It’s explicitly clear in our Community Club constitution that the board is expected to be transparent. At Lewes FC, however, boards have never really bothered with this expectation, but we’ve now reached a new level of non-existent communication.
Yes, that employed full-time Fan Engagement Officer is money well spent. You couldn’t write it!
Earlier this year, some seemingly decent and newly elected board members presented a looming financial disaster for the club and asked for help. This was unexpected, and welcome, transparency. However, nothing good lasts forever at Lewes, and this honest presentation was a flash in The Pan (pardon the pun).
Since then, several new members with integrity have resigned, and the remaining newly elected board members are seemingly backtracking on the principes of sound governance they promised in their manifestos.
The club is in an absolute mess, and it is beyond belief to claim this has been caused by anything other than poor leadership.
COMMUNICATION
Just over a week ago, after months of silence about our perilous financial state and the search for investors, we were sent the usual tedious Groundhog Day email …the same tired lines we’ve been fed for eight years.
“We’re speaking to potential investors.”
“NDA.”
Blah, blah, blah.
Maybe they meant “NTD”: nothing to disclose.
It’s the same rotating myth only the board seem to believe, that everyone is queueing up to buy this wonderfully run, highly successful football club. The weekly barrage of empty emails from the club seems to suggest that “everything is fine,” as if supporters are stupid enough to believe it.
With no communication on critical topics, owners and fans are naturally drawing their own conclusions. Rumours, possibly accurate, are spreading that there is no investment coming and that we are heading toward bankruptcy.
As the club is currently owned by over 2,000 supporters, the board must set this straight and explain to the owners what is really going on.
The board need to come clean and clarify exactly what the financial position of the club is.
DECLINE
In just over two years, we have gone from being the third-ranked non-league club in Sussex to seventh. The women’s team has lost its kudos, been relegated, and seen paid attendances fall from around 800 to 175, according to AI estimates.
The club brags about how high the men’s attendances are, but again, according to AI, allowing for derby anomalies, attendances are down roughly 10% this season. Over the last decade, despite the club’s claims, our overall attendance growth lags well behind the general increase across the Isthmian Premier League.
Meanwhile, there’s been a gold rush of investment into other Sussex clubs, unprecedented in fact, yet nobody wants to touch Lewes. We even agreed, in desperation, to give up pure fan ownership, and still no takers.
Remember 12 months ago when the board told us that the lack of local business investment was a disgrace, and that engaging local businesses was Plan B? They’ve done absolutely nothing about it. Instead, they sit waiting for the mythical “big investor” who simply isn’t coming. Why would they? The club is visibly and disastrously run. It’s a ship taking on water.
The board need to come clean and clarify how they intend to address the continued decline of Lewes FC if investment does not materialise.
LEADERSHIP FOCUS
All I ever hear from people in the know, and I have many contacts through the fanzine, is that the board and COO’s focus is almost entirely on Lewes FC Women. Certainly the optics back this approach up.
We have a paradox: women’s attendances have collapsed because of the ridiculous policy of charging the same entry price for both men’s and women’s matches, purely to maintain the optics of Equality FC. We charge roughly three times what other clubs in the division charge, a disgrace. Yet the majority of the board’s time, energy, and resources are still funnelled into the women’s side.
That is not Equality FC.
The board need to come clean and clarify why we have this unacceptable imbalance and how they intend to fix it.
DELUSIONAL
It’s laughable that the current board, and certainly the COO, were part of the group who once valued Lewes FC Women at £7.5 million.
The delusion stems from a persistent belief that the women’s team is the answer to all our problems – a treasure trove of opportunity. In reality, its value is nil. Yes, women’s football is growing, and some investors might be interested in funding the women’s side, but they will not bankroll or buy Lewes FC in its entirety. Equality FC is past news.
To compete at Championship level now costs upwards of £1 million per season, and within three years that will likely double. Mercury 13, the supposed saviours, pulled out because they knew what anyone honest already knew: Lewes would never sustain itself at the top level.
We were always going to be squeezed out. I said it, was criticised for it, and I was right. We got relegated. The party’s over.
Yet the board still cling to the ghosts of Equality FC, thinking the world wants a slice of it. They fiddle while Rome burns. Nobody cares. Investors visit, see 150 paying spectators, and the club still touts outdated attendance figures to big up its credentials. It’s embarrassing.
The board need to come clean and clarify why they continue to pay lip service to the men’s team and how they will refocus on guaranteeing the men’s continued participation in the Isthmian Premier.
BRADLEY PRITCHARD — SHOULD HE STAY OR SHOULD HE GO?
All this leaves us with a men’s team nearly ten games without a win, bottom of the Isthmian Premier form table, and three points from relegation. As things stand, we are heading down.
Is Bradley not up to the job, or has he not received the support he needs? Probably a bit of both.
It’s a gross dereliction of duty for any board to appoint a rookie manager, at this level, and not provide unflinching support to achieve the club’s goals. Pulling a new squad together and getting early results was impressive, but Bradley simply doesn’t have the experience to turn around a team in terminal decline.
If the board aren’t going to fully back him, they should do the decent thing: let him go and bring in someone capable of keeping us in the Premier. Either way, it was an irresponsible appointment. Bradley will make it in management, no doubt, but like every ther manager at our level he needs experience.
I questioned the validity of the appointment is as diplomatic a way as possible at the time it was announced.
We are a club in financial crisis, trying to attract investment. When you need a manager in that situation, you consolidate. You appoint a steady, experienced head who can keep you mid table on a modest budget. The board’s obsession with finding an investor “at all costs” has blinded them to the obvious: it’s much harder to attract money when your men’s team looks relegation bound.
A few years ago, I exchanged emails with Maggie Murphy. She batted away most of my criticisms, but agreed on one crucial point. Lewes FC’s process for appointing managers was amateur. Under her, at least, there was a system: a proper recruitment process, multiple interviews, structured selection. Scott Booth went through several rounds before being appointed.
Now Maggie’s gone to Aston Villa, and we’ve gone back to the old days. An informal chat with an ex-player. Less paperwork, less effort. John Peel stood for the board, partly on his supposed ability to handle managerial appointments. Apparently, that means a chat with Bradley and a gut feeling that “it clicked.”
Wow. Great. Very professional.
Bradley said, “I’m really excited. I didn’t think this was going to come about as early as it did, but after speaking to John, it dawned on both of us that maybe it was something that could actually work.” Let us be realistic, the ‘I didn’t think this was going to come about as early as it did,’ suggests even he was surprised he got the job. Nice work.
This approach, best described as “pissing in the wind and hoping for the best” might suit a Sunday league team, but not a club with 2,000 members and ambitions of professionalism. It’s rank amateurism.
Yet the spin continues. I quote a local newspaper; Chair Trevor Wells called last season one of “consolidation” and insists the club is now aiming higher for 2025–26. That optimism is apparently shared by the new manager, who says, “I want to go for the play-offs.”
Really? Last season, we overperformed on a modest budget under a proven manager. Now we have no extra money, a rookie boss, and yet higher expectations? Read the room.
If we had tripled the budget and hired an experienced manager, fine — talk play-offs. But as it stands, it’s fantasy football.
Sorry, but do Trevor Wells and John Peel actually have a clue what they’re doing? It’s all in writing, this was their plan, and it has been a disaster. Planned on the back of a fag packet, by the looks of it.
My thoughts on the original appointment, at the time.
The board need to come clean and clarify exactly how they intend to deal with the men’s results and commit to a robust, professional appointment process like every other club in the division.
JUST GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER
Look, in short, our club is being very badly run. The current directors are showing total disrespect for the very people who own it, while hiding behind the convenient smokescreen of “NDAs.”
Lewes FC is still a fan-owned club. Accountability and transparency are supposed to be our core principles. If potential investors demand an NDA before even engaging, the answer should be simple: no thanks.
Instead, the board close ranks, say nothing, and behave like they’re guarding state secrets rather than running a community football club.
They’ve consistently failed to reach out to the many capable people who could actually help. There are experienced, connected individuals within the supporter base and wider Lewes community, people with financial, marketing and operational expertise, who are ignored.
So please, spare us the “we’re overworked” excuse. That’s a choice. You’ve chosen to ignore the free talent on your doorstep. As far I know only one person has been co-opted onto the board this year.
Directors at Lewes FC treat the club like their personal fiefdom, as though they’ve earned the right to be there through sheer brilliance. In reality, none of the current directors come close to the quality of those who served before the Equality FC era.
I disagreed with those earlier directors, often strongly, but I trusted them to make sound decisions and keep the club stable. This lot aren’t fit and proper directors. Their only apparent goal is to find someone, anyone, to bail the club out financially, rather than using the enormous goodwill, volunteer energy and community pride that have always been Lewes’s greatest strength.
Just look at Lewes Bonfire. A massive operation run almost entirely by volunteers, powered by local passion. That’s the model Lewes FC should be learning from, not ignoring. The forty years I have spent in Lewes, none of the societies have reached out for investors.
The board need to come clean and clarify exactly how they intend to get their act together. That includes immediate redundancies of the COO, FEO, and other non-essential roles, with those funds redirected to the playing budget, where they might actually make a difference.
Please. you will note, in the article, there is no insinuation of dishonesty, merely a clarion call for the facts of what is going on and not the usual ‘tactical’ messaging.
#Lewes #Lewes FC
The Rights of Fans. 