'This is now your club' - Blyth Spartans enter new era under community ownership

Striving for success and sustainability are at the heart of Blyth Spartans’ future as the Northern Premier League club embark on life under the ownership of a Community Interest Company.

That was the exciting vision set out by newly-appointed director Kevin Miles, who played an integral role in securing the future of his hometown club and provided invaluable experience of community-led takeovers through his long-standing role with the Football Supporters Association. After agreeing a deal with the club’s former owner Irfan Liaquat, Spartans officially became the latest club to go into community ownership on Friday as a newly-formed company fronted by local businessman Martin Trinder got to work rejuvenating the fortunes on and off the pitch at Croft Park.

With Spartans sitting at the bottom of the Northern Premier League Premier Division table and in danger of suffering a second successive relegation, Michael Connor was persuaded to bring an end to his 13-year association with Blyth Town to take charge of the club he grew up supporting. Tom Wade, Spartans manager when they reached the FA Cup third round in 2015, will assist Connor and the duo are hopeful of adding another coach to their backroom staff in the near future. Boosting the squad they inherited from David Stockdale also remains high on the agenda and Spartans are hoping to announce at least two new signings ahead of Saturday’s visit to Warrington Rylands, with work over further additions very much ongoing.

Away from the pitch, interim chairman Trinder has already spoken of his desire to attract new sponsors to help drive the club forwards and move on from a period where entering administration was a very distinct possibility. Despite the positivity that enveloped Croft Park on Thursday as the directors and manager met the media, there was also a very direct message given to the club’s supporters and the local community as Miles called for the local area to get behind Spartans as their new custodians look to strive for long-term success on and off the pitch.

He told The Gazette: “This is now your club, this now belongs to the community. If anything, as a direction of travel, what we have discussed is giving the supporters an even bigger share in the ownership of the club and the running of the club until it’s genuinely supporter-owned. I don’t think anybody I am working with here has ambitions in the long-term to be subsidising the club or delegating. We want this to belong to the town and the community and I think alongside the supporters having their club, the other two ‘S’ words I would use are success and sustainability. They are both absolutely crucial and we want to see a striving for success. There are no guarantees of winning anything thing but you should be able to guarantee everyone’s best efforts and pulling in the same direction. Likewise, with sustainability. Nobody wants a blaze of glory for a fortnight and then for it to fall away. We want to make this a permanent feature where the town has a club to be proud of and one flying the flag for us.”

Through his role as Chief Executive at the Football Supporters Association, Miles, who received an OBE for services to football earlier this year, has experienced the devastating impact losing a football club can have on a local community. Football League stalwarts such as Bury and Macclesfield are both amongst a sizeable list of clubs that have ran into trouble in recent years and, in Miles’ words, it is the fans and the community that ‘have to step up’ to help revive their fortunes. The FSA has also played a role in the formation of the likes of AFC Wimbledon and FC United of Manchester as they put supporters at the heart of decision-making with eye-catching success.

But for all of Miles experience and involvement in matters elsewhere, playing a role in securing the future of his hometown club, a club he describes as ‘close to his heart’, was always likely to provide him with a special moment.

He said: “Football clubs are far too important to communities, it’s a representation of a whole town and community, it’s so much part of the way of life with fans who build their existence around attending matches and the results and ebb and flow of the game. I’ve seen at first hand the consequences and impact on a local community when they lose the club. When you see clubs like Bury, who went into administration, that was a town bereft because of the whole blow to morale and the identity of these places. In nearly all of these cases, it’s the fans and the community that have to step up and do something about it and rescue it.

He continued: “The Football Supporters Association are invested in this, we have member organisations up and down the country at loads of these clubs and we’ve supported the work they’ve done - but this is a one close to my heart and I was delighted to find we have such a positive group of people that have sponsored the club for such a long time and turn that sponsorship into something more.”

Spartans will face their first home game of a new era on Saturday week when Matlock Town are the visitors to Croft Park.