Chairman of the Football League, Lord Mawhinney, was in attendance at the Pirelli Stadium on Thursday to watch his grandson compete for Forest School in the Independent Schools Football Association Under 13 Final. And Lord Mawhinney, soon to retire after over seven years as Chairman, gave some time to speak to www.burtonalbionfc.co.uk about the Club, the Burton-on-Trent community and football at large.
Thursday was not Lord Mawhinney's first visit to the Pirelli Stadium, and after being previously impressed with the Burton Albion set-up, he believes the Club has an important role to play in the local community.
He said, 'I have been to the Pirelli Stadium before. It is a stadium that has been built with real vision and the service when I was here was top class. It's very impressive.
'And you have a good manager who will shape the future for you. As Chairman of the League I don't ever predict what is going to happen to any of my clubs, that's not part of my job. Local people should be very proud of this facility and it's role in the community. Not only is it significant but it is very impressive.'
Burton Albion hosted both the under 13 and under 15 final of the ISFA, with local school, Repton, featuring in the final of the under 15s in the evening kick off.
Lord Mawhinney said, 'I gather one of the finals involves a local school. That's nice as it adds a little bit of extra interest locally. One of my Grandsons is playing for the Forest school in the under 13 final so that's why my wife and I are here.'
There has been a large amount of local interest generated in the local area regarding the development of the new National Football Centre, St George's Park, at Rangemoor, Burton-on-Trent. The new facility is due to be completed in 2012 and will be the training base for the England football team as well as a 'University of Football.'
'It has huge potential but to the best of my knowledge our clubs have not been approached to indicate how much potential use they might make of it,' said Lord Mawhinney. 'That level of use would be a matter for the individual clubs.
'The clubs have to decide whether what is on offer is the best of what they can get. That's part of the challenge for those who have the responsibility for developing St. George's Park. And if the high hopes for it are realised then I am sure it will be very successful.
'It will encourage people to come to the area who otherwise wouldn't and I would certainly imagine it is going to provide a noticeable degree of new employment. From the local communities point of view its got to be a major plus. Locally I'm sure people are going to do what they can to make it successful as if it is successful it will benefit the local community.
'This club ought to benefit as well, no question. At the end of the day my clubs will find ways to get their training and learning. The new facility has got to persuade them that it will be better if they come here. There are no guarantees with this. It is a venture like any other venture, there were no guarantees when Ben (Robinson) built this place but he's made it work and made it work extremely well.'
Lord Mawhiney is set to retire after over seven years as Chairman of the Football league, and he hopes one his lasting legacies will be the improvement in the relationships between football clubs and their local communities.
He said, 'Something we have done and we have empathised over the last seven years has been the importance of our local clubs to their local communities and building that link. There is a strong Club/community link here and I would be very happy, when other have looked at what I have done, if the club/community link was one of the things that was thought to have been a success over the last seven years, and this Club is a good example.'
