June 2025 Update

It’s been a significant month for Southport Central. We’ve taken a few steps to be clearer about what this platform is, where it’s come from, and where it’s going.

You might have noticed we’ve switched domains. The site now lives at SouthportCentral.co.uk. The old domain – southportfootballclub.co.uk – will still work, and if that’s how you’ve always got here, nothing’s broken. But the change matters.

This has never been the club’s official site. It never had any connection to the club. For a long time, the domain was simply available and suited what the site covered back then – Southport FC. But over the years, that’s led to understandable confusion. This change is about drawing a clearer line. It is still focused on the club, but now it has a wider interest in local sport and local history.

Just as the club was formed (in 1888!) by bringing a number of local teams together to form one professional outfit, the idea behind Southport Central is to bring things together in one place – and to do it properly.

To make sure the site’s not just independent but also accountable, Southport Central is now accredited by IMPRESS, the UK’s recognised press regulator. You don’t demand standards from others that you’re not prepared to keep yourself.

We’ve also been affiliated with the Football Supporters’ Association for some time. That connects us to the wider push for better football governance and stronger supporter voice, especially at clubs further down the pyramid where proper scrutiny is even more important.

None of this is for show. It’s about putting the right structure behind what we’ve been doing for years – because if you’re going to ask questions, you have to be able to stand by them.

This site exists to fill a gap. Not to replace what the club does, but to do something different: ask questions, explain what’s going on, and put things in context. We don’t need louder voices – we need sharper thinking. We don’t need permission to write. And while that hasn’t always been popular, the aim is to be honest and fair, not to be liked.

There have been times when individuals in or around the club – unable or unwilling to engage with what was actually said – chose instead to try and discredit and undermine those saying it. There may not have been formal legal threats, but the message was often clear enough: some things weren’t welcome, no matter how accurate they were.

Even when questions have been put forward with care and context, the response from the club has often been silence. That doesn’t make the questions less valid – it just reinforces why someone needs to keep asking them. It isn’t about having all the answers – it’s about asking the right questions. And if you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

For years, independent supporter platforms like Port Chat have been arrogantly laughed off or quietly dismissed by some people in and around the club – as if they weren’t worth reading or engaging with. When fans are in agreement, that sentiment is acknowledged. When they’re asking difficult questions, it’s often ignored or waved away as background noise. It’s no secret that plenty of people close to the club claim they don’t even bother to read what’s said – and that says a lot.

That said, I do give David Cunningham credit for acknowledging, directly to me, that he’s read the articles I’ve written. It’s a small thing, but an important one – and more than some have ever been willing to admit. It shows that honest engagement is possible, and that a more open conversation is still worth trying to have.

This isn’t a new idea. Back in the late 19th century, it was the local press that helped football take root in towns like Southport. The Southport Visiter made the game matter here.

Today, the landscape’s totally different. Coverage is minimal, and the people writing the match reports are often club volunteers. The detail, the memory, the ability to hold people to account – that’s all at risk of disappearing unless someone else picks it up.

What makes it even sadder is how far we’ve drifted from what we used to have. There was a time when local club coverage was solid, reliable, and written by people who genuinely cared. Haydn Preece, Alan Prole, and Joe Moore at the Southport Visiter, and Ron Ellis at the Southport Champion all knew the club, they understood the town, and they treated the job with respect. At times they made themselves unpopular but knew that their role required it of them.

There’s no real legacy of that now. The Visiter and others often just repackage club-written content, passing it off as journalism. Just recycled lines and surface-level coverage.

That’s where this platform comes in. To be a reference point – even when it’s uncomfortable.

I understand the role the club’s own media plays – I was part of it. I built and ran the club’s first website, and later became its press officer. That work was something I was proud to do at a time when the club was still being covered regularly by external outlets. One of the biggest compliments I’ve ever received was when Charlie Clapham quietly handed me a club tie in the press box and told me I’d earned it.

I stopped volunteering some time ago but not because I don’t see the value. Now, I believe institutions need critical friends and being outside that structure allows me to ask the questions I think need asking.

June’s been a busy month. We covered the conclusion of the takeover saga – a long and sometimes murky process that we followed every step of the way. We took a detailed look at the financial position the new ownership inherited, with a 40-year retrospective on the club’s accounts. You wouldn’t find that in the Visiter. And beyond the written work, I also gave a local history talk this month on how Southport’s early clubs shaped the game in the town.

Next month will no doubt be just as busy. The club’s next fans forum takes place on Friday 4 July and I’ll be there.

I’m not going to pretend to speak on anyone else’s behalf. But if there’s something you want to ask, or something you want raised that you’d rather not put forward yourself, get in touch. The more voices that feed into that discussion, the better. If nothing else, it shows that people are paying attention.

Thanks for reading – especially if you’ve been following this site in its various forms over the years. It’s always been run voluntarily, and there’s never been a penny made from any of it. No ads, no sponsors – just time, effort, and a belief that someone needs to keep track of what’s going on.

Being told that someone enjoyed or appreciated an article means more than any financial reward ever could.

If you’ve got something worth raising, a story that deserves to be told, or just an idea for something you’d like to see covered – get in touch. If you’re an aspiring writer looking for a platform and want a little help on the way, reach out. I don’t have a team, but I do listen. And the more people feed into this, the better the record we keep.

Because if nobody’s paying attention, the story gets lost.

That can’t be allowed to happen here.