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Chairman’s Update

Sunday, August 10th, 2008

Results

Sat 9th August

1st X League Spartans vs Coldstream - game postponed…..at 1.40 despite every effort to make the pitch playable
2nd XI League Spartans vs Wishaw - game postponed
3rd XI Friendly Watt Star 1 Spartans 3 (Chris Smith 2, Finlay Clark)…the synthetic surface at Riccarton to the rescue…Finlay eventually notching after missing a number of chances apparently

Sun 10th August

Womens 1st XI League Kilmarnock 0 Spartans 0..by all accounts we played well but missed chances

Fixtures

Tue 12th August

1st XI League Preston A vs Spartans ko 7.45pm…the ko has moved around but given the lights we are obviously onto continental ko times
Friendly 2nd XI vs 3rd XI at Peffermill ko 7pm
Friendly Leith A 19s vs Spartans 19s at Leith ko 6.30pm

Sat 16th August

1st XI League Dalbeattie Star vs Spartans ko 2.30pm…there will be a bus travelling and as usual supporters are welcome to come on the bus, please call Jimmy M if you are interested
2nd XI League Millbank vs Spartans ko 20m

Sun 17th August

Womens 1st XI League Cup R1 Forfar vs Spartans ko 2pm

News

1. Mike’s Blog

I know a number of you were disappointed about Mike putting a hold on his blog.  We had a committee meeting including Mike and Sam on Monday and all of us discussed that, as I found out when doing my press interviews after the SFL bid, good points are exagerrated and quickly blown out of all proportion.  As Mike said in his last post suddenly there was controversy where none was intended and despite Mike being very careful on what he said.  We therefore decided that Mike would hang up his mouse and keyboard and stop doing his blog for the meantime.  This blog has attracted many people to our website…over 5,000 different users in July…which is quite remarkable.  Thanks to Mike for the many new Spartans supporters his blog has encouraged and we’re working out how to ensure our supporters are kept fully up to date with the thoughts of all of us at the club.  The new website is continually building new content and hopefully we can retain the readership.

2. Shetland Islands XI

You may have noticed Spartans old boy James Johnson (”JJ”) scoring for the Shetland Islands as they beat Fort William in the 1st Round of the North Challenge Cup…the Sunday Post even described him as ex-Spartans midfielder James Johnson!  They have drawn Cove Rangers in the next round…they have been allowed to enter the cup on the basis they can only be drawn away!  If Shetland can manage this perhaps we should apply to join the English pyramid league system!  It is also interesting to track the ex Spartans players in the SFL as well this season - they do seem to be doing better in the bookings league table than in the goals scored table!

3. The Rain and the Academy

Obviously the current weather is doing little for progress on the grass pitch at the Academy…ERDC are however making good progress on both the club rooms and the large synthetic pitch however we really do need a dry spell for the grass pitch…the seed is on site ready to go on the ground but we need a few dry days

4. Obviously no training on Tuesday but all teams down at Peffermill on Thursday

A new season

Friday, August 1st, 2008

Firstly many thanks for the many messages of support following our SFL bid. It was very heartening reading the texts and emails and has given us all the resolve we need to move forward. Mind you it was a bit lonely initially after Phil’s email out on the evening of the result!

Anyway a new season is here and we’re raring to go. My update email will continue to cover the results and fixtures for the three Mens teams and the 19s, I will also add the two Womens teams as well. In addition it will continue to include the main news across the Mens section and the highlights across the rest of the club. We also have four websites now…the mens, womens, youth and the Academy…we are working on getting all the links working and will do a better job at keeping them current.

After loads of rain in early July progress at the Academy is coming along very well. The guys also had been working at weekends to get it ready for mid September for the SFL so we’ve cut back a bit on this. The weather has also been very wet both in early July and this week…Hutch did say that the new drainage has done a superb job although he would have preferred it not to have been tested quite so early! At the moment completion is now early October although the club room block may be ready before then. We did still go ahead with the irrigation system for the Stadium pitch which will make such a difference and the grass seed is due to be sown next week so we’re in good shape.

Last Weeks Results

Sat 26th July

1st XI Friendly Tynecastle 2 Spartans 5 (Daryl Devlin 4, Nicky Walker )
2nd XI Friendly Queen’s Park Reserves/U19s 1 Spartans 2 (David Cran, Steve Malin)…a better result than our last visit to Hampden at the start of July
3rd XI Friendly Spartans 2 (Chris Smith, Saveria Lagana) Stocksfield 5…thanks to Mark L for arranging Netherdale as neutral territory for the Scotland vs England annual challenge match

Wed 30th July

2nd XI Newcraighall Vics vs Spartans at Newcraighall ko 7pm

Fixtures

Sat 2nd XI August

1st XI Friendly Spartans vs Newtongrange Star at City Park ko 2pm
2nd XI Friendly Aitkenhead T vs Spartans at Balgray, Glasgow ko 2pm

Tue 5th August

Friendly 1st XI vs 2nd XI at Peffermill ko 7pm

Other News

1. Ian Murray the Hibs player has kindly agreed to join the 3rd XI coaching team for their Tuesday night sessions….Mark L is helping Ian start his coaching badges and thanks to mark for encouraging Ian to come along to Spartans. As long as the 3s start their season better than Hibs!

2. Many of you will have already heard this but some sad news regarding a couple of close friends of the Spartans family….The Doc (Andrew Ross) from EUAFC sadly passed away last Saturday, his funeral is this Saturday at Morningside at 10.15. So many Spartans players and committee have benefitted from the Doc’s influence while they were at the Uni and indeed since and his presence will be sorely missed at the matches between us.
Margaret Middlemist…wife of Ian and Mum of Ross also passed away the week before last. Margaret has had to put up with Spartans for many years and our thoughts go to Ian and Ross.

3. 1000 club - May winners

The May winners were:

- Alistair Arnott £215
- John McLean £129
- Dr Ian Smith (EUAFC) £86

The June draw is tomorrow.

4. Season Tickets will be on sale next Saturday at our first home game….details will be out on Monday after the committee meeting. We’re working out what we do when we move to the Academy and have the luxury of a stand and the cafe/bar.

5. Merchandise

Football Nation in Lothian Rd or off our website has a stock of strips, hoodies and t shirts all set for the new season - get in their first before all the tourists in the Capital snap them up when they visit the shop!

Chairmans Update - Not in the SFL

Thursday, July 3rd, 2008

Obviously the decision by the SFL clubs today was very disappointing.  However Annan are a great club, run by great people and will do the East of Scotland League proud as the first team out of our league to go into the SFL.

Firstly I would like to thank the many people who helped us in our campaign - it was like a Scottish Cup run when everyone pulled together.  This time it was all about producing a great submission, brochure and presentation rather than playing on the pitch.  There are simply too many individuals names to mention but a big personal thank you from me to all of you.
I think everyone would be interested in the feedback we got…our biggest issues were:

We obviously have lessons to learn.  To get to where we are we needed vision but we also needed aggression, imagination, to be on the front foot and at times to have quite naked ambition.  We have had to knock down many, many barriers to get to where we are.  Going forward I think different skills and approaches are needed.

Anyway we have a choice - we can blame the process or at least some of the individuals, we can look back and wish we had done things differently or we can look forward.

We will learn and we have a fantastic amount to look forward to.  The opening of the Academy, the continued increase in the size of our Youth section, our new Ladies teams, our community programmes and a new season where I am sure we will use this setback to give us extra determination on the field.  A number of new players and coaches across our 1st XI and 2nd XI have come to us in the last month because of our people and ethos, our vision and passion as well as our facilities.  These important factors remain irrespective of what league we are in.  They have kept us going since 1951 and I’m sure will continue to do so.

I’m absolutely sure the forthcoming season will be a fantastic season for The Spartans.

The SFL Bid

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Obviously the SFL bid is taking all our time and attention at the moment

It’s been a rollercoaster week - Derick and me were summoned to Hampden again last Wednesday and had a reasonable meeting. The press today was very good after Wednesday’s press call - hopefully several of the clubs have read it. Our “sales pitch” brochure is now on the website….”Why The Spartans FC”. Have a look at www.spartansfc.com. The brochure really does show the breadth of the club and the great work done by so many.

The Academy isn’t ready until mid September so we’ve been marked down by the SFL committee providing information to the clubs. We have agreed the use of Meadowbank however this doesn’t get factored in so the success of our bid depends on how well we can put our case to the clubs. I am sure the clubs will look beyond the next few weeks and at the club which will add most to the SFL in the medium term. I am convinced we will bring the most fans, have the best facilities and strong finances, have a great location in Edinburgh and our community and youth programme are second to none. Scotland is strange sometimes - success tends to lead to suspicion rather than inspiration. I am sure the SFL clubs wont take this view and will be delighted to endorse our success on and off the pitch in recent years.

If you are talking to any of the clubs over the next few days do pass on our key messages.

We will be a fantastic addition to the SFL. At the end of the day we need 15 votes to win from the 29 chairmen.

New 2nd XI/Reserves Coach

We are delighted to annouce that Mark Lamb has joined Spartans to take the 2nd XI from Peebles where he has played and been manager for many years. Mark has brought his assistant Stuart Robertson as well, this is the coaching team who took Peebles up from the East of Scotland First Division last season. Mark has his B Licence and continues to work on further badges so I’m sure he will make the same positive impact as made by Mike Irving when he joined last season. This is a really positive move for the club irrespective which leagues we play in next season.

Pre Season Training

The 1s have been back training for a couple of weeks now and the 2s start this week. Tueday it is at City Park/Inverleith Park and Thursday is back at Peffermill. For the 2s on Tuesday it is changing at City Park before a walk over to Inverleith Park.

The New Website

The new website is taking shape - many thanks to Mark Palmer who done a superb job. Also to the design team at Studio LR. The address is still www.spartansfc.com. There will be quite a bit more content added over the next week or so but the early results are great. The newspaper links are superb - in particular the new team line up in Henry Winter’s article.

SFL Bid

Sunday, June 22nd, 2008

Our SFL bid was submitted on Thursday 12th and this Thursday 19th at 2.30 the SFL management committee pay us a visit to go through our submission. It was over 4mb of material so it could be a long meeting. Our concluding paragraphs were as follows:

“We are convinced The Spartans Football Club would be a fantastic addition to the Scottish Football League. We would enhance the league in a number of ways:

- our community focus would build a strong fan base for both home and away games. We have 600 players of all ages plus over 80 coaches, 1500 users of our Academy every week and we have a population of 40,000 within two miles of our ground. We have a proven track record in taking fans to away games in the Scottish Cup – 1000 to Paisley, 400 to Alloa and 350 to Arbroath in 2005 and over 400 to Linlithgow last season.

-our facilities at the new Spartans Football Academy provide an excellent venue for visiting clubs and fans as well as an excellent base for our extensive Youth football programme – one of the biggest in Scotland.

-our profile and brand would generate extensive publicity for the SFL, creating awareness amongst fans and potential sponsors alike.

-we are conveniently situated in the central belt of Scotland – only Elgin of the current SFL clubs would have more than 80 miles to travel to us.

-our financial stability – we have never had an overdraft, have raised nearly £3.5m to finance the building of our Academy in the last three years and have a number of highly successful businessmen on our committee.

We believe that the Spartans structure with Spartans FC having long term security of tenure in a fully funded stadium operated and managed by the Academy is a soundly based one and will provide the basis for long term financial stability. We look forward to Thursday’s meeting.

Results & News

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

Results

Mon 2nd June King Cup Final Spartans 7 (Ross Campbell 2, Ross Archibald pen, Donal Henretty, Dean Hoskins, Danny O’Donnell, Danny Noon) Vale of Leithen 2…signing off the season with a good win and the trophy. It wWe are as 3 - 0 at half time with us taking our chances and Vale coming close. The goals flowed in the second half with Kev not quite managing to pull off a clean sheet in his last game. Less than four weeks before pre season starts!

News

1. Obviously the big news is that the SFL have today asked for applicants for the vacancy they now have. Our application needs to be in by next Thursday (they are sending out “forms” to us today), the will visit clubs up to 27thth June and the key date is a presentation to all 29 clubs on 3rd July. As you might have imagined we have been working on this for a little while. When we see their criteria we will know better how we are responding. There has been quite a bit of press coverage over the last couple of days and there will be more coming up. We seem to have been installed as favourites but this means little unless we do a very good job over the next month. Our brand, our track record on the pitch, our youth and community work off the pitch all put us in good shape. However the Academy won’t quite be finished for the start of the season (we have a back up) and, for a variety of reasons, grass seed or turf won’t go down on the stadium pitch for a couple of weeks. We also need to demonstrate that we can get good crowds, both home and away. We will be putting together a team to work through the next month on this - exciting times.

2. We are now recruiting our second full time post for the Academy. The job profile is attached - a Community Programme Manager. The job will be advertised outside the club over the next couple of weeks but this gives you an early opportunity to see if it is of interest. The post is for an initial one year contract - although we expect it to be an ongoing role. As per the profile, applications have to be sent to Douglas Samuel who will run the Academy - although he is joining the exodus to Santa Ponsa tomorrow so it may be a few days before he can respond to queries. We will also be annoncing a third full time post in a few weeks - this post is partly funded by the Scottish Women’s FA and a good chunk of the focus will be on girls football. This Development officer role will be for a female and working with the SWFA we have someone in mind. Depending on the outcome of the Norwich Union vote for funding we may have a further full time role as well as a number of part time roles.

3. Next season we will be running two Women’s teams plus girls teams at 11s, 13s and 15s. Consequently we are starting a recruitment drive for girls between primary 5 and 7 and we will be running a few taster sessions for girls at Inverleith Park over the next few weeks. The attached flyer has the details. At each session a couple of our new 1st XI Women’s team will be helping with the coaching. The team has just finished 4th in the SWFA Premier League. We expect to annouce a new player/manager for the team in the next couple of days which will really help us move forward and build on the work done by the guys so far under the Edinburgh Ladies banner.

4. There is one more cup final to come. Our Under 13’s play Musselburgh Windsor at the Gyle this Friday in the Persevere Cup, ko 7pm. A good Spartans turnout would be fantastic.

It’s going to be a busy few weeks!!

Cheers

Craig

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