ANDY Holt has watched Manchester United at Old Trafford. He’s watched Barcelona at the Nou Camp.

He’s watched football all over Europe. But when he paid a visit to Accrington Stanley in pre-season he knew straight away he had found the club for him.

A successful businessman raised on the Stoops estate in Burnley, Holt has been able to enjoy football in famous, glamorous stadiums.

But he wouldn’t swap life at the Crown Ground, now renamed after his company What More UK, for anything.

Encouraged to speak to Stanley in pre-season about sponsorship opportunities, three months down the line Holt finds himself as majority shareholder having just ploughed £1.2 million of his own money into the club.

“We became sponsors of Accrington Stanley because the last deal was running out and they were desperate for cash,” he explains.

“That was the introduction to Accrington Stanley.

“I’ve known about them all of my life but that was the catalyst for getting involved.

“We drifted into it really. I went to a few pre-season games and really enjoyed it. It was the best football I’d watched.

“I don’t like sitting four miles high in a stadium watching a few dots running around the pitch.

“I’ve been to Old Trafford many, many times, I’ve watched Barcelona in the Nou Camp, I’ve been all over watching football and none of them is as good as watching Accrington Stanley.”

Listening to Holt talk in his What More UK office, which is already adorned with framed photographs of him at the Wham Stadium and with boss John Coleman, his passion and enthusiasm for the club is obvious, and infectious.

“I’m bitten by the bug,” he admits. “You’re in it, you can hear the ball being kicked, you get the sound, the sights, the blood, sweat and tears. You don’t get that halfway up a big stand. After a few games I met with people there, the chairman and the directors, they’re people who have poured money into it to keep it going with little hope of seeing it again. They’re unsung heroes.”

Holt calls Stanley, one of 12 founding members of the Football League, ‘national heritage’, but he is just as enthused about the club’s work off the pitch as on it.

While Coleman’s team are flying high in the League Two table, Holt is keen to direct the conversation to the work done by the academy and, in particular, the Accrington Stanley Trust.

It’s a community organisation that plays second fiddle to the football, but one that Holt is determined to shout about.

“There’s 10 teams in the academy from under-9s to under-18s, that’s 150 kids that aren’t on the streets that are being trained and are learning football,” he said.

“The academy’s the more skilled side, kids that show real aptitude, but the Accrington Stanley Trust interacts with 10,000 people a year. We’re talking big participation figures.

“They do sessions just learning to kick a ball for two to four-year-olds, they do walking football for the over 50s, it’s all about social inclusion, about education, about health, it’s not about being the best.

“Accrington Stanley is the heart of a much bigger community asset. I don’t think we shout about it enough. That’s the bigger message that really attracts me. It’s the whole community thing, it’s the beating heart of a community.

“My problem with Accrington Stanley is that it is undersold in what it does for the community and what it is all about.

“People talk about it as if it is an inferior set-up, a bit patronising.

Accrington Stanley is part of a much bigger entity but people just don’t see it.”

Holt might have been raised in Burnley, but he is a proud East Lancastrian and his company has offices in Accrington.

“Accrington is having a tough time, there are cuts everywhere you look, we need to create a buzz and some positive news,” he said. “We need to push it in a direction that says ‘this is Accrington’. We’re not a second class town, we’re working class and we’re proud of it.

“We want to change the perception of the club and the town. The football is a good start, there is a lot the council is doing too, and if I can play my part at the club then I will do.”

Holt’s investment, which has seen debts cleared and working capital provided, has come at a time when Stanley sit in the League Two play-off places with a belief that Coleman’s side can challenge for promotion.

Few League Two clubs can claim they are debt free, it provides Stanley with a strong base from which to build on, something that wasn’t the case six months ago.

“The timing was good,” said Holt. “It’s come at a time when John’s got his best playing side and they’re on fire. The timing collided, it’s all happened at the same time.

“Accrington Stanley’s not going bust anytime soon. I’d have said the exact opposite six months ago. When I looked at the books the extent of the problem was obvious. Without help it would have at least continued to really struggle and the struggles would have got worse.

“It’s a club that wouldn’t die, I’m not saying it wouldn’t have rolled on but it would have been a difficult process.”

The club that wouldn’t die is now in it’s best footballing and financial position for years.