The ongoing cost of living crisis which seems to be getting worse with every passing week and month is certainly not going to bypass the game of football and at non-league level where the money is scarcer and much needed it’s going to be a challenging battle over the winter months.
On Thursday I caught wind of a BBC News report shared by the brilliant Ollie Bayliss on Twitter which highlighted how hard this struggle has already begun to hit clubs before it’s really begun.
It focussed on clubs in the South of England and spoke to around 31 clubs at varying levels from the National League down to Step 4 which offered a broader opinion of how it’s already affecting these clubs and the projection for the coming months as well.
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You wouldn’t be surprised to know the outlook is bleak, titled the hardest time non-league football has faced since World War Two. Some argued on Twitter that it’s the hardest battle since the pandemic hit two years ago, but clearly it’s not as clubs received grants that kept them alive during the mothballed period for most and this time there is no safety net.
Seeing some of the figures that clubs declared were absolutely eye-watering and reading them you wonder how all of them will survive past the winter let alone to the end of the season. You and I both know there’s only so far you can cut back on your bills until it reaches breaking point and something has to give.
To see a figure of a 316% increase in the cost of an energy bill for a Step 4 club almost left me speechless, completely unrealistic for a club to be able to manage that in the current climate. That was the top figure shared and even the most prudent of slashing costs will surely see clubs unable to carry on.
Below the National League’s three divisions I would be surprised to see floodlit games on a Saturday afternoon unless the opposing team’s journey is too excessive for them to arrive for an 11am or 1pm kick off. Supporters need to be taken into consideration at this point for similar journeys too, but it’s cost that needs to be brought under as much control as is possible.
The game itself can’t absorb the impact like it did a couple of years ago and some will have to decide whether shelling out wages for players is the right thing to do against the future of the football club.
Half of those clubs reported a drop in attendance too which is quite alarming because not only does that mean less in gate receipts that all too important secondary spend drops as well and for some the club is used for football only, but income also that needs to be held onto as much as they can.
It’s not just these things, travel is costing more and the higher you go as a club the further in distance the miles become, and the need more often for a coach. There is nothing you can do but absorb the cost and try and offset the cost through other means.
Those that are still in the FA competitions will be hoping they make it another round or two further where that prize money will cushion some of those losses. Not every club has a wealthy benefactor nor directors putting in endless pots of money that keep things ticking over, it really is a crunch time for the game.
We know quite a few clubs sailed extremely close to the wind in 2020, not just in non-league but the Football League as well, how many of those will we see not making it through this tough challenging time? Two years ago, we didn’t lose as many clubs as I expected, but this is a very different kettle of fish and while clubs can do as much as they can to limit the damage, I fear for a lot of them.
I hope in a few months’ time when the winter months have passed, we’re not looking at clubs that have disappeared having been around for over 100 years in some cases if you can get out there and do anything to keep your club afloat you might just be a part of history.
