by Chris Harris.
Life was becoming profoundly miserable for car wheeler dealer, owner and chairman of Denham Phoenix FC, Gregg Lyons. Football, he often mused, was merely a long chain of dashed hopes and accumulated regrets, broken only by the occasional glimmer of hope that kept people hooked. Why we give so much of our lives to these demanding, emotionally draining and unpredictable institutions, was a question he returned to again and again. For Gregg Lyons, that question was multiplied a thousand times as he owned one of the buggers.
Most people simply support the flawed and disappointing clubs they love without question, never fully understanding why. For Gregg, it wasn’t only the ongoing hardship of living and breathing Denham Phoenix FC; it was the far heavier burden of owning and running it. He had created the club himself, and so every setback, every failure, every defeat, belonged entirely to him. Before we cut to the chase, how did we get here?
He previously had an amazing carefree lifestyle, complete with all of its indulgences, courtesy of his business, and in one bold decision turned it into the purgatory of running Denham Phoenix FC. As he metaphorically struck the wall in frustration in his office, beneath the fatigue and exasperation, he recognised something undeniable. For all the pressure, all the chaos, all the responsibility, he knew he cared for the club deeply and, in his own way, loved every minute of it.
Denham Phoenix FC is situated on the outskirts of Denham, on the grave of Denham Rugby Club. One Gregg dug. Two miles away eastwards, lies Lewes with its own football club, well, a football club in name only, since they turned their backs on football and decided to turn themselves into a club preaching political idealism and artistic and intellectual past times instead. We’ll get to that.
Gregg was born and bred in Denham near Lewes in East Sussex, and played rugby for them, while building up a string of car dealership in local and coastal towns. The club had hit hard times, a lack of interest and mounting bills saw the club on the verge of liquidation. The owner’s reached out to Gregg for help, they told him a young ambitious man with oodles of dosh needs somewhere to express his personality outside work.
Gregg resented the tag of chancer. Hitting 30, it was time for him to retire from rugby and much to the chagrin of the board of Denham RFC, also decided to retire Denham RFC and like a phoenix from the flames arose Denham er…Denham Pheonix FC. The board never forgave him, but Gregg felt he could make a big name for himself and his village. Football, not rugby, was the best conduit for that.
In Denham the switch was accepted as an inevitability and the land would just go to waste otherwise. Besides, Gregg promised big things, failing to realise nobody in Denham wanted bigger things, but he was a Denham boy, it was Denham Pheonix FC, villagers understood the rules of football and most important of all, Gregg was one of them and also, promised a heavily subsidised bar.
Gregg thought it was a great name at the time as the size of the plot meant he could eventually build a small to medium size football stadium by turning and converting the two pitches into one and the club owned the adjacent field that also sat by the side of then Lewes Road. Nobody else thought Phoenix was a good name, like Greg, a bit too flash, but as Greg reasoned he was the one setting up the club, calling the shots, spending the money and shouldering the burden so he could call it what he wanted. After all, the club was going to rise like a Phoenix from the flames. I think the main objection was simply that it was assumed it was never going to rise like a Phoenix from the flames.
This series of short stories will be a fly on the wall black comedy, because to everybody’s surprise, rising like a phoenix from the flames is exactly what ‘The Dens’ did. Gregg formed the club in 2010 and by 2018 it had risen to the higher echelons of the Sussex Premier League, one promotion away from the National League System, the five tier upper non league system. Tier 1, The National Conference, tier 2, Conference North and South, tiers 3,4 and 5 4 different feeder leagues, London and the South East where Denham were destined, represented by the Welex Waste Products Divisions 1,2 and 3. In 2010, nobody dreamed The Dens would get a sniff of the Welex Waste Products Div 3, but this season it was tangible.
Let’s face it, good old building a club the fashioned way, building a squad of youthful exuberance and hard bastard semi retirees pushing 40, was not how Gregg planned to build The Dens. ‘Love Your Car’ had bankrolled it instead. Gregg had to admit, hitting 30 he had metaphorically taken his foot off the pedal. Single and loaded, he could want for no more. The Dens though, rather than start a family, was his move into de facto parenthood and he was very much inclined to provide for his new family giving him a fresh perspective and ambition in life. This was his alternative family, no Joe, Sarah, and Lee to raise; instead, his children became the club grounds, the huge clubhouse, the staff, and his players. He was going to bankroll success, and a successful businessman could easily bankroll a club to the top of the Sussex Prem if he paid for the best. Which he did.
Although he was fully credited for the success, with his amazing generosity, to him it was nothing of the sort. He earned a vast fortune and, actually, bankrolling at this level, he was delighted to discover, was actually not very expensive. The playing budget was £50,000 a year, five times what other clubs in the division could pay, and therefore the cream of Sussex football and decent local players from the National Non League system were attracted to The Dens, leaving them on the brink of promotion.
Look, I, the narrator, am a glass half empty sort of person, so I will not dwell on the Dens successfully striding into the Welex Waste Products Division 3, the championship celebrations when a club record attendance of 712 turned up for the clincher versus local rivals Ringmer FC. No bugger that. Things going tits up off the pitch in football are as entertaining as the matches themselves.
This series of stories will be about, the people, the players, the teams, the challenges, the ground development, the unpopularity, the ta
His son Malcom Davies took over the dealership, changed the name to Big Malc’s Deals on Wheels and did nothing for ten years but collect the ever dwindling profits as he ran the business into the ground.
Gregg Lyons picked it up for a song. Big Malc was chuffed to bits as he could retire at the age of 50, and needless to say, Gregg couldn’t believe his luck. Big Malc never batted an eyelid as Gregg rebranded it Love Your Car and made a fortune, rapidly expanding to other Sussex towns. In fact Malcolm could not have been happier, no financial worries, responsibilities and a new friend.
An odd couple to be sure, Gregg and Big Malc became very close friends, finding a common bond in their love for Crystal Palace FC, and they would motor up the M23 together to Selhurst Park in whatever Gregg’s latest flash motor was. As any Palace fan of a certain age will explain to you why, Big Malc soon became known as Big Mal after Malcolm Allison, the flamboyant Palace manager from the 70s who somehow pulled off a feat no other manager has ever achieved of becoming an iconic, loved manager despite failing at the task.
It was Big Mal who persuaded Gregg to buy Denham RFC and set up Denham Pheonix FC. During their rapid rise up the Sussex County league he was very much his right hand man. Practical and personable, he would turn his hand to anything at the football club, maintaining the pitch, doing the bar, agony uncle, he was indispensable. He was the first and most well known of The Dens volunteers. Gregg tried to renumerate him, but Big Mal would have none of it, working for free gave him just that, freedom from the noise of life.
by Chris Harris.
Life was becoming profoundly miserable for car wheeler dealer, owner and chairman of Denham Phoenix FC, Gregg Lyons. Football, he often mused, was merely a long chain of dashed hopes and accumulated regrets, broken only by the occasional glimmer of hope that kept people hooked. Why we give so much of our lives to these demanding, emotionally draining and unpredictable institutions, was a question he returned to again and again. For Gregg Lyons, that question was multiplied a thousand times as he owned one of the buggers.
Most people simply support the flawed and disappointing clubs they love without question, never fully understanding why. For Gregg, it wasn’t only the ongoing hardship of living and breathing Denham Phoenix FC; it was the far heavier burden of owning and running it. He had created the club himself, and so every setback, every failure, every defeat, belonged entirely to him. Before we cut to the chase, how did we get here?
He previously had an amazing carefree lifestyle, complete with all of its indulgences, courtesy of his business, and in one bold decision turned it into the purgatory of running Denham Phoenix FC. As he metaphorically struck the wall in frustration in his office, beneath the fatigue and exasperation, he recognised something undeniable. For all the pressure, all the chaos, all the responsibility, he knew he cared for the club deeply and, in his own way, loved every minute of it.
Denham Phoenix FC is situated on the outskirts of Denham, on the grave of Denham Rugby Club. One Gregg dug. Two miles away eastwards, lies Lewes with its own football club, well, a football club in name only, since they turned their backs on football and decided to turn themselves into a club preaching political idealism and artistic and intellectual pastimes instead. We’ll get to that.
Gregg was born and bred in Denham near Lewes in East Sussex, and played rugby for them, while building up a string of car dealerships in local and coastal towns. The club had hit hard times, a lack of interest and mounting bills saw the club on the verge of liquidation. The owners reached out to Gregg for help, they told him a young ambitious man with oodles of dosh needs somewhere to express his personality outside work.
Gregg resented the tag of chancer. Hitting 30, it was time for him to retire from rugby and much to the chagrin of the board of Denham RFC, also decided to retire Denham RFC and like a phoenix from the flames arose Denham er…Denham Phoenix FC. The board never forgave him, but Gregg felt he could make a big name for himself and his village. Football, not rugby, was the best conduit for that.
In Denham the switch was accepted as an inevitability and the land would just go to waste otherwise. Besides, Gregg promised big things, failing to realise nobody in Denham wanted bigger things, but he was a Denham boy, it was Denham Phoenix FC, villagers understood the rules of football and most important of all, Gregg was one of them and also, promised a heavily subsidised bar.
Gregg thought it was a great name at the time as the size of the plot meant he could eventually build a small to medium size football stadium by turning and converting the two pitches into one and the club owned the adjacent field that also sat by the side of then Lewes Road. Nobody else thought Phoenix was a good name, like Greg, a bit too flash, but as Greg reasoned he was the one setting up the club, calling the shots, spending the money and shouldering the burden so he could call it what he wanted. After all, the club was going to rise like a Phoenix from the flames. I think the main objection was simply that it was assumed it was never going to rise like a Phoenix from the flames.
This series of short stories will be a fly on the wall black comedy, because to everybody’s surprise, rising like a phoenix from the flames is exactly what ‘The Dens’ did. Gregg formed the club in 2010 and by 2018 it had risen to the higher echelons of the Sussex Premier League, one promotion away from the National League System, the five tier upper non league system. Tier 1, The National Conference, tier 2, Conference North and South, tiers 3,4 and 5 4 different feeder leagues, London and the South East where Denham were destined, represented by the Welex Waste Products Divisions 1,2 and 3. In 2010, nobody dreamed The Dens would get a sniff of the Welex Waste Products Div 3, but this season it was tangible.
Let’s face it, good old building a club the old fashioned way, building a squad of youthful exuberance and hard bastard semi retirees pushing 40, was not how Gregg planned to build The Dens. Love Your Car had bankrolled it instead. Gregg had to admit, hitting 30 he had metaphorically taken his foot off the pedal. Single and loaded, he could want for no more. The Dens though, rather than start a family, was his move into de facto parenthood and he was very much inclined to provide for his new family giving him a fresh perspective and ambition in life. This was his alternative family, no Joe, Sarah, and Lee to raise; instead, his children became the club grounds, the huge clubhouse, the staff, and his players. He was going to bankroll success, and a successful businessman could easily bankroll a club to the top of the Sussex Prem if he paid for the best. Which he did.
Although he was fully credited for the success, with his amazing generosity, to him it was nothing of the sort. He earned a vast fortune and, actually, bankrolling at this level, he was delighted to discover, was actually not very expensive. The playing budget was £50,000 a year, five times what other clubs in the division could pay, and therefore the cream of Sussex football and decent local players from the National Non League system were attracted to The Dens, leaving them on the brink of promotion.
Look, I, the narrator, am a glass half empty sort of person, so I will not dwell on The Dens successfully striding into the Welex Waste Products Division 3, the championship celebrations when a club record attendance of 712 turned up for the clincher versus local rivals Ringmer FC. No bugger that. Things going tits up off the pitch in football are as entertaining as the matches themselves.
This series of stories will be about, the people, the players, the teams, the challenges, the ground development, the unpopularity, the taxman, the volunteers, the social media, the good days the bad days, the fans, the loving, cup runs, cup failures, the fighting, the finances, the licences, the catering, the passion of non league football through the eyes of someone who knows. I am Chris Harris. I am the narrator and for 20 years have written the Lewes FC fanzine and blog, The Rights of Fans. I know.
Nobody was ever sure if Big Malc’s dad died in the 20th or the 21st Century. On New Year’s Eve 1999, he left the pub at 11 pm, and about midnight, his beloved Alfa Romeo Spider crashed down on him as he was fiddling with the underside, something that needed fixing that was gnawing away on his conscience as he sat getting drunk in the pub. Malcolm’s dad had three successful car dealerships in Peacehaven, Newhaven, and Seaford. They were sound businesses, except he never invested in up to date safety equipment. He had decided it was a good idea to carry out that tweak for a restful New Year. However, during that split second between the flimsy jack giving way and his death, he realised it wasn’t.
His son Malcom Davies took over the dealership, changed the name to Big Malc’s Deals on Wheels and did nothing for ten years but collect the ever dwindling profits as he ran the business into the ground.
Gregg Lyons picked it up for a song. Big Malc was chuffed to bits as he could retire at the age of 50, and needless to say, Gregg couldn’t believe his luck. Big Malc never batted an eyelid as Gregg rebranded it Love Your Car and made a fortune, rapidly expanding to other Sussex towns. In fact Malcolm could not have been happier, no financial worries, responsibilities and a new friend.
An odd couple to be sure, Gregg and Big Malc became very close friends, finding a common bond in their love for Crystal Palace FC, and they would motor up the M23 together to Selhurst Park in whatever Gregg’s latest flash motor was. As any Palace fan of a certain age will explain to you why, Big Malc soon became known as Big Mal after Malcolm Allison, the flamboyant Palace manager from the 70s who somehow pulled off a feat no other manager has ever achieved of becoming an iconic, loved manager despite failing at the task.
It was Big Mal who persuaded Gregg to buy Denham RFC and set up Denham Phoenix FC. During their rapid rise up the Sussex County league he was very much his right hand man. Practical and personable, he would turn his hand to anything at the football club, maintaining the pitch, doing the bar, agony uncle, he was indispensable. He was the first and most well known of The Dens volunteers. Gregg tried to remunerate him, but Big Mal would have none of it, working for free gave him just that, freedom from the noise of life.
Stepping up from the comfort of Sussex County League to the semi-professional National Non League pyramid was an entirely different level of responsibility compared to Sussex football, and Gregg knew it and the challenges ahead. As soon as the celebrations ended, after the Ringmer game, it was time for that uncomfortable chat with Big Mal about his responsibilities.
Promotion came with a long list of requirements, regulations, and standards that small clubs like Denham Phoenix FC usually only dream of having to fulfil, as they spelled success. The Dens now needed proper turnstiles, hard standing around the pitch, upgraded floodlights to meet specific lux levels, a compliant medical room, safer and higher perimeter fencing, a reliable PA system, proper stewarding, safeguarding measures, digital ticketing options, improved bar and catering licences, accurate accounting, and a full set of administrative records that would stand up to league and county FA inspections. It was a shift from informal, locally run football to a more structured environment with expectations that could not be ignored.
Gregg understood that this new phase of the club’s life demanded a level of organisation and systems that simply hadn’t been needed before. Big Mal had always been at his best when things were practical and hands on, looking after the pitch, touching up paintwork, sorting out small repairs, listening to supporters, and offering steady, friendly support around the club. But the demands of the National Non League were different. They involved deadlines, compliance, paperwork, inspections, and a kind of administrative discipline that had never been Mal’s strong point. Gregg could see that Mal might struggle with what was coming next.
For months, whenever Gregg asked about the paperwork, the ground upgrades, or the new league requirements, Big Mal would wave him off with his usual, ‘I’m on it, boss,’ delivered with that easy confidence that had always made him so reassuring to have around. Gregg knew, deep down, that he should have chased it earlier, and the only thing he was on top of was the bar order.
The Sunday after the Ringmer game, it was time for that chat. Gregg told him bluntly that he had one week to present a plan, costs, contractors, timelines, or he would have no choice but to bring in a general manager. It was tough as Big Mal was like a father to him. It wasn’t a threat, just the reality of the situation. The irony was that Big Mal also wanted him to bring in a general manager, but he didn’t want to upset Gregg, who was like a son to him, by making it look like his passion for the club had gone. His concern was, if he declined the ‘move upstairs’ Gregg may not want him around anymore.
It wasn’t that Big Mal couldn’t get the work done, it was just a little bit too much like tough responsibility and hard work. He’d sooner do an eight hour stretch behind a busy bar than meet with a floodlight specialist for fifteen minutes. The next week was the most unpleasant of his life. Monday was spent on the phone with specialists and contractors, and the rest of the week was spent meeting them all. Then the weekend from hell, as he pulled all the quotes together and created a rough schedule of work.
When the quotes finally came in, Gregg maybe should have felt his stomach drop. New LED floodlights to meet league-standard lux levels: £19,000 installed. Hard standing laid down behind both goals and along the clubhouse side: £7,500. Turnstiles sourced and fitted: £4,200. A proper PA system with cabling: £1,800. Upgraded perimeter fencing to meet safety regulations: £6,000. Medical room refurbishment including flooring, sink, storage, and defibrillator: £3,400. It continued—new dugouts at £2,750, CCTV for safeguarding compliance at £1,200, pitch-side barrier repair £1,100, fire safety inspection and remedial work £950, and an estimated £3,000 for steward training, signage, and matchday compliance materials. By the time Gregg added it all up, the total sat just north of forty-nine thousand pounds.
But Gregg was pleased with that, in fact he had budgeted for £75-100,000. His lifelong happy go-lucky streak continued. Big Mal had risen to the occasion, albeit reluctantly, he sensed there was still a conversation to be had. But the easy bit was done, maybe he hadn’t planned to take The Dens into the National Non Leagues, when he and Big Mal had first sat in The Red Lion in Denham, dreaming of running a football club, but that was where they sat and he was both chuffed and apprehensive. For a small village team to now be in with the big boys was not unheard of, but an amazing accomplishment, although maybe one that for a young man with ambition and dosh not entirely unsurprising. Conquering the Sussex leagues was possible with Big Mal and a big wallet for players, but the next step was a massive learning curve.
In part 2, the close season is fraught with problems, Big Mal being the least of them, as a new squad, an unsettled manager, fresh demands of new blood on his first board as The Dens prepare for life in Welex Waste Products Div 3.
Where previously triumph followed triumph, Gregg realises he may have bitten off more than he can chew.
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The Rights of Fans. 