Regan is just Champion

In the waiting room at the Football League's headquarters near Marble Arch - "a lovely part of London, " he later suggests, though some would suppose the words "lovely" and "London" to be contradictory - we fall to perusing the quiz in one of the tabloids.

What's the new name, asks question 11, for the Football League's top division? a) championship, b) supremeship, c) sinkingship.

When he bowls a little breathlessly in - amiable, apologetic, above all buoyant - it seems wiser not to mention it. Those in high football authority blame the Daily Mail for quite enough as it is.

Stewart, 40-year-old son of a retired Co Durham police sergeant and dog training expert, is the new managing director of the Football League Championship (nee second division, formerly first. ) It's definitely option A, his avowed intention to narrow the widening gulf between Championship and Premiership, with whom the Football League shares an elegant office block - the Premier, perhaps priapically, on top.

Though the neighbours co-exist amicably, he feels occasionally compelled to bang the broom against big brother's ceiling, if only to remind them that there's still abundant fire down below.

"Taking the family to a Premiership match these days is like taking them to Disneyland. It's well over £100 in some cases; you can only afford to do it once a year.

"We have to make our own product more appealing, establish the Championship as a good place to be. The problem is that we aren't creating enough reasons for people to support their local club." It's a gap he minds as assiduously as a Piccadilly Line porter, a void into which he pours ideas and energy with manifest enthusiasm and evident enjoyment. Sixteen million watched the top division last season; within six years he wants it to be 21 million.

What about sin bins as in Rugby League, he suggests-

What of goal line technology or referees and their assistants wired for sound so that spectators - those who pay for the headphones - can hear the match as well as watch it?

What about showing the previous away match in the 90 minutes before the home game, of face painting or multiple retail outlets - "a travel agent's, maybe" - within the stadium? Why not attract people to the ground at 1pm instead of crowding them in at ten to 3, why on earth herd them out again at ten to 5?

Among the more imminent initiatives, he believes, is that under sevens will next season be admitted free to all Football League matches. "They won't come on their own, they'll bring dads and maybe mums who'll spend money in other parts of the ground.

"One of the biggest problems we have is kids growing up supporting Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea. My job is to get them to support their local club. I hate seeing a kid walk down Bishop Auckland main street in a Man United shirt." His approach is both passionate and strategic.

Stewart Regan is putting the fizz into the Coca Cola Championship, determined (as the marketing men might never now say) that things will go better.

He was brought up at Durham Constabulary's Harperley Hall training school, where his father Steve was based, then in Crook where football was just about compulsory. He is understandably reluctant to talk about his favourite club; suffice that it's pretty close to home.

He went to school in Bishop Auckland, read American studies at university, decided that there wasn't much you could do with American studies except teach it in turn and applied to follow his father into the police.

Though he "sailed" written and medical tests, he admitted on a form that he was deaf in his right ear.

They turned him down.

"Hearing isn't a problem at all, but with hindsight it was a blessing in disguise, " he says. "I probably wouldn't have achieved as much in the police force as I have elsewhere, and it's become a very dangerous job.

"I don't think it will be long before all policemen carry weapons as a matter of routine." Instead he joined the brewing industry, strategic planning director for the giant Coors group when spotting a newspaper advertisement for the Football League job.

"It jumped out of the page. There aren't that many big jobs in football and they're highly sought after. I'd have kicked myself if I hadn't applied.

"I always said that if I ever left beer it would only be for one of my other interests, football or music.

This job is unique, brand new, you can write the script for yourself.

"I've been really lucky. If I'd been a soap powder or a dog food salesman and sat in the pub talking about my job, everyone would turn off.

If you're talking beer or football, everyone wants to listen." He lives in Leeds with his wife, three children and ill behaved dog ("me dad would have a fit"), daily commuted the 186 mile round trip to Burton-on-Trent, now divides his time between the League's offices in Preston and London and in selling his vision to the Championship's 24 clubs.

Though opening day crowds were the highest since 1965, though 67 per cent of top division seats were occupied last season, he's committed to putting bums on the remainder.

As well a brewer might, he sees the glass as a third empty, not two-thirds full.

Though the notion of Championship and Leagues One and Two has been roundly ridiculed and has driven some supporters to drink - worse yet, to drink Pepsi - he supports it totally.

It was the Football League, he points out, which gave the game play-offs and three points for a win.

"Football fans are fickle, conservative with a small c, and you can't please them all the time. No initiative in football is going to be received with 100 per cent open arms." Supporters, he adds - in a 90 minute chat the only example of managementspeak - are risk averse.

"Change is sometimes a good thing. My job is to prove that there is value in the new Championship, not to deal in short term issues.

"While we are always interested in what the fans have to say, we are driving this strategy because we believe it is in the long term interests of football.

"There was criticism when the Premiership was launched and look at it now.

We have continually to innovate - look at twenty-20 cricket, which has turned a bloody boring game that could go on for days into great entertainment.

"Going to watch your football club is supposed to be an entertainment, too, not something that's a pain." Clubs, for all that, have given him a mixed reception. "There are still those who believe it's going to be very difficult to deliver, but many have been very supportive.

"There's no getting away from the fact that it's a huge gap with the Premiership and growing almost by the month. If it gets any bigger, some of the smaller clubs will be left behind. We can either let it ride, or do something about it. If I have a vision, it is that if people spend £10 a week now on their football club, that we can turn it into £20." So how, for example, would he market Sunderland v Crewe?

"That's a difficult question to answer, " he says. "The real question is whether they feel they're getting value for money." Recently qualified as a junior cross country coach, he recently ran his first competitive race for 19 years, 38th out of 200 over five miles. "It wasn't bad, " he says.

Many more ditches and hurdles lie ahead, each eagerly anticipated. As probably they'd say back in Crook, the managing director is getting along champion.

BACKTRACK BRIEFS...

JONATHAN Barnes, for ten seasons Northallerton Cricket Club's extraordinarily consistent professional, has a hugely deserved benefit on Sunday.

Every year more fashionable clubs seek his signature; every year he tells them - pro's and cons - that he's happy where he is. "Peter Kippax once told never to stay in one place for more than three years as a professional, " he recalls. "On balance, I'm glad I didn't listen." Now 35, he had six years with Darlington RA and three with Ushaw Moor - the Kippax factor - before heading into North Yorkshire.

He's hit 7,380 runs with six centuries, 59 50s and an average of 40.1. With the ball he's claimed 642 wickets, average 15.62 and has been so unremittingly miserly - economy rate 2.35 an over - that Scrooge himself might have come to watch the lad in the nets.

"I'm just a good trier, nothing flash, " Jonathan insists, though many would disagree.

"He has virtually single handedly kept Northallerton afloat in the NYSD League and on top of that must be one of the most loyal professionals ever, " says our man in the county town.

A month to go, and Northallerton are in contention for their first league title since joining the NYSD in 1971.

Jonathan, 74 wickets and 659 runs this season, advises caution.

"We were in a similar position in my first season and it rained on our parade.

I wouldn't want it to happen again. We were 50-1 at the start of the season; the bookies aren't usually wrong." Weather permitting, the benefit will be a 25 over match between Northallerton past and present with all the usual barbecued additional attractions. The Barnes door is open to all.

AT much the same time on Sunday, a match takes place at Hawes - west end of Wensleydale - in memory of Jimmy Gregson, whose passing we recorded in April.

Jimmy, who was 78, was one of those all purpose people without whom little cricket clubs wouldn't exist. "We've enjoyed our cricket this season, " says former team-mate Raye Wilkinson. "It would have been an insult to his memory if we hadn't." The game's between Hawes and members of teams from all over the country whom they've played over the years. Blades CC from Liverpool will plant a tree in his memory, the Hawes lads will supply a bench on which to relax beneath it.

"We'll sit there, " says Raye, "with wonderful memories of Jimmy."

TUESDAY'S column recorded that, shortly before Middlesbrough's weekend derby against a conjunctivitis hit Magpies, the mischievous DJ played both Lyin' Eyes and Bright Eyes. Twenty minutes before that, reports Martin Birtle in Billingham, the PA also played the theme from Captain Pugwash - all about pirates with eye patches. "I was falling about, " says Martin. "I'll be it's the first time ever that Captain Pugwash has been played on a football field."

And finally...

The only player to score an international hat trick against Peter Shildon (Backtrack August 17) was Marco van Basten in the 1988 European Championships. Ronnie Chambers, a newcomer to these shores, was among those who got it

Bill Moore in Coundon today invites readers to name the present League One side which between 1994-99 was managed by three different who all began this season as managers in the Premiership.

We bridge the gap again on Tuesday.

Published: 20/08/2004