Our ‘friends’ up the 180

Quoted from Poojah

It’s uncanny, and almost scary from a Scunny perspective, just how much Swann sounds like Fenty in that interview. The same rhetoric, the same excuses, the same failures.

One thing Fenty never did though is asset strip the club. That could yet turn out to be cataclysmic for them.

It could for them. But we came close to it with Fenty. He didn’t need to take over the assets because his loans were being paid back.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

It could for them. But we came close to it with Fenty. He didn’t need to take over the assets because his loans were being paid back.

Perhaps, but he never quite had the balls or stupidity to rack up the kind of debts up that Swann did at Scunny. I think this is possibly where there is a difference between the two characters.

I'm conscious of not making this sound like a defence of Fenty - it isn't. The man suffocated this club, and I don't even want to think about where things might have headed had Alex May become seriously involved. But it is a matter of fact that his famous 'benign' loans to the club were to cover the cost of debts primarily to HMRC which the club itself could not afford to pay at the time, largely as a result of the ITV Digital collapse. I won't get into whether we should have gone into admin, how he came to be in charge of the running club or what happened over the course of the next couple of decades - his loans were to help cover debts the club had already accrued. He didn't create the debt in the first place.

That's not true of Swann and Scunthorpe. In the recent podcast, he was lamenting that League Two clubs are only permitted to spend up to 50% of turnover on players' wages. At their peak, Scunny were spending somewhere approaching 250% of turnover on playing staff. That's simply not a business model in any industry unless you've got the money, will and cojones to see it through to the bitter end. I'm not sure what kind of pipe dream Swann was chasing, but he took massive, unnecessary risks in taking them to that point, failed to see it through and then retreated to limit his own financial exposure (which was already many times the value of the club).

He's been absolutely reckless to the point where it seems difficult to see how Scunny turn this around as a football club. I'm not just talking about this season; personally I think all of the negativity which is currently surrounding the club will eat them up, but even if it doesn't and they survive, I don't know where they go from here. They are in a vicious spiral of the like I see no way of them pulling out of. If there's a Scunthorpe United playing at National League North level or above in five years' time, I'll genuinely be surprised.

Swann reckons he's nothing like Fenty, and I agree. Let me reiterate this point, this is NOT a defence of Fenty, the standout worst owner in this club's long history. But I think the next few years will demonstrate that Swann was by far the most dangerous of the two.

We got Fenty largely thanks to ITV, kind of in the way that people get cancer through passive smoking. It wasn't their fault, they didn't deserve it, but it happened anyway. Under Swann, Scunny have been happily smoking 60 a day without giving a moment's thought to the risks, and the prognosis isn't good. It isn't good at all...

I completely agree with you on the chain-smoking Scunnies.

Regarding what Fenty’s loans covered, I completely disagree. They covered his purchase of the club and his mistakes. See Mark Stilton’s articles on Cod Almighty.

Quoted from KingstonMariner

I completely agree with you on the chain-smoking Scunnies.

Regarding what Fenty’s loans covered, I completely disagree. They covered his purchase of the club and his mistakes. See Mark Stilton’s articles on Cod Almighty.

Fair enough if I got that wrong. The crux of my point was ultimately Swann very consciously built up debts to the value of 8-10x the natural value of the club, presumably in pursuit of personal financial gain.

That is grossly irresponsible and self serving on a scale few clubs have experienced. Or more pertinently, survived.

Another club that could go under before too long due to financial recklessness. How many times will we see this before the FA actually decide that more restrictions need to be put in place to prevent this from happening? As much as I dont like the scunts its all in the name of local rivalry and to see them go under would be a shame as these local rivalries are the bedrock of a good fan base. Who doesn't love to see their local team get one over their neighbours?

Swann has always been reckless with investments, just ask the folk of Gainsborough…

I’ve never figured out what his end game at Scunny was and neither had my mate. They’ve shifted their allocation for Harrogate in a week or so but the suggestion is, should they get beaten (highly likely), it could get nasty and ugly.

Swann became very defensive when compared to Fenty, had a dig and said ‘at least I invested money’ or words to that effect but in truth he is very much like Fenty. False promises, bizarre business dealings, surrounded by sycophants and eventually will cause the ruin of the club…

Quoted from Poojah

They have zero assets and are spiralling down the leagues whilst remaining loss making. Swann’s response to that is to tighten the purse strings further, spiral some more and repeat the process again as crowd numbers and other incomes continue to dwindle - they are already getting lower crowds than the likes of Sutton United and less than half of what Town are currently pulling in with virtually no away followings at BP.

So Swann owns the ground and training facilities, and wants £8m+ in order to part company with those assets and the club itself. No one with the football club in mind is going to pay anything like that figure.

So Swann has a bit of a problem on his hands - he has assets that he values at north of £8m that are worth nothing like that in their current form, and by his own admission businesses in the hospitality industry which have been ‘battered’ by Covid. It’s been well publicised that the land Glanford Park sits on is quite valuable due to the surrounding retail environment that has built up around it. Probably less valuable now given the challenges bricks and mortar retail are having, but that chunk of land is worth significantly more as a prospective cinema (for example) than as the stadium of a struggling, skint football club.

Swann has no real connections with the football club or the town of Scunthorpe. He isn’t a fan of the club.

What he ultimately does will probably come down to a question of what he cares more about: Scunthorpe United or his £8m. If I were a Scunny fan, I would find that a deeply uncomfortable place to be.

My prediction: if they get relegated this season (and there’s a good chance they will), things will unravel very, very quickly.

I may be wrong but looking at Companies House Swan’s share capital was around 8M in addition to his 11m loans. Given he wrote the loans off in exchange for the clubs property assets I’m assuming he wants £8M just for the club with him keeping the property assets personally.

Up to 2020 there was just shy of £20m in accumulated losses, that’s a huge figure to spend and end up bottom of the league with no assets.

In 2020 they also managed to sell the naming rights for Glandford Park for 2m and still lost 952k!

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but when we were at our lowest ebb, and Scunny were in the Championship, I'm sure there was a report one season that said only Scunny and one other club in the entire football league turned over a profit (excluding transfers).

At that point (and I don't know when Swann got involved) it was my understanding that they were an incredibly well-run club. Riding high, on the crest of a wave, bringing in more cash than we ever did when we played at that level, and investing it wisely.

Again, not sure if I misunderstood that original report, but whatever the detail was, it shone Scunny in a good light. We were poles apart — they were smashing Sheff Utd away something like 4-1 and we were losing to Braintree 5-0.

Just goes to show, things can change relatively quickly in football. Nothing lasts forever, so enjoy the good times and prepare sensibly for the lean times.

Quoted from RichMariner

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but when we were at our lowest ebb, and Scunny were in the Championship, I'm sure there was a report one season that said only Scunny and one other club in the entire football league turned over a profit (excluding transfers).

At that point (and I don't know when Swann got involved) it was my understanding that they were an incredibly well-run club. Riding high, on the crest of a wave, bringing in more cash than we ever did when we played at that level, and investing it wisely.

Again, not sure if I misunderstood that original report, but whatever the detail was, it shone Scunny in a good light. We were poles apart — they were smashing Sheff Utd away something like 4-1 and we were losing to Braintree 5-0.

Just goes to show, things can change relatively quickly in football. Nothing lasts forever, so enjoy the good times and prepare sensibly for the lean times.

Scunny had a really good run of signing and selling on players, particularly strikers. Between 2007 and 2014 they made the best part of £15m profit selling Billy Sharp, Andy Keogh, Martin Paterson, Gary Hooper, Chris Dagnall, Martyn Woolfoord and Sam Winall. They'd sell their best player, and then have the knack of signing another who would go on to replicate that success. They also had Paul Hayes during that period, who went for a pittance on a tribunal.

It can't have been fluke - it was clearly the result of a very effective effective scouting and recruitment policy. Is it a coincidence that something drastically changed shortly after Swann took over in 2013, and they started splashing around money they didn't have on players that weren't all that good?

Their rise to the Championship was entirely sustainable and genuinely earned, as difficult as that was to swallow at the time. Whatever Swann did, it amounted to sticking the club in reverse and then slamming his foot to the floor.  

Quoted from RichMariner

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but when we were at our lowest ebb, and Scunny were in the Championship, I'm sure there was a report one season that said only Scunny and one other club in the entire football league turned over a profit (excluding transfers).

At that point (and I don't know when Swann got involved) it was my understanding that they were an incredibly well-run club. Riding high, on the crest of a wave, bringing in more cash than we ever did when we played at that level, and investing it wisely.

Again, not sure if I misunderstood that original report, but whatever the detail was, it shone Scunny in a good light. We were poles apart — they were smashing Sheff Utd away something like 4-1 and we were losing to Braintree 5-0.

Just goes to show, things can change relatively quickly in football. Nothing lasts forever, so enjoy the good times and prepare sensibly for the lean times.

For all the rights and wrongs at Scunthorpe and how badly they may have been run they are still in the EFL while we are down in the shithole of the NL for a second time.