Rotherham’s good news story

It’s not easy running a football club in an economically challenged small northern town near a bigger city. Stockport County are now playing in the Conference North, having at one time been in what is now the Championship. Bury also played at that level, but have faced serious financial problems.

It’s not easy running a football club in an economically challenged small northern town near a bigger city. Stockport County are now playing in the Conference North, having at one time been in what is now the Championship. Bury also played at that level, but have faced serious financial problems.

There is, however, a good story to tell about Rotherham. Their old ground at Millmoor was a typical ground of a smaller northern club, atmospheric but having seen better days. When chairman Tony Stewart, who owns Rotherham-based company ASD Lighting, took the club out of administration in 2008, a deal to buy the land around Millmoor from the Booth family fell through.

They had to move out of their 101-year old home to the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield. Playing in another city with the pitch surrounded by an athletics track saw attendances fall to 3,500.

Now the club is back in Rotherham playing at the New York Stadium. Unusually for a modern stadium, it has a town centre location, having been built on the site of an old factory. Chairman Tony Stewart claims that it is an iconic structure comparable to bringing the Eiffel Tower into Rotherham. Back in League One, the club needs to fill as much of the 12,000 capacity as it can to generate the revenue it needs to have a sustainable future.