The business of football (soccer to my American friends) is fascinating, exhilarating and often precarious.
I’ve been on the board of Lancaster City FC (one of the world’s oldest football clubs, established 1911) for almost two years now. Lancaster is a small northern city on the west coast of the UK. Manchester is the nearest big footballing name, about an hour away down the M6 motorway. I went to University in Lancaster almost 30 years ago, which is how I got involved in the club again.
We’re in the Northern Premier League, seven leagues down from the Premiership, and three leagues below the Hollywood fairytale of Wrexham. But the realities of non-league football for most clubs don’t end with Ryan Reynolds buying your club. Every week is a constant battle to keep the financial wolf from the door.
Our sponsorship, gate and diner revenue is all up 30% over the last two years, and yet we still struggle to make ends meet with a multi-thousand pound defecif to manage due to rising energy costs, business rates, ground maintenance and player wages.
And we’re one of the buoyant ones! Marske FC, peers in the Northern Premier League, have recently taken drastic action to recoup costs, effectively demoting themselves to the league below to give them a hope of surviving financially (cheaper players, less league-mandated ground upgrades required etc).
That’s no surprise to me. Balancing fan expectations, overspending managers, player ambitions and financial realities is a real eye-opener in terms of what it takes to keep a non-league football club afloat.
And their importance goes well beyond sport. These are institutions at the heart of communities - they keep people together and give neighbourhoods a collective purpose through good times and bad. They create social cohesion among strangers, combatting loneliness, forging friendships and building support networks that translate into huge social benefits that often go unacknowledged by local councils and politicians.
This season alone, Lancaster has engaged hundreds of schoolchildren, refugees and vulnerable groups, to give them a sense of belonging, aspiration, support, and purpose beyond the daily grind. And it’s all done by volunteers - there are no fat cats creaming off the profits here. In fact, there are no profits at all - only debts!
It’s a precarious situation that local councils should be more attune to and supportive of. These local sporting institutions, central to the community, give back so much and yet are constantly on a knife-edge, drawing on the good will of volunteers and donations to keep them afloat - whether that’s the board members, the lady on the gate, or the unseen hours of the people digging the pitch or cleaning the diner oven.
So thank you to the volunteers, the part-timers and the giver-uppers. Without you, these local football clubs would be knocked down and replaced with your next out of town multi-story car park. 👇
💙 | 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝘀𝘁 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝗱𝗴𝗲𝘁
Lancaster City are today launching our Boost The Budget campaign to raise vital funds, increasing our playing budget and protecting the future of your community Football Club.
https://lnkd.in/eGy-zqaR
