Did you all see this?

[EFM's Librarian]

Non-league mystery of the Essex Abramovich

 

Arindam Rej tries to discover who is bankrolling Hornchurch, but meets with a wall of silence

 

Sunday September 5, 2004

The Observer

 

The figures make no sense. Down in the Nationwide Conference South, alongside Hayes, Grays and Bognor Regis, Hornchurch are awash with cash and clearly being backed by a figure in the mould of Roman Abramovich. But no one knows who he is.

 

Last season, Hornchurch attracted an average crowd of 547, with adults paying £6.50 and £3.50 for concessions. That is about £3,000 per game at the gate, or £60,000 for the league season.

 

Hornchurch claim that they have not greatly increased their budget for this season, but they signed 20 players over the summer, several with Football League experience. Their manager earns more than £100,000, their players are full-time and their wage bill is estimated to be £1.2million a year.

 

It seems to be a winning formula: the title favourites yesterday thrashed league leaders Basingstoke 6-0, with big earners Kirk Jackson and Darren Caskey among the scorers. The crowd was 752.

 

The Urchins are in talks about moving from their council-owned Hornchurch Stadium - on which they have spent a small fortune for a recent facelift - to a new home. It all adds up to a level of spending that their rivals can only dream of - but chairman Gary Calder denies the rumours that Hornchurch have had a huge cash injection from a benefactor.

 

'It's a myth,' says Calder. 'There's not been that much of an increase.' He even says that the club's expenditure has not grown significantly in the past few years.

 

One of the new signings, Paul McCarthy, arrived from Oxford United in the summer because Hornchurch are said to have offered him a bigger salary. Striker Jackson, another newcomer, is believed to have more than doubled his pay by dropping down from league football at Yeovil.

 

New manager Garry Hill gave up his £76,000-a-year job at neighbours Dagenham, who are a division higher, and dismisses suggestions that he joined Hornchurch just for the money. 'I came here because I needed a fresh challenge and that challenge is to get this club into the Conference,' he says.

 

Hill also plays down the fact that the Urchins have been able to attract so many players from a higher level. 'Nowadays, lots of players go from the Football League to the Conference,' he says. 'It's like a conveyor belt. You've got to have full-time players.'

 

Which is why the new ones have arrived. It might have been more than 20 had Hornchurch succeeded with a £100,000 bid for last season's Conference top scorer Daryl Clare, of champions Chester, with a wage of £3,000 a week lined up. They are also believed to have made a bid for Barnet's Giuliano Grazioli for £20,000 and offered him £2,200 a week. Considering that the weekly wage bill at many Conference South clubs is £3,000, the sums Hornchurch are splashing out are extraordinary.

 

Despite the level of spending, Hornchurch reportedly made a profit last season. They would have had to because a salary cap of 65 per cent of income is in place. Their exploits in last season's FA Cup brought in television money, but not enough to pay for all those players and still make a profit. The run to the second round of the Cup would have helped to attract players, though. Last season, they knocked out Darlington before losing a controversial tie against Tranmere, whose manager Brian Little described Hornchurch as their toughest opponents during their run to the quarter-finals.

 

The source of the Urchins' funding is as much of a mystery as the size of it. Two businessmen, both associated with the double-glazing company Bryco Windows, are rumoured to be chief financiers. Bryco are a subsidiary of The Carthium Group, who are developing a new sports complex in Harrow for Wealdstone FC in 2005.

 

Bryco first paid for a shirt sponsorship three years ago, with the proviso that their works team could use the pitch once a month, and have stayed loyal since. One of the businessmen is Hornchurch director Brian Eagling. Sources close to the club say he arrived with £10m to spend, with the aim of taking Hornchurch to the Football League.

 

The other man is Carl Williams, a reclusive businessman who is widely believed to be the club's 'non-league Abramovich' and who has been known to arrive at the ground in his own helicopter. According to Calder, though, Hornchurch do not have an Abramovich-style backer.

 

'There's not one person putting money in,' he says. 'Carl Williams is a fan of the club. He doesn't own it. Two off-shore companies own the club, but I'm not going down that route.'

 

The start of the Hornchurch evolution can be traced to 2001-02, when they won promotion to the new Ryman Division One North after the old members' club was disbanded and a limited company was formed. The potential fan base is small because they have Dagenham and, more significantly, West Ham playing nearby. Calder's explanation for the Bryco duo's involvement is simple. 'They're fans of the club. Also, people want to get involved in a successful club,' he says.

 

Hibernian assistant manager Mark Venus, a former Premiership defender with Ipswich, had spells at Hornchurch and Dagenham at the end of last season and agrees that it will be hard for Hornchurch to take fans from their rivals. 'Dagenham are more established with more history,' says Venus, who agrees with Calder that Hornchurch's spending is nothing spectacular. 'Weymouth have signed Steve Claridge and I don't think he is on peanuts. I've heard they're paying £3,000 a week to a player.'

 

Weymouth's ex-chairman and Observer columnist Ian Ridley confirms that Claridge is on £4,000 a week but that 'he's the highest-paid player by a long way'. The difference is that Weymouth have been able to make steady improvements on gates of 1,400, whereas Hornchurch have revamped their squad with far less income.

 

'I don't want to give the impression that I'm bleating, but Hornchurch are paying more than some of Millwall's FA Cup final team were getting,' Claridge says. 'I have a fantastic budget, but Gary Calder has moved the goalposts by setting aside £1.2m for wages alone. Hornchurch's wage bill is unrivalled in non-league.'

 

What do the league's governing body make of the situation? 'No one is registered as the official owner,' says Nationwide Conference chief executive John Moules, who is unconcerned about the involvement of offshore companies. 'It's a trend that's growing,' he says. 'We've no objections. During the past 18 months, every club in the Conference leagues has had at least one visit from the FA to check on finances and if there were any anomalies in Hornchurch, they would have picked them up.'

 

Even the players seem unsure of the source of funding. 'I don't know where the money is coming from,' says Braintree assistant manager Gary Abbott, who left Hornchurch during the summer.

 

Very few players turn down Hornchurch's offers. Even Dmitri Kharine, the former Chelsea and Russia goalkeeper, had a stint with the Urchins after leaving Celtic in 2002. It was a puzzling signing, but these are puzzling times at Hornchurch.

[Rob_the_Saint]

Quote:

The other man is Carl Williams, a reclusive businessman who is widely believed to be the club's 'non-league Abramovich' and who has been known to arrive at the ground in his own helicopter.

..and is frantically trying to play it down on the Conf South mesasage board. <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

[Big J R]

Personally - I think it's Unc. !!!

 

<img src="/images/graemlins/affig.gif" alt="" />

[YELLOW]

No of course it isn't!! Have you seen him? He definitely doesn't look a millionaire!! <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />