English Club to be Renamed After a Soap Opera?
They say football has become a soap opera in England these days, the ups and downs, personalities and media focus generating an endless stream of lurid and controversy-driven storylines capturing the nation’s attention. The man bidding to buy Mansfield Town wants to take this a step further and rename the club “Harchester United”, the fictional name of the team in Sky Television’s soccer soap opera, Dream Team.
You may scoff, but I think you’ll find John Batchelor, the prospective owner in question, has an irrefutable logic behind this proposal:
“Football supporters in general have to understand that if they want professional football in their town, they have to accept it has to be done on a commercial basis.
“Harchester is more promotable than Mansfield. That’s not any form of insult to Mansfield at all because it’s a club with a long tradition but it’s just a fact of life.
“One club has been on the television for 10 years and the other one hasn’t.”
Mr. Batchelor has, as they say, form on this kind of behaviour. Of his many ill-fated schemes while helping drive York City into the ground, one included renaming the club York City Soccer Club to attract American interest. Batchelor has confessed to asset-stripping companies, making £120,000 out of York City (having bought it for £1 eighteen months earlier) before its collapse.
Dream Team ran on Sky for a decade until 2007, attracting something of a cult following that Batchelor apparently believes would start supporting Mansfield Town if they were renamed Harchester.
To be fair to Batchelor, he’s not exactly shy about revealing his motives, as he told fans recently:
Let’s be clear, I want a football club, preferably one in the league. The ONLY reason that I want it is to make money, the only reason that I want to do that is to look after my immediate family. I can only do that by making it work on the pitch and as a result making it work commercially. This would be MY club, if you like what you see come and watch, if you don’t, then stay away. I am not even interested in discussing it with “fans”, however, I will talk to customers anytime. If Mansfield is going to host professional football, it has to accept that there need to be some HUGE changes at this club. If the fans don’t want to host it, all they need to do is not turn up. I have a plan, and I have a vision of what football needs to do, I am going to do my best to achieve it, I am not a multi-millionaire, just a guy who has some idea’s who is prepared to have a go and take a risk”
“I will budget for no fans turning up at the ground, which really every club should do. As you will have seen from my replies, I am not trying to attract negative thinkers, either get behind this, or watch football somewhere else. IF I am successful in achieving ownership, this will be MY club, MY business and up to me to provide entertainment, it is MY risk. Come and watch if you want. I’m sorry if all of that sounds a bit brutal, but those would be the facts of life, and I do not want to get off on the wrong foot by telling anybody something that is misleading, as I said in an earlier response I have that T-shirt. What do you want? I would have thought that it would be better to start off with honest responses. I am in this to make money.
Will current owner Keith Haslam actually sell to Batchelor after this has hit the news? Haslam himself is wildly unpopular in Mansfield for mismanaging the club for many years, but many fans now fear it could get worse before it gets better.
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After having lived just south of Mansfield for the better part of a year, I have to admit he has an irrefutable logic that Harchester is more marketable. In fact, when I started reading the article, it took me nearly a minute to realize that I once lived on Mansfield road.
Sometimes, I think the whole of it–the town, the road, the whole kit and kaboodle–would be better off as a TV show rather than existing in reality. I mean, if you’re not from there, why would you ever want to go there?
There is always a certain sadness in stories like this. It’s always frustrating when club owners don’t realize (or don’t care) that there is an emotional patrimony over which they are trustees, willing or not.
How, exactly, is Harchester more marketable? Aside from the early going, when I am sure they’ll get a lot of press and sell a lot of shirts because of the novelty factor, are people really going to start following a team because it has the same name as one on tv? I’d figure it’d be quite the opposite: renaming the team Harchester would make the team into a joke.
Then again, if the price for buying Mansfield Town is low enough, maybe the shirt-buying that will accompany the initial novelty is enough to turn a profit.
I think that may well be part of his “budget for no fans turning up at the ground”.
Well, I suppose that the only thing you can say in favour of this fella is that he’s honest. That makes him marginally better in my book than a Hicks, Gillette or Glazer when they come out and say that they are “soccer” fans. It’s up to the fans and people of Mansfield now to try and come up with a counter bid to stave off this attempt.
Perhaps the FA could do something decisive and come quickly out to state that there could not be a name change (thought new clubs or changes to names had to have a geographical context anyway?). I won’t be holding my breath waiting for them though.
John Batchelor is a wanker!!!!!!!
I liked his line about ‘not attracting negative thinkers.’ What he doesn’t understand is that football in England would collapse if it weren’t for the power of negative thinking! Week in, week out, fans continue to go to games knowing that their team is likely to get beaten.
Sadly, I fear that we’re going to hear more and more of these stories in the future.
I love it. Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake aren’t sounding so bad now are they MLS fans? What a joke.
I demand that the Philly expansion team be named “FC As The World Turns” and Seattle be named “General Hospital United” they have a certain immediacy to them.
I like this quote: “One club has been on the television for 10 years and the other one hasn’t.”
Uhh, yeah, except for the mere two times they’ve been shown on BBC1 this season in the FA Cup. The man’s a joke but he’s still a “fit and proper person” in the FA’s eyes because he’s only taken one club into administration. You have to take down two to be considered a bit iffy, you see.
Mr. Batchelor has, as they say, form. Of his many ill-fated schemes included renaming the club York City Soccer Club to attract American interest.
Batchelor has confessed to asset-stripping companies, making £120,000 out of York City (having bought it for £1 eighteen months earlier) before its collapse.
This John Batchelor geezer sounds like a right plum. He shouldnt be allowed to own anything let alone an historic football club. The bloke is a free loading parasite. If you think this bloke is bad you should go to this link and read it right down to the bottom.
http://www.yorkcityfc.com/articles/brucey_ourclub.php
The wacker who owned York before Batchelor was a %^&*! I hope Batchelor isnt as bad for Mansfield as he was for York. If I were a Mansfield fan id make sure this idiot didnt come anywhere near my club.
This sort of stuff really gets my gut. Thing is we can play it on the Tv companies etc etc but at the end of the day it’s “our” fault for empowering the b*stards in the first place.
Hello, mansfield are now one of the favs to go
up back to the league where we belong next season, we are now owned by 3 long life supporters who together are actually filthy rich, also in 2009 we’rre unbeaten at home. LONG LIVE MANSFIELD TOWN