I am taking a bit of a jump here and anticipating the clubs continued existence is/will be secured by the welcome intervention of Mr A Savage. With his stewardship and demand for professionalism and fiscal accountability going forwarded, be it with AS himself or with new owners, it provides hopefully, us the fans, to breath a little more easily and consider what the future holds for our little club.

 

So taking that lead, and with the opportunity to clear the slate so to speak, I thought it worthwhile starting a posting to see what the fans want for our club looking at 1, 3 and 5 year horizons. My thinking behind this is the club is the fans, and without the fans intervention in May things could have looked a darker for our club.

 

So, taking that position, where do we want to see the club in the three horizons. I am putting in a few conditions / caveats, so to keep the discussion realistic and achievable. As it’s a watershed period for me nothing is considered sacred.
So for now I only list the headings or topics that I think are relevant! Others may identify more pertinent or pressing ones. 

 

Here are my Horizons 

 

1st year Horizon (end of this season).

3rd year Horizon (end of season 26/27).

5th year Horizon ( end of season 29/30)

 

Topics 

# Club (of field)

# Football side (ie management, players, coaching. youth system etc

# Stadium 

# Fan base

# ??

 

I’ll drop my 1st year horizon items soon. Hopefully it is of interest to some and allows others to get their there thoughts ‘out there’

bc

Edited September 8, 20241 yr by big cherly

 

1st yr Horizon (end of this season).

 

Club

·      Debt free and on a sound operating basis that doesn’t jeopardise its future.

·      Meeting its Company, Corporate, Clubs shareholders and SFLA rules and obligations on time.

·      Board and CEO positions reviews and appointments/changes made.

·      Strategy for re-engagement with City and Region businesses with targets and timeline. Overseas – ‘Great’.

·      Open and more transparency and publish its interface/meetings with the Supporter Trust.

·      Invitation to past players as a mark of re-engagement and undoing previous wrongs.

 

Football side

·     Management- more attacking  system of play. The current system is considered unattractive by many fans and is counterproductive to encourage more to attend the games.  

. Achieve a play-off position.

·      Coaching – Recognise we have a large number of younger players with imho very few successes do we need to consider changing the coaching system. Nothing should be sacrosanct looking for improvement. Looking ahead to 3yr horizon apart from R Christie and Liam Polwarth, let’s be frank over the period is it value for money?

 

Stadium 

. Badly in need of a coat of paint. 
. Back to turnstile only access.

. Proper and improved stadium security.

. Singing section 

. New bar?

 

Fan Base 

. Approach and re-engage the ‘young team’. Place is desperately lacking in any real atmosphere.

.Bring back the Mascot. 
. Proper strategy for increasing the fan base long term. Ie compare Ross County to us over the last 30 years! 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 20241 yr by big cherly

3 year Horizon 

# Club

-       Debt free

-       Signs of re-investment by local businesses in the club

-       Matchday hospitality reinstated   

 # Football side

-       Promotion from League 1

-       More youth players achieving first team on merit.

-       Rosco – Hospitality ambassador

# Stadium 

-       Repaired / refurb toilets

-       De-weed the pitch surround track

# Fan base

-       Average league game attendance 2000

Great topic!!!

 

• Year 1 = Survival
  In the first 12 months, on and off the pitch, get a grip on the outstanding issues, plug the holes AS has found, stop the hemorrhaging of money. Look to reverse the negative trends of the past 5 years by being open and honest with the players, the staff, and the fans and try to maintain a steady position in the league. Playoffs or promotion would be a bonus, as would any windfalls from previous ventures (eg battery farm).  Complete the forensic audit and take appropriate actions based on the result. 
   
• (By) Year 3 = Consolidation
  By year 3 we should be back in the Championship (or pushing for it) as that will bring a little more revenue by itself and should be the lowest base level that we are willing to accept. That may sound arrogant, but as one of the few full-time teams in League One, we should at the very least be challenging. Off the field we should hopefully now be generating more business and cashflow by having won back previous business and personal stakeholders/sponsors and working to maintain those relationships rather than just have unfounded expectations or a sense of entitlement. An increase in sponsorship, higher season ticket and merchandise sales and a willingness to be out in the community fostering good relations should also help us consolidate and get back to where we were prior to 2019. Whatever we do, we have to try and get as close to balancing the books as possible. Fiscal responsibility should be the core principle. As a side project we should also be looking at realistic non-football ways to generate revenue. I do not know what these are, but the stadium location next to a freeport and main transit routes both land and sea should have some merits worth exploring. Some of the ideas could be pie-in-the-sky plans like those of our former CEO, or less likely to succeed, but provided we do not step over others to get there, nor base our operating accounts on getting any such high-risk high-reward ventures over the line then there is no harm in dreaming, provided we are getting the basics right.    
   
• (By) Year 5 = (Re)Growth
  By year 5 we should be back in the top half of the Championship, with the odd cup run to help keep the books looking healthier and pushing for at least a playoff, if not a championship winning run. This is where we should have been in 2017 but we went in the opposite direction gathering pace until almost crashing off the rails this year as we all know. The aim at the end of 5 years should be promotion back to the premiership. By now our youth system should hopefully have recovered and we may have uncovered a couple of gems who we can get behind or even sell-on to generate a little more revenue. Perhaps we have also now established links with other clubs, either through an investor who owns multiple clubs (as AS noted a few weeks ago) or because we are once again an attractive destination to farm out loan players to get them developed (but not at the cost of any highly rated local talent). Then we continue to consolidate and grow as we did between 2004 and 2017. No matter how tempting it is, we must also keep our core principles of fiscal responsibility and community responsibility firmly in sight.    

 

I have purposely not gone into the level of detail as Big Cherly but can't really argue any of the points raised. All good things to bring up and all good things that may warrant further inspection. Some of the 'little things' like repairs, de-weeding, painting are all things people have volunteered for before and perhaps this new era can see the club once again appreciate volunteers and those who seek to help primarily because they are simply fans of the club and not because they are looking for favours or financial gain ... a cynical viewpoint those running the club have taken at certain times over the years. Provided we move forward then the timeline can be adjusted. it took 10 years to get to the SPL based on the "Road to Premier League" document Dougie McGilvray and the board at the time produced in 1994 and there were a lot of twists and turns along the way. However, we did it within the 10-year plan, and if we make a realistic plan now, we can do it again.

 

 

5 year Horizon 

# Club

-      Debt free

-      Majority owners highland based.

-     Paying minimum wage

 # Football side

-       Establish Championship team.

-       Tie up with US colleges for players.

# Stadium 

-       Coat of paint

# Fan base

-       Average league game attendance >2100