Chester City and the Death Rattle

A payment of £36,600 has been lodged with the Football Conference. For this laughably small sum, the threat of expulsion from the competition has been withdrawn and Chester City Football Club has been permitted to continue its agonising decline. The bar for passing this particular version of a “fit and proper test” has been set at a ludicrously low level, and so the club stumbles on.

It took all day for the decision to emerge, another day of waiting that ended with the inevitable capitulation. The football authorities, faced with another opportunity to act decisively against the club’s owner Stephen Vaughan, once again bottled it. Vaughan, who is shortly due to be banned as a company director for eleven years for carousel fraud, has publicly stated he has already disposed of his interest in the club. Yet his presence looms large over every proceeding.

The official statement released by the Football Conference speaks volumes through its weakness. It congratulates itself and its partners, the Football League and the PFA, for having “worked tirelessly to save Chester City FC from expulsion”. This is a peculiar definition of salvation. The club’s situation, the statement continues, “should send a warning signal to every club”. It certainly should, but not for the reasons the Conference imagines. The real warning is that the game’s governing bodies appear toothless, unable or unwilling to confront a situation that has spiralled out of control.

A History of Inaction

This is not a new problem. The authorities have had years of opportunities to intervene. Ten years ago, they allowed Vaughan to sell one of the two clubs he owned - against FA rules at the time - to his painter and decorator just days before they were scheduled to meet in the FA Cup. He then bought one of the clubs back shortly after the match. They stood by as he attempted to push through a CVA that was challenged by HMRC and thrown out by a judge for its “material irregularities”. They have maintained a stony silence over his admission of carousel fraud and seem uninterested in who he ultimately “sells” his shares to when the law finally forces his hand.

This pattern of inaction has emboldened those who would treat football clubs as personal fiefdoms. When asked why Vaughan has not yet sold his shares, the club’s Bob Gray offered a chilling insight into the owner’s mindset.

He has seen people. In fact he saw somebody today. But he will not let the club go at any price. They’re coming up with stupid figures. They don’t realise the strength of the man. He’s as thick-skinned as a rhino.

The authorities have repeatedly failed to penetrate that skin. Each time they have had the chance to lance the boil for the good of the game, they have flinched. The result is a club in its death throes, kept alive by administrators who seem to be acting for reasons clear to no one but themselves.

The Supporters Betrayed

The most insulting part of the Football Conference’s statement was directed at the very people they claim to be helping: the supporters. “We are hopeful those who have supported the club through such difficult times, especially the fans on the terraces, appreciate the position we as a competition faced,” it reads. This demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire crisis.

The fans on the terraces are the ones boycotting the club. They are the ones risking football banning orders to protest during matches. They are not doing this for the sheer hell of it. They are doing it because they see the soul of their club being destroyed. The governing bodies, by propping up the current regime, are not saving the club; they are merely prolonging its agony and alienating its lifeblood. Their words are an insult to the intelligence and dignity of a fanbase that has been pushed to the brink.

The consequences are stark and measurable. When Chester City won the Conference title in 2004, the average attendance at the Deva Stadium was 3,065. That figure is down to 1,285 this season, and it will only fall further. Almost two thousand people have already walked away. Is this what the football authorities consider a victory?

It is only going to get worse.

An Imagined Future

Chester are twenty-four points from safety in the Blue Square Premier. Relegation seems a certainty. The protests, judging by the mood among supporters, will grow louder and more desperate. The club will be blamed, the fans will be blamed, but the ultimate responsibility lies with the feeble infrastructure that is supposed to govern the sport in this country. The Football League, for its part, has been strangely quiet on its future plans for the parachute payments system.

The worst-case scenario a year from now is grim. Relegated from the national division, the club limps on at the Deva Stadium, playing in front of a handful of spectators. Perhaps the Vaughan family retains control through a proxy. A supporter-owned team, Chester Fans United, may have been formed in response, but with the original club still occupying the council-owned stadium, the new entity is forced to play out of town. A bitter schism is born, creating two weakened clubs snapping at each other for years to come. This is the future the authorities are paving the way for through their repeated failures to act.

There is another possibility. The club could still go bust, which would free up the Deva Stadium for a new, supporter-owned club to start afresh. Only then, perhaps, can the soul of Chester City be saved. Until that day comes, the patient remains on life support, screaming in agony while the doctors refuse to explain whose benefit this is for. You would not treat a dog this way.