FROM SMALL TIME TO BIG TIME

Mike Wheat has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with Longton RUFC near Stoke on Trent. As chairman of the club, he has seen it rise from nothing into a thriving business with a bright future ahead of it. MATTHEW MOGGRIDGE reports

On exposed high ground, surrounded by industrial warehousing, is Longton RUFC, a thriving rugby club established in 1952 but with a history dating back before the Second World War when it was a satellite club of Stoke on Trent RFC.

Today, the club offers a modern, recently-built club house and attracts a great deal of function trade, according to chairman Mick Wheat, who was in grave danger of telling me everything about the place before I had time to reach for my notepad.

We were driving along the Longton Road from Trentham, discussing the club. At one stage there was no club house, he told me, and the players used to change at Longton Grammar, Mick’s old school. They played on pitches rented from Stoke City Council on a former aerodrome and were, in effect, nomads until a merger was proposed between Longton RUFC and Caverswall Cricket Club.

The cricket club was keen to have Longton onboard as two clubs are better than one and it would mean increased turnover and bar takings. It worked well; there was a new clubhouse, changing rooms and showers, but when it came to making things more official with the members, the plan was defeated by just one vote at a time when Longton was running four senior teams.

“Caverswall’s members were worried that we would take over, but that was never our intention,” said Mick, explaining how Longton had to leave the Caverswall ground and start looking for premises of its own. Fortunately, a private landowner was trying hard, but failing, to sell a house and land and was being pressurised by the bank, because of a bridging loan. Being a rugby fanatic, the man approached Longton RUFC.

“When you’ve got nothing, something is wonderful,” said Mick who saw potential in the site. It was 1975 and the price was £10,000 - a lot of cash if you’ve only got £3,000 in the bank, but with a bit of government funding they managed to scrap together the funds only to discover that the price had to go up to £15,000. Eventually, they settled on £10,500. “It was the best we could do and they agreed,” said Mick.

The club house was ready for the start of the 1975/76 season and the first pint was pulled on December 20 1975. Longton remained there for 31 years and found themselves in the lower etchelons of the Staffordshire and Warwickshire leagues, making their way into the Midlands leagues and finally into the old National League 3 (North) where they played all the top clubs and was only once beaten heavily (against Waterloo) when the club lost 53-5.

“We worked our way up on the strength of a very good Colts team. I developed them,” said Mick, explaining how Longton players have never been paid to play.

In addition to its main ground, Longton had purchased eight acres of land for £20,000 from a local farmer, giving the club two extra pitches for junior games. The team was the best in the region and had won the Staffordshire Cup on more than one occasion, but the ground was restrictive so the club approached Stoke City Council for advice on where to move.

An industrial reclaim site was suggested and the council came up with a huge space on Trentham Lakes. Stoke City FC had relocated to the site, there was a hotel, a cricket club and a sports club already there, along with a few industrial units and a space in the middle for sports and leisure.

Stoke City FC had supposedly earmarked several acres for training purposes but this eventually fell through. It was the turn of the new millennium when the club went into discussions about the land, but the big sticking point was funding to reclaim the land for sporting use, lay the car park and, of course, boundary fencing.

Advantage West Midlands, a government quango, and the local authority provided funding the to the tune of £2.1 million for the cost of land reclaim, but Longton would have to fund the building of the clubhouse. It meant selling its old ground to a property development company, who turned it into residential housing - four high quality detached houses were built in keeping with the locality. The club sold the land for £650,000, not bad considering it only cost them £10,500.

With the money, Longton built a small club house on eight acres of ground it had bought from a local farmer to accommodate junior games, and the rest went towards the construction of a larger club house on what is now the Longton RUFC ground. Planning permission for the big club house was granted on the basis that the aforementioned eight acres of ground be retained as a sporting facility.

Club Design from Manchester handled the construction and design of the new clubhouse and the smaller one, which was 55 per cent funded by the Football Foundation. It cost a total of £300,000 and Longton put in 45 per cent. Longton still owns the land and leases it to a local football club. The money remaining went into the development of the larger clubhouse.

Funding for the larger clubhouse came from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust, an organisation charged with the task of finding community uses for former National Coal Board land; as well as monies from Sport England and Stoke City Council. There was also funding from Awards for All, the Landfill Communities Fund and the Rugby Football Foundation.

William Morris, from Newcastle Under Lyme handled interior design and the theme revolves around the club’s colours of black and gold. For a year, the club relied upon two Portakabins joined together for its clubhouse and changing rooms, but today the new clubhouse has been in use for two years and the club has developed its function business considerably over that period.

“We wanted to see if we could develop day time trade (such as conferences and meetings),” said Wheat, explaining how Longton was anxious to develop links with Stoke City FC as well as local schools.

Stoke City FC have been ‘a sort of partner’, according to Wheat and regularly use Longton’s Astro Turf pitch. Longton had no plans for an astro turf facility but was offered one by the Football Foundation who, together with Barclays Bank, jointly funded it. There were no direct costs and a sports development officer was thrown in for good measure. The club will fund future re-surfacing work.

 

Local football teams use Longton’s Astro Turf facility in the evenings, while Stoke City FC uses it occasionally during the day. Other links with the Premiership club include the use of Longton’s car park. Stoke City Premier Parking was set up to provide secure parking (plus aftermatch access to the club) for 25 to 30 cars. The revenue for Longton (£700 to £1,000 across the bar) is good and the facility is only available to Stoke City FC fans and limited so as to make room for rugby.

Because other function business is generated via wordof- mouth recommendation, the club hasn’t spent any money on advertising. According to Wheat, Longton’s function suite is a hidden treasure because it’s a bit off the beaten track. “Everytime there’s a function, somebody ‘notices’ it,” he said, explaining how nobody under 21 can use it as fights and drunkenness is a recipe for disaster. “We do allow kid’s parties if they supervised by parents,” he said.

Club manager Mike Robinson is building a database of clients and there are plans for a marketing website advertising the facility for conferences and weddings, funerals and christenings, although even Robinson admits that word-of-mouth is by far the best business generator.

According to Robinson, from 100 people visiting the club’s function suite, two to three will make a booking. Right now there is not a free Saturday until October and up to 18 weddings have been booked for 2011. At present the functions tend to run on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Weekends are pretty hectic and there is not much capacity left except for mid-week and during the day. “There’s always something going on,” said Robinson.

There are two rentable rooms - the Martin Hamer Suite (the smaller of the two) and the larger and, as yet, unnamed room. The former seats 45 and the latter 100, theatre style.

A foodservice facility is available through Jez Moss and his wife who can produce buffets, breakfasts, sit-down meals and barbecues when required.

On the playing side, Longton’s management is fairly active in pursuing new players, according to Wheat. “Because we’re the top team in Staffordshire, it’s the ambition of any junior club player to come here,” he said, stressing that the club will try not to poach players. “We say, ‘if you want to play at a higher level, come along,” he added. Longton resides in National League 3 and is one below the top of the league.

Various initiatives are underway at Longton including a plan to introduce children’s rugby coaching. An under-14s and under-15s birthday package is being developed whereby children have one hour on the Astro Turf pitch, under parental supervision, followed by their party.

The overall strategy is for Longton to develop a number of different revenue streams so that it doesn’t have to rely upon a limited group of people for its survival. With the help of Derek Walker, a former first team player, the plan is to broaden the club’s appeal. Walker is chair of the club’s disciplinary committee and is part of the social development group alongside Jez Moss, Longton’s social secretary.

The bar provides a constant source of revenue, at roughly £3,000 per week. Coors supplies the club, but there are no brewery loans.

Other major revenue sources are the Astro Turf facility, the football pitches and the training area, all of which have little costs attached. There are four rugby pitches, one football pitch and a full-size training pitch. Advertising on the first team pitch is based on two-year deals with options beyond that time frame.

“There’s plenty of scope and we want to fill both sides. We want to make the first team pitch self-contained and enclosed for protection from the wind,” said Wheat, explaining how the prevailing wind was from the South West and that the clubhouse provided some protection. For the longer term, there are plans for a small stand and possibly some terracing too.

The clubhouse belongs to the club and the land surrounding it is on a long-term lease from Stoke-on-Trent City Council. “We’ve got a 50-year lease and a 50-year extension on a peppercorn rent,” Wheat said, adding that the City of Stoke-on-Trent had been very supportive of the club.

“It’s a challenge; we’ve gone from running a small time club to a business and we have to run it that way. There are accounting responsibilities and cost centres and we’re fortunate in that we have several of us who are retired and who have held senior positions in business. The big concern is about succession planning, especially when you’ve got something like this,” Wheat concluded.