SPARTANS yesterday moved to allay serious concerns over their bid to be admitted to the SFL and urged league chairmen to recognise the 'visionary' nature of their proposal.
The East of Scotland side were left stunned by news that they had been given zero marks in 11 of 15 judging categories following an inspection of their facilities by a recent SFL delegation. With construction of a hugely impressive £3.5 million commu
nity ground to the north of the capital well on the road to completion, the club feel they have made a strong case for inclusion in the leagues.
However, following site inspections at the grounds of rivals Cove Rangers, Preston Athletic, Edinburgh City and Annan Athletic, Spartans were ranked a lowly four out of five in the criteria laid down by the SFL. Although the markings are intended only for information purposes, and not a suggestion as to who to vote for, the inspection report has been seen as a blow to the club's hopes of replacing Gretna later this week.
Spartans were the only bidding club asked to fill out a supplementary, 25-point questionnaire and were also summoned to SFL offices at Hampden on Wednesday to ease concerns over the fact their new Ainslie Park ground will not be ready until September, as well as issues surrounding funding, safety of match officials, crowd capacity, fan base and player budget. Spartans – whose profile has been dramatically raised in recent seasons by their impressive Scottish Cup exploits and who, on Friday, became the first senior team to receive the SFA's Quality Mark Community Club Award praising their local links – are confident they have met all the points raised by the SFL and are hopeful the concerns do not scupper their bid in Thursday's vote.
Colin Hutchison, Spartans' general secretary and director, commented: "We don't actually receive the scoring, but from what we are led to believe in the press, we scored 'nil points' for our facilities. If that is the case, that is a major shock to us because we showed the SFL officials round here and two of our committee were also summoned back to Hampden last Wednesday, and we received no indication that's where things stacked with us. With a £3.5 million investment programme it was a major surprise and a disappointment. If I had one message for the voting clubs on Thursday it would be to look to the future and be visionary.
"We had Forfar manager Dick Campbell round here and he said 'I see a building site, guys, but I see the vision'. So many people have committed to that, including Gordon Strachan, our patron. Everybody that comes here comes out with the 'wow' factor. Is this the future of Scottish football? We believe it is and we're very proud of what we've done so far. We hope the chairmen see that and vote for us on Thursday."
The full article contains 493 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
