Ambition aplenty in League One insurgents

The North West teams in each of the divisions of the professional football pyramid seems to have a settled characteristic this season.

The elite big three and a proud fallen giant in the Premier League. But definitely all big city clubs.

Founder members stuck between the riches and obscurity of their neighbours in the Championship.

Then in League One they all seem ambitious, aspirational and possessed of forward motion, either as a surge onwards, or as part of a bounce back.

It’s the three regional clubs who were promoted into League One last season, who are worth looking at first. The three who were relegated are for tomorrow’s story.

Of those promoted clubs two are high profile, well-backed, personal missions, Wrexham being the most famous, but the Stockport County surge is also remarkable.

Mark Stott, owner of Stockport County

Property developer Ken Knott, founder of ASK, is the Non-Executive Chairman at Stockport County, who works day to day with the owner Mark Stott at Select Property. 

His personal expertise is being brought to bear on the redevelopment of Edgeley Park, a stadium close to the zone of the town’s Mayoral Development Corporation, where thousands of new homes are being built.

Mindful of white elephant stadiums at Wigan and Blackburn, where empty seats outnumber fans some match days, Knott said on launching the stadium consultation that the development had to be phased, but will increase capacity from 10,852 up to around 18,000 eventually: “we want to ensure that the stadium matches our level of ambition so it can continue to provide a first rate home for the club and the local community for many years to come.”

Knott added: “We have outlined our ambition to reach the Championship, and we have already taken great strides towards reaching this goal over the past two seasons. Ultimately, we believe that the expansion and enhancement of Edgeley Park is crucial in order to support the continued growth of the club and provide a platform for further success.”

Of the rest of the region’s League One clubs, Blackpool, Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic have all tasted Premier League riches, as well as the calamity of terrible ownership, footballing decline and have come through the other end in better shape.

Michael Danson

At Wigan Athletic, publishing tycoon Mike Danson has cleared the decks. Last season the Latics took an eight point penalty as a result of falling into administration under the disastrous ownership of Abdulrahman Al Jasmi.

Financially too it’s all about a fresh start. The last published accounts show that on turnover of £15.9m the club made a net loss before tax of £13.4m in the season they were relegated from the Championship to League One.

As reported on TheBusinessdesk.com at the time, Danson purchased the club in June 2023 and cleared all amounts owed for wages and to HMRC.

Not uniquely, the high wage levels made the business as a whole “clearly unsustainable” according to club chairman and interim chief executive, Ben Goodburn.

Sustainability was the phrase used in the Sunday Times last weekend by Bolton Wanderers chief executive Neil Hart, as the club prepare for a season where they hope to go one better than last season’s play off finish and secure promotion to the Championship.

Their opening fixture against Hollywood backed Wrexham is expected to attract close to a sell-out crowd of 25,000, more than half of which will be made up of the season ticket purchasers who committed to another season at the Toughsheet Stadium before the last season was completed.

Nevertheless Hart says that Bolton, which was saved from expulsion from the league in August, 2019, after a rescue by Football Ventures, said: “It is impossible for Bolton to be sustainable as an EFL club.”

Like Wigan, Bolton also suffered from terrible owners. Joint administrator, Paul Appleton, following the rescue described previous owner Ken Anderson in less than glowing terms saying, “[Anderson] has used his position as a secured creditor to hamper and frustrate any deal that did not benefit him or suit his purposes.”

The club’s shareholders now include a group of Geneva-based oil traders, part of an entity called BMLL Limited, led by Ben Luckock, global head of oil at trading house Trafigura Group, and the brother of Nick Luckock, who led the rescue of the Whites in 2019.

Ben Luckock said the group consists of around 25 families, some of whom are also executives at Trafigura. BMLL now owns up to 35% of the club.

Supporters of Blackpool Football Club thought they were free of ownership trauma when they’d seen the last of the hated Oyston family, which owned the club until Sadler paid around £10m to take over Blackpool FC in 2019, ending three decades of ownership by the Oystons.

However, fans will be anxious to learn that in May Simon Sadler appeared in court in Hong Kong to face allegations of insider trading.

Simon Sadler

Sadler strongly protests his innocence, and will contest the charges brought against the Hong Kong hedge fund Segantii Capital Management that he founded in 2007 and is its chief investment officer.

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has started criminal proceedings against Segantii, Sadler and former trader Daniel La Rocca.

The SFC alleges insider trading in the shares of an unnamed company listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited prior to a block trade in June 2017.

The case was moved to a higher court by the Eastern Magistrates’ Court in June and then adjourned to October. Sadler’s bail was set at HK$1m (£100,000).

The club was promoted into the Championship at the end of the 2020-21 season but was relegated after two seasons. Despite a late run of form, Blackpool just missed out on the League One play-offs this season.

In a statement, Blackpool FC said: “We have been made aware of a charge brought in Hong Kong against the club’s owner Simon Sadler which is entirely unrelated to the club and its operations.

“It will remain business as usual for our day-to-day operations. We understand that Mr Sadler will vigorously defend himself against the charge and there will be no further comments at this time from the club.”