Fog on the Clyde

EVERY football team has scrapbook obsessives; supporters who catalogue cuttings about their club as if they were prized historical parchments. To such Clyde fans, the newsprint detailing developments down Broadwood way a mere two months ago must now appear as contemporary as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Clyde are a team with no players, no money, no real experience in their key management positions and, by their own admission, no ambitions as regards the forthcoming season beyond avoiding relegation to the second division. Back in May, under the able tutelage of Alan Kernaghan - one of the Scottish game’s brightest managerial prospects - the clear first division leaders were being presented as a top-flight side in waiting. This was an elevation they seemed equipped to bear, having agreed a groundshare with Kilmarnock to meet the SPL stadium requirements after stabilising their parlous finances thanks to a buy-out placing a consortium of investors and the club’s supporters’ trust in joint-charge.

Those of a Clyde disposition must look back on the final day of last season as an octogenarian would their childhood. This afternoon seemed awash with possibilities and promise. The club looked like taking their place in Scotland’s upper stratum for the first time since league reconstruction in 1975 after dishing out a drubbing to hosts Brechin City, as their title rivals Inverness Caledonian Thistle struggled to secure the victory over St Johnstone that would pip them for the first division championship. When a second-half rally from the Highland club claimed them this honour, all changed utterly for Clyde.

So much so, indeed, it is inconceivable that any time again soon they will find themselves coming within a whisker of stepping up to Scottish football’s top tier. Cash flow problems prevented the club resigning players in the immediate aftermath of a valiant campaign. The exodus that ensued meant all but a couple of their mainstays fled, player-manager Kernaghan accepting the role of No.2 at Livingston to follow Jack Ross, David Hagen, Mark McLaughlin, Stephen McConalogue, Pat Keogh, Andy Smith, Austin McCann, Stewart McCluskey and John Fraser out of the door. Top scorer Ian Harty is still around only because the couple of clubs chasing his signature haven’t met Clyde’s £45,000 valuation of him. Yet.

In response to the club becoming Departure Central, Kernaghan’s assistant Billy Reid stepped up to take on his first senior management position. Subsequent squad bolstering, however, has been notable by its absence, apart from Reid last week installing 33-year-old Stuart Balmer as his assistant. This, however, was more because the former Celtic, Charlton Athletic and, latterly, Boston United centre-back possesses the aerial ability and presence to compensate for the loss of Kernaghan’s on-field abilities than his, as yet untried, coaching prowess.

With Clyde’s squad presently comprising 11 senior outfield players, two goalkeepers and three under-18s, Reid admits he was forced to think better of releasing one youth simply because he "needs bodies". How desperate this requirement has become was reflected in the identity of those deployed for the friendly encounter against Dunfermline in midweek. No fewer than seven of the 15 players used in the 1-1 draw were trialists: two of these were given the opportunity to earn deals simply because they had impressed for Rob Roy juniors against Clyde last weekend.

"I could give you all the bullshit of the day but the plain fact is that you cannot become competitive overnight after losing the calibre of player that we have recently," says Clyde spokesman John Ruddy. "Alan [Kernaghan] was the best central defender in the first division last year and had they been playing in the Premier, I’m absolutely convinced that such as Jack [Ross] and Mark [McLaughlin] would have been capped by Scotland.

"I genuinely don’t consider that it is all doom and gloom for us, though. In the next week we are set to sign two sponsorship deals that will give the manager working capital to bring in the sort of players we need to put a decent side on the park. I know things don’t look good with the season only three weeks away but people should reserve judgment on what we might have to offer until the real stuff gets underway."

Reid isn’t prepared to go out of his way to claim that Clyde, second in the first division in each of the past two seasons, will offer that much over the next 10 months. "I’d say there are possibly six or seven teams who have a chance of winning the title and I don’t count us among these," he says. "We practically are having to rebuild from scratch. There is little in the way of resources for us to replace like with like just as other first division sides are signing up Premier players, so we must be realistic. Our aim must be to stay in the first division."

It concerns Reid that Clyde supporters may not fully appreciate the constraints under which he will be forced to work. In essence, on match days under the old regime, Reid assumed the management duties. He made all the decisions regarding selection and tactics so as to allow Kernaghan to concentrate strictly on playing. However, this is entirely different from performing all the functions of a coach on a permanent basis. "This is a difficult job and there are times when you must go a step back to go two forward," Reid says. "Perhaps we are in that situation now."

Clyde’s regression may be directly attributed to them being a curiously unloved club. This wasn’t so much so when they were tenants at Shawfield Stadium dog track. But then they moved out of there in 1987 and became nomads, bunking up with Hamilton Accies then Partick Thistle. So by the time they became resident at Cumbernauld’s characterless, typical new-town style Broadwood Stadium a decade ago, the club that have never had a home to call their own didn’t have many supporters to call their own either.

Despite coming within a whisker of earning a Premier berth, Clyde’s average attendance only hovered in the region of 1,200: the second lowest in the first division. "In the long run, maybe it will serve the club better that we didn’t win promotion this year," Reid suggests. "Because I don’t know how many supporters we would have taken to Rugby Park with us, and in view of the fact we would have had to pay rent to Kilmarnock as well as to the council for Broadwood, our resources would have been severely stretched."

These were being stretched to breaking point by the turn of the year. This led to corporate troubleshooter Bryan Jackson, the administrator responsible for Motherwell’s financial realignment, being brought in to over the submission of a Credit Voluntary Arrangement (CVA); a process allowing Clyde to satisfy their liabilities to debtors. Major shareholder and then-chairman, Willie Carmichael wrote off two-thirds of the sum he was owed by the club in selling the majority of his stake to new owners formed from a consortium and the Clyde Supporters Trust. These parties invested in the region of £150,000 to put the club’s finances on an even keel, where they will now stay according to John Taylor, club secretary and interim chairman.

"We have taken the Partick Thistle route in that we will now only commit sums on players that we can afford," Taylor says. "We will never again allow the situation to develop where there is a funding gap between what is coming in and what must go out. In those terms, to be a force in the first division we will require to double our average gate.

"This isn’t likely to happen and so there would seem little possibility of us competing with the majority of other clubs in our set-up, most of whom have regular home attendance around the 2,500 mark. Football clubs are resolute and we must operate along modest lines to avoid the risk-taking that might rob us of the ability to operate at all."

Problem is that, whether supposed community team Clyde are marvellous, muck or, even close to moribund matters little to most Cumbernauld people.