In Support of Wrexham

Although we spent the best part of twenty years playing them in the bottom two divisions, it’s probably fair to say that most Burnley fans, if not all, would always have regarded us as a bigger club.

That said, they have provided Burnley with a few good days out in the past. Graham Lancashire’s golden day at the Racecourse as Jimmy Mullen’s fourth division championship winning team gathered momentum with an astonishing 6-2 win; A wonder strike from a certain Mark McGregor which condemned Gillingham to defeat on the final day of the 1999/2000 season and sent Burnley up.

For the entirety of the nineties, I must confess to looking upon them as a kind of nephew of our club, what with Flynny being manager. A good club, with a pedigree of cup upsets and a reputation for playing decent football and producing good players.

So not a big club, perhaps not even in comparison to ourselves. But a club who do have a place of their own within the game, just as all clubs do. A decent, honest club who have traditionally been well run and punched at a good weight for their size.

The type of club who certainly belong in the football family. Yet unfortunately, this respectable community club, is the latest football club to find their backs against the wall through no fault of their own.

Wimbledon, York, Brighton, Chester – these are all examples of clubs who have been prostituted in the past by unscrupulous owners whose interest in the fabric of the club is motivated only by an astonishing selfishness, greed and a callous, unconscionable desire to make money in whatever way they can.

So step forward Alex Hamilton, the latest owner whose morality extends only as far as his bank balance and business interests. The current owner of Wrexham FC. The man who wants to put them out of business.

That’s right. Despite their being organised football in Wrexham for 132 years, it could all end at one man’s whim. Details of precisely what Mr Hamilton has done whilst involved at Wrexham are available in more detail elsewhere on the site, so I won’t bore you with the chronology of the matter. The top and bottom of it is that, after placing the ground in the name of one of his property companies, he has decided not to bother with tax bills. Yet nor does he seem entirely keen to sell up to potential buyers, and instead appears to prefer the idea of allowing the club to go out of business so that he can redevelop the Racecourse Ground. There’s money to be made there, you see. Fortunately, the High Court have today given Wrexham a stay of execution, but their future still hangs by a thread.

At Burnley, we are bloody lucky. We’ve got a chairman and a board who might not be perfect, but who do at least have the valuable asset of really caring. For as long as Barry Kilby is at the helm, we do not have to worry about the prospect of Burnley becoming the latest addition to the line of clubs who have been used and abused by fly-by-night chairmen.

But this is, really is, a problem which is infesting football on an all too regular basis just now. Wrexham aren’t the first, and they won’t be the last. The question of who will be next is unpalatable, but it is also a sadly realistic reflection on the state of the game.

It’s time the football authorities really got their act together in order to ensure that question becomes obsolete. The moderate adoption of a fit and proper persons test by the Football League this summer was welcome, but it was a fairly superficial measure. More stringent controls upon those who wish to own football clubs is undoubtedly needed.

Fortunately, football itself is gradually evolving its own defence mechanism, through the activism of fans. Football Trusts, buying up blocks of shares, can provide a buffer to ensure that those who really do own the club in all but legal title – the supporters who sustain the club – can ensure that their club takes a proper direction. Perhaps the one bit of good which can come of these tragic, unnecessary situations is that it can highlight the universal need for such organisations to be strong at all clubs, no matter how secure they look. The recent experience of Manchester United, where fans groups helped block the unwelcome attentions of Malcolm Glazer, should trumpet that truth to fans everywhere.

But if Wrexham do go under, that will be scant consolation – certainly not for Wrexham fans, nor for the game itself. As I said at the top, clubs like Wrexham have an important place within the tapestry of English football, and without them the game would be poorer.

You might think that we have no need to get too worried about Wrexham. Nothing to do with Burnley – we don’t even play them these days. But it is. This is about football, the direction clubs take and the good of the game; whatever team we support, we all have the common knowledge of what the football fans experience is all about. And we can, if we put our mind to it, get some idea of the frantic angst and helplessness Wrexham fans must be feeling just now.

This affects all of us; whether we support the weak, the mighty, or Burnley. On Saturday, football fans are encouraged to wear red for Wrexham. Please do it. Show your support for football. Show the level of awareness for the game as a whole which escapes the likes of Alex Hamilton. Remember, it could, one day be us. And that is a haunting thought.