PARK LIFE

Printed in the National League South game v Dartford Saturday 30^th April 2022. Last home game of the season. We lost 6-0 in front of 961

Some people complain that football and politics don’t mix but with Slough Borough Council in financial meltdown, could Arbour Park be under threat?

While the National Audit Office has warned that at least 25 authorities are on the brink of bankruptcy, it’s Slough Council which has the biggest deficit in the country. It’s auditors refused to sign off its accounts and the government appointed commissioners to help sort out the mess, with all non-essential spending frozen and the councils chief executive sacked.

The council will need a minimum of £479 million in support from central government over the next few years – a figure that could be even higher if it fails to meet “challenging” savings targets. These targets include selling off £600 million worth of assets and cutting £20 million from this years budget. Slough’s director of finance Steven Mair said “The seriousness of the council’s financial position cannot be understated” and “will require cost cutting to a degree not seen anywhere else”.

So what has this got to do with Slough Town? Well, the club pay to play at Arbour Park, a council run ground. Could one of those assets that are sold off be Arbour Park?

I spoke to Councillor Rob Anderson, long term supporter of the club and former leader of the council who has now taken up the poison chalice role of lead member for ‘financial oversight, council assets and performance.’ I really take my hat off to people who give up their time to become councillors, and Robs role is particularly challenging.

Q: Given the financial state Slough Borough Council finds itself in, what assurances can you give Slough Town fans that Arbour Park will not be sold off by the Commissioners to help balance the books?

Rob “The Commissioners have been sent in to have oversight of the running and Governance of the Council to make sure that we are making sound, evidence based decisions in our efforts to get the Council back on a firm financial footing. They will only intervene if they believe we are not acting correctly. So far the relationship has worked well.

“What we have to do as a council is test all of our operations against Best Value to ensure that we can live within our means in future. All of our assets, including Arbour Park will be appraised as to their cost versus their actual and potential income alongside the aims of the Council.”

Q: If not sold off, what reassurances can be given that the club will not face a debilitating increase in rent?

Rob “As above we will have to assure ourselves and the commissioners that we are getting the Best Value out of all our assets. That isn’t just maximising the short-term financial return, it’s making sure that the asset is contributing to the long-term outcomes the council wants to see.”

Q: Given the council’s ongoing predicament, is there an opportunity for the club to take over the running of Arbour Park?

Rob “We can and will look at all possible options. One of the things we have to do not only with Arbour Park is to find new ways of the council enabling certain services rather than being the direct provider, either through the voluntary sector, trusts, volunteers or others. Our current relationship with the club fits into that mould perfectly so hopefully we can expand and improve on that.”

Q: It takes a lot of time for volunteers to make Arbour Park ready on match days. Could there be more leeway given to the club in terms of having memorabilia inside and around the ground given our contribution to the running of the facility? And Clubshop Sue asked why can't she have her own portacabin in the ground!?

Rob: “That’s certainly something that can be looked at if we can agree a new operating model in the future.”

Q: What are the main revenue streams for Arbour Park outside of Slough Town match days and how do they compare in terms of their contribution to overall revenue?

Rob: “I don’t have the numbers on that level of detail and given what we need to try and achieve would probably be commercially confidential now! What I can say is that I think everyone knows what a good job the club have done with the bar and catering. If we can expand and extend that to the rest of the operation then the benefits to the club AND the Council could be significant.”

Q: What were the annual operating costs of Arbour Park for the last financial year?

Rob: “Again same as above. What we do know though is that the club went through so many years of uncertainty when homeless. When I first met with (former chairman) Steve Easterbrook we talked of creating a permanent home that was safe from either some future owner wanting to cash in on the land, or the Council changing its priorities. The plan was to get the place built, get the club up the leagues and on a sound footing and then see what model we could create to protect it for future generations. Unfortunately by the time it was opened I was not in charge of the council anymore. But I still believe that there is a future model that will suit both the Club and the Council and get a better return for both while giving the club long-term stability. That is what I will be looking for in the coming years as we work through all of this.”

So watch this space.

It takes a monumental volunteer effort to organise match-days. With the close season upon us, the club has some time to breathe. After years of being homeless, Arbour Park has given us the stability we needed to power up the leagues and rebuild our club. In an ideal world just think of what we could do with an events co-ordinator and a community development worker to make the most out of Arbour Park. Burnham have been hoovering up East Berkshire Football League games and even the Slough Town Cup which was traditionally played at Slough. I’m not privy to conversations between the club and the council, but I would be using this opportunity to work with them and the commissioners to make sure the ground is working not just for the Rebels but for the wider community.

Now seems the perfect moment, to take the leap and stamp the Slough Town badge more fully on Arbour Park.

MORE TRAIN STATIONS THAN FANS

Printed in the National League South game v Hemel Hempstead Town Bank Holiday Monday 18^th April 2022  We won 2-0 in front of 744

I will always remember the look on the faces of Wrexham supporters as their coaches trundled along the cobbled streets of Lewes to watch their team. But this wasn’t an FA Cup jolly but a league match. Welcome to the hell of the National League, where former league clubs spend an eternity trying to escape.

As Slough fans weaved through the passageways of Dorking to their Meadowbank ground, I wondered if Wrexham fans would have that same feeling again next season, coming to this sleepy Surrey town with panoramic views.

Dorking have powered up the leagues thanks to one man, but just like Lewes how far can you take a market town up the football pyramid? (If you’ve got wind assisted pockets, quite a way looking at Forest Green Rovers). With their deep pockets and never ending conveyor belt of players, they demolished Slough in the wind, snow and sun as we tried not to take off like a beach kite holding on for dear life to the biggest Slough flag ever made.

Lewes had no money for the National League and there were rumours that the sacking of manager Steve King at the end of their promotion season was because the board didn’t actually want promotion. They were beaten nearly every week and it knocked the club for six and took them years to recover.

I was contemplating all this as I wandered the mean streets of East Worthing.

With Slough pretty safe and my bank balance depleted, I thought I would jump on the Shoreham play-off push band wagon.

Worthing will be joining Slough next season in the league, but the place has as many train stations as Dorking with the added bonus of three senior football teams. I was here to see the one of the outskirts - Worthing United (The other is Worthing Town since you ask). People might have heard of the club for the tragic deaths of two of their players, killed on their way to a game in the Shoreham airshow disaster. As you can imagine, the loss of their players was deeply felt but the club have done them proud, with the Matthew Grimstone and Jacob Schilt stand, photos in their small clubhouse and a memorial garden. When Worthing United did eventually begin playing again, a crowd of 1,000 came along to show their respects. As one official pointed out “the biggest game in the clubs history, sadly for the wrong reasons.”

It was slightly smaller today with just 89 coming along, with a healthy smattering of away fans. With a lot of injuries their youngsters frustrated a much more experienced Shoreham who never troubled the 18 year goalkeeper in the first half. A goalkeeper who was playing for Shoreham Under 18s the week before!

Despite the megastores and giant carparks behind the ground it’s another picturesque Sussex football club. There’s a stand that straddles most of one side and cleverly combines terracing with seating and has Constable-esque vistas of the South Downs. There was a women feeding her horses, sheep in the background, gorse in flower and daisy's growing on the hard pitch for their last home game of the season.

But this was no A259 classic. One Shoreham supporter had finally given up his Brighton season ticket enjoying non league football more. The final straw being the Dear Customer email as he failed to renew. But he couldn’t help feel he’d made the wrong decision giving up an away ticket to the Arsenal for this; as his son who had decided to go let him know: they were beating the team whose fans annually win most entitled of the year. ‘We should be beating teams like Brighton’ I think is the derogatory catch phrase.

You know a games poor when its highlights include a Shoreham spectator being sent off and the chairman getting soaked by his own pint. Still, the Shoreham forward who took out the beer, eventually scored the clubs 100 goal of the season that helped them pick up 3 vital points. I think play-offs at every level is a great idea to keep interest going but one of those in the Southern Combination Division One play off places is Dorking Reserves who can’t get promoted. So why not pick a team below them to play instead? Er, no the FA ruled this week that whoever draws them in the play offs will get a bye! Which is hardly fair play.

Worthing is a funny old place. What happened in Hove, is happening here. Slowly occupied by people who can’t afford to live in Brighton with the council make up changing from staunch blue to red and green; there’s numerous micropubs replacing the more traditional boozers that are becoming as rare as a Worthing bus on a Saturday.

As I tried to catch a bus, a broken shelter with no information summed up the public transport system in this country. The government promised millions to sort this out, but unsurprisingly it’s another promise that has failed to materialise. Sussex will be on the forefront of climate change - a small sea level rise will put paid to much of the seafront infrastructure, so governments need to get their finger out and invest now if we want to encourage people to get out their cars. Otherwise like me, they will be running down the road to catch the East Worthing train back to Brighton with the sound of two Worthing United youngsters complaints ringing in my ears ‘I can’t believe we lost to a team like Shoreham.’   

DOWN THE SWANNY

Printed in the National League South game v Eastbourne Borough Saturday Saturday 9th April 2022  We drew 2-2 in front of 551.

As football club statements go, it was as bizarre as the ‘Freddie Star ate my hamster’ headline. The chairman of Staines Town who has long been in dispute with the owners of the football clubs ground said they would no longer play at Wheatsheaf Park. He said the owners investment firm Downing LLP had breached Russian sanctions and the Modern Slavery Act. Infact he accused the company of financing, ‘environmental crimes, price fixing, deforestation, forced evictions, human rights abuse, child labour, slavery, gender discrimination and murder.’ You know, the sort of qualifications the Premier League would welcome with open arms.

Downing deny all the allegations while the Isthmian League held emergency meetings to see how they could help sort out this mess.

But its been a mess a long-time coming.

Just 10 miles and a river separate Slough and Staines and we’ve been battling it out for 100 years footballing wise and the butt of jokes. Ali G leading the Staines Massive while Slough historically had a poet who wanted us bombed followed by The Office. Officials came up with a cunning plan to portray the town in a better light and rebranded it Staines upon Thames; i'm not sure that they really thought that though properly.

When he took over Staines, Chairman Jo Dixon announced plans for the football league. Instead the Swans look like they are sinking to county level football. His attempt to buy the ground failed. And as James Cave from Against League 3 put it “In reacting in this overly dramatic way, Dixon has almost certainly killed Staines. To fail to finish the season likely means to be ejected from the league. I’m not sure what the lease situation is but fat chance of renewing that again. Dixon inherited a team pushing for promotion once more to the Conference South. Currently, the team is a shadow of what it was, regularly failing to attract a hundred at home. Maybe it’s Dixon’s fault, maybe it’s Downing LLP’s, maybe both. But it’s the supporters, as always, who are left behind again.”

We’ve played each other 67 times but have recently kept passing each other with our combined rise and falls. In our last competitive game we lost 2-0 in 2007 in the league in front of just 178 people when we were slumming it at Windsor. That was our season of hell, homeless and finishing bottom of the Isthmian Premier with just 18 points and conceding 123 goals! I’ve seen us win the League Cup at Staines ground and at one game at Wexham Park the Swans fans serenaded me with ‘Red and yellow and pink and blue, I can see a rainbow’ – a clever dig at my multicolour hair at the time. We know just what a disaster it can be to lose your football ground. It took us 15 years to get back to Slough after we lost ours to an owner who cared little for the Rebels.

I can say from first hand experience that is not easy to run community projects. And football clubs are even harder with supporters demanding never ending success with top clubs splashing ever ludicrous amounts of cash to do so, with its detrimental effect across the football pyramid. Tracey Crouch’s planned governance reforms can’t come soon enough - although already the top clubs are mobilising to water it down.

Governance is such a boring subject but its essential. Not the type of governance that stifles innovation – but that stops property vultures making rich pickings from community assets.

Down in Brighton, a storm kicked off about a bloke who said all the right things about a pub he bought on a whim. Like you do. He announced he would turn it into a place for Ukrainian refugees but wanted others to raise the money to make it happen. A worthy cause but people rightly challenged his plans asking that if they were putting in money they would want a say in the assets, rather than him making a tidy profit. So he got builders to start ripping down the locally listed green tiles, it seems in an act of spite. The council stopped them but not before a lot of damage had been done.

Lots of developers buy pubs, run them down then fling their hands in the air and say look they are unviable. When I hear this all I can think of is ‘what if this was a football club.’

Your team are rubbish, they are losing every week and are bottom of the league. Worse your drowning in debt. Close them down I hear you sing, they’ve become unviable. Or how about this: change the management, players and run it a bit better. They start winning games, more people come and watch them and hey presto, look they are viable again.

There are countless examples of developers not getting there way and pulling out the matches or sending in the bulldozers. So hats off to Westminster Councils approach to the company that knocked down the Carlton Tavern. After being denied planning permission to convert it into 10 flats, and two days before Historic England was due to recommend the pub be granted Grade-II listed status, the owners ordered its demolition. Fast forward six years and after an unprecedented court order the developers were made to rebuild it brick by brick.

James Watson, the pub protection adviser for the Campaign for Pubs, advised the Carlton campaign. “I never imagined that I would see a planning inspector order a developer to put back what he’d just knocked down, to look exactly as it was. I thought the developer would get a slap on the wrist, a £6,000 fine. But I was flabbergasted – and it has set an incredibly useful precedent. Other planning inspectors will remember it, and so will developers.”

With public services cut to the bone, prices skyrocketing and a loneliness epidemic exasperated by covid, places where people can meet are more important than ever. I’m involved in one of those. The Bevy is the only community owned pub on a housing estate in the UK. It seems impossible to make a profit but it’s so much more than just a pub. A community centre that delivers everything from meals on wheels for vulnerable people, training for people with learning disabilities, art clubs, lunch clubs, job clubs, free children’s parties  - we even grow our own food. You name it we serve it up. It’s social value means it is something worth investing in but something that is unviable if you just measure life in pounds, shillings and pence.

It’s time property vultures were given last orders and our community assets were protected for everyone, be that football clubs or pubs, community centres and village halls. In the meantime its supporters of clubs like Staines Town who find themselves collateral damage. And no doubt it will be these same fans that eventually get the club out of the mess they now find themselves in.