Pompey Agree To Eisner Deal

Billionaire Michael Eisner is set to become Portsmouth's new owner after the majority shareholders agreed to sell to the former Disney man.

Over 75% of the shareholders, including the Supporters Trust and the 'Pompey Presidents', voted in favour of the move meaning Eisner will now effectively repay shareholders their original investment and put a further £10million into the club whose Fratton Park stadium requires substantial repair.

80% of Trust members voted in favour, as did 75% of the Presidents with 81.4% of the total shareholding backing the move.

For some, like former Supporters Direct stalwart Kevin Rye, the decision is a dark day and - with nearly 20% of the shareholding against the proposal - that is significant opposition to selling to a scenario that previously saw the club plunge into peril. Eisner, and his Tornante vehicle, has set out a vision that will do to Portsmouth FC what Eisner did to Disney - commercialise the business to the further possible degree - but that he will protect the 'heritage' of the club.

The supporters of Portsmouth are in for interesting times. The EFL had already announced that most - if not all - games would be streamed live to a global audience for an estimated £110 a season per club and Eisner is likely to be keen to promote the Portsmouth 'brand' and 'heritage' outside the traditional area.

He will undoubtedly bring innovations in marketing previously unseen in football. Whether the traditional supporter will agree with them is another matter.

Full Time For Part Time

National League side Aldershot are now offering 52 week contracts to players in a bid stop them being poached by other sides. They say the move is a 'calculated risk' in adding a further eight weeks of pay to the existing 44 week schedule that National League sides usually offer.

With the administrative 'season' ending on June 30th, usually National League sides would sign players from July 1st through to the end of the playing season in early May, but the Shots will now go through to June 30th to match deals offered in the Football League.

The move is a further step towards the National League ending being a part time competition. Chester boss Jon McCarthy says that only his side may be part time next season:

“Next season, you could argue that there will only be Chester that are part time. I know you have the likes of a Dover that will stay part time, but in terms of finances and the way that they work things they are very much full time.

“I think it could be that next season is the last ever season where there is a part time element to the National League. It is turning into the old Fourth Division, which I did play in, and this is League Two standard."

Trouble Up North

A trio of National North sides are undergoing ownership issues.

Telford's second attempt at selling shares in the club has been 'disappointing' according to the club.

Just £17,700 of additional shares were purchased in the second window, and no major investor stepped forward following the abolition of ownership limits. Around 65% of the shares still remain unsold and, although technically not currently on sale, the club's Board will consider approaches.

The Board itself has advertised for reinforcements, in a week that has seen club General Manager Sharon Bowyer step down from her role due to family commitments after beginning work for the club when it was reformed.

The Shropshire side say the lack of share sales won't affect next season's budget.

Meanwhile newly relegated Southport have announced a six figure investment from an accountant and a financial advisor, both businessmen in the town. The investment comes as a second businessman claims his offer for the club was totally ignored, while the club's Board went through an unpleasant series of appointments and departures.

Former manager Liam Watson was only recently appointed to the Board but saw his appointment, and that of two others, thrown out due to limitations on the size of the Board in the club's constitution. Watson was subsequently made redundant, with current manager Andy Preece told to re-apply for his job.

Long serving chairman Charlie Clapham will step down from the club, having been a polarising figure among supporters.

Elsewhere, a surprising figure is riding to Darlington's aid.

Raj Singh, previously the chairman and owner of the liquidated Darlington club, has offered £40,000 towards next season's budget in exchange for shares in the club. The move, announced yesterday, will have to go to a vote of shareholders and has already met significant opposition due to Singh's involvement in the collapse five years ago.

A fourth National North side, newly relegated York City, have also released financial results for their final season in the Football League which report a £300,000 loss. A further similar loss is expected for the 16/17 season despite them falling straight through the fifth tier, and the club continues to rely on owner Jason McGill.

McGill's firm, JM Packaging, is now owed over £4,7million, repayable when the club's long delayed move to a new stadium - that remain in planning hell - is finally completed.

A Rare Glimpse Of Real Life

In a week when the EFL deliberately and willfully agreed to lie to supporters it has finally admitted what has been blatantly obvious for some time.

The EFL says it made a 'difficult decision' in allowing supporters to be lied to about the abandonment of a match, between Leyton Orient and Colchester, but admitted that it was powerless to stop rogue owners. Their own statement notes 'the decision was taken by the EFL to announce the abandonment of the game to clear the pitch and when it was safe, allow the players to return to complete the fixture.'

The statement also states that the EFL wants to protect the legitimacy of the competition which, in a season when teams have been fined for fielding reserve sides against Academy sides from higher grade teams (effectively a third string XI), and now sees honest paying customers fail to watch the match they forked out money to see, legitimate is no longer a word that can be used to describe the EFL.

The only decent thing the EFL have done is acknowledge what everyone knew. That their limited rules on owners were unenforceable and they were powerless to prevent rogue club owners. All the stern words, the threats, and the false hopes over the past years amounted to not one iota of real action. It was nothing more than the illusion of power.

Since their rebranding from the Football League last summer, the EFL has been massively devalued in terms of the integrity that it wishes to protect. Chief Executive Shaun Harvey has repeatedly enraged supporters, who he appears to care little about, with a series of ridiculous ideas that has seen the Checkatrade Trophy turn into the Mickey Mouse cup that many fans jokingly referred to it as - even going as far as bending the rules of the competition to suit the bigger sides.

The actions at Brisbane Road last Saturday should have the FA demand answers from the EFL and Harvey as to why the lifeblood of the game was treated with such utter contempt.

But, in a world of inaction, I won't be holding my breath.

Pomp And Circumstance

A lengthy document was sent out by the Portsmouth Supporters Trust in the past week detailing the club's current predicament and the offer from Michael Eisner and his Tornante vehicle. The document lists a number of things, but a subsequent club statement spelled out the stark message -

Fratton Park is falling down.

Compliance to keep Fratton Park up to capacity in line with the 'Green Guide' - the bible of operating a sports stadium - will cost the club £5million in the coming five years. The club say they have £900,000 of shareholder funds left and no prospect of funding the other work without dipping into the playing budget, meaning sections of the stadium would have to close.

Their story is a familiar one. "Recommended" works that were neglected in previous years by failing owners now became urgent and the funding required quickly added up. Instead of doing one years work in one year, you have ten years work to do in five.

A stadium that is the biggest asset of most clubs suddenly becomes the biggest liability also.

Portsmouth can ill afford to reduce capacity from the current 18,931. Average attendance this season is 16,771 - a lower end Championship average - and Saturday's final match against Cheltenham sold out nearly a month ago. The club has less than 10% of its capacity spare each game with the largest attendance just 300 under capacity.

With the news of the cash shortage, Eisner addressed supporters last night to lay out his proposal. Shareholders would effectively get their money back, the Trust would be removed from the Board in favour of a 'heritage' option, Eisner would put in an additional £10million, and the offer was take-it or leave-it.

The Supporters Trust then offered an alternative funding method, asking 8,000 supporters to put in £15 a month  - over £500 each over three years - to fund repair works. The Trust has not recommended an option, leaving it to the individual supporter to make up their mind.

The Pompey Supporters have a difficult decision but a Championship level club without a millionaire or billionaire backer is not going to compete at that level any more.

Hanging In The Balance

Hartlepool's 'owner' Gary Coxall has quit the club, and pushed the agenda towards supporter ownership on the eve of their do-or-die last game of the season to secure League survival.

The Monkey Hangers need to win their final match, at home to title contenders Doncaster, and hope Newport fail to beat mid-table Notts County in order to secure their League Two place. They have failed to record a win in the last ten matches, a run that cost manager Dave Jones his job, and have slashed admission prices for Saturday's game to £5 in a bid to pack out the ground.

Quite why a Dubai based recruitment firm owned a Northern football side with a Council owned ground has always been puzzling. JPNG took over less than two years ago with an Ilford, Essex UK base and immediately raised eyebrows. Coxall arrived with a partner, Peter Goldberg, whose disappearance from the scene led to a series of cash crises that led to a pair of winding-up petitions and wages being delayed.

In March this year, a Debenture was registered against the club at Companies House, one of four charges currently secured on the assets of the club including the lease of the ground. The 'borrower' on the debenture is Coxall as Chairman of the club. The 'lender' John Blackledge of Sage Investments Limited. The deal was brokered by Matt Haycox for Access Finance in Leeds. Whether Haycox is the same person listed at Companies House as a disqualified Director is unknown, nor would it prevent him from brokering the deal.

According to Companies House, Sage Investments has a Director who resigned in 2004 called Pamela Jane Duxbury. Coxall has handed the Chairman's role to the club's recently installed Finance Director - Pam Duxbury - apparently working on behalf of Sage, but infers from his statement that he retains ownership of the club.

Quite the extent of the debt to Sage Investments, or the current ownership picture of the club, remains up in the air. Debate rages on what percentages of the club Coxall, Sage, and Goldberg own with little firm evidence

However if Coxall was a poor choice of owner, the other option on the table was even worse. Peter Harris and Stephen Murrall, of "The Monkey Hangers" consortium who attempted a takeover prior to JPNG, are now facing a fraud trial relating to a series of people and HMRC in the run up to their bid failure.

Duxbury has been quick to pursue ownership talks with the Supporters Trust, holding a meeting on the evening of Coxall's announcement, but the Trust say they have no short or long term agenda to own the club.

Failure on Saturday could well see another HUFC plunged into the abyss.

Darlo Facing Cash Questions

Five years after reforming, Darlington have admitted they are facing a cash crisis and are seeking talks with potential investors.

The club has been told it will not be able to compete in the National North play-offs after failing to meet ground grading requirements. They are one of three clubs barred by the League due to not having 500 seats under cover - a League requirement rather than a FA one - with all three appealing the decision.

However two Darlington Directors have resigned over the issue, and a third is considering his position, citing 'vitriol' from supporters in the wake of the news. The club says that they could not afford the six-figure cost of installing the seating anyway, with losses mounting following their move back to Darlington after an enforced exile in Bishop Auckland, and would struggle to raise the £500,000 needed to achieve the full 'A' grading needed to remain at National Premier level, let alone the financial needs on the pitch.

The supporter owned club has reported debts of £80,000 and has required a £50,000 loan from Directors and outside supporters to stay afloat this season. Operating costs of £35,000 over budget this season were compounded by income underperforming by £30,000 under the projected figures, with £15,000 of debt still on the books from last season.

Manager Martin Gray has been told to cut his budget by £85,000 for the coming season to balance the books, with the triple promotion winner warning supporters that he will leave if that is the case. Gray says he needs a £400,000 budget to compete at National North level - £10,000 a week on part time deals - with the club finances showing that 70% of income was directed to the playing budget.

Gray says the ownership model has to change to compete at their level and above, telling a supporter forum 'as a fan owned club we have gone as far as we can go. We need a different direction for this football club to go forward. We are an embarrassment, a laughing stock in the football world.'

Gray says he is in talks with investors who are capable of pushing the club forward, but that the supporters will have to accept a minority stake for it to happen.

Money No Object, Object To No Money

Portsmouth's takeover discussions should lead to a Supporters Trust representative remaining on the Board, according to a survey by the Trust.

The view appears to be at odds to early statements from Michael Eisner, who sees the supporters being part of a 'heritage' board to protect the finer details of the Portsmouth 'brand' rather than the operational running of the club.

More than 2000 supporters largely backed talks with the former Disney chief, and generally thought the club would be able to achieve a higher league placing with a Billionaire behind them than the current ownership setup, although they wanted to retain a supporter voice on the club Board.

However when it came to funding a new stadium and increased investment in the playing budget, supporters voted for new shareholders or owners to be the ones to cover the financial needs, with less than 10% of respondents expecting the current shareholders, including the supporters, to cover the bills.

Nearly half of respondents had 'no reservations' on Eisner buying the club, with an almost equal number not wanting a single person owning the club again.

Meanwhile the single owner model remains badly broken at Leyton Orient. Off-field staff have issued a statement saying they have started a grievance process with the club over unpaid wages, but that the complaint has not been responded to.

Staff still have not received their March wages, with little more than a week until April's sums are due, and have received no communication as to whether they will receive the money either.

Over at National League Barrow, their single owner model has just recorded a £1million debt to their owner over the past trading year. Owner Paul Casson loaned the club £990,754 in the past 12 months to the end of May 2016, with the US based businessman telling the press he had no intention of calling in the debt.

That £1million investment saw the Bluebirds end the 2015/16 season in 9th place, ten points outside the play-offs. This season they are in 7th place, outside the play-offs by four points with just two games remaining.

With a similar debt likely to have been accumulated this season the Bluebirds are likely to be nearly £3million in debt by the time the current financial year is complete, on fairly static average attendances of 1300.

You Can't Say We Didn't Tell You

A small uproar has erupted in the IT community over Microsoft's decision that it will no longer support new hardware on anything other than Windows 10.

In a rare occurrence, I'm actually going to back Microsoft on this one. They've had that stance for 15 months. It was January 2016 that they posted that they wouldn't continue software fixes for Windows 7 and 8.1 (having already ditched 8 as the bad job that it was) to the newest generation of processors.

The new processors are literally new. AMD's Ryzen was announced 5 months ago, Intel's 7th Generation of Core processors came out in January. Only the hardcore "must have" people will be running these right now.

Microsoft have a habit of ditching old tech - if not old operating systems - to drive PC sales and, subsequently, their licence sales. Their switch to "Windows as a Service" with an app store in the Apple mould is the recognition that - as Apple found - the basic software that drives the machine should essentially be free, with everything else a paid-for add-on.

The main issue Microsoft will find now is that their eco-system is overgrown with other products. Don't want to pay for Word? Here's Open Office. The Windows system has, for the last 25 years, nurtured a stream of bedroom programmers to bring a deluge of software to the platform that Apple can't even come close to matching.

It's all a bit Frankenstein's Monster, but the drive for new tech has gone from the desktop to the mobile screen. Something Microsoft doesn't have dominance of.

Microsoft accidentally built the beast they are now hopeful of containing. It's not likely, at least in the short term, but they are hopeful. Revenues at the Gates-inspired conglomo-fest are struggling, with the switch of Office to a subscription model probably the only thing keeping the Microsoft executives from not being in a full-on panic.

Windows is now such a throwaway item, anyone is able to get it for free in exchange for a single 'white lie' click on a particular Microsoft website. It's the unpublished loophole in the licencing agreements that Microsoft sign with equipment manufacturers in a bid to keep Windows as the dominant player in the increasingly irrelevant desktop game.

Google's Android operating system is now so big, thanks to mobiles and tablets, that Microsoft is genuinely under threat as the supplier to the world. Google are to make major plays into the Business sector, from the traditional home market they are now dominating, and there are plenty of companies now reliant on Google services to find an Android or Chrome infrastructure an acceptable one.

We are all going to be assimilated. Microsoft still hope it will be with them.

The Misery Drags On

A week after Ilkeston's players went on strike, the club has assured the Northern Premier League that they will fulfill their fixtures. The players, some unpaid since before Christmas, have agreed to see out the season without wages.

It is reported that the power supply to their ground has been cut off due to non-payment of electricity bills, and some office staff have gone unpaid for up to six months as the club, which started the season under suspension for non-payment of football debts, seeks a buyer.

Meanwhile over at National South side Gosport Borough, HMRC have submitted a winding up petition for the fourth time in 12 months. The club says the quarterly VAT bill was due early last month and an offer to settle it by last week was rejected. Chairman Mark Hook went to the press to lay some of the blame at former Vice Chairman Jim Fallon's door, saying he changed his mind on a £40,000 sponsorship deal at the last minute.

Fallon himself had only just completed a three and a half year ban from football during a previous stint at Gosport with the FA finding him guilty of transfer irregularities, something which he still denies. The events left Fallon threatening to sue the club over loans he had made totalling £84,000.

Gosport are currently four points the wrong side of the relegation line with just four matches remaining and, like Ilkeston, are looking for new owners.

Over at Leyton Orient, their youth side put in a valiant effort but ultimately lost 3-0 at Cambridge United in League Two. The majority of the club's First Team had become injured with wages still unpaid leaving a youthful side, whose starting XI squad numbers included 4 and 7 and then nothing under 22, to toil towards an almost inevitable relegation from the Football League.

The club are now ten points adrift of safety with five games remaining, and could be relegated on Friday after their match at Luton. That may be a blessing in disguise, with one of their two Doctors walking out last week due to non-payment.

In Football League matches, two Doctors are required - one for the players, and a second for the crowd - meaning Monday's crunch game with 22nd place Hartlepool may not be allowed to go ahead.

An All Cash Business

For nearly two years Carlisle United have been in discussions with a Billionaire investor.

Under the secrecy of non-disclosure agreements details of the individual were scant. Huge claims were made, offers considered and rejected. The 'billionaire'? A Syrian former pizza shop owner living in Canada.

Yahya Kirdi had previously tried to buy Liverpool in 2010, claiming to represent a group of Middle East investors. Fans dubbed it "the joke bid" with plans to rebuild the Anfield stadium with a solarium(!) whilst he also claimed to have placed a £162million order for passenger aircraft that the manufacturer named confirmed did not exist.

Claims Kirdi was a former international footballer were dismissed, and his spokesman expressed surprise when official documents were sent to him detailing Kirdi as the former owner of a small - failed - pizza takeaway in Canada.

The bid for Liverpool was withdrawn a few months after it became public. Five years later Kirdi started negotiations with Carlisle. He also appears to have tried to buy other clubs around Europe without success.

Carlisle have now turned to the owner of Edinburgh Woolen Mill for temporary funding after declaring Kirdi's plans as unrealistic on both squad budgeting and the development of Brunton Park.

Meanwhile over at National South side Chelmsford City, a long standing takeover has suddenly collapsed. Jade Global Group (JGG) were announced more than 12 months ago as ready to take over the club, passing a club shareholder vote last July.

JGG owner Kevin Allen resigned at the end of January, being replaced by a Michael Mescal, aged 62 according to documents filed at Companies House.

A Michael Mescal was convicted in an Italian court in July 2000 for drug smuggling, aged 46. Whether it is the same person is open to debate, but the press reports at the time hint the pair to be of a similar age. A separate entry on Companies House for a Michael Mescal, also born in May 1954, set up a construction company in January.

For Chelmsford themselves, their Chairman and Legal Counsel have resigned from their Board positions and the club now faces an EGM in the next few weeks to agree a way forward with 'short term financial pressure' on the club.

Invest To Improve

Telford have put their remaining shares back on sale and have expressed a hope to sell most of the remaining £344,000 worth.

A club statement says that 137 supporters bought shares in the last round, having had just 123 vote in the original decision to scrap supporter ownership of the reborn club. The statement came a few days after a statement on the club's Early Bird Season Tickets, noting that just 111 had been sold compared to 425 in the same period last year.

There seems to be a very committed ten percent of supporters still at the club but the majority seem to have lost a certain level of interest. They still come to games, over 1,100 last week for their win over Worcester, but the successive seasons of dismal results that has seen them fall out of the National Premier and have two seasons at the wrong end of National North have worn the bulk of supporters down in their levels of support.

A 3-0 loss to fellow strugglers Boston yesterday further cemented their bottom six place and, although they are highly unlikely to go down, a third season of struggle will not be tolerated for a club once considered to be a rising star.

Elsewhere, Darlington have had their name change ratified by the FA. The club recently moved back to the town and will now drop the 1883 suffix to their name that they were forced to adopt to differentiate themselves from the failed club when they reformed five years ago.

With echoes of activities closer to home, the club are currently under investigation by the FA for crowd disorder at a recent game where smoke bombs and alcohol were thrown onto a pitch. The club has already banned a number of people from attending further matches.

Paying The Dues

Three clubs have failed to pay their players and staff in the past week leading to further doubt about their futures.

At Northern Premier League side Ilkeston FC, 14 points inside the relegation zone, club captain Matt Baker took to a fans forum to state that many of the players refused to play in yesterday's game at Workington after being unpaid for several months, causing the match to be postponed.

The club were only formed in 2010 after the demise of Ilkeston Town, then of National North, who went bust in September 2010 due to a £47,000 tax bill. They restarted at Step 4, winning promotion in front of over 1,600 supporters in the first season but gates have tumbled over the last 12 months as the club intensified its focus on an Academy structure, with much of their first team teenagers on full time deals.

An average of 300 through the doors this season is just two thirds of last season's number, which had remained largely static since their promotion. The league will now seek assurances that the club will fulfill the remaining fixtures with a long hoped-for takeover still seemingly no closer.

Meanwhile Morecambe's players and staff have found their wages delayed for a third time this season. The club's owner, or at least the one currently having the strongest claim to ownership, says an 'international money transfer' was delayed leading to the failure to pay. The club's players responded on Saturday with a 3-1 loss at Cheltenham as they sunk to within 10 points of the relegation zone, albeit with only six games remaining.

Elsewhere, Leyton Orient's failure to pay saw another manager out of the door. Danny Webb, who started as the youth team manager but found himself in charge of the first team after a succession of walk outs, has made way for his assistant, Omer Riza.

Since beating fellow relegation favourite Newport 4-0, the club have lost five successive games with just one goal scored and now face the prospect of relegation by Easter Monday.

Long Term Planning

AFC Telford United have abandoned their 20% ownership limit on private shareholders just weeks after surrendering 100% fan ownership.

Just 32% of the total available shares have been sold in the first round of sales, with the club noting that more than one potential investor had been put off by the 20% limit - a safeguard put in to stop the situation the old club found itself in with then owner Andy Shaw's business collapse causing catastrophe for the club.

The Bucks now expect the remaining shares to be back on sale by the end of March as they try to refinance a club that has had a poor couple of years on and off the pitch. They recently recorded their lowest ever attendance since reformation for a Saturday game at the New Bucks Head and have seen gates drop 25% over the past 2 years.

Elsewhere, Swindon's Supporters Trust is considering a bid to buy the club's County Ground home to protect it from potential redevelopment.

Following discussions with the local Council the ageing ground is available to buy for £1.1million. The site is said to be covenanted to solely be for recreational use, and the Council are now amenable to the sale which would allow the Trust to seek further investment into the ground on a community basis.

Meanwhile, over at Portsmouth, the Club and their Trust owners are now facing the prospect of a takeover approach. Billionaire former Disney chief Michael Eisner is rumoured to be a suitor for the club, with a club statement merely noting a 'robust process' in place to handle any such offers.

Final approval for any takeover would lay with their shareholders, with the Trust now the minority shareholder after being unable to keep up with the funding requirements of the veteran Fratton Park home the club retains.

The Trust's response to a potential approach from Eisner is to acknowledge they have to listen to what is on offer, and that a retention of some stake of ownership and a Director on any new Board would be their minimum requirements. The seriousness of the takeover approach has been downplayed in some quarters, but the Trust have gone as far as stopping new members from voting on any potential proposals until further notice.

Both the club's Board and the Trust seem to accept that the club is bigger than both of them, and that - in the world of billionaire investors holding the keys to most of the Premier League and Championship - the club may have a need to go down that route to return to former glories.

Stay Behind After School

Leyton Orient have been handed a ten week stay of execution to clear debts after owner Francesco Becchetti paid off the HMRC debt but left a string of other debts unsettled.

£35,000 to the local Council, £18,000 to the club's stewarding contractor, and £6,000 to the club's own photographer are among the debts now added to the winding up petition heard on Monday, with the club now given until June 12th to satisfy the petition.

Bechetti's representatives handed a letter to the Court saying the Italian would put £1million into the club but the Supporters Trust has already doubted the claim, still describing the club as being in 'mortal danger'.

Among the club's bills is the rent due on the Matchroom Stadium. The ground, now in the hands of one of the Matchroom pension funds having been separated during the sale to Becchetti, costs the club £180,000 a year.

Matchroom chief Barry Hearn is understood to be willing to waive the £3,500 a week bill if the Supporters Trust takes over, for the first year at least.

Meanwhile, Bolton Wanderers' ownership battle has been resolved with Ken Anderson taking over Dean Holdsworth's stake in the club on undisclosed terms.

Holdsworth will remain an ambassador for the club, leaving Anderson to push on with investing into, and overhauling, what appears to be a sprawling mess at present. One of the first things to go is a free school housed at their Macron Stadium home.

The school owes the best part of £500,000 in Government loans, lent during its set-up against the projected number of pupils for the school that opened in September 2014. That money is likely to be written off after the early intake of pupils was less than a quarter of its capacity, and less than half the projected number.

The school was rated 'inadequate' in all areas in the latest Ofsted report, with its head telling the Government it was in no position to pay back the loans, and will close when the school year ends.

Second Grade

A number of clubs are facing deadlines to get their grounds ready in time for the FA's deadlines for eligibility for next season.

In National South, Poole Town's play-off campaign threatens to be derailed by the ground not even coming up to standard for their current league, let alone the one above. The current Southern Premier champions moved into what was basically a school field in 2000 while playing in Step 6 and have gradually improved it to comply with regulations as they moved up the pyramid.

Now, in Step 2, they still need to raise £25,000 of a £70,000 bill to upgrade the ground to the required standard for next season - with a further £50,000 needing to be spent later on - with terracing and floodlight work top of the agenda. Vice Chairman Chris Poole admitted at the weekend it would be 'hearts in mouth' until the ground grading visit in just eight days time.

Failure would see them not only miss out on the play-offs regardless of league position, but also see them relegated back into the Southern League.

Further north, Barrow face tighter guidelines as they look to a return to the Football League some 45 years after leaving.

The Holker Street side have been given until April 6th to provide detailed plans for a potential upgrade to Football League standard, including increasing capacity from the current 4,400 to 5,000.

In previous years clubs only needed outline plans, but are now required to provide full calculations, stamped by a qualified engineer and approved by the Council, to be eligible for promotion. Barrow's complaint is that they have only just been told of this change,

“They are closing the door a little bit tighter, because other clubs may have gone up and not carried out work they said they would.” said Chief Executive Austin Straker. In 2009, Accrington went down the industrial route and bolted seats to existing terracing to comply with regulations, while Crawley's 2,000 capacity East Stand remains the 'temporary' structure that was built in early 2012 to take the capacity to over 5,000.

Meanwhile, in the Southern Premier, Basingstoke Town say they don't know where they will play next season. The mid-table side have seen plans for a new ground turned down by the local Council, having deemed their current home to be too expensive to upgrade.

Their problems are compounded by bankrolling chairman Rafi Razzak pulling out at the end of the season with the club already admitting that it was 'no longer economically or practicably feasible' to stay at their current The Camrose home for even next season.

Attempts to move into a site occupied by the Hampshire FA have failed, and the club are likely to now seek a ground share for the coming season and may yet consider a lower grade of football to tick the economic boxes with the plan to develop The Camrose for retail also hoped to clear club debt.

"Perilous Financial Situation"

That was the description of the club's finances by the Leyton Orient Supporters Trust yesterday.

The Trust are calling on creditors to come forward so that an accurate picture on finances can be secured, with the Trust claiming that there is a 'significant level of unpaid bills to creditors' and also hinting that employees of the club are also owed money in a lengthy statement.

Former Orient owner Barry Hearn has taken to the press to slam current owner Francesco Becchetti, the man Hearn not only sold the club to but the man Hearn trusted to take the club on safely.

Former owners of football clubs should be just as guilty as the current owners when things go wrong so swiftly after the transfer of ownership. So many these days talk about being custodians rather than owners, responsible for a small part of the history of an institution rather than it being theirs to do with what they wish.

Yet so many former owners sell clubs to unsuitable people.

While the FA take flak for 'not doing anything' the man that pocketed £4million has to accept his share of the blame, whether he is a lifelong fan or not, of selecting the wrong person. It's the same at Morecambe, and was the same at Salisbury City, Hereford United, Notts County, and a host of other clubs that found themselves in inappropriate hands at some point in their past.

But... do owners sell out of necessity or greed?

Hearn is 68, suffered a heart attack in 2002, and probably should be retired than continuing to run a sporting conglomerate that has already seen parts hived off to his family.

However Hearn is a businessman, there's no doubt about that. He's built a successful empire. Twice. A flirtation with near bankruptcy in the early 1990s shows that not all his decisions are right. He pocketed the millions selling to Becchetti, a 'waste management magnate', but retained the land that is the Brisbane Road stadium site.

Hearn states clearly he knew who he was selling to:

“I knew exactly what I was selling to: big ego, sparkling personality, loads of money, and he wanted to make the club into a big club, which is everything I and the supporters wanted to hear at that time. 

“Had we all known how it was going to go, we wouldn’t have done the deal – no question.”

Hearn says he will help the Trust form a new club, presumably at the Brisbane Road ground that he admits he has transferred ownership of to a pension fund meaning, he says, he cannot interfere with the rent levels that a new club could be charged.

But he will have to have a long hard look in the mirror if the club does ultimately fail.

Exhaust Fumes

I'm going to say some things in this that are deeply unpopular and unbelievably controversial. To some zealots...

The last series of Top Gear wasn't as bad as some people make out.

The second incarnation of the second incarnation of Top Gear saw wholesale changes to the personnel both in front of, and behind, the camera. Jeremy Clarkson and former schoolchum Andy Wilman were for 178 episodes the driving force behind the concept, and both bailed out in what could be considered by a cynic to be a contrived stunt to leave the BBC with a hugely popular cake recipe but no ingredients to bake it with.

Clarkson and Wilman also took the other two Beatles with them, Hammond and May, and went off to the exceptional financial clout of Amazon for The Grand Tour. The 'new' Top Gear selected Chris Evans as host, with Matt LeBlanc alongside plus a selection of existing BBC contributors to bolster the ranks. Instead of three, we had six in total.

Evans was, quite frankly, a good idea on paper but crap in reality. His brash gameshow like hosting, the shouty persona he has developed on the various programmes his production company has made, was just plain wrong. Shouting as things go wrong on a 'challenge' is welcome. Shouting as you reach an exiting bit of a conversation in the studio is not.

LeBlanc was a surprise choice for many, and easily the surprise package also. It was no surprise that he was kept on and, indeed, will be the central face of the forthcoming series. His two new sidekicks, Rory Reid and Chris Harris, were bit part players in the reincarnation series but earned their spurs admirably with solid work and good chemistry with LeBlanc as the series wore on and stories of Evans' imminent departure surfaced.

The new Top Gear series starts on March 5th, a month after the first series of The Grand Tour ended. The new Clarkson. Hammond, May vehicle had one thing for definite - a fucking huge budget.

The opening scene, a sprawling desert landscape with the trio driving to the stage and touring tent along with dozens of rat rods and custom bikes, the Hothouse Flowers playing on the stage constructed in the middle of nowhere, and a myriad of helicopters, drones, and effects on display, probably wiped out a BBC episode budget in 90 seconds.

The problem is that, after watching all the episodes as they arrived on Amazon Prime, I don't have one stand out moment from the series beyond that opening shot. The two-parter in Namibia probably came closest, and I'd watch it again on Dave, but I've not once replayed any episode to relive the magnificence.

That opening shot was clearly a "Fuck You" to the BBC. It went above and beyond in laying out the sheer riches now at the hands of the creators of the show, and it laid out a gold plated marker for the series. The old Top Gear would struggle through with Heath Robinson solutions to problems that arose from buying clapped out cars and racing them around fields as part of a ridiculously British challenge. The new Grand Tour just threw money at it.

Machinery appeared on set to alleviate numerous problems that would have previously been cleverly worked around. A hand paint job on a car and a home made spoiler on a banger on Top Gear were replaced with several thousand pounds worth of mods and turbochargers on The Grand Tour.

It was almost like the script writer had given up trying now he had a house made of gold bricks.

The new Top Gear has to try. It has a damaged reputation to salvage, and a baying band of Clarkson worshippers that will only see the worst in the new entity.

I first tuned in to the relaunched and reformatted Top Gear back in 2002 as there wasn't much else to do on a Sunday night. It became, over time, the only TV programme I made time to watch at the time of broadcast, rather than wait for a catchup service.

On March 5th I'll tune in again. I hope I am not disappointed.

Allen Not The Key

National League side Eastleigh have made no secret of their desire to follow the likes of Fleetwood Town into the Football League by throwing money at the best players and managers.

However the club is now searching for its fourth manager of the season after dispensing with Martin Allen after just two wins, 14 matches, and 84 days. Experienced National League watchers have suggested that the contract Allen was on was so financially rewarding that the 51 year old may never need to work again after his dismissal.

Spitfires owner Stewart Donald, an insurance tycoon and admitted Oxford United fan (and part shareholder), has rebuilt the ground, funded a mass of expensive signings, and opened up matches to free admission to boost attendances for a side that has quadrupled its average attendance over the past five years.

The club say the final straw was the latest free admission game attracting just 2,345 supporters when they usually attracted nearly double that for past offers. Some have blamed Allen's football - a rather industrial affair - though his record of never having won a home match for the club probably also contributed.

Allen, for his part, has always been a Marmite character to football fans. Most at home at Barnet, where he has had four separate stints in charge, he has been variously accused of a variety of actions during nights out and on touchlines that would normally see a person in front of a court. Most of them he has vehemently denied, and his reputation is more the stuff of pub talk than actual fact - even if he retains his "Mad Dog" nickname.

Eastleigh, and Donald, are fast learning that - like Dale Vince at Forest Green - bought success isn't that easy in football. Allen saw 13 players arrive in his 84 days, and 19 leave. One of those, Eastleigh stalwart Michael Green, has returned to the club within hours of Allen's dismissal less than two weeks after his departure.

The idea that a fixed amount of money can buy a fixed amount of success is not something that applies to the football world.

Name Droppers

Darlington 1883 are the first reformed football club in a while to seek a reversion of their name to that of the original after five years of existence.

98% of the Supporters Group members voting called to drop the '1883' moniker that had been added to differentiate the new club from the original Darlington FC. '1883' refers to the formation date of the original club.

Their reformation is more unusual than most in that the new club bought some of the assets, and debts, of the old club, partially in a bid to retain the name. They are also one of the few to have had to add something to their name to differentiate rather than remove. Chester City became Chester FC, etc etc.

The club retained the original badge, website address, and even the sell-on rights to certain players sold by the original club. The major difference, technically, was that the company running the club changed and that was enough for the FA to demand a change of name.

News came through on Friday that the FA's Membership Committee had forwarded the application to change to the FA Council with a recommendation for approval, meaning the FA Council are likely to follow suit when they are asked to ratify the change.

For their part, the club rarely use the '1883' tag themselves. The website highlights "Welcome to Darlington Football Club' on the front page, lists the next fixture as 'vs Darlington', and barely mentions the number outside of the technical requirements of FA membership to publish ownership information where the ultimate holding company is Darlington 1883 Ltd.

The FA Council are set to meet in April to decide on the application.

How Much Is Too Much?

Wrexham AFC were relegated to the Conference Premier, now the National League, in 2008. Since then they have had six permanent managers and two caretakers. Only one manager has left at his own accord, with a change made every 18 months or so.

On paper, Dean Keates' record as a football manager so far isn't that impressive. Of eighteen games he has won six, drawn six, and lost six. Four of the wins have come in the last six matches, leaving his record up to the end of 2016 as two wins in eleven. It is his first managerial job, having previously been a player and coach at the club for the past six seasons. Wrexham fans say Keates inherited a poor squad and has done wonders to turn a relegation haunted side into one with a vague hope of a play-off spot.

Keates signed an eighteen month deal in late October. Barely four months later he has now signed a new three and a half year contract. Even Keates told the local press on his new deal: “It was a surprise when they first mentioned it to me."

And so it should be.

This isn't a club whose ownership is new to the game. It is a club who has sacked a series of managers, allowed those managers to issue unsustainable contracts to players, yet seemingly chooses to ignore the lessons of the past and hand out a contract to a manager that is ten times the length of his total experience in the role.

Sometimes you have to stop being a fan when being a Director of a football club, especially one whose owners saw at first hand, as supporters, that poor management can put a club into a financial tailspin.

Silence At The Spireites As The Bolton War Erupts

Club owner Dave Allen has apparently ceased communication with the Board at Chesterfield, leaving the club with a growing debt and an admittance that they have to sell players to continue.

Company Secretary Ashley Carson told the club's AGM that £1.3million has been added to the existing debt pile and that players would have to go to try and balance the books. Company debt is somewhere around £10million with the sizable amount of money owed to Allen, but he is looking for a £15million return after storming out in November.

“We look at where we are at the moment in terms of cash forecast and we know what sort of figures we’ve got to realise in the summer from the sale of a player to keep things going into another year.”

That was Carson's ominous comment to the AGM. That the club could not effectively continue without selling a player and, with the £1.3million loss similar to the previous season, it's likely that is the sort of figure they are looking for.

Current chairman Mike Warner, Allen's replacement, told the press of his 'reluctance' to take the job and admitted the administration of the club had been a 'shambles'. Warner says Allen is considering his options but, with such a large price tag on a club losing huge sums in League One and facing relegation, he may have few available.

Over at Bolton, the Supporters Trust has told members that it would need to raise up to £30million to rescue the club. The latest much delayed financial figures cast significant doubt on the future of the club with the current structure hemorrhaging money, forcing the sale of star forward Zach Clough for £2.5million to keep the club running.

Owners Ken Anderson and Dean Holdsworth are now in public warfare after statement and counter statement in the press. Both have threatened each other with legal action, and Holdsworth says he is speaking to the League over the club's ownership.

The Trotters are in the promotion hunt in League One, largely due to their near Premier League wage bill, but run the risk of financial meltdown without agreement between the two parties, with the club having to reach settlement with their stadium catering partner over a £120,000 unpaid bill that saw a winding up petition offered.

Anderson has met with the Supporters Trust in an 'open, frank and meaningful meeting', and the Trust plans a similar meeting with Holdsworth as it tries to wade through the broken down relationship and media posturing.

Our Friends In The North

When you lose your biggest asset life can be particularly difficult. A pair of National North sides are facing harsh futures due to their stadium problems.

At Worcester City, once non-league giants, their long standing stadium woes have reached crisis point. A circular was sent around clubs that was, in effect, offering their entire squad up for loan or transfer. First out the door was their prize asset - 40 year old goalscorer Lee Hughes. Whatever your thoughts on the player's personal behaviour he got the job done. 14 goals from 27 games in a side threatened with relegation saw him plucked by their relegation rivals Telford within a couple of hours of the notice being circulated.

Worcester's woes lie in an abysmal deal to sell their old St Georges Lane home signed nine years ago. The veteran stadium was tired, needed an overhaul, but was more viable as a building site for housing than a new stadium. A deal was struck, plans were drawn up, and a new edge-of-town stadium was scheduled to be built.

Only it never got built.

The contract selling St Georges Lane had a series of clauses about the build of a new stadium but missed a major one. It didn't obligate the building firm to complete the new stadium before it demolished the old one.

Worcester were given notice, St Georges Lane demolished, and the club have now spent the last four years as tenants at other grounds. Kidderminster first, and now Bromsgrove where the going is, at least, cheaper. The cash pile that they were left with has been eroded due to the costs of operating a National North side without large chunks of the commercial income usually associated with a club at that level, with attendances well down over the seasons.  An average of 665 have come through the gates this term, roughly the same as the last season at Kidderminster, but some 20% down on their St Georges Lane numbers.

Relegation seems likely this summer with the squad set for further exits. Caretaker boss John Snape admitted to the press: “The players are up for sale. This will be a horrible feeling for the players. But the survival of the club is important and maybe a new start is good for Worcester City.”

Snape hoped the players would still be paid by the club, a hint perhaps at the depth of the problems that they now face.

Meanwhile, at Gloucester City they have a stadium they can't use.

Meadow Park flooded 10 years ago, and was initially written off as a stadium site due to the cost of the rebuild, and the problems faced with potential future floods. New sites were sought but none were suitable so, eventually, the club focused their attention back to getting the rotting stadium rebuilt and safe from further flooding.

The Tigers have bounced around various grounds. Cirencester, Forest Green, and Cheltenham have all hosted them. Their next stop is outside Gloucestershire, much to the annoyance of supporters, with Evesham set to host for at least the next season as Cheltenham grow tired of their pitch being over used.

The problem now is similar to Worcester. Having had limited commercial income and a limited income, the club - or more accurately owner Eamon McGurk - is running out of money to get the stadium right having kept the club competitive in National North. In a lengthy local newspaper interview, McGurk blames bad past decisions on the club's current plight. Every crossroads in the club recent past seems to have seen the wrong choice made, from the decision to abandon Meadow Park to the moves around the County and even the selection of one potential Director over another.

McGurk admits he doesn't attend home games. He says he doesn't want to attend the matches while they're played at the grounds of other sides meaning he barely attends matches at all. Bizarrely, and unlike Worcester, their attendances have increased over their nomadic period by 45%, from 300 to this seasons 437, partly due to the increased away followings from sides like Stockport.

Both Worcester and Gloucester need help from people who have the reach to build new grounds but are currently not willing or able to assist.

Orient Depress

Ever since Barry Hearn sold Leyton Orient, the club has been on a slow train to nowhere.

Hearn took control of the club in 1995, for £5, and proceeded to redevelop the stadium whilst overseeing a steady rise of the football side. Brisbane Road was renamed the Matchroom Stadium, after Hearn's sporting empire, and redeveloped on all four sides in complicated deals with flats and offices attached.

On the pitch the club took 11 years under Hearn to win promotion to League One, but steadily established their position and come within a whisker of the Championship with a play-off final defeat to Peterborough in 2014.

Weeks after Wembley the club was sold to Italian Francesco Becchetti for a reported £4million and the decline started almost immediately.

The club had four managers within three months of Becchetti's arrival and ended up being relegated by the end of that first season. Hearn had seven managers in nearly 20 years. Becchetti, currently on ten in two and a half years, saw his last two out the door after just nine games each.

The current incumbent has been promoted from within, but whether it was an appointment out of necessity or ability is anyone's guess at this time. Daniel Webb was assistant to the Under 18's manager, Andy Edwards, 18 months ago. Two weeks ago he was appointed to replace Edwards as First Team manager.

Orient have lost every game so far in 2017, six so far, having last won on Boxing Day. Their latest loss, at home to Morecambe, saw five youth team products appear in the first XI. Not a problem usually, but two of them were just 17 and there were three more youngsters on the bench. There's been plenty of talk about the Premier League u23 sides being unable to cope with first team football against League Two sides - half of Orient's matchday squad were under 21 that night.

The owner has alienated supporters with a wall of silence over the goings-on at Brisbane Road, and the Leyton Orient Fans Trust (dodging the LOST acronym that would have come from the tradition reference as a Supporters Trust) are holding a Special General Meeting in March to discuss disaster planning and set up a 'fighting fund'.

Their call is for Becchetti to either leave, or implement a hands-off role and leave the business to be run by a competent CEO that talks to supporters and a football manager that knows the level they operate at and can be left alone to do his job.

Given the track record of Italians owning English football clubs, both options seem unlikely.

The Tragic Of The FA Cup

Last night, the second string of Premier League strugglers Leicester City took on the reserves of Championship promotion hopefuls Derby County. The game was televised on the most watched TV channel at prime viewing time.

The two between them changed 18 of the 22 starters from their League matches at the weekend.

What has the FA Cup become?

The winners of the FA Cup Final receive £1.8million in prize money. That figure is only around a third of what a Championship club receives each year in TV revenue. You are more richly rewarded for finishing 21st in the Championship, 41st in the overall football pyramid, than you are by winning the "World's premier cup competition".

Ten years ago, Manchester United and Arsenal were lambasted for fielding weakened sides in the competition with the riches of the Champions League more appealing. Now, with the ever increasing TV revenue in the domestic game, sides from the second and third tiers are fielding weakened sides in this once prestigious competition.

There have been many calls that the only way to halt the slide into indifference is to hand a Champions League place to the winners of the FA Cup. It seems debatable that the great and good of European football would want to risk such an option, since the riches involved in that competition rely on having the big drawing clubs in the competition.

The winners of the FA Cup have, primarily, been one of the major clubs. Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Man City have won 19 of the last 21 finals. The other two winners were the deeply unfashionable Wigan and Portsmouth - now both residing well outside the top flight. However it is often one of the unfashionable clubs that makes the final to meet the eventual winner.

In the last 15 years two clubs have reached the final from outside the Premier League. This season half of the Fifth Round qualifiers are from outside the Premier League. Every one is facing a Premier League side in that round. The Sixth Round may not even feature a top flight side, however the major guns of English football are still in the draw and are likely to progress despite fielding weak sides in prior rounds.

The cream rises to the top, but the milk is very much off.

Ticking The No Publicity Box

I can somewhat sympathise with Morecambe supporters after a third man claimed to be the owner of the Shrimps yesterday.

Graham Burnard described himself as a reluctant owner who never 'intended or wanted' to own the club. He says that the G50 Holding Ltd company he set up for original new owner Diego Lemos has reverted to his control as Lemos never paid him for the work done to transfer the shares to the disappearing Brazilian.

This news came after Lemos secured a court injunction against a sale of the club to Joseph Cala, with his former partner Abdulrahman Al-Hashemi paying the wage bill at the club yesterday. It was Al-Hashemi that sold the club, as the holding company, to Cala, and seems to be the only one of the three foreign investors that actually has a solid background.

As for Burnard, the legal report of a battle over a will suggests the man originally described as a tax advisor is twice bankrupt, in 1999 and 2013, but the family owned a number of sizable properties in the North East. He does not appear on the current Insolvency Service register, meaning the occurrences appear to be discharged.

How long he will hold ownership for is anyone's guess, but Burnard told the local press he is working on behalf of Al-Hashemi and that the club is 'not for sale' with Cala having been told he is not wanted at the Globe Arena by current club chairman Peter McGuigan, the former owner that started the current chain of events, after apparently offending the unpaid staff on his first day at the club.

Meanwhile, over at Bolton feuding owners are still to resolve the future of the club. Ken Anderson remains in discussions with Dean Holdsworth to secure the former striker's share of the club, with Anderson refusing to solely fund the ongoing losses at the club until he assumes full control.

Anderson says that striker Zach Clough was sold to cover debts, with Holdsworth refusing to put money in alongside Anderson. The pair have been feuding for four months now since originally agreeing a deal for Anderson to assume control of Holdsworth's 40% stake.

The Trotters have not won in 2017, earning three draws in six matches, leaving them to drop seven points behind the automatic promotion race in League One.

Just About Managing

The dangers of keeping a grip on reality at a football club are widespread. The latest case at Wrexham is a warning to all.

The National League club apparently allowed former manager Gary Mills to sign players to contracts that had trigger clauses extending them into the following season once a certain number of games were played by the player.

Every player had a set number of matches to start before their clause was triggered. Some of them already have been, but a crisis point had been reached with a string of players set to trigger their clauses and Mills' replacement nervously eyeing up his long terms plans.

These are generally players not necessarily in new manager Dean Keates' plans or capable of fitting into the future budget. Top scorer John Rooney sits on 29 starts and 11 goals, but has now found himself on the bench for the last two games as match number 30 triggers a new deal. Two further players have agreed terms to not trigger their clauses, and a few more are on the verge of triggering their extra year.

Managers have favourite players, or have a preference to a type of player. Often changing a manager is so much more than just him. His backroom staff tend to go out the door, and there is usually upheaval in the playing squad - and that comes at a cost.

At Newport, Graham Westley has all but frozen out a trio of players signed by a predecessor that he no longer wants. He's brought in 13 new players, and axed nine others, as well as having a clear out among the coaching staff. Even the club secretary departed, which was probably a first.

It's an expensive hobby sacking managers. Even the Chief Executive and Director of Football at Wrexham both left in November, a week after Mills' departure. Though the news about the clauses could be a potential reason why, we'll probably never know.

Spinning Globe

The farce at the Globe Arena seems to continue without resolution with the latest news being the announcement of Joseph Cala as the club's new owner.

Cala, an Italian-American who has previously been linked to a takeover of Portsmouth prior to their collapse in 2012. He had also spent a full 11 days as owner of Italian second tier side Salernitana the year before.

You can see why his tenure at that club was so brief. A debut interview with local Morecambe paper The Visitor talked of installing undersoil heating, overhauling the pitch, saving an eye watering £600,000 from franchising out the bars and catering at the Globe Arena, and listing the club on the American Stock Exchange alongside Manchester United - to bring in £1million of 'free' money each year.

Cala's company has a website - http://www.calacorp.com/ - written in poor English and naming a string of the world's top companies as partners in their developments. Their business? Building underwater holiday resorts. None appear to have actually been built, with a second website offering only mocked-up pictures and sample videos of what the views on offer could be.

Cala was dubbed the "Man from Atlantis" by Pompey fans.

Whether Cala is the owner of the club is still in the air though, despite his assertion that he paid a six figure sum for it. Diego Lemos, the disappearing Brazilian, resurfaced last week to reassert his ownership of the club and accuse people of attempting to stealing the ownership of the club from him.

Durham based tax consultant Graham Burnard is now the sole director of G50 Holdings Limited, the ultimate holding company of the club, replacing Lemos two weeks ago with the company address also moved to his registered address. Former Lemos partner Abdulraham Al-Hashemi has been speaking with current Club directors over the state of the finances, and appears to have had a hand in the transfer of ownership, but the club remains in a perilous state.

Wages have gone unpaid in January, with Cala saying he has the money once the Football League agrees to his takeover. The 3G complex at the Globe Arena, a separate company, has gone into Administration and made its staff redundant. Cala has called on the existing Club directors to step down before he puts any money in, but that he may retain some of them for a reformed board.

Ultimately, Lemos is likely to disappear back to the anonymity he came from, another football ownership mistake that the FA seem unable to stop. Whether Cala is the true saviour of the Shrimps remains a matter of debate.

Three Sides Of Woe

Oxford United's protracted talks over the ownership of their ground show no real sign of reaching a climax.

Firoz Kassam, the club's former owner with roots in takeaways and 'slum' hotels and the man whose name still adorns the Kassam Stadium, has now held the stadium for over 10 years since selling his interest in the club. Kassam took over the club in 1999, putting it through a CVA to slash debts to 10% of their original value after buying the entity for £1, and effectively bought the club and Manor Ground for around only £1million in total.

The Manor Ground was later sold between Kassam's companies for £6million, then to a developer for £12million shortly afterwards. Kassam pocketed the profit and later declared himself 'proud' of the deal in an interview with The Guardian.

With the stadium already partially built but with construction stalled, a year after taking over the club a scaled-back development, famously without a fourth side, resumed on the site with the club moving there in the summer of 2001.

At his 2006 departure as club owner, Kassam was reportedly charging Oxford United rent of £278,000 plus overheads meaning a £400,000 a year bill for the ground that Kassam retained much of the commercial income from, having added a substantial commercial development to the stadium on land he bought for a fraction of the sum he cashed the Manor Ground in for. An October 2016 press report put the rent figure now closer to £500,000.

Fast forward to the present day, and supporters trust OxVox have been in negotiations alongside the local Council to turn the stadium into a community-owned asset. Their latest statement hopes for Heads of Terms to be complete by the end of the season, news that brought frustration from the club's Board.

It has been over three months since Kassam acknowledged publicly discussions to complete a deal with the Trust, with club chairman Daryl Eales stating at the time of the original announcement that the deal could be complete in '10-12 weeks'. Kassam has reportedly refused any possibility of expanding the stadium during the process, with a dispute ongoing over money owed by the club under the lease terms, and the club have been excluded from talks on the sale despite being the sitting tenant.

The club have now warned that they may look to leave the ground, or have to scale back their expenditure on the team and youth setup as the burden of the rent demands and the lack of match day income from the current deal leave the club needing regular cash injections.

For Kassam, every day the current deal continues is another day of profit. And he is, by his own admission, in it for the money.

Support Your Local Sheriff

Another American Football franchise is on the move, with further relocations set to happen that would seriously question the commitment of the ordinary supporter.

The San Diego Chargers are to move to Los Angeles, meaning supporters will face a 240 mile round trip to support the club that has been housed in the city since 1961. Owner Dean Spanos' logic on the move includes the gem that the side was originally formed in LA, spending the 1960 season as the LA Chargers.

Quite how many of their supporters will remember one season 56 years ago is anyone's guess of a single figure percentage.

Spanos says he has spent 15 years trying to get a new stadium in San Diego to replace the 70,000 capacity Qualcomm Stadium, built in the late 1960s but considered to be incompatible for his side's needs. Local taxpayers were given the choice to agree to a 4% tax increase to secure funding on a $1.8billion building project but, with the economy still struggling, the team were given only two thirds of the support needed to pass the bill and their fate was sealed.

Attendances at the Qualcomm Stadium were averaging 66,000 in 2015 but dropped by 11,000 in the current season after Spanos failed to move the team in close season last year. Their seasonal performance also didn't help, winning just four of sixteen matches in 2015 and five in 2016, while the suspension of the NFL blackout policy over the past few seasons - where games are not televised in the local area if tickets are not sold out - has also hit several sides. If you wanted to make an argument on TV coverage affecting ticket sales, you'd probably start there...

The Chargers' new, temporary, home is the 30,000 capacity StubHub Center, with a 70,000 capacity stadium in the process of construction. That stadium will be shared with the LA Rams, who moved back to the city from St Louis after 21 years during the last close season.

The Rams are something of a nomad even by NFL standards, having played in Cleveland until their first LA move in 1946, then Anaheim (1980) and St Louis in 1995. Rams fans following their side from St Louis will need to take a week off work for the drive, or spend $500 on flights for each game. Or they can watch every match on TV. Which is the likelier outcome?

The Rams will play the 2017 season at the 90,000 Memorial Coliseum, their home during their previous LA run and also that of both the Chargers and Raiders during their stays in the city. The 90 year old stadium has gone through several renovations but its future as a NFL standard venue is now in doubt.

The other former tenant, now the Oakland Raiders, are set to move to Las Vegas (1200 mile round trip) - provisionally by 2020. They moved to Oakland in 1995 but are now set to end a 25 year stint with a move to Las Vegas, a city with zero history in the NFL due to the city's links to gambling.

The only gamble the NFL seem to like is with the emotions of the fans.

New Year, New Rules

The New Year has brought some new ambition from a couple of non-league clubs.

Both National League side Southport and National North Harrogate Town have declared their intention to go full time next season.

For Southport, a Football League club some 40 years ago, it is their second attempt to go full time in recent memory. They tried the same in 2006 that saw them lose then manager Liam Watson and most of their part-time side and, by the end of the season, their place in the Conference as the newly assembled squad failed to gel quickly enough under replacement boss Paul Cook. Cook also failed to last the season, being replaced in January by Peter Davenport who failed to halt the slide.

Davenport retained his job for the full-time squad to take a tilt at the Conference North title. They failed again, with Davenport axed in April prior to a play-off defeat to Stalybridge. Watson returned to the club in the summer, having previously refusing to give up his day job, and the full time project was quietly dropped.

This time around Watson is Operations Director at the club he served twice as manager, winning the National North title on each occasion. Chairman Charlie Clapham remains in charge of the boardroom, and with an average gate over 1,000 only by virtue of near neighbours Tranmere bringing 2,000 supporters for their August Bank Holiday weekend match.

The other club, Harrogate, have attracted gates as low as 400 this season and have an average of 1,000 boosted by huge travelling numbers from Halifax and Darlington. The decision to go full time has already cost them the services of Assistant Manager John McDermott, with the Grimsby Town legend opting - like Watson - to concentrate on his day job following the announcement.

Other clubs with similarly small attendances and income have tried full time status in the past, usually relying on a sugar daddy or a squad made of up players that prefer the lifestyle of a full time football to a wage they can realistically live on.

Some players have played full time for little more than pocket money and a roof over their head. Blackpool once employed an ex-Man Utd player, Bojan Djordjic on £90 a week as the player sought to follow the dream.

That was the minimum wage figure the FA accept for a full time footballer, given the hours they are expected to attend work. And there is always someone that is prepared to exploit that to call their club "full time" despite an obvious lack of resources.