In many ways, it feels as though Crewe Alexandra were founded in 1983, rather than 1877. Read any accounts, memoirs, blogs, or articles about the club’s history and they are largely confined to the Gradi years and the success that he brought to a small railway town south of Manchester and north of Birmingham.
There is a good reason for this: in the five years before Gradi arrived, Crewe were regularly propping up the old Fourth Division, finishing 18th, 23rd (twice) and 24th (twice). Yet just thirteen years later, in 1997, they were promoted to the First Division at Wembley.
Crewe’s rise, given their stature and history, was nothing short of meteoric.
Yet while Gradi is unquestionably an outstanding coach, he could not have succeeded in isolation. His talent blossomed under the stewardship of local-businessman-done-good. Crewe’s promotions and player sales during this period have already been well documented. However, my interest was again drawn to the business aspects of the club, and how John Bowler and his board of directors embarked on the most successful period in Crewe’s long history.
To understand the rise of Crewe Alexandra on the pitch, you also have to study how it was ran off the pitch; how Gradi was given the tools he needed to execute his plans, and how Norman Hassall and Dan Potts acquired enough shares to form their own holding company in 2006.
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Previous Chairman Norman Rowlinson had laid much of the foundations for the Gradi/Bowler era. After his death in 2006, Dario Gradi told the Crewe Chronicle that, ‘for certain, this club only exists because of Norman. He kept the club afloat, long before I came, almost single-handedly.’
It was not uncommon for Rowlinson to pay the players wages himself and he used his considerable influence to ensure the club remained in the Football League when they faced re-election – 7 times in total between 1965 and 1982. His sons, David and Jimmy, still run the successful timber company their father established and now hold their own seats on Crewe’s board.
Rowlinson seniors’ premiership was also important for other reasons; crucially, the creation of 92,000 additional shares in the football club. The first of these moves, in 1977, added 32,000 to the original 8,000 shares. This was carried out to raise quick cash. The 1970’s were arguably the club’s darkest decade and they needed significant financial support to remain in business.
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Whilst Crewe’s league finishes during Gradi’s formative years of the 1980’s had hardly set the world alight, many within the club could see that the youth policy slowly being adopted was one that should be pursued with vigour.
On the 14th of December 1987, a resolution was passed to double Crewe’s allotted share capital, taking it to its current level of 100,000 shares.
However, after a second consecutive 17th place finish in Division Four, and an average gate of just 2281, it was obvious that doubts remained about Gradi’s vision for the club. Despite the increase in share capital one year earlier, 56,000 remained unsold.
That was all about to change.
The 1988-89 season proved to be pivotal. John Bowler had just completed his ascent to Chairman, Steve Walters had become the youngest debutant in club history and David Platt had been sold to Graham Taylor’s Aston Villa for a tasty £200,000. Buoyed by player sales, the club’s wage bill rose £90,000 that same season and they climbed the league table at formidable pace, gaining automatic promotion to the Third Division in the summer of 1989.
By now, anyone with a half a brain could see the potential of Gradi and Bowler’s future empire. The Hillsborough disaster of 1989 had done little to dent Footballs growing popularity. The England side had captured a nation at Italia ’90 and the first Sky TV deal was just around the corner. By the time the 1990 Crewe accounts were released with profits of £124,000, several Directors had made serious moves to increase their slice of the Crewe Alexandra pie.
The board structure and shares held, were as follows:
| 1990 | 1988 | |
| J Bowler (Chairman) | 2,500 | 500 |
| N. Rowlinson (Director) | 24,254 | 8,783 |
| Dario Gradi (Manager) | 300 | 300 |
| K. Potts (Director) | 17,725 | 8,225 |
| N. Hassall (Director) | 25,570 | 5,500 |
| C. Clayton (Director) | 6,427 | 1000 |
| D. Rowlinson (Director) | 1020 | 1020 |
| J. McMillan (Director) | 1000 | 1000 |
| TOTAL | 78,796 | 26,326 |
*All shares bought at £1 each.
In just 2 years, the club had sold 53,000 shares.
Crewe now had the perfect blend of business and football; a plan devised in the boardroom and implemented on the pitch.
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All of this was against a backdrop of football ownership becoming an increasingly lucrative venture for investors. Previously, many directors had inherited shares and positions from their parents, regarding club ownership as a gilded obligation and stewardship of a public trust that could occasionally be fun.
In 1983, that all began to change when Tottenham’s 35-year-old Chairman Irving Scholar circumvented Football Association rules to float Spurs on the stock exchange. The FA prohibited the sale of team stock, so to get round this obstacle Scholar created a holding company that he would be able to sell his shares through instead. The first Initial Public Offering (IPO) generated £3.3m and propelled football clubs into a new financial future.
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With the local-businessman-done-good model now in full swing, Crewe were ready to sail into their most glorious decade. But first, they had to tie down Dario Gradi, who had began to cast admiring glances elsewhere. Gradi had at first rejected his now infamous and unprecedented 10-year-contract.
He told the Crewe Chronicle in 2006,
‘I couldn’t sign the contract because I wasn’t saving any money and I couldn’t be more successful because I was selling all my best players. I had to leave, in fact, I was going, I had been offered a job in Saudi Arabia and I’d been out there. It was then the Chairman came up with the idea of paying me a percentage of the transfers.’
In an interview with When Saturday Comes magazine in 2002, Bowler said he asked Dario ‘what he wanted in life, and he replied, ‘’a nice house with a swimming pool, a tennis court and a pension” I said I thought we could manage that here and that was it’.
It was true that Gradi was not yet earning the six figure sums he would go on to command in the Championship. He earnt £14,222 in 1986. By 1990, this had risen to £27,140 and by 1993, he had trebled his salary to £84,065. Between 1996 and 2006, his average wage was £185,066, peaking at £264,306 in 2005.
The Milan born coach had finally found someone who believed in his passion for youth and he was soon relocating from modest surroundings in Shavington on Barons Road to build the tennis court and swimming pool he had always dreamed of. Discarded too, were the Cafes Gradi had ran in London.
Crewe were riding the crest of a wave, gaining admirers and winning recongition throughout the country; there appeared to be no stopping the Railwaymen. In 1998, their first season in England’s second tier, they finished a respectable 11th.
Yet as they were soon to discover, what goes up must come down. Attempting to keep pace with bigger and financially superior clubs was a battle they would ultimately lose.
To be continued….
Crewe Alexandra 