Gretna FC: Romance and Success to Existence.

Whilst software mogul Dietmar Hopp was responsible for the rise and establishment of TSG Hoffenheim, the man in charge at Gretna was Brookes Mileson. Through massive spending binges, the Englishman was the man responsible for the rise of Gretna from bottom division obscurity to the heights of the cup final and the SPL league.

Before 2002 Gretna had played most of its football in local Carlisle leagues and the national non league structures in England. The club also became one of the very first Scottish teams to feature in the modern day English FA Cup where they played and drew with Bolton Wanderers in 1993. By 2000, the tiny club from a borders village of barely 3,000 people saw its geographical location being more suited to Scottish football and at the third attempt the club was admitted to the SFL in 2002. Upon the admittance of Gretna to the league the club was taken over by the generous, philanthropist and multi-millionaire Brookes Mileson.

A Sunderland born eccentric, Mileson had long been hovering around football circles without actually buying into a club. For a number of years he had been a benefactor to football trusts, local sports schools and had invested in sponsorship of his local side Carlisle United. Already in his mid-50's by the time he arrived at Gretna some put Mileson's wealth at the £75 million mark through construction and insurance deals. His financial backing of the club saw the team quickly attain a succession of prominent players from home and abroad as the club rose through the league system. Goal scoring came from 'Dr.Goals' Kenny Deucher who grabbed many a goal in every league whilst combining medical work.

Whilst the benefactor at Hoffenheim aimed to build his own palace for Hoffenheim and duly did with the creation of the 60 million Euro Rhein-Necker Arena, things at Gretna never got any further than its tiny Raydale Park. Mileson's dream was to create a new eco-friendly football community stadium in nearby Gretna Green for his football team. Instead, the concept never got off the ground and upon reaching the SPL the first team were forced to play home games 60 miles away at Motherwell's Fir Park ground due to the inadequate stadium facilities at Raydale Park.

Compared to some of the stadiums players were used to in the SPL Raydale was like nothing else in the league. Situated next to an adjoining social club the ramshackle ground had a tiny home stand with very few media facilities or fan amenities. The creation of the new 'Corries Stand' behind the goal to house fans still barely brought the ground capacity to 2,500, a figure that near equated to the entire population of the village. Turnstiles were made of wood, banged up by Mileson and a posse of helpers. Banked pitch-side terracing though was virtually non existent.

Despite the humble locations of the club it all had character and the owner was happy to work in the tiny ticket office swapping banter with his employees, occasionally vacuum under the players' feet during team talks. Mileson was hands on and would tend the pitch, play pool with fans pre match and arrange meetings with local schools and community groups. A committed Christian, from a Salvation Army upbringing, he spoke of the importance of faith and mapped out mission statements and his vision for his club:

'I am just not interested in wearing snazzy suits and ties and sitting on committees. I'm a fan, first and foremost, and that is why I sit with the supporters on Saturdays, and share their pleasure and their pain.'

Despite the importance of faith, Mileson had his vices largely through gleefully chain smoking packs of cigarettes and rejoicing in consuming vast amounts of sugary drinks. In his weekly article in a national tabloid newspaper he would talk of his love of smoking tobacco and his disdain for a society that largely became anti-smoking post 2006. Despite the millions, his appearance was dishevelled and scruffy with long hair tied back and he was almost always accompanied by a deathly cough; and despite the love of smoking it was clearly having a massive adverse affect on his health and well being.

Out with the football club his behaviour attracted national media attention but it all became strange, odd and super eccentric as people at the club began to question the man behind the bluff good humour and camaraderie. Whilst not at Raydale Park and around his players he funded an animal sanctuary where he tended a fleet of abandoned animals from Llamas to chickens. The contrast between Hoffenheim and Gretna was stark. Whilst Hopp was a suited, sophisticated billionaire who had made his money through the SAP software empire, Mileson was an eccentric dreamer with generous cheque book but the problems were creeping up on the owner.

Gretna were also up against when they reached the big time due to the rural nature of the village. Whilst they could attract the romantic and short term interested fan the longevity and loyalty of the Gretna fan was never going to be. Both Hoffenheim and Gretna are effectively small villages of under 3,000 people. Hoffenheim though is largely adjoined to the larger town of Sinsheim and can count on a pull from a population of 30,000 from this town. Against this Gretna lies 6 miles from another small town Annan which already has a football team and the nearest towns of any size near Gretna both have teams of their own in Queen of the South from Dumfries and Carlisle United south of the border.

Prior to the Acts of Union 1707 of the Parliaments of England and Scotland, Gretna was a tiny customs post for collecting taxes on cattle sales. Gretna offered a last stop off point before the cattle crossed the border between the two countries. The Gretna customs post was established in 1612 to facilitate the transportation of cattle and the village grew from then. Nearby Gretna Green - where Mileson hoped to build a new eco-stadium for the club - is famous as a wedding centre for eloping couples but its population again numbers only a few thousand at most.

Just as the HRMC chases and hovers above Fratton Park like a hungry vulture, eager for its millions of unpaid taxes so a similar tale befell Gretna just as it hit the big time. The fairytale went full circle from bright lights to unpaid wages, management fall outs, manager 'gardening leave' and ultimate bankruptcy. Attendances for Gretna games in the Scottish Premier League at its temporary home of Fir Park in Motherwell seldom numbered over 1,000 when anyone else but Celtic or Rangers were in town. An meagre 501 fans paid admission money for a Premier league midweek game against Dundee United.

The club that Mileson wanted to be '100 per cent community-orientated' were clearly in trouble. His one time valid perspective on the capabilities of his side were left crumbling as ill health and finances caught up with him and near the end of the season financial assistance for the club was withdrawn. Why it was withdrawn was never fully quantified by his family or the man himself. Rumours of ill health, wages not being paid and Mileson alone signing all cheques via profligate spending sprees meant that Gretna were on a road to disaster. Mileson was forever quoted as saying about his manager that:

“Whatever Rowan wants he gets.”

Just like Hoffenheim and its rise to the Bundesliga one, the move to the holy lands of the Premier League had been a romantic tale for Gretna. But like so many of the costly marriages that take place in nearby Gretna Green the early romance between Mileson and Gretna led to fall out, financial recrimination and ultimate annulment in 2008. After a year of ill health and hospital visits, Mileson himself died in November 2008 after being found lying unconscious and dead on his farm land.

Sadly he had lived to see his club die when Gretna FC went out of business on 2 July 2008. After its demise the 'Gretna Supporters' Society' a trust of fans, founded "a new Gretna Football Club" called Gretna 2008 Ltd. In August 2009, the Trust amended its articles of governance and Gretna FC 2008 became a club managed directly by the members of the Trust Board. The new club is wholly owned by the supporter Society and its board elected by the Society's members. To deal with the issue of no players, the club appointed the University of Cumbria's football officer and local man Stuart Rome as team manager and recruited much of the playing squad from Workington's reserve team.

Technically, Gretna 2008 coexisted briefly with the old Gretna, which was not formally liquidated until 8 August 2008. Initially Gretna 2008 were evicted from its home ground of Raydale Park and the club moved into the Everholm Stadium in Annan in its early stages. For a league to play in the club were then successfully accepted into the East of Scotland Football League First Division, a level a few rungs below formal league structures where from Annan Athletic were accepted into the league on Gretna'a demise. On 9 August Gretna won their first competitive match as a new club beating Kelso United 3–0 away in their first match of the league season.

The joint-liquidator of Gretna announced in early 2009 that the four-acre site of Raydale Park had been purchased by a firm called Sawtry (lOM) Limited for £300,000. After an appeal in May 2009 the new owners of Raydale Park allowed Gretna 2008 FC to move to the ground in their home town in May 2009, although the long term future of the ground is still unclear. A local community partnership group wants the ground handed over to the local community, stating that the ground never did legally belong to Gretna FC and instead was bought by five local Gretna businessmen in 1946 and never sold.

Gretna 2008 FC are essentially a new club carrying on the traditions of the old club. There is no legal connection with the old club other than the similarity in name, club badge and ground facilities usage.The club also hopes that Raydale Park will again be put up for sale and there is a hope that Dumfries and Galloway Council will buy it and that the new club will be able to play there again permanently.

Match day

Stepping off a Newcastle bound train at Gretna Green station you are little more than a stone's thrown from England. Outside the station you are as likely to hear a northern English accent as a Scottish one and in the town centre its more Cumbrian than Dumfries-shire. The town centre is little more than a 500 yard stretch of fish and chips shops, a bank and a small bingo hall that doubles as a cinema. In Gretna itself its pleasant and quiet but far from happening; in fact the most happening thing in town is the Cup game that is being played between Gretna 2008 FC and Lothian Thistle. Across from Gretna adjoined by a pathway and dark tunnel lies the more touristy Gretna Green with its old fashioned wedding venues and adjoining hotels. The sound of bagpipes blasts out the distinctive sound of Scottish music as yet another couple presumably take the plunge into happy union. Raydale Park sits around 10 minutes from the station and despite the meagre population there is no lack of hotels in town for fans to visit, most of which gain trade whilst catering for visiting wedding parties.

Outside Raydale Park the ground still appears to be stuck in a time-warp of the Gretna FC of Brooke Mileson's time. The new club bought the rights to use the old club badge for the new club but although the '2008' identity appears on the playing shirt badge its missing from the signs around the ground. In the main stand the media facilities are little more than a porta-cabin concreted into the main stand whilst seats hang off hinges broken and unfixed. A large number of seats though belong to season ticket holders and are named as such.

Despite taking around 7000 fans to the 2006 Scottish Cup final at Hampden crowds for the newer Gretna 2008 club have struggled to reach 160. Today its no different with around 130 in attendance and its mostly an elderly fan base of men over the age of 60 years. The turnstiles at Raydale have opened again but there is very little clicking. Despite this there is a smattering of youngsters and the dregs of loyal local fans from the SPL days who pay the £4 to come in and watch the action.

Gretna 2008 look a bright and fresh team with bags of enthusiasm on the field and from the dugout. Most of the players are students or young professionals who seem to take great inspiration from playing for a club with a name. Certainly out-with Spartans from Edinburgh who play in the same league structure, Gretna are by far the biggest name and have achieved far more than any other team playing in the league. Lothian Thistle are generally no match for Gretna and succumb to two first half goals. The second half seems good fan/player name encouragement interaction from the stand to the players and it seems to work with wave after wave of Gretna attack. At East of Scotland League level supporters are more of the interested variety, and the concept of fan favourites is not really a factor in the league barring a few players at certain clubs. Its no different at the final whistle as the Gretna players in black and white troop off to applause from home fans. Not two years after it folded Gretna now back at Raydale feels again like a proper club.

Essentially Gretna now wants and needs to be financially sustainable and its threadbare resources and homely club infrastructure means its as far from the excess and financial doping of the Brooks Mileson era as a club can be.  Just as society has needed to cut its cloth as the ravages of the economic crisis has took hold so Gretna has went from heady success and rejoice to a simple existance.  With a number of clubs of varying sizes in Europe teetering on the brink of bankruptcy due to spending way beyond its means, Gretna however small a club, may not be a model far from the truth for some other clubs.