Start From Scratch
Enfield Town, the first 100% fan-owned club in England
Paul Millington could have have spent last season cheering on his boyhood club Arsenal, to their first Premier league title in more than two decades. He might even have enjoyed the glamorous bonus of a trip to the Champions League Final in Budapest, where Mikel Arteta’s side pushed the mighty Paris St Germain all the way in extra time, before losing on penalties. As it was, the cheery, silver haired 60-something was embroiled in the rather more prosaic task of helping Enfield Town avoid relegation to the seventh tier of English football. Even though it was ultimately a losing battle, I suspect he hasn’t spent a nanosecond regretting his choice.
For one thing, as vice chairman of the UK’s first supporter owned club, Millington has had too many other things on his mind; not least the departure of Gavin MacPherson, who quit following relegation from National League South. Who to appoint now? And does the main stand needs a lick of paint before the new season, too? Such are the pitfalls and pleasures of running your own football operation.
Fan-owned clubs never spontaneously erupt. They are usually formed out of a sense of desperation; either because the bailiffs are knocking at the door, or due to irreconcilable differences between the boardroom and the terraces. Enfield Town was an example of the latter; a defiant pushback against the departure of the original Enfield FC from their traditional home at Southbury Road. The villain of piece - at least from the supporters’ point of view - was then owner Tony Lazarou, a local property agent, who was eager to cash in on the long lease he held on the Council-owned site, so that it could be developed for housing and a leisure complex.
Enfield would have to find a new home and as Millington recalls, "the justification was that the club needed to expand. So the reaction was, ‘what’s the plan? Where are we going to go?’ As time went on, it was clear there was no plan.”
This was height of the Rave era and - fearing for the future - Enfield fans formed a pressure group in 1998 with the jokey name ‘Keep The E’s in Enfield’.
“We started canvassing politicians, getting petitions on the front page of the local papers. We even made it to the national press,” Millington says.
It was all to no avail; Southbury Road was sold for nearly £4 million, leaving supporters with the choice of either following Enfield FC 10 miles west to its new temporary base at Borehamwood; or starting from scratch with their own club within the north London borough that had been ‘home’ since 1893. There was a schism: a few dozen loyalists followed the original club (still owned by Lazarou) to Hertfordshire, but Millington, his close friend Dave Bryant and others felt they had wasted enough time fighting a losing battle. They walked away from the E’s and set up The Towners - Enfield Town FC, England’s first 100% fan-owned club.
As Millington describes it, the divorce was a long time coming. Enfield had been one of the country’s most successful non-league clubs from the mid 60’s onwards, winning both the FA Trophy and the FA Amateur Cup at Wembley, and twice topping the Conference in the days before that guaranteed promotion to the Football League. Although they had fallen away from those heights by the mid-90s, they were still a well-respected force in the non-league game, even as supporters were learning to mistrust the owner.
Their worst fears were realised when Lazarou threatened legal action against the local council, which had held back £750,000 from the sale of Southbury Road for the purchase of a new ground. The local authority buckled under pressure and once Lazarou had pocketed the cash, it was clear that Enfield wouldn’t be playing in the EN postcode any time soon, putting booster rockets under the breakaway movement. (The original club, in fact, never returned and went bust in 2007; a successor team which carries its name now plays in Hertfordshire, a tier below Enfield Town).
Being a loyal fan - even one who attends every game - is one thing; running your own club is an altogether weightier commitment, and Millington chuckles at the memory: “I feel that I was conned into it. We went into it completely blind, not knowing exactly what it involves. My mate, Dave Bryant decided that he was happy to stand as Chair. And he said, ‘could I help him out?’ And I said, ‘well, I haven’t got too much on at work in the next couple of weeks, I’ll help you out.’ And here we are, 25 years later, still doing all the various jobs.”
Those early days coincided with the launch of Supporters Direct, the government backed organisation created to help fans get an voice in the clubs they supported. Prime Minister Andy Burnham was its Chair for a while in the 2000s and Millington says SD’s assistance was invaluable. “Brian Lomax, who was the first Chair, was remarkable. What a legend. He lived in Rugby and used to come along to our meetings on his motor scooter. It energised everybody there because he had been involved in a Supporters Trust at Northampton Town. And he said, ‘this is the model. You can do this, we’ll support you.’ He knew us as well. He said, ‘you’ve got the people that can actually run the club.’”
Many of the backroom staff from the fledgling Enfield Town FC were recruited from the original Enfield FC. Like Millington, they were disenchanted with Lazarou and, crucially, possessed the skills to take the new entity forward. “They knew how football clubs run and what you need to do to actually make it work. So we had everything in place. We put it forward to a meeting. Should we start a new club? That meeting unanimously agreed to do so. So we then had three weeks to find a league, to find a team, to find a ground. And my first job was to appoint the manager, and I’m thinking ‘I’m a supporter, I’ve never done anything like this before…”
Before the big kick-off, a groundshare was arranged with neighbours Brimsdown - crucially, still within Enfield - before a move to the characterful QEII stadium, now named after founding chairman Dave Bryant, where the Towners have a 99-year lease. It boasts an art deco clubhouse and while the pitch is surrounded by a running track, the stands behind both goals are actually inside its circumference, meaning that supporters can get still get close to the action.
Having started in the Essex Senior League - Step 5 of the non-league system - Town progressed to Step 2 - the National League South, with Millington counting a play-off victory at Chatham in 2024 as the highlight of his time at the club. After two seasons of playing against clubs with much better resources - and wealthy backers - Town are now back in the Isthmian Premier, funded only by supporter owners (like me) and a loyal hardcore of around 800 fans. Not exactly Arsenal, is it? But for Millington, that’s the point. He has a connection with Enfield Town that no regular Gunners fan will ever enjoy. “It’s been a remarkable experience,” he reflects. “I think of people that I’ve worked with, friendships that I’ve made - memories that I don’t think you could actually experience without us being a supporter owned club. I’m amazed at times that a club that a few friends put together wins a game. And it’s been hard work. All of us supporters had full time jobs and I had a young family at the time we were founded as well, but you do it because it’s your passion, it’s what you want to do. You want to succeed, and want to make the best of it.”
An expanded version of this story will appear in my forthcoming book, ‘Confessions of a Football Club Owner.’