Brian Lomax play it out: Clapton CFC vs FC United of Manchester

Words: Tom Reed

Images: Tom Stanworth

Brian Lomax wasn’t a football visionary particularly but he could read a room and he saw the way that football was going back in 1992.

The club he supported, Northampton Town, was just very badly run and in one of its cash crises and so he and his friends decided to set up a supporters’ trust so that they could get back to laughing about the quality of football, having a smoke and a pint at the old County Ground in the Town.

The premise was simple, that supporters should be partners in the running of clubs to ensure a decent level of oversight and governance.

This could be by having democratically elected supporter representatives on club boards or by supporters running clubs themselves, it didn’t matter too much, as long as the wrong uns that targeted clubs were kicked out, like they’d be shunned in the pub if they bought their bullshit.

Of course in 1992, the Premier League burst into life and much of Lomax’s good work at Northampton and later at Supporters Direct was washed away in a power shower of multi million transfers, TV razzmatazz and the free-market which is known to drown everything it comes into contact with.

©Tom Stanworth/ Terrace Edition. Clapton CFC.

England’s sportwashed clubs and the litany of proud teams like Bury FC run into the ground are a clear result of the sport failing to implement Lomax’s sensible ideas and so the alleged “best league in the world” and the “home of football” is a constant state of quiet depression amongst the hype.

Status anxiety that your club isn’t splashing the cash or scratching your head at another idiot who can mount a takeover but can’t pay the bills creates a feeling of being the customer of a company rather than a supporter of a club.

Lomax, who died in 2015, would have been proud of Clapton CFC and FC United of Manchester (FCUM) who played out trophies in his name and work on Saturday. I know because I spoke to him at length before he passed and he talked about how football could be.

Clapton are an inclusive outfit and you only have to see the photos of the meeting for the fledgling Northampton Town Supporters’ Trust in 1992 to see it was a case of ‘we are all in this together so we may as well make a game that allows us to live lives contented’.

100% fan-owned, Clapton have a one member one vote system, meaning the Old Spotted Dog Ground club aren’t going to be led down the garden path by an individual after that East London real estate.

Similarly at FC United of Manchester, also fan-owned and with a kick-ass supporter bar that Lomax would have loved to have propped up, they have a do-it-yourself attitude and a sense of pride that is hard to match.

The fact that the first game on Saturday between Clapton and FCUM was a women’s match for the Supporters Direct Women’s Shield was a real boon for that inclusivity factor, for few, not least Brian saw a game where women are marginalised as anything to be proud of.

The prospect of a double header on the day brought a real football sense of occasion.

Over a thousand tickets sold for a pre-season friendly shows that people are digging what Clapton and FCUM are doing and it was Clapton women who took that first bit of silverware with a tidy 3-1 victory.

If young people are the lifeblood of clubs then Clapton have a healthy future with the number of mothers and children and buggies around the pitch.

There’s few clubs like Clapton who advertise the times when the kids can run around and kick a ball about on the pitch but the wee’uns would have to wait till the men’s game between Clapton and FCUM had finished.

The scoreline was pretty much reversed for the men’s as the difference in levels showed by the end. Clapton play in the Eastern Counties League Division One South (step six of non-League) while FCUM operate in the Norther Premier League, meaning they are three promotions away from league football.

FCUM ran out 3-1 winners in the Brian Lomax Supporters’ Direct Trophy on a day that was about the supporters as much as it was the result.

Premier League fans may decry the level that both teams play at but for everything that counts, Clapton and FCUM are top of the tree.

The queues for the beers wasn’t massive, the food was good and both sets of fans mingled and made a noise. They have a sense of belonging and involvement that the mega-store wanderers of the top-flight could never fathom.

You’d have found Brian at the bar if he could, he’d have smiled, ruddy faced and laughed and said “we can all do this together.”