Now That’s What I Call a Crisis!

When it comes to reporting sport the media do love their hyperbole. No win is too trivial to be labelled a heroic triumph over adversity, no setback too small to be called a crisis. So we have seen with Chelsea, a club who have apparently been lurching from one crisis to the next. Champions of Europe last season, their failure to qualify for the knock-out stages this season is a crisis. The sacking of popular manager Roberto de Matteo, who led Chelsea to their European win, was a crisis. The appointment of interim manager Rafa Benitez having proved unpopular with the fans is a crisis. Reports of a bust-up between Benitez and Chelsea defender John Terry have been labelled a crisis. With Chelsea fourth in the Premier League at the time of writing, no chance of winning the title and the possibility that they may not qualify for the Champions League next season, another crisis is upon them.

In reality these events are minor setbacks, bumps in the road that will be mere footnotes in the club’s history in years to come. Up and down the country there are dozens, or more likely hundreds of football clubs for whom Chelsea’s crises would be welcome diversions from the mundane, day to day task of fighting to remain in existence. Many of these clubs are unregarded by the majority of football followers and the press, for many of whom football below Championship level is rarely considered.

Two stories have come to light that illustrate the trials and tribulations faced by non-League clubs as they continue to struggle and struggle to continue.

Firstly, as reported in The Non-League Paper recently and on the BBC website, Deal Town of the Kent Hurlimann League are facing a potential five figure bill to replace their kit and re-brand the club. The club’s badge comprises a Roman centurion, a Royal Marine and Deal and Walmer castles. This emblem was awarded to Deal Borough Council in 1968 but local government re-organisation that took place in 1974 removed the right for the emblem to be displayed and now both the local council and the football club have been told to stop using it. The football club reckon that replacing their kit, merchandise and all other items using the badge will cost many thousands of pounds, costs that they can ill afford. Meanwhile the local council face having to change all of their stationery and signage; I love the statement made by Deal mayor Marlene Burnham, who told the BBC that this was an example of "heraldry gone mad".

While it’s quite understandable that clubs and organisations should protect their logos and badges, after all from the point of view of clubs like Manchester United and Real Madrid there are huge amounts of money involved, I can’t see for the life of me how Deal Town using a badge that is now obsolete harms anyone, financially or otherwise. I hope that common sense prevails and that the football club (and indeed the council) are given a period of grace in which to make the necessary changes and minimise the cost involved. Meanwhile, someone down at Deal Town needs to design a new badge.

This story makes you wonder how many other clubs up and down the country may unwittingly be in a similar situation. Lurking somewhere in the Court of Chivalry, deep in the dusty archives there probably sits a clerk, hopefully  with some Dickensian name like Speckle, scrutinising each football club badge and determining the club’s right to use it.

Secondly and more seriously, the very existence of one football club is under threat, ironically from a company who have sponsored both the Premier League and until recently, the Football League Cup. Alton Town are members of the Wessex League and play their home games at the Bass Sports Ground. The club, who are nicknamed The Brewers, were originally know as Courage & Co and subsequently went under the names Bass (Alton) and Bass Alton Town before dropping the Bass prefix in 1992.

The brewers Molson Coors, who now own the Bass Sports Ground have called time and told the club and the several youth teams that share the site that they must leave at the end of the season.  The site is supposedly protected by a covenant made in 1935 between Courage and the local council protecting the land for sport and recreation. Molson Coors apparently believe that they can circumvent the covenant by funding leisure activities elsewhere, a suitably vague undertaking that probably would come too late to save Alton Town if indeed it comes at all. Previous schemes to redevelop the land for housing or a supermarket have been turned down and it is to be hoped that the company are given short shrift on this too. It is of course bitterly ironic that a company that invested millions in sponsoring the Premier League, The League Cup and the Scottish national side should have such scant regard for a small town football club. This is a company whose net income in 2012 was $1.2 billion and who say, in their company values that their aim is “Treating others as we would like to be treated.” No living up to their ethos here methinks.

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that the beers served in Alton Town’s club house are brewed by Molson Coors; if so the Carling probably has a particularly bitter taste at the moment.

Alton Town have been undertaking a number of initiatives to try and save their club, including an on-line petition which you can sign at http://www.altontownfc.com/saveus.php.

To put events into perspective, Chelsea have been experiencing events that are today’s crisis and tomorrow’s chip wrapper. Two other clubs who are admittedly much smaller but no less important to their officials, supporters and local communities, suffer from real crises that threaten their very existence.

I’ve no axe to grind with Chelsea, but next time you read of a Premier League club in crisis remember Alton Town; now that’s what I call a crisis.

This blog is adapted from the article that appeared under the title “A Raw Deal” in the programme for the Romford v. Thamesmead Town game in Ryman League Division One North on 27^th February 2013