game. When they eventually did, in the late seventies, and when television’s insatiable appetite for the gamefurther fuelled their interest, it signalled the end of small local businesses associating themselves with their local football club, just as the growth of supermarkets, franchises and chain stores in our High Streets ushered in the demise of many of these mainstays of the local economy.
The decline of not only small businesses but traditional industries gave rise to a shifting population. Now you find Chesterfield supporters in London, Bedford, Truro and Bristol. When I played for the club, the remotest fan I heard of lived in Staveley, some twelve miles away. Clubs received a little money from the eight Football Pools companies, namely Littlewoods, Vernons, Shermans, Zetters, Copes, Empire, Soccer and Trent, while programme and pitch-side advertising amounted to little more than pin money. Therefore match receipts were still the main source of income, but because football was still seen primarily as a cheap form of entertainment for working people, admission prices were low. In 1958 a seat at Chesterfield was as little as 4 shillings (20p), whereas to stand on the terraces cost 1s. 6d. (7½p) – far cheaper in relative terms than the price of admission to a Nationwide League game today. Consequently, like a lot of clubs in the divided Third Division, Chesterfield struggled to make ends meet.
Many football club directors ran local businesses themselves and had neither the wherewithal nor the desire to pump money into the local football club. Many viewed it as a ‘private’ club at which to enjoy some social recreation on a Saturday afternoon. It would be twenty years or more before football clubs fully realized their commercial potential. In the fifties there were no commercial departments to exploit the club’s traditional and corporate identity, basically because no one knew their football club had one.
Next to gate receipts the main source of income for a club came from funds raised by its supporters’ club. We were fortunate to have not only the official supporters’ club but an organization called the Chesterfield and District Sportsman’s Association. Boththese bodies regularly contributed substantial sums for the day-today running of the club and, on occasions, the acquisition of new players – probably far more than the board of directors ever did, yet without any say in club policy or the running of the club itself.
Also making his debut that day was inside right Arthur Bottom, bought from Newcastle United with money donated by the two supporters’ organizations through a series of whist drives, bingo sessions and pie and pea supper nights at which I and other players were invariably in attendance. The demands we make on today’s footballers are different. In this era of scientifically planned diet and fitness regimes, we do not expect them to be seen quaffing a few beers, eating steak dinners and socializing until midnight. When I was a player at Chesterfield, it was part and parcel of the job to get out and meet the supporters at their fund-raising nights. It never occurred to you that the end product of such events might be money that the club might use to buy a player to replace you in the team.
From top to bottom everything about a football club had to be conducted on a very small scale because the main body of customers, the supporters, didn’t have much money to live on, let alone the disposable income for what today would be called leisure activities.
Back in the fifties there were no corporate boxes, you could get in for one and six and at half time, in the words of a Rochdale programme of March 1959, ‘Walk to the tea bar / Straight as a die, / Count out your coppers / And ask for a pie.’ Count out your coppers! That’s what survival boiled down to, for Rochdale, Chesterfield and many other clubs five decades ago.
In 1958–59 the regionalized Third Division was scrapped and
The decline of not only small businesses but traditional industries gave rise to a shifting population. Now you find Chesterfield supporters in London, Bedford, Truro and Bristol. When I played for the club, the remotest fan I heard of lived in Staveley, some twelve miles away. Clubs received a little money from the eight Football Pools companies, namely Littlewoods, Vernons, Shermans, Zetters, Copes, Empire, Soccer and Trent, while programme and pitch-side advertising amounted to little more than pin money. Therefore match receipts were still the main source of income, but because football was still seen primarily as a cheap form of entertainment for working people, admission prices were low. In 1958 a seat at Chesterfield was as little as 4 shillings (20p), whereas to stand on the terraces cost 1s. 6d. (7½p) – far cheaper in relative terms than the price of admission to a Nationwide League game today. Consequently, like a lot of clubs in the divided Third Division, Chesterfield struggled to make ends meet.
Many football club directors ran local businesses themselves and had neither the wherewithal nor the desire to pump money into the local football club. Many viewed it as a ‘private’ club at which to enjoy some social recreation on a Saturday afternoon. It would be twenty years or more before football clubs fully realized their commercial potential. In the fifties there were no commercial departments to exploit the club’s traditional and corporate identity, basically because no one knew their football club had one.
Next to gate receipts the main source of income for a club came from funds raised by its supporters’ club. We were fortunate to have not only the official supporters’ club but an organization called the Chesterfield and District Sportsman’s Association. Boththese bodies regularly contributed substantial sums for the day-today running of the club and, on occasions, the acquisition of new players – probably far more than the board of directors ever did, yet without any say in club policy or the running of the club itself.
Also making his debut that day was inside right Arthur Bottom, bought from Newcastle United with money donated by the two supporters’ organizations through a series of whist drives, bingo sessions and pie and pea supper nights at which I and other players were invariably in attendance. The demands we make on today’s footballers are different. In this era of scientifically planned diet and fitness regimes, we do not expect them to be seen quaffing a few beers, eating steak dinners and socializing until midnight. When I was a player at Chesterfield, it was part and parcel of the job to get out and meet the supporters at their fund-raising nights. It never occurred to you that the end product of such events might be money that the club might use to buy a player to replace you in the team.
From top to bottom everything about a football club had to be conducted on a very small scale because the main body of customers, the supporters, didn’t have much money to live on, let alone the disposable income for what today would be called leisure activities.
Back in the fifties there were no corporate boxes, you could get in for one and six and at half time, in the words of a Rochdale programme of March 1959, ‘Walk to the tea bar / Straight as a die, / Count out your coppers / And ask for a pie.’ Count out your coppers! That’s what survival boiled down to, for Rochdale, Chesterfield and many other clubs five decades ago.
In 1958–59 the regionalized Third Division was scrapped and
Similar Books
