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I am writing this article about how and whether Lewes FC
Women can continue to compete at Championship level. Please note new readers it
will deal with this issue but not answer the question of whether we should be
even attempting to do so as is in contradiction to our status as a community
club attempting to be self-sustained which I will address in a later blog. The Crouch
review would be highly critical of the huge sums of money we are throwing at
the Lewes FDC Women in what it describes as ‘misaligned incentives to ‘chase success”
Reading the Crouch Review into women’s football it is
interesting to see how it contradicts
much of the current thought about the game, chasing money and instead focuses
on creating more ‘value’ to the game, not just pitching for more investment but
creating a game where you don’t need to be doing that but which will grow
organically through strong governance. Then the money will come in at its own
pace and can be used to grow the game, not just a race to the top where clubs
like Lewes will be forced to the wayside.
Money coming
into the game is already beginning to hinder the development of clubs in the
leagues below Lewes who do not have our already set-up semi-pro structure. In the
Northern Division below us for instance, Boldmere St Michaels are competing
with Wolves and Nottingham Forest. In the Southern Division, Bridgwater
competing with Portsmouth and Ipswich. Essentially, we got involved in the nick
of time. Make no mistake though these bigger clubs and others are now breathing
down our necks as the payback for a successful women’s team becomes obvious.
We have
already seen at our tiny club how membership and costs of involvement in the
Women’s Championship are spiralling and how involvement is getting harder and
harder as annually financial pressures will continue to spiral.
At least two
dozen established league clubs will soon be catching up with the Lewes FC Women.
There is now a fresh thinking within these clubs that the success of a woman’s
team is actually vastly cheaper to achieve than that of a men’s team. As the
profile of the game increases so does the ambition of clubs that are giants
compared to Lewes FC. I’m a Palace fan, for instance, there will come a point
when more Palace fans takes the view we could win things in the women’s game
paying our star player £150,000 per annum paying £15 to get in and not tread a
path of mediocrity paying Wilf £6 million per annum paying £50 to get in for a
pointless season trying to stay in the Premiership.
Lewes FC
Women compete because we scraped into the inaugural Women’s Championship membership
process and have been developed very well, albeit bankrolled with generous local
private funding way outside our trading means. Not that difficult in an embryonic
niche sport.
Make no
mistake though the wolves are on our backs, pardon the pun.
A visit to the
Dripping Pan, our wonderful little ground and you have to ask yourself, ‘really?’
We crammed
2300 fans in for the match versus Liverpool last season smashing a lot of Women’s
Premiership attendances last season. But that is as far as we can go. We can currently
compete. But women’s football is growing and vast affiliated clubs are investing
more and more money. We cannot possibly compete much longer. It is difficult to
see in 5 years’ time how we can still be competing. Currently we are mid-table
in the Championship, a striker away from challenging from the top flight. Our
set-up is quality and exceedingly well run and this goes along way to be
standing still as other around us grow.
The singular reason we won a license
was our Equality FC initiative, we failed many general criteria for involvement.
However, the Women’s FA told me an allowance was made to let us in because we
ticked other right boxes. But isn’t this now going to strangle the life out of
the women’s set-up? Suppose a new TV deal and all the clubs in our division
have £500,000 to invest in playing staff, we have to give half of that to the
men’s team. Trust me a lot of the Lewes men’s team supporters will be chuffed
but how long can the PR value of Equality FC be maintained before it becomes a
hindrance to maintaining our semi-pro status in the women’s game. Integrity
over progress. Would we have received the £750.000 FA grant for our new state
of the art pitch if we had dropped Equality FC? Are we just juggling and
hanging on in?
Is shit or bust our future strategy?
The 2021/22 club strategy suggests a club continuing to invest time and money
technically improving many facets of the club, tinkering at the edges. This is important.
Maybe we have a better internal structure than our competitors, I have no idea,
but as we all know if our competitors have crap women’s structures but invest
heavily in player budget we are blown away.
Our escape route is surely to blag our
way into the Premiership. What teams with money cannot do is buy spirit.
Emulating Wimbledon FC who went from non-league to being a tiny established top
flight team. The Crazy Gang. Football was more of an equal playing field then
and certainly Lewes FC Women can do a Wimbledon. In the top flight there is ironically
more of an equal playing field in that clubs get similar funding from league
sponsorship and TV deals. For Lewes the plucky club encompassing trending social
values it could be move that sparks the sponsorship rush for us. The English
love an underdog and I believe we could possibly compete at this level in the
Premiership but perversely not in the league below where we are. I know not how
long but I think it our best bet.
The club have never held back at the
desire to achieve Premiership status and a look at the league table shows it is
possible. Mid table, a great defence and it is clear had we converted some of
the long string of initial draws earlier in the season we would be challenging.
But we do not score goals and strikers are expensive commodities and do good
ones want to come a play for a minnow club? That is for the club to grapple
with. To risk further invitation of criticism that we are pandering to the
oldest evil in football throwing money chasing success and risking the future
of the club?
Either way the forces of football reality
are beginning to kick in. I believe without large further investment, the Lewes
FC Women will be really struggling in three years’ time and will be overwhelmed.
I think the investment is around the club in the hands of benefactors but is the
leap of faith there?
In a later 12 blogs at Christmas blog
we will be examining whether we should even be chasing glory and possibly
financially crippling the club and how the growth of the women’s team is
destroying the last vestibules of credibility of being the community football
club of the town of Lewes.
The Rights of Fans. 