Former Football League clubs are finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet in the Conference and a campaign is gaining momentum to have three up from the Blue Square Bet Premier with two automatic promotion places. I don’t see it getting anywhere because League 2 clubs would not want to increase their chances of relegation to the non-league system.
Former Football League clubs are finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet in the Conference and a campaign is gaining momentum to have three up from the Blue Square Bet Premier with two automatic promotion places. I don’t see it getting anywhere because League 2 clubs would not want to increase their chances of relegation to the non-league system.
Take the case of Wrexham. In 2006-7 they averaged over 5,000 in League Two. Last season they got an average of 2,680 in the Conference and this year it is down to 2,221. One problem is a lack of away support: Histon took no paying fans with them to Wales.
Wrexham chairman Ian Roberts reckons the club costs nearly half a million pounds a year to run even before a ball is kicked. With stewarding it costs £300,000 a year just to open the turnstiles at the Racecourse Ground. Youth academy charter costs amount to another £150,000. The club may bank only £5,000 a game after match day costs.
When I started to look at the clubs in the Conference I was amazed at how many are former League clubs or successors to such clubs. Some of these have a long history as league clubs, even in the top flight or second tier: Luton, Wrexham, Mansfield, Grimsby, Darlington. The adjustment is probably particularly difficult for those clubs both psychologically and financially.
There are a couple of clubs who fell down the non-league system but have now got back to the Conference: Newport County (but they may not count as a phoenix club) and Southport with the former challenging for promotion and the latter in danger of relegation. Barrow fell on hard times, but managed to get back to the Conference. Mid-table York City are the longest-serving Conference club.
Cambridge United and Kidderminster Harriers were originally non-league clubs who had spells in the Football League with the former being more conspicuously successful. Rushden and Diamonds are also in that category but were a benefactor club which some would seen as an artificial creation, but they reached what is now League 1. Then there is AFC Wimbledon which its fans would understandably see as the successor to Wimbledon. Gateshead is another successor club.
There are very few clubs for whom the Conference is the realistic peak of their ambition and they are all down the lower end of the table. Forest Green, Hayes & Yeading and Histon come into that category and probably Eastbourne Borough and Tamworth as well. But that is only five clubs out of twenty-four.