There cannot be many football club chairmen who have co-edited the matchday programme, written seven books, watched league football at over 500 grounds in over 40 countries and founded an award-winning and highly respected football blog. Stuart Fuller has done all of these and, among this frenetic activity, he also manages to travel extensively in his full-time job as a director of communications and commercial operations.

The 45-year-old was invited to become the chairman of Lewes FC in February, having spent a few years on the board of the community-based club. A friend introduced Fuller to Lewes after he had expressed disillusionment with Premier League football. At that time Lewes were facing financial meltdown as they struggled to cope with life in the Blue Square South, but there was a rescue in the offing from a group of benefactors, known as Rooks125 (named after the club’s nickname and its age in 2010). When this group of white knights succeeded in rescuing the club it was taken into community ownership.

Fuller gave up his season ticket at Upton Park in the 2010-11 season as he felt increasingly alienated by the rampant and relentless commercialism in top-flight football. He was also horrified that his young daughter was being constantly assailed by the ripest language, which was even worse when they moved into the family section.

As he outlined in his book Dripping Yarns, he fell out of love with West Ham and became infatuated with the club whose home ground has the most evocative name in English football. In times when a club has the sheer audacity to rename their ground The World of Smile Stadium, there should be a preservation order slapped on The Dripping Pan. Lewes have been playing at the same ground since 1895 and such longevity puts the ground in the top 20 oldest football grounds in continuous use. For any anoraks reading this, Maidenhead United are acknowledged by the FA as having “the oldest senior football ground continuously used by the same club”; they moved to their York Road ground in 1871, 144 years ago.

Lewes players acknowledge their fans. Photograph: Stuart Fuller

Having a 120-year-old ground is all well and good, but it does require a fair amount of maintenance that eats into the club’s annual budget. “In the last few years, we have had to replace the floodlights, we have had to remove asbestos and things like that,” says Fuller. The directors have forked out for the repairs as they “don’t want to go the bank to borrow money”. Fuller is rightly proud of the financial transparency shown by Lewes. “We are very open with our budget and all the figures, annual reports etc. are available via the website, for everyone to see.”

This year’s budget is being pared back by 33% to around £2,000 per week after a difficult experience last season. “We asked the management team how much they thought we would need to be pushing up towards the play-offs and they said we would have a really good shout with £3,000 per week, and so we did. We avoided relegation on the last day of the season.”

As the club does not pay transfer fees, the vast majority of the budget is spent on player wages and bonuses for goals, clean sheets and the like. When they appointed the former Charlton defender Steve Brown as temporary manager midway through last season, he told the board: “You’ve got to change the dressing room. I can keep you up but it will be tight and I’m going to bring in the kids.”

Brown was appointed permanent manager in May 2015, having kept the club out of the relegation zone and, true to his word, he has been bringing through academy players. Nine teenagers featured in the Lewes team that played Brighton in a recent pre-season friendly and secured a creditable scoreless draw with the Championship team.

With the reduced budget there will be a reliance on youth and Brown’s realism is refreshing, as Fuller explains. “There will be some weeks when they will get absolutely thumped, physically murdered on the pitch, but every single time that happens they learn and there will be some games when the crowd will be purring at what they see. The club have publicly said that this season the team will be quite young but a lot of them will be our own youngsters.”

“This year with a smaller budget we want to create something away from the pitch that generates the cash that will secure the club’s future,” says Fuller. The money saved will go towards creating a contingency fund that will tie the club over when unexpected expenditure is required.

Fuller’s objective for 2015-16 is more realistic than last year’s ambitious but ultimately doomed push for the play-offs. “Since I have been here we have only had one positive season, when we won more than we lost. I don’t want to be worried about relegation, I want us to be comfortable, to be playing good football and the fans realise we have a team that cares and tries. Top half of the table would be great.”

Lewes fans. Photograph: Stuart Fuller

Fuller is clearly intent on making Lewes a progressive club, with the board split into two halves: with one side looking after the short-term issues of team affairs and the other half considering the long-term developments and implications for the entire club going forward, including next year’s budget. Every two weeks they assess progress against key objectives, including how the academy is working. Brown is sent a weekly email from the club secretary to show how he is doing against his budget. This amount of scrutiny is not common at this level of football.

As a further indication of Lewes’ intent on being self-sufficient, they have also employed the commercial director Kevin Miller – he was hired directly from Premier League club Crystal Palace – whose simple but tough task is to raise £75,000 annually. The enterprising culture was on full display when the club developed the idea of beach huts becoming the equivalent of directors’ boxes and made them available for fans to enjoy corporate hospitality at the start of last season.

“It was a massive success as it generated huge media interest and attention,” says Fuller. What was originally an April Fools’ idea from one of the directors turned into a scheme that generated revenue and headlines. With such vision, it’s no great surprise that the club’s principal sponsors are Specsavers.



The first XI. Photograph: Stuart Fuller

Having run successful businesses, it is instructive to find out what elements of Fuller’s other lives are useful in the world of football. “There are a lot of transferable skills,” he says. “Understanding finances quite well helps me in my Lewes role. And just like sales performance, it’s about coaching, it’s about training and the whole issue of performance management.” The biggest difference between business and football is that he is “dealing with a lot more money with the former while with the latter there are a lot more temperamental people involved.”

The main attraction of running a football club is the escapism and the chance to get away from the pressures of business. For someone who has written a book, The Football Tourist, that is all about the pleasures of seeing matches in far-flung and largely ignored corners of the world, he clearly has a sense of adventure that needs satiating.

Lewes is a mainly positive story but, when pressed about his biggest mistake at the club, after some hesitation he admits: “We could have acted quicker to make a change last season when things weren’t going right.” And as for his best decision, he is much quicker off the mark. “The creation of an academy. Just now we are seeing the fruits of this. For example, two of our academy players have signed on contracts with us now.” This bodes well for the future and especially with a manager who is keen to promote younger players.

Fuller has a very clear idea of the relative importance of key relationships at the club. First and foremost are the owners – there are 1,032 at the latest count – as “they are the ones that keep us going and give us the mandate”. Then the fans: “They are the lifeblood and it’s important to encourage youngsters to come.” Next comes the management and coaching team, who have the responsibility for developing players, then the board, and finally the players.

Welcome to Lewes. Photograph: Stuart Fuller

The players are last because “there is no loyalty in football, even at this level”. He tells a story about a player who had been with Lewes for years but then started talking about a move. He was offered an improved deal, which was all negotiated and agreed by Fuller while he was on holiday in Majorca, only for the player to reject if for an extra £10 per week at local rivals Worthing. “When I got my phone bill, it was £70,” which just made him even more frustrated by the experience.

His distrust of players extends to the moneyed ranks at the very top. When asked which aspect of swapping roles with a top level chairman he would least enjoy, he replies quickly: “I would be going mad and getting really angry with the amount of money that floats around Premier League football and seeing some of the wages these players earn.” He would most relish “being able to ring up somebody in authority at somewhere like the FA and having a conversation about what their motives are for the game, rather than being ignored as a tiny cog in a very big, fast-moving wheel.”

What would he do if he was in charge? “Withdraw from Fifa,” he says without hesitation. “There’s far too much money at the top level of the game. There needs to be a rebalance. Yes, more should go to grass roots, but it has to be spent on the facilities not on the players and that should enable a club to become self-sufficient.” And, with that in mind, our interview is over as he is off to scout some players at an evening match between South Park and Burgess Hill Town.

• This article is from The Agony and the Ecstasy

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