Three grounds on Saturday, all within a few miles of each other. East Sheen first, for their first home game since the club's revival, then Raynes Park Vale, and finally Corinthian-Casuals to see our redesigned boards go up — five of them there now. It is a particular pleasure of this part of the pyramid that you can watch three matches in a day without ever really leaving south-west London.

A fortnight earlier, at the other end of the country, Gateshead's principal backer had resigned and the September wages had gone unpaid. Since then the club has been through a failed share transfer, an appeal to its own shareholders, a transfer embargo, the departure of its manager and an agreed sale to an American investment group that specialises in businesses in trouble. They are bottom of the National League with four points from thirteen.

We've also published a guide to reading club accounts — what the terms mean, where the filings live, and why most clubs below the Championship publish almost nothing. It's at the bottom of this edition.

Gateshead FC Agrees Sale to Flacks Group: Who Is Michael Flacks and What Is He Buying?

An American investment group whose stated speciality is acquiring businesses in complex situations has agreed to buy Gateshead, days after the club's principal shareholder walked away and the staff went unpaid.

Flacks Group has a real record — Pleuger Industries held since 2018, Artemyn bought from Imerys in 2024, and Kelly-Moore Paints, which closed fifteen months after acquisition. What nobody has disclosed is the price, the funding, or what happens to the creditors. At 31 May 2025, the date of Gateshead's last filed accounts, the club held £27,286 of cash against £373,350 of creditors falling due within one year.

The wages were to be paid immediately. On the day of the announcement, the caretaker manager said the players still hadn't been.

Burger Index: Sutton United — 6.1/10

An £8.50 rib cap burger at the 360 Engage Stadium, £24 through the turnstile and £5.90 for a pint of Signal Lager. That’s £38.40 for an evening at the fifth tier — the dearest visit the Index has made to any club below the Premier League, and within £3.50 of what the same measurement cost at Tottenham.

The burger was burnt past the point of judging. The more interesting thing is the pitch underneath it: Sutton spent over £500,000 ripping out a 3G surface in 2021 because EFL rules demanded grass, came back down to the National League where 3G is allowed, and laid a hybrid pitch instead — because Crystal Palace Women now play their WSL fixtures there.

How to Read Your Club’s Accounts: A Fan’s Guide

Every professional and semi-professional club in England files financial information somewhere public. Most of it is never read by the people it matters most to.

This is the piece we should have written first. What turnover actually includes and why transfer fees usually aren’t in it. What EBITDA leaves out. Why called-up share capital of £6.4m sits in the same accounts as £27,286 of cash at a club that couldn’t pay its staff. Where to find the filings, including the clubs that file with the FCA instead and the ones that file nothing at all.

There’s a worked example using Gateshead’s actual balance sheet, a section on tracing ownership through confirmation statements and share allotments, and an honest account of what the filings will never tell you.

It sits in a new Guides section alongside our explainer on the pyramid itself.

Gateshead’s new investors promised immediate payment of the outstanding September wages on Friday. We’ll keep following whether that has happened.

If there’s a club whose accounts you’ve tried to read and couldn’t make sense of, reply and tell me which one. That’s partly why the guide exists.

Arthur Lewis
The Pyramid