Legal support

Date: 15th August 2025

Legal support

Season 24-25 will go down as “a difficult one” for supporters of Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Dumbarton. As they look back upon what they have had to endure as they faced extinction as a football entity, they will be looking forward to 25-26, although facing the points deduction that they’ve carried over from the year before.

It reminds us just exactly how frail some of our clubs are.

So, spare a thought not just for the Scottish clubs who are facing similar issues – Hamilton Academical anyone – but the ones down in England who are facing extinction – Morecambe and Sheffield Wednesday.

For Morecambe it looks really bleak and no matter how many appeals there are to local resident Tyson Fury, most people cannot see them existing after the next deadline date for change. We promise not to smirk at the nemesis of Scottish standards in football, Derek Adams, now facing the dole as he was/is/ has been the manager at Morecambe. We are not that petty…

As for Sheffield Wednesday, the great worry is that there will be no Thursday or rest of the week for this once great club. It’s a club that I was made aware of because Stevie Nicol, who had been our most expensive player sold to Liverpool in the 1980s, ended up playing for a while at Sheffield Wednesday.

This is a proud club with a proud tradition and is facing extinction simply because an owner cannot be persuaded to part ways with the vanity project that he believed was going to create some kind of edifice of which he and his family would be proud. They have had one of their stands closed due to safety issues which does not help the potential for selling – it’s like your extension being condemned by local planning prior to the sale of your house going through.

Northampton Town, similarly, are suffering.

They are suffering from the lack of concern of their owner and are facing similar forms of oblivion.

There have been other examples in England, including Bury City FC, who have gone down the road of disappearing.

The solution? Well, if you are in Edinburgh this Monday the 4^th of August, you can pop along and hear SFSA founder Paul Goodwin launch his book about fan ownership and ask him what should happen…

To add to the movement, the Chief Executive of Fair Game down in England has joined a coalition of 22 fan groups led by Northampton Town Supporters Trust, calling on the government to ensure their unique status of being a trust is recognised and enshrined in law.

Nobody is fooled in believing that having supporters involved in a football club at any level is going to guarantee success, although, let’s be honest, they are the major supporters financially of any club.

Therefore, it is important that you have them on board at some point.

However, many clubs are resistant to having the supporters involved in any way, at any time and at any particular level.

That seems to most of us who are supporters to be short-sighted, because within those thousands of people who pay their tickets every week, there are plumbers, electricians, painters, decorators, directors, writers and volunteers, and many are willing to be put to good use in their football club.

I know that the vast majority of Scottish football clubs thrive in volunteering.

There are many volunteers who will turn up to man a turnstile or two or sell a programme or three or even deliver a pie or ten into the kiosks that then feed the many hundreds and thousands that come to the ground.

And yet, in a boardroom setting…

Of course, it is difficult to comprehend or understand just exactly why it is that supporters who have the best interests of their club at heart are not brought in to the club to help out the finances of it, to provide a more sustainable model.

Whilst in Scotland, it’s not since Gretna that we’ve had to face such the loss of a club.

Having said that, Dumbarton and Inverness Caley came close. Is Hamilton Academical going to be this year’s worry?

There have been calls for supporters in various groups to be realistic about how they view the future for this great club.

And of course, the irony of Clyde FC playing at Hamilton FC’s ground, whilst Hamilton FC play in Clyde’s old ground, is not lost.

As I regularly pass the Shawfield Stadium, increasingly falling into disrepair, I wonder just exactly what it would take for somebody to get involved in bringing Clyde back to their spiritual home.

And trying to find a way in which Hamilton Supporters Trust, the owners and directors who seem to have made such a pig’s ear of it, can get round a table and come up with a solution that sees New Douglas Park become their home again, when it was Old Douglas Park that they came from seems logical and impossible in equal measure.

And so, as Paul is about to publish his book on fan ownership of football, it is a really important message and debate that should be had as to how community assets, such as football clubs are not only owned, but also managed by the great and the good who seek on behalf of their community to be the custodians of the past, the present and ensure a very rosy future.

Unfortunately for many clubs, as they look towards this new season, it’s not rosy. Perhaps they can take solace from Clydebank’s rise as they re now in the Lowland League and one step away from being back in the SPFL.

Clydebank refused to die – it meant far too much t too many people. It is why the supporters will volunteer and go to the ends of whatever earth they are told they have to, to keep the lights on and ensure that football is played at 3 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon in the home that they have gone with the family, their parents, grandparents, and want to hand it to their grandchildren too.

It’s far too important an asset for a community for it to be left in the hands of one individual.

And so, my sympathy for Northampton Town, Morecambe and Sheffield Wednesday supporters, as well as those who are facing an uncertain future at Hamilton, has to be tempered by the fact that whilst in my own club things are looking rosy, not many years ago they looked particularly bleak.

It is a fickle business, football, and we should all remember that, so that when other clubs are facing potential ruin, we should all band together to support and help them and not turn our backs on our fellow supporters, even when their manager tells us our product is rubbish… oops…

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Posted in: Latest News

Tags: fans, oor Donald, sfaceo, SFSA, SPFL