Chris Ward

I want to briefly tell the story of my local club, Brighton and Hove Albion, which is very much the story of the recent highs and lows of English football. In summary, I have been a Brighton fan for 30 years. The first 15 of those were pretty terrible, but the second 15 have been fantastic. In that time we have played in all four leagues. We were one game away from going out of the football league; now we have spent nearly a decade in the premier league, and we have enjoyed European nights against teams such as Marseille and Ajax. In the dark days we experienced the very worst of ownership: our ground was sold and we ended up playing in Gillingham or in a rented athletics stadium. Despite the gloom, we always had two things on our side. First, we had the strength of our fans who stuck together through thick and thin, raised money, went on marches and did everything we could to keep the club going. Secondly, we found a saviour in new ownership—a Brighton fan and a genius; everything you would want in an owner—in the shape of Tony Bloom. Because of those two things, we have gone through the lottery from the worst to the best of ownership. We heard in the opening speech about the test of the Football Governance Bill being the Reading test, but I want to impose a Brighton test. Could the Bill have stopped the first 15 years of my life, where we experienced the worst of ownership? A second test: will it encourage more owners to come forward who, in the shape of Tony Bloom, are rooted in the community, serve the community and deliver a fantastic football team? I hope very much that the Bill can do both.