Read previous blogs from 12 blogs at Christmas and the next lot that I will be publishing daily here
The Lewes FC Fanzine 12 Blogs at Christmas. – Lewes FC Fanzine Blog (wpcomstaging.com)
An examination of how one of the largest volunteer led experiences in Britain, Lewes Bonfire, has attracted the talent needed to make Lewes FC Community Club work and led to it’s failure as a community entity.
Identifying why Lewes FC Community Club has been allowed to go off on such an uncompromising and unchecked tangent and is so dysfunctional as a community club you need only investigate that very community.
Below I will explain how Lewes Bonfire has absorbed all of the sort of talent that could have made Lewes Community Football Club successful.
I am the biggest disruptor to Lewes FC through the fanzine. An influential Director told me once in anger, almost as a condemnation, I am one of the reasons he wanted to quit the club, which I of course merely wear as a badge of honour. But there are loads of other equally gnarly cantankerous bastards with a good brain like me in Lewes. The difference between a lot of us actively involved in Bonfire or Lewes FC is that I don’t do Bonfire at all so my energy is directed at the football club and I seem to be the only one, everyone else involved in Bonfire eschewing the football club. As a caveat I will mention as well as offering mild criticism I have previously offered significant time and expertise to help the club, seemingly rejected for reasons of upsetting the status quo which is actually a vital part of a functioning democratic community football club. See later blogs. So my input is not just the fanzine but I have offered practical help and time. Many people have acceded to the fact that a lot of my ideas in the fanzine have been bloody good and would have steered Lewes towards Community Club success.
There must be dozens of others like me in Lewes who would have collectively made Lewes FC a roaring success, but they have chosen instead, on a far larger scale than the football club, to create success for the Town via Bonfire.
If there was no Bonfire a significant few other roll your sleeves up types would undoubtedly have helped steer Lewes financially successfully into the heart of the Lewes community.
Let us delve in further.
Let me tell you about Mr Clueless. I shall not mention his name, I don’t point score. On Bonfire Night I posted a thought-provoking blog on Lewes Bonfire, a huge organisation that defines the town and the relationship with Lewes FC. An integral part of any community club is the sum of its parts. ‘Priorities’ was the singular thought-provoking contribution of Mr Clueless of the Board. We had drawn 2-2 with Brighlingsea. Mr Clueless thinks an innocuous draw takes priority over trying to understand a relationship that is maybe a key to the financial carnage at Lewes FC. He or she doubtless marvelled at his wit and drollery seemingly oblivious of the silliness of his embarrassing remark. Someone who should not be near the boardroom. I banned him.
Let me tell you about Keith. Keith Austen was known in the town as Mr Bonfire. He was the most pivotal figure in Bonfire for decades. When he died for two weeks in succession the Sussex Express gave over their entire front page to Keith. The town was briefly closed for his ‘state’ procession as his coffin was wheeled through the town followed by a huge entourage. Keith was one of my best friends and I was one of the few who stood by him through his sad decline. Keith spent his last Christmas Day at my house.
Keith was right and I was wrong. We had numerous discussions in the Kings Head about Bonfire and Lewes Football Club. Many have faded in a cloud of Stella induced memory loss. But one thing we always argued about that sticks, as Keith tended to argue about the same things repatedly with old age, was he always maintained a community club would not work in Lewes.
The reason very simple. Every town has a small number of people who are the sort that dedicate themselves to things like community clubs and events. They are people historically entrenched in the town and it’s culture with an unerring ability to get things done. Unfortunately, Lewes has possibly the largest community organised event after Carnival and Pride in the UK and with up to 80,000 visitors and based around fire. It requires huge organisational skills and talents to pull this off logistically and of course pay for it. Those perfect pieces necessary to make community football club project function successfully are already part of the jigsaw that is Lewes Bonfire.
Keith always said if there was no Bonfire and he was younger he would stand for the Board and everyone knows he would be a shoe in. Keith was a stickler and Keith knew if you wanted things done effectively you did them properly. The constitution would have been his handbook and no doubt other doers with hypothetically no Bonfire and of Keith’s disposition would have got involved. That is a given. It is our lack of adherence to our constitution that has seen us move despairingly away from the core values of our constitution which is infuriatingly so perfect for a town like Lewes and seen us fail as a community club.
It is a limited resource any town has, principled, hard-working, organisers who get things done and Lewes Bonfire has taken them all.
Instead, we have had a procession of second rate pretenders such as Mr Clueless. Only five of the ever-changing Board set up I am aware of, maybe 30 members over 13 years since the inception, have serious history prior to the community club with Lewes. Nearly all newbies. Most have zero historical connection to the town. We have even currently ended up in a farcical situation where a new board member in 2022 member thinks it appropriate on election to the board of a town community club to tell us “I initially found out about the club a year-and-a-half ago in 2021, around the time of International Women’s Day.’ Tell me would you entrust with your football club to Keith or someone who has no experience, understanding, history and empathy with your town club and I understand, even been to a game. Not poor, farcical.
Make no mistake most of the people on the community Board have given a lot of time and many have done some outstanding things for Lewes FC. They have also led us down a path where they once decried the previous owner for huge trading losses only to rack up huger losses in pursuit of an agenda that is fascinating and in many ways worthwhile, but has pretty much nothing to do with the constitution or the community it serves. A sell out.
And that folks is why the club has failed. The weak leadership we have now in a town where pretty much anyone active in a society etc is active in Bonfire and we are left with the also rans from outside the town. Anybody who understands what the town is about and our fierce history can tell you if there was no Bonfire the Board at Lewes FC would be experienced Lewes people voted onto the Board with a healthy turnout, not the poor outsiders voted in on a pittance of turnover. Our Chairman Stuart Fuller has been the one good person at the helm of the club, and he is from London so I am not saying that you have to come from Lewes. But it does help if there is a heavy presence.
Witness the world class organisational skills of Lewes inhabitants on Bonfire night and compare to the vast queues to get simply get a beer at the Dripping Pan when the Lewes FC board are left in charge.
I will argue in a later blog why Lewes FC need to adopt a fit and proper test for Board candidates and why we need a shadow board to hold some of the craziness at the helm of the club to account.
Next Blog is tentatively titled ‘Follow The Money’, where we look at where the money has come from for the last 20 years.
The 12 blogs will all be published here over the next 12 days
The Lewes FC Fanzine 12 Blogs at Christmas. – Lewes FC Fanzine Blog (wpcomstaging.com)
The Rights of Fans. 