[Football] Scunthorpe on the brink

[Hamilton]

Scunthorpe's owner David Hilton has withdrawn funding from the club. The club have announced that they are to play games 16 miles away at Gainsborough Trinity. But, surprise surprise, Gainsborough say they know nothing about the arrangement.

Hilton bought the club off Peter Swann in January. Swann retained ownership of Glanford Park despite falling foul of the fans ire. Swann appears to have run up huge gambling debts.

You might see David Hilton as a knight in shining armour, but no. Hilton has admitted on a podcast to having served time for fraud. He has served nine months of a two-year sentence for 15 counts of fraud worth a total of £68,000.

Now fans have been banned from entering the stadium because they have spoken out against the club. Would be great to get @The Albion Roar in contact with Scunthorpe's Iron Bru podcast as it looks like those are the guys who have been told they are not welcome.

How do the FA still allow these people in to run football clubs? What are they doing?

It's all depressingly familiar.

Do put the Northampton story to one side. That's not the fans fault. They face losing their club.

What can you do?

Write to Mark Bullingham at the FA to ask why David Hilton and Peter Swann were approved as fit and proper owners: sgpenquiries@TheFA.com
(unsurprisingly, the FA make it hard to find ways of contacting them, so in the first instance go via St George's Park.)

Write to the Football Ombudsman to ask why Scunthorpe United fans are being prevented from attending games for voicing opposition to the current owners: contact@theifo.co.uk

Attend a game if you're in the area.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Possibly the coldest I have ever been at a football ground was sometime in January 1986 at the Old Show Ground. I don't recall anything about the game (even the away team), except it was an evening game and snowing.

 

[bhafc99]

Anyone else remember the NSC Scunny Honey episode…?

 

[Poojah]

Even as a Grimsby fan, it is genuinely heartbreaking what’s happening to Scunny. In a nutshell, their owner (who was recently outed as a compulsive gambler) spunked about £11m trying to get them in the Championship, failed, cut spending to the absolute minimum and now it seems wants to recoup his losses by selling the land on which their stadium and training ground sits. Sound familiar?

Of course, for that to happen he needs the club to cease to exist, which is pretty much the direction they are heading in. I think it’s almost unsalvageable now. When will the game act to stop rogue individuals killing historic assets of the community?

 

[Shooting Star]

Very sad. I grew up in Lincolnshire and was a mascot for Albion at Scunny. Late 90s. Think we lost 3-1 and Jamie Moralee came on as a sub and got sent off within a couple of minutes for hitting a Scunny player. One of my favourite Albion memories.

 

[rool]

Anyone else remember the NSC Scunny Honey episode…?

First thing that came into my head

 

[Gwylan]

One of my best mates when I lived in London was a Scunny fan. I even went to a few games with him when Brighton matches were postponed. I went with him to a grudge derby against Lincoln at The Old Show Ground. He died a few years back so he never lived to see them go out of the league but I can't help feeling a tinge of sadness on his behalf - what a mess!

 

[hart's shirt]

Anyone else remember the NSC Scunny Honey episode…?

One of NSC's finest voting sabotage moments.

Our choice for Miss Scunny Honey 2000...Vicki Peck.

The other contestants can be found here.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001209215200/http://www.vikingfm.co.uk/honey.htm

 

[Chicken Run]

Brings shivers to my spine reading this, to many memories, pray for Scunthorpe, iirc Ian Botham played for them a few times?

 

[Hamilton]

Even as a Grimsby fan, it is genuinely heartbreaking what’s happening to Scunny. In a nutshell, their owner (who was recently outed as a compulsive gambler) spunked about £11m trying to get them in the Championship, failed, cut spending to the absolute minimum and now it seems wants to recoup his losses by selling the land on which their stadium and training ground sits. Sound familiar?

Of course, for that to happen he needs the club to cease to exist, which is pretty much the direction they are heading in. I think it’s almost unsalvageable now. When will the game act to stop rogue individuals killing historic assets of the community?

It’s seems as if the FA haves learned nothing in the past 25 years (not that we were the first to suffer from having appalling owners.)

Fans United was an idea that could have created a groundswell to arrest situations like this, but it didn’t and hasn’t. What a shame.

 

[Boys 9d]

I have had an interest in the fortunes/misfortunes of Scunthorpe United since 1958 when we became the last team to be promoted from Division 3 South (remember in those days there was only one promotion spot. Scunthorpe were the team in that year promoted from Division 3 North.

 

[LennyTee]

Probably shouldn't but number 32.

 

[Papak]

One of NSC's finest voting sabotage moments.

Our choice for Miss Scunny Honey 2000...Vicki Peck.

The other contestants can be found here.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001209215200/http://www.vikingfm.co.uk/honey.htm

View attachment 155762

I remember that like it was yesterday not 23 years ago!!!

 

[worthingseagull123]

So sad to hear. I hope they manage to sort themselves out.

 

[HastingsSeagull]

Nuneaton Town know all about Norman Smurthwaite so worrying if he's the 'saviour'.

 

[RexCathedra]

Vy sad. One of my all-time fav badges...

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/onesport/cps/976/cpsprodpb/2F49/production/_127850121_gettyimages-1298877394.jpg

 

[5Ways Gull]

Brings shivers to my spine reading this, to many memories, pray for Scunthorpe, iirc Ian Botham played for them a few times?

I think Keegan and Ray Clemence played for them earlier in their careers. Used to be one of those trick questions, name 3 future England captains that played for Scunthorpe.

 

[jcdenton08]

f***ing come on the Albion!!!!!!!

 

[Leekbrookgull]

BBC reports a certain Alan Hardy ex-Notts County is planning to put in a bid and i believe that he has baggage.

 

[inland seagull]

As a Sussex exile living in Northampton, I'll never forgive them for their actions in the last game of last season. They can rot in hell for all I care