Today’s game sees the Mariners playing the oldest football league club – Notts County.  Despite the Club’s long and proud history they were not immune to the seemingly relentless financial pressures on professional football clubs in this country and have been close to going out of business.  As at many other clubs, the Supporters’ Trust played a key role in the Club’s survival.

The Magpies went into administration in June 2002 as debts continued to grow - previous mismanagement of the Club, the demise of ITV Digital, the collapse of the transfer market and spiralling wage costs all contributed and the situation steadily reached crisis point. Of course, the innocent victims were, as ever, the supporters.

As takeover bids came and went, disaster loomed and in September 2003 the most likely outcome was the end of the world's oldest football league club. For Notts supporters, this was unthinkable and a last-ditch consortium was formed to raise the money needed to save the club. As part of this "Blenheim Consortium", the Trust had to raise £250,000 in a matter of weeks.

Thankfully, the Club survived and now appears to be financially stable with a number of Trust Representatives serving on the Board of Directors.

Unfortunately, it is looking increasingly likely that not every club in crisis is going to survive which begs the question of what is wrong with professional football in this country?  Why are the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer?

The problems started, of course, with the establishment of the Premier League.  The huge amounts of money brought in as a result of television rights from Sky TV meant that the top clubs no longer needed to look in this country for potential signings.  Instead they looked abroad and, as a result, the natural redistribution of wealth within the game ground to a halt.

It is unbelievable that a Premier League game could take place without an Englishman on the pitch but that has happened and will happen again!  The situation not only threatens smaller clubs such as Grimsby and Notts, it also threatens the success of the national team as fewer English players ply their trade at the top level.  

The problem is compounded by the fact that nine of the twenty top flight clubs have foreign owners, some of whom have saddled their clubs with huge debts.  What will happen if Sky decided to reduce the size of the deal or pulled the plug completely?  Whilst not likely it is a possibility in these troubled financial times.

Sepp Blatter and Michel Platini have made numerous comments about foreign owners and players in the English game and were heavily criticised for making those comments.  I agree with them completely and Platini’s suggestion of a salary cap at Premier League level is the kind of measure needed to reintroduce sanity (and English players) back to the Premier League.

Only then will money start to trickle back down to our level.

Dave Otter - Chairman (GTST)