Lee Michael Power (born 30 June 1972) is a former professional
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...
and former chairman of
Swindon Town
Swindon Town Football Club is a professional football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team currently competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club has played home matches at the County Ground sin ...
. Born in England, his Irish ancestry allowed him to be capped by
Republic of Ireland
Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...
at youth, U21 and B levels. Power played in three qualifiers in the
1990 UEFA European Under-18 Football Championship qualifying campaign and in the
1990 UEFA European Under-18 Football Championship
The 1990 UEFA European Under-18 Championship final tournament was held in Hungary. It also served as the European qualification for the 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship.
Teams
The following teams qualified for the tournament:
*
*
* (host ...
as well as the
1991 FIFA World Youth Championship
The 1991 FIFA World Youth Championship was the eighth staging of the FIFA World Youth Championship, an international football competition organized by FIFA for men's youth national teams, and the eighth since it was established in 1977 as the FIFA ...
.
Playing career
Power was born in
Lewisham
Lewisham () is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in the London Plan as one o ...
, London. He began his career as a trainee with
Norwich City
Norwich City Football Club (also known as The Canaries or The Yellows) is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. The club competes in the EFL Championship following their relegation from the Premier League in the 2 ...
, making his first-team debut against
Aston Villa
Aston Villa Football Club is a professional football club based in Aston, Birmingham, England. The club competes in the , the top tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1874, they have played at their home ground, Villa P ...
in April 1990, before turning professional in June the same year. His initial form was good enough to earn a call-up to the Republic of Ireland Under-21 side and he went on to make a then record number of appearances (13) for them.
Despite a promising start to his Norwich career, Power struggled to maintain a regular place in the first team, particularly with competition from the likes of
Chris Sutton
Christopher Roy Sutton (born 10 March 1973) is an English former professional football player and manager. He later became a pundit and commentator for BT Sport, regularly working on their coverage of Scottish football. He is now also a pundit ...
and
Efan Ekoku. He requested a transfer and moved to
Charlton Athletic
Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in ...
on loan in December 1992. Further loan spells with
Sunderland
Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...
(in August 1993) and
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city status in the United Kingdom, city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is admi ...
(in October 1993) followed before a £200,000 move to
Bradford City
Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system and are currently managed by Mark Hughes.
...
in March 1994.
He scored on his Bradford debut, a 2–1 win at home to
Swansea City
Swansea City Association Football Club (; cy, Clwb Pêl-droed Cymdeithas Dinas Abertawe) is a professional football club based in Swansea, Wales that plays in the Championship, the second tier of English football. Swansea have played their ...
on 12 March 1994, but his progress was impeded by a virus that threatened his career.
In July 1995 he moved to
Peterborough United
Peterborough United Football Club is an English professional football club based in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England. The team compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. Peterborough have a long-standin ...
for a fee of £80,000, subsequently moving to Scottish League side
Dundee in December 1996. He scored twice on his Dundee debut, a 6–0 victory over
East Fife, and his form soon attracted the attention of other clubs.
After Dundee's manager
Jim Duffy moved to
Hibernian he signed Power and his teammate
Paul Tosh
Paul James Tosh (born 18 October 1973 in Arbroath) is a Scottish footballer. He started his career with his local club Arbroath before a move in 1993 to Tayside neighbours Dundee who paid an Arbroath club record fee of £120,000 to take Paul ...
for a combined fee of £200,000 in March 1997. Power was a Hibs regular for the remainder of the
1996–97 season, but lost his place when
Alex McLeish
Alexander McLeish (born 21 January 1959) is a Scottish professional football manager and former player. He played as a defender for Aberdeen during their 1980s glory years, making nearly 500 League appearances for the club, and won 77 caps f ...
took over as manager and was allowed to join
Ayr United on a free transfer in March 1998 until the end of the season.
In July 1998, Power had a trial with
Carlisle United
Carlisle United Football Club ( , ) is a professional association football club based in Carlisle, Cumbria, England. The team compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. They have played their home games at Brunton Park ...
, playing in a friendly against
Rangers, but joined
Plymouth Argyle
Plymouth Argyle Football Club is a professional football club based in the city of Plymouth, Devon, England. As of the 2021–22 season, the team are competing in League One, the third tier of English football. They have played at Home Park ...
later that month. He struggled to settle at Plymouth and in December 1998 joined
Halifax Town
FC Halifax Town is a professional association football club based in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. They currently compete in and play at the Shay. They replaced Halifax Town A.F.C., which went into administration (law), administration in ...
on loan, the move becoming permanent in January 1999.
His final footballing move, on the playing side, came in November 1999 when he joined
Southern League side
Boston United
Boston United Football Club is a semi-professional association football club based in Boston, Lincolnshire, England. The club participates in the National League North, at the sixth tier of the English football league system. The club is know ...
for a fee of £25,000. He also coached Boston, but left in January 2001. His early retirement from football came at the relatively early age of 28, though was not entirely surprising after two broken legs.
Post-playing career
Power worked as a football agent before joining forces with Danny Lake and setting up the sports publishing company CRE8. Power is also a
racehorse
Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its basic ...
owner.
In May 2003, Power was part of a consortium that aimed to take over
Luton Town
Luton Town Football Club () is a professional association football club based in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1 ...
. The proposed move was not well received by Luton fans, particularly as it involved sacking the popular manager
Joe Kinnear
Joseph Patrick Kinnear (born 27 December 1946) is an Irish former football manager and player. Kinnear played as a defender, spending the majority of his career—ten seasons—with Tottenham Hotspur. With Tottenham he won the FA Cup, the EF ...
.
He subsequently joined the board at
Cambridge United
Cambridge United Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Cambridge, England. They compete in EFL League one , the 3rd tier of the English football league system. The club is based at the Abbey Stadium on N ...
and took over as chairman of the-then
Conference National
The National League, known as the Vanarama National League for sponsorship reasons, is the highest level of the National League System and fifth-highest of the overall English football league system. It is the highest league that is semi-profes ...
side in August 2006. In September 2006 he acted as caretaker manager following the dismissal of manager
Rob Newman and his assistant
Tony Spearing. On 22 January 2008, on the same night that Cambridge United beat Droylsden 5–0, Power resigned as chairman of the club, citing personal differences with fellow board members as the chief reason. In April 2008, Power joined the board of Cambridge's Conference rivals
Rushden and Diamonds
Rushden & Diamonds Football Club was an association football club based in Irthlingborough, Northamptonshire, England. Nicknamed "The Diamonds", the club played at Nene Park. The club's main rivals were county neighbours Kettering Town.
The ...
.
Swindon Town
Power joined the board of directors at
Swindon Town
Swindon Town Football Club is a professional football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team currently competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club has played home matches at the County Ground sin ...
and took an ownership stake in the club in April 2013. He invested £1.2 million in the club, which enabled a transfer embargo to be lifted.
Power took full control of Swindon Town in December 2013.
On 18 October 2015, Power took 'temporary' control over Swindon's first-team affairs following
Mark Cooper's departure from the club.
In 2020, the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...
created financial difficulties for the club. Power warned of potential bankruptcy in February 2021,
and, in April 2021, was charged with breaching FA regulations concerning the club's ownership and/or funding.
On 30 June 2021, the Official Supporters Club was told that a deal to transfer Power's ownership to Australian businessman Clem Morfuni's Axis would be completed "in the next couple of weeks",
though the club later complained that Axis was delaying payment.
In early July 2021, it emerged that the club's 11 contracted players plus backroom staff had not received their June wages,
and that the County Ground's owner,
Swindon Borough Council
Swindon Borough Council is the local authority of the Borough of Swindon in Wiltshire, England. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. As such, it is administratively separate from ...
, was taking legal action after receiving no rent since April 2020.
Waterford F.C.
In November 2016 Power agreed a deal to become owner and chairman of Irish club
Waterford United
Waterford Football Club ( ga, Cumann Peile Phort Láirge) formerly Waterford United Football Club is an Irish association football club based in Waterford who play in the League of Ireland First Division. The club was founded and elected to the ...
. He said there were a number of reasons behind the deal, claiming that the facilities in Waterford were Premier League standard and better than Swindon's. Power also said he was attracted by the club's highly successful youth system. In addition, Power had family from Waterford, his Irish descent having enabled him to play for the Republic of Ireland at international level, so the deal was, in his words, "a no-brainer". He went on to appoint
Pat Fenlon
Patrick Fenlon (born 15 March 1969) is an Irish football coach and former player.
Fenlon played as a midfielder for St Patrick's Athletic, Bohemians, Linfield, Shamrock Rovers and Shelbourne. As a manager he won five League of Ireland titles ...
as director of football and
Alan Reynolds as head coach for the 2017 season. He also changed the club's crest and changed the club's name back to its original identity of Waterford FC. On 4 June 2021, it was announced that Power had sold the club to R&S Holdings Ltd, fronted by UK entrepreneur Richard Forrest who had bought the remaining stakes in the club having previously bought 33% earlier in the year.
References
External links
Career information at Ex-Canaries.co.uk*
Profilea
UpThePosh! The Peterborough United Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Power, Lee
1972 births
Footballers from Lewisham
Living people
Republic of Ireland association footballers
Republic of Ireland under-21 international footballers
Republic of Ireland B international footballers
Republic of Ireland youth international footballers
Premier League players
English Football League players
Scottish Football League players
Norwich City F.C. players
Charlton Athletic F.C. players
Sunderland A.F.C. players
Portsmouth F.C. players
Bradford City A.F.C. players
Millwall F.C. players
Peterborough United F.C. players
Dundee F.C. players
Hibernian F.C. players
Ayr United F.C. players
Plymouth Argyle F.C. players
Halifax Town A.F.C. players
Boston United F.C. players
Cambridge United F.C. managers
English football chairmen and investors
Swindon Town F.C. directors and chairmen
Association football forwards
English football managers