Football at the ‘End of the Line’: Economic Decline, Cross-Subsidies and Football League Membership in the NW Steel District of England

Abstract

Sporting leagues are generally based on collectivist principles, as the members need one another to produce their product. For much of its existence, the Football League has functioned as a cartel, operating income-sharing arrangements and controlling its membership. In the period from 1959 to 1986, a limited number of clubs left the League through the re-election process, in modest recognition of geographical logic, as clubs from growth areas to the south typically replaced clubs from more traditional economic areas that were often over-represented in the Football League. Clubs are widely seen to be utility-maximisers seeking success. Success in a sporting league is defined in a precise and relativist way and this article focuses on two of the least successful clubs to have played in the Football League, Barrow AFC and Workington FC, whose failure to obtain repeated re-election in the 1970s removed the only Football League clubs in a distinct economic zone, the north-west coastal steel district. This article examines the re-election mechanism and the particular economic factors that affected these two clubs, ranging from the decline of their main local industry to changes in the levels of and responsibilities attaching to rising cross-subsidy payments in the Football League.