We are Not Dancing |
We Are Not Dancing
If ever there was a clearer example of why Supporters should play a greater role in their football club, it’s the demise of Gretna Football Club. Their rapid rise from semi-professional English football to the pinnacle of the Scottish game was seen as many as a ‘fairytale’. ‘Living the Dream’ they called it, and the media fawned on the ‘wee borders club’ as it made its meteoric rise it to the very top of Scottish football. Winning three divisions in successive seasons, a Scottish Cup Final, Europe, it was like someone had turned every supporters perfect scenario into reality.
As Gretna steamrollered their way through the leagues any fan from another club who criticised them was labelled as ‘jealous’. Like kids in a school playground with the latest toy it was back to the Neanderthal ‘nah nah na nah nah………….look what we’ve got, and you’ve not’.
As the dream became reality, despite realists, yes, not cynics, flagging up warning signs, it became even more evident that many football ‘experts’, pundits, sportswriters, councillors and business people were being sucked in to the black hole that was becoming Gretna Football Club.
Many people, including several Supporters Trust’s, begged Brookes for money, and the man was always willing to open his apparently bottomless wallet to help. Some Queens fans even suggested we write to Brookes and ask for money ourselves. I couldn’t help feeling that, knowing we existed, if he really wanted to help Supporters Trusts then he might even get one of his minions to contact us and ask if we wanted help. After all we were only 26 miles up the road.
The first time I came across Brookes Mileson was at a Supporters Direct Conference in 2006. Brookes hijacked the start of a supporters discussion session to tell us what Gretna Football Club was doing in the Community and how other clubs should follow their model. A real community club, he described, should help the disabled, encourage kids to stay healthy, improve their education, provide football coaching to all schools etc etc. You couldn’t argue with any of what he said. The bit that was missing and the question I asked him was ‘how was it all to be paid for?’. He seemed to have forgotten that not every club had a chairman with �50 million in his back pocket.
The one thing that was clear to most Queens fans was the danger Gretna now posed to our football club. Their community officers started appearing in schools across the entire region offering free tickets, football kit and football coaching. They started soccer schools in Ayrshire, Cumbria and Dumfries and Galloway and built links with local youth teams in the region. The local papers appeared to be constantly full of articles and adverts about Gretna. Brookes and Co were everywhere, on the radio, in the papers and even had two documentary series produced by BBC Scotland, a feat not even the Old Firm have achieved in recent times.
It was obvious that a Gretna team playing at Raydale, in the SPL would be a major threat to the future support of Queens. Without an obvious fanbase, Gretna needed football fans from D&G and Cumbria to switch allegiance or to get young fans before they settled on Queens or Carlisle. It was this scary thought that led many Queens fans to question the notion of groundsharing with Gretna at last years AGM. It seemed clear, that, in order to achieve a short term, albeit major, cash injection by renting the ground to Gretna, Queens would effectively have been lowering the drawbridge and putting a large sign up saying’ Steal Our Fans’. �Most Queens fans one must have been pleased to see them having to play at Motherwell and having their small support exposed to the rest of the country and the media. Especially after their management team had celebrated so joyously across the Palmerston turf as they humiliated Queens twice at Palmerston. To jump up and down after a couple of goals was ok, but to run towards the terracing of Queens fans as if the World Cup had been won after a 4th goal was unprofessional.
At that time there were several rumours of unpaid bills, but there never seemed any doubt that Brookes would continue to fund the Gretna charge, especially when they had achieved so much success. Minor alarm bells must have been ringing when shortly after Mick Wadsworth appeared ,Gretna suddenly shut down their satellite youth setups at Kilwinning and Edinburgh and, instead of just paying for a 6000 seater stadium �out of petty cash, a publicly funded ‘eco’ stadium was being mooted. After Holyrood appeared lukewarm to the idea articles started to appear �in the media suggesting we should feel sorry for ‘wee Gretna’ and their poor multi-millionaire owner. So much so that the taxpayer should pay for the whole lot even though it appeared to be madness to build a 6000 seater stadium in a village with a population of 2500. The media continued to ignore the fact that Queen of the South Football Club might not even survive with a successful Gretna just down the road. So 10yrs down the line we would have had a large town of 40,000 with no community club while 26 miles away a 6000 all singing eco stadium for a tiny population. Madness.
However, as many predicted, the whole thing was a bad idea, and, as it continued to gobble up Brookes’ funds the Raydale folly finally went into meltdown. �Where Brookes’ �50 milion plus went will probably surface at some point. The accounts suggest he put upwards of �6 million in to the club and it could have been as much as �15 million. Gretna FC are now left with an uncertain future. In administration, relegated from the SPL� and with the distinct possibility of becoming the next Third Lanark, you wonder whether the gravy train ride was worth it. All the progress Gretnas’ community effort made is gone and square zero is beckoning in the distance. One or two Queens fans will still be gloating but, despite Chick Youngs comments, the majority of us are not dancing in the streets at Gretna’s demise. We all know some of those supporters, who, when Queens were not playing at home, went to watch Gretna on rainy nights with a hundred other genuine football fans in the Unibond League. These people do not deserve to lose their football club and we hope they don’t.
Brookes maybe should have talked less, and listened to ordinary supporters from the various supporters Trusts instead of talking. Involving your fans, listening to them and discussing their concerns should be part of every clubs future. Maybe then, none of this would have ever happened.
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