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Supporter Involvement

Supporter's Direct

Ten years ago Northampton Town Football Club was faced with extinction after continual financial mismanagement. Supporters of the club decided that enough was enough, and with the future of the football club that they loved and supported resting on a knife-edge, decided it was time that ordinary supporters did something to help save professional football in the town. They succeeded in raising £60,000 with the help of local businessmen and the clubs administrators, and in return set up a trust owning 18,000 shares (8% of the club), and can elect a director to the board.

Successes have included moving the club to Sixfields Stadium in 1994, a ground that was built and owned by the council and rented by the club. This saved the club from the major expenses of its upkeep and made the club less venerable to potential asset-stripping businessmen interested in the ground. The trust has remained vital to the health of the club, especially this year when the club has gone up for sale, by ensuring any potential owner of the club has its best interests at heart.

Looking at a means to increase fan participation within the sport, the governments football task force looked at the success at Northampton Town and used this to form the basis of Supporters Direct, a government initiative funded by public money, and based at Birkbeck, University of London (home of the Football Governance Research Centre). It's headed by Brian Lomax, Northampton Town's first Supporter-Director:

Supporters feel they have a real stake in their clubs. They are not just brought through the gates and fed bullshit by the board. The club is woven into the community, and there are many great advantages to that.

Putting forward his case as to why football is essential to the health of society

Humans create rituals which fulfil our craving for solidarity, for expressions of comradeship and loyalty. In a world which is losing its sense of togetherness, there is a great requirement for places in which solidarity can be found. I believe that is what football support is all about.

Supporters Direct aims to give support, advice and information for those wishing to play a responsible part in the life of the football clubs they support. Legitimate objectives of a supporter trusts will include:

• Influence - the formation and running of representative bodies for supporters
• Ownership - acquisition of shares in FC's to pool the voting power of individual supporters to further the aims of supporter trusts.
• Representation - securing democratic election of supporter's representatives to the Boards of Directors of individual football clubs.

However such trusts tend to only be successful when clubs are in danger. Some supporters now question the validity of the trusts objectives at Northampton Town, and newly founded trusts such as those at Walsall and at Premiership clubs such as Aston Villa, tend to attract only a small proportion of club's total fan base. This needs to change - especially at smaller clubs in lower divisions which are more likely to head towards financial ruin. At such clubs long-term objectives can be to see the club owned by the fans (as has happened at Chesterfield) whose loyalty is likely to last far longer than some 'white-knight' new chairman. But these trusts are equally important at larger clubs whose owners are becoming ever more powerful.

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