It was ironically Lewes manager Darren Freeman who got Whitehawk promoted from county football to the Isthmian League in 2010. This success had been driven by financial benefactors and directors John Summers and Peter McDonnell who formed part of a new board in July 2009 when the club was playing Sussex County League football. Freeman was then sacked as Whitehawk continued to rise up the non league pyramid. He ended up at Lewes where he is doing the taking the club up the non league pyramid bit with grit and determination, but without the Whitehawk money. It is an interesting study into football club structures and how actually running a club properly can negate the necessity to chuck a load of money at a club.
Whitehawk for a number of decades had been an impressive force in county football.
We now move this prose to the John Harvey Tavern 2008-2009 and a Supporters Trust meeting. Lewes FC were in financial meltdown and club sponsor Mark Henderson joined us to give us a low down on developments. This is my interpretation and it is based on what were told. Two guys had expressed an interest in bailing the club out but Lewes owner Martin Elliott decreed they were not the right fit for the club and they had gone off elsewhere to find another club to invest in. Whitehawk.
For years many have felt Martin should have gone with those two rather than down the community route. The confines of such a set up and guidelines have proved very difficult for the Lewes board to work within with seemingly patience running out at attempting to recognise our initial community aspirations, failing in all our main aims to be democratic, self sustained and transparent. What a difference the reported £600,000 per annum reported investment by the Whitehawk benefactors would have been to our larger club, with larger support and an excellent non league infra structure. Be difficult not to see us in the Conference. Yes boom and bust isn’t good but despite the scare tactics used by the Board about saving our skins, as Martin said, there will always be someone who wants to invest in Lewes FC because of what it is.
It is interesting to see how over the eight years the clubs have fared. The pure bank rolled Whitehawk and Lewes, who have morphed into a bank rolled / community club from the failings of a proper self sustained model however have tried to do things properly and in many ways have.
Millions have been poured into Whitehawk. Primarily to create a team fit for the Conference with big plans to change their name and rebrand to Brighton City. This is where their development appears to have stuttered. Initially the money poured in saw Whitehawk flirt with the Conference failing at the play offs. Since then they have sunk to the same level as Lewes. The rebranding was rejected by the FA and with it a genuine attempt to bring more sponsorship and lift the profile of Whitehawk. It seems the funding has merely bought some temporary on field success at an enormous price and presumably when the funding dries up with little actually done to invest in creating a long term future it’ll be back to square one.
Where Lewes are now in many ways has been a triumph of endeavour, enterprise and tenacity over money. With a pinch of salt thrown in. Through superb management by our Board we are now one of the most high profile clubs outside the Premiership and Championship. The pinch of salt is that we have not have done it working within our own community constitution. Despite the bluster from the Board to the contrary. We have had financial help from our benefactors. But I believe 5 times less than that of the Whitehawk money guys the benefactors recognising they need to at least give lip service to the community club set up and indeed although lewes have failed in many of our original aims, self sustainability, transparency, democracy and proper fan engagement much has gone on to at least give us a community foundation and spirit. We have busied ourselves setting up a proper community based club and through numerous community based initiatives and continued the expansion of the groundwork on our infra structure started by Elliott with the creation of the 3g, the beech huts and sola panels just some of the new income streams, albeit modest, but permanent and establishing the culture of working for our own living. The huge gamble the Board took deciding to throw caution into the wind and throw money at the women’s set up in the hope sponsors will come in may or may not financially work out. But it has been a triumph for the forces of enterprise lifting Lewes into the realms of one of the most high profile non league clubs in the country with money the benefactors have invested that may still yet be recouped.
Lewes FC have only done this by dumping on the principles of our constitution and effectively trashed any purist thoughts on being a proper ‘community club’
But whils’t the vast sums chucked at Whitehawk will long be remembered as a folly, Lewes can rightly be proud to have done things the right way. We could only have done it by dumping the confines of proper community ownership and sound prudence but maybe the moral of the story is that purist community clubs do not work. Going off radar Lewes, and this is yet to be proved, have created a hybrid between the Whitehawk model and the model we were all told we were signing up for of community ownership. The Board hate this suggestion, but if it is the model we need to work best for Lewes and our aims then so be it. As things stand where it applies to our two clubs the Lewes community focussed, volunteer entrepreneurial style board football club has proved a far greater success that chucking milluions at something without a plan.
I am pleased for the Board. When we were pummelled by Whitehawk, a club in the ascendancy in 5-0 in the Sussex Senior Cup final at the Amex all we sat enviously looking at what all the money had brought them. We have now caught them up and are overtaking them doing things the right way, with an oh so brighter future
The Rights of Fans. 