GOOD NEWS: Chesterfield FC shows Barlow Hunt red card

Club listens to its supporters and cancels Barlow Hunt Ball

What a difference a day makes! Just yesterday fans of Chesterfield FC (backed up by campaigners and activists, including ourselves of course) were strongly reacting to the news that the club was hosting a fundraiser for the notorious Barlow Hunt.

Just twenty-four hours later, the club has announced in a tweet that the event has been cancelled.

Chesterfield FC, nicknamed 'The Spireites' after the famous 'crooked spire' of the town's Church of St Mary and All Saints, faced huge criticism for hosting what is essentially a Hunt’s most important fundraiser of the year - literally helping enable illegal hunting to carry on for another season.

And as we explained in our previous post calling for the club to reverse its decision, like so many hunts up and down the country the Barlow Hunt is never far from controversy. They have been caught by local sab groups (especially the tireless Derby Hunt Sabs) breaking the law numerous times. In fact, in May 2020, Locals Against The Barlow Hunt reported that the police "issued 8 (yes EIGHT!) members of the hunt with CPN WARNINGS (formally known as ASBOS)."

The decision has been warmly welcomed.

Derby Hunt Sabs, one of the groups who as we said above have led the charge against the Barlow Hunt over many years, said on their Facebook page

Thank you Chesterfield FC for listening to fans and cancelling the Barlow Hunt Ball

Local journalist Joshua Smith (@SmithJournalist), a fan of the club and one of the first to call out the decision to host the Ball, told Protect the Wild this afternoon:

I'm delighted to see common sense prevail and the ball being cancelled. We're proud of our club and its community values, this booking was not in keeping with those. I'm just disappointed it took so long for the correct action to be taken. I hope to see any similar future bookings rejected. Hopefully the ‘‘spireites’ can now fully focus on promotion back to the English football league.

Online support for the cancellation of the Hunt fundraiser has been positive too.

Local independent podcaster and fanzine producer Dave echoed the feelings of many of us:

Chesterfield supporter and long-time animal rights activist Clive Swinsco’s reaction was typical:

Local Labour MP Toby Perkins, a Shadow Minister for Nature & Rural Affairs, also tweeted his support:

Not everyone agrees…

Bizarrely, some pro-hunt supporters have gone online to argue that ‘like football, trail hunting is legal’! That’s an utterly spurious and nonsensical comparison and they know it. They and all decent people know that so-called ‘trail hunting’ is a sham, a smokescreen for illegal hunting and that while football may have its faults (players tripping over blades of grass and falling to the ground as if shot, for instance), no one will ever be able to accuse it of illegally abusing and killing wildlife…

Questions have also been raised about the financial impact on the club of cancelling. That is not an argument that holds any water either. Estimates based on the costs of hiring facilities at the club and providing staff etc suggest that Chesterfield FC would have profited by about £2000. That however doesn’t take into account revenue lost if supporters had decided to boycott the club or any of its matches (it equates to less than the price of ten season tickets or about the same as 150 supporters not coming to games across the rest of the season) or the high cost of extra security that the club might have felt necessary to bring in. On top of that, the reputational damage could have been ongoing and extensive - certainly not something a club on the verge of a return to the EFL after so many years would look forward to…

Thank you to everyone who emailed, phoned, took to social media etc

We’re not privy to the exact reason why the club changed its mind and cancelled the hunt, but there is no doubt it was taken aback by the backlash it unleashed.

Local fans and local people like Joshua Smith undoubtedly will have had the biggest impact, but we know for a fact that more than 30,000 people read our Substack post yesterday and (either because they told us or copied us into emails they were sending) that numerous Protect the Wild supporters contacted the club. That must have helped reinforce what Chesterfield FC was hearing from fans on the ground. We want to thank every single one of you!

This is of course a victory for common sense and right over wrong, proof of the putrid stench that fox hunting carries with it (politicians and ‘countryside’ lobbyists who still harbour hopes that Parliament can be persuaded to bring back hunting should take note!), but above all it is a victory for well-presented argument and the power of public pressure.

We have all proved that hunting is a toxic brand and the sooner it is got rid of the better.

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