Balance at the BBC?

Battling bias on the BBC is much more difficult than in the corporate press.  They do portray themselves as providing a spurious balance. The coverage of economic and business matters is the area of the media subject to more spin than any other and the BBC seem to fall for it all the time.

So there can be little surprise that BBC Economics Editor, Stephanie Flanders, is now off to work for the US’s largest bank J.P. Morgan. Is this by any chance the same J.P.Morgan managed by Jamie Dimon who met US regulators following investigations into whether they misled investors last week?

The US media reported that they could agree to financial penalties of several billions of dollars to pay back investors who lost money through transactions relating to mortgage-backed securities. Apparently a sticking point in the negotiations over a settlement centres on an admission of wrongdoing, which could open the bank up to a flood of lawsuits.
Is the the same J.P.Morgan that agreed to pay $920m to settle charges relating to the "London Whale" trading scandal? And in 2011, did they not settle similar charges relating to misleading investors about mortgage-backed securities with, the Securities and Exchange Commission? Agreeing to pay $153.6m in June and $296.9m in November.

So buying up Stephs ‘balance’ and PR skills may be a good move.

I see also that after his stroke Andrew Marr is back to smooch politicians. His bias is even more difficult to combat as his history films and books are promoted by the entire BBC machine with its incredible reach as a broadcaster and publisher giving them tremendous authority.  

Now I rarely agree with Charles Moore of the Daily Telegraph but when he wrote that Marr’s History of Modern Britain was, “ignorant and patronising” I had to let out a little cheer.  Its not just that Marr gets his facts wrong, the publishers paid out a "significant sum" in damages to Erin Pizzey after the book mistakenly linked her  to the 1970s terror group the Angry Brigade. Macmillan pulped thousands of copies and issued an “urgent” stock recall notice citing legal reasons.
Pity we cannot issue a similar recall notice for the omission of socialists, trade unions and co-operatives from the Building of Modern Britain. It is bad enough that current left wing ideas and campaigns are ignored by the BBC. Being written out of the future is bad enough but to be air-brushed out of the past is intolerable. Ken Loach was not the only one to find Marr’s defence of Mrs Thatcher’s and the swallowing of her odious ideology as distasteful.
Now Robert Peston, the BBC News’s Business editor, the man who bought down Northern Rock, has decided to give us his history of shopping. This is what Time Out calls history “written by the winners”. There is little or no analysis of the consequences of some of the changes we have seen on the High Street with Peston it is very much in the Marr mould of shaping the facts to fit the story.
Let me just give you a few examples of how by getting the facts wrong he distorts the true history of the period he describes. Firstly his assertion that Marks and Spencer was the first large scale retailer to launch its own brand. The Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS) was making own brand products in 1876. Crumpsall Biscuits being the first.
Marks and Spencer’s was not formed until 1894. He suggests that M&S was the first to introduce own branded goods to escape retail price maintenance. The CWS did this far earlier using its Pelaw’s Pharmaceutical Works. In 1906 a group of patent medicine manufacturers decided to boycott co-op stores for paying a dividend on their products, which they saw as a price cut rather than the return of profits to members. The CWS responded by expanding the output from their Pelaw Drug and Dry Saltery Works, founded in 1902, thereby producing their own medicines to fight the boycott. This process was repeated with the famous Defiant Radios in 1933.
Dixons was featured for its innovation as a photographic retailer in the 1960s. The CWS had been selling cameras and photographic supplies to co-operatives through its Manchester, Newcastle, and London operations in the 1920s, and on a national basis from 1931. By 1933 the CWS was producing and marketing its own brand of photographic film.
He also claimed that Sainsbury’s opened Britain’s first self service store in Croydon in 1950. This of course can only be true if you ignore the first purpose built Co-op Self Service store opened by Portsea Island Society in 1948 and that there had been self-service departments within London Society stores even earlier.
The point is that you do not need competition and free markets to generate retail innovation but this does not fit the story so gets ignored. These may appear to be minor errors. But this is part of systematic blind spot on the role of the Co-op in our history. I am dreading the portrayal of the Co-op – or the lack of it in the First World War with next year’s commemorations.
The systematic ignoring of the positive role of trade unions and co-operatives in our past helps to deny us a possible role in the future and needs to be challenged.

Each for All and All for Each

It is one hundred years since William Martin Murphy, owner of the Dublin United Tramway Company and the Irish Independent newspaper sought to purge his companies of Jim Larkin’s ITGWU. Along with virtually all the employers in Dublin he called for workers to give up their unions. They refused and as Irish historian John Dorney says, “Some terms in history are undervalued by overuse, and one of them is ‘class war’, but there could be no other term for the bitter ensuing struggle”.

Workers on this side of the Irish Sea realised what was at stake and sought to help. The TUC agreed to support the Dublin workers, and with the Co-operative Wholesale Society (the CWS) to send food relief.
The CWS took just 48 hours, to load 30,000 food parcels, consisting of 10lbs of potatoes, 1 lb of tinned fish, 2 lbs of sugar, ¾ lbs of margarine, ¾ lbs of tea, and 2 lbs of jam, onto the first ship, the SS Hare.
When the ship arrived in Dublin on 27 September, the union lifted the strike and distributed the rations to 25,000 families.  “A tremendous cheer for co-operation echoed across the Liffey from the meeting on the Sunday afternoon.  For it was realised that it was not trade unionism alone, or co-operation alone; but for once a great common effort of the people.  And of a great common effort the story will be told and re-told, amongst trade unionists and co-operators, this year and for many a year,” reported the Wheatsheaf.
During the Lock Out almost two million loves, 700,000 ten pound bags of potatoes, and half a million packs of margarine, as well as jam, cheese and coal where shipped by the CWS to Dublin.

Co-operation held an important place in the ideology of both Larkin and James Connolly.  Emmet O’Connor suggests that these ideas were embedded in the syndicalist and co-operative movements of the Irish left at that time and part of an attempt to produce a ‘counter-culture’ to the values of British capitalist modernization.

The then assistant editor of the Daily Herald, W. P. Ryan, linked Larkinism with the idea of the Co-operative Commonwealth. He hoped that Larkinism, the co-operative movement of Horace Plunkett together with politico-cultural forces like Sinn Féin, marked a resurgence of the Gaelic primitive communism romanticized by James Connolly in Labour in Irish History.

There is no doubt that Larkin was attracted to the syndicalist idea of underpinning the socialist struggle with a working-class counter-culture based on collectivist values of sharing and solidarity.

Despite the failure of Larkin, and the ITGWU, the Co-operative Movement did not turn its back on Ireland holding the Co-op Congress in Dublin at Whitsuntide, 1914. Big Jim referred to this event when he was made President of the Irish TUC in City Hall on June 1^st 1914.

“In this City at the present moment, the annual congress of the British Co-operative Movement is being held. It is attended by men and women from all parts of the earth. It would be news to many to know that we here in Ireland had been pioneers in co-operation long before the Rochdale Pioneers. There had been a communistic colony down at Usher’s Quay, but it was crushed out by jealous and restrictive laws. Like every good thing Ireland ever started, England made it its business to put a stop to it.

The working class of Ireland would be compelled to understand the worth of co-operation. Through its agency we could supply all that life needs by ourselves for ourselves. It needed no argument to favour it. Life itself was co-operation in its truest sense. Man himself was a social animal and lived by co-operation. We had a great opportunity this week to see the in the Co-operative exhibition in the Rotunda what could be done by co-operative methods.”

In a few weeks the world was plunged into World War, a disaster for the working class everywhere, and for the SS Hare which was sunk by a U-Boat in 1917. Retail consumer co-operation was stillborn in Ireland but the co-operative movement proved its worth to the British nation in that war, and was unjustly punished for it, leading to the formation of the Co-operative Party to defend co-operative interests. But that is another story.

The motto of Larkin’s ITGWU ‘Each for All, and All for Each.’ was also the motto of the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society.  

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Thirty Years of Ethical Trading for Dublin Food Co-op.

 One of my favourite Irish writers is George Bernard Shaw. I have been known to travel long distances to a catch performances of his lesser known plays. He was a staunch vegetarian becoming a convert in his early twenties. He attributed his long life and good health to his vegetarianism. It was not only economical but also aesthetically more satisfying as vegetarianism was an extension of his humanitarianism.  “A man of my spiritual intensity,” he said, “does not eat corpses.” 

Today in Dublin is an Institution celebrating an important milestone that I am sure Shaw would have wholeheartedly approved. A place one can buy all the vegetarian wholefoods one needs for a healthy diet and most of the other things required for the good life.

That place is the Dublin Food Co-op which is celebrating its thirtieth year. It dates back to 1983 when there was a campaign in Ireland to stop the building of a Nuclear Power station in County Wexford. Coming out of that campaign a group of friends came together to save money by bulk buying vegetarian wholefoods and other sustainable products.

Within a short time they where trading weekly from a hired hall at St. Andrew's Resource Centre on Pearse Street  where they remained for more than twenty years.

The Dublin Food Co-operative Society was formally registered as an Industrial and Provident Society in 1991 interestingly the legislation on Co-operatives and Friendly societies predates independence going back as afar as 1893 so Irish and British Co-ops have a common ancestry.  
Long before the rise of farmers' markets in Ireland they pioneered organic and local produce. They soon outgrew Pearse Street and began to look for a new home eventually finding it at 12 Newmarket, near St Patrick’s Cathedral. The new base was formally opened by the Minister for the Environment John Gormley in October 2007 to coincide with Ireland's National Organic Week.

Being a co-op its democratic structure includes a co-ordinating body elected at the annual meeting; the new chair is Niall Haslam, a research scientist, who serves with Eileen Fitzsimons as secretary. There are also various working groups to oversee different aspects of its activities including the protection of its ethics and governance. Much of the work to open and develop the Newmarket site was the volunteer labour of members.

The vast majority of food they sell is organic but they also sell fairtrade and environmentally-friendly produce. Stallholders extend the range to include organic vegetables and fruits, organic cheeses, eggs and dairy, organic wine, baked goods, organic clothing, books and other non-food items. At the end of last year the Co-op had almost 900 members, who receive a 5% discount on purchases, which increases to 15% if they also volunteer on a rota system to help in the co-op.

They operate like a wholefood department store with other like minded small producers trading under the same roof. This strikes me as a very interesting piece of co-operative innovation.

They open Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays and they organise and host many events. The 30^th anniversary year has been marked by a series including, co-operative games for kids, a poetry reading, a commemorative walk and a dinner with special guest Pauline Green President of the International Co-operative Alliance.
Doubtless the food at the dinner was excellent the Thursday Café has a very high reputation in Dublin for the quality and variety of its vegetarian dishes.
The Co-op is a vibrant community that goes far beyond food. Surplus funds are used wholly to benefit members by reducing prices and improving services and facilities. 
Driving the Co-op today is General Manager and expatriate Newcastle United supporter (a burden thankfully we do not all have to carry) Norman Rides, a longstanding co-operative champion. Norman joined the Co-op last year and says he is, “looking forward to developing and strengthening the Co-op through increased turnover, membership and influence. Although agricultural co-ops and credit unions are well-established in Ireland, there are very few consumer co-ops so there is not the same social and cultural capital available. In many ways we are writing the manual as we go along.”
In his great play about the relationship between Britain and Ireland, John Bull’s Other Island, Shaw say’s that “An Irishman's heart is nothing but his imagination.”
Thank goodness for those Irish, men and women who had the imagination to see the potential in co-operation and congratulations to thirty years of  the Dublin Food Co-op.

Book Review: Buildings of the Labour Movement by Nick Mansfield Published by English Heritage 2013.

This is an absolutely splendid book. Well written and beautifully illustrated. I first saw it when I visited the Peoples History Museum in Manchester, Nick Mansfield’s old home, he was Director for 21 years. It was irresistible the picture on the cover of the Workers Institute in Cradley Heath drew me in. I have always had a love for the buildings of the British Labour Movement, from Co-op shops to Chartist Cottages, from the Arts and Crafts of the Clarion cafes to the high modernism of the Daily Workers headquarters in Covent Garden.

As Nick points out you would not think there was much to link these structures however deeper research shows “unexpected links, which if pursued, can give a coherent narrative.” In the preface Nick gives credit to Raphael Samuel “the founder of History Workshop and guru of the new public history” who researched the preservation movement in the two fascinating volumes of Theatres of Memory (originally published in 1994 a new edition available from Verso 2012).

Samuel spoke at a Conference at the TUC in 1991 entitled “The Landscape of Labour History”. This lead to English Heritage supporting a leaflet, “Where do you stand? The Landscape of Labour History”, which was widely distributed and introduced a typology of labour movement buildings and the criteria for listing.

For many of our finest labour movement buildings this was already too late. Established architectural historians like Nikolaus Pevsnor studiously ignored these buildings (like sports grounds and stadiums) and even the labour movement itself with the year zero attitude of many in the Labour Party had no interest in saving these magnificent buildings.

I am very hopeful that this book will have the same effect that John Gormans magnificent book Banner Bright (1986) did for labour movement banners. Today Trade Union, Co-operative Society and Socialist banners are considered works of art and if anyone finds and old one in the attic they are rescued and presented as the beautiful artefacts that they are.

Nicks book on Labour Movement Buildings is not the last word, he admits he does not cover Scotland or Wales, and so there is work to be done. There is also the task of filling in the gaps in the narrative and in buildings that Nick has missed.

Nonetheless, with chapters on Trade Societies, Non-conformity, Radicalism, Owenism, Chartism, Co-operation, Trade Unions, Mechanic Institutes` and education, Socialism, the Clarion Movement, The Labour Party , also Nicks speciality the rural labour movement, Ex-servicemen and Commemoration of War, and Holidays and Leisure,  he has  been very comprehensive.

He also includes Buildings Identified with key events that whilst not necessarily built by the movement have had a huge impact on its development. I remember my complete state of shock when exploring Manchester’s radical history when I realised that the Free Trade Hall with its plaque commemorating the Peterloo massacre, was now the frontage of a ghastly modern hotel. He also laments those we have lost, some like the original Holyoake House home of the UK Co-operative Movement, thanks to the Luftwaffe, some thanks to neglect and indifference often from Labour local authorities. In many ways as Nick points out “labour movement buildings continue to be the Cinderella of architectural conservation.”

Nonetheless a start has been made there are some well conserved crucial buildings, like Rosdean, the Chartist Cottgae in Dodford Worcestershire now in the care of the National Trust, The Rochade Pioneers Museum reopened after a mature facelift, The Burston Strike School in Norfolk, and my beloved Cradley Heath Workers Institute now moved brick by brick into the Black Country Museum.

I think this is a very important book. I particularly welcome the fact it has been published by English Heritage. After all England’s heritage belongs as much to workers and their institutions as it does to Kings and Queens and Lords and Ladies.

These buildings are the landscape of our history and we must continue to pressure both English Heritage and the National Trust to take our heritage and our history seriously. Lastly I am sure all of us active in the movement will know of buildings not in this book. My thoughts turned to Leicester’s Secular Hall for example and the other work of the architect Larner Sugden in Leek in Staffordshire.

Maybe English Heritage and Nick could be prevailed upon to create a website where we could document buildings of significance and build campaigns to save the best of them.

Thank you Nick Mansfield for starting this off – buy this book.

 

Co-op Congress 2013

So we all trooped down to Cardiff, including Richard Baggley, the editor of the Morning Star,  for what should have been a really up beat Co-op Congress.  The venue was great that wonderful Industrial and Provident Society, Glamorgan County Cricket Club and the Swalec Stadium. After all no less than the Financial Times had said that there is a “co-operative revival underway” and all the data is going in the right direction.  The number of co-ops in the UK continues to grow up 4% from last year to 6,169, turnover is up 3.3% to £36.7 billion, memberships up by 13.7% to 15.4 million. A staggering 23% increase in turnover since 2008. So why was the mood of the Congress relatively flat? Sadly it was overshadowed by events at the Co-operative Bank.
The Co-op bank began life in 1872 as the Loan and Deposit Department of the Co-operative Wholesale Society. It lent capital and banked the profits of hundreds of co-operative retail societies across the country. It became the CWS Bank four years later but did not become a registered company until 1971.  In UK law it is not possible for an institution issuing withdraw able shares (like a co-op) to become a bank and many feel this effectively stops there being a genuinely co-operative bank in UK law.
So the obvious solution was to set up the Bank as a plc with only one shareholder the CWS or what is today called the Co-operative Group. When it was run by died in the wool co-operators like Terry Thomas, now Lord Thomas of Macclesfield, the bank built on its strengths of free banking and interest on current accounts to launch an ethical policy in 1992.
It is difficult to overestimate the impact this had in the City, because obviously if the Co-op was the “ethical” bank all the rest where plainly unethical. This partly helps to explain the apparent glee from some that the “ethical bank” has come unstuck.
And into trouble it has most certainly run. Trouble that stems from the merger with the Britannia Building Society that looks in retrospect  more like a reverse takeover. With Neville Richardson of Britannia becoming the CEO of the now united Co-operative Financial Services.
The relationship between the Bank and the Group has always been a little unclear. In the Co-op Group rule book there are only five sentences on the relationship with subsidiaries of which the Bank is one and whilst there is a long list of rules on reporting to members there is nothing about this for subsidiaries.
Now the disaster that has befallen the bank is essentially the result of a relatively small number of commercial property loans that the Britannia entered into. Small in number but not in value there are it seems £1.7 billion of impaired loans.
These bad loans are compounded by the banks low capital ratio which is hard to do anything about because of the low profitability of the combined institution. Also as if this was not enough Britannia had twice the industry average at 10%, of residential property loans that have a loan to value ration of more than 100% i.e. are more than the property is worth.
Now the man we one would have thought was wise to all this activity, Neville Richardson, left the bank with a payoff of some £4.6million. When we add to this the fact the Bank was caught up in the PPI miss-selling saga no wonder members are angry and confused.  If the bank was in this condition why on earth did the Group waste £60 million pursuing branches of Lloyds TSB.
Now the rescue plan is a bit complicated but in short the bank needs to raise £1.5billion of extra capital. The most controversial part of this plan is to swop some of the interest bearing bonds held in the bank into shares that can be listed on the stock exchange. Personally I think this is quite an imaginative idea which exploits the fact that the Bank is a plc. However some think it is the thin end of the wedge of losing control of the bank. For me this has the virtue that the Co-op group avoids having to sell selling other profitable businesses to bail out the Bank.
This sad saga is far from finished.  Some argue that it shows the challenges Co-ops have always had raising capital but I think this is a side issue. This is a problem of governance.  Paul Flowers who was chair of Banking Group has “stepped down” but more heads will need to roll if the anger of members at this debacle at what was the Jewel in Crown of UK co-operation is to be assuaged.
And once stabilised we need to be reassured that these new bankers who have been called into re-right the ship will be accountable to members and have co-operative values and principles running through everything they do.

THE ILP @ 120

Today our parliamentary democracy looks like it has failed. We feel that the elite leaderships do not represent people like “us” this is sadly not a new phenomenon and was abroad a hundred and twenty years ago when delegates came together in Bradford to form a new party to seek parliamentary representation for workers.

Amongst their number where some of the giants of the early labour movement, Ben Tillet, Robert Blatchford, Bernard Shaw, Pete Curran and Keir Hardie then MP for West Ham who was elected chair. Once born the Independent Labour Party with its strong ethical concerns set about in William Morris’s famous phrase to ‘make socialists’.

It saw creating a new political culture as the first stage in building a new society. To do this it had to open up some political space in which to operate. Like other young movements for emancipation this space was not to be found in the narrow way ‘politics’ was usually defined.

To create a socialist political culture they had to create spaces in which people could be “socialists”.  As well as publishing newspapers and taking to the streets, they established premises where they could meet, hear speakers, debate, share literature and learn. There was a great deal of self education but it was not just worthy activity they also set out to have a good time.
Good fellowship was the foundation of their politics. Many ILP branches set up their own venues and developed vibrant communities around them.
Often these activities where complimented by the Clarion movement. Founded by Robert Blachford in 1891, the Clarion reached a circulation of between 30 and 40,000 a month with its popular journalism. With all sorts of Clarion activities, including cycling and rambling, choirs and drama groups, whilst Blatchfords personal politics was an odd mixture his editorship of the Clarion bought a lot of joy into working class lives, introducing a sense of fun and freedom whilst in the process creating ten of thousands of socialists.

One example of this type of venue was formed by the Nelson Branch of the ILP. Founded in 1893for many years the focal point of their activities was the Labour Party Institute and Socialist Sunday School in Vernon Street, Nelson.  There where attempts to make fresh air and the countryside accessible to their members and a practice of acquiring Clarion houses in rural areas as retreats from the mills and factories developed.

Like Ewan MacColl’s Manchester Rambler, the workers of Nelson “may have been wage slaves on Monday but they where free men on Sunday”. They first established a Clarion House in 1899 and when this become too small they obtained another in 1903.

The current, yes current, Clarion House was inaugurated in 1912. It is located in Jinney Lane, Newchurch-in-Pendle, deep in Pendle Witch country, the historic towns of Colne, Clitheroe and Whalley are all within walking distance.

Nelson Clarion House celebrated its centenary last year safely in the ownership of the Nelson Independent Labour Party Land Society. Broadly committed to the principles of their ILP predecessors they describe their politics as “somewhat to the left of Old Labour”.

Their objective is to preserve for public benefit the Clarion House with one and half acres of land, tea rooms, wildlife corridor, pond and adventure playground.  It is maintained as a co-operative with any surplus to be used for the spreading of socialism. 

It is great that Nelson Clarion House is still carrying out the function that it was first opened over a century ago. It is also a lesson to us that socialism is about much more than shorter hours or higher pay. Tackling the alienation that is intrinsic to capitalism is a vital part of any socialist future.

One of the inspirations of the early socialists was the American poet Walt Whitman who greatly influenced people like Edward Carpenter and Robert Blachford as well as Irish co-operator Horace Plunkett.

In his essay Democratic Vistas written in 1871, he said, “Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between [people], and their beliefs -- in religion, literature, colleges and schools -- democracy in all public and private life....”

Today democracy has only scratched the surface of our lives and as a consequence has been easily subverted by capital. We need a deeper democracy based on equality and mutual respect. Those early ILPers and Clarion Socialists are still pointing the way to the future setting us the task of making our relationships one with another and our relationship with the environment truly democratic unmediated by the market. Showing us a land in which we can live, work and even play together in peace.

You too can still visit Nelson Clarion House see: www.clarionhouse.org.uk

Capitalism in Football is Not Working!

Just days after relegation from the League Aldershot Town went into administration, formed following the demise of the old club in 1992, they had been back in the League just five years. Having failed to pay their April wage bill they became the 159th insolvency since 1992 in English football.

Amazingly since the Premier League was founded with the break away from the Football League in 1992 there have been seventy cases of insolvency in the top four tiers of English football – out of a maximum at any one time of just ninety-two businesses.

Insolvency is usually a business trading beyond its means which on this scale would normally attract the attention of legislators and regulators. Here we have a whole sector leaving an enormous trail of un-paid bills, wages, and taxes behind it.

The thing that seems to be the cause of this is the debt clubs are allowed to pile up.  At their most profligate, in the period from the 2001/02 season to the 2005/06 season, between them the 92 top-flight English clubs managed to clock up a staggering billion pounds in pre-tax losses.

These clubs often owned by wealthy individuals are involved in a reckless gamble to get rich that usually fails and results in the asset stripping of long standing community assets. Insolvent clubs are then bought from receivers for a song by rich individuals they splurge on debt end up bust and the cycle starts all over again.

There is an alternative to this wasteful business model, the European Cup showed the way, all four semi-finalists were fan owned clubs. Today many in the English game are looking at the Budesliga with its 50% plus one ownership rule as the future model for British football and where a club has not become insolvent for 42 years.

There is some hope that clubs and perhaps more importantly banks are beginning to see sense. Despite its terrible performances on the pitch, relegation to Division 2, the season was one of real achievement for Pompey. More specifically for the Pompey Supporters Trust, who became the owners of the club making it the largest club so far in complete fan ownership, this could be the turning point that those of us who support the co-operative football ownership model have been waiting for.  

The problems we have seen is that this option only gets serious attention when clubs are either in dire straits or in a few cases like FC United of Manchester or the new Northwich FC are in business terms start-up’s.

One of the few things to come out of the Blair Governments time in office of any value was Supporters Direct from the Football Taskforce. It is now working with over 180 supporters trusts’ with over 300,000 members, promoting fan ownership. There are now over 30 clubs owned by their supporters including AFC Wimbledon, Exeter City, AFC Telford, Wrexham, Wycombe Wanderers and now Portsmouth.

Despite the fact that many clubs are at a low ebb before turning to their fans this season we have seen some remarkable on the pitch performances. Wrexham became the very first Welsh team to win the FA Trophy after a thrilling penalty shoot out at Wembley.  Darlington became Northern League Champions having risen from the ashes, taking the League by storm, winning 40 of their 46 games, scoring 145 goals in the process and amassing 122 points, with over 2,000 supporters in attendance for their final game of the season at 'home' to Guisborough Town to celebrate promotion and see the trophy presented.

Also up north Scarborough Athletic became champions of the Northern Counties East League Premier Division. They have been on a steady climb from the Premier Division since gaining promotion from Division One of the League in 2008/2009. Currently playing nearly 20 miles away in Bridlington, they are working towards a return to the Borough.
Also Chester FC after only three years in fan ownership had silverware to parade as winners of the Conference North and the Cheshire Senior Cup. In the league they scored 103 goals and lost only three games.
Sadly for many peoples favourite fan owned club, FC United of Manchester, it was third time unlucky as they lost the Evo-Stik Premier Division play-off final 2-1 away to Hednesford Town in a closely fought match.
Fan owned clubs will come together at the F.A.’s National Football Centre St Georges Park for the inaugural Community Club Network Conference on Saturday 22^nd June. Clubs that are majority owned by their supporters will have workshops to share knowledge and discuss ways to promote their shared values for mutual benefit.
Star turns are Swansea City FC and US Community Owned American Football Team the Green Bay Packers. Swansea has had a great season playing cracking football and lifting their first major trophy, the League Cup, they are standout examples of fan-involvement in UK football.
The way out of boom and bust in modern football has to be fan ownership but more fans need to understand the financial and legal tools needed to turn this kind of dream into reality. What is more bankers need to get wise to the fact that the fans are the true sponsors and funders of football. It may be a while yet before we see an English equivalent to Barcelona or Bayern Munich but that that day is drawing closer.