Matt Reeder: Fearing for football’s future if the Pompey chimes fall silent

No matter how dire you might believe your situation, history tells us that football clubs rarely go out of business.

The unlucky ones are, seemingly, few and far between.

While the likes of Bradford PA, Halifax Town, Scarborough, Newport County, Aldershot and Accrington Stanley have all sadly slipped out of the Football League and succumbed to financial hardship, they are most definitely in the minority.

Compare their number to the many more who have been forced into administration but managed to survive and it shows that invariably, someone always rides to the rescue.

Without wishing to be unkind to the likes of Park Avenue and Halifax, there is a truth in suggesting that clubs who have failed to avoid liquidation are usually those on the small side.

Clubs plying their trade in the lower leagues, out of scrappy, near-empty stadia with limited resources usually pay the price.

Bigger clubs, it seems, tend to survive. Or at least they did.

In Yorkshire alone, we have had our fair share of financial troubles.

Hull City, Middlesbrough, Leeds United, Barnsley, Doncaster Rovers, Huddersfield Town, Bradford City (twice), Rotherham United (twice) and not forgetting York City have all sought protection from the administrators at some stage in their recent history – and all have lived to see better days.

Bradford, Middlesbrough, Huddersfield and Hull probably came closest to extinction, while Leeds, too, had a very uncertain future until Ken Bates offered them stability.

Hours, some may even claim minutes, away from the final whistle being blown on their very existence, they flirted with the unthinkable but, crucially, they all survived to tell the tale.

Sure, the administration process is a tough one. People lose their jobs, teams are stripped of their best assets and the weeks and months of uncertainty are quite simply horrible for all concerned. But survival has been achieved, the clubs have lived on to play another day and, in the main, have learned the lessons of their profligate past.

In my years as a reporter for the Yorkshire Post, I have covered the administrations at Bradford, Huddersfield and York, while I also reported on Leeds United’s melt-down post Peter Ridsdale.

Working on a club in administration, or under severe financial restraints as in Leeds’ case, is not easy. Indeed, these were dark, dark times, even for a hard-nosed hack like myself.

Despite not being a supporter of the clubs in question, I would phone the administrator daily, hoping and praying that there was some good news to report.

Fans would approach me at games desperate for information, or call the newsroom hoping for that one crumb of comfort – one snippet of news which might just promise better times and the rescue of their beloved club.

Heroes always emerge from the wreckage.

Julian Rhodes at Bradford worked tirelessly to save City, the McGill family stepped in to help York and Trevor Birch, to my mind, was the man who clawed Leeds back from the brink.

Rhodes’s role in rebuilding the club post-Geoffrey Richmond cannot be under-stated. He will not thank me for saying this, but if the club ever decide to erect a statue outside their front gates of a Bantams hero, then he would get my vote.

Unassuming and hard-working, he can rightly feel proud of his efforts in keeping the club alive. Now working alongside Mark Lawn, the duo are still performing daily miracles.

The McGill family deserve their place in York’s history books after picking up the pieces left by Douglas Craig.

Leeds United, though, was a different story altogether.

Administration did not come until 2007, when Bates regained control at Elland Road, but the work carried out by chief executive Birch in 2003 saved United from being the most high-profile footballing casuality in the game’s history.

Everyone had enjoyed living Peter Ridsdale’s dream, but the ensuing nightmare took them to the very brink of extinction.

A quick recall of the facts makes for pretty scary reading with then-Premier League United more than £100m in debt and not only being forced to sell their star names but also their training ground. Birch, however, managed to steer them through what must surely be classed as the toughest period of their 108-year history.

Having set up and concluded the Roman Abramovich deal to take over Chelsea, he clearly had a decent track record in finalising big-money takeovers.

He arrived in Yorkshire charged with finding a buyer for the club and ensuring its survival.

From day one, he spoke of a determination that Leeds would not die on his watch, despite an extremely poor outlook.

Costs were cut, debts slashed wherever possible and players were sold off to the highest bidder. The team was, inevitably, relegated from the top flight.

Eventually, however, he found a consortium of local businessmen willing to take them on. Club saved, job done.

Now, Birch, pictured left, has a similarly tough job on his hands as chief administrator down at Portsmouth, my own team of choice.

Similarly to Leeds, Pompey enjoyed the glory days of Premier League success and playing in Europe. We even won an FA Cup for good measure – but now we, too, are paying the price.

As a reporter covering the administration process, I would often try to put myself in the shoes of fans worried that their club could fold any day... I now know, it is not a nice place to be.

Speaking to colleagues on the south coast and reading media reports, it would seem Birch’s approach at Pompey is similar to the one he took at Leeds.

Taking tough decisions on staff redundancies, asking players to defer wages and making it clear to all those willing to listen that the club is in a dire position and in desperate need of assistance.

The question of how and why Portsmouth have found themselves in this position for the second time in three seasons is not important. For now, the only issue is trying to save them.

No matter who you support, the very idea of English football losing a club of such stature should be enough to spark concern for the very future of the sport.

Yes, clubs have struggled before and survived, but at a time when the whole world is in recession and with Pompey’s finances seemingly as tangled as a plate of spaghetti, the concern has to be that if one goes, others will undoubtedly follow and the Football League will become a wasteland of financially-crippled football teams.

If the authorities and administrators are helpless to prevent a Championship club from going under, then what hope for a club in League Two, or even League One?

The days when wealthy backers were queuing up to tackle the world of football club ownership are long gone. Yes, the Premier League is awash with cash, but drop out of the top flight and no matter the value of your parachute payments, the fact is you will face the prospect of financial freefall.

As a crippled economy continues to bite, football finds itself at a critical point and there is a very real danger that the consequences could prove very severe indeed.

As for me and Pompey, I will wait and see and hope.

Someone always rides in to save the day... don’t they?