waiting to pounce.
As it transpired, said “successful businessman” had a professional history that centred on asset-stripping ailing organisations and it soon became clear to Bury fans that Mr Dale’s eight months at Gigg Lane were not going to solve the ills – and pay off the debts – that had been accumulated under his and, crucially, previous regimes.
What is remarkable is that in the midst of Dale’s reign, the club somehow managed to achieve promotion to League One with a squad and staff who had, for months, been unpaid. But what followed has been beyond horrible and amidst the wreckage, there’s a timely reminder to folk like me who have, in the past, been frustrated by Delia and Michael’s reticence to consider alternative forms of funding for Norwich City.
Bury’s demise boils down to mismanagement and the accumulation of debts the club was unable to sustain with its existing revenue streams, and six miles down the A58 Bolton’s follows a similarly unedifying path.
After over a decade in the Premier League that was underpinned to the tune of £185 million by the then owner Eddie Davies, Bolton were sold to a consortium in 2016 led by former player Dean Holdsworth, and a year later Ken Anderson – who was part of that consortium – bought complete control of the club.
What’s happened since has been grim, with Anderson neither able to fund the club’s ongoing level of debt nor find a suitable and viable buyer.
For Bury read Bolton. Both have been given EFL deadlines to prove the worthiness of prospective buyers
Both offer up salutary lessons for those searching for the stars via some deeper pockets. Both clubs, steeped in history, can be used as prime examples of how not to do it off the pitch. And those who are hurt most by the pain and turmoil as their clubs struggle to function? Obviously the fans.
The players and staff, of course, suffer massively when payday comes and goes with nothing doing, but in the medium term, there will, we pray, be other clubs and other jobs. Not so for the fans, whose investment in their club goes infinitely deeper than a signed contract.
That’s not to say we’ve been immune from close shaves of the financial kind here, both pre and post-Delia. In the late 1950s, there were the infamous blanket collections and then fast-forward to the mid-90s when Robert Chase’s kingdom fell apart with the banks threatening the worst.
And, let’s be honest, the wolf has never been that far from the door while Delia and Michael have been at the helm, with several large dollops of Premier League money being soaked up all too quickly by some big contracts for players, some thoroughly undeserving.
Let’s not dwell either on how things could have panned out if James Maddison and Jacob Murphy had not been hugely saleable assets in the summer of 2018.
There’s no room for complacency, not anywhere. I’m not really a religious sort, yet there but for the grace of God…
Things though have changed in these parts.
While self-funding is an ethos borne of necessity – what was the alternative? – it’s one that will, with some very careful management, see the club through the choppy waters of yo-yo-ing between Premier League and Championship, where the biggest challenge comes from entering that hinterland of fat, bulbous contracts not being covered by the parachute payments.
With this in mind, the summer bolstering of the under-23s makes much more sense, with its aim of a couple of those players hopefully being turned into saleable assets further down the line.
All of which makes an absolute nonsense of those, mainly national pundits, who continue to pour scorn on City’s summer outlay ahead of our first season back in the top flight.
In one breath they cite Bury, Bolton and co as examples of how clubs’ finances can spiral out of control if they are not carefully managed and they attempt to live beyond their means, and in the next, they decry City’s approach at survival in year one as defeatist for not “spending enough cash”.
Luckily, there are a few out there who get it, and it was a treat to hear Joe Cole, Peter Crouch and Jake Humphrey interview Stuart Webber on BT Sport’s coverage of the Chelsea game, with a researched understanding of how we are going about things.
No patronising, no sneering, but a genuine interest in the alternative direction that Webber is steering our yellow and green ship, with our sporting director being his usual honest, eloquent, inspirational self.
It’s no consolation unfortunately to those in peril, but it really does feel like our house is in order and ‘ignoring the noise’ is a worthy mantra for this project, almost regardless of where we end up next May. We don’t have excess funds floating around and so won’t be spending money we don’t have.
There may come a time when for City to progress, serious questions will again need be asked of the ownership and the club’s future funding but for now, we must consider ourselves fortunate to be in safe hands and in a good place.
And the best thing of all? The Canary Nation gets it, with ‘ignoring the noise’ now as embedded in our own psyche as it is in Webber’s, Daniel Farke’s and the players’. We’re all on board, with dissenting voices very few and far between.
So, next time the so-called experts lament poor Bury and Bolton for how their clubs have been run but then two newspaper columns later mock City for not spending enough dosh in their quest for Premier League survival, it should be treated with the contempt it deserves.
We’re all on board, and that what really matters. There’s no fooling the children of the Webber-lution.
Great article , seems crazy that it wasn’t that far back Bolton were actually a regular premiership side , how it can all go wrong so quickly .
I would love to hear “You won’t fool the children of the Webber-lution” or ” We’re not fools, we’re the children of the Webber-lution ” being sung at the ground , in appreciation of SW’s ongoing commitment to the cause
I think many, if not most, if not maybe even all of us MFW readers and writers would heartily agree with the sentiments expressed in GG’s article.
I too have been extremely and actively critical of Delia and Michael in the past but now firmly believe that being a yo-yo club (at worst, let’s see) is infinitely preferable to going bust.
One thing nobody could ever accuse Delia and Michael of is asset-stripping and I’ve come to realise that in itself is a genuine blessing.
Love the T. Rex reference.
I think this could be a pivotal season in the EFL.
Bury and Bolton should have been shown the door weeks ago, preferably before the fixtures were finalised. Isn’t that the time when clubs need to be able to show they are viable, not when half a dozen games should already have been played?
That viability should include proof of an adequate number of adult players.
Continually allowing clubs to cling on with desperate promises and offers that keep falling through at the last minute is ridiculous, and it’s something they should address.
I know that’s harsh on their fans for whom of course one has sympathy; though I have even more sympathy for their suppliers who have already lost out.
Next month Macclesfield face a winding up hearing initiated by unpaid players, then taken over by HMRC. So it’s not impossible they too will drop out before the season’s over. There may be others.
The problem is that the Football League is weak and indecisive. It needs to regionalise, so that the expensive farce of (say) Exeter playing Carlisle comes to an end. It needs to stop paying nearly 100 players a week in each division simply
to sit on the bench. 7 subs is fine for the top teams; for the cash-strapped it’s lunacy.
Above all it needs to be far more thorough assessing the credentials of those buying clubs, and subsequently checking whether those clubs are still viable. Even if both Bolton and Bury are taken over tonight and somehow survive, there’s no way the EFL have time to make a proper assessment of their fitness for running a club.
It would now be grossly unfair in fact for Bolton to be allowed to compete in League One this season. If they do survive they will be able to recruit experienced players and in a few weeks time not have to put a youth team out. How will the clubs who (unlike our neighbours) haven’t been fortunate enough to play them already feel about that I wonder?
I recently listened to a Kermode / Mayo review of Alien Covenant where Kermode concluded – Sir Ridely Scott is as good as, or as bad as, the script he chooses to shoot. The Martian, great, Prometheus, garbage.
For me it is the same with Delia and Co. They are as good, or as bad, as the people directly beneath them. When the right combination of factors combine, Delia and Co look like masterminds (see early McNally/Bowkett, Webber/Stone), but when the wrong people are allowed in, things quickly fall apart (McNally goes solo, Jez Moxey).
Yes, they hired Webber who sorted out a big mess, one they were responsible for. Yes they hired McNally, who sorted out a big mess they were responsible for.
My two biggest issues with Delia and Co. are…
1) that whenever there’s an interview they talk about how little they know. It’s alarming. I don’t trust them to pick someone to succeed Webber. I don’t trust that they’d sack Webber if he went ‘off the reservation’. They are hugely sentimental (remember Alex Neil was going to be here for 10 years, keeping Bryan Gunn on, not firing McNally after he resigned by Twitter, sort of), and prone to bizarre choices. It’s a lottery with them. I don’t believe we ever re-hired a Chairman to help steer the ship should Webber leave tomorrow.
2) They absolutely refuse to put any money in. I’m from Oxford and OUFC went through the Kassam era of non-investment, and they went into the conference. My father supports Blackpool and we saw what no-investment meant there. Non-investing owners limit, and stifle clubs. If it weren’t for Ipswich’s owner investing they’d have folded long ago. Not investing is not a positive and it has almost sent us bankrupt on multiple occasions. Being an owner of a football club is like buying a boat or a classic car. You may need to intermittently splash some cash to replace a deteriorating part of your business. At some point you’ll probably regret your purchase too, even if you love it. I am to this day still shocked that our owners went to their customers and said ‘we’re not going to pay to renovate our business, but you can, and our business will the more valuable for it.”
Our club continues to have one strategy, Premier League money. We have not had a period out of the PL where our finances haven’t rapidly started to rot. It isn’t just wages, it’s simply a club this size has too large an expenditure for TC and the record books, and the published accounts back that up, 100%.
Great piece, Gary.
The secret of our current success – and why Stuart Webber was an inspired appointment – is an alignment between our funding structure and the way we do things. Invest in youth, and in a Head Coach with a special talent for turning them into first-teamers. Set up a scouting structure that will find us value-for-money signings, good enough to play for Norwich and with a hunger to do so. Move on those, in whatever capacity, who aren’t pulling in our direction.
Do all of that – and play with a bit of style – and the fans will stick with us. And we’ll be set up for a future far different from those of Bury and Bolton.
Cannot but agree 100% great piece. as writing I am listening to news report on Bury’s deal that fell through.
I like MR P have never held my tongue over Delia and Michael . but I’ll take what we .
Great piece Gary.
It is a very sad day to see a club like Bury get expelled from the league. I just feel terrible for all their supporters. Could it be Macclesfield or Coventry next after possibly Bolton ?
I urge people to watch Sky, The Debate, the one with Phil Parkinson. The amounts of money the Championship, League 1 and League 2 clubs are spending on wages are truly shocking ranging from 106% to 78% of income. This is utter madness.
The fit and proper person test isn’t worth the paper its written on, the EFL are far to weak. The FA should set up something now with the EFL to deal with this problem.
Many time over the years I like many supporters have called on Delia to either invest or sell, however I now take a different view. Say we had a big spender come in and really “went for it” what happens when or if he runs out of money ?
Eddie Davies ploughed nearly £200 million of his own money over the years into Bolton he was a fantastic supporter to that club but sadly died in 2018. Now look at what has happened there since.
I feel our present model has to be the way forward for more clubs. That will mean a return to the Championship one day but better that than the fate of Bury or Bolton.
Mark Warburton made a veiled criticism of Bournemouth on the Sky Debate, saying clubs will cheat if the penalties for FFP are not stringent enough. We need a review of that as it stifles ambition, but at the moment it is unfair on clubs such as us who abide by the rules.
Well said Tim,,,and an excellent column as always Gary.
The Bournemouth situation is the one (with me anyway) which really, really stinks.
They purport to be whiter than white with an excellent, young English manager……whist I personally cannot see how they initially managed to make their pretty seamless leap from League 1 to the Premier League without some rather spurious investments.
The FFP penalties appear to be far too lenient….unless of couse it means that should Bournemouth be relegated then the fine runs into multi-millions.
O T B C
John, I quite agree re Bournemouth. Its a bloody scandal. How the heck can a Club on gates of c10,000, and in a “coldbed” of football, survive as an ‘established’ PL Club.. And yet they’re Media Darlings as you say, full of talented British youth, and the next Big Thing English Manager. Really pees me off!
A really well written article Gary, Don’t worry about the EFL according to Tuesday’s Daily Mail the hot favourite for new chief executive is none other than Jez Moxey, so that’ll be alright then!!!
Thank you Mick … what a nice thing to say. Sadly it was followed a few hours later by Bury’s demise. How I feel for those associated with that club.