Fan-owned Chesterfield on rise and taking aim at Chelsea’s millionaires

“We took the club over during a pandemic and people said we were crackers,” says Chesterfield’s chief executive, John Croot, as he considers the thought of 6,000 long-suffering fans converging on Stamford Bridge. “But someone had to do something.”

On Saturday evening the National League side will face Chelsea and, whether or not they contrive a shock for the ages, their presence advertises an eye-catching change in fortunes.

The Spireites had been a staple of the Football League’s lower divisions for almost a century when they plummeted through the trapdoor in 2018 and things almost got much worse. But last year they were saved by a takeover from the Chesterfield FC Community Trust, an independent charity affiliated to the club since 2009, and the turnaround in the subsequent 17 months has been extraordinary.

“When we completed the deal, the fans asked us what our ambition for the year was,” says Croot. “We just said: ‘To make sure we’ve got a football club at the end of the season.’”

Chesterfield ended up with more than that. They rediscovered genuine hope on the pitch, rebuilding a side that had finished 20th in 2019-20 and, via a play-off defeat by Notts County in June, finished 2021 two points clear at the top.

A return to the fourth tier under James Rowe, their bright young manager, looks distinctly possible. But they also forged a bond with their local area that few can match. No other club in the top five divisions is entirely fanowned and they hope the model can point a way forward.

“It’s given us a unique opportunity to embed the club in the community,” Croot says. “While multimillionaires might buy a club, I’m not sure they ever truly own it.”

Once a programme seller at Saltergate, Chesterfield’s former stadium, Croot became a club director and headed up a supporters’ society that saved them from being kicked out of the league in 2001.

When the trust took over from Dave Allen last August, backed by Chesterfield borough council and Derbyshire county council, the club had faced another existential crisis. Now they are making a difference: the trust is on course for a £2m turnover, a world away from the £30,000 it took after being formed, and Croot says every pound it receives from the county council generates a £12 economic return on social outcomes.

A list of its schemes would stretch to several pages. Last week several hundred hampers were delivered to deprived families across north Derby