Football: Palace not ripe for fan buy-out

WHILE THE future of Crystal Palace hangs in the balance, the man responsible for one of the most successful rescue operations in recent football history said yesterday it is extremely unlikely that the Eagles' fans will be able to play any part in saving their club.

"Fans' co-operatives are seen as irritants, there to be swatted like flies, unless they're an absolutely last resort," Trevor Watkins, the Bouremouth supporter-turned-chairman of such a co-operative, said yesterday.

"The situation at Crystal Palace is difficult because of the amount of money involved," Watkins added of Palace's debts, which are now understood to stand at pounds 20m. Matters are further complicated, Watkins said, because Palace do not own their ground or even their training facilities. Both are still in the hands of the former owner, Ron Noades, and Watkins believes that, logically, Noades (now the owner of Brentford) will go back to Selhurst Park. "No one else can deal with it," Watkins said.

Watkins' own involvement in running a football club began in December 1996, when The Cherries were pounds 5m in debt and 61 per cent of the club was owned by five unpopular individuals. Five members of the board resigned on legal advice, and the Inland Revenue, amongst other creditors, called for the club to be wound up. A month later, Bournemouth went into receivership, a step further than administration, the situation Palace find themselves in at the moment.

With administration, there is at least a grace period of some three months for a company to sort out its problems. With receivership, banks take control and attempt to sell the business for whatever it is worth.

At this point, in January 1997, Watkins, who had no experience of running any business, let alone a football club, starting a "fighting fund" to raise money to tide Bouremouth over. By June that year, he had raised some pounds 500,000, had been joined by five like-minded fans at the helm of the co-op, and had put together a deal - costing pounds 2.7m in total, backed by a loan from Lloyds bank - which would lead to supporter ownership. The Trust set up by the supporters now owns 51 per cent of the shares, all the board members from past regimes have gone, and Bournemouth has in place a plan that also sees its creditors paid back pounds 77,500 each year.

"We actually took the business and made a profit in ordinary trading of pounds 220,000 in the first year," Watkins said, although he conceded that the sale of the club's captain, Matthew Holland, for pounds 800,000 to Ipswich, had been crucial. "The time has come where we probably need to make another sale," Watkins added, but he said such moves were a small price to pay for a club now owned by the fans, accessible to the fans and accountable to the fans. Even the directors now pay for their own season tickets.

"[Fans' co-operatives] are certainly the cake people are looking to bake," said Watkins. His book, Cherries in the Red, will detail his experiences when published in April, and his advice has been sought by clubs as varied as Chester, Portsmouth, Oxford, Lincoln, Burnley, Hereford and Partick Thistle. "Whether you can do the same with different ingredients is questionable," he added. The head chef at Palace, it seems, could be Ron Noades.