For Southport FC, dawn breaks
Plus: Is it the end of the 'big stink'?
Hello and welcome to the 62nd edition of The Southport Lead.
August is a busy month for the town. Along with the seasonal rush of tourists, there’s also the Southport Flower Show and the Southport Air Show - and the return of the football season.
Yesterday, saw Southport FC host its first home game of the 2025-26 season and this was a more significant landmark than in many years. Under the previous ownership, the club - which is more than 125 years old - was on the brink of going out of business during the summer.
After a baptism of fire to rebuild a broken club, intensive work was needed to ensure that not only was a team on the pitch, but that a longer-term future can be viable. An all-too-rare win on the pitch. So, can fans start to believe that the transition from Big Help to real hope is happening?
A new season and a new chapter
By Jamie Lopez
As I made the walk to Haig Ave - thankfully no longer named the Big Help Stadium - yesterday, I was heading to what would be the first match I’d watched there in 10 months.
Once a season ticket holder and then still a semi-regular attendee as life got busier, a combination of personal reason and disillusionment meant I had become one of the many who drifted away from the club last season.
This is a very familiar story - those who grew up watching the club stop attending either because they’ve moved away, their lives got too busy or they simply stopped enjoying the experience. Not finishing in the top half of any league since 2012 means it’s not the kind of place for those seeking glory.
Recent years have seen a lot of change behind the scenes. Multiple changes of ownership followed the long reign of Charlie Clapham - including a brief spell of big money spent not particularly well and a difficult recovery period as then-millionaire Phil Hodgkinson came and went.
Ian Kyle was the man left to steady the ship, a process which involved significant cost-cutting, a global pandemic, and a frustrating spell having to deal with some wannabe hooligans more interested in fighting and flares than football.
Next up, The Big Help Project…
From the moment a charity announced it would take over a football club with its ‘profit making arm’, eyebrows were raised. When new chairman Peter Mitchell told fans he hoped to see the club back in the Football League within five years, alarm bells rang.
We’ve heard this kind of talk before and it can be a frightening prospect. Naivety in football
But even someone as cynical as me didn’t predict how bad things would get. The first team not having kits in time for the start of the season and food and drink queues which couldn’t handle even small attendances proved to be among the more minor issues.
“When you find out the Charity Commission is investigating your owners,” one fans remarked, “you do look around and think ‘what the f*ck* is going on?”
That investigation raised “concerns around trustee decision making, potential unauthorised trustee benefit and unmanaged conflicts of interest”. That list barely scratches the surface of what has been reported.
The charity has since collapsed, while Mitchell and partner Colette Goulding have been declared bankrupt. Quietly, the football club has entered a similarly perilous state.
New owners David Cunningham and Kieran Malone have made no secret of the fact they never planned to get involved in running a football club, but instead say they were effectively left without choice after attending a match. What they inherited included huge debts and creaking infrastructure.
Speaking to Ste Killen of Off The Park - which is a must-subscribe if you want to know what’s happening at the club - Cunningham said: “The previous owners effectively threw us on our toes and said, ‘if you don’t [takeover] we will cease trading by the start of next season, they were going to lock the doors forever.
“There’s people there who give 60 to 70 hours per week volunteering and it’s their life, it played our heart strings and we thought, ‘sh*t, we’re not letting the people who own it down, it’s the people who live it’.
“I think they knew if we didn’t take over then the club would have to lock the doors, that’d be it, the end of Southport.”
Similar comments were shared with Dan Hayes, whose Southport Central blog contains more details of what financial troubles were being faced (containing unmanageable debts, a fine from the National League, and even CCJs).
Throughout all of this, one constant has been disappointment on the pitch. Liam Watson, the club’s most successful manager and someone who has been critical in ensuring its survival behind the scenes, stayed too long and performances were even worse than the results - and they were very bad indeed.
Jim Bentley was next in and backed with an increased budget which saw a squad compromising too many injury-prone, past-their-best, and never-going-to-make-it players were given very generous contracts. It started well but like so many before him, he found long-term achievement harder to come by than the initial bounce.
A lack of goals and excitement saw him depart during last season, though ultimately with enough points to avoid the threat of relegation. He left with a good relationship with fans, though we’ve hardly been spoiled - recent years have seen our club finish its lowest ever league position and come close to that more than once.
So what now?
A corner has certainly been turned and expectations remain minimal. As Dan wrote:
“We’re not asking for miracles. Just a pint before full-time, a scoreboard that isn’t running on Windows 95, a kit you can actually buy, and floodlights that last the full ninety. Ideally all at once, but we’ll take it in stages.
“We don’t need a billionaire. We don’t need Premier League dreams. But we could do without ownership structures that involve six shell companies and a PO box in Luxembourg. We’d like to go a whole season without reading about bankrupt directors, administration, liquidation or dissolved charities. Just once.
“What supporters want, more than anything, is honesty. No more castles in the sky. No more stadiums built on hope and hot air. Just tell us what’s possible. What’s not. And let us come along for the ride without having to Google who owns the club every other Tuesday.”
Walking into Haig Ave yesterday afternoon, the sun was shining, the music was playing and the atmosphere was… positive.
The new marquee erected in the corner between the Main Stand and the Jack Carr Stand was busy, with two bars, pre-and-post-match drinks offers and live entertainment, it’s clear there is a desire to make the matchday more than just a two hour experience - and a hand on attitude exemplified by seeing one co-owner try to teach people how to wait at a bar, not queue.
The charity match last week - which attracted 3,500 spectators and raised a truly impressive £48,000 for the families affected by last year’s attack - was another clear sign that the club wants to properly engage with the community. Not in the empty-worded way the previous ownership suggested, but an actual, tangible effort.
Today, an almost entirely new squad took to the field - albeit with a few familiar faces including Mark Duffy as assistant manager and, in Tony McMillan, a sub goalkeeper I first watched play for Southport in 2008 - and were led out by new manager Neil Danns.
After being defeated by one newly promoted side in Merthyr Town last week (do look that up on a map if you want to appreciate the baffling geography of the National League North), another upcomer posed the opposition today in Bedford Town (also look that up on a map if you want to appreciate the baffling geography of the National League North).
What we saw included an attempt at progressive football which over the course of the season will frustrate many (including the man who shouted “look forward” after another sideways pass) and will really be tested when the pitches struggle in poor weather but it was at least an attempt to modernise.
The match ended with a 3-1 win against an admittedly very poor side and didn’t offer much insight on where Southport can hope to finish this season. Given the squad is very young and largely assembled from levels comfortably the seventh tier in which we operate, few expect to be troubling the upper end of the table. This season, we at least hope to avoid talk of relegation to a historic low but only time will tell on that front.
Lots has changed at the football club. Yes, the food queues were still laughably long but there are bigger things to worry about and there’s no reason why this won’t improve.
More than 1,000 home fans turned out for the game - friends were reunited after months apart; multiple generations of families attended the match together; and, above all, the show went on.
This historic club lives to fight another day. Now let’s see what the team can do.
Recommended reading
🚓 Bebe King’s grandfather has spoken against new guidance which encourages police to name the race and nationality of suspects. His comments are well worth reading and thinking about - read in The Guardian.
📚 The Liverpool Echo has the uplifting story of a schoolgirl who recovered from illness to achieve very impressive A-Level results. Her comments are also well worth a read.
End of the big stink is in sight
By Elliot Jessett
A ‘stink pipe’ has ‘plagued’ residents for five years, according to one local councillor – with the smell described as resembling ‘rotten fishtails and expired milk’.
However, after more than a year of negotiations with United Utilities, Liberal Democrat councillors for Cambridge and Meols Wards in Sefton released a joint statement welcoming plans for the installation of a new sewage ventilation stack on Cambridge Road in Churchtown.
They said the proposed works have been green-lit by United Utilities after 12 months of dialogue between the water firm and the ward councillors, and will be completed in September.
Cllr Mike Sammon said the new ventilation stack would replace the “Churchtown stink pipe” and could put an end to the ‘long-standing odour issues affecting local residents and businesses’.
In July 2024, Cllr Mike Sammon said he wrote to United Utilities CEO Louise Beardmore raising residents’ concerns. This led to a meeting between Cambridge and Meols Ward Liberal Democrat councillors and the local United Utilities team at the Crowland Street Pumping Station. This was followed with another letter to Ms Beardmore who confirmed the matter was being treated as a priority.
In September 2024, the LDRS reported on the concerns Jennifer Berrett and Rebekah Ryan from DBA School of Dance who said the problem with the smell and the pipe had been ongoing for a number of years. Jennifer said at the time: “Sometimes when new visitors come into reception instead of the happy warm welcome we want to give, their first words are always about the smell outside.”
Responding to a question about the nature of the smell, Ms Berrett added: “I asked my eight year old and she said ‘rotten fishtails and expired milk and eggs’. I would say sewage. The kind of smell that makes everyone you pass crinkle their nose.”
Responding to those concerns, Cllr Sammon said: “Everyone knows about this issue and it’s well known in the area – particularly the air vent which has the nickname ‘stink pipe’ – and it’s been going on for five years.”
Since then, Cllr Sammon said he has received regular updates on the plans to resolve the issue, resulting in confirmation that the existing “stink pipe” will be replaced by a new vent stack with replaceable carbon filter. The Cambridge ward councillor added: “I’ve been bothered by this smell for years and it was one of the first issues I started working on once I was elected last year.
“I’m really pleased that it seems we are close to a resolution and hope it will make a noticeable difference to the people living and working nearby and it should benefit the local businesses too.”
Cllr John Dodd, Liberal Democrat Councillor for Meols Ward, said:”Residents have had to put up with this for far too long, it is one of the most frequently raised issues in Churchtown.
“We have pushed hard for a solution and it’s great to think it’s close to being resolved. We will continue to monitor the situation and work with United Utilities to ensure the equipment delivers the benefits promised.”
A United Utilities spokesperson, said: “Following further investigations with a specialist contractor, we have identified and ordered a solution that we expect will significantly reduce the odour issues that the local community has reported.
“The work is due to be completed in the coming months.”
What’s On This Week: August 17-24
By Andrew Brown
August is a busy time for Southport!
Thousands of families have been enjoying the 2025 Southport Flower Show - and in just a few days’ time you can sit back and enjoy everything on offer in the August Bank Holiday Weekend too, including the annual S&Beer Fest.
Here’s what’s on in Southport between Sunday 17th August and Sunday 24th August 2025:
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