Homesbook Factoring Caplan

Looking Forward

It would be an understatement of enormous proportions to say that recent years have been hard going for Clyde supporters. Everyone has been tested to the limit and last season saw the club relegated with a squad that most observers thought was good enough to be at the other end of the table. Most supporters are interested only in what happens on the park, no other measure of success applies and that is a perfectly valid position for a supporter to adopt. The same cannot be said for a director. Supporters they might be, but their responsibility and interest has to be far wider if the club is to halt its decline, never mind return to anything like the heights of success that many of us have only read about.

The reality is that what we have accomplished on the park in recent seasons is not solely down to a particular manager or a particular choice of players, it is the product of a long term decline where too much emphasis has been placed on what happens on the park and not enough attention to building the infrastructure and plans that feed into building a club capable of sustaining itself independently.
 
The club has arranged a meeting of the directors of Clyde Football Club, Clyde Supporters’ Trust and Clyde Development Consortium to come together and work on building a plan for the future for Clyde. This is the first time the 3 boards have come together with the intention of taking time out to drive the club forward together and this is hopefully a sign of things to come.
 
Most businesses meet regularly to take account of where they are, where they are going and how they are going to get there, sadly Clyde has not done that regularly enough over the years, and our lack of independent ownership of our stadium, a lack of basic infrastructure or vibrant support from our community reflects the lack of investment in this area.

It is going to take a significant effort to turn around the decline and that process starts in earnest on 29th December when 15 volunteer directors give up a day of their holiday to be hosted at Cameron House Hotel. Whilst not the most geographically convenient facility for most, it does set the tone for the importance of the task at hand, the venue which is often used for the national team will act as a reminder to all that this is not just another meeting – it is the meeting that will start the turnaround of our club.
 
The output of the meeting will be shared with supporters when things start to take shape, in the meantime please keep supporting your club in every way that you can, the team needs your backing as we start our push in the second half of the season to escape relegation.
 
We would like to express our thanks to a kind contributor for donating the meeting facilities at Cameron House to the club completely free of charge, we are sure that this will prove to be a very worthwhile donation.