Chester City: The Death Rattle Continues

A Vote at Nene Park

At eleven o’clock on Friday morning, the future of Chester City Football Club will be decided at Rushden & Diamonds’ Nene Park. Twenty-three Blue Square Premier clubs, along with eight divisional representatives from the North and South divisions, will vote on whether to expel the club from the Football Conference. For the recommendation to pass, a three-quarters majority is required. If eight votes go against the proposal, Chester City will, for the time being, stagger on.

This vote follows a chaotic period that has seen the club lurch from one crisis to another, leaving its supporters batted from pillar to post. Their history is littered with turmoil, from the three years spent exiled at Macclesfield Town’s Moss Rose during the construction of the Deva Stadium to the near-fatal ownerships of Mark Guterman and Terry Smith. Yet even those episodes pale in comparison to the havoc wreaked upon the club over the last year.

The club’s fate now rests in the hands of its peers, but their motives are far from certain. Some may be cowed into voting against expulsion, while others may act out of pure self-interest. As the chairman of Histon noted in the Cambridge Evening Post, an expulsion could have benefits for his own club’s play-off chances. “Clubs have been asked to vote on the future of another football club and we’ll have the blood on our hands if we vote Chester out,” he said, before adding, “Teams above us could lose up to 6 points… and that could give us an outside chance of reaching the play-offs, so there could be a benefit there to us.”

The Laughing Director

The latest chapter in this saga involves the apparent sale of the club by the Vaughan family to a Danish website, Chester Projekt. A photograph published on the Chester Chronicle’s website shows Stephen Vaughan Senior, smiling, at the centre of the deal. His presence is a direct contravention of the law and the FA’s own rules, as he is currently serving an eleven-year ban from acting as a company director.

That smile is a laugh aimed at everyone. It is aimed at the supporters of Chester City, about whom he finally articulated his true feelings in a Sky Sports News interview. It is aimed at the Danish consortium that has bailed him out. And it is aimed squarely at the Football Conference and the Football Association, whose fine words about financial propriety have proven hollow as they allowed him to walk over them time and time again.

Also present in the photograph is Mark Wright, a former Chester manager whose departures from two clubs involved allegations of racism. Wright, said to be a friend of Vaughan, apparently connected the Danes to the deal through his PR company. This is a confusing development, as no record of Mark Wright owning a public relations company seems to exist. One might expect such a company to advertise itself, but there is no website or internet presence to be found. Its name and Companies House registration remain a mystery.

This is a farce.

An Alienated Fanbase

The supposed saviours, Chester Projekt, have done little to inspire confidence. Led by Palle Rasmussen, the group has systematically alienated the very people whose support it needs. They launched a media campaign in Denmark without contacting the supporters group, Chester Fans United (CFU). They then falsely claimed on their website to have the 100 percent backing of CFU, a statement later removed without a retraction.

Last week, the Danes met with CFU and stated they would not proceed with a bid if the supporters did not wish them to. When CFU requested they stand down, they went ahead with one anyway. After their bid was accepted, they published insulting and derogatory comments about CFU on a website, for which no apology has been offered. With the 800 members of CFU unlikely to return to the club any time soon, the question of how Chester Projekt plans to meet the club’s running costs is a serious one. The total debt stands at £703,000, of which £218,000 is owed to creditors other than the Vaughan family. With almost certain relegation looming and no supporters, another winding-up petition from HMRC seems inevitable. It is perhaps unsurprising that Palle Rasmussen has reportedly been suffering from “stress”.

The rules have been smashed to pieces. A banned director is openly involved in the running of a football club. The supporters, the only group that appears to want to do things properly, have been ignored and mocked. This entire affair makes one wonder whether English football has a heart in the first place.

All eyes now turn to Nene Park on Friday morning.