Jump to content

The Chairmans Blog


David
 Share

Recommended Posts

Fellow fans, sponsors and residence of the area,

 

I would like to provide you with an update on what is happening in and around the club and the progress we have made in the last fortnight or so.

As you probably know, the deal to transition the majority shareholding in Motherwell FC from Mr John Boyle to Mr Les Hutchison was completed on Friday 30 January with agreements in place to move to fan ownership within five years if we achieve certain objectives.

 

We have established three board sub-committees to take action on the agreed business plan with each member of the board having an individual portfolio of responsibility.

 

Football Committee

 

Chaired by Derek Weir with new board members Ian Reid and Peter Kellie, the key objectives of the committee are to raise additional revenue in the transfer market and help the club remain in the SPFL Premiership.

 

They have already appointed a new Head of Recruitment, set out a scouting organisation to cover Scotland, Ireland and parts of England. The new scouting team will be using Scout 7 software to help manage their activity. We will explain in a bit more detail about this hugely positively development in the coming days when everything is ratified.

 

After a review of the recent spate of injuries, it was clear that better training and conditioning was required and a new physical conditioning specialist, who is based at Stirling University, will be recruited together with the addition of stretching and yoga programmes which will significantly reduce the number and seriousness of injuries. A new assistant manager, Steve Robinson, has been appointed who has experience of the new programmes now in place.

 

The committee approved a number of new signings during the January transfer period to support the Manager in his efforts to remain in the Scottish top flight. I can assure you the Manager, his staff and players are working extremely hard to achieve this objective.

 

Finance Committee

 

Chaired by Jim McMahon with new board member Leanne Thomas and myself. The committee have already introduced a new financial reporting system which will allow results to be known five days after the end of each month compared with the previous 4 to 6 weeks.

 

In addition, better forecasting techniques are being introduced to allow better financial planning. An additional part time member of staff is being employed to support the improvements.

 

Sales and Marketing Committee

 

Chaired by myself with Alan Burrows, Robert Montgomery and Doug Inglis. They have identified the need for a dedicated sales and marketing manager with interviews taking place this week. Work has commenced on securing grant funding to create a Motherwell FC museum which will include lots of FC memorabilia but also pictures and information on the local area.

 

The objective of the committee is to increase revenue from the Function Rooms, matchdays, better use of the various stands and other club assets.

 

This is where you play your part!

 

Starting with the next three home games, I would ask you to bring a friend to a game, help us raise the much needed funds to achieve our objectives but also support the team during the crucial stage of the season.

 

Give the Club a call on 01698 338012 and book your next function which we will do everything we can to make sure is a great success.

 

The Community Trust continues to do fantastic work with school kids, teens, woman and retired folks like me. They have worked with over 35,000 people in the local community. You should be rightly proud to be associated with the most successful community organisation in Scotland. To help this great work, Les Hutchison has donated over £30,000 toward a new programme to assist teens into work.

As you can see, it has been hugely busy time and a lot has been achieved in less than three weeks. We have plans in place and lots of other areas are bubbling away out of the spotlight. It’s an exciting time at the club and we feel we are making great strides off the park. I sincerely hope that feel-good factor can be translated onto the pitch.

 

To you, the fans, I wish to convey my thanks for your continued support for the players and manager who are working very hard to secure our continued presence in the top flight. Despite recent disappointing results they remain upbeat, fully committed and optimistic that they can move up the league in the weeks ahead.

 

I would like to make a special mention of the Well ‘Bois’. They continue to provide a touch of magic at games with their choreographed singing and clapping. Last Saturday they travelled in goodly numbers to Dingwall and I was most impressed by their new song, Twist and Shout, which added a bit extra colour and volume to the proceedings. I know the players and manager are most grateful for and appreciate their contributions.

 

I would like also to publicly pay tribute to them for organising the food bank for local people at a recent home game. They are a credit to the local community and fully deserve its thanks.

 

We also hope you can join the Well Society, or if you area already a member, upgrade your membership to allow it to support the club financially and help it repay the 5-year loan.

 

The Society is finalising the details of a membership revamp that will completely transform the way we engage with members and how fans can play their part, regardless of their circumstances. Every single Motherwell fan has a part to play in this journey. Together, we can make our club the best fan-owned, community focused, and fully engaged entity in Scotland.

 

The hard work continues apace…….. We need your help!

 

Brian McCaffery

Chairman

 

A fair amount of info.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Residents.... Residents.... Residents....

 

Apart from that, an interesting blog. The software sounds decent. I know many baseball clubs now use similar software systems to weed out the wheat from the chaff. Interesting to see how this works for us down through the years. We now actually appear to be getting organised

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ignoring the fact that the on-pitch stuff has been gash lately, this is actually exciting times for us. A couple of much needed wins will get us all back in positive mood... Starting on Saturday.

 

Intae thum.

 

Exactly my take. It all sounds wonderfully positive off the field, and the clarity of it all seems an awful lot more like we've got a distinct plan going forward.

 

As always, my concerns are: Money. I presume this is coming from our new owner, but is it coming as an investment, or a loan? Not that either is particularly bad or good on its own, but the conditions which come with it would determine that.

 

Secondly: As folk have said, its all for nought if we fail to survive this season.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As always, my concerns are: Money. I presume this is coming from our new owner, but is it coming as an investment, or a loan? Not that either is particularly bad or good on its own, but the conditions which come with it would determine that.

Anything I've read so far says it's an interest-free loan.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anything I've read so far says it's an interest-free loan.

 

Sound, is that the '5 year loan' alluded to, or is it something else?

 

Sorry, not totally clear, information I presume is somewhere, I'm just being kind of lazy.

 

Interesting. Great to see the support of the community programs as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The short version, from the 'Well Society website:

 

Les puts in an interest-free loan and takes control of the club during the period of transition to full fan-ownership. But it is very much a partnership and Les has stated that the Well Society chairperson will also chair the club board.

 

We have committed to helping out in the first couple of years with some of the money already raised until hopefully the club becomes financially self-sufficient. After that we have committed to helping the club pay back the loan to Les if it cannot meet the budgeted repayments.

 

The ideal scenario is that the club is doing well enough to make these payments and that all of our money is going towards a safety net for the future. But we have made a commitment to supplementing the loan repayments if needed and must honour this. Again, the details need to be finalised but if we do not make the payments then ultimately we could miss the chance to assume control of the club as planned.

 

Our payments will be in the form of an unsecured loan so that if we fall short then we can get the money back once Les has recouped his loan.

 

Les is not looking to make a penny from the deal, indeed he has already spent his own money on legal fees and flying Alan Burrows to Barbados above and beyond the loan. He also loses out on the considerable interest he would have received if he invested his money elsewhere.

 

So we have to take responsibility for repaying his loan if needed – that is why we must keep raising money and contributing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The baseball comparison is pretty interesting. The smaller market teams (such as my beloved Pirates) have seen success in recent years through using analytics to identify 'market inefficiencies' where they can find value in a player that other clubs may not see. This also extends to tactics, but I think there are more intangibles in football so I'm not sure how valuable analytics can be in that sense.

 

I think this is the software they mention

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The main problem is the amount of fans who's intestines will literally fall out their arse from post-rage hernia trauma, if all these changes and improvements don't change everything by next weekend.

 

Or .......

 

"All this stuff off the park is taking the players minds off the task at hand with unwanted distractions"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Or .......

 

"All this stuff off the park is taking the players minds off the task at hand with unwanted distractions"

 

 

The company I work for was in administration for a year with many rumours regarding if our group would be shut down, sold off etc. and yet we managed to perform our jobs to the expected levels. And I bet many posters on here have gone through the same.

 

Footballers must be poor wee petals if they can't go out and play a game under similar circumstances.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We are all in this for the long haul, or at least we should be.

 

I don't expect anything from the Team in terms of trophies, league position, Europe etc.

 

The main problem we have as a support is that the younger element are spoiled, the older fans amongst us will remember relegation battles or even actual relegation. It all made no difference to us as fans. We still paid our money, followed the team and enjoyed the ride.

 

The club are going through major changes, we all hope for the better. In the meantime all we can do is support the team. No one wants to be relegated, however que sera sera, its all part of being a Well fan.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Really wanted to complain about the 'younger fans are spoiled' bit, and then realised that after 15 years with the season ticket, I...em...may not qualify.

 

I think when you are older than the players you then become an 'older fan'.

 

I think there are pretty much a generation of post admin Motherwell fans who have had it pretty good and never really known much struggle.

 

Some were better than others but the Malpas season was pretty much our only poor season over that period.

 

The eighties and nineties were a bit different. I'm sure I've mentioned this many times before but when I first started coming I went home happy if we scored a goal rather than anything else.

 

Maybe I should re-adopt that standard!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...