Ken Jones: No such thing as a new solution to football's enduring crises

Ordinarily, i am inclined to let football, as an industry, shift for itself. I have enough problems without worrying about matters no clearer in this befuddled mind than the procedure for laying down an early-day motion in Parliament or the intricacies of spread betting.

But I do admit to an interest in the turmoil recently caused when the Football League retreated from court without reclaiming a penny of the £178m outstanding from its naïvely-administered £315m deal with ITV Digital.

Hung out to dry by the smug executives of ITV Digital's parent companies, Carlton and Granada, many of the 72 clubs involved will be fortunate to get through the coming season without avoiding a state of affairs familiar to habitual followers of slow racehorses.

A great deal of sympathy is held out here for the many thousands of faithful supporters who could easily find themselves without a local club to follow. However, is it not typical of the clubs to fall out at a time of great peril? By now we are almost inured to the greed and rampant self-interest that dictates practically every corporate decision reached in football. But we have just been shaken by fresh proof, revealed by the First Division's determination to alter the power base within the league to ensure that they get their hands on a bigger share of television revenue.

When remarking that the majority of clubs in the Second and Third divisions were opposed to such a move, the Brentford chairman Ron Noades said: "It would be like turkeys voting for Christmas". It's an old line, obvious in its implication, but it will do.

Anyway, on television the other night, the situation was addressed with all due seriousness by one of those experts who pop up whenever a crisis in any field arises, his printed title suggesting a profound knowledge of financial affairs in the sporting world. "In order to get through this we may need a revolution," he said. He went to speak about regionalisation of the lower leagues and the possible extinction of some clubs as part of a major shake-up.

After listening to this, and wondering how long he taken to come up with a solution, I telephoned an old friend, Brian James, who served the sports pages of the Daily Mail with great distinction before moving on to higher things at The Times. It seemed to me that we had commented on similar proposals long before football sold its soul to television and sponsors. "Remember it well," James said. "At the time it was a very big story."

What we had in mind was a scheme put forward some 30 years ago by Alan Hardaker, a splenetic secretary of the Football League who held more power over the clubs than any of today's administrators can imagine.

Sensing trouble up ahead, Hardaker drew up a document suggesting changes to the League's structure almost identical to those advanced on television. Known as "A Pattern for Football", it included the clever come-on of a new competition, The Football League Cup, as another source of revenue. Typically, the clubs snatched at the cup (it was quite a while before the First Division took it seriously) and voted out every other proposal.

Above all else, this tells us that when it comes to considering change nothing much changes. Around about the time of Hardaker's initiative, Northampton Town, when managed by the former Arsenal and Wales captain Dave Bowen, achieved the remarkable feat of climbing from the Fourth to the First Division. Once the excitement had died down Bowen met with the 12 men who comprised Northampton's board of directors. "Unless we can afford to bring in new players, we'll go straight back down," Bowen said. The directors, all local businessmen, came up with a total of £25,000. "If that's the best you can do, then enjoy it while it lasts," Bowen snorted. Within three years Northampton were back where they started.

I am telling you this not simply to illustrate the futility of dreams as held in the lower reaches of league football, but to emphasise that reality was always waiting at the gulch.