https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/02/16/dortmund-roma-fans-chipped-save-
There were a few wry smiles at Rochdale when news circulated that Manchester City have enlisted a lawyer who can command up to £80,000 a day.
On that sort of rate, the fees of Lord Pannick KC, who will fight City’s case against alleged financial regulation breaches, would cover the League Two club’s annual £1 million financial deficit in just two-and-a-half weeks.
“For me that is just inconceivable,” says Guy Courtney, one of Rochdale’s directors. “Man City have got their own priorities of course, and I fully respect that, but I do think it’s in the interests of the wider football pyramid, of which the country should be very proud, that there is more support generally down through the leagues.”
Having fought off a hostile takeover last year to become the north of England’s first entirely “fan owned and fan led” club, Rochdale now face a different, if no less pressing, battle on the pitch to stay in the Football League, a status they have proudly held for more than a century and are desperate to preserve on so many levels.
Jim Bentley took over in August when Robbie Stockdale was sacked and the former Morecambe and Fylde manager has since had his work cut out.
Five points adrift of safety at the foot of League Two, Rochdale’s game at home to fellow relegation battlers Gillingham on Saturday is very much of the “must win” variety. Time is running out, they need points on the board and Courtney is hoping the fans can once again rally, as they did when former shareholders Morton House MGT took the club, its directors and the Dale Supporters Trust to the High Court.
“We came together to fight off that hostile takeover and now what’s really important is we stay together as a collective from the board, management and playing staff through to other staff at the club and the supporters,” he said. “The more support we can get the better.”
There have been efforts to assist Bentley and his squad. Half-a-dozen signings were made in the transfer window last month and the club have just moved to City’s former Platt Lane training ground in Manchester in the hope the new surroundings can, in Courtney’s words, “provide a boost as we move into this crucial period”.
For the previous 3½ years, the club has been using Rochdale sports club as their training base but the need for a permanent home is paramount. Although Rochdale own their Crown Oil Arena stadium (better known as Spotland to most), renting training facilities sets them back around £500,000 a year, which represents a huge drain on finances. A potential training site in Heywood has been identified and offers hope of a brighter future, not least as Rochdale believe a community facility the public could access might be worth up to £500,000 in annual revenues. “That would be the financial deficit plugged,” Courtney says. Yet finding investors to help fund an estimated £5m project is proving easier said than done.
“A training ground would be a game changer,” Courtney added. “Obviously it would be a massive asset for the local public as well to have a training ground facility that can be used by the community at different points.
“One of the first priorities we had as a board was to move that forward but to fund it is a different kettle of fish. It’s disappointing the club has never got to the position where it has its own training ground. It does hold us back. We are speaking to potential investors and would welcome any serious enquiries.”
It has not helped that the Rochdale board spent the best part of a year fighting to keep the club out of the clutches of Morton House MGT. A bitter, hugely stressful battle was finally settled last August, when Morton House transferred its shares in the club to the Rochdale board.
The Dale Trust, whose secretary Murray Knight sits on the club’s board, did a remarkable job crowdfunding to help cover legal fees, with around £60,000 raised and donations coming from all over the world, including Borussia Dortmund and Roma fans. Yet Courtney — a lifelong Rochdale supporter — and the board’s other six directors, all of whom have strong local ties, had to find around £500,000 between them to buy Morton out.
'The stress was profound'
“They were pretty dark, worrying times on an individual level, a family level and as a fan,” Courtney said. “The Supporters Trust did an incredible job and there was lots of support from the fanbase and wider football community.
“That soaked an incredible amount of time up from the board, finding ways around that situation to get the ownership back into the hands of people who cared about the club.
“The stress was profound. I’m normally quite a relaxed character but there were sleepless nights, stress, it was always in the back of the mind, worrying about the implications.”
Rochdale’s owners welcomed Tracey Crouch’s fan-led review into English football and are now awaiting publication of the long-awaited government white paper on football governance with great interest. Like many lower league sides, they are not after handouts but the introduction of an independent football regulator and a system that provides a fairer redistribution of wealth and better enables clubs to become self-sustaining.
“When you look at the history of clubs like Rochdale, they’re so important for the town in which they’re based,” Courtney said. “They need some support on a national and local level in order to succeed.
“There was a real fear among the Rochdale community, Rochdale fanbase and wider football community that we would end up like Bury and Oldham and the struggles they’d had and, of that northern Manchester club base, we’d be the last one to really hit the buffers.
“We’re having problems on the pitch now but off the pitch we’ve worked really hard to keep us together. I do feel now that the club deserves a bit of luck, a bit of good fortune and some support.” [Post edited 16 Feb 2023 22:30]
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