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No. of Clubs
Posted on February 13, 2012
I’m sometimes asked for a magic number – the number of top clubs which have gone into Administration. It’s difficult give a simple answer because: Administration is a misleading basis for counting. Clubs can be wound up without ever going into Administration. A better measure is ‘insolvency event’, a term which can however be defined […]
Posted in | 1 Comment »
“Completely vindicated”? Well, not quite completely
Posted on September 29, 2011
The press have been quick to quote Peter Ridsale as saying that he had been “completely vindicated” following the dropping of charges fraud brought against him by Cardiff Training Standards Department (see BBC and This is Plymouth for example). In my book, in this case that fine arbiter of plain English, the Oxford Advanced Learner’s […]
Posted in Ethics, Fit and Proper Person tests | 3 Comments »
The joy that was, and may yet again be, the Abbey Stadium
Posted on January 18, 2011
Perhaps not the obvious stadium to refer to as a ‘joy’, but it has a special place in my personal history. My very first football-related memory is of being driven along the Newmarket Road as a child aged about 4 years and suddenly catching sight of this enticing building. Yes, it was oddly enticing. Frequent […]
Posted in Assets, Benefactors, Insolvency, Investors, Ownership, Stadium, Trusts | 6 Comments »
Ups and Downs 1
Posted on April 7, 2010
Like virtually every football fan, there is really only one football result each week that matters to me personally – I have to know it almost as the whistle blows (thankfully possible in the age that we live in). The rest I could easily wait to read in the Sunday papers. With my particular perspective […]
Posted in Promotion, Pyramid movement, Relegation | 6 Comments »
Trouble at t’top (and bottom)
Posted on December 5, 2009
While most of the clubs facing financial difficulty are to be found in the lower two levels of the Football League and the two levels of the Conference, the propensity to generate concern spreads out in both directions. In the Premier League the club with most cause for concern currently is Portsmouth. As I noted […]
Posted in Benefactors, Debts, Insolvency | 4 Comments »
Gresley Rovers, Chris Wilder and a forgotten virtue
Posted on April 28, 2009
While the media’s attention has been focussed on Darlington and Southampton of late, rather less attention has been paid to the plight of Gresley Rovers of the Northern Premier League Division 1 South. The club is past its ‘glory years’, when they were finalists (1991) and then semi-finalists (1993) in the FA Vase, and, although […]
Posted in Assets, Governance, Insolvency, Stadium | 3 Comments »
A movable famine, as it turned out
Posted on March 30, 2009
The third Thursday in March – the cut-off date for clubs going into Administration who look like they will be relegated but want to take this ten points deduction this season – has come and gone. With the financial increasing pressures on clubs, many observers had anticipated a flood of Administrations. These included Barry Hearn, […]
Posted in Insolvency | 1 Comment »
