Nottinghamshire Golf Club owner linked with football club purchase

The owner of The Nottinghamshire Golf and Country Club, Alan Hardy, has been linked to a consortium that’s interested in buying Scunthorpe United.

Hardy, the former owner of Notts County Football Club, has been named by Radio Humberside as leading a consortium to rival a takeover by another group in the Lincolnshire town.

In response to the story, he tweeted: “I will certainly listen to public opinion as I’m not prepared to come into a hostile and toxic situation. Notts went on a great run and we broke the stadium record for most supporters through the turnstiles in a season. I know what success and failure look like.”

Image from Twitter

Hardy enjoyed initial success at Notts County when he took the club over in 2017, but two and a half years later the club was relegated from the English Football League for the first time in its 157-year history. The club was then sold to Danish businessmen Alexander and Christoffer Reedtz, but has failed to secure promotion since.

Things have been even worse for Scunthorpe United lately. The club, which was in the Championship as recently as 2011, was also relegated from the English Football League for the first time in its history in 2022, and is currently bottom of the National League and has been served with a winding-up petition by HMRC.

As owner of The Nottinghamshire Golf and Country Club, Hardy has brought in several improvements but a proposal to create a new purpose-built golf centre at the venue was controversially rejected last year.