Passion and new stadium could take Gateshead Football Club to league

Jan 6 2010 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

ENTREPRENEURS Graham Wood and Brian Waites have a dream to create Britain’s first financially sustainable Football League club in Gateshead, Peter McCusker reports.

BY the start of the 2011-12 football season Gateshead Football Club could be playing in a new 9,000 capacity stadium near the Civic Centre.

Whether these games will be in the Football League or still in the Football Conference depends upon the performance of the team over the next 18 months.

However with the ambition of chairman Graham Wood and vice chairman Brian Waites there is great optimism that Gateshead will soon return to the Football League for the first time since 1960.

Graham Wood stepped in from semi-retirement in America in 2002 to help his hometown team and has so far spent £1.25m on the club he followed as a boy.

His interest stepped up in 2006 when he became chairman and subsequently returned to the region.

So far this is a familiar trail, trekked for over 100 years by thousands of wealthy businessman who have bankrolled the football clubs closest to their hearts.

But for Wood and Waites the stadium development will set them on an unfamiliar football path, one which they believe will pave the way for others to follow and will ensure the club can become financially self-sufficient.

Wood says: “Since 2002 I’ve bankrolled the club to the tune of £1.25m, but what we want to do here is create something that will be financially viable and secure long term.

“The problem with the way football clubs are run at the present is that it’s either boom or bust.

“We see philanthropists come along, put money in, lose interest and then the club struggles. That’s not a sensible way to run a football club.

“I could help bring league football back to the club by continuing to be a sugar daddy, but I want to look to the long term and build something that is sustainable for the town of Gateshead.

“I want to help build that something while I am alive, something that will be here when I am gone. I get great pleasure from being involved in Gateshead and I want to be able to create something that will give future generations great pleasure too.”