Yorkshire entrepreneur helps secure future of Hartlepool FC as it expands into property development
Leeds entrepreneur and funding consultant Matt Haycox, a consultant for Access Commercial Finance, has helped Hartlepool football club secure funding to follow in the footsteps of Arsenal and Reading FCs – into property development.
The club has outlined ambitious property and retail plans for the land currently occupied by the Mill House Leisure Centre adjacent to the 7856 capacity Victoria Park ( also known as the Northern Gas and Power Stadium) with their long term plan being to develop 130 houses and mixed use retail units on the land. The move is part of a long term plan to safeguard the club’s future.
The new development will also boost the local economy, according to Hartlepool owner and chairman Gary Coxall, who took over the reins of the League Two team last year.
The financing deal has been provided by Access Commercial Finance, with Haycox working as the lead consultant on the deal.
Matt Haycox says: ‘I love working on challenging and time sensitive deals, and having the chance to do it for someone as high profile as Hartlepool FC and getting to see how this will impact on the local community is very exciting. Gary and his team have been a pleasure to work with and I hope this is the start of many deals for us in the football world.’
Coxall says ‘I’m not interested in dealing with big banks. You can never talk to the decision maker, you can never get an answer right away. Things move fast in football and property and Access provided us the funding we needed 3 days after the 1st call!
But what will the fans make of the news? Those who understand football and want Hartlepool to survive into the long term should be pleased, says Coxhall.
‘This isn’t about greedy owners lining their pockets, but about making a club secure for the long term. In football, you make money on match days, through transfers and sponsorship. We can’t compete with bigger clubs on most of that, and we could just say ‘We’re putting the ticket prices up’ but who will that help? We’re looking at making the club self sustaining through property development so that prices don’t have to go up, not now and not in the long term. We’ve said from the start our plans are to grow Hartlepool United whilst maintaining the strong community links and this project will benefit the community so much that those links can only be strengthened.’
‘This will be a big step towards securing and stabilizing the future of Hartlepool,’ says Coxhall.
For more info visit matt-haycox.com