Football supremo's tips for Stafford Rangers

Football supremo Lord Brian Mawhinney spoke about the state of the English game when he paid a visit to Stafford Rangers.

The Football League chairman and Tory MP took a tour of the Marston Road ground and met Rangers bosses before he gave his talk yesterday.

The visit was arranged by Stafford Conservative Association, both for local activists and to give a much-needed boost to Stafford Rangers.

The Blue Square North side has recently battled a major cash crisis and the loss of many players and high-profile manager, Steve Bull, though its finances are said to have now stabilised.

At yesterday's event, some of the problems affecting Rangers and other non-league clubs were put to Lord Mawhinney, whose talk was entitled 'The State of Football in England and its Future'.

Lord Mawhinney also visited grassroots club Stafford Town on Riverway, which runs dozens of junior teams, and saw some of the work currently underway to develop its facilities.

Stafford's Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate Jeremy Lefroy said: "Lord Mawhinney was really impressed by what's going on at Riverway with the building of the new changing rooms and pitches. He was also pleased with the local borough council for helping Stafford Town by giving them some money and get things going.

"Generally, it was a good and encouraging visit for football in Stafford."

Mr Lefroy added that Lord Mawhinney had spoken about the need for football clubs to be financially prudent during his talk at Marston Road - an issue highlighted by Rangers' urgent cost-cutting measures implemented earlier this year after a recession-induced drop in revenues.

He said: "Lord Mawhinney spoke about how you have to run a club as a business because in the long term, you want to be sustainable as well as successful. So sometimes, as a businessman, you have to say 'no' to the fans in order to avoid debt and problems mounting up."