Richard Seamon
There have been plenty of David and Goliath football fairytales in these islands in recent years: Sunderland beating a superstar-filled Leeds Utd at Wembley in 1973; Wimbledon’s route one upwards through the Football League and an FA cup win in the 80s. There are the numerous FA Cup giant-killing exploits by the likes of Hereford, Wycombe Wanderers, Yeovil and Colchester Utd that immediately spring to mind. Yet few can challenge the achievements of a club from a tiny Scottish border town most people think is the destination of lovestruck couples intent on some leisurely repentance (that place is actually the village just over the motorway).
In the space of 5 years, Gretna FC have gone from English non-league football to Scottish Premier League status, taking in a Scottish Cup final and a brief excursion into Europe (well, Northern Ireland) on the way. The team means business. The back-to-back promotions were all as champions and their jump to the Premier League, with the last kick of the season against Ross County in April 2007, gives the impression that they don’t go down without a fight. That’s a trait they will have taken from their inspiring owner, managing director and financier, the enigmatic Brooks Mileson. A fight is what they are going to need as well as they are currently languishing several points adrift at the foot of the Premier League.
Mileson loves to play against the odds. Nearly crippled by an accident while playing in a quarry in his native Wearside when he was 11, he was told he would never walk again. Within a decade he had become a junior cross-country champion. Since then he’s had heart attacks, lost a kidney and suffers from ME. He chainsmokes, is addicted to coffee and looks like the Francis Rossi double in a Status Quo tribute band. 25 years ago he was broke and redundant. Undeterred, he started a construction company, diversified into insurance, bought and sold shrewdly and now has a wealth estimated at around £70 million. And he’s not shy about spending his money either. Aside from some generous charitable donations he’s also a huge supporter of grass-roots football and his largesse has benefited a string of non-league clubs and supporters’ trusts in England and Scotland.
He lives over the border, just outside Carlisle and surrounded by another of his passions, animals. By all accounts he is one of the most genuinely decent people in football. His passion for Gretna FC appears to be driven not by the kudos of owning a successful club with an international name (because let’s face it, it isn’t) but by wanting to have a club that is right at the very heart and soul of the community. Go to a match and probably the only time you’ll see Brooks Mileson in the directors’ box is when his body won’t let him do otherwise.
While the club won many hearts by going down to the Jambos on penalties in the Scottish Cup Final last year, there has been no shortage of detractors. The most vociferous being those who repeat the eternally weary mantra that money will always buy success. Of course it does, there’s no way on earth a club with a gate that rarely crept into three figures could possibly attract the necessary talent without some serious backing. Crivens! Name me a club that hasn’t attempted to buy in talent at some time! The canny investments brought in solid experience to play alongside the youthful exuberance. Most notably it bought the experience of Kenny Deuchar who came from East Fife in 2004 and scored 57 goals in 87 appearances for the club before being loaned first to Northampton and then St Johnstone at the turn of the year following a transfer request.
Mileson hasn’t just bought short term investments or dragged in a few big names who won’t stay the course; he has rolled out a huge community programme covering a very large catchment that straddles the border. Indeed, the club’s academy is based in England at the University of Central Lancashire in Penrith. Not only is he investing in future players, he’s taking care of the academic side of their training in order that they should have a fallback in case the playing career doesn’t work out. This is a man who is using the lessons taken from his own negative experiences in what appears to be a very positive way for the benefit of his community. He doesn’t give the impression of a man who is in this for a laugh.
Others have mocked the rebuilding of the team’s home ground, Raydale Park, as over-ambitious. A 6,000 capacity stadium for a village with a population less than half that at last count? Isn’t that a rather obvious delusion of grandeur? The grim reality was that Raydale was not up to SPL requirements and that if Gretna didn’t want to default on their new status, a new stadium would have to be built regardless by the start of the 2008-2009 season. Currently they are playing home games at Motherwell’s Fir Park and that’s a 150 mile round trip that nobody wants to have to make for very long. They’ve been lucky though, until the SPL got realistic a few years ago it would have had to have been a 13,000 seater stadium.
So, is all the largesse paying off? It’s reasonable to say “Not yet”. After an alleged dressing room spat while still in Division 1, Rowan Alexander, the manager who enticed Brooks Mileson to Gretna in the first place, was given leave of absence to recover from his “unspecified illness” leaving the team in the hands of understudy, Davie Irons. Irons completed the job of winning the 1st Division title and promotion but Alexander vowed to be at the helm when the club began its championship campaign. In the event, he was turned away from Fir Park before the season opener with Falkirk and the club’s official website now lists Irons as manager. Nobody is totally sure of the real reason for the end of the relationship but one rumour among the fans’ forums is that he was far too generous with some long term contract arrangements.
The results haven’t been inspiring. Despite some very tight games and their first ever win against a Premier League team (beating Dundee Utd 3-2) in September, the club currently have only 4 points from a possible 27. The stadium plans have as yet come to naught as even though the club has planning permission, there is limited scope to develop Raydale the way they would like. The town elders apparently aren’t too keen on a new stadium within the bounds and the club has been searching for a greenfield site. If a new location can’t be found then Raydale will have to be the fallback. It’s almost a given that if the stadium problem isn’t resolved and the results don’t improve the fans’ patience will begin to stretch and this will also affect the morale of the playing staff.
The final unknown is Brooks Mileson himself. Although his resolve is undoubted, his health is at best fragile. In the summer he underwent emergency surgery on his bowel after severe internal bleeding and one wonders whether his already battered body can take the stress of running a club in the top-flight. One hates to consider the unthinkable but his son, Craig, is already on the board and is the club’s operations director, thereby ensuring a family interest for the foreseeable future.
Gretna have had an amazing run. It’s more than fair to say that the Mileson millions have definitely smoothed the way, like a similar windfall would have done for any other club. What sets Gretna apart from the rest is that, lack of stadium notwithstanding, the millions have produced a club with a sound infrastructure and that should generate the momentum required to propel it past the inevitable pitfalls involved in becoming a big club. If you’ve got big ideas, you’ll have the big problems to go with them. Welcome to the seniors, Black and Whites.
