Chester chairman change explained, while Blues have an eye on the future
Vice-chairman of the CFU, Jim Green, explains the change of chair at the Blues
Next week it will be two months since The Seal was launched.
For the first piece after launch I travelled to Manchester for a sit down chat with the then chairman of Chester Football Club, Kieron Shiel.
Shiel had been chairman of the Blues since early 2022 when he replaced the outgoing chair of City Fans United, Andrew Morris. Shiel was then in his fourth year as a director of the football club and was unanimously voted by his fellow Board members to take on the chairmanship.
Less than a fortnight after the interview in December, it was announced that there would be a new chairman of the CFU, and ergo the football club, with long-time Board member Nick Phillipson taking on the mantle. Shiel remained on the Board, with his tenure now into its eighth year.
It was a decision that came as a surprise to many. During Shiel’s time as chairman there had been improvements across the club, in the main. The Blues came within a whisker of promotion from the National League North last season when they were beaten in the play-off final by Scunthorpe United, and off the pitch the financial picture of the club had markedly improved, especially when held up against the challenges that reared their ugly head in February 2018, when it was revealed at a CFU meeting that the club needed £50,000 in the short term to avoid going out of business.
That moment proved to be a wake-up call for the Blues, and since then the scars that period brought haven’t been forgotten, and they play a part in the thinking every time money is spent at the club. This is a football club that has to live in the black due to its model. For the most recent set of financial results, published late last year, the Blues recorded a profit of £53,000.
Shiel was one of the directors to have arrived on the Board in the aftermath of the 2018 financial crisis and much churn arrived at Board level as a result.
Now, after almost four years as chair, Shiel has passed the baton to Phillipson.
