Post by QPR Report on Jul 9, 2009 18:30:40 GMT
David Conn: Cobblers land on their feet after looking down and out
Northampton Town seemed a financial corpse for vultures to pick over but are now 'the Chelsea of the Third Division'
Football club sacks manager, its third in a year, yet this is still one less than the number of chairmen, who have tumbled like rain through the boardroom. This follows years of being crippled by debt and considered for takeover by the associate of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, Giovanni Di Stefano, who has now taken over at Dundee. A good sN-Word was had when they announced a deal to sell merchandise in North Carolina, a new "stateside" partnership for a club relegated to the Third Division last season.
Football club sacks manager, its third in a year, yet this is still one less than the number of chairmen, who have tumbled like rain through the boardroom. This follows years of being crippled by debt and considered for takeover by the associate of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, Giovanni Di Stefano, who has now taken over at Dundee. A good sN-Word was had when they announced a deal to sell merchandise in North Carolina, a new "stateside" partnership for a club relegated to the Third Division last season.
Northampton Town, you would presume from all this, are a club in crisis, the latest sad case in football's frayed financial basket.
Well, actually, they are not. David Cardoza, the present chairman, variously described as a property developer, antiques dealer or, at 33, a retired stockbroker, is being hailed as a genuine benefactor, who, with his father, Tony, has wiped out the club's debts and financed the acquisition of a clutch of players highly rated at this level. The club have been dubbed the Chelsea of the Third Division and the spin from Northampton echoes that of Roman Abramovich, that Cardoza has "fallen in love with the beautiful game", and has moved his family from Lewes, Sussex, to live locally.
If Northampton have not been noted for much on the field in recent years, they are a landmark to supporters nationally for establishing the first supporters' trust, which raised money for a small shareholding and elected a director to the club's board every year. Brian Lomax was the supporter-director for seven years, then became managing director of Supporters Direct, the Government-backed initiative to encourage fans to form trusts.
Lomax retired this week, having seen his idea develop from a post-match grumble with fellow Cobblers fans in the Brewers Arms pub in 1991, to Supporters Direct's roster of trusts at 102 professional and semi-pro clubs, 45 of them with a shareholding and 30 with elected club directors.
"Nobody seriously questions the concept anymore," Lomax says. "Trusts are moving on to a new era, working with clubs for the benefit of fans, the true owners of the game."
His successor at Northampton, Tony Clarke, a local Labour MP, says Northampton have been extremely lucky, after their recent turmoil, to emerge in the hands of the Cardozas: "We've landed on our feet."
Northampton suffered the common Football League disease of spiralling wages and falling income, compounded by the collapse of ITV Digital, which saw them owe close to £2m, including the inevitable enormously overdue PAYE tax bill. The old board of local businessmen, chaired by Barry Stonhill, had lent the club around £500,000 and, nearly two years ago, offered it for sale.
They first talked seriously to John Fashanu, the former Wimbledon striker who had formed an agency, Winners World Wide, backed by the Nigerian chief and billionaire Sonny Odogwu, and was considering buying the club as a showcase for African players.
Fashanu was keen on developing property around the Sixfields Stadium, which is owned by the local council, but after several months of talks, he declined to take over. He went briefly to the Welsh club Barry Town, then left in the summer. Shortly afterwards, Barry announced long-standing debts amounting to £900,000 and are now in administration.
In May 2002, Di Stefano emerged as a bidder. A deeply controversial character who operates a legal practice in Rome, went to live in Serbia during the Balkan civil war, where he was close to Milosevic and the alleged war criminal Arkan, and who has since had an involvement with some notorious criminal cases, Di Stefano said he had gone to school near Northampton and was serious about taking over. Clarke said then he would resign and leave the club he had always supported if Di Stefano became involved.
He eventually went away, but Northampton remained slumped in crisis, just avoiding relegation in 2002. So when, last November, a deal was finally done with a consortium, called Premier Sports Developments, and Andrew Ellis, a property developer from Knightsbridge and former director of Queen's Park Rangers, was installed as the club's chairman, Cobblers fans were naturally inclined to scepticism. The manager, Kevan Broadhurst, was sacked in January, in favour of Terry Fenwick, the ex-QPR and England defender, a decision which did not provoke universal ecstasy among Cobblers fans.
They were not greatly reassured by the presence on Premier's and the club's board of Ken Good, a solicitor practising in Milton Keynes, who was formerly a director of Inter MK, the consortium led by Peter Winkelman which is responsible for steering Wimbledon into Milton Keynes.
There have been persistent rumours that Northampton were being lined up for Milton Keynes too, or for a merger with Wimbledon, and when Ellis mentioned the dreaded MK as a possible solution for the club, the uproar from Cobblers fans was fierce, and Ellis was out of the club in February.
After just seven games - two draws and five defeats - Fenwick was sacked. His 49-day managerial stint was Northampton's shortest ever. Good took over as the club's chairman and, on 11 April, confirmed the ex-Carlisle manager Martin Wilkinson as Fenwick's replacement, although Wilkinson could not prevent Northampton finishing bottom of the Second Division and being relegated.
Six days after Wilkinson's appointment, the Law Society closed down Good's firm and although they would not reveal details of the allegations against him, they said he he is facing disciplinary proceedings.
Immediately, Good left the club, and Northampton announced their new chairman, David Cardoza. He had been part of Premier Sports and is in fact Ellis' brother-in-law, and appears to have massive money behind him. Having wiped out Northampton's debts and paid for players to come in, the commitment he and his father have made to the Cobblers has grown to £1.7m.
In the summer, when most clubs were gratefully, gleefully, shedding players, Northampton were becoming the Third Division moneybags, reportedly paying wages of up to £3,000 per week, although the club insists it will meet the Football League's requirement that wages do not exceed 60 per cent of turnover.
In the summer, on the club's official website, Cardoza praised Wilkinson's "knowledge, experience, drive and ambition", and described him as "a vital part of taking the club forward". That teed Wilkinson up for a short tenure, and after Saturday's 3-0 defeat at Oxford, Cardoza decided Wilkinson was no longer so vital.
While worries persist on the field, the club is quite advanced with discussions to renegotiate the tenancy of Sixfields and be able to develop land alongside it for a hotel. This sudden expenditure and property development proposals by a businessman arriving from far away can traditionally arouse concerns for a club's future, but Clarke, who is on the board alongside Cardoza, has no worries.
"We really have been lucky," the MP says. "The Cardozas are showing a genuine, surprising commitment to the club."
Clarke points as evidence for his confidence to the reorganised club structure. Rather than put their money in as loans, which would hobble the club and provoke a crisis if the Cardozas ever left, the investment has been converted to shares. The Cardozas own 80 per cent of the club and if they leave, they lose their money. "The only way they can possibly make money," Clarke says, "is to make the club a success. As a trust, we were most reassured by that."
Eleven years old, Northampton's trust has demonstrated the limits to the idea: supporter involvement is not a solution in itself, either to financial crisis or to clubs being open to takeover by anybody, however dubious.
Clarke, however, insists the Cobblers' story showed its benefits too. "We're still here, with a director on the board," he says. "We know what is happening, can make our opinions very clear, and work positively where we can. The club has somehow come out of its SOS with a huge slice of good fortune, but I do think the trust has played a part too."
www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/david-conn-cobblers-land-on-their-feet-after-looking-down-and-out-582105.html
Northampton Town seemed a financial corpse for vultures to pick over but are now 'the Chelsea of the Third Division'
Football club sacks manager, its third in a year, yet this is still one less than the number of chairmen, who have tumbled like rain through the boardroom. This follows years of being crippled by debt and considered for takeover by the associate of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, Giovanni Di Stefano, who has now taken over at Dundee. A good sN-Word was had when they announced a deal to sell merchandise in North Carolina, a new "stateside" partnership for a club relegated to the Third Division last season.
Football club sacks manager, its third in a year, yet this is still one less than the number of chairmen, who have tumbled like rain through the boardroom. This follows years of being crippled by debt and considered for takeover by the associate of the former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, Giovanni Di Stefano, who has now taken over at Dundee. A good sN-Word was had when they announced a deal to sell merchandise in North Carolina, a new "stateside" partnership for a club relegated to the Third Division last season.
Northampton Town, you would presume from all this, are a club in crisis, the latest sad case in football's frayed financial basket.
Well, actually, they are not. David Cardoza, the present chairman, variously described as a property developer, antiques dealer or, at 33, a retired stockbroker, is being hailed as a genuine benefactor, who, with his father, Tony, has wiped out the club's debts and financed the acquisition of a clutch of players highly rated at this level. The club have been dubbed the Chelsea of the Third Division and the spin from Northampton echoes that of Roman Abramovich, that Cardoza has "fallen in love with the beautiful game", and has moved his family from Lewes, Sussex, to live locally.
If Northampton have not been noted for much on the field in recent years, they are a landmark to supporters nationally for establishing the first supporters' trust, which raised money for a small shareholding and elected a director to the club's board every year. Brian Lomax was the supporter-director for seven years, then became managing director of Supporters Direct, the Government-backed initiative to encourage fans to form trusts.
Lomax retired this week, having seen his idea develop from a post-match grumble with fellow Cobblers fans in the Brewers Arms pub in 1991, to Supporters Direct's roster of trusts at 102 professional and semi-pro clubs, 45 of them with a shareholding and 30 with elected club directors.
"Nobody seriously questions the concept anymore," Lomax says. "Trusts are moving on to a new era, working with clubs for the benefit of fans, the true owners of the game."
His successor at Northampton, Tony Clarke, a local Labour MP, says Northampton have been extremely lucky, after their recent turmoil, to emerge in the hands of the Cardozas: "We've landed on our feet."
Northampton suffered the common Football League disease of spiralling wages and falling income, compounded by the collapse of ITV Digital, which saw them owe close to £2m, including the inevitable enormously overdue PAYE tax bill. The old board of local businessmen, chaired by Barry Stonhill, had lent the club around £500,000 and, nearly two years ago, offered it for sale.
They first talked seriously to John Fashanu, the former Wimbledon striker who had formed an agency, Winners World Wide, backed by the Nigerian chief and billionaire Sonny Odogwu, and was considering buying the club as a showcase for African players.
Fashanu was keen on developing property around the Sixfields Stadium, which is owned by the local council, but after several months of talks, he declined to take over. He went briefly to the Welsh club Barry Town, then left in the summer. Shortly afterwards, Barry announced long-standing debts amounting to £900,000 and are now in administration.
In May 2002, Di Stefano emerged as a bidder. A deeply controversial character who operates a legal practice in Rome, went to live in Serbia during the Balkan civil war, where he was close to Milosevic and the alleged war criminal Arkan, and who has since had an involvement with some notorious criminal cases, Di Stefano said he had gone to school near Northampton and was serious about taking over. Clarke said then he would resign and leave the club he had always supported if Di Stefano became involved.
He eventually went away, but Northampton remained slumped in crisis, just avoiding relegation in 2002. So when, last November, a deal was finally done with a consortium, called Premier Sports Developments, and Andrew Ellis, a property developer from Knightsbridge and former director of Queen's Park Rangers, was installed as the club's chairman, Cobblers fans were naturally inclined to scepticism. The manager, Kevan Broadhurst, was sacked in January, in favour of Terry Fenwick, the ex-QPR and England defender, a decision which did not provoke universal ecstasy among Cobblers fans.
They were not greatly reassured by the presence on Premier's and the club's board of Ken Good, a solicitor practising in Milton Keynes, who was formerly a director of Inter MK, the consortium led by Peter Winkelman which is responsible for steering Wimbledon into Milton Keynes.
There have been persistent rumours that Northampton were being lined up for Milton Keynes too, or for a merger with Wimbledon, and when Ellis mentioned the dreaded MK as a possible solution for the club, the uproar from Cobblers fans was fierce, and Ellis was out of the club in February.
After just seven games - two draws and five defeats - Fenwick was sacked. His 49-day managerial stint was Northampton's shortest ever. Good took over as the club's chairman and, on 11 April, confirmed the ex-Carlisle manager Martin Wilkinson as Fenwick's replacement, although Wilkinson could not prevent Northampton finishing bottom of the Second Division and being relegated.
Six days after Wilkinson's appointment, the Law Society closed down Good's firm and although they would not reveal details of the allegations against him, they said he he is facing disciplinary proceedings.
Immediately, Good left the club, and Northampton announced their new chairman, David Cardoza. He had been part of Premier Sports and is in fact Ellis' brother-in-law, and appears to have massive money behind him. Having wiped out Northampton's debts and paid for players to come in, the commitment he and his father have made to the Cobblers has grown to £1.7m.
In the summer, when most clubs were gratefully, gleefully, shedding players, Northampton were becoming the Third Division moneybags, reportedly paying wages of up to £3,000 per week, although the club insists it will meet the Football League's requirement that wages do not exceed 60 per cent of turnover.
In the summer, on the club's official website, Cardoza praised Wilkinson's "knowledge, experience, drive and ambition", and described him as "a vital part of taking the club forward". That teed Wilkinson up for a short tenure, and after Saturday's 3-0 defeat at Oxford, Cardoza decided Wilkinson was no longer so vital.
While worries persist on the field, the club is quite advanced with discussions to renegotiate the tenancy of Sixfields and be able to develop land alongside it for a hotel. This sudden expenditure and property development proposals by a businessman arriving from far away can traditionally arouse concerns for a club's future, but Clarke, who is on the board alongside Cardoza, has no worries.
"We really have been lucky," the MP says. "The Cardozas are showing a genuine, surprising commitment to the club."
Clarke points as evidence for his confidence to the reorganised club structure. Rather than put their money in as loans, which would hobble the club and provoke a crisis if the Cardozas ever left, the investment has been converted to shares. The Cardozas own 80 per cent of the club and if they leave, they lose their money. "The only way they can possibly make money," Clarke says, "is to make the club a success. As a trust, we were most reassured by that."
Eleven years old, Northampton's trust has demonstrated the limits to the idea: supporter involvement is not a solution in itself, either to financial crisis or to clubs being open to takeover by anybody, however dubious.
Clarke, however, insists the Cobblers' story showed its benefits too. "We're still here, with a director on the board," he says. "We know what is happening, can make our opinions very clear, and work positively where we can. The club has somehow come out of its SOS with a huge slice of good fortune, but I do think the trust has played a part too."
www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/david-conn-cobblers-land-on-their-feet-after-looking-down-and-out-582105.html
