Non-league Football

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I join other colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) on securing this debate.

I am saddened by the plight of Hereford United. I grew up and went to school in Herefordshire. Nearly 30 years ago, in January 1985, I remember seeing the Hereford United of Chris Price and Stewart Phillips draw 1-1 with the Arsenal of Charlie Nicholas, Kenny Sansom and Viv Anderson. In 1990, the famous Manchester United FA cup run, which brought Alex Ferguson his first trophy, very nearly ended in the fourth round at Hereford United on what Alex Ferguson rightly called in his autobiography a “pudding of a pitch”. Even the bull that is traditionally brought out for cup ties before the kick-off at Hereford United was glad to get off the pitch. The romance of the FA cup—the romance of non-league and league football—is what makes football in this country so special. To see Hereford United go through what it has gone through is a tragedy born out of poor management and poor oversight by the Football Association and other football bodies.

Non-league football in my constituency has had its ups and downs. Folkestone Invicta has had recent financial problems. Those have been resolved. I pay tribute to the work of the former chairman, Mark Jenner, and his team in stabilising the club’s finances. I have met officials at the club to talk about what they could do. They now have the club on a secure footing and are clearing the debts. I am grateful to the Football Association, which had a meeting with the club to discuss how it can access funds to carry out essential ground maintenance. It has entered into a proper lease agreement with Shepway district council and the future of the club looks much more sound than it did a year or two ago.

That club had a bonus when something happened that again shows the romance of non-league football. A young player, Johan ter Horst, was brought up in Folkestone and Hythe and started playing football on Saturday mornings with the juniors at Folkestone. He started in the under-13s team and then, at the end of last season, was sold to Hull City in the premier league. The club will get a financial reward directly from the transfer and, depending on how the young player’s career develops in the premier league, may get more money in the future. That is an example of how the trickle-down effect can work.

For many football clubs, sustaining themselves is the greatest challenge they face. Other Members have asked whether more financial support could be given through tax breaks to community sports clubs, just as such opportunities exist for amateur sporting clubs in the community. Although non-league football clubs pay some of their players part-time wages, they are very low and the costs of running the club are often very high. They are basically not-for-profit organisations that do a great deal not only to entertain the people who watch the clubs play, but to support grass-roots sport in their communities. There should be some special recognition of that. If there could be incentives for the community ownership of clubs, such as a more sound financial model or tax breaks, we should champion them.

In the brief time available, I want to pick up on what my hon. Friend said about the fit and proper person test. It is failing time and time again. It is failing because that is what football wants to happen. It is within the power of football to devise a more rigorous test and impose it more rigorously, but it consistently fails to do so. Football will change only through external pressure that it cannot resist; it never changes voluntarily. I was proud to serve on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in 2011 when we produced a report that made a series of recommendations on football governance. Most of those have been ignored by football bodies and more has to be done to put pressure on them. The hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) secured a debate in the House earlier this week on the plight of Coventry City. Again, that is a failure of ownership. There has to be intervention by the Football Association to impose a proper owners and directors test and to sanction clubs and owners when they fail to comply. I agree with my hon. Friend that that information should be made available to the creditors of the club and the fans.