Something is stirring in Anfield: Elite Premier League football and localism

Abstract

The Localism Act 2011 has provided the right for community organizations to nominate local buildings to be listed as an Asset of Community Value. In England a number of inner urban neighbourhoods host elite Premier League football stadia, their physical presence often visible from afar. Two in particular stand out, both recently listed as an Asset of Community Value, the globally renown football clubs of Liverpool FC and their Anfield stadium and Manchester United and Old Trafford. Three aspects of this are noteworthy. First, the capability of a community group to organize and agitate in such a way as to ensure a local asset is listed. Second, the extent to which the legislation is providing substantive rights for community activists thereby challenging those who would suggest localism is more rhetoric than real. Third, by reviewing a single case of Anfield, we can see how the role of elite professional football club in a low-income neighbourhood can be challenged for the benefit of local residents as plans for social and economic development are shaped.

Keywords

Anfield Asset of Community Value Big Society community activism Community Right to Bid Liverpool localism Localism Act 2011 neighbourhood regeneration Premier League football sport

Introduction

That a community in England might bid to own a football ground that hosts a professional football club appears ambitious. That the football team involved is an internationally renown elite club with a global brand and multi million pound annual revenue base may imply that this ambition is far fetched. Yet the Localism Act 2011 provides the basis for this to happen. In May 2013, the Liverpool FC Supporters Union (LSU) and the Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) separately applied under the Act to designate the Anfield stadium in North Liverpool, and the Old Trafford stadium in Trafford as Assets of Community Value. And they were both successful in their application.¹ A football stadium may look like a local asset but why this is occurring now is worthy of consideration.

A community owning assets intuitively appears to be a progressive development although acquisition is difficult and laden with complexity. Community assets can be tangible or may be more subjective. Physical assets such as schools and public spaces and buildings such as public houses or a community centre may fall under some type of community ownership and can provide a focal point as a local service with an identifiable social and cultural amenity (Wilks-Heeg, 2002). Other types of asset may include the work of volunteers in third-sector organizations, perhaps credit unions or more sophisticated local exchange trading schemes and intangible assets may be the skills and knowledge of individual community members (Kretzmann and McKnight, 1996). Community organizations even with limited resources often have a broad view of their asset base (Aiken et al., 2011) and are frequently involved in organizing them for development (Green and Haines, 2012).

A community might mobilize to secure ownership of an asset that can link with a wider agenda, for instance in addressing poor housing or poverty. In this way, the community can overcome the difficulties associated with a lack of involvement in decision making and seek to leverage in other types of resource. When community activism is able to provide a more concerted force other stakeholders, the local authority for example, are often required to take into account the views of the organizers (Newman and Dale, 2005) and this can provide a platform for capacity building within the community. How the application shown here made by football supporters fits into a traditional notion of community is far from clear.

This article provides a case study of the LSU and their application to designate the Anfield stadium as an Asset of Community Value (ACV). The Coalition Government has argued that the Localism Act allows local communities to step forward and to be empowered and the Department for Communities and Local Government (DLGC) has reported wide-ranging interest in the ACV process. It appears that an opportunity has been spotted for a wider base of football club supporters to engage in the politics surrounding community development and Anfield is an area ripe for community politics. However, the legislation throws up questions about the capability of communities to organize beyond what is often seen as localism rhetoric, particularly in a city like Liverpool, where residents face local authority financial cuts of up to 56%.²

Localism and the ‘ACV’

Under the Coalition ideas about how communities should be involved in local decision making have manifest in a number of ways, with the Localism Act 2011 being the most significant.³ There has been concern that the debate around localism has fallen into a rhetorical mix not only espoused by Conservatives and Liberal Democrats but also echoed by some in the Labour Party. Bunyan (2012) suggests that a common thread exists from New Labour communitarianism to the Big Society, an argument picked up by Hancock et al. (2012) who recognize how David Cameron adopted the language of community to shape the Conservative approach to a new localized political project. According to the critique offered by Levitas (2012) the Big Society provides a schematic from which austerity is imposed, no less than a debt collection service for mobile capital. Academics have tended to be scathing about the rhetoric associated with the Coalition’s attempt to colonize the localism agenda, particularly that of the Conservative group.

While there may be, as Bunyan (2012) claims, a common theme maintained under the Coalition, there is a difference from the previous administration in the way community has been problematized. For Hancock et al. (2012) the language of the welfare ghetto binds together place, people and poverty to define spatial and social problems, while Bentley and Pugalis (2013) argue that localism is about decentralization, action against bureaucracy, increased local control over public finance with greater levels of local accountability and public scrutiny. And there is a greater emphasis on enterprise, economic deregulation and political devolution (Dawson, 2012). Southern (2013) who also sees a link between New Labour and current Coalition ideas goes further to suggest that the localism debate is now an ideological contest between Blue Labour and Red Tory with profound affects upon community regeneration. It is here in the discourse of localism that we find communities who suffer from failures of the market. As Levitas (2012: 322) strongly argues, underway is a ‘destruction of our collective provision against risk’ and an overwhelming reality of work being displaced by the unpaid in the provision of services previously provided by the state.

The work of the 2007 Quirk Review (2007) may be seen as part of a continuum about community and communitarianism that has influenced contemporary policy on localism. The Review called for more detailed guidance to support asset transfer, for greater access to expert advice such as that provided by specialist financial intermediaries and the promotion of bottom up processes to facilitate transfer to communities. The Review was keen to encourage more asset transfer through existing legislation such as the General Disposal Consent (England) 2003 for which Community Asset Transfer was feasible. Yet the proposition contained within the Review focused on assets transferred from the public sector and emphasized the work of professionals to enable local community organizations to aspire to locally owned and managed assets. Change would be required in the culture of the public sector to provide organizational support and enable financial transition of assets to communities, and this would have to be associated with a change in culture of communities who should seek to be more business like.

In 2011, the Minister of State for Decentralization Greg Clark explained how the Localism Act would achieve a shift in power away from government and towards local people meaning less red tape and bureaucracy, new freedoms for local authorities and empowered communities (DCLG, 2011b). The belief that communities were losing local amenities (the idyllic village post office or local pub often cited) led to Part 5 Chapter 3 of the Localism Act 2011 giving the Community Right to Bid. Accompanying this was the Community Right to Build and the Community Right to Challenge providing an indication of how the term community right came to be appropriated. Levitas (2012) sees in this a means by which organized state services will become the responsibility of under-resourced volunteers during a time of unprecedented public sector cutbacks.

The Community Right to Bid follows after a community group has applied to register a local ACV. In some cases through an intermediary, the state will provide funding for a community to organize to apply for listing. If a successful ACV listing is obtained then the local authority is responsible for maintaining a list of community assets. The technicalities of this are such that a community group or parish council has a right to bid and to make a nomination for a community asset to be listed. An individual cannot make an application, nor can the local authority and some types of land and residential properties are excluded from being listed. The local authority is charged with making a decision within eight weeks of the application. When listed, the asset remains on the register for up to five years whereon the asset can then be renominated. The owners of the property that is registered as an ACV are able to appeal and could even make a case to claim compensation should they be able to show that the value of the asset has been reduced because of listing.

To meet the criteria of being listed, the asset must be land or a building that previously or in situ, does further the ‘social wellbeing or social interests of the local community’ (Sandford, 2012: 3). When the ACV is designated, the owner has a Right to Review normally within 56 days of the notice to list. Should the asset be put up for sale by the owner the Community Right to Bid comes into play and a six-week interim period is enacted in which the community organization can set out and express its interest by putting in a non-binding proposal to purchase the asset. A six-month moratorium follows to allow the community group to put together a bid to attempt to purchase the asset. As Sandford (2012) notes, no right for the community group to buy the asset exists, only to bid. ‘This means that in some instances the local community bid may not be the successful one as the owner can, at the end of the moratorium, sell to whomever they choose and at whatever price’ (Sandford, 2012: 4).

In early October 2013, the football stadium of Blackburn Rovers became the seventh football ground to be designated an ACV. The previous six were Oxford United (listed in May 2013), non-League Nuneaton Town (June 2013), Manchester United (July 2013), Liverpool (August 2013), Ipswich Town and Dulwich Hamlet (September 2013). As if to illustrate the momentum from this legislation, that something was stirring, a further five were classed as ACV in November 2013, non-league grounds Prescot Cables, Stockport County and Halifax Town and Championship club stadia Leicester City and Birmingham City. Furthermore, by March 2014, less than 12 months from the first listing, supporters at Blackpool, Bury, Charlton, Derby County, Hereford, Swindon and Tranmere Rovers had also been successful in nominating their respective stadia as ACV. From the communitarianism of Amitai Etzioni and the resulting pragmatism of the Blair-led New Labour project to the ideological shift under Big Society localism, recent legislation has enabled organized football supporters to draw on the language of community and legitimately engage in local politics.

Community assets (and football) in the community

The question of why and how this has occurred extends beyond the literature relating sport and locality to take into account community, assets and activism. Ideas about sport in regeneration are often raised as a response to social exclusion (see Kelly, 2010; Reid, 2013; Tacon, 2007) and the notion of local economic opportunity from sports stadia or events remains powerful (cf. Baade and Dye, 1990; Crompton, Lee and Shuster, 2001; Lee and Taylor, 2005; Madden, 2006). The wide range of sociological and cultural analysis concerned with football governance (Breitbarth and Harris, 2008; Kennedy, 2012) has also included work on neoliberalism and the commodification of the game (Kennedy and Kennedy, 2007; Sondaal, 2013) and supporter behaviour (Warner, 2011).

Equally, the emergence of supporter organizing as a social movement is worthy of attention although greater space is afforded elsewhere for this purpose (Millward, 2012; Williams, 2012; Williams and Hopkins, 2011) with a similar analysis made of the movement called Keeping Everton In Our City (KEIOC, see Fitzpatrick, 2013).⁴ To specifically understand the historic working class embedded character of professional football within the city of Liverpool, of Everton FC and Liverpool FC, see Kennedy and Collins (2006) who make reference to the sectarianism and politics that seemed to couple together the two sets of supporters and clubs.

The relevance of this literature useful as it is in a contextual sense is of secondary importance to the main argument developed in this article. The pursuit of ACV listing by LSU is explained here as an emergence of a particular type of community activism. This is not mediated through a type of ‘football in the community’ principle but is essentially about the leverage garnered from a piece of legislation introduced by the Coalition Government. LSU became active locally and attempted to claim legitimacy over a particular community asset as part of their constitutional standing while in the background there remained the larger matter of football governance. Designation of Anfield as an ACV has been a practical output from a piece of Coalition legislation achieved through a particular type of organizing.

It is too early to assess to what extent this legislation might form part of a planned response to the problems that are faced in low-income communities. Adjacent to the Anfield stadium, other separate initiatives include an attempt to create an Anfield Neighbourhood Forum and the establishment of a cooperative and community land trust. These are relevant because they too suggest the emergence of alternative organizing to that previously established in the Anfield and Breckfield wards and in part are a response to the constant negative discourse about Anfield. The term deprivation adds to the pathology of communities who are regarded as both cause and outcome of the problems they experience. Such language may serve a purpose for local institutions and professionals who can make a greater claim for intervention and call for deployment of scarce resources precisely because of the image of negativity surrounding the community. An alternative discourse would emphasize resources that are available in a community rather than focus solely on local problems (Kretzmann and McKnight, 1996; Page-Adams and Sherraden, 1997).

These different views present a dilemma for community organizers. According to Saegert (2006) there is a divide between those who believe in social capital bonding, who would prioritize intangible community assets, and those who would see that organizing and agitation is needed to enable ‘disenfranchised communities to make demands on the existing power structure though confrontational actions’ (Saegert, 2006: 276). For Newman and Lake (2006) this divide categorizes those who once called for greater levels of democratic participation from those who now work to replace social service provision. The deficiency in the arguments of those who give prominence to community resource building would be seen in the failure of their effort to translate organizing into political agitation and wider societal transformation (DeFilippis, Fisher and Shragge, 2006). Yet this critical approach, while able to identify the restrictions of community asset building, limits the imagination required to understand the possibilities for community politics, particularly the notion of not giving up on community development and securing control of local economic resources in the way articulated by those such as Gibson-Graham, Cameron and Healy (2013).

In the complex theory of community development, the emergence of football supporters organized as community groups has broader connotations. Supporters Direct, a Community Benefit Society that works to help football supporter involvement in the sport, believe the Localism Act 2011 offers huge opportunities for supporters trusts. They argue that ‘there is considerable scope for football stadia to be considered as assets of community value’ (Rolph, undated: 5) and that supporters trusts should organize to position themselves to nominate stadia for ACV listed status and be legally constituted to enable a bid to purchase should the opportunity arise. Yet this approach may be lined with problems for both supporters and local community.

Football supporters have begun to agitate and get involved in community politics enabled by the Act. For Supporters Direct, this is primarily about football governance rather than community development, although the two issues have overlapped. Outside interests, that is owners of football clubs or their stadia (the two can be separate) may function in a way that threatens the stability of the football club, whose demise can impact on the local community. Supporters Direct argue that the Localism Act 2011 is the first piece of legislation to recognize that a football club has social and economic impact although it is not strong enough to prevent poor (football club) ownership (Supporters Direct representative interview with author, May 2013).

The Kassam Stadium hosts of Oxford United was the first to be listed after a nomination from the supporters trust OxVox. A representative of Supporters Direct claimed there were two aspects of this listing that were significant. First it ‘smoked out the views of the owners on the role of the stadium’ and second it supported the notion of the club’s presence (manifest in the physical building) having a social value for the local community and a broader civic pride for the area (interview with the author, May 2013). In this instance, the owners of the stadium have proven to be unpopular with club supporters because of the perceived threat to the clubs financial position. Should the owners of the Kassam Stadium wish to sell the stadium then only because of ACV listing would OxVox have an opportunity to bid to purchase it. As welcome a decision as this may be there is still some way to go before the value of a football club is realized for the local Oxford community.

Of the football club stadia to be listed two stand out from the rest. Manchester United and Liverpool FC are hosted in two of the most iconic global football grounds according to Martin Cloake (2013). With a revenue and average home attendance, respectively, of some €400 m and 75,000 and €230 m and 45,000, these two operate on a different scale to others and both clubs have a global brand (see Deloitte Sports Business Group, 2013). In the nomination made by MUST, they argue that the stadium is a focus for community pride, contributes to a sense of community identity and provides local people with an inclusive social environment and local businesses with increased opportunities to trade. They set out their case by stating

The Old Trafford Stadium is crucial in enabling Manchester United Football Club to deliver this social value and community benefit through sporting and community activities, in that the Club needs a suitable home to host its football matches. Listing the Old Trafford football stadium as a Community Asset would mean that in any circumstance where The Stadium’s current owner were to look to dispose of it, the community would have the opportunity to secure the Football Club’s future. (MUST, 2013: 2)

MUST adopting the role of community guardian make the same assumption as Supporters Direct in equating the presence of the football club and stadium with benefit for the community.

This is as yet, an unchallenged assumption that the organizing supporters act on behalf of the wider community. According to Supporters Direct while MUST and LSU operate more as stakeholders rather than representatives of the community, they provide a model of inclusivity in the way they are run and in the way they set out their nomination. This is an interesting perspective on the capability of football supporters acting collectively in a community to influence political and economic decisions about the neighbourhood and is explored further in the next section by examining the LSU nomination and listing of the Anfield stadium as an ACV.

The supporters union and the listing of Anfield stadium

This case is part of a protracted narrative about a distressed community consistently reminded how it is in need of regeneration. Anfield is an inner urban area in part of a city that has suffered from deindustrialization and the restructuring of maritime employment and port trade (see Figure 1). The work for this article has been derived from a broader piece of research that has looked at regeneration in North Liverpool and Anfield (Engelsman and Southern, 2010; Johnstone, Southern and Taylor, 2000; Southern, 2009, 2011, forthcoming). Interviews with representatives from Liverpool City Council regeneration officers, with officers from a local and prominent Resident Social Landlord (RSL), with the economic development unit of the Mayor’s Office, Liverpool Vision, with the Liverpool Supporters’ Union and KEIOC took place during the period 2010 to 2013 and are used in this work.

Interviews with a local Anfield school and social enterprise, along with organisations adjacent to the Anfield and Breckfield wards and with those who have a wider remit on economic development have taken place. Work with the RSL referred to in this article has been ongoing since 2006 and has included meetings with community organisations in Anfield. A joint trip involving the representatives from the RSL, local community and University to the US in 2007 considered housing-led regeneration and the placement of a University employee was funded through a Knowledge Transfer Partnership in the Anfield offices of the RSL (Engelsman and Southern, 2010). An additional feature for this article is that two telephone interviews took place with a representative from Supporters Direct, and email exchange was undertaken to clarify the work of MUST in successfully designating Old Trafford as an ACV with a leading representative of that organisation.

The football club with an international reputation is located in the heart of the community, while the emergence of the LSU is a recent phenomenon (Williams, 2012). The context of club and community has received attention from the national press (see the work of David Conn in The Guardian for example) not least because for some time the club has held plans to construct a new stadium. When in the late 1990s the club announced plans to redevelop the stadium, it led to a response from the local community and a local plan that argued for greater social and economic opportunity and stability (Anfield/Breckfield Community Steering Group, 2002). Other local stakeholders, such as local RSLs and city council, have been successful in gaining funding to reinvigorate the physical neighbourhood and provide initiatives related to education, training, health and crime. Liverpool had a dedicated Housing Market Renewal Initiative (HMRI) from 2003 and parts of Anfield benefited from this scheme. In fact many projects seen in the Anfield area were typical of those in inner urban wards particularly during the last Labour administration (Beatty et al., 2010) but in reality lessons have been drawn from urban policy in the city of Liverpool for a longer time (Meegan, 2003).

Figure 1.

The Anfield and Breckfield wards in North Liverpool.

In the first part of the 20th century, Anfield was regarded as a more appealing suburb of Liverpool, while in the immediate post-war period employment opportunities were readily available on the waterfront, on local industrial estates and in the city centre, all in close proximity. At this time, if not quite an affluent neighbourhood, Anfield was a sought-after residential area hosting the well-kept Victorian Stanley Park. Close to the stadium was a stock of reasonably maintained council homes that provided housing for the post-war family.⁵ Yet from the late 1970s, Anfield and Breckfield wards began to suffer from ‘falling populations, areas of dilapidated pre-1919 housing stock … a weak local economy … and disconnection from the city’s areas of prosperity’ (Anfield/Breckfield Community Steering Group, 2002: 3). So much so that by the end of the 20th century, the Indices of Deprivation were recording the two wards and the nearby Everton ward as being among the most deprived neighbourhoods in England. How areas like Anfield shift over time from a narrative of respectability to something of a discourse of pathological intent has been well documented (cf. Harvey, 1973; Jacobs, 2002).

In their more recent analysis, Ellis and Henderson (2013) note that 60% of Anfield remains in the most deprived 10% of areas in England, with concomitant indices relating to lower life expectancy, more incapacity benefit claimants, poor health, poor educational attainment and child poverty. And in spite of more than £40 million invested into the area through the Anfield/Breckfield HMRI, the local housing market has remained dysfunctional particularly with a number of vacant properties held by Liverpool FC and by absentee landlords near to the football stadium (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Housing adjacent to the Anfield stadium (refer to Figure 1 for exact location).

In this context of decline Liverpool FC reversed their previous position and announced in 2000 that they intended to build a new football stadium in Stanley Park, within 100 m of their existing ground. Despite the club claiming that the investment of some £150 million would be pivotal to the regeneration of Anfield, it led to a reaction from the local community who raised a number of fundamental objections, not least their lack of involvement in shaping the plans of the club and city council (Anfield/Breckfield Community Steering Group, 2002).

By 2003, and coinciding with the start of the HMRI, the club had managed to pacify local residents and a formal planning application was submitted for a new stadium. At the same time, the then majority owner of the club pursued new investment amid concerns that the costs of a new stadium, believed to be necessary in terms of sporting competitiveness, would be prohibitive (Williams and Hopkins, 2011). This was confirmed by the North West Development Agency who were apprehensive about construction delays after previously committing a grant of £9 million to match European Objective I funds. Against this background, early in 2007, new investment was confirmed, and Liverpool FC changed ownership as US-based Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Jr were introduced.

In less than 12 months from the change in ownership in January 2008, Liverpool Supporters’ Union had been formed, initially in response to the financial threat posed to the club by owners Hicks and Gillett. From their inception, LSU outlined in their constitution a commitment to ‘work with relevant agencies to improve social and economic conditions in the area of Anfield’ (Liverpool Supporters’ Union, undated: 1). Roughly around the same time, the city council had approved the third set of plans for a new stadium in Stanley Park and LSU recognized that the delays in starting the construction had a deleterious effect on local residents (interview with LSU representative, June 2010). By October 2010 and against a background of global financial crisis, the Royal Bank of Scotland as main creditor to Kop Holdings – the entity that owned Liverpool FC – was ready to seize control of the club from Hicks and Gillett unless debts of some £280 million could be repaid. It was at this time that a High Court in London endorsed the forced and acrimonious sale of the club including the stadium to new owners, New England Sports Ventures (see Reade, 2011 and Williams, 2012 for a full account of this).

While playing an active role in bringing to an end the reign of Hicks and Gillett, LSU also continued to agitate around aspects of regeneration in the Anfield area. At this time, cuts to public sector funding were being announced, while the city council and RSL were faced with the end of the HMRI and constraints on funding from the Homes and Communities Agency. This was being felt in Anfield although LSU pressed ahead and by working with their counterpart KEIOC, the two groups launched a campaign for a football quarter that made a case for housing improvement, physical enhancement, better transport infrastructure and a greater focus on sustainability. KEIOC and LSU outlined how the football clubs who ‘are deeply rooted in a sense of place’ had created the city’s global sporting profile which in turn continued to benefit the local economy (KEIOC and SOS, 2011: 6). This campaign to establish a football designation was relevant for two reasons. First via the Mayor’s office, the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership commissioned a report titled Stanley Park Destination Strategy that sought to demonstrate how more economic activity could be stimulated through greater levels of tourism around the two football clubs and the revitalized Victorian assets in Stanley Park (Colliers International, 2013). Second, it demonstrated how the organization of the supporters could provoke some form of action by local governance agencies. It proved that LSU had a capacity to agitate for action in the streets surrounding the Liverpool FC stadium.

The concerns expressed by LSU about the delay in constructing a new stadium and its impact on the immediate neighbourhoods remained. In spite of a change in ownership, by the time of the ACV application Liverpool FC had still not confirmed whether they would build a new stadium even though planning permission had been gained, a 999-year lease on land in Stanley Park renewed and a small amount of European funding released to support construction. Now known as Fenway Sports Group (FSG),⁶ the new ownership structure had failed to provide clarity on whether a new stadium was to be built. Indications from the owners suggested that the preferred choice was now to redevelop the original stadium with veiled threats about bureaucratic obstacles preventing development leaked by club officials. The Housing Minister Grant Shapps sparked a brief confrontation with the club stating that the indecision of the club was leading to uncertainty among residents, while the club retorted by pointing to the cuts made to the HMRI in the surrounding neighbourhood (reported in the local newspaper Daily Post, 20 August 2011 and in the magazine Planning, 26 August 2011).

By the summer of 2013, Ellis and Henderson (2013) had reiterated how the lack of an affirmative decision by the club to redevelop or build anew had created a planning blight in the vicinity of the stadium. At the same time, the latest plans for regeneration were announced amounting to a £260 million intervention involving the city council, the RSL Your Housing and Liverpool FC. Plans include housing refurbishment and clearance, new housing, a reinvigorated high street (Walton Breck Road) and a new Avenue memorial to the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, both orthogonal to the stadium; a new public space and village square, the completion of Stanley Park refurbishment (the part of the Park that was earmarked for a new stadium) and the preferred option of the club made formal for the first time, to redevelop the existing stadium (Liverpool City Council, Liverpool FC and Your Housing, 2013). Planning permission had been secured for a new stadium in Stanley Park, but planning permission for redevelopment had still to be sought. For some, this was a move by the city council and the RSL to commit to regeneration regardless of the club’s indecision (interview with anonymous community representative, January 2014).

This was the backdrop in which LSU had become active in Anfield regeneration. They submitted their nomination for the listing of the Anfield football ground in April 2013, just weeks before the announcement on new investment by club, council and RSL. In summing up its submission, LSU pointed to the symbolic rhetoric of the stadium and its leverage as a key monument in the local community:

Much more than a building, far bigger than any asset value it is assigned on a global hedge fund’s balance sheet. Anfield stadium is the heart of a community; a neighbouring community of residents and businesses and a global community that has spread far and wide since Liverpool FC was formed and took over residency of the stadium from Everton in 1892. Anfield Stadium is a community asset that looms large in the lives of its neighbours and of people across the world, it is the key to neighbourhood renewal and local prosperity and, through inertia or mismanagement, it can also be a driver of decline, deprivation and dereliction. Anfield Stadium is an asset of community value. (Liverpool Supporters’ Union, 2013: 11; emphasis added)

LSU used their application to call upon the city council to take a lead role in shaping the purpose of the football stadium. They invoked the public sector to hold to account the privately owned football club, who meanwhile continued to make rhetorical noises about operating as a global business. In their bid, they pointed to the emblematic and historic culturalism of the stadium, its situatedness in a working class community and the provision of arts, a wide range of sporting activities, education and music festivals held in the stadium under the import of the football club.

LSU used quotes from club officials to highlight how they too recognized the significance of the presence of Liverpool FC to the community:

… clearly a major player of the community therefore the club has, I think, a responsibility to work with its community, to invest back in its community and if it does that, I think it will reap the rewards … [adding later from another official] I think we’ve demonstrated over many years we are a key anchor tenant in that community. We already create a lot of jobs, we feed a lot of businesses and contribute to that economy … (Liverpool Supporters’ Union, 2013: 9–10)

The application was submitted by LSU to the city council late April 2013.

According to a representative of LSU, three aspects of the submission were noteworthy (interview with author, April 2013). In nominating the Anfield stadium, LSU were arguing that the club was a factor in the depletion that afflicted domestic and retail properties around the football ground. By stating this in their nomination, LSU would test the local authority relationship with the football club, which they considered had been too obliging for too long. For instance, as part of earlier plans to build a new stadium, the club and the council had formed a joint venture, each holding 50% of shares, called Stanley Park Limited; this was an enterprise that did little and appeared to be set up for the benefit of the club. If the council were to confirm the nomination as an ACV, then it would challenge how the club and council continued to work with each other and LSU were deliberately conscious of this.

Second, the nomination positioned LSU as a key stakeholder with views about the purpose of the stadium and the role of the stadium in the wider development in Anfield. This was different from the situation Engelsman and Southern (2010) had encountered in their work on Anfield. They had argued that while community participation played a useful role in constructing the knowledge needed about how regeneration could refashion the neighbourhood, there was often a limited opportunity to drive forward an agenda for change. While community engagement raised expectations from those who lived in the area, it appeared easier to achieve managerial and organizational efficiency in local agencies as part of regeneration, rather than change the practice of regeneration itself. Now and despite activism from other parts of the community and with the latest round of consultation spurred on by council, club and RSL, it was LSU that had seized the initiative. A successful listing of the stadium would legitimize LSU as community-based organizers.

Third, it would allow LSU to organize to buy the club – not simply the stadium – if the owners of Liverpool FC chose to sell. Given the uncertainty surrounding FSG investment and the way in which their purchase was made, this was not an altogether unbelievable possibility, even if the detail given in recent accounts by Liverpool FC estimated the stadium to be worth around £100 million (Liverpool FC, 2012). For LSU, the application was all about recognizing the asset as a means of understanding and possibly changing the ownership of the football club and in pursuing their stated aims of improving social and economic conditions around the Anfield stadium (interview with LSU representative, April 2013).

The consideration period of eight weeks set out in the legislation, passed without confirmation or rejection. Then LSU were contacted to provide further information. At the end of July 2013, the submission made by MUST to list Old Trafford as an ACV was confirmed. Three weeks later on 23 August 2013, Liverpool City Council confirmed the decision to list Anfield as an ACV. Their decision had a number of important aspects to it. First that LSU was an eligible nominating body, thereby providing legal credence to the role and function of the supporters group, an Industrial Society modeled along lines of a more traditional working class organization, now recognized as a community group. Second, that the land itself was not exempt from listing. The city council confirmed that the land was used to further the ‘cultural, recreational and sporting interests of the local community’ specifically in the Anfield, North Liverpool and city region. Finally, the council argued that it was realistic to consider that the main use of the land would continue to be used as a football stadium and would carry on providing social benefit for the local community, whether by Liverpool FC or ‘some other football club or organization’ (Liverpool City Council, 2013). As consultation on new plans for Anfield continued, the listing of Anfield was an additional variable in the development of the Anfield Spatial Regeneration Framework and ultimately, the Liverpool Local Plan. This is one reason why the listing by the local authority of the land on which the stadium sits rather than the stadium itself is relevant. The separation of land and building has for some community groups become an important distinction with the former being seen as the greater asset.⁷

The story so far: Elite Premier League football and ACV

Both Liverpool City Council and Trafford Borough Council have listed the land as an ACV. In their decision they each defined the land to include the pitch, the stands, surrounding forecourts and parking areas. The similarity in their decisions may suggest some form of shared advice; however, this does not limit the potential consequences of the listings. Some early stages of effect from the Localism Act 2011 seem to relate to the capability of the community, reflection on the reality that surrounds localism rhetoric and pertinently for a community like Anfield, the role elite professional football may play in a low-income community.

LSU are focused on the issue of football governance although by their presence, by the fact that the football stadium is situated in a traditional working class community, the interests of the supporters organization overlap in a compelling manner with residents and wider community stakeholders. What is not clear yet is whether this complements or counters the established community voice and how it will sit alongside recognized views, such as the RSL and with other opinions emerging in the community as the consequences of austerity and localism play out. LSU relationship with others remains to be tested.

Although there is valid and sometimes scathing critique of the rhetoric that accompanies much of the localism and Big Society debate, the 2011 Act has provided an opportunity for communities. Initiatives around neighbourhood planning, ideas about community shares and the community infrastructure levy are accompanied by the Community Right to Bid and similar rights have become part and parcel of the Coalition’s localism ideology, indicating that things are happening in spite of the austerity-led attack on social regeneration. We may well see other forms of empowerment through for example, the work of mutual societies and community finance although we are now witnessing a pattern of response to the ideology of localism against a backdrop of ruthless public sector cuts to local authority services.

In this case, the LSU while not immediately hosted in the neighbourhood have clear convictions about the stadium, the depletion to the physical infrastructure around the stadium and what impact an elite football club might have on their immediate surroundings and people. Regeneration has been taking place in Anfield particularly from the HMRI and through the work of RSLs (see Figure 3). However, the focus on needs and renewal has intensified since austerity measures have been introduced and the demise of HMRI has taken affect. LSU did organize and agitate to ensure that the Anfield stadium was nominated as an asset with designated value for its community. LSU had previously exercised its organisational strengths without reference to the Localism Act 2011 and any achievement around ACV will be constrained because they do not have the right to buy – only to bid. Yet the lesson from the LSU nomination is about how the legislation can stimulate new activism by community organizers and if it does, whether this encourages local groups to prioritize community assets and confront existing power structures. The Act will mean that the Coalition’s localism ideology is contested although it is far from clear that the outcomes taking shape will be transformative on behalf of communities.

At the time of writing, the latest round of consultation in Anfield over plans for stadium development and regeneration is coming to a conclusion. The most recent plans seem to be heading towards the final stage of a long drawn out affair that began in the 1990s as the community reacted to the then owners of the football club taking a decision without reference to local needs. That proved a catalyst to participation and consultation over a prolonged period although the extent of influence over Liverpool FC seems to ebb and flow and the indecision of the football club on redevelopment or new build has been part of the reason for such a slow response to instigating change. Local community organisations have constantly complained about this, while LSU have instigated their response and others may follow. We should be explicit (as shown in Figure 3) about the progress made in terms of physical development and how the work of LSU has helped to problematize the decay of recent decades. This is a narrative that is being played out, not on the expensive turf in elite professional football stadia but in the organising capacity of local groups and the institutional stakeholders that surround the listed assets. The rhetoric of the localism agenda may be a means to hide the brutality of austerity at a local level but it may well blur a possibility to organize and agitate in the way a group of football supporters have shown is still possible.

Figure 3.

Efforts are being made to redevelop in the vicinity of the Anfield stadium (refer to Figure 1 for exact location).

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

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