Killie Trust Open Meeting

THE PARK Hotel on Monday was the venue for the latest quarterly meeting of the Killie Trust. The Trust is now well established and the committee are working very hard to raise their profile in the community. Chairman Colin Hargreaves opened the meeting by introducing guest speaker John Alexander. John is a founder member and director of the Clyde Trust as well as being a director of Clyde Football Club and he gave a very entertaining account of how the Clyde Trust has quickly become a vital part of the club.

John explained the Clyde Trust started around 18 months ago as fans started to realise the club was

in a dire financial state. They had a chairman, or a ‘sugar daddy’ as John referred to him, who had bankrolled the club for many years but could no longer sustain the necessary financial input. Initially the Trust had no communication whatsoever with the club, but that soon changed as the club realised the money they had was fast running out. The Trust quickly set about fundraising and pledged an initial £60,000 and formed an uneasy alliance with other supporters groups who were also willing to help but for reasons of their own did not want involved with the Trust.

The £60,000 was raised solely through fans and John said it was amazing what some fans would do…within reason. He mentioned one elderly gentleman who handed over his life savings of £5,000, explaining that Clyde were all he had so if the Trust were going to save the club from going under then they may as well have the money. In the relatively short space of time since their inception the Clyde Trust now own 50% of the holding company that have a 60% controlling interest of the club i.e. they are now calling the shots, and have only been on the go around the same time as our very own Killie Trust.

The Trust members have helped structure the club in such a way that it should never deteriorate into a similar financial mess. They helped clear much of the debt via a Creditors Voluntary Agreement as well as raising £300,000 of fresh investment that will be used, not to pay off further debt but to take the club forward. Every member of the Clyde board is now a Trust member and there are only two of the original directors still on board. The Trust now pays half the wages for a Commercial Manager as before they took over there was no corporate hospitality at the club. They also have a separate fund that fans can pay into and all the money collected from that is used to pay players’ wages - could that work at Rugby Park?

The Clyde Trust have learned a lot of harsh lessons in a very short space of time and John was keen to point out he would much rather watch part-time football or lower league football rather than have no club at all. While we can see his point we hope it never gets to that stage at Killie. After John's speech everyone talked about how many of the points raised could help the Killie Trust and then followed a selection of questions and answers. We were very interested to hear that Clyde season ticket holders were only paying a tenner to get into the Scottish Cup tie with Celtic on Sunday because he says they found out that they do not have to pay the difference in cost to the other team…that raised a few eyebrows.

Fundraising is a huge issue and John gave several excellent suggestions that the Killie lads could adopt. The Clyde Trust were the first to run a lottery and that's something we could consider, either via a new lottery or helping the current Killie Bond. Everyone agreed that most successful trusts are associated with clubs in crisis however the Killie Trust need to build a solid base now as nobody knows what can happen in the future and it’s better to be prepared.

All in attendance considered it an interesting and informative meeting and we'd urge more fans to get involved. Supporters’ trusts are going to play an increasingly important part in the Scottish game for many years to come and we're sure Killie are no exception. We'll try and publicise all future meetings in the column but a full schedule can be found online at www.killietrust.org.

Now That's Magic!

WE COULD easily harp on about how poor we were in the two games against the Jambos but no doubt we'd just end up in a foul mood again. There were very few positives to take out of the Hearts trilogy, but the stand-out Killie player over the piece in the opinions of many Killie and Hearts fans, was Alan ‘Magic' Johnston. The former Scotland internationalist has been singled out for some unfair criticism earlier in the season but he's now beginning to show some of the form that made him a Premiership player not so long ago.

Okay, he may still be a wee bit frustrating at times, but there are some Killie punters who would still moan if ‘Magic’ bagged a hat-trick. If only we had a quid for every time we heard “If you’re that magic make yourself disappear!” Now at long last he seems to be winning round the majority of the Killie faithful. It's good to know that Scotland can still produce players who have the priceless knack of dribbling and ghosting past players with the minimum of fuss. Johnston has been showing that in abundance over the last few games and it was great to hear him getting a deserved ovation when he went off last Saturday. Keep up the good work Alan.

Postcard  From...Iraq

IT’S ALWAYS good to hear from Killie fans the world over so it was great to get an e-mail this week from one of our lads serving his stint in Iraq. Alan Murray is a Killie daft squaddie who hails from the Irvine Valley and is currently in the Middle East with the Theatre Working Dog Unit. He sends his best wishes to Broon (says it’s your round mate) and all the lads from the Valley bus. He keeps up to speed with all things blue and white on killiefc.com and preaches the Rugby Park gospel to anyone who will listen. There is bound to be a cheap gag in there about the insurgents or something but we won’t go down that road. Best of luck to Al and his comrades and we hope they come back safe sooner rather than later.

New Book Due Out

WE WERE contacted this week about a new Killie (hardback) book due to hit the shelves in April of this year. The 160 page illustrated book by Rob Hadgraft is called “Kilmarnock: Champions of Scotland 1964-65”…no need to explain what the focus is on then eh! You can pre-order the book online at www.desertislandbooks.com and if you do you get your name printed in the back. For UK subscribers, the book will be sent post-free.

Read the B&H column in the Kilmarnock Standard every week