Sir John Harman reflects on the John Smith’s Stadium and asks why Huddersfield Town and Huddersfield Giants want to throw a winning hand

The future of John Smith’s Stadium remains unresolved for 30 years^th anniversary year and here Sir John Harman, former leader of Kirklees Council and chairman of Kirklees Stadium Development Ltd for 20 years, reflects on the lessons to be learned from the past.

Sir John and former Huddersfield chairman Graham Leslie CBE were the combined driving force behind the stadium’s creation in the early 1990s.

I see there was an event to mark 30 years since Huddersfield Town moved from Leeds Road to the new stadium. Too bad, I would have liked to be invited.

As president for over 20 years and still possessing a working memory, he might have had something to say.

Come to think of it, I’d probably better not be. Because what we would be celebrating was the sense of shared purpose that enabled the club and Kirklees Council to do something together that neither could have done alone.

And I might have said that that common purpose has now passed into history, as much as the old ground at Leeds Road.

For a while everyone understood why clubs and the board needed to pool resources (and go to funders like the Football Trust together); for a while everyone understood why common property was necessary; for a while everyone understood why the running of the stadium was separate from the day-to-day running of either the clubs or the board.

Clubs could focus on their job, which is to play professional sport, the board could protect taxpayers’ funds.

For a while. But memories fade. Club owners like to own things. For more than a decade now, HTAFC has wanted to own the entire operation, lock, stock, keg (there are quite a few), catering, rentals, ground staff… as if they don’t have enough on their plate. on the game side.

Sir John Harman

Huddersfield Giants have more recently stated that they want their own stadium again. The council wants to wash its hands of all involvement (except freehold of course).

Well, we might look back wistfully to 1994, when it was considered a huge advantage for our clubs NOT to have to keep track of stadium operations.

I watched all this with a dazed heart. I feel quite parental towards the stadium, having seen it through its birth, growth and maturation. So you might think these are the musings of a grumpy old dad, and you might have reason; up to a point.

However, there is something more fundamental to all of this and that is the question – who really owns a football club? No, who has the shares? But whose is it really?

The obvious answer is the body of supporters who follow the fate of the club, attend matches, can have season tickets; who look for the results every winter Saturday, who rejoice in success and cry in failure.

But it also belongs to the wider community, most of whom recognize that HTAFC and the Giants are somehow part of the fabric of who and what we are, even if they would never come to a game.

Therefore, any local authority with a professional club in its area cannot disown it or stand aside from its assets.

The main purpose of any council is to promote its place and its people, and in our culture few things are more important to a city’s sense of place than its football club.

Thirty years ago, clubs were dealt a winning hand with a state-of-the-art stadium that allowed them to compete at the highest level and focus on sporting performance.

Like all City supporters, I am both dismayed at the club’s slide and angry at the decision-making that produced such disjointed and demoralizing performances last season.

The club can make a fresh start on the field; it is much harder to see how the spirit of joint enterprise of 1994 can be rediscovered.

Fans celebrate at Huddersfield’s Town’s old Leeds Road ground 30 years on