Batchelor hopes to take over Chester

Last week Bulls News reported that the infamous John Batchelor, photo copyright footyblog.net, was hoping to take over Chester City. Since then current owner Stephen Vaughan has dismissed his offer but Batchelor is insistant that he hasn't given up.

Chester appear to go from one crisis to another. Supporters have probably lost count of how many managers the club has had over the past few years. Current manager Mark Wright is in charge for the third time at the Deva Stadium or whatever it is now called.

So who is Batchelor and what would he do with Chester if he gained control?

The Guardian's respected journalist David Conn wrote an article on Batchelor last April. At this time he was aiming to take over Mansfield.

John Batchelor first rolled into football in March 2002 when he bought York City for £1 from the then majority owner Douglas Craig, who was threatening to withdraw the club from the Football League and sell the ground for housing.

Craig wanted £4.5m for Bootham Crescent and the supporters' trust agreed to back Batchelor's takeover because he said he had the money to buy it. He also promised he would give the trust a decisive 25.1% of the club's shares.

Batchelor whipped up some headlines for his idea to "brand" York City together with his motor racing team, but that was froth on impending financial meltdown and in December 2002 he put the club into administration. The fans' sense of betrayal that he never came through on his promises was then deepened by the discovery that he had made more than £300,000 from his association with the club.

The house builders, Persimmon, had agreed to buy Bootham Crescent and had paid £400,000 to Batchelor for sponsorship of "York Sporting Club", intended to be a merger of the football club and motor racing team. Batchelor paid £100,000 of it into the club, then steadily withdrew all but £30-40,000 to pay for his entertainment and expenses. He kept the other £300,000, spending a chunk of it on the car-racing, and while York were plunged into trauma he bought a house for £250,000.

Fast forward to last April. Batchelor tried to purchase Mansfield Town from un-popular owner Keith Haslam who wanted to sell for £1 and the charge £275,000 annual rent to the club, or £175,000 if Mansfield were relegated to the Conference. (Some Hereford United supporters may remember the Haslam Out banner at Edgar Street.) The fans thought otherwise and Batchelor didn't go ahead. Now Batchelor has moved to Chester.

His plans for Chester would involve a change of name. Harchester United from Sky's Dream Team programme has been mentioned. As he said in an interview with the Chester Chronicle last week he couldn't care about the fact that Chester had been in existance for 120 years.

Q. So you don’t think the fans play an important part in a football club?

A. Not interested. If they want to come and watch successful professional football in Chester – under whatever guise – if it belongs to me they will do it on my terms. If they don’t want to come, fine.

Q. What would you say to supporters who feel you are interfering with the history and tradition of the club?

A. I don’t care, basically, is the answer.

Q. Naming Chester after the fictional team Harchester United (from Sky TV’s Dream Team) has been mentioned. Is that something you would be interested in doing?

A. It’s possible that we could do that. It has just over 27,000 registered fans on the Harchester website. From a marketing perspective, it would be a lot easier to talk to them than the couple of thousand people who turn up at Chester.

Q. But just because people register themselves as fans on a website, it doesn’t mean they will travel to Chester to watch the team.

A. We don’t need them to travel. We don’t care whether they turn up or not.

Back to David Conn's article. He took a close look at some of Batchelor's recent dealings.

Batchelor's business record, available for scrutiny via Companies House, will not reassure any fan that he has greatly changed. Of 24 companies of which he has been a director, 14 have been or are about to be struck off the companies register, six have been insolvent, three are still going but he is no longer involved - he says he sold them on successfully - and only one small company in which he is a director is active.

Conn revealed that one company Batchelor took over was a family business called Moornate Chemists near Burnley.

David Brown, Moornate's former owner, says Batchelor promised to pay him £485,000 for the business, in instalments, and did pay him £70,000 up front. However, he has been left devastated, without the business he built up over 30 years, and still owed £415,000 of the price agreed. Batchelor, however, has said he bought and sold Moornate's factory, making £75,000 for himself.

"He ruins people's lives and walks away with money," Brown says. Several former staff of Besglos, and their families, are still struggling to recover, having moved to work for Batchelor on the promise of handsome salaries, then been left unpaid and lost their jobs.

Brown recalls that in one meeting Batchelor told him: "This is what I do for a living: I fuck companies."

Back to the Chester Chronicle and Batchelor set out his dream for the club.

I can create something for professional football in Chester that would maintain it if nobody turned up.

Vaughan is said to want around £2M for Chester City. Whether Batchelor can come up with enough cash is one thing. Whether the supporters would put up with him is another.

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