The relationship between football fans and their club Chairmen has always been a fascinating dynamic to observe. Chairmen usually set out to do one of two things: make as much money as possible for a club, or seek to stop haemorrhaging losses where they can. If they are amongst the lucky few out of the 92 football league clubs they will be pushing for genuine success and trophies. A similar set of circumstances will no doubt also apply to our non-league football chairmen/women although the fight for survival will be more acute for them given the drop in the ocean of finance in their game as opposed to the top level.
I remember Matthew Harding and how hands on he was with the fans. He had a very honest and transparent relationship with Chelsea fans and his unexpected passing was more a loss for football than just Chelsea Football Club. If we look at the modern day Chairman we see the likes of Mehmet Dalman, Cardiff City’s Chairman, who made a very public apology only last week to the bluebirds followers and this shows a man pushing to build a positive relationship with Cardiff fans after the very public and unfortunate way the owner treated previous manager Malky Mackay.
In comparison, given the storm we have seen in the North West with Manchester United, I don’t think the Glaziers will ever win over the United fans. They seem to have accepted this and have a very low profile with very little engagement with the British media. In previous years United’s success has seen many of their fans effectively ignore the fact that the club is still hundreds of millions of pounds in debt (£361M to be precise as reported in the Manchester Evening News last November). I expect this will be a different ball game now that United are in transition under David Moyes as even the prospect of a top-4 finish is looking decidedly unlikely as we move towards the third trimester of the season.
For some clubs being a Chairman is possibly a much easier job. When you have oil and petrol assets directly linked to your club you can effectively write any size cheque for a player and pay him up to £200,000 per week and never lose a wink of sleep. The only distant dark cloud for the likes of City and Chelsea is if their sponsors one day decided to shut up shop and move their interests elsewhere. Now there is a thought.
Football fans have huge influence over their Chairmen. When a manager loses three or more games on the spin, the anger and frustration collectively generated by football fans is normally enough to force the hand of a Chairman and will normally result in the sacking of a manager. This is not always the case though and some Chairmen do stand by their managers through thick and thin. Prior to his appointment by the FA, Dario Gradi for example was a name synonymous with Crewe Alexandra. This is a club that has yoyo’d through the lower divisions but the club’s chairman John Bowler is widely respected in football for not pushing knee-jerk reactions such as appointing new managers every time Crewe Alex were relegated. Indeed David Conn from the Beautiful Game is quoted on Wikipedia as saying “what he brings is not the braggadocio of the self-made wheeler-dealer but the calm experience of somebody who has actually been involved in a running a large, successful organisation.”
I think by and large football chairmen do a very good job – it’s a thankless task, almost like being a trade union official (although Chairman tend to get paid much more money). There are without doubt a few bad apples but that is the case in all walks of society.
So, getting back to the original question, who do you think is the best Chairman in football and why?
Source: DSG
