Clarke: 'To take that Saturday game away from people, you can't imagine it."
A week is a long time in football someone might have said once, or pretty close to it, and that's as long as the new Football League chairman has been in the job, after replacing the good Lord Mawhinney.
And if he expected a quiet start, Mr. Clarke was sadly mistaken.
He commented ruefully: "Usually, you get a bit of an induction, a bit of a honeymoon period, you haven't got pitbulls hanging off each arm within two weeks!"
Good luck mate!
And even with the announcement that Football League crowds reached more than 17.1m supporters, a 50-year high, despite all those gloomy predictions this time last year, he could still see problems on the horizon.
Clarke warned: "We will see major corporations crash and burn, we will see major economies crash and burn. Fundamental economic problems have social consequences, they have consequences for businesses, they have consequences for football. I don't want our clubs to adopt a Cassandra mentality. The attendances are brilliant, the number of young people coming into our grounds is great. But the reality is that we live in perilous economic times."
Clarkey, meet Uncle Ron!
There was also the "take it or leave it" offer from our Premiership 'friends' that did propose a vastly improved £400m deal on parachute and solidarity payments, but there were conditions attached!
The proposal was originally seriously opposed by chairman from the two lower tiers who feared a 'Premiership 2' by stealth, with a hugh finacial gap opening between them and clubs in the Championship.
He got the proposal through at the second attempt, it was worth £175,000 to each League Two club, (call it a Lee Barnard!), but many still voted against and felt bruised by the encounter after Clarke spoke to each and everyone of them.
The new League supremo explained: "What I saw was a tough commercial negotiation. If the Premier League hadn't chosen the best possible time to get their deal done quickly, they wouldn't be the highly effective commercial outfit they are.
Clarke warns there is "no silver bullet" and that his organisation will continue to balance costs and benefits.
He continued: Do people deserve to know who owns their football club? Yes. Do we want fit-and-proper people running our football clubs? Yes. Do we want to make sure that clubs can't take huge risks and not pay the taxman? Of course, it's outrageous. It is impossible, even if I wanted to, to tell the clubs what to do. We have got good cost management in League Two and we'll be debating how to drive that into League One and the Championship. But the higher you go up the harder it gets."
He's yet to decide whether the football creditor rule, which demands debts to other clubs and players are paid first and in full, is good for the game.
Clarke said: "We use the football creditor rule to make sure if one clubs fails it can't easily drag down the rest. There are benefits but there are also moral hazards. If you are selling assets to football clubs because you are protected from risk, are you doing dumb things? It's not clear to me where the balance of that argument is."
He does sympathise with recent public outrage:"How on earth can you screw the local pie supplier and St John Ambulance and your charity partner, and pay other football clubs? That's morally indefensible."
At least Clarkey, who ran Cable & Wireless and Australian property giant Lend Lease, knows how tough it can be in the boardroom
A Leicester City fan all his life, he was chairman when the Foxes went into administration in 2002 and led a consortium which included Gary Lineker that brought it out again.
He reminised; "We nearly lost the club. I mean altogether. My mum lives there, my two sisters are there, I've got loads of mates there. It wasn't just the fact I couldn't have walked up the high street again. Living on a council estate is a pretty crap existence. I was lucky enough to go to a decent grammar school and get out of it. But there are lots of people who have hard jobs, can't afford proper holidays, can't get off the estate. Their one ray of sunshine is that their club might get a result on a Saturday. To take that away from them and carry that burden, you can't imagine it."
He draws an analogy with coalmines: "They are businesses. But have you seen what happens to a mining community when they lose their pit? This is more than a business, this is a way of life and a defining pillar of the community."
The full Guardian interview with Greg Clarke, here:
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/may/21/
football-league-chairman-warning-finances
For the S24 article on league crowds reaching a 50-year-high, go here:
www.southendunited-mad.co.uk/feat/edy4/
football_league_crowds_raise_the_roof_528200/index.shtml
The S24 article on the Football League accepting the Premiership offer, here:
www.southendunited-mad.co.uk/feat/edy4/
shrimpers_agree_to_a_quarter_million_from_the_premiership_526296/
index.shtml