Football remains part of the fabric of society

Personally, I thought that the Chancellor’s budget was somewhat lacklustre last week, which mirrors the Chancellor himself. It is a shame, but both front benches are not exactly groaning with talent or personality. I don’t feel that there is a natural and inspiring leader amongst the whole bunch. To all of us the budget is unlikely to make any difference to our lives, nor is a change of Government. I find this very sad indeed. It means that we don’t really have much of a choice at the ballot box as the policies seem to be similar and there is no stand-out candidate that we can rely on either. It seems that depending on when the election is called, we may have heard the last from Mr Hunt, but if it is called later in the year he might get another outing; but who knows, he could desert before then or not stand again like a number of other Tory MPs.

One very serious omission which beggars belief, is that there wasn’t a massive increase in the defence budget. Currently we pay just two per cent of our national income on defence. This is at a time when we are witnessing the worst war in Europe since 1945. Even David Cameron, who I am not normally a fan of, made a powerful speech to the United Nations recently when he equated Russia’s actions against Ukraine with the way that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis behaved in the 1930s. Cameron is in the same government as Hunt and yet the penny still doesn’t seem to have dropped into the automaton’s slot. This is a dangerous game of negligence. At this time in our history, I do think that our priorities should be defence and the NHS and not much else. Hunt even looks and sounds like Chamberlain, a bit like a rabbit in the headlights. Oh where, oh where is our Churchill?

One highlight last week was the return of George Galloway. It is always good when someone livens up the conversation in Westminster, even if most of what he says is not what many of us would agree with, but clearly enough voters did in Rochdale. One point he made though I completely agree with. Rochdale AFC is in the same sinking boat as Torquay United and he strenuously and passionately supports his club. Galloway also pointed out that Rochdale doesn’t even have an associated postcode as it is clumped together under Oldham’s OL prefix. That is strange and obviously can’t be right as the RO code is available. You might think that this is a small point, and it probably is, but it does help identify pride in a town as of course, does a local football club. 

When I was running my former business, I represented the Football League (when it had four divisions and Torquay was in the Fourthh Division) as well as the Football Association and Premier League. This meant that I had to visit every football club in the UK. The chairman of the Third and Fourth Divisions in those days was a lovely man called Michael Sinclair who was also chairman of York City. He explained the basic importance of football clubs, or rather what used to be their importance to a town. They were the fabric of society. Michael told me that in York, when York City won a game, production in the Rowntrees factory based in York increased massively. The happiness a win brought to the whole town and the workers in the factory was immense. So, the economy of the town improved. The great shame about all this is of course that not many towns have any factories or big businesses left to stimulate production in. However, the pride in the local football club should, and mostly is, still there. So, I do think that it should be a priority of the town to try to save Torquay United, even if it means moving the ground. All potential investors should be listened to. Most small-town football clubs only survive now with multi-purpose stadiums.

When the Plainmoor ground was opened in 1921, life was very different indeed and there weren’t so many cars for starters. I understand that the Council want to hang on to the land but maybe consideration should be given to gifting a potential investor a slice of land just outside Torquay which could accommodate parking for a stadium and then building affordable housing on the current site? Just a thought, but maybe more attractive to a potential investor than taking over the current ground in such a restricted area.

The other highlight in the budget last week for me was something that I hope will benefit soccer, and particularly the England team, in the future. Getting rid of the non-dom status will mean that many of the richest footballers in the world will probably leave and go elsewhere. I think this is a good thing because unless first class football enables more English players into the Premier League, they can never play at the highest level to enable them to play for England, which is why in my view we haven’t had a great England team since 1966. In those days foreign players were a novelty and British players dominated all the Divisions. Now it is the opposite. Everything in the Premier League is down to massive sums of money and so home-grown talent doesn’t always get the opportunity that it needs to thrive. A few get through the system like Foden and that is fantastic and should be celebrated.

My favourite manager by a long way is Jurgen Klopp, who has nurtured a young team including young English players. This is out of the playbook of the former great manager Sir Alex Ferguson, and it obviously works as some of the other Premier League teams spend fortunes on big name overseas players but still disappoint massively. You’ve only got to look at Chelsea, literally a billion pounds spent and their two best players Palmer and Gallagher are both English home grown, as is their captain Reece James. We need to give our English talent more opportunities and this could be that chance.