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)
Diplomatically I will say there have always been industrial ‘inaccuracies’ doing the rounds about the circumstances of the financing and end of the reign of the previous owner Martin Elliott.
What we do know for a fact is that between 2005 and 2008, according to figures on the current Lewes FC website Finances – Lewes Community Football Club (lewesfc.com) is that the club where Martin Elliott the was the chief benefactor, was bankrolled over a three year period to the tune of £675,000. Remember the figure and remember for the last three years as a community club similar benefactors have now bankrolled the club to the tune of £1,100,000, according to the accounts. These figures are based on the section Total Annual Deficit (Met By Donations)
Over this period and before he also donated huge sums of his own money to create the amazing non-league stadium we enjoy today.
Over these three years Martin took the club to the crazy heights of the National Conference, tier 5 of the national football pyramid, and established the Lewes Ladies in tier 3, one below where we are now and under manager Steve King produced the greatest and most attractive non-league football team in Sussex history.
Just as we hit the Conference Martin’s business was crippled by the Crash.
For two years 2008-10 crippled financially we struggled and were relegated from the Conference in 2009 but miraculously on a county football budget of £60,000 Martin and the amazing manager Steve Ibbotson kept Lewes in Conference South season 2009/10.
Martin then passed the ownership over to the new Community ownership board who replaced Ibbo and on a similar budget got us immediately relegated.
But all was supposedly okay according to the new board okay we were now financially safe. The new community board wagged the naughty finger at Martin Elliott and decried the very idea of being in charge of a football club and Lewes FC must never again be bankrolled at the whim of benefactors. Odd then that the community board’s benefactors have over the last three years bankrolled the club at nearly twice the rate Martin did at his most generous.
But that does not stop the drip drip of ‘inaccuracies’ that Lewes FC was nearly wiped out of existence. All financial figures can be interpreted in different ways, just watch the politicians use the same figures and manipulate them to particular differing agendas and conclusions.
I was on the Lewes FC Supporters Trust during the upheavals and change of ownership. Martin allowed the then club sponsor Magicman, who he worked with to save the club, to keep the Trust informed of the financial situation. I know four things for sure.
1)Martin could have SOLD the club during this period but felt the possible new owners were ‘not the right fit.’ These people went off and invested huge amounts of money at another Sussex club. Is this close to desperately going out of existence?
2)Martin told Magicman, we all doubted it, that there was nothing critical to worry about and no chance we would go to the wall. He was in hindsight dead right.
3)He happily gave the club away when he could have received aa fee for it.
4)During what was a thoroughly miserable experience for him Martin Elliott steered the club along with Ibbo to safety at a canter. Yes there was a winding up order with HMRC but this is a customary cog when an organisation hits rocky times and we were not wound up.
5)Lewes FC were never in any danger of going into liquidation as suggested elsewhere by people who simply do not have a clue. None of these people were a party to what was really going on.
From 2010-17 the community board tried, struggled but nonetheless did not get too far from their vision of being self-sustained. It failed to get ingrained in the wealthy local community, gain significant local sponsorship and get a grip of football club’s customary income streams such as catering, rather pursuing an agenda of off the cuff ‘smart ideas’ with ‘varied’ results, but the club operated with a very manageable £50-80,000 top up.
So we follow the money to 2019-22.
Not spending the sort of money Elliott did before the crash left us in a moribund state of existence struggling to make ends meet. Until the 2017 budget equality initiative ‘Equality FC’.
The instigators were club Directors Ed Ramsden and Charlie Dobres who had been on the board from the start, 2010.
Despite being two of the people warning against the evil of benefactors bank rolling football clubs, they have collectively bankrolled the club to the £1.1 million over the last three years through donations. Nearly twice what Martin Elliott did at his prime.
Essentially this is to fund the amazing Lewes FC Women. Certainly the opposite of everything they preached and against the core principles of community ownership but nonetheless a staggering achievement.
But are we now a mere mish mash of community and private ownership. Functioning under the auspices of a community constitution in reality privately bankrolled. Under the terms of our constitution in principle of course we are fan owned but the reality is nobody really cares about where the money comes from but they will care when it runs out. We all blindly followed Lewes FC into the Conference National only for the money to disappear and only then did anyone start asking questions.
Read the previous and forthcoming blogs here which will update daily.
The Lewes FC Fanzine 12 Blogs at Christmas. – Lewes FC Fanzine Blog (wpcomstaging.com)
The Rights of Fans. 