Our Game, Our Clubs E-Book

Paul Goodwin

• Herausgeber: Luath Press
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 656

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

With continuing concern over the financial stability of football clubs, potential fan buyouts are emerging as a saving grace for many clubs. In this captivating narrative, Paul Goodwin, co-founder of the Scottish Football Supporters Association (SFSA), emerges as Scotland's go-to expert on the acquisition and management of football clubs. This book is a treasure trove of riveting stories, invaluable knowledge and keen insights, making it an engaging read for football supporters everywhere. Goodwin delves into the dynamic history of club ownership, drawing parallels from global examples as well as exploring why those in power in Scotland tried to stop this fan movement in its tracks. As Scottish football undergoes a rapid transformation in ownership structures, this book provides a compelling glimpse into its future.

Leseprobe

PAUL GOODWIN is the co-founder of the Scottish Football Supporters Association (est. 2015), an organisation which aims to provide fan representation, support community ownership and lead campaigns and research to improve the state of Scottish football. Since 2010 he has been an authority on developing the concept of football clubs being owned by the community. Paul has featured on BBC Sports, Sky Sports, A View from the Terrace, and in Nutmeg and various other sports publications both in the UK and abroad. In his spare time he is the Manager of Kippen FC, a team that he resurrected after it ceased playing in 2018; he also coaches Balfron High School’s senior football team.

First published 2025

ISBN: 978-1-80425-261-1

The author’s right to be identified as author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted.

Typeset in 11 point Sabon by

Main Point Books, Edinburgh

Images © Paul Goodwin unless otherwise indicated

Text © Paul Goodwin 2025

Contents

The Scottish Football Supporters Association

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Henry McLeish

Introduction

1 Football’s Community Ownership: Our Past is Our Future

2 The History of Club Ownership and Different Ownership Structures

3 Football Governance – Help or Hindrance?

4 Far From These Shores, From Great to Small

5 In England’s Pleasant Land – the White Knights Come Calling

6 In Scotland – Armageddon and All That

7 Learning From Mistakes – Following Out of Love

8 Fans – ‘Who are you?’

9 A Wake-up Call at Westminster and Holyrood – the Long and Winding Road

10 The Governance Conundrum and the European Super League

11 Community Ownership as a Viable Option

12 Community Ownership in Scotland – the Inside Story

13 Buying a Football Club for Your Community

The Community Ownership Tool Kit – Things You Need to Win

Appendix 1: Business Plan

Appendix 2: Launching Your Campaign

Appendix 3: Press Release

Appendix 4: Funding

Appendix 5: What a Fans’ Organisation Needs

Community Ownership Endnotes

References

The Scottish Football Supporters Association

THE SFSA PROVIDES a platform for the ordinary Scottish Football Fan to have a say in the running of the game in Scotland. We are a voluntary organisation funded by donations from fans and other interested parties who believe that it is essential that the interests of the key stakeholders are represented and that football clubs and the football authorities are held accountable to those stakeholders. Our organisation is free to join for fans groups and for individuals who have a common aim of ensuring that Scottish football thrives for future generations to enjoy. Our membership is now over 82,000!

WHAT WE DO: We see our role as being split into four key areas which may expand depending on what our members wish US to do in the future.

1. Fan Representation

We believe that having a strong vibrant fans movement allows US to act as a focal point for any organisation to hear the views of Scottish football supporters, be it the media, the Scottish Government or national and international football authorities. Whilst we accept that fans views differ on a range of topics we do hope that we can bring a consensus opinion on the subjects that matter.

2. Supporting Community Ownership

We believe that our football clubs are best served by having the interests of their community at heart. This means the key stakeholders in the game – the fans – must have their views heard. We believe that the long-term future of our game is best served with football supporters playing an ever increasing role in the management and ownership of their clubs. We have a vast experience of the various models across Europe and we will work with any fans group in Scotland to further the democratic aims and ownership objectives they wish to achieve.

3. Campaigns

Orchestrated campaigns have been sadly lacking in Scotland for many years and the football authorities and many clubs have regularly ignored the will of the paying public when it comes to the implementation of changes in our game. The very fact that there has been no one fans’ organisation to unify the supporters has allowed the football authorities to treat the fans with disdain. It is our intention to campaign as a group on key issues that effect not only how the game is currently run but look to exert pressure to get the authorities to take our views into consideration when they make decisions.

4. Research

We believe that if we want to improve our game we need to constantly evaluate it and research ways it can improve. Who better to provide the answers than the fans of each of our football clubs. The knowledge, commitment and love that we have for the game has so much value and yet is often dismissed by clubs and those in authority at Hampden Park. Already we have proven our worth by consulting in a Parliamentary survey that looked at gathering fans views on community ownership and in the coming months and years we will ensure that all aspects our game are reviewed and analyse.

PARTNERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES: A truly unique partnership opportunity…

SFSA is a not-for-profit members’ organisation that has been created to build long term success for Scottish football by enabling the involvement of thousands of ordinary Scottish football fans in its development. We need strong, committed partners to work with US in delivering the voice of the people – the fans of Scottish Football.

To join SFSA or to enquire about partnership opportunities, please visit https://scottishfsa.org

Acknowledgements

WRITING ANY TYPE of book requires a team of people behind the person who leads the project who all contribute to making the venture a worthwhile exercise. In this case, the project has been several years in the making and much has changed in the football landscape since the first words were filed away back in 2019. Although I am the voice behind the story there are simply dozens of football fans from a multitude of clubs who have helped contribute to my shared experiences. They are the ordinary fans who have successfully done the heavy lifting to ensure that community ownership of football clubs in Scotland has grown to become a successful part of the football business in our country. I cannot list everyone here but I do hope that through the various chapters you will get an appreciation of just how much I value your contribution to changing Scottish football for the better. This really is your book. Thanks must go to my colleagues around the globe in making sure I got the facts right. For Argentina and Uruguay, Andrea Perilli, a Freelance Journalist; in Germany my friends Jacob Rösler and Dr Jochen Lammert; in Sweden, Urban Stoltz, ex Helsingborg IF player; in Turkey Necati Mete and in England former Portsmouth FC Director and fans’ representative Colin Farmery. I also need to thank the notable Scottish Football historian, John Lister who really helped with much of the history and ensuring I got dates and facts correct.

Closer to home there are a few people that I do need to give very specific thanks to, not just for this book but also for having faith in me to help drive the fans‘ agenda forward. My Co-Founder of the Scottish Football Supporters Association (SFSA) is Simon Barrow who has been with me every step of the way since our launch in 2015 and this is a far better book as a result of his insights and his editing skills. I also need to thank our former First Minister, Henry McLeish, who inspired and mentored me when it felt the whole world was against me as I tried to set up a new fans’ organisation. The reward is not just seeing this book in print but seeing the support of the Scottish Government for our Fans Bank, a concept I championed way back in 2015, but also in seeing Dundee University’s School of Business Studies partner with the SFSA in 2024 to further develop research and development in football co-operatives. There is no doubt a consensus that community ownership and the opportunities that it brings can further enhance our game in the future.

Over the years there have been many colleagues who have contributed to the SFSA on our board and as volunteers. This has been a magnificent contribution and is a real testament to the positivity of fan power. I thank you all for having faith in me and not believing the narrative that opponents of fan power have disseminated since I started this journey.

I would also like to thank Gavin MacDougall and his team at Luath Press for their expertise and unwavering belief in this book. It is hugely appreciated. Last but certainly not least I have been fortunate enough to have the support of my wife Lynne, son Gregor and daughter Beth who have given me the opportunity to complete this book and to slip away to better weather in La Cala in Spain on a few occasions to get some writing done whilst they work hard at home.

I hope you enjoy the journey.

Paul G

July, 2025

Foreword

CLUB OWNERSHIP WITHIN Scottish football has become an issue of outstanding importance, especially to those who are increasingly concerned about the commercialisation of the game and the fans who worry about the financial probity and stability of their clubs. This is at a time when financial transactions and ownership issues are often clouded in secrecy and valuable community and historic assets are at risk.

But now in a timely and authoritative book, Paul Goodwin, the driving force behind the Scottish Football Supporters Association, and an expert on club ownership, has produced a guide, to enable fans to have a greater say in how their clubs are run and to promote fan ownership. This is a must read for fans who might want to become club owners!

This is also a statement about the importance of fans in Scottish football and the opening of a new era, when clubs, representing community, culture and history, not just step forward and provide new opportunities to secure this remarkable heritage but offer fans a bigger part in the future of the game.

Scotland has a special place in the history of the game and a distinguished record of fan and community involvement, but fan ownership could take this to a different level. Clubs are community assets. In his new book the author builds on the idea of community and illustrates how real success can be achieved. Filled with interesting stories, knowledge and insights, this book is easily accessible to football fans, and to future football club owners!

Community ownership has been embraced throughout the world, including in Germany, Sweden and South America. Of particular significance, for a game cloaked in secrecy and obfuscation, is the prospect of supporters becoming stakeholders. A real opportunity for the game to be open, transparent, democratic and above all else, sustainable. Paul Goodwin is a pioneer of this new wave of community ownership with the experience and expertise to inspire those who wish to change our club game.

Having built this expertise in community ownership over the past decade, at home and abroad, the author has been involved with many Scottish clubs in their attempts to foster fan involvement. But this has been a challenge. Battling for the interests of fans has met fierce resistance from the football authorities opposed to giving fans and supporters a greater say in their clubs.

This is also a struggle about a clash of cultures between community and commerce. For far too long, fans and local communities have been locked out of the decisions that impact their clubs. This no longer makes any sense, if it ever did! Paul Goodwin’s new book could help change all of this.

Acknowledging this world of accelerating change, the huge expansion of financial and investment interest in the game, the growing concerns of fans and supporters about the loss of cherished ideals and the relentless intrusion of often, ‘secretive’ financial transactions into who controls the game, this book provides an alternative to the way Scottish football clubs are currently owned and controlled.

Henry McLeish

Introduction

A Game Like No Other – The Football Community in Action

THIS BOOK IS about how being a football supporter is far from a passive experience, on and off the field. It is (or can be) about the transition from friendship, community, identity and tribal loyalty to a real interest in how your club is run, how the game as a whole is being managed and what difference you can make as an ordinary fan. In short, it is concerned with how you can be involved in ‘community ownership’ and other ways of shaping the game you and I love. It also looks to explore how the governance of the game needs to adapt to protect our clubs and the communities that they represent, even if that is uncomfortable for many who would prefer the status quo to remain intact.

Football is in the Bloodstream

Let’s start at the beginning. No matter where you travel in the world, there will always be a football connection waiting to be made to smooth your journey along the way. Whether you are on a beach holiday in Spain, safari in South Africa, or are promenading in Blackpool or Fife, you will find that a football blether allows many ordinary folk to communicate more easily. Football is a conversation starter which opens a door, enabling people to get to know one another incredibly quickly. This is because it’s much more than a game. To those of US caught in its spell, it’s an emotional aspect of your life that you can’t hide. Football really does have the power to unite. It has more global followers than all the religions of the world combined. Through the beautiful game, complete strangers can become friends – and friendly rivals.

The fact that football is loved and revered worldwide means that you will rarely be more than ten feet away from another fan in any public space, no matter what you are doing or where you are visiting. With an estimated global audience of 3.5 billion viewers at the World Cup, as a football supporter you will have a lot in common with very many people on this planet through this unique love. What is guaranteed is that no matter where you are there will be someone in your orbit who cares about the game just as much as you do. So, not only is football a kick-starter for getting acquainted quickly, it is also a uniquely fast means for gleaning all kinds of information from your soon-to-be best pal!

Spotting a fellow fan is now easier than ever, with the football shirt a fashion item just as popular as body artwork. It allows other people a ready way to identify where you are from (unless it is one of those clubs with a significant worldwide reach) and it shows a deep love for the football tribe you belong to. In Scotland we know, of course, that even wearing a Celtic or Rangers shirt it is just as likely that these fans are from Falkirk, Dundee, Peterhead or somewhere even more far-flung, given the way that our supporter bases have evolved over the years.

The dominance of the big two clubs from Glasgow over many years has had, and continues to have, an identification not just with winning, but also with being part of a particular religious, political or cultural group. That can be the challenging side of the game. But, as we shall see, even negative energy can be turned into something much more positive.

In many other countries too, fans decide to follow big teams that win all the time, and which constitute exciting, glamorous brands. Seeing lads and lassies wearing Manchester City, Liverpool or Chelsea kits (among the most popular), can of course be deceptive. These clubs aspire to be global signifiers in their own right, often dissociated from a tangible experience of their community of origin. A new worldwide fanbase has been birthed through massive television and online audiences across all the continents of the globe. Indeed, it is now more than likely that English Premiership fans might be from Baltimore, Sydney, Accra or Tokyo, rather than from around the corner! That is the very reason why billionaires, Arab states and dubious business owners aspire to football club ownership – it is all about the brand and the audience it can attract. The power and reach of football can offer them something that no other business acquisition ever can.

From Local Roots to Larger Horizons

Before the game sold much of its soul to broadcasting, Chelsea fans were from London and Liverpool fans were from Merseyside. Now, as a supporter, it’s not that easy to recognise the visible local signs of community, and you would have to work so much harder to make a real connection in that sense. If anything, this book is about renewing those links. It is about how supporters and communities can regain control of a game that they helped bring into being, so that the huge market of football can serve the people who make football what it is, rather than the other way around.

But what about me? Where am I coming from in writing about this extraordinary game and how do I see fans getting involved in reshaping it towards a better future? When someone hears my Glaswegian accent on a foreign trip, or even on a simple cross-border train journey, curious fellow supporters often ask what is for them the most obvious question. Are you a Celtic or Rangers supporter? With such limited exposure to the ins and outs of Scottish football, it is a reasonable starting point given the huge followings these clubs have. By some estimates, indeed, over half of those who support a team in Scotland back one of the Glasgow giants.

Just for the record, the answer I usually give varies according to the audience. The polite version veers towards the mantra adopted by my team, Partick Thistle. We are the great Glasgow alternative to the Old Firm. Of course, my own description makes Partick Thistle sound so much more bohemian and interesting than they really are. The important thing for me is that the Jags are part of my family. It’s great to know that out there in the big wide world there are people who actually do know a little about my football club, even if it’s just their rather exotic name. It is generally a knowledge limited by the level of exposure they have to the Scottish game. But just as I know that the Spireites are Chesterfield FC who play in blue and white stripes, there will be a collective knowledge out there that Thistle are the Jags, play in red and yellow, are the ‘wee team’ in Glasgow or more recently were trying to make supporter ownership way more complicated than it needed to be. A small piece of football knowledge becomes the starting point for passing time with a new acquaintance, or even finding a friend for life.

What we always discover through these encounters is that, as football supporters, there is ultimately far more that unites us than can ever divide us. Only the colour of our scarves makes us different on a match day. This is something that many outwith the game fail to understand, and which forms the basis for this book. Yes, we all support different teams, but in coming together as fans who love the game as a whole, we can find a common basis for re-asserting that the beautiful game really does belong to us, and that having true supporters and grassroots neighbourhoods involved in running our clubs is vital for its future flourishing, alongside the globalised, media-driven interest that the digital age offers.

So, the starting point on the long journey towards finding out how supporters can win with community ownership is recognising that the unique football tribe we belong to is central to our being, but also knit into a larger fabric (from the league we are in, right up to the overall national governing body). The beginning and end of the journey is always the team, though. This is the DNA that has been woven into the social environment which we have inherited from our family. Many esteemed anthropologists have explored the benefits and difficulties of fan culture and the importance to us of being part of a wider collective. That remains fundamental in all that follows.

A New Energy for Community Ownership

We all know how a crowd can generate massive energy in the peak moments of a sporting event, driving the athletes or teams we have an emotional investment in to even greater achievement. What we now know is that the collective force which can motivate on-field performance, taking it to a new level, can also have a huge role in involving us in nurturing and shaping the destiny of the club in the widest sense. That means everything that happens off the pitch, as well as on it. The purpose of this book is to give the reader as much background knowledge on how community ownership in football has emerged, what it means, how it is changing the landscape of football forever and why that seismic change can only be good for the health of the game we love. Indeed, it is essential to its flourishing and provides the perfect antidote to the globalisation of the game.

In the chapters that follow, my aim is to take you on a journey. First, we will delve deeper into the unique world of the football community, exploring how the bonds that have been created through sporting experience and love of the game have become an energy that is changing the landscape for future generations. Through a bizarre range of circumstances, I have been involved in many of the purchases, or attempted purchases, by fans across Scotland. I have also been asked to speak about and share those experiences in Ireland, Turkey, Germany, Belgium, Spain and many other places – and of course at more than a few clubs too.

Strange though it may seem, involvement with community ownership has led to me being literally chased around a Premiership boardroom table by an irate club director, working closely with political parties and community organisations as they pushed for the rights of fans to buy clubs, having my identity stolen twice, presenting papers to the Scottish Government, cofounding what you could call a ‘fans’ union’ (the Scottish Football Supporters Association – SFSA), and being told by some senior figures in the governing authorities of the Scottish game that they did not want to have anything to do with me and that they would freeze me out the game because ‘clubs are against community ownership’.

It has not been a dull journey for me, and I guarantee that it won’t be for you either! But I am convinced that we will get there – that fan and community ownership and serious stakeholding will become an essential part of the future of football, enabling it to survive and thrive in ways which would otherwise not be possible. As a Jags fan, I remain, as you can probably tell, an eternal optimist – but one grounded in the hard experience of a battle that has now just come to an end, where three years after we were promised the club, we the fans are now in the driving seat to make that transition finally happen. Somehow it seems appropriate that what I anticipated to be the easiest of clubs to convert to community ownership became the most trying and professionally challenging for me. But more about that later.

My overall hope is that getting some of my own experiences and observations down on paper will not just entertain those who have been on the journey to community ownership, or who have witnessed at least part of it, but may also offer some useful insight for supporters interested in changing the dynamic at the club they love – wherever they live. This is part of a continuing conversation and learning experience. Every situation is different, and there is no single blueprint for success. But there are plenty of guidelines to draw on. You will see that throughout the book I do jump between Scotland and England a fair bit as the football history between the nations has always been closely linked. Of course, we have to recognise that now the gap between the nations grows with every passing day and that spells a new dimension to what the future will hold for clubs on either side of the border. It is not often that Scotland can claim to lead our football friends south of the border but when it comes to community ownership we can certainly justify that claim both in the size and scale of the clubs that have successfully adopted the model here in Caledonia.

I hope you enjoy reading this book and if you have questions or suggestions, do feel free to get in touch.

Paul Goodwin, July 2025

[email protected]

CHAPTER 1

Football’s Community Ownership: Our Past is Our Future

You can have the greatest players in the world playing in the finest stadium but without the fans it means nothing—Jock Stein

In the Beginning Is… The Imagination

FOR MOST SUPPORTERS of football clubs there is an almost photographic album of memories that they carry with them throughout their lives. Stored away in the brain’s memory banks is a potted history of the club he or she supports, its origins, the date of its formation and other key sepia-tinged historical necessities. These are all essential components of being a real supporter of your club. Such primal images are supplemented by key moments in the history of the club – the early mergers or name changes, the changes in club colours (how dare they!), the early grounds and other significant events. There will be that special time in a given year when European nights under floodlights were special, when a unique derby victory was achieved, when a climb up the divisions to unexpected heights took place, or when a cup triumph was secured against all odds. As Alexander Hope once said, ‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast’.

The football gods have ensured that, no matter the size of your club, there will always be something that gives you hope for the forthcoming season. There will of course be a possibility that history can repeat itself, or at the very least that things will be better for you than the season recently ended. All these memories will be logged and noted somewhere, with the appropriate sounds, images and sensations that accompany them. If you are old enough to be from my generation, the smell of pipe smoke, stale beer and strong Bovril being stewed in industrial-sized urns is still within memory reach. More often than not, such collective memories are shared or learned from days gone by, being passed from generation to generation through word of mouth, preserved in a football eternity. These days that special history can be accompanied by a multitude of photos, blogs, vlogs and YouTube clips, immortalising various great moments in your club’s history. I recently had the pleasure of being involved in the preservation of some of these beautiful football vignettes with the production of Back o the Net which was published in December 2023. If you love football you will enjoy this read: https://luath.co.uk/products/back-o-the-net?_pos=1&_psq=back&_ss=e&_v=1.0

From Player Power to Committee Power

It would be unusual to find many football fans who have logged away with equal enthusiasm the memory of who has owned the club they love at key times in its history. Yet the ownership of our clubs has had, and continues to have, a major (often determining) say in how our other memories have been shaped, and how they will be shaped in the future.

One theme which we will return to many times in this book is the reality that most supporters tend only to be interested in what happens on the park from 3pm on a Saturday, or whatever time and day the television schedules now dictate. However, deep down most supporters now understand and accept that the health and well-being of their club is driven not just from the terraces, but as much or more by the action or inaction of those who inhabit the boardroom. It has only really been over the past 20 or 30 years that fans have felt the need to get to understand how the board at their club works or in many cases has failed to work. But the separation of those who play the game and those who administer it was not always so, just as the gap between players and spectators has not always been the unbridgeable chasm that we now see at the top of the football pyramid.

In their earliest days, football clubs emerged as small local entities created and run by the players of the beautiful game themselves. They were, in effect, small membership organisations, often with their origins in another larger sporting organisation (many were an athletic or cricket club that expanded), or else something that purposely sprang from the wider local community or the heavy industries of our towns and cities. More often than not it was just an escape from the toil and physical strains of that bleak workplace that created the platform for a club to start up. Football historians document clubs such as Woolwich Arsenal, or our own Third Lanark, emerging from the military ranks, just as the five original clubs in the Burgh of Partick emanated from the shipyards of the west side of the River Clyde. In essence, they were works teams, no different from giants in Germany that survive to this day in the form of Bayer Leverkusen and VW Wolfsburg. Most of the 19th-century clubs that emerged on these islands have a similar story of a working man’s game developing from the heavy industries that surrounded each particular local landscape.

As clubs came and went and competed locally to be kings of their own domain, players soon realised that playing and running a football club was much more of a challenge than they had expected. This was particularly so following the transition from playing friendlies and the occasional cup competition, to having a national league fixture to fulfil. In the late 1800s, it was common for people in manufacturing to work nearly 100 hours per week: between ten and 16-hour shifts over six-day working weeks. With such a demanding work schedule and very little leisure time, the more successful clubs quickly started to allow people other than players to get involved in their organisation. Frequently, committees were formed, headed by a key player (usually a club captain, or an original founding player) to make sure everything was going in the right direction. In modern times, the role of club captain is about leadership on the park; in the early days of the game this was a far more significant role with the captain being one of the most important people at the football club, driving it off the park as well as on it. It was so much more than the symbolism of an armband and that early history is key to understanding just what an important leadership role the captaincy was in those early days.

Within a generation of lift-off, football’s governing bodies were formed and the structures of clubs simplified to adapt to the new football landscape that was developing. Imagine the idea that the Football Association and the newly formed leagues were run by ordinary folk, dare we say, fans of the clubs! Committees remained in place, but the era of player power diminished to the extent that, within a few decades, future generations of players were virtual serfs to the club system as professionalism swept all before it. This dynamic stayed in place until Jimmy Hill (the former player, referee, coach, manager, players’ union representative and TV pundit) inspired a revolution that started a process of re-asserting player recognition and far better financial rewards by ending the ‘pay cap’ for players. It is hard to believe that it took until the early 1960s for this to happen.

The new situation was one where players started to negotiate in an open market. This was just the beginning of a sequence of events that eventually led to the Bosman ruling in 1995. Driven by the European Union’s commitment to freedom of movement, it resulted in seismic change across the football landscape. The reality was the situation arose through the bumblings of the French and Belgian football authorities, who ignored EU rules on freedom of movement in sticking with their archaic rule books. Before the Bosman ruling, a player could not leave at the end of their deal unless the club agreed to let him go on a free transfer, or received an agreed fee from the purchasing club. The joke in Scotland was that, in their heyday, Jim McLean at Dundee United had all his young, talented players on ten-year contracts with sweeties as an incentive, and the odd good behaviour bonus thrown in for good measure. Thanks to the efforts of a journeyman professional from Belgium, Jan Luc Bosman changed all that forever. The football landscape was transformed even in less wealthy countries like Scotland, where players now had control of their own destiny. At the top of the game, it opened the door to untold wealth and riches as it coincided with the significant growth in television revenues.

If we fast forward to the present day, there is much debate about Bosman eventually fuelling the wage bonanza that the superstars enjoy at the top of the game – which can create inflation and financial pressure for everyone else, as well as a crazy economic system at the top and the unbelievable earnings of football agents who syphon money out of the game. There is no doubt that freedom of movement has benefited players, of course. The better the player, the easier it is to add a zero or two onto the value of his contract. However, down the football food chain, this means clubs on the breadline can offer a one-year contract which is hardly helpful for a young professional with a partner, kids and a mortgage to pay.

Overall, the influx of money from the globalisation of television and digital interests has allowed the transfer market to expand to a level that looks completely unsustainable. Fair Play rules are wholly inadequate to deal with this situation. Will there ever be a level playing field? Will there ever be meaningful sanctions on clubs for breaking these rules? Think Rangers in Scotland who paid the ultimate price or the recent Manchester City and Everton charges. The opportunities for wealth creation through football have led to a chasm the size of the San Andreas Faultline between the elite clubs and leagues of world football and everyone else. Ordinary supporters have been side-lined. The European Super League saga is just the first of what is likely to be a concerted campaign by billionaire owners to further restructure the game in the interests of their wallets and sizeable egos. Post COVID-19 some sort of financial realignment is inevitable. But how and on whose terms? Can fan power assert itself positively, as it did in resistance to the so-called Super League concept in April 2021?

How do we build an alternative football economy which gives priority to fans, communities and the whole ecology of local football clubs – not just the branded corporations?

The Arrival of the Men in Suits

If we think back to the earlier era I have described above, it is amazing that the game developed as well as it did. It is hard to appreciate now that senior clubs like Queen’s Park, Partick Thistle and Rangers were competing in the FA Cup in England in an era where transport and technology were at their most basic. It is difficult to imagine how tough it must have been to get these cross-border fixtures to happen, never mind competing across the rest of Scotland. Now every amateur and professional team has its own WhatsApp group, website, Instagram, Facebook page and Twitter (X) feed for communication. Every member of the squad or committee can know much of what is going on in minutes. Late call-offs, player availability, changes to transport and postponements are all much easier to manage with that wonderful device, the mobile phone.

Back in the day, as membership of clubs grew, so did the importance of not just of helping the team on the park but also of building the football community and in the process forging the unique identity of a club. By the late 1880s, many clubs had memberships of several hundred and one of the first to organise itself was a club set up by a Scot from Perth who was instrumental in establishing the Football League in England. The Football League in England, the oldest league in the world, was founded by Aston Villa Football Club at the suggestion of Club Director William McGregor. His initiative was driven by the search for regular competitive football. After discussions with other club directors (of whom very few were initially interested) and after rejections from London area clubs, possibly under the influence of the Football Association, the Football League finally came into being in 1888. It had just 12 founder members.

McGregor not only takes credit for establishing the first league, but he was also the architect of the epoch-making restructuring at his own club. He developed what was to become the forerunner of the Football Board. He created a structure which allowed nine men (yes, men only!) elected by the clubs – 382 ordinary members altogether – to form the very first board. These elected members, or ‘fans’ as we can also call them, ran all aspects of the club. Similar structures emerged throughout the country. They were the earliest and purest form of community ownership, providing the foundations of governance for all the original clubs. Keeping members (supporters) happy was key to the success of any club, and McGregor proved to be just the man for that job.

Within the first 30 years after football’s organised introduction, a pattern emerged across the country. This saw clubs merge and solidify their fan bases, as the popularity of the game continued to grow and competitive football took hold. Those who failed to keep pace or adapt quickly enough folded and became no more than a footnote in football history. The need and desire not only to be the best in the parish, but the best in the city (and of course the country), came with the introduction of league tables and knock-out cup competitions. The professional game as we know it started to emerge as competition on the park intensified. It was inevitable that the clubs with larger memberships would press ahead looking for dominance.

The first challenge for fledgling clubs was to find a ground they could call their own. This took decades for some to achieve. My own club, Partick Thistle, had four grounds around the Partick Burgh area before they eventually settled at Firhill in the northwest of the city in 1909. Others were more fortunate and found a special place they would call home pretty quickly, which allowed them to focus on the park without the constant searching for a home. The challenge all clubs faced was that to fund the purchase of a ground and then build facilities was not just time-consuming, but also very expensive. This was at a time when working men lived, at best, week-to-week and usually had a large family to support. Emerging clubs knew they had to raise money to finance these essential developments, and the natural way to do this was through offering members the opportunity to buy shares.

This was the first major breakaway from the original members’ community ownership model which all our early clubs had developed. It is hard to imagine that it would be over 130 years before things would turn full circle, with some of our iconic football clubs moving back towards the earlier model of popular wider ownership. Over the next few chapters, we will explore the reasons why clubs have been listed on the stock market and why community ownership has made a comeback. But, in embarking on that journey, it is crucial to remember that this was the original state of affairs. It is not something ‘new’ or ‘unusual’, as opponents (overt and covert) of fans’ power like to say. It is the natural and founding dynamic of the People’s Game.

Original Community Ownership in Scotland

In 1883 the Scottish Football Association (SFA) had its first review. It was noted that it had 133 live members registered. As such, it was the first record of community ownership of football clubs in Scotland. The situation then was: Aberdeen FC (30 members), Albion Rovers FC (30), Airdrieonians FC (100), Arbroath FC (50), Dumbarton FC (261), Dunfermline Athletic FC (220), East Stirlingshire FC (175), Falkirk FC (115), Hamilton Academicals FC (100), Heart of Midlothian FC (220), Hibernian FC (200), Kilmarnock FC (100), Morton FC (90), Partick Thistle FC (80), Queen’s Park FC (400), Rangers FC (180), Stenhousemuir FC (40) and St Mirren FC (300 members).

Could it be that 20 years from now the SFA will proudly be producing a list of all the clubs that are deemed to be community-owned, alongside the number of owner members each has? That is a future definitely worth working for. What’s more, it is entirely possible and that is not something we would have imagined just ten years ago.

CHAPTER 2

The History of Club Ownership and Different Ownership Structures

Does football work without spectators? If the people can’t come, there is no sense. We will do what we have to do, but I wouldn’t like to do it without the people.—Pep Guardiola talking about playing games behind closed doors during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

The Early Years – Vested in the Community

AS CLUBS GREW, they needed finance and had to generate income, initially to purchase the land on which to create a home ground. Once they had the land, they needed to build dressing rooms and basic facilities for the increasing crowds. Income from the working man coming through the gate (or, more often than not, standing at a rope), was simply not enough to generate the level of investment required to take the club to the next level. It was a competition, not just on the park but off the park, too. The fortunate thing was that the popularity of the game was growing at a significant pace, so there was a solid economic platform to build on.

In the late 1880s, a significant number of Scottish players started to participate in English football as many of the larger English clubs began making payments to players. This had been made legal in England in 1885, and professional footballers were paid decent salaries for the time. This attracted many Scottish players to move down south to ply their trade. Famously, Sunderland won the league title with a team of Scots. Liverpool FC, founded in 1892, had 11 Scots. Preston North End, with its proximity to the border, was known as virtually being a ‘Scotch team’ (sic) in those early days. With bigger catchment areas and fast-growing fanbases, the early Scottish game was struggling to keep pace with the growth of the game south of the border, where better pay and facilities created an early talent drain from the north. That pipeline of football talent flowed continuously until it peaked in the 1970s. It is now down to a mere trickle, where we can probably name every Anglo-Scot plying their trade in the topflight of the game in England.

In Scotland, the game remained (in theory, at least) an amateur one until 1893. It was faced with local challenges for players and supporters and had to change in a way that would create the conditions for building on early successes. The most obvious route to delivering a modern ground, that was fit for purpose, was for the club to generate an income to supplement regular revenue from supporters. This saw the first major change in club structures, when members’ clubs became private limited companies. Those from the higher social classes could afford to buy shares and they dominated the share lists of most clubs. Some of the ‘ordinary folk’ did join together to buy those early shares. This was the first and probably only time that many of their members would have been involved in such a grand business practice. In reality, by accepting the cash, clubs were turning their back on allowing members to have a say about how they were run. The wealthier professional classes gained the position, power and influence that such cash investment could afford them. The working person’s influence and involvement in club ownership had peaked. Now he (and it was ‘he’) had to be content to confine his opinions to the side of the park on a Saturday afternoon.

This major development occurred across Scotland. The experiences of both Rangers and Celtic were fairly typical of the time and are worth referencing. Rangers formally became a limited company on 27 May 1899. The then match secretary, William Wilton, was also appointed the club’s first manager. This enabled Ibrox Stadium to be constructed that same year. The club also appointed its first board of directors under the chairmanship of James Henderson. When you consider the club was only formed in 1872, this was quite speedy progress. The fact that they had played at two other grounds before finding the resources to buy and build at Ibrox was fairly typical of most clubs in this era. Finding a home was not an easy task, particularly for city clubs where land was always at a premium.

The origins of Celtic are rather different. It was established by Brother Walfrid, a Maris Brother (religious order) in 1887. It was a community charity for Irish immigrants. The plan was that the club would be based on the Hibernian FC model of community ownership. Such was the ‘social enterprise’ of the day, long before such terminology became fashionable. However, with the dawn of professionalism fast approaching, the club became a private limited company in 1897, and Willie Maley was appointed as the first ‘secretary-manager’. He thus began what turned out to be a long, successful association with the club. Many other clubs were to follow the private limited company structure, of course, but in the first ten years of operation, the number actually decreased from 133 to just 19, as clubs folded, merged or decided to stay with their original sports affiliation.

A positive feature arising from this initial move towards the corporate world was that there was often a very wide spread of low-value shareholders. This meant that in the early years there was almost a democratic feeling about the restructuring that had taken place, and the opportunity to voice an opinion was always available at a club’s Annual General Meeting (AGM). These were always very well attended, and they attracted considerable press attention. The private limited company structure served football well throughout the UK, and there were very few major casualties along the way – despite two world wars and the world’s biggest financial meltdown to date in the 1930s. Football was far from perfect but it was wedded to the community from where it had sprung and delivered a vibrant, colourful escape for the passionate audience that continued to grow.

By the time we reached the Swinging Sixties there were a few lower league casualties, together with the loss of such iconic clubs as Accrington Stanley (partly seen as iconic by the fate of history and due to its interesting, pub-derived name). In 1962 Stanley were expelled from the league, owing significant sums of money to various creditors as well as to the tax authorities. In 1966, they folded altogether. However, as is often the case, a phoenix club eventually emerged, working its way back into the professional league through the pyramid structure several decades later. Closer to home, the sad demise of one of Glasgow’s finest sides, Third Lanark, saw the private limited company structure fail to safeguard the club, known colloquially as ‘the Hi-Hi’. Shortly after the first-ever international match between Scotland and England at the West of Scotland Cricket ground in Partick in 1872, several interested spectators from a then world record attendance of 4,000, decided to set up their own football team. The men in question were part of the Third Lanarkshire Rifle Volunteer Regiment. Some had already turned out for nearby Queen’s Park earlier that year.

The dawn of 1873 saw the birth of the Scottish Football Association (SFA), with the recently formed Third Lanark becoming one of its founder members. They went on to have a rich and illustrious history, and when they finished third in the top division in 1961, no one could have foreseen that they would be heading for brutal extinction just six years later. It started with an unscrupulous benefactor beginning to buy up tranches of available shares. With an AGM some time away, there was no opportunity to allow minor shareholders to work together to stop the takeover. In fact, it was reported at the time that most of them did not even know what was happening. Instead, like many who would follow him, the new owner arrived and from day one set about maximising the club’s assets for his own benefit. All the minority shareholders and board members could do was watch as this implosion happened right under supporters’ noses. Even today, football fans from around the world often visit Cathkin Park. It remains a ghost-like symbol of a club betrayed by the greed of an unscrupulous owner, Bill Hiddleston. Like many other clubs that have imploded since, the Hi-Hi are now attempting to rise from the ashes after a long period out of the limelight. Unlike Accrington Stanley, they have started as an amateur team, so the climb to league status will take that much longer unless something dramatic or unexpected happens.

It is easy to focus on such failures (and there have been many) but the success derived from being a limited company far outweighed the negative eventualities. However, such success has not been achieved without some erosion of trust between the ordinary supporter and the club’s boardroom. The average club runs financially on a season-by-season basis, and from the turn of the 20th century until recent times boardrooms have generally become a members-only institution, a clique within a club, a place where the only chance of ever getting on the board depended on how many shares you could scoop up, who you already knew, or how filthy rich you were. Football boards were never transparent and were accountable only to themselves, although, in theory, they had a fiduciary duty (enshrined in company law) to care for the business. As we will see later, this ability to operate behind a veil of secrecy led to the demise of some of our most important clubs, whilst we fans had to stand back and watch it happen.

Keeping it in the Family

Aside from these high-profile cases, the private limited company structure has remained the key vehicle for the majority of Scottish clubs. As we saw from the Third Lanark example, if there is going to be a problem it is not down to the legal framework that surrounds the club. It has more to do with who owns the shares, what their objectives are and how they can use the system to their advantage. In many instances your club could well be in bother if it all boils down to ego, or turning a profit. More on that later!

For many small and middle-sized clubs, there is a huge list of shareholders who have a very small stake in the company. Some of these will date back to the origins of the club and can be traced through family inheritances, since these were traditionally passed from father to son in the days way before women were allowed to be interested in the game. Within these structures, there has also been the opportunity for individual families to take control of clubs – either through the purchase of shares, or through inheritance. This has created many famous dynasties over the years. Many of these have lasted over several generations, while others have been short-lived. The simple test in all of this for supporters is to ask whether the families involved have the energy and finances to support the club, and how they will work with (or ignore) supporters during their tenure. Sadly, more often than not in recent times, it has been far easier to ignore ordinary supporters than to engage with them. The final judgement on any football club board is this: did the owners leave the club in better shape than they found it?

At Clydebank, for example, local car dealers the Steedman brothers took control and they ran a very efficient club. For many a year, the model of rearing young local talent, signed from under the noses of the Old Firm, proved a huge success, as did creating the first all-seater stadium in Scotland. Sadly, the demise of the team as a senior club must be laid at their doorstep, too, because they sold the club and its assets to someone who had no interest in the football club or the community it served. In 2002 we watched on as a land deal saw a club of this stature die a slow and lingering death. It was a painful sight for lovers of football and was an early insight into the football authorities’ failure of good governance as they stood by unable or maybe unwilling to do anything about it.

Probably one of the most interesting Scottish football family dynasties was the one to be found at Celtic Park, prior to the arrival of Fergus McCann as the man now lauded for having saved Celtic from the abyss. The mighty Celtic FC of the 1960s and 1970s was in serious turmoil by the 1980s, with no strategy, a board of directors with no new money and, as a result, no plan. Many a newspaper headline of the day had Celtic on a football life support machine. The future looked bleak for these giants, since the two families who held the club’s ownership for almost a century had either run out of money or had decided not to invest what money they had in the club. Many commentators of the day described the two families, the Kellys and the Whites at the helm, as running things like a medieval dynasty. The press was not on side either, due to their treatment of the club’s greatest-ever manager, Jock Stein, who had many allies in the press and beyond. Not only did the Whites and Kellys seem to run out of money, but they also ran out of goodwill from the fans, who saw no investment either on or off the park. The subsequent arrival of a new, seemingly financially superior plan at their biggest rivals, Rangers, and the hype that surrounded this, did not help either. History would of course correct that impression in the fullness of time.

Only through the dogged perseverance displayed by Fergus McCann, equipped with financial skills and the backing of a strong and united support, did Celtic rid itself of the old dynasty so that it could be restructured in a way that has led to its continued success both on and off the park ever since. It is a shame that McCann did not stay longer as he also made a huge impact in exposing some of the shocking governance standards at the SFA.

The thing about any dynasty is that it cannot live forever, and it will come to a natural end at some point. Another Glasgow institution, Partick Thistle, had four generations of the Reid family (well-known publicans and hoteliers) in charge – until eventually, without too much fanfare, the family sold to another Thistle family, the McMasters. However, even prior to this success story, there was a danger of things going in a very different direction when Ken Bates, then owner and chairman of Chelsea FC, was lined up to take the shareholding, only to be denied full control due to dual interest rules. (See reference to Hibernian and Bournemouth in Chapter 13 to bring this story up to date.) Given that Chelsea went bust just a few years later, the indications were that Partick Thistle had a very close escape at the time.

At the start of 2023, this family dynamic was being played out in Perth where the Brown family, custodians of St Johnstone for two generations, decided to exit the club. With over 30 years of service and the most successful period in the club’s history achieved, the next move is crucial for the Brown family legacy. With the club for sale for over a year there was no interest from buyers in Scotland and American lawyer Adam Webb from Atlanta eventually took control. Could it lead to or maybe follow the model for clubs of a similar size such as St Mirren or Motherwell, where fans buy the club over a number of years? Word on the streets is that they have no faith in community ownership being an option.

The Individual Benefactor

Within the private limited company structure there will always be scope for the sale of shares, or a rights issue which will allow for new shares to be acquired by whoever wants to buy them. When it comes to this scenario, the fate of clubs is so often in the lap of the gods. It really does depend on who turns up at your club with a plan, how badly those in power want to sell, or whether you already have a rich benefactor ready and willing to play ball. In Scotland, we have seen a multitude of these scenarios, some of which will be covered in more detail in subsequent chapters. A simple look at the good the bad and the ugly in recent years will now take us on a journey from the north of the county to the south, via our capital city.

The Good – Ross County

There is no doubt that Roy MacGregor is Mr Ross County. He has followed the Staggies since 1966 and has used his considerable wealth to promote Dingwall and the Highlands, as well as his favourite team. Since he got involved with the club during the 1991/92 season, he has taken them on a remarkable journey from the lower regions of the Highland League to a cup victory at Hampden Park. He sees part of his role as being wider than just Ross County. The youth academy has not only produced Scotland players, such as Gary Mackay-Steven and Don Cowie, but also feeds a lot of talent to the Highland League teams too. This helps to improve the level of football in the area as a whole. In a recent interview, MacGregor said:

I need to leave the legacy that I started. This is a Highland club for Highland people. I don’t want a millionaire from abroad coming in and destroying the club’s fabric. I want what I built to be kept. I can see myself being here in five years’ time if that’s what is needed.

Those of us who have been privileged to have met him know this to be true. His financial backing keeps the club at the elite level, but without it you would expect the club to be more likely to bounce between Division One and the Championship at best. The question however remains as to the longer-term sustainability of Ross County post-Roy MacGregor.