Look Back in Anger - The Exeter City Story

It began with optimism, confidence, razzmatazz and even a demonstration of ball skills - it ended in tears and disillusionment shortly after the intervention of the Fraud Squad.

The colourful 12-month reign of John Russell and Mike Lewis at Exeter City did offer signs of hope and better things to come amid the recriminations, unpaid bills, boardroom rifts and threats to the very existence of the club.

But there was to be no happy ending for City's embattled - and eventually embittered - co-owners who, in the end, were left isolated, unloved and ultimately with little option but to exit St James's Park.

Now the supporters have been left to clear up the mess, rebuild bridges and the reputation of their beloved football club.

Russell and Lewis arrived at Exeter City a year ago warning: "We have no magic wand to wave."

And the duo's track record certainly failed to inspire confidence among City fans who were desperate for a quick fix following a dozen years of hurt at St James's Park.

Russell's decade in charge at Scarborough culminated in relegation out of the Football League while Lewis' decision to sell Swansea for just £1 to Australian hate figure Tony Petty had backfired badly.

"We are practical, reasonable men," insisted Lewis upon the duo's arrival. "Our target within three years is to get the club back to a position where it is washing its face again - by that I mean not losing money."

But the boardroom unrest that was to engulf the Grecians all season began to surface just 10 days later when former chief-executive Bernard Frowd was relieved of his duties.

The involvement of celebrity spoonbender Uri Geller and son Daniel - who were listed as co-chairman and co-vice-chairman - undeniably raised the profile of the club.

And the surreal sight of pop megastar Michael Jackson parading around St James's Park in a vintage car set the tone for a madcap 12 months.

Former Wolves frontman Don Goodman was theatrically unveiled as the club's star summer signing at half-time during a pre-season warm-up with Yeovil.

Russell and Lewis even made a failed first attempt to lure Paul Gascoigne out of semi-retirement, but the homecoming of championship hero and ex-Premiership goalkeeper Kevin Miller maintained the feelgood factor at the club.

And when former England and Manchester United winger Lee Sharpe signed on the dotted line in time for the second game of the season - in return for a fee of £3,000 per game and against the wishes of manager John Cornforth - the sky seemed to be the limit.

"I think if any club finishes in the bottom two they've really only got themselves to blame," declared Lewis before City picked up a handy four points from their first three outings.

But the duo's incessant tinkering in team affairs - as highlighted by the disastrous recruitment of Argentinian flop Sebastien Scalise and the quick exit made by Sharpe - was starting to take its toll on Cornforth.

A 4-0 defeat at Wrexham prompted a stand-up row between the manager and Geller in the car park outside the Recreation Ground.

On September 11 the club posted record £500,000 losses in the year up to June 2002.

A few days later the duo revealed how they planned to cut City's £1.8m debts - by knocking down the old grandstand, replacing it with a shallower stand and earmarking surrounding land and the old Centre Spot clubhouse for housing development.

The only drawback being that St James's Park is owned by Exeter City Council, who showed little enthusiasm for the project.

But by cost-cutting and the slashing of administration staff at the club, the pair announced they had managed to trim City's weekly losses from £8,500 to £5,000.

Then came the mistake that ultimately cost Russell and Lewis the loyalty of the fans and ended the club's 83-membership of the Nationwide League.

Supporters were divided over the sacking of Cornforth just 12 games into the season - they would soon become united in their condemnation of rookie successor Neil McNab.

While the impressive CVs of applicants including Graham Rix, Jan Molby and Brian Little were consigned to the bin, McNab was handed his first job in management on the recommendation of World Cup legend and former Grecians boss Alan Ball.

Ex-Darlington boss Gary Bennett was appointed as assistant boss even though he had never before met the new man in charge at St James's Park.

And as pressure mounted on the ex-Spurs midfielder, it also increased for Lewis and Russell as stories of employment tribunals, unpaid bills, uneasy creditors and threats of winding up orders began to surface.

The city council then publicly demanded to know why charities had received no cash from Jackson's summer appearance - as did firms still waiting for payment for the equipment and services they supplied for the event.

By early December, nine companies had lodged county court judgements against the club and the Sheriff of Devon had even taken 'walking possession' of the floodlights at St James's Park.

The club did bank a cool £250,000 by charting a route into the third round of the FA Cup where they gave Premiership Charlton a run for their money in front of more than 3,000 visiting fans.

The influx of cash persuaded Russell and Lewis to splash out a club record fee of £75,000 on Wycombe striker Sean Devine, who finally sealed his on-off move in January.

A disgruntled McNab privately made it known that, not only had he not wanted the player, he had not even managed to see him in action.

Following a public spat with the Exeter City Supporters' Trust over board representation, it emerged that the Gellers had failed to officially register themselves as directors of the club.

And in mid-February, Russell and Lewis announced they would be calling an extraordinary general meeting to oust Frowd and fellow director Peter Carter from the board.

On February 24, after just three wins from 20 league games and five straight defeats, McNab and Bennett were finally shown the door.

A replacement was appointed just 24 hours later - and Gary Peters soon discovered the harsh realities of managing Exeter City Football Club.

McNab had used up the club's entire allocation of loan deals in his fruitless search for success, a transfer embargo was imposed for failing to meet an instalment of Devine's fee, six directors resigned following an FA report into the state of City's finances and the Gellers left the board on the advice of concerned officials at the Football League.

Peters threatened to quit over a planned fans' protest against Russell and Lewis before the pair were ordered to vacate their St James's Centre clubhouse over rent arrears owed to holding company OTR (Exeter) Ltd.

And despite the prayers of Geller - and a remarkable return of 20 points from Peters' 13 games in charge - the Grecians lost their fight against relegation on the final afternoon of a fraught 2002/2003 campaign.

"If it costs us our health or death we will get this football club right," promised Russell immediately after becoming to first chairman to steer two clubs out of the Nationwide League.

Geller promptly dropped another bombshell by announcing he had "disassociated" himself from Russell and Lewis following an incident at the club - and the next day called on the pair to quit St James's Park for the good of Exeter City.

On May 12, Lewis and Russell turned up at St James's Park to find the locks to their offices had been changed by landlords OTR, who then agreed to let them use a single room in the building.

The pair's revelation that they were considering entering into a Creditors's Voluntary Agreement - a move designed to address the debts of a struggling company - raised the prospect of a points deduction before the start of next season.

And there was no way back after Lewis, Russell and his wife Gillian were arrested and interviewed - but not charged - by fraud squad officers investigating alleged financial irregularities at the club.

Russell emerge from Heavitree Road Police Station in typically defiant mood, vowing to clear his name and promising to return to his desk the following day. Lewis, on the other hand, drove off to his partner's home in Swansea saying: "I won't be going back at all, ever - not the way I feel tonight."

And his wish soon became the command of Ivor Doble, former chairman, club president and majority shareholder at St James's Park.

Once Doble had publicly called on the duo to quit the Grecians, Russell was forced to admit: "It is quite obvious now that we can't stay under these circumstances."

Companies House was officially notified of the pair's departure at 9am last Friday morning - paving the way for the Supporters' Trust to complete their takeover at St James's Park.

Peters signalled his intention to leave within hours of this changing of the guard, leaving the club without a manager, with only an interim board and needing to raise £100,000 in seven days just to meet its monthly wage bill.

It should be remembered that Russell and Lewis inherited an almighty financial mess and, for a couple of months last summer, succeeded in putting smiles back on the faces of long-suffering Grecians supporters.

But they will also go down in history as the men who guided the club out of the Nationwide League during a year of unparalleled upheaval and bitterness.

"That's it with me and football, I've wasted 10 years of my life and it's time to go back to the building site," said Russell, a former property developer.

There are very few Exeter City fans who would disagree.

Having spoken to Ian Huxham today at the club (one of the Trust Directors along with Terry Pavey and Julian Tagg from OTR) who are all currently tied up with Camera Crews, Press and various other people. He asked me to make the following statement on behalf of the Trust/Club.

The Last Grand Stand appeal has had a tremendous initial success but is being hampered slightly by the need for local firms to contact head offices or directors who are on holiday at this time. In addition there are are only so many hours in the day and only a small number of volunteers doing the ringing round (more always welcome!) therefore the initial deadline is being extended by two weeks. There were 5 scenarios that were envisioned for today and all took into account us trying to uphold the good name of Exeter City Football Club by attempting to honour the financial commitments that we have discovered that were made by the previous administration.

We did not want to start off a possible new administration by immediately defaulting on any of these inherited commitments but rather demonstrate a new attitude with a new beginning.

Best case scenario was that 100k would have been raised and would have enabled us to finance all the commitments outstanding with enough to also finance the financial investigation and report into the current state of the club. This was always a possibility but, in truth, without a 'Jack Hayward' figure appearing was very unlikely.

The worst case scenario was that we would have little or no success in raising the 100k needed to meet these commitments and therefore have to let the club go to the wall. This was a real possibility but thanks to a tremendous effort by both the Trust and OTR plus numerous people behind the scenes - all giving of their time for not even expenses - this has been averted.

The first milestone to prove we were viable and in a position to continue was to raise 40k and I am extremely pleased to say we have reached it, SUCCESS, so we still have a club. This figure was recommended to us after extensive legal and, particularly financial advice. It represented the figure that we could progress from but allow the club to continue in the short term by paying the office staff and the majority or nucleolus of the playing staff to enable us to operate as a team next season.

The next significant milestone was if we had been able to raise 70k which would have allowed us to settle the 40k referred above and then pay an interim 50% to the remainder of the commitments.

The final scenario was if we had raised a figure between 40 and 70k and the advice then was again to pay the 40k and then put the rest in a hat and share it out on a even percentage basis between the rest of the commitments.

Having achieved the 40k and with substantial further funding in the pipeline from firms and individuals as mentioned above we are confident that if the efforts so far made are continued with even more of you getting on board to help we can succeed in raising the initial 100k needed.

However please be under no illusions, this is ONLY to allow the club to continue in the short term. We will then need to look closely at the financial report into the actual state of the club and then decide whether we will be able to continue and turn the club's finances around and achieve our aim of having a community owned club run by the community, for the community.

UP THE CITY - KEEP SMILING THROUGH!