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City Fans United - Q&A with spokesman Jeff Banks
In the last week or so, Jeff Banks has been a busy man. The spokesman of City Fans United has had Wednesday's court case to deal with as well as the countless requests for interviews now that the mainstream media has woken up to what has been happening on the England-Wales border. So A Different League are enormously grateful that he managed a telephone conversation on Thursday evening followed by an e-mail question and answer session. It outlines the vision the CFU have for the club as well as the historical wrongs that need to be put right and the lessons that football in general could learn from Chester's story.
Hi Jeff - Wednesday must have been exhausting for you?
Well, of course Wednesday was a huge day, it was a day full of mixed emotion that saw the 125-year history of the club broken in just 30 seconds at the High Court in London. Not one representative from the club felt the need or desire to do everything to avoid the winding up order - a bit like the lack of defence for the Conference meeting which ended up with Chester getting expelled two weeks ago today. The news of the liquidation filtered through at 11.12 on Wednesday morning, and whilst this signalled the end of a once proud club, it also heralded the start of a new era of football in Chester. We all knew this day was coming, and thankfully we had prepared for it, as it was a case of when, and not if. The first thing we did was to submit an application to the FA for a licence to enable the reformation of the club - this was essential if we were to retain its history, and start from two or three divisions down from where we folded initially.
How optimistic are you that this process will run smoothly?
That application will now be examined by the FA, as well as the business plan that the CFU have put forward, which includes the use of the Deva Stadium, something we have made our intentions clear on in what have turned out to be extremely positive meetings with the Cheshire West & Cheshire Council. They have seen how professional and serious we actually are about involving the whole community in our desire to bring a football club the city can be proud of, and with the council serving an eviction notice on the owners who have dragged the club to its knees, we hope that the reformed football club can secure the assignment of the lease very soon.
A key part of the plan must be getting licence to play at the Deva Stadium?
Playing at the Deva Stadium is key to our plans - it would also be remiss of the council to let the Deva Stadium sit there as an empty shell whilst there is a group such as CFU prepared to pay its way for a new club to play there come August.
Then you can really get on with running the football club. Are you focussed on the immediate battle or are those plans already in place?
If we are successful in obtaining the lease then that's when we can really get cracking. Although having said that a lot of the ground work has been going on for months to prepare for this scenario, and we have had a huge amount of response to calls for volunteers to assist with the reformation of the club, from people offering professional services to those offering to paint the walls of the Deva - all are important as each other in my view, and it's very much appreciated. A lot of questions will be asked about who will come in as manager, and what players will be brought in, well, again, if we are successful in our application, we would like to state that applications will be invited for the position of manager. Then, once in place, he will be responsible for bringing players in, and he would have a realistic budget to work from, an area where the previous club failed badly in the past.
What level of the non-league pyramid do you envisage the new club starting at?
We are hoping to be given the green light to start off at Unibond level. Whether that is Premier or the regional League 1 I'm not sure, but hopefully the clubs in those leagues will welcome us, as we'll certainly be having a strong travelling support on the road which will be financially rewarding for any clubs that we visit next season. The long-term plan will of course be to get Chester back to the Football League - that has to be our aim. Unfortunately, the previous owners let that slip away without fighting - all largely for their own greed and a parachute payment which thankfully never found its way to them, as we doubt the players would have seen any of that money.
You mention the last couple of years. But would it be fair to say that fans of Chester City are no strangers to strife and hardship?
It's been a long, painful road following Chester City in the last 30 years, with the club being left in the lurch by then owner Eric Barnes, selling the old Sealand Road ground without us having anywhere else to play until Macclesfield stepped in to save us for a two-year period. Then following the last decent Chairman Ray Crofts’ tenure, which saw the club return to Chester at the Deva, we then had to endure an administration with Mark Guterman, who then went on to do the same to our local rivals Wrexham. Terry Smith then took the club out of administration, but the mad American soon showed that he was not the person he originally made himself out to be - he bought the club after falling in love with Chester Zoo - work that one out. There were soon to be problems with him as he believed he could do everything himself, losing Chester's 69-year league status proved otherwise.
It was then that Stephen Vaughan stepped in, and despite being the hero for four years and getting the club back into the Football League, the cracks then started to show as his two sons were eventually playing in Chester shirts which antagonised the crowd. The fans were not happy with the nepotism on show, as the players were clearly not good enough for that level of football, and soon the supporters turned on the owner. The final straw for many was the one-minute's silence that was held for what was a "major benefactor" of the club, which, upon investigation, turned out to be the death of a drugs baron from Liverpool who had been assassinated by a South American mob. This was a person we were holding a respectful minute's silence for?
Attendances started to fall dramatically from this point, and curiously so did the money coming into the club. It was no surprise to see the lowest-ever attendance for a professional football match in Chester in February, when only 425 people bothered to turn up to watch the match against Salisbury. This figure included 250 season ticket holders, so less than 200 people actually paid to come in through the doors, and this was before an actual official boycott was declared.
So there must be a lot of Chester fans who have lost their faith that you are striving to win back?
The challenge we have in the future is to bring these people back to the Deva Stadium, but we are confident that we can do it. So many have stayed away thanks to the previous regime, but I'm sure many will return - we want to get back to the days where we had a hardcore of 2500 fans, and if we do everything right, and are successful on both on and off the pitch, then I see no reason why that cannot happen. It's going to be a long journey, but I'm sure it will be an enjoyable one, all we need is the ground to play on and the future will certainly be looking bright.
A Different League has also looked at the deeper questions that have been posed by the situations at Chester and other clubs. What do you think the longer-term lesson is for football as a whole?
Football clubs now need to learn how to be self sufficient, the days of sugar daddies are now fading away, as many clubs are learning. Just look at the likes of Southend, Notts County
See the full list of OLBG's free Football Tips here.
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