Director's blog: OA's Q&A

What a few weeks it has been. After two seasons of Covid disruption at last we are seeing some regular football, live at the stadium, with enthusiastic fans creating a great atmosphere.

The men’s first team are doing us proud right now, second in the table as I write this and on an unbeaten (well you know what I mean…) run of 12 matches.

I must congratulate Hak and his staff for turning the season around after our form collapsed in October. It seems a simple demand on the players has paid off: work harder! We can see the effect of this in our performances. Opponents are given far less time on the ball and pushed to make mistakes; when we attack we have more players available making runs, getting into good positions; when we lose the ball players are working their socks off to get back in position and defend.

When we the fans see our team playing with such effort and commitment it makes us even keener to shout our support. It’s win-win and long may it continue.

If I could just add one important additional reason for our recent success: my absence from the matches. I have been stuck in France as the Covid restrictions tightened in November and this appears to have had a miraculous effect on results. Finally, I’ll have to admit that Tim Murrell and you others are right, I am a bad omen…don’t worry I’m not returning to Kent for a few weeks yet!

Despite being away for so long there have been a few questions flying around and so I thought I’d give you my answers to some of them.

Is this the best team we’ve had at the Gallagher since coming home?

I think it’s too early to say. We’re on a great run and the team is playing some exciting football but let’s judge them after a full season. Hopefully in May we’ll be celebrating something special. It would take an exceptional season-long, effort however to match Jay’s promotion squad of 2016. The squad which sat near the top of the National League table towards the end of 2017 was decent too. Players such as Pigott, Lewis, Loza and Hines were outstanding and we beat teams like Dagenham, Woking, Eastleigh, Sutton and Macclesfield all away from home…and Cheltenham!

What’s going on with all these contract extensions then?

Terry, Bill and I feel we have an exceptionally talented and hard-working management team and playing squad this season. Given there is a reasonable chance of promotion we felt it was timely to secure the services of our manager and the spine of next season’s team early.

We are delighted with where we have got to with this but of course other players still have the opportunity to prove themselves too. There is abundant talent throughout this squad.

We are of course aware that extending contracts like this at our level of football is not without risks. In other situations I have seen the award of a long contract cause players to stop trying so hard or go off the boil. Others are unlucky with injury. In the case of this season’s squad we have a very honest, hard-working group so I have no worries on that score.  

How are the club’s finances doing?

Through Covid Terry, Bill and the team worked very hard to batten down the hatches and avail ourselves of all the public financial assistance going. You, the supporters, have been generous in donating season ticket moneys and in many cases working as volunteers around the club to help us where possible.

So, despite being shafted by the National League in the October 2020 funding distribution (more on this later), we have managed to turn in another profitable year. We will be publishing the figures in a few weeks time. This is the ninth year in a row we have made a trading (EBITDA) profit and I will be asking Kieran Maguire, the guru of football finance, if he knows any other club with such a record.

It may not be as sexy a football record such as winning the league nine times in a row, but I’m mighty proud of the achievement nonetheless. Our profitable business model underpins the club and makes it safe and sustainable in an era of bankruptcies and financial over-stretching.

Are there any plans to expand the stadium?

In past years stadium expansion was obligatory in order to meet grading requirements (the reason behind the Genco Stand) and was paid for by the profits we made together with grants made available by the Football Foundation. The situation now is slightly different. We don’t have to expand the stadium for ground grading purposes now, regardless of whether we get promoted this season or not.

However this season has seen the occasional return of a horrible phenomenon – crowd disturbances. We are trying to address this by improving our security operation and by restricting access to unaccompanied, non-member youths. Nonetheless we have to admit that the way we are able to accommodate away fans is not ideal. Placing home and away fans in the same stand is always provocative to a certain section of support. It’s not just at the Gallagher. We have seen this at Eastleigh, at Dagenham and at other stadia. It’s never ideal.

Some fans have asked why we can’t put away fans in the town end. Well the stadium was designed to have away fans entering through the north turnstiles, they can be segregated more easily, turnstile capacities have been calculated with this in mind, extra seats can be made available in the main stand. Furthermore the town end has the greater facilities for home supporters, the Spitfire Lounge, the food outlets, the Club Shop, the meeting area in front of the turnstiles. There simply is no other way of segregating supporters safely in line with capacity, entrance and exit requirements.

In the master plan for the stadium, once built out to its 6,000 maximum capacity, the town end becomes the home supporters’ end and the Genco Stand becomes the away supporters’ stand, with a segregation line where appropriate. We may have to add turnstiles and exits at the north end at some stage. However we have limited funds for expansion at present. This might change if we are promoted.

In the National League we become eligible again for substantial grant support, although Football Foundation grants are always capped at maximum 50% of total building costs… As a result we are starting to look again at the feasibility of replacing the town end terracing with a larger terrace, maybe a slightly smaller version of the Genco Stand. This would have to be done within a tight budget, without restricting future development of the West side stand and with a design capable of having additional facilities (changing rooms, seats, bars, etc) bolted onto it in the future.

It will be a fascinating feasibility study. If we were to find a way of designing and funding this it would resolve our Genco Stand issues instantly. The town end would revert to its previous use as the home supporters’ end. It’s a long shot but watch this space.

Are we still contesting the National League’s disastrous governance during the Covid period?

Where do I start? Firstly, let there be no doubt as to what happened. The National League board proved to be incompetent throughout the crisis, from March 2020 onwards. There were errors of judgement and errors of mismanagement, there was arrogance and failure to admit to mistakes and apologise for them. Clear-headed directors would have resigned but the ones we had were simply unable to grasp the seriousness of the crisis and the extent of their statutory responsibilities as directors, which are to represent all clubs fairly and not to feather their own clubs’ nests.

The chairman, Brian Barwick, who finally resigned months after we and other clubs called for his head, kept blindly bleating ‘we are a well-respected league’ during every public utterance, as though he was conducting the orchestra on the Titanic.

Jack Pearce, who was the architect of the flawed distribution of October 2020, has refused to admit to or apologise for all the errors of judgement. Let’s not forget it was Pearce who saw fit to recommend a distribution which went against government guidelines to reimburse lost gate receipts. His distribution proposal rewarded seven out of eight National League board members’ clubs with £500,000 more than they should have received. He acted as though he knew better than government. To add insult to injury the directors of those clubs, whose pockets bulged after adopting the Pearce distribution plan, then had the gall to appoint him Barwick’s replacement as League Chairman. Even Stalin would have blushed.

It’s really no excuse to say ‘well it was Covid so what else could we do’. The then Chairman Barwick should have had the humility back in March 2020 to establish Covid crisis committees to assist the league. Some of his board colleagues, who subsequently resigned, had proposed this. He could have drafted in additional support. He could have seen what was going to happen and himself resigned, admitting he had no appetite for the challenges ahead. He and his board simply weren’t up to the task on their own. They behaved as though they were some village committee organising a knees-up, not a company board responsible for governing some 68 clubs, clubs with combined turnovers of £50 million, clubs with 2,000 paid staff and hundreds of thousands of fans. It’s very serious stuff.

Over the past months we have been working hard with other angry clubs and our legal advisers to hold the guilty parties to account for what went on in these recent dark days. This has proved complex and expensive. We have not given up though.

In the meantime we have been made aware of a project to produce a film documentary telling the truth about the National League governance during this period. We are looking forward to working with the producers and writers to create a powerful documentary, whose exposure of the truth will have a real impact.

Have you finished now?

Yes, give me a cold compress. Goodness, I haven’t even mentioned 3G pitches yet…

Er…Any news on 3G pitches?

Yes. Tracey Crouch’s recent review into football governance, hopefully to be adopted by government in the Spring, says League 2 should allow 3G pitches for a grace period of three years, which is as good as unconditionally allowing them. Moreover there are now clubs in League 2, e.g. Sutton, Harrogate and Leyton Orient, who have shown they are in favour of 3G pitches. I remain confident that we will be able to use our 3G pitch in League 2 if ever we knock on the EFL door.

Anything else?

Yes. Apologies for being long-winded. That’s what not being able to attend matches and talk to you in person does for me. So let me end by wishing you all a great end-of-season spent following the Stones.

Yours in sport

Oliver Ash

Dead and Bury’d

So after death throes worthy of a B movie murder scene and with a Parliamentary Committee picking over the bones and extracting embarrassing platitudes from EFL and FA executives, it looks like Bury FC are finally gone – kicked into hell by a succession of shady and inadequate owners and a book full of inadequate rules and regulations.

What can be gathered from snippets of information and from news reports of unlikely white knights, dropping out as they realise the extent of the financial debris cluttering the club, is that nothing can be gathered. 

Bury have been stripped bare and left for dead. There is virtually nothing remaining. The stadium has been mortgaged to the hilt and eye-watering fee payments made to shady, off-shore companies using the club’s precious monies; even the car park has been sold. Opening the cupboards at Gigg Lane reveals a plethora of skeletons.

What has happened to Bury has led to a crescendo of angry fans turning on their owners, to a stream of pundits and journalists turning on the EFL and EFL clubs for approving the system of rules and regulation which failed to protect Bury, nearly failed to protect Bolton and Blackpool and may yet turn out to have failed to protect other vulnerable clubs like Oldham or Notts County.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have great sympathy for Bury fans. They are the innocent ones. At least they are alive and kicking and will fight back, survive and prosper again, as Maidstone United fans eventually did after our own liquidation event in 1992. 

However I have no sympathy and still less understanding for all the one-tracked crocodile weepies who complain that all would be right if only the Premier League gave lower league clubs more money. This is just nonsense. The only winners would be players whose salaries would inflate to absorb the additional funds. Do you really think club owners would do anything else with the cash?

The solutions to helping the fans of League 1 and 2 and National League clubs to avoid the fall-out from financial collapses shouldn’t have to depend on hand-outs from the Premier League, who already contribute vast sums to grassroots football and to lower league pro football. They require new administration by an independent body, not beholden to club owners’ self-interest, and missioned to develop and protect the game as a whole. 

To do this they need to have regard for the unique depth of pro football in England with its 115 pro clubs, but be prepared to consider creative ways of making it more efficient, sustainable, responsible, appropriate for today’s world and safer for supporters, for many of whom their football club is not just a big part of their life, it is their life. 

They should consider, for example, making two regional divisions out of League 2 and National League, saving the hugely expensive and polluting journeys undertaken by clubs, extreme examples of which would include Dover travelling 400 miles to Barrow to play in front of barely one thousand fans.

They should toughen up rules on fit and proper owners – this is a no-brainer and one can only wonder why it has taken the Bury debacle for it to be so high on everybody’s agenda now. How about zero tolerance for any previous convictions or bankruptcies whatsoever? 

They should level up competition and reduce pressure on owners to spend more money on player salaries than their clubs can afford by setting division-wide salary caps and policing them rigorously.

There should be tough budgeting rules pre-season limiting what clubs can spend to what income is verifiably due or guaranteed in advance by owners. Talk to the French Rugby Federation for goodness sake, who administer similar rules in their top two divisions and make them work.

Then they should grab the low-hanging fruit. By allowing 3G pitches in League 1 and 2 they will open the door to clubs adding some £300-500k per annum to their net revenues. This is life-changing. This could prevent a second Bury. 

We all know these pitches are used in international competition and are of the highest quality. They are completely safe. The only difference is the bounce and roll is slightly different but then so is it on many bog-like League 2 pitches. Ask any fan of the National League clubs using 3G pitches: Sutton Utd, Bromley, Harrogate and my club Maidstone, whether they enjoy watching football on 3G pitches and you will receive a huge thumbs up. These clubs have enjoyed great success and prosperity using 3G pitches.

So now a new and progressive independent regulator should boot into touch the conservatism and prejudice of some clubs and other administrators and open the door to 3G pitches. Otherwise it’s pure hypocrisy, crocodile tears and ultimately, a further kick in the nuts for the fans.

Oliver

Questions, comments and fake news

Replies to questions, comments and fake news about Maidstone United, finances, player wages, 3G pitches and how professional football leagues could be restructured in England.

For those of you who missed my informal Q & A down at the club recently (only people called Morgan ever seem to turn up to those…) here are some blunt replies to comments, questions, allegations and fake news items heard and read recently. 

(This was written just before John Still took over as Maidstone Manager.…)

« Maidstone Utd have no ambition »

Yes we do, we want to be a successful, sustainable, stable and family-friendly club. We know we’ve made some questionable decisions this season : apologies but we’re only human and we always seek to do our best in the long-term interests of the club. We’re ambitious for the club to rise as high as it can in the football pyramid while respecting the above goals. After three difficult years in National League we now realise it will take longer than we thought to get into the EFL but so be it. With our financial structure – and unwillingness and inability to subsidise the club – that’s where we are for the moment.

« What financial structure ? »

We’ve invested in a £5 million stadium fit for National League but not EFL League 2 (another £1-2 million would be needed). No other club except Fylde in National League has had to build and finance a stadium from scratch in the last 8 years. The business model means there is little spare cash to finance the business except that which is generated from the business itself. In good seasons we have managed to get promotions while earning enough revenue to keep building the stadium so we would comply with League rules. This means we have no cash reserves built up. It is all in the metal and concrete. In difficult seasons like this one, where we have extra costs from changing the playing squad and management and crowds have dropped significantly, the cash flow is under great pressure. It is a vicious circle. People don’t always realise that there is constant capital expenditure and maintenance needed to keep the show on the road. This season for example we have had to replace the floodlights and restructure the pylons at a cost of some £40K. Last season we installed toilets under the Genco Stand (£60K if I remember correctly). In another season or two we will probably have to replace the pitch. We understand that (particularly the more recent) fans might deem the current situation of struggling in NL for three seasons too awful to bear but every supporter who gives up on us reduces our revenues and impacts the budget. You need to know that.

« Are Maidstone able to survive in the National League or are we a ‘yo-yo’ team now ? »

Right now the NL is so tough to survive in financially that we will struggle to break out unless we find a new source of funds. We are always open to consider new investors or partners who could have better financing and a sensible strategy going forward. However as we are at present, if we manage to recruit more wisely, we should be able to enjoy stable years in NL and/or play-off years in NLS. We hope fans will buy into this reality as something to savour not to abandon. In due course we will find a way of moving on upwards but it will take time. It may be the same sort of ‘yo-yo’ situation as we experience with Brive rugby club at present; we just have to make the best of it.

« Does the club have an £800 per week wage cap ? »

No.

«  Are you lying ? »

Er…no. We set playing budgets where we believe we can afford them as part of the overall forecast for turnover and expenditure in the business. We have never set any individual player salary caps although we judge on a case by case basis if we think we should make a special effort or pay a fee for a particular player. I think it would be indiscrete to individual players to give more detail on this.

« You seem to play your cards close to your chests… »

What ? Please tell me you’re joking. I challenge you to find me any other club where the owners are so open with information about the club, regularly do Q & A sessions, publish blogs about the club, submit their accounts promptly, sometimes with additional comments and press releases and provide information whenever reasonably requested (without breaching confidentialities) on every aspect of the club.

« What moneys do you and Terry take out of the club ? »

None. No interest, no salaries, no expenses. We hope to recover some or all of our investment as and when we divest in due course but even then a principal goal will be to leave the club in good hands, otherwise all that has been built up will have been in vain.

«  We had everything and we threw it away… »

No we didn’t, cheer the fuck up.

« Why do we have so many loan players ? »

Sometimes you don’t want contract commitments to players. This season ironically we planned to put more players on contract and in the end this has slightly back-fired on us. Several players have gone out on loan during the season but only on reduced wages, so this is costing us significant amounts of money and impacting the current playing budget…

« Why don’t we recruit a new centre forward ? »

We’ve been trying. We can’t afford to pay top striker’s wages right now, particularly if this means we have to relocate the player and put him up in a hotel or flat. We can’t really afford this sort of arrangement at the moment, we have to be more selective. But yes, we are looking for an affordable big centre forward who knows where the goal is…

« Money from sale of Turgott will finance next season’s NLS squad. »

Sorry ? This is about as truthful and accurate as a Donald Trump tweet. Please stop.

« Did we ever buy that piece of land from the Council ? »

Well we finally exchanged contracts on it a few weeks ago after a ridiculous amount of time and effort. We are waiting for final clearance from The Millenium Commission (don’t ask…) before we can complete.The purchase is highly significant in the medium term as it will enable the West Stand development to take place when it can be financed.

« Why did you replace the first 3G pitch after only 4 years ? »

It was wearing out quicker than we planned because of the high usage. It had to meet demanding standards of the leagues (FIFA 2*) in terms of ball roll, bounce, shock absorption, etc, while at the same time being used extensively (50+ hours a week). It failed its test in 2016. We then had a panic to replace it as economically and fast as possible in Summer 2016, which disrupted our Summer and pre-season useage. This time around we hope to get 5 or 6 years out of it but we have to be ready to finance another one as from the end of next season just in case…this might cost around £100K…

« Let’s face it 3G is never going to be allowed in EFL is it ? Let’s go back to grass »

Not so fast please. Never say never. It’s not going to be easy but as I still believe in the massive benefits of 3G to smaller pro clubs I still believe it will be accepted sooner or later in EFL. One alternative proposal we are making at present to EFL is that League 2 should accept a grace period of three years to allow NL 3G clubs a reasonable time to replace their pitch. So if a club were relegated after one or two seasons they would have been able to keep their 3G pitch and maintain their community structures. Also clubs might just install a better natural pitch after a season or two of planning and with the benefit of having enjoyed generous EFL funding for a couple of seasons. This would ultimately benefit all League 2 clubs.

Going back to grass is simply not an option for us at present. The 3G pitch does bring in significant revenues and it gets people coming down to the club and becoming involved. It’s part of our DNA. Replacing it next time will not be cheap but it won’t be ridiculous either (see above). In 2016 we invested in a new engineered sub-structure which should last 20 years. This means only the actual carpet needs relaying.

Don’t think natural pitches come cheap either. High cost and high maintenance. For a top hybrid pitch we’d need not far short of £1 million to install one and you can’t play more than roughly 10 hours a week on it depending on the weather so it won’t allow any significant community use. 3G, hybrid and natural pitch technology is all changing fast so we have to try and keep our eye on the ball here and be creative and reactive.

« Why is the National League such an impossible one to survive in ?

The fact is that the five professional divisions in English football are administered by three separate leagues, The Premier League, The Football League (EFL) and the National League. These are not administered in a uniform, structured way. Rules are different between the leagues and there are rich and poor divisions. When you go from NLS to NL you find the average playing budget for the NL is £500,000 higher (yes you read that correctly, perhaps I should spell it out like they used to do on the teleprinter when Raith Rovers beat East Fife 10-0…) than in the South division below ; you cannot by law drink alcohol while watching a match, which probably costs us £80K in lost revenues ; the travel and accommodation costs are far higher as the league is truly national ; to compete you may have to convert to full-time employment contracts and add various layers of playing and non-playing staff to your operation. If after all this your club is still standing well I’ve got more bad news for you, you may also have to fund considerable additional stewarding services to segregate matches. That all adds up to a hit of about £800.000.

All this is in addition to any one-off costs of extending stadia to comply with strict rules on capacity, seating, dressing rooms, floodlighting, etc. After absorbing all these costs you might find you cannot increase your playing budget very much so you then find yourself battling relegation at the bottom of the table, resulting in crowds dwindling and reduction of ancillary revenues, cup income, etc. So the National League could be said to be the graveyard of the pyramid. This explains why clubs are so desperate to get out of it and spend obscene amounts of money in owner subsidies to do so. Forest Green Rovers were rumoured to be subsidising at £2 million a season while in NL and Ebbsfleet the same amount until recently. My guess is that today many NL clubs are still choosing/having to inject £500K-£1 million per season into their clubs. Leyton Orient new owners are rumoured to have already ‘invested’ £10 million since taking over in June 2017 as they try and make the leap into the promised land of the Football League (EFL). The bottom line is that annual handouts to clubs from the EFL from commercial and TV surpluses total around £1 million today for League 2 clubs while they are less than £100,000 for National League clubs.

There is of course a parallel with clubs in The Championship busting a gut to try and reach the Premier League, As an example take AFC Bournemouth in Season 16-17 in the Premier League. Their reported turnover was £139 million. Of this amount £124 million came from Premier League TV and commercial rights.* That’s 90% of turnover. Staggering. By comparison the money is considerably lower in the Championship. In 2015-16 season club turnovers were between £10 – 40 million and total losses in the division were over £200 million. ** Some clubs will risk everything to try and get to The Premier League. It is a similar story (albeit on a far smaller scale) with the gulf between the National League and EFL League 2.

« What can be done to change this imperfection in the league structures ? »

Now that’s a really good question. The answer is lots but football administration changes very slowly in England so don’t wait up for it to happen.

40 years ago the Conference was created and populated with the top semi-pro clubs. Today the National League is predominantly populated with fully professional clubs in their diverse forms. When you look at some of the clubs playing in The National League today (or who have recently been in it) you could be forgiven for thinking this was a brother division to League 2. Here are twenty of them – Chesterfield, Tranmere, Leyton Orient, Hartlepool, York, Torquay, Wrexham, Chester, Stockport, Southport, Aldershot, Dagenham, Barrow, Macclesfield, Barnet, Luton, Halifax, Cambridge, Lincoln, Grimsby…

One argument I find appealing is that this division should now be incorporated into the EFL as League 3. There could be renegotiation with the TV companies and other EFL sponsors for extra rights and fees, as EFL would have extra matches to screen and more product to sell. There would need to be a negotiation with The FA for additional financial support for the new division, integration of the division into the EFL rules, reorganisation of EFL competitions, etc. However all this should lead to extra revenues being generated to provide League 3 clubs with a financial support of, say, £300-400K per season, which would be a decent, gradual step-up between NL and League 2 and which would be welcomed by all National League clubs and especially those clubs pressing to join EFL at present and risking a fortune to do so.

The question of increasing promotion places up into League 2, the ‘3 up 3 down’ campaign upon which the National League focusses so much attention today, would be resolved in one fell swoop : there would even be four up and four down as in the rest of EFL. Relegation from League 3 would be as it is at present in National League.

National League clubs playing on 3G pitches would also have their difficulties resolved by being members of EFL League 3 and being entitled to 3 years in which to remove their pitch in the event of promotion to League 2.

Clubs in League 3 would be less likely to risk everything for promotion because the financial gap between League 2 and League 3 would be smaller than the current gulf between NL and League 2.

In terms of administration EFL would need additional resources to run an extra division but after the restructuring period these would not be significant and higher costs would effectively be compensated by economies as the National League would effectively disappear. The administration of NLS and NLN, now the highest non-league divisions, could be handed to one of the three leagues currently running Steps 3 and 4 of the national game. In due course sponsorship and rights sales would enable these two top non-league divisions to create new revenues, identities and prestige.

Wouldn’t it make sense for the professional National League clubs of today to be incorporated into the EFL ? Wouldn’t it make sense for non-league football to be regional with semi-pro clubs at its pinnacle ?

« Are Maidstone going to be relegated this season ? »

We still have a chance to survive but it will take a minor miracle. We’ll be doing everything we reasonably can on and off the field. If we do go down it will be a blow of course but we’ll recover, go again and bounce back stronger and better prepared next time 

Oliver Ash

3G fake truth

The coverage of non-league football was incredible last weekend. 

Sutton United and Lincoln City were virtually wall-to-wall on any media outlet covering football. When Lincoln beat Burnley, away from home, it was quite simply sensational. I am full of admiration and respect for what they have achieved. The supporters will be in seventh heaven for a few days or even weeks and the clubs’ coffers will be awash with gold. 

For Lincoln the adventure continues and who can say, now, when it might stop? For other National League clubs these stellar performances are an incentive to work even harder to achieve similar results next season, now that these two clubs have shown it can be done.

We have a particular connection with Sutton because of our 3G pitches. Our positive experience with 3G since 2012 encouraged Sutton to install theirs in 2015 and we had many constructive contacts along the way. 

This is the reason I was particularly delighted with their FA Cup progress, as it showcased this fantastic pitch. In three rounds of the FA Cup, three 3G records were broken. The first time a League One, a Championship and finally a Premier League club had played a senior competitive match on 3G. 

Each time the pitch played beautifully and there were no problems of any significance. Each match was marked by attractive, passing football along with robust, sliding challenges on occasions. Watching on TV it would have been easy to imagine the teams were playing on a Premier League quality natural mud and grass pitch.

Except that sadly we couldn’t. The media coverage of 3G had about as much basis in fact as a Donald Trump press statement. 

Instead of pushing the achievements of a non-league club like Sutton in an unpatronising, analytical way by explaining in detail how the 3G business model has been the saving of their club like it has been of ours, the commentators and pundits jumped on every chance to criticise the pitch. 

We were treated to comments about how Danny Wellbeck could not be risked on the pitch with a slightly injured ankle, how the pitch was very different and difficult (Arsène Wenger); how the pitch would be watered and would behave very differently to a dry one (Arsène Wenger again, who seems not to have noticed that it rains in England occasionally and that even mud-grass pitches are sometimes wet, sometimes dry); how Arsenal would have to beware "the ball suddenly deviating or stopping dead" (Martin Keown, for goodness sake ); that it was a good question (rather than a no-brainer) as to whether playing on 3G was better than playing on a traditional non-league bog (Graeme Le Saux). 

Mr Le Saux is by the way an ‘Ambassador’ for the Football Foundation, who have been busy installing 3G pitches all over the country in recent years. Please Graeme, hurry up and tell The Football Foundation just how bad 3G pitches are, because it would appear they don’t know yet.

The worst part of hearing all this nonsense spouted by so-called experts, who really should know better, is the disrespect to non-league clubs. Here was one shining example of a non-league club, Sutton, using a top quality artificial pitch to improve the football they play on it, as evidenced by an astonishing FA Cup run. 

But no, the media ignored the positives for the non-league club and concentrated on all the supposed negatives for the Premier League club. There were no plaudits for 3G pitches enabling the community to become fully involved in their non-league club by having football played on them virtually non-stop. 

There was no mention of 3G clubs’ football academies bringing out the best of our youngsters around the country. No analysis of how 3G can make postponements a thing of the past and make a club financially sustainable. It was awful, patronising, embarrassing.

But I suppose it could have been worse…the pundits and commentators could have expressed astonished disapproval about other European countries, some of whom seem to have recently won World Cups, who foolishly allow and encourage these difficult 3G pitches in their top professional Leagues; they could have attacked the irresponsible FIFA people, who allow 3G in the Champions League and World Cup qualifiers and in the Womens’ World Cup finals; or even criticised professional rugby for allowing 3G to be used in senior club level and full internationals, when it's clearly bad for your joints – I mean what do rugby people know anyway?

Yours, Oliver

My views on The Football League vote

After the announcement that The Football League had not approved 3G at its meeting yesterday there seems to be some uncertainty and worry amongst supporters. This is understandable but we should not be too pessimistic. 

Yes it is disappointing that The Football League didn't approve 3G yesterday as both The Football League and ourselves expected. Yes it does raise the question as to what The Conference will now do. But anything more is pure conjecture at this stage.

One detail to correct: at the September meeting of The Football League where an informal vote was held we understand 17 Championship clubs voted in favour together with 14 League 1 and 15 League 2 clubs. That gives the 46/72 (64%) figure. At yesterday's meeting this percentage fell to 50% as we know but we do not have the breakdown of the 34/68, plus four abstentions.

Our information after yesterday's meeting is that The Football League clubs wanted more information on certain aspects of 3G. We don't know what that information is but it may well be to do with safety and injury questions. The PFA statement yesterday was anti-3G and 'menacing' and yes the Welsh game in Andorra was of course 'bad press'. Clearly the pro players have genuine injury concerns and unfortunately you can always criticise injury research, even FIFA/UEFA/FA research, and claim it's not relevant or not lengthy enough or wrong or biased, etc...

Despite all this 3G was only one vote short of being approved up to League 1!

Following yesterday’s meeting we understand The Football League is going to try and answer questions, reply to any concerns and provide further information to clubs before planning to hold another vote next year. 

As for The Conference, well they already said clearly they intend to allow 3G next season. For me this is clear. I do not believe the Conference has to hold a vote on this matter. Of course the Conference Board could get nervous because The Football League have not yet approved 3G and decide to alter their stance. This is possible for every issue they deal with at any time. However I believe it is extremely unlikely they will go back on their declared intent because:

• they will realise that The Football League are close to voting in 3G and probably just need a bit more time
• The FA will continue to press for 3G. It is one of FA's leading policies going forward to improve English football at all levels
• The FA hold considerable sway over Conference, much more than they do over The Football League
• more and more clubs are turning to 3G and more and more 3G stadium projects are being considered by clubs at our level and below. 3G is growing everywhere as an accepted high-quality pitch surface. Two clubs now play in SPFL on it and an international rugby match will be played on 3G for the first time in a weeks' time at Kilmarnock. And if it's OK for rugby…
• they in any case have come round to believing it is the right thing to do and in the interests of their clubs...
• (and they know we ain't giving up without a fight...)

So despite this irritating hiccup – perhaps the 3G campaign was indeed taking us all too far, too fast? I do honestly believe we should not be overly worried. If we were to be promoted in May I still believe we would be able to go up.   

You don't have to believe me of course, that's up to you. But don't please let the issue upset the buzz about this Sunday's big game and the tremendous season we're having in general. It certainly won't upset mine.

Oliver

A wonderful victory

The achievement of Maidstone United Football Club in changing the face of non and lower league football should never be underestimated. 

By allowing artificial 3G pitches the Conference have opened the doors to football in the 21st century, which can now be played on even and true surfaces. 

I feel we will look back, as we look back on the pitches of the sixties and seventies, and wonder why it was ever in doubt that 3G surfaces would eventually prevail. 

Although I am not bitter about the song and dance Oliver had to go through, the extraordinary attitude of some of those running football became a symbol of what is wrong with the nation’s favourite game. 

Each time I heard a dissenting opinion about 3G it was obvious that yet another dinosaur of the game hadn't bothered to do any research on the realities and benefits of using an artificial surface. 

I recall meeting with the supporters after another depressing defeat playing at Ashford and being asked whether the surface will never be accepted and beginning to doubt whether this incredibly risky decision to install 3G would explode in our faces. 

Bill never doubted the decision and Oliver, by his efforts, clearly was never going to back down. We were alone and isolated in the football world but we knew we were right this had to be the only way forward. 

What then happened is that the football loving public of Maidstone gave the 3G surface the most overwhelming vote of approval. This was no longer a battle for Bill, Oliver and I – it became a cause for almost two thousand people every week. 

The supporters were clearly telling the rulers of the game, the politicians and the football hierarchy that they should embrace the new way that the game should be played. 

Each time we stood up in front of the supporters and said that we would win the battle one day it was your support that kept us going. We have as a club much to be proud of. 

We should all recognise the efforts of Oliver in achieving this momentous change. His skill and determination has been prodigious and an object lesson in perseverance and bloody mindedness. 

I know he would want to acknowledge the various people who helped, such as Matt Dickinson from The Times and Matt Dunn from the Daily Express who so eloquently made the case for 3G and gave it a national profile, and to Greg Dyke and his colleagues at The FA for showing great leadership on this important issue.

The 2014/2015 campaign is going to be another battle but after this victory we must believe that anything can happen.

Thanks for your support.

Terry Casey

A cunning plan…

I have now heard about the proposals for League 3 and heard the reaction from the non-league world: outrage, annoyance, fear, disbelief, any number of negative sentiments. Hardly any in favour. 

People have questioned the logic, questioned the Commission membership, questioned the motives, questioned Greg Dyke’s credibility. I too believe the proposal to be misguided and wonder why it was put forward in what appears to be such a clumsy and provocative way. Deliberate surely?

There remains the strong underlying issue here of an FA, which has to run an England team but which doesn’t control the source of its players anymore: the Premier League. After all the Premier League were not even on the Commission and let’s face it, Premier League clubs, foreign-owned in many cases, don’t care if no English players play for them as long as they win things and make heaps of dosh! The biggest challenge Greg Dyke has is to wrest some control of English football back from the Premier League, a tough ask.

League 3 is supposed to be a solution to the challenge of producing more talented young English players for the national team. Even Greg Dyke himself admits it may not be the best solution but it’s the only one they seemed to all agree on and he invites us to propose a better solution or accept this one because something needs to be done. Well it has certainly got the debate stirred up.

League 3 is wrong firstly because it ignores the unique nature of non-league and lower league football in England, which cannot be compared easily with other countries’ structures. We have about 100 full-time professional clubs. Is there any other country in Europe, which can claim such a huge figure? The huge number of followers and supporters of non-league and lower league clubs is also exceptional. In France’s professional Division 2 for example, the bottom four clubs’ crowds average 2000, comparable with The Conference, our Division 5. Our pyramid structure is highly liberal: all clubs can legitimately aim to rise to the top. Nothing but merit restricts them.

Additionally League 3 adds an unfair element of imperfect competition: clubs will inevitably put together their (reserve) team not simply in order to win matches and the competition as a whole, but in order to ‘practise’, to improve players, their experience and ultimately their club’s first team. This will skew the results unfairly. The division will be compromised and the results almost irrelevant in sporting terms. This pollution of the pyramid is undesirable to say the least. The pyramid is not perfect (e.g. the absurd situation by which non-league clubs at AGMs get one vote in Step 1, 3 and 4 but virtually no votes in Step 2…) but it’s not bad the way it is, thank you very much.

More importantly it doesn’t seem to be the best solution to the problem. After all the FA Commission highlighted the problems: too few coaches in English football; too few good pitches; too little competitive football for 18-21 year olds because existing reserve leagues are not deemed competitive enough; surely they are not trying to tell us that the only answer they can find to all these questions is the League 3 idea. Surely they know we will realise they can’t be that stupid?

Let’s look at the questions and answers:

We need more coaches? Well create more courses and coaching/training facilities and make sure conditions and costs are such that more top football people are tempted to apply and qualify.

Too few good pitches? Well yes it was only going to be a matter of time till I got to that one. Then continue to promote 3G pitches throughout English football; not just in grass roots but in lower league stadia that will improve the standard and frequency of football being played. It’s one thing we can learn from our fellow Europeans: it works. In this respect the FA have started to shake up football’s reactionary governing bodies in England and perhaps League 3 is a cunning plan to harass and provoke these bodies into creating a stir, the volume of which might cause a rethink at Premier League level where change needs to happen and where The FA is weakest?

Too little competitive football for top reserve teams? Well set up a competitive reserves competition. Perhaps the obscenely wealthy Premier League clubs should put some of their millions up as prize money for a Premier B League, to give a proper incentive to win games? £5 million for the winning club should make it competitive.  Or improve the player loan system to encourage clubs to loan out players to lower league clubs but limit the numbers allowed to be loaned to each club. It’s hardly rocket science but would it not work?

And why not push for limits on players not qualified to play for England in the Premier League? This would be similar to what the French Rugby Federation have recently chosen to do in the Top 14 competition, comparable to England’s Premier League in football, in order to improve the poor results of the national team and combat the increasing numbers of foreign mercenaries being imported by rich clubs.

And why was there no consultation of non-league bodies? There are a few non-league bodies who are capable of demonstrating common sense, vision and leadership, e.g. the Ryman League, who should have been asked their opinion. However having listened to the Non-League Show there are clearly some who continue to live in cloud cuckoo land: issues like 3G show up the failings in bodies like The Conference. They do not, contrary to what is claimed, stand up for non-league football as a whole. They are not leaders they are followers contrary to what their spokesman claimed; they are more concerned to secure additional promotion places to League 2 (perhaps now League 3?), an issue of importance to maybe 25% of Conference clubs, rather than promote 3G pitches, which, as they themselves admit, would be welcomed by far more clubs, even in The Conference itself, let alone throughout the wider world of non-league, where so many people now support more 3G pitches. For Brian Lee to state that “the FA have lost the plot” is laughable. The Conference need to have a good look at their own plot first: voting rules, membership of their Board and governance, communications, representation of non-league as a whole, all have much room for improvement.

And why not encourage non-league clubs to form academies, as we have done and the NPL are doing as a League? This can only provide benefits in every sense. Instead there is still no real financial incentive for clubs to go down the complicated and costly set-up costs of academies because the rules are such that Premier League clubs can freely poach players and no financial compensation structure exists for smaller clubs.

So it just cannot be possible that this is the end result of The FA Commission’s deliberations. Greg Dyke is too canny for that to be the case. He and the FA have recently shown great courage and leadership in the 3G campaign, throwing open its competitions to 3G and pushing other bodies to embrace 3G. Their actions will encourage more clubs to install these pitches and they have virtually removed all remaining barriers to 3G in non-league. I can only assume therefore that this wacky League 3 proposal must be part of a very cunning plan…

Oliver Ash

Close season observations and ambitions

Terry Casey

Last season was the best that Maidstone United have enjoyed for many years. 

Winning the league cup, finishing seventh in the league, our average league crowds increasing on the previous year – yet I felt that we had underachieved. 

This is in no way a criticism of Jay and the squad but an acknowledgement that at the start of the 2013/2014 season Jay had put together a squad was capable of, at the very least, making the play offs. 

During the early months of the season it was unthinkable that we would not be involved in the final reckoning because we were beginning to realise that this team really was good enough. The impact of the injuries cannot be overstated. 

Losing Steve Watt, our captain and the best centre half in the league; losing Mickey Phillips from midfield and losing one of the most exciting players in Orlando all meant that we were going to hit problems at some stage. Replacing Orlando with Rory should have helped but to lose Rory for most of the season was another blow. We underachieved because we did in fact have a team that might even have won the league but for the crippling injuries.

I continue to say to people that we are not a Ryman league club – we should be in the Conference at the very least, and I feel confident that we are only a year away from making the step up to the higher level.

The academy proved its value to the club as it was lads like Gary Smith and Liam King who scored goals for us on our way to winning the league cup. I describe the academy as the jewel in the club’s crown and watching the way they destroyed Eastbourne Borough in the Conference Youth Alliance cup final made me feel immensely proud. I also felt terrific pride in the numbers of our supporters who travelled to Crawley to support the lads in their quest to complete the double.

Their successes on the field are second to none, leaving other academies in higher leagues wondering how we have become so successful. 

The facts are that we have the best coaches in Jay Saunders and Jack Parkinson, the best tutors in Jim Bodle and Tom Parkinson and the best facilities at the Gallagher Stadium. The young people are also aware that, regardless of their footballing ability, they are valued and are learning from excellent role models within the staff and coaching team. They should leave us with an understanding of how to conduct themselves once they enter into the adult world and to enjoy their triumphs and to show dignity when things don’t go to plan. As a testament to the lure of the academy we have had to turn away dozens of young people who wanted to join the academy for 2014/2015 season.

Not making promotion, whilst desperately disappointing, means that we do have some time to plan ahead with the expansion of the ground. We have met with various organisations and have presented them with our plans to achieve the minimum capacity of 3,000. The problem is that the plans that we are currently looking at have come in at costs ranging between £800k and £1.2million. 

We will have to borrow to get this sort money and the cost of finance is extremely prohibitive. We are now looking at cheaper options which might enable us to finance the project ourselves and would satisfy the need to get our capacity to the level required by the Conference. The fact is that there is a clear shortage of covered seating at the stadium and whatever we finally decide upon , we will meet that demand.

The great 3G debate rumbles on and I am delighted that we have Oliver on this particular subject because he has moved the argument on through his skills, patience and perseverance. Every time I listen to anyone who opposes the case for 3G I can only conclude that they do not understand fully the argument. We must win the argument and my thanks go out to all of our supporters who take pride in the fact that their football club are about to change the face of non-league and lower league football. It has been the support of the Maidstone fans that have given Oliver, Bill and myself the strength to fight on. 

The only sad note is that it appears the Michel Platini of the directors’ team has not been able to agree terms with Bill Williams and may not be in the team to face the supporters on 20 June. Representatives from both parties have been unable to reach a compromise. Sources close to the Ash camp have said that the tactics used by Williams did not suit Ash’s unique skills. Sources close to the Williams camp were unaware of Ash’s skills.

Thank you for making Maidstone United Football club the envy of every non-league club in the country.

A decent few days

Oliver Ash

It's been a decent few days for your club. 

Let's look at the positives and forget the negatives: we've welcomed back one or two key players from injury; we've stopped the run of away defeats; we're still unbeaten at home this season; we've got Jay signed up as our manager for next season; we're making good progress on our stadium extension project; next year's academy recruitment is going well; we're in the league cup final AND we’ve just won our play-off appeal to The FA. 

Following the appeal hearing Ian and I were treated to a private tour of Wembley changing rooms and pitch. We could admire at first hand the hugely impressive infrastructure and pitch maintenance equipment. It certainly is an expensive business keeping a pitch like that in good condition year out. Although it is a hybrid 'Desso' type pitch, the grass needs constant feeding with light and CO² in order to grow fast between matches and events. 

The FA appeal result was good news for the club of course because it keeps our season alive until the very end. It's also excellent news for the whole 3G4US campaign. Every development on 3G is greeted through email or on social media by a flood of replies and comments from all our fellow clubs in 3G4US. 

There really is a great group of clubs involved in this campaign. There is good solidarity with all we are campaigning for and it's heartening to remind ourselves of that widespread support.

The appeal decision and the mood of the hearing itself was another clear indication that The FA mean 3G business from now on. There is a clear message for change. Now it is up to us on the field to defy the odds and to get into a promotion position.

If all that should happen (and I must stress that it is rather hypothetical given where we are in the table - the realistic odds today on us winning the play-offs must be about 7-1) and if we were refused entry to The Conference in May despite having qualified through the play-offs then we would be entitled to appeal to The FA. 

Whatever happens there is now a positive feeling around the club that even if it is not for this season one way or another, then at worst by next season all this will have resolved itself in favour of 3G being allowed in Conference and that is excellent news for clubs all around the country.

On the subject of the stadium Bill, Terry and I met earlier this week to discuss the designs and funding for the Henry Reeves End extension. We are working on a design, which would give us another 600 seats and another 400 standing capacity, thus increasing the overall ground capacity to about 3300. It would provide much needed seating with excellent views of the pitch, extra covered stepped terracing in front of the stand and maintained pitchside railing standing capacity, albeit uncovered. 

Once we have gone through the last revisions with the architects by the end of the month we will arrange to display the plans so that you can comment on them and give us some more useful ideas. This is sincere because the extra terracing design comes from comments made during the February supporters' meeting, so we do listen! However no design is perfect and this will be no exception. We have to do the best we can given the league requirements, health and safety, planning issues, available land and costs.

We are looking to fund this extension with the assistance of local agencies, The Football Foundation, and a debenture scheme, which would allow around 100 seats to be purchased in advance for several years at a reduced price. We may also need some capital contribution from club or shareholder funds and our major partners, all of which will be under discussion over the next weeks. The extended stadium should be capable of providing the club with an infrastructure enabling it to operate profitably and sustainably for the foreseeable future and provide comfortable high quality facilities to supporters, customers and the local community. 

But never mind all the play-off battles, 3G arguments, stadium extensions, etc. All that really counts for the next two months is getting half-fit (no, let's be realistic, a quarter-fit) for the Directors v Supporters football match and BBQ party on 20th June. Hope to see you there.

My appearance in last summer's supporters vs. directors match

It's a pitch Jim but not as you know it

Terry Casey

It is clear that we still have a long way to go to win the 3G argument judging by Jim Parmenter's recent article. 

Jim was kind enough to show Bill and I around his operation at The Crabble ground before we began the building of the Gallagher Stadium. In an effort to dispel some of Jim's pre-conceptions on 3G surfaces I would like to return his hospitality and invite him to our ground so that we can explain why 3G works for Maidstone United FC. 

Whilst I cannot deal with each point that Jim raised there are some fundamental facts that I would want to clear up when we meet. The first is that 3G surfaces do not mean that games are sterile. We have played hundreds of competitive matches on the surface and because the ball rolls and bounces in a consistent and proper way it simply means that players can play the "beautiful game" in the way it was always intended to be played. 

Our supporters keep returning and they will tell you that the games that are played satisfy all football supporters need for excitement. The term level playing field is never more relevant than when we play on the 3G surface. The next point deals with injuries to players. I can say that there are more injuries to players on pitches which are part iced over and part waterlogged. 

We can and do play on our pitch even when there is heavy frost and other matches are postponed. We would not risk the safety of the hundreds of children that use the surface, we would not risk the safety of the players who hire the pitch.

We would not dream of risking the safety of our first team players or the safety of our 60+ academy students who use the 3G surface every day and play all of their competitive matches on this same pitch. I do notice that the Dover academy use a 3G surface and I am sure that the coaches at Dover would not risk the safety of the young people who could be the future of the club. 

If our confidence about the pitch is not enough, surely the fact that teams in Europe from Bayern Munich to Barcelona have embraced this surface shows that it is the way forward. Games played on the mud baths of the Ryman and Conference leagues are not always going to be a true contest of footballing skill.

We have made a decision at Maidstone United to create a business model that enables the football club to conduct our business on the basis of its income exceeding its outgoings. This means the distortion of football club owners ploughing their own money into a football club that is hopelessly insolvent could be a thing of the past. 

Our business model can only happen with a surface that will be used for fifty hours a week. Many of the numbers quoted in the article are a long way off the true figure and I would relish the opportunity of showing Jim that the cost of the surface can be re-paid within two/three years.

I do sincerely hope that Jim will come and visit. We are not trying to persuade Dover to change their pitch or even change their approach to the way they run their business, we are just hoping to explain why it works for us and how it could work for others.

Much ado about 3G

BY OLIVER ASH

There's on-field and off-field at a football club. We have all been very occupied with off-field matters over the past few months. Fortunately Jay and the players have had an excellent start to the season on the field. 

As I write this we are in a strong position close to the top, with a couple of games in hand and able to put in first-class performances on our day. We would have signed up for that at the start of the season. In fact those of us who thought play-offs were a reasonable target sometimes forget that that implies there will be a few defeats as well as the run of victories in style. We can't always play attractive, entertaining, winning football. Even Barcelona have off-days.

We now need to consolidate and make sure we don't have too many of these off-days. If injuries are not too unkind to us we will be there or thereabouts at the end of the season. We don't have FA Cup, Trophy and Youth Cups to distract us anymore. While this might be a good thing in the longer term as we can concentrate on the league; I am disappointed we didn't get further in these competitions. The FA competitions are the glamour end of non-league (and of course there's the prize money) and who wouldn't trade a league win or two for the chance to do what Brackley FC have just done by knocking out Gillingham in the first round...? I have a sneaky feeling next season is going to be ours for a majestic cup run. Just remember you read it here first...

Off the field we have been concentrating on making sure match-days are safe, entertaining, friendly and with a good variety of food and drink outlets. We hope we are getting this pretty much right most of the time. No doubt you will continue to tell us if we don't! We're also planning to increase the range of merchandise you will be able to purchase and we are improving the on-line shop to make it easier and quicker to order on-line.

I am surprised that I have managed to get to the fifth paragraph of this blog without mentioning 3G. Do not fear, it is still my number one obsession. Over the past 12 months more and more people in football are coming round to the idea that 3G is not the devil but has a huge and positive role to play in football at every level. In the top divisions in Wales and Ireland it is allowed. In Scotland there are 11 clubs playing on 3G in the Scottish League. There are two 3G clubs in The Scottish Championship - Falkirk and Hamilton. Hamilton are currently runaway leaders of The Championship and are a case in point: several years ago they were promoted to SPFL and chose to rip up their 3G pitch. Their community and academy programmes suffered considerably in the following years and it took relegation and a decision to put 3G back in to their stadium to rebuild the fortunes of the club. It is hard to imagine they will choose to rip 3G up this time if they achieve promotion and much more realistic to imagine The SPFL taking the sensible decision to allow 3G in their league.

Closer to home let me update you on latest 3G news:

• Our open letter in September to Greg Dyke at The FA received nearly 20,000 hits on the Maidstone United website and we received countless messages of support for our proposals from clubs and individuals around the country. In his reply Greg even admitted agreeing with us on 3G. In fact we still haven't heard one single, sensible, objective argument against 3G being allowed at all levels of the English game since we set up 3G4US (now 50 clubs strong) two years ago.
• All this makes it all the more surprising that The FA has not subsequently addressed the issues we raised with any serious attention. In Greg Dyke's reply to us he said he had put a senior executive on the case. However the executive in question confessed to me when I spoke to him that he was not qualified to address the 'political' points raised in our letter. We wrote back to Greg Dyke to take issue with this anomaly. We have had no reply. I can only leave you to imagine how we feel this matter has been handled...
• We have written to The Football Conference to request that they reconsider their refusal to allow 3G in their competition. We have added some new arguments resulting from consultations we have had with barristers, who specialise in sport and competition law. We are raising all these issues again with The Conference in a few days time. We remain confident that common sense will prevail and that The Conference will find a way of opening their doors to 3G. 

The other issue we raised with The FA was academies. There is still precious little sensible support for clubs like ours running academies to be protected when the big clubs come sniffing around. The system is really designed to protect and enrich the bigger clubs at the expense of the smaller ones. As a direct result we find our top young academy players are being scouted down and hassled by agents on a regular basis, which is disruptive for them and for us, although we acknowledge it can ultimately be in the player's interest.  Well when we have resolved the 3G problems, we will turn our attentions to urging The FA to organise a general debate on this issue. 

Well all that remains here is for me to hope that we come out of the next couple of weeks of very tough matches with a few points and some high octane performances to warm us all up in the chill.

Take good care.