Sharp Practice: The Business Stylings Of Graham Bean

Within hours of supporters voting to name their new club 1874 Northwich, the internet domain names relating to it were being bought up. This wasn’t a fan eager to help, but Graham Bean, an adviser to the owner of the club they were breaking away from, Northwich Victoria.

For supporters of the Vics, the last few weeks should have been a moment of release. After seeing their club plummet from the Conference Premier to Division One South of the Northern Premier League under owner Jim Rushe, losing its ground along the way, the Supporters Trust voted to form a new entity. On Thursday, they chose the name 1874 Northwich. Rushe himself had told the local press, “I’m all for it.” Finally, fans could escape the destructive ownership and start afresh.

But nothing involving this club is ever simple. Bean’s rapid purchase of the domains, a practice known as cyber-squatting, threw an immediate obstacle in their path. While one supporter had already registered www.1874northwich.com, Bean had acquired the others with the clear intention of selling them on. He was unrepentant, telling the Northwich Guardian, “This has got nothing to do with Jim Rushe or Northwich Victoria… I’m open to offers to sell them.”

“Sharp Business Practice”

Bean’s own description of his actions was perhaps the most revealing part of the episode. He called it, “just sharp business practice on my part.”

This is a curious choice of words. Business dictionaries define “sharp practice” as behaviour involving cunning, deceit, and trickery that borders on fraud. It is hardly a flattering self-assessment. This turn of phrase follows a previous comment on Twitter where he warned that the new club’s name was an “interlectually property right owned” by Northwich Victoria, raising questions about his grasp of either spelling or legal principle.

The idea of a former chair of the Football Supporters Association attempting to profit from a supporters’ trust is morally bankrupt. It is an act so far removed from the values of fan engagement that it almost defies belief. That he would then defend it with a term synonymous with unscrupulous behaviour suggests a moral compass that has lost its bearings entirely.

The Football Factors Pre-Pack

The term “sharp business practice” might also be applied to other areas of Bean’s business dealings, specifically the pre-pack administration of his company, Football Factors, in 2011.

Pre-pack administrations are a controversial but legal process where a buyer is found for a failing business before administrators are formally appointed. Often, the buyers are the directors of the old company, who can then continue the business under a new legal entity, free from the debts of the old one. This practice has been heavily criticised by unsecured creditors, who are usually left with nothing, and by competitors who feel it allows rivals to shed debts unfairly.

Football Factors was incorporated in July 2003. By the year ending July 2010, its losses had accelerated to £93,410. A year later, in October 2011, the company was heavily in arrears to HMRC and administrators from Begbies Traynor were appointed on 2nd December 2011. The company’s assets were listed as fixtures and fittings of “no realisable value” (two computers and an aged filing cabinet), a debtor ledger of which only £736 was expected to be recovered, and the “goodwill” of its directors’ client relationships, valued at £5,000. Bean was to pay this goodwill amount himself.

Its creditors, meanwhile, included a director’s loan, trade creditors owed over £6,000, and, most significantly, HMRC, which was owed more than £24,000 for VAT, PAYE, and National Insurance. The bank loan which the company had taken out in 2007 was secured against the home of Bean and his wife.

By the time of the administrators’ report in June 2012, £4,500 of the goodwill payment remained unpaid and nothing had been collected from the debtor ledger. Perhaps this financial history provides a context for Bean’s recent actions. Whether it is cyber-squatting against fans or utilising controversial insolvency procedures, Graham Bean has provided a revealing, if unfortunate, insight into his own business stylings.