Contributor

Rhys Calder

Rhys Calder spent a decade reading football club accounts for fun before anyone paid him to. He covers administrations, owners and the rules that are supposed to stop the next collapse, and keeps the Club Crisis Index.

Articles by Rhys Calder

11 September 2025
Killed by Mismanagement: The Resurrection of Bury FC
1 March 2022
FIFA thrashed in a game of appearances over Ukraine
21 August 2021
Rochdale AFC: A Question of Trust
17 August 2021
The Scunthorpe Problem: An Owner, His Debts and a Club in Decay
27 March 2021
The National League: From Mismanagement to Outright Contempt
12 March 2021
Whyteleafe, Ian Rush and a Glimpse of Football's New Normal
13 February 2021
As Bad As It Got: Leicester City and the Collapse of 2002
12 February 2021
The National League: A Competition Spiralling Out of Control
26 October 2020
Is The Bell Tolling For Southend United?
16 September 2020
Macclesfield Town: Thirteenth Time Unlucky
9 August 2020
As Bad As It Got: Queens Park Rangers and White City
24 July 2020
As Bad As It Got: Oxford United and the Maxwells
29 April 2019
Money Can't Buy You Love: The National League Play-off Final
21 October 2018
Nuneaton Borough: The Football Club Without An Owner
19 February 2018
A Normal Club: Rangers and the January Transfer Window
13 January 2018
Fourteen Days to Save Hartlepool United? It’s Not Quite That Simple
9 January 2018
Hartlepool United: Hanging By A Thread
7 December 2017
Celtic: A Price Paid For Spoiling The Party
1 September 2017
Billericay Town: The Only Way Isn’t Necessarily Essex
7 March 2017
The Price of Genius: The Career of Bela Guttmann
10 December 2016
Beitar Jerusalem: Pure, Unadulterated Stupidity
11 November 2016
Southend United: Fossetts Farm and Other False Starts
12 September 2016
Democracy, UEFA Style: An Election Under A Cloud
2 June 2016
AFC Wimbledon: For You, Fella
1 June 2016
AFC Wimbledon: A Victory Fourteen Years in the Making
26 May 2016
Losing the Moral High Ground: The 2016 Scottish Cup Final Aftermath
19 March 2016
How the Scottish Football Press Rewrites History
13 December 2015
Wimbledon's Return Home: The Price Paid by Kingstonian
11 November 2015
What The FFA: Australia Backs Sheikh Salman
11 November 2015
The Rangers Tax Case: Best of Five?
17 October 2015
Ten Million Holes at Sixfields: The Unravelling of Northampton Town
2 May 2015
Are Enfield Town to Pay the Price for FA Maladministration?
24 October 2014
Epic, Futile, Infinite: The Strange Beauty Of Desert Golfing
29 August 2014
A League of Horrors: Ten Terrifying Tales of Football Governance
5 July 2014
Plus Ça Change: The High Court Damning of Coventry City
30 June 2014
British Television & The World Cup: A Difficult Birth
13 June 2014
Hereford United: How It Came to This
7 June 2014
Exeter City: A Fan-Ownership Revolution in Crisis
19 March 2014
Rangers FC and The Self-Importance of Being Sandy
13 March 2014
No End In Sight: The Continuing Agony For Coventry City Supporters
6 February 2014
Hamlet Under The Hammer: A Club on the Brink
19 January 2014
Maidstone United and the Conference: Time to Change Tack on 3G Pitches
18 January 2014
Port Vale: Norman Smurthwaite's Conquest
12 January 2014
Making Sense of the Cardiff City Numbers
9 January 2014
Bolton Wanderers: The Tales of Chairman Gartside
18 December 2013
The Hedge Fund and The Football Club: A Year-Round Pantomime
3 December 2013
No Speedy Resolution in Sight for the Ricoh Arena Dispute
21 October 2013
Northern Lights: The Sudden Ascent Of Icelandic Football
15 September 2013
Please Can We Have £1m: Bury FC's Desperate Plea for Investment
25 August 2013
Boys From The West of Scotland: Rangers At War
15 August 2013
The Blogger, the Defamation Claim and the £50,000 Legal Bill
16 July 2013
Hull City's Identity Crisis: A Rebrand by Stealth?
9 July 2013
Coventry City Supporters: Sold Down The River by The Football League
5 July 2013
Coventry City: Is It Time For A New Club?
16 May 2013
The Betrayal of Doncaster Rovers Belles: A Matter of Finance, Not Football
15 May 2013
100 Owners: The Bhatti Brothers at Wolverhampton Wanderers
10 May 2013
All's Fair in Lovering's War: The Fight for Barry Town
3 May 2013
Aldershot Town: The Phoenix Becomes Icarus
1 May 2013
Context Lost in the PFA Awards Storm
26 April 2013
Farnborough FC: Six Years To Administration Again
22 April 2013
Barnet's Emotional Farewell: 106 Years at Underhill Come to a Close
18 April 2013
Sunday Reckoning: The Continuing Decline of Stockport County
16 April 2013
Archibald Leitch: The 1902 Ibrox Disaster and the Price of Safety
9 April 2013
Who Can We Trust: The So-Called 'Football Men'
8 March 2013
Queens Park Rangers: The £89m Gamble on Premier League Survival
5 February 2013
McLeish’s Forty Days Crowns Seven Weeks of Madness at Nottingham Forest
1 February 2013
Portsmouth: The £800,000 Question Mark Over Fratton Park
23 December 2012
100 Owners: Number 75, Graham Westley at Farnborough Town
20 December 2012
No Sky Blues Ahead Just Yet: Coventry City's Statutory Demand
18 December 2012
100 Owners: Ken Wheldon at Walsall and Birmingham City
2 December 2012
Sharp Practice: The Business Stylings Of Graham Bean
14 November 2012
Confirmed: The FA Cup Match AFC Wimbledon Emphatically Did Not Want
11 October 2012
100 Owners: Irving Scholar, Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest
24 September 2012
100 Owners: Peter Swales at Manchester City
23 July 2012
Minus Ten: Portsmouth FC Don't Do Summers
18 July 2012
Northwich Victoria: A Summer of Rancour and Discontent
11 July 2012
Rangers Again: The Buck is Passed to the Scottish Football League
27 June 2012
The Chips Are Down in Pompey's Ownership Roulette
14 May 2012
Euro 2012 Runners and Riders: Poland
2 May 2012
Premature Rejection: The Press Against Roy Hodgson
8 March 2012
Fifty Years Ago: How Accrington Stanley Fell From The Football League
7 March 2012
The Return of the Vaughans: A New Club for an Old Problem
23 January 2012
Four Star Daydream: The Portsmouth Ownership Saga Continues
13 January 2012
Blackburn Rovers: When the Owners Turn Chicken
29 December 2011
Crawley Town, Steve Evans and the Season of Ill Will
19 December 2011
Everton: A Textbook Example of English Football’s Failed Business Model
15 December 2011
Barnet: The End of Underhill and a Future Unknown
3 December 2011
Kettering Town's Season Descends From Bad to Worse
25 November 2011
Portsmouth: An Unavoidable Calamity
21 November 2011
Football in Wakefield and the Question of Ongoing Viability
16 November 2011
Panorama Has the Last Word on Notts County and Munto Finance
31 October 2011
The Worm Turns: Cardiff City Fans Walk Out at Elland Road
21 October 2011
The Premier League's Voodoo Economics: An Elite Plan?
20 October 2011
Football League Turkeys Vote For a Premier League Christmas
12 October 2011
A Winding Up Order for Truro City
11 October 2011
Fans Re-United: How Brighton Are Repaying A Fourteen Year Old Debt
20 August 2011
Pilgrim's Regress: Deadlines, Assurances and Endless Questions at Argyle
18 August 2011
Pilgrims Regress: The Continuing Suffocation of Plymouth Argyle
3 August 2011
Can you really watch league football for less than twenty pounds?
18 July 2011
Dispatches and The Football League: Not a smoking gun, but a start
12 July 2011
The Vaughan Effect: A Shadow Over Stockport County
9 July 2011
Stockport County: The Further Adventures Continue
3 July 2011
A Carnival of Calamity: The 1986 World Cup Video Game Fiasco
23 June 2011
A Decade of Enfield Town: The Pioneers of Supporter Ownership
28 May 2011
Cup Football Through the Prism of the Hampshire Senior Cup
23 May 2011
Earthquake: The Spectacular Collapse of ITV Digital
10 May 2011
Diamonds Aren't Forever: Rushden & Diamonds in a Critical Condition
9 May 2011
Play-Off Prices: The Questionable Value of a £41 Ticket
1 May 2011
How Chester’s Season Went Down To The Wire: It Couldn’t Have Been Closer
25 April 2011
Bananas and Blowtorches: The Julian Alsop Story
21 April 2011
An Open Letter to HMRC Regarding Wrexham FC
16 April 2011
Fiddling While Wrexham Burns: The Dragons' Off-field Crisis Deepens
6 April 2011
Hereford & Torquay: Inconsistent Punishments for an Identical Crime
4 April 2011
The AGM Cup: How to avoid relegation the non-league way
10 March 2011
Wrexham FC: Familiar Faces and Even More Familiar Divisions
26 February 2011
A Tale of Two Takeovers: Odd Goings-On at Blackburn and Watford
18 February 2011
Craig Levein and Graeme Hogg: A Classic Punch-Up Revisited
6 February 2011
The Shaming of St Albans City
26 January 2011
The Maximum Wage and Retain & Transfer: A Match Made in Hell for Players
18 January 2011
Leyton FC: An Unfathomable Past and an Uncertain Future
12 January 2011
A Pincer Movement: The Fight for Wrexham FC Continues
5 January 2011
Wrexham Supporters Prepare to Man the Barricades Again
2 January 2011
2010: A Year in Football's Financial Folly
31 December 2010
A New Year's Thought for Ryton FC
11 October 2010
The Khoslas and Kingstonian: Out of Administration, Into the Fire
24 September 2010
What is Bad for Accrington Stanley Could Be Good for Oxford United
10 September 2010
A Homogenised Game: The Ten Greatest Goalposts of All Time
30 August 2010
Steve Evans: Football Manager, Convicted Criminal
28 August 2010
Sheffield Wednesday: The Long, Long Wait For Change
17 August 2010
Blue Square Premier Preview: Money, Meltdown and the Race for the League
6 August 2010
Resolution 12: An Unfolding Question for the Scottish FA
26 June 2010
An Open Letter to the Owners of Chester City FC
26 June 2010
Ebbsfleet United: Ghosts in the Machine
26 June 2010
In Praise Of Floodlit Football
26 June 2010
Portsmouth's Administration: Postponement or Salvation?
26 June 2010
UEFA's Financial Fair Play: The Usual Suspects Have Their Say
26 June 2010
A Summer of Discontent: Tabloid Fluff and the World Cup
15 June 2010
The Decline and Fall of the European Empire?
12 June 2010
Thirty-One Shirts: A World Cup Dominated by Commerce
23 May 2010
A New Beginning: Chester FC Gets The Deva Stadium
23 May 2010
The Mail on Sunday May Cost England the 2018 World Cup
20 May 2010
The Power of the Premier League: Triesman, the Bid and the Reckoning
18 May 2010
Hicks the Huckster: Under the Skin of the Liverpool Owner
15 May 2010
Andrew Andronikou: Saviour or Self-Promoter?
1 March 2010
Chester City: The Death Rattle Continues
26 February 2010
Chester City: A Sale to the Danes and Contempt for the Fans
16 February 2010
Chester City: The Death Rattle and the Wrexham Contagion
14 February 2010
Chester City: Anatomy of a £700,000 Debt
11 February 2010
Notts County: The Morning After the Night Before
1 February 2010
Peter Ridsdale: Chairman as a Repeat Offence
23 December 2009
The Illusions of Shareholder Democracy at Rangers and Watford
12 December 2009
Chester City and the Death Rattle
11 November 2009
Morecambe: Many Questions, Many Owners, No Answers
5 November 2009
Two Legs and a Gypsy Curse: The Story of the 1946 FA Cup
3 November 2009
Brian Potter: A Life in Professional Football
14 October 2009
The Perils and Stupidity of the Internet Football Forum
14 September 2009
A Question of Value: Alan Green and the BBC
1 September 2009
Pitching Up, Pitching Out: Durham City and the 3G Debacle
20 August 2009
Chester City's Summer of Crisis Continues
18 July 2009
When Canada Went to the World Cup: The Story of Mexico 86
22 June 2009
The True Price of Buying Newcastle United
8 June 2009
Liverpool and Everton: A Reluctant Case for Sharing
5 June 2009
Football and Insolvency: A Rough Guide to the Rules
18 May 2009
Chester City in Administration: The Stephen Vaughan Story
11 May 2009
Millwall and Leeds United: A Depressing Familiarity
28 February 2009
What Makes a Football Club Important?
16 January 2009
The Quest for the Golden Fleece: Football's Forgotten Franchise
18 July 2007
A Load Of Old Balls: A History of Football Design