Bath City FC and other lower league football clubs face oblivion because of wayward government thinking

Far, far away from millionaire footballers kneeling down in support of an organisation that wants to end capitalism and defund the police is proper football played by proper men supported by proper fans, and that place is the National League.

Bath City FC play in the sixth tier of English football, in the National League South, and until last March I ran the shop on match days on a volunteer basis. I was one of scores of volunteers who gave their time to ensure the club stayed afloat – without us it would simply cease to exist because it is heavily in debt and continues to lose £100,000 every year. The only way the club can hope to survive long-term is if the council approves its plans to install an artificial pitch, rebuild the main stand and incorporate new accommodation; devastatingly, the council rejected the plans earlier this year, but a new proposal is being prepared. By god, it's worth saving: check out this great article in the Mail on the club, and this segment from the BBC's Match of the Day Kickabout show.

Quite different from the popular image of the city of Bath, with its Georgian architecture and Roman baths, the football club, which averages a match gate of around 900, has an almost 1950s, working class feel and is situated in one of the city’s poorer areas, Twerton. It is a vital part of the community, but since last March it has been shuttered to fans, one of many casualties of the extraordinary over-reaction of the government to this virus. The Asian Flu of 1957-58 and the Hong Kong Flu of 1968-1970 killed many more Brits than Covid, yet neither caused the cancellation of a single game of football in Britain.

So what are those fans missing, apart from exciting, committed, honest sporting entertainment? A lot. When I say it’s a community club (and it is actually a club owned by the fans) I mean it, I’m not giving it some sentimental spin. Let me tell you a bit about my three years there.

In the shop I’ve served, who knows, a thousand different customers. The vast majority are good, decent people. There are the ground-hoppers, who come in for a precious club pin badge as proof of visit. There are the grandparents who come in after a shirt for their grandchild (”How much?!”). There are those wanting to buy match tickets who I always have to tell to go next door. There are the thirsty fans desperate for directions to the bar.

A good proportion of customers are elderly or have some sort of condition. There was the bald deaf chap who week after week came in urging me, through pointing, to give him a reduced rate shirt; there was the grinning, yelping deaf chap who would urge me to let him in free to each game; there were visitors from Germany, Holland and China; there were stag groups; there were women there for ‘Ladies’ Day’, many attending their first ever game of football (there were also Family Days and Student Days). Schoolchildren came in to help us and were given valuable, character-building tasks around the ground.

Pretty much the only bad experience I had with a customer was this January, when a Hemel Hempstead fan threatened to punch me and had to be escorted out the shop. I wasn’t sure whether he was drunk or mentally ill, perhaps both, but what he definitely was, was physically ill - he stood there looking wretched, sneezing violently and coughing. An early victim of that virus with the best PR firm in history? Possibly.

I got a fair few customers who were autistic and would endlessly chat away - I’d like to think that the club was an important social lifeline for them, and following Bath City gave more meaning to their existence. Once I took a phone call from an elderly lady who asked me if it was possible if her late husband’s ashes could be scattered on our pitch - it brought a lump to my throat.

In short, Bath City FC is a place that does untold good to people’s well-being that will never register on a Sage spreadsheet of doom. The dull and mean Whitehall bureaucrats, unaware of how anyone outside their middle-class London bubble could pine for the conviviality of a lower-league football Saturday, have no idea of the damage their diktats are causing. It’s an example of how this government has prioritised, in the extreme, saving lives over the quality of lives in general (not that lockdowns save lives anyway, as Chris Whitty has said), and how they don’t a fig about personal choice.

Besides the unwelcome consequences for mental health (the real epidemic of 2020 and beyond), there are very real financial consequences for non-league clubs. For the moment, Rishi ‘bottomless pockets’ Sunak is helping out a little, but it can’t last forever and clubs like Bath City (formed 1889) could be in danger of shutting forever. 

Chairman Nick Blofeld: “We’re really pleased with the National Lottery grant of £30,000 a month for three months that will ensure we can compete in the league and operate the business securely while fans aren’t allowed into the ground. While the grant is relatively ‘blunt’ in its distribution, with some clubs doing well and some perhaps feeling a little hard done by, we are happy that it covers our needs during this period.”

But he added: ”However, we continue to question why a safe number of spectators are not allowed into Twerton Park and other grounds, open air environments that allow for very safe social distancing, when other indoor entertainment venues can welcome visitors as well as lower league sports clubs with lesser capacity and outdoor entertainment destinations. We will continue to lobby for the return of spectators.”

Quite. In one of the many crackers contradictions in government thinking, [some] people can go to a cinema, pub or restaurant but not a football stadium.

Even if the club was allowed to open tomorrow, the bar, where a good chunk of match day money is made, would suffer because all the distancing and loathsome ‘rule of six’ diktats would still be in place. Mind you, the government and media’s abhorrent terror message, repeated ad nauseam, will put off many potential punters, possibly forever. Even if an effective vaccine comes along it may not be enough to encourage some to return. The bar is where the players mix with the fans - imagine that at Manchester United - where the manager comes in to give his match verdict before doing the draw to win a keg of beer and where old pals meet up to chew the fat; sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name. Remove all this and we’re looking at a social, community and emotional tragedy. (I should add that bar and catering staff, who are paid, have all lost their work – lockdowns most hurt the least well-off in our society, as the WHO recently acknowledged.)

And if you’ve got to the end of this post and still think “Well yes, it’s very unfortunate for fans but there’s a pandemic going on”, check out this link for evidence on how it’s more of a ‘casedemic’, this link for how the virus is little worse than a bad seasonal flu, this link for how football is nothing without the fans, this link for how good a position we’d now be in if we’d handled the virus as well as Sweden has, and this link for the horrific collateral damage caused by lockdowns.

#LetTheFansIn