By Dave Woodhall.
Local non-league side Halesowen Town slumped to yet another defeat on Tuesday night, a 2-1 reverse at home to Chippenham Town leaving them bottom of the Zamaretto Premier League. Just 102 spectators, a far cry from the thousands who followed the Yeltz to Wembley in three successive FA Vase finals during their mid-eighties glory days, went through the turnstiles at the club’s Grove ground .
What was worse was that the game might be the last the club ever play, as yesterday saw chairman Graham Ingram announce that Halesowen, founded in 1873 and the region’s oldest football club, may be wound up next week if he cannot find a buyer. A terse statement on the club’s website stated that following a recent article in the Halesowen News in which he was linked with an American racketing trial, Ingrams’ brother Godfrey has withdrawn all association with Halesowen Town. Despite having no official role at the club, Godfrey was described by his brother as having been “single-handed (sic) supporting Halesowen Town for the past two years.” This action left the club, according to Graham Ingram, “completely unsustainable”. He continued, “I may be left with no alternative other than to cease trading very shortly and effectively wind up the football club” and called upon potential new owners or sponsors to step forward within the next five days.
This is the latest setback for the club, which was forced into administration last season after running up debts of £250,000 under the ownership of Morell Maison, a business associate of the Ingram brothers. Mason had owned the club since 2007 and spent heavily on new players, with Ron Atkinson employed as consultant for a while. While Mason, who was also the team’s manager, had stated that his aim was promotion to the Conference, his ownership of Halesowen ended in controversy, with a twelve month ban for violent conduct after assaulting a player (the ban was later reduced to three months on appeal) and the club unable to enter the FA Cup or FA Trophy after failing to pass on gate receipts from previous ties. It was recently revealed that creditors would not be receiving any payment following the administration, which Maison blamed on “a vexatious former employee of the company” – believed to be a reference to groundsman Ian Hipkiss, who had been in danger of losing his home after having worked without wages for several months.
Although there would be several parties interested in buying Halesowen Town and the club has a highly-organised Supporters Trust (described as “malevolent” by Maison and as undermining their ambitions by the current owners) the short timescale mentioned in Ingrams’ statement has been seen by fans as an excuse to put the club out of business, a poster on the unofficial www.yeltz.co.uk forum calling this latest development “an act of spite.”
Should the Yeltz be wound up, a new club would almost certainly be formed by supporters and with the Grove owned by a local trust set up to provide sporting facilities in the town, they would be able to remain at their traditional home. A similar situation took place in Bromsgrove, with Zamaretto League side Rovers going out of business last summer to be replaced by Bromsgrove Sporting, currently top of the Midland Combination division two (four levels lower than their predecessors’ finishing point) while attracting gates of several hundred. Such a scenario may be the only way to keep senior football in Halesowen.