Consumed by a peculiar kind of self-pity, some at Crewe actually think that they are the real victims here... of a witch-hunt
LEAGUE TWO CLUB AT EPICENTRE OF FOOTBALL’S HISTORIC SEX ABUSE SCANDAL IN STATE OF DENIAL
CREWE ALEXANDRA, the football club at the epicentre of the historic child sexual abuse scandal that has overwhelmed English football in the last three weeks, played a home game yesterday.
They lost 2-0 to Crawley Town. Sullen jeers rang out around the ground when the final whistle blew. Supporters hurried away into the dank, dark night, huddled against the pouring rain that hammered a dissonant din on the tin roof of the main stand.
Maybe some of them had been hoping the game would provide a distraction from the relentless flood of distressing news that has placed their club at the heart of one of the gravest crises to afflict our national game. It did not.
This stadium that was known as Gresty Road to a previous generation was a place of fear and loathing in the gloom.
That should not be a surprise. A club who have lived in the shadows for so long, coming to attention only because of the success of its youth system, have been catapulted into prominence for the worst possible reasons.
Rather than looking inwards, many at the club are doing their best to shoot the messengers. But there are some truths they cannot escape.
That youth system, whose success has helped to turn Gresty Road into the shiny, neat Alexandra Stadium, a lower league ground to be proud of, has been exposed as a keeper of terrible secrets.
It was a system that ruined the lives of boys who were abused within it and who were among the first to come forward to tell of the traumas they suffered.
That is why Crewe is at the epicentre of the scandal. That, and some would say the fact that the architect of that youth system and the club’s former long-standing manager, Dario Gradi, is still the director of football at the club. John Bowler, the current chairman, has been in his position since 1987.
Both men should have resigned by now. The fact that they have not merely emphasises the link between the present and the past at Crewe Alexandra. It is one of the reasons that, of all the clubs under investigation, Crewe remain the most likely to face the sternest sanctions.
Gradi, who is 75, was not at the ground yesterday. The steward in charge of the directors’ box said he had not seen him for several weeks. He said he thought he might be lying low. His presence was still felt though.
Midway through the first half, a group of fans in the West Stand behind one of the goals began banging a drum and singing ‘Dario Gradi, football genius’. Others have developed a rather more layered opinion of the man who was manager here for 24 years between 1983 and 2007. He has many questions to answer and not just about the youth system he oversaw.
Gradi is also expected to be interviewed by the FA over claims he ‘smoothed over’ a complaint of sex assault by a Chelsea scout in the Seventies.
A former youth player at Chelsea, where Gradi was assistant manager, says he was assaulted by chief scout, Eddie Heath, when he was 15. He told the Independent that Gradi visited his parents at the time. Gradi says he did nothing wrong and that he will help in the FA’s review.
Crewe are also under fierce scrutiny because Barry Bennell, 62, a former youth coach at the club, has been charged with eight offences of sexual assault against a boy aged under 14, which are alleged to have been committed between 1981 and 1985.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it had received a file of evidence from Cheshire Police relating to allegations of historical abuse. Bennell is scheduled to appear before South Cheshire Magistrates Court in Crewe on Wednesday.
The 68-page club programme listed Gradi’s name among the directors but did not carry a single mention about the horrors that have come to light in the past three weeks.
Not a statement from the chairman. Nothing from the directors. Not a few lines attempting to reassure fans that a full investigation is under way.
Not an apology to former players like Andy Woodward, Steve Walters and Chris Unsworth, who have alleged they were abused when they were in the youth system here and whose courage in coming forward to tell their stories has exposed so many secrets at so many other clubs. No mention of that. Not a single word.
Some at the club clearly feel deeply aggrieved that a light has finally been shone on what happened here.
When I walked into the bar at the Alexandra Stadium yesterday afternoon, a steward was sitting behind a desk with programmes and teamsheets. He started booing while a group of other officials stood by his side.
I asked him if he was booing because I was a fan of old local rivals, Stockport County. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m booing because of all that s*** your lot have been writing in the papers about us.’
It is enough to say that a rather heated argument ensued. I asked him if he would have preferred it if the abuse had remained hidden.
It is the same on social media. Many Crewe supporters deeply resent the attention that is being paid to their club.
They seem to think a witch-hunt is being conducted against them. Consumed by a peculiar kind of self-pity, they appear to believe that they, not the men whose lives have been ruined by what happened to them at the club, are the victims here.
Not everyone is like that. Others on social media said they were sitting in the crowd and felt deeply uncomfortable at some of the chants.
At the fish and chip van outside the stadium, the woman behind the counter shook her head sadly at the mention of the child abuse and mentioned the scandal that once enveloped the Catholic church.
‘It’s not just us at this club, either, is it,’ she said.
And, of course, she is right about that. It is not just about Crewe Alexandra. It is about 97 other football clubs that have been drawn into the scandal now and about 83 potential suspects from all tiers of the game, from the Premier League all the way through to the amateur ranks.
It is also about all those clubs coming to terms with what happened and there is not an awful lot of evidence of that happening at Crewe.
Steve Davis, the Crewe manager, either was not allowed to speak to the national press after the game or chose not to.
To his credit, the first team coach, James Collins, fronted things up instead, although before he was allowed to take questions, a press officer said he would only be permitted to answer enquiries strictly related to Crewe versus Crawley.
Attempts to ask about the scandal or whether it might have had any effect on the current players were swiftly rebuffed.
A few hours earlier, groups of parents had gathered behind the railings at the Alexandra Soccer and Community Association premises in Shavington, a mile or so from Gresty Road, to watch their sons playing for Crewe’s boys’ teams.
The atmosphere was happy and buoyant. Some of the football being played on the four astroturf pitches was terrific. It was a poignant reminder that Crewe Alexandra was once held up as a beacon of how to educate young children in the game.
Now, it is having to come to terms with the reality that its name will be associated with one of the darkest episodes in the long history of English football.