English football is preparing for a return to the dark ages – with clubs ready to beat soaring energy costs and blackouts with lunchtime kick-offs.
In a shock nationwide survey, 63 per cent of clubs – almost two in three – admitted they were considering early kick-offs to save on floodlighting costs when the clocks go back next month. And crusader Niall Couper warned: “Having survived the pandemic, the cost of living crisis could be the death knell for many clubs.”
League clubs on fixed rate energy plans expect their bills to triple this season, with the cost of operating floodlights soaring by more than £100,000-a-year alone. Campaigning group Fair Game say clubs outside the Premier League fear spiralling inflation and the national energy crisis will plunge them into oblivion.
Chief executive Couper warned: “Lower league football clubs are the heartbeat of their communities but right now they are in intensive care. We desperately need the Government to intervene. Since the turn of the century over a third of our top clubs have gone into administration and in the last couple of years, we’ve seen the demise of both Bury and Macclesfield.
"In 2020 – that’s before the pandemic – 52 per cent of our top clubs were technically insolvent. Since then, Covid-19 has put clubs on the brink and the cost of living crisis could be the end of the road for many.”
It is 50 years since English football beat the blackouts during Ted Heath's Tory government by playing midweek games with 2.15pm kick-offs.
Non-League FA Cup giant-killers Hereford, who knocked out top-flight Newcastle, went out in the fourth round against West Ham in 1972 after a replay played at Upton Park on a Monday afternoon because of blackouts during the miners' strike. It required a Geoff Hurst hat-trick to end the minnows' fairytale run.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the likely shortage of energy this winter, could force clubs to play fixtures in daylight-only hours again.
