How League Two owners made their money: Hollywood, cryptocurrency and the Class of ’92
League Two — the fourth division in English football after the Premier League, Championship and League One — will have a dose of Hollywood glamour this season.
Wrexham’s promotion from the National League last season was covered by the TV drama Welcome to Wrexham and meant that unprecedented numbers of fans around the world were following the fifth division.
The Welsh club may be the biggest draw internationally — and a club you can follow on The Athletic — but the league has plenty of other big hitters, including clubs that have played in the Premier League since its formation in 1992.
When it comes to ownership, though, the situation is strikingly different from the top flight where oil states and American financiers bankroll many of the top clubs.
Things tend to be a lot more local at this level, although there are an increasing number of foreign owners beyond Canadian Ryan Reynolds and American Rob McElhenney.
With many clubs valued in the single-digit millions of pounds, they are still just about affordable to wealthy local businessmen. Or, indeed, former footballers, such as the prominent members of Manchester United’s ‘Class of ’92’ at Salford City.
Another notable trend is that many owners have made their money in the property industry, with the valuation of land and housing booming in the UK in the past few decades, and a more noticeable amount of fan representation on boards.
While the Hollywood riches of Reynolds and McElhenney have been well-documented, here’s how the league’s other 23 owners made their money…
Accrington Stanley
Andy Holt is one of England’s most outspoken football club owners, known for replying to fans on Twitter and picking fights with other figures in English football about the perceived raw deal that clubs at his level get.
In 2015, he took full ownership of Accrington through his company What More UK which makes plastic goods and is something of a rare modern British manufacturing success story.
It was founded in 1999 mostly making gardening pots before expanding into a big range of plastic including baking products.
The company’s main warehouse site is in Altham, a 10-minute drive from Accrington Stanley’s stadium in the north west of England — the Wham Stadium, which is named after a sponsorship deal with the company.
Where to start? The simple answer is that AFC Wimbledon is owned by the Dons Trust.
It calls itself a “democratic supporters’ organisation”, which anyone can join for a modest fee, and has over 4,000 members around the world. The trust controls more than 75 per cent of shares in the club’s holding company, leaving some limited space for minority investment.
Wimbledon were a Premier League team for most of the 1990s but played at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park because their own stadium did not meet requirements for upgrades following the 1990 Taylor Report into the cause of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster.
Hugely controversially, the owners and board eventually moved the club to Milton Keynes, 50 miles (80 kilometres) away.
This team was renamed MK Dons — see below — and AFC Wimbledon was founded as a brand new team at the bottom of the football pyramid.
This new team shot up the divisions, reaching League One in 2016, but were relegated last year.
Despite some poor results in the last few years AFC Wimbledon, and their fan owners, had a very happy moment in 2020 when they moved back to Plough Lane in the London borough of Merton for the first time since 1991.
Barrow
Barrow finished ninth in League Two last season so these are glory days for a club that had not finished that high up the English football pyramid since 1970.
The club, based in Cumbria in England’s far north-west, is owned by a consortium of local businessmen.
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Chairman Paul Hornby, managing director of local accountancy firm J F Hornby, is one co-owner. Another is Tony Shearer, a retired chief executive of food procurement company Foodbuy, along with Kristian Wilkes, the managing director of local business Process Pipework Services.
As is relatively common at this level, a 10 per cent stake is held by supporters’ group the Bluebirds Trust.
Bradford City
Bradford spent two seasons in the Premier League either side of the millennium before sinking like a stone in the 2000s amid a succession of financial crises.
In recent years, under the ownership of German businessman Stefan Rupp, things have been more stable off the pitch, if not especially successful on it.
Rupp financed his takeover of the club in 2015 after selling his stake in Fischer Seats, which manufactures seats for helicopters and boasts of “ensuring maximum safety for our customers with the lowest possible weight, high performance and an optimal environmental footprint”.
He purchased the club with Edin Rahic but bought out his co-owner in 2018.
Colchester United
The word “local businessman” comes up a lot in League Two, and Colchester United’s ownership is no exception.
Robbie Cowling founded Jobserve, an online recruitment firm, in 1993 and has since become a multi-millionaire. The firm is still based in Tiptree near Colchester.
Cowling hit national headlines in December 2020 after Colchester fans booed “taking the knee” in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.
He released a statement saying those fans are “not welcome” and should “stay away” from the club if they disagree with the gesture.
Cowling is one of the league’s most established owners having bought the club during the 2006-07 season, the club’s first in England’s second division. Colchester were relegated the following year and have not been back since, languishing in League Two since 2016.
Crawley Town
Now this is an unusual one.
In April 2022, the Sussex club announced that ‘WAGMI United’, a group of cryptocurrency investors based in the U.S., would be buying Crawley Town.
The group’s tenure has been chaotic, getting through multiple managers and only narrowly avoiding relegation despite saying fans would have the opportunity to get rid of them if they did not achieve promotion within two years.
Co-owner Preston Johnson stepped into the dugout for a 3-1 home defeat at Stevenage in December.
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Co-founders Johnson and Eben Smith made money in the wild world of cryptocurrency which has gained an increasingly bad reputation over the past year or so as token prices have plummeted, leaving many investors financially devastated.
But for those lucky enough to be early to the party and sell at the right time, there was real money to be made — which helped finance the purchase of Crawley Town.
Crewe Alexandra
Four years ago, Norman Hassall sold the majority stake he had held in the Cheshire club since 2006 to several local businesses and people, meaning the club is owned by a broad consortium rather than one person or entity.
Only two individuals own more than 10 per cent.
One is Jimmy Rowlinson, the club’s vice-chairman — part of a family that has been invested in Crewe since the 1960s and runs a local timber firm.
The other is club chairman Charles Grant, a long-standing board member who has made money in IT and property.
Doncaster Rovers
Before buying Doncaster, Terry Bramall was chairman of family business Keepmoat, a housebuilding company based in the South Yorkshire town.
Since selling his 72 per cent stake in the company for £783million in 2007, he has stayed active in the world of property and construction as well as becoming one of the country’s leading philanthropists through the foundation he runs with his wife, Liz.
“No one goes into football to make money and there’s more business nonsense spoken than business sense,” he told the Yorkshire Post in 2013. “However, I do think it’s important that a town like Doncaster has a football team.”
Forest Green Rovers
Former Everton and Rangers midfielder Duncan Ferguson admitted to never having tried vegan food before when he was unveiled as manager of Forest Green earlier this year. (He has since left the post.)
Environmentalism and sustainability are at the heart of everything at the Gloucestershire club, which was relegated after finishing bottom of League One last season.
That stems from the owner Dale Vince, a former New Age traveller who has a lifetime of experience on green issues.
He founded the Renewable Energy Company in 1995 with a single wind turbine, which rapidly expanded and has since changed its name to Ecotricity.
The company generates electricity from wind, solar and biofuel. Vince recently said he wants to sell the company and move into politics — he has donated to the Green Party and the Labour Party.
The club’s second-largest shareholder is another prominent figure well-known for environmental causes: former Arsenal defender Hector Bellerin who now plays for Real Betis in Spain.
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Gillingham
Not many North American investors in English football venture as far down the pyramid as League Two, but it’s not just Wrexham who buck the trend.
One of the newest owners in English football is Brad Galinson, an American businessman who bought Gillingham in December from longstanding owner Paul Scally.
The club’s new chairman, who is from Florida and has been a visible presence at Priestfield with his wife Shannon, made his money in property.
He owns Mount Auburn Multifamily, a real estate fund based in Los Angeles.
Grimsby Town
Two years ago, Grimsby, a surprise quarter-finalist in last season’s FA Cup, were taken over by 1878 Partners. The company is owned by Andrew Pettit and Jason Stockwood.
Pettit comes from the family which runs a well-known local chain of butchers, but he took a separate career path, becoming a top lawyer at City firm Clifford Chance before specialising in property.
In the 2000s, he started his own business, Revcap, a real estate private equity business, but has always stayed close to his roots.
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Stockwood is another native of the Lincolnshire town. He has a background in the online travel industry, with senior roles at companies like Travelocity and Skyscanner.
He is vice-chairman of Simply Business, an insurance broker.
Like several other clubs lower down the English football pyramid, Grimsby supporters have a real voice in the boardroom; The Mariners Trust has a sizeable minority stake in the club.
Harrogate Town
While there are some fallen giants in League Two, Harrogate are punching above their weight.
They have never played in a higher division and spent much of their history in the Yorkshire Football League.
At the heart of the club is an unusual family duo. Simon Weaver, a player who finished his career at Harrogate, has been the manager since 2009, making him the longest-serving in England’s top four divisions by five whole years — far longer than Pep Guardiola at Manchester City or Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp.
The club chairman and owner is his father Irving Weaver, who has invested heavily as the North Yorkshire side have risen up the divisions.
He is chairman of Strata Homes, a local house-building company that has been in the Weaver family for three generations. Andrew Weaver, Irving’s son and Simon’s brother, is managing director of the firm.
Mansfield Town
John Radford is one of the league’s longer-serving owners having bought Mansfield Town in 2010.
A year later he faced some controversy when appointing his then-girlfriend, Carolyn, as chief executive, making her a rare woman in the world of lower-league football.
But 12 years later, the pair now married with children, both are still in situ as chairman and CEO.
Radford made his money after founding the insurance company One Call, which also lends its name to Mansfield’s stadium for sponsorship reasons.
The company is based in Doncaster and for a while, both Doncaster Rovers and Mansfield Town’s shirts were sponsored by One Call.
MK Dons
This year will rekindle the AFC Wimbledon vs MK Dons rivalry, one of the most antagonistic in English football.
While AFC Wimbledon is owned by fans, MK Dons is owned by Pete Winkelman, a former music executive who was instrumental in moving the club to Buckinghamshire in the early 2000s.
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He was an executive at Columbia Records and then became managing director of Inter MK Ltd, a property development company which developed areas of the new city.
Winkelman has said he is open to new investment.
“The trouble is: this is my baby and my legacy,” he told the BBC last year. “If someone were to introduce me to the friendly billionaire you can all Google and know who they were, not some company you’ve never heard of, then we know it would be a good route to go.”
“But this is my baby, I don’t give it up for someone to mess it about.”
Morecambe
A takeover saga has been rumbling for a long time with Morecambe and fears grew earlier this year that the club would go into administration after wages were paid late.
A mooted takeover by Sarbjot Johal, a 20-year-old who claimed to have made millions from soft drinks, property and cryptocurrency speculation, has not gained EFL approval.
For now, the owner of an 80 per cent ruling stake is Bond Group Investments Ltd, whose founders are Jason Whittingham and Colin Goldring, two businessmen who also owned the recently liquidated Worcester Warriors, one of English rugby union’s top-flight clubs, owing to an unpaid tax bill of £6million.
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Newport County
Newport are rare in being a club completely owned by their supporters.
In October 2015, following a community share issue that saw fans raise £236,000 in a month, the club was bought by the Newport County AFC Supporters’ Trust which anybody can join for as little as £5 per month.
The division’s other Welsh club, alongside Wrexham, is run by a board of volunteer directors elected by the trust’s members.
Notts County
Brentford and Brighton have attracted attention as two upstarts who have shot up the divisions and finished last season in the top half of the Premier League.
They are owned by gambling moguls who have had a bitter falling out, but Tony Bloom and Matthew Benham aren’t the only betting industry figures with interests in football clubs.
Danish brothers Alexander and Christoffer Reedtz bought Notts County in 2019.
The two men run Football Radar, which describes itself as “a leading provider of football betting advice” and specialises in “predicting the outcome of matches and competitions”.
Salford City
Wrexham have the most star-studded boardroom in League Two, but Salford run them close.
Salford have a long history in the obscure lower reaches of non-League football in the Greater Manchester area.
But in 2014, the club was taken over by five former Manchester United players — Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville, Phil Neville and Paul Scholes. Peter Lim, a businessman from Singapore, owned the other half.
Lim now owns 40 per cent of the club after selling 10 per cent to David Beckham in 2019.
Stockport County
Mark Stott is yet another “local businessman” to add to the list.
Under his ownership, Stockport — who spent much of the 1990s in the second tier — are an upwardly mobile club.
They were promoted from the National League to League Two last year and narrowly missed out on back-to-back promotions after losing the play-off final to Carlisle at Wembley at the end of last season.
Stott set up Select Property Group in 2004 and claims to be one of the first property companies to spot the vast investment potential in Dubai.
Eight years later, he founded Vita Group which specialises in student accommodation.
Sutton United
It was only in 2021 that Sutton, on the southern fringes of London, played in League Two for the first time and they have followed promotion with two respectable mid-table finishes.
The club does not have a majority shareholder but three individuals — Nawaf Al Shammari, Tim Allison and Gary Otto — hold more than a 10 per cent stake.
Nawaf Al Shammari is a Saudi national, Gary Otto is a Californian who has made his money in property, and Tim Allison is the club’s chief operating officer as well as club secretary.
Swindon Town
Fans of Swindon, who played in the Premier League in the 1993-94 season, have been through the wringer with the club effectively running out of money in 2021 under the chaotic ownership of Lee Power.
Things have changed for the better since Australian Clem Morfuni become the majority shareholder after gradually increasing his 15 per cent minority stake.
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Morfuni started out as a plumber before setting up his own business which grew rapidly across Australia and New Zealand.
Axis now has offices all over the world, specialising in the construction, maintenance and design of buildings.
Though a frequent visitor to the County Ground, he still lives in Australia.
Tranmere Rovers
Tranmere are unusual in being a club owned by somebody who used to play for them. Mark Palios was a midfielder for the Merseyside club in the 1970s and 1980s before taking the unorthodox career move of training in accountancy.
He rose up the ranks, becoming a partner in PwC, before coming back to the world of football in a brief stint as chief executive of the Football Association.
He has since become a prominent expert in football finances and governance.
In 2014, he bought a controlling stake in Tranmere with his wife Nicola and is one of the most visible and outspoken owners in English football.
A sizeable minority stake is held by Santini Group, one of Indonesia’s biggest conglomerates.
Walsall
Last year, Walsall were bought by Trivela Group, an investment group founded in Alabama by Benjamin Boycott and his business partner Kenneth Polk.
As part of the takeover, the outgoing owner Leigh Pomlett, who made his money in haulage and logistics, agreed to remain as co-chairman for four years to oversee a smooth transition.
“Our ambition is first to be a sustainable League One club that’s pushing for promotion to the Championship,” says Boycott.
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Wrexham
Last but not least… you have probably heard of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
Reynolds, born and raised in Canada, is a Hollywood A-lister best known for his role in the Deadpool films.
McElhenney, an American, reached fame as an actor in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and is now also a producer and writer.
The two men bought Wrexham in 2020 and a huge part of the ownership has been the TV series, Welcome to Wrexham.
The club achieved promotion from the National League to League Two this year and will attract eyeballs from around the world in England’s fourth tier.
(Photos for top image: Getty Images. Design by Eamonn Dalton)
