Stevenage Owner Phil Wallace Sets Out New Stadium Search

What the club has announced

In a statement marking the club's 50th anniversary, Wallace set out the case plainly. The club is "still operating on the same footprint that was provided 50 years ago for a non-league football club with 500 fans", and Wallace says it now regularly attracts crowds ten times that size. League attendances so far this season have averaged 3,908. Investment over the years has taken capacity to about 7,800, but he says the physical limits of the site would cap it at around 10,000 even if the East and West Stands were replaced and expanded. "The reality is that our current stadium footprint is increasingly a constraint on our future," he said.

The ambition is to compete consistently at the upper end of League One and to give the club a chance of establishing itself in the Championship. Over the summer the club opened discussions with stakeholders about potential sites for a development that would combine the stadium with sport, leisure, hospitality, retail and business uses, generating income beyond matchdays. Wallace says the search is "now well under way", and he points to Luton Town's new stadium development and Cambridge United's own plans as examples of clubs pursuing stadium-led regeneration. He is also clear about what is still to be settled: location, funding, infrastructure and the wider needs of the town.

Who is Phil Wallace?

Phillip Owen Wallace became a director of Stevenage Football Club Limited in June 1999 and company secretary that December, and has led the club through its rise from non-league football into the Football League. He is recorded at Companies House as the club's only person with significant control, holding 75% or more of the shares. The board also includes Marcus Taverner, a director since 2008, Stuart Dinsey and Dr Marc Wallace, both since 2014, and Kylie Hunter, appointed in August 2025.

Before Stevenage, Wallace was a director and company secretary at Boreham Wood until August 1999, and he went on to serve as a director of the Football Conference, now the National League, between 2000 and 2006.

Outside football, his career was spent at Lamex Food Group, the Hertfordshire-based food trading business. Lamex's own history records him joining in 1971, and on his retirement he described himself as having been "CEO of the Group for 50 years". He stepped down from Lamex on 1 October 2025, and the fifteen-year naming partnership that had made Broadhall Way the Lamex Stadium ended with his retirement. At the time he said the sponsorship had been "hugely beneficial for Lamex", and that "my personal commitment to Stevenage FC remains unchanged".

The model the club describes

The statement places the stadium in the context of a wider strategy. Over the past fifteen years the club has invested in its training grounds, stadium, Academy and women's team, and more recently in a Rookies nursery and a padel facility, which Wallace describes as additional revenue streams supporting the club's long-term future. Rookies Day Nurseries Limited is a subsidiary of the club.

He also makes two claims about efficiency. The first is that Stevenage were the most efficient club in League One last season when measured by points against playing budget. The second is that the club has generated more than £2.25m in net player revenue so far in 2026 while rebuilding its first-team squad. Playing budgets are not published across the division, so the first is the chairman's own assessment. The second covers a calendar year that spans two of the club's financial years, which end on 31 May.

Who owns the ground

The stadium is owned by Stevenage Borough Council and leased to the club, which is responsible for repairs and improvements under the lease. The accounts show £1.17m of accruals and deferred income falling due after more than a year, and say capital grants on the leased properties are released over the life of the lease. The accounts also record non-cancellable operating lease commitments of £120,000 a year, without identifying the property.

Companies House records five outstanding charges. HSBC holds a fixed and floating charge over all of the club's assets, created in 2017, and legal mortgages from 2005 and 2015 over leasehold sports facilities at Shephallbury, next to the stadium. The Football Foundation holds a 2005 charge over leasehold land near Broadhall Way, and the Football Stadia Improvement Fund a 2019 charge over the stadium leasehold. A registered charge records security rather than an amount owed. The accounts show bank loans of £371,405 at 31 May 2025, secured by a fixed and floating charge over the company's assets.

After the Lamex name came down, the club agreed a long-term naming-rights partnership with SPORTA, a financial services start-up founded by ClearBank co-founder Andrew Smith. SPORTA is applying to become a fully authorised bank, subject to Bank of England approval, and no regulated banking products were announced as part of the partnership. Its value has not been disclosed.

What the accounts show

Stevenage Football Club Limited files accounts under the small companies regime and does not publish its profit and loss account, so turnover, wages and transfer income are not on the public record. The balance sheet and notes to 31 May 2025 show continued investment in the club's facilities and playing operation, alongside a reduction in cash and net assets and an increased reliance on funding from directors and shareholders.

During the year the club added £915,037 of fixed assets, including £600,089 of fixtures and fittings and £300,448 of improvements to property, and capitalised £138,956 of player and agent fees. Average headcount rose from 182 to 199. Net assets fell from £2,017,468 to £725,305 and cash from £748,180 to £167,683, leaving net current liabilities of £1,715,700 at the year end. The company owed its directors £1,100,000, against nothing a year earlier.

The going-concern note explains how that position is managed. Day-to-day working capital is met through cash, banking facilities and shareholder-related loans, and the board says the company may require additional funding within the next twelve months and requires the support of its beneficial owner. On that basis the directors expect the club to have adequate resources and prepared the accounts as a going concern.

Since the year end, a return of allotment records 33,750 new ordinary shares issued for cash on 31 July 2026, with £1,350,000 recorded as paid. The return does not name the subscriber. The club's share structure also includes A ordinary shares that carry a one-off preferential dividend of 75% of their issue price if the first team is promoted to the Championship, the same ambition the stadium statement sets out.

What comes next

Stevenage have begun the search for a new home, and the financial structure will matter as much as the site. The current ground is council-owned, the club's leasehold interests carry registered security, and its latest accounts show a business supported by its owner as it invests. A stadium-led development could widen the club's commercial base considerably. Who funds it, who owns it and how the football club shares in the income are the questions still to be answered. The club's next accounts, for the year to 31 May 2026, are due by 28 February 2027.