Spartans apply for SFL

Posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008

Spartans today submitted an application to join the Scottish Football League.

Craig Graham, the Spartans chairman, said: “These are exciting times for the club. We have never applied before, but we now have everything in place.

“The new Spartans Community Football Academy at Ainslie Park meets every aspect required for Third Division football.

“Our facilities will provide an excellent venue for us, and our youth programme. We are confident our community focus will build a strong fan base and we are conveniently situated in the central belt.”

The concluding paragraphs in the application document, state:

“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 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.
• 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.”The application will be examined by the SFL management committee, who plan to visit the Spartans Community Football Academy at Ainslie Park on Thursday 27 June.

The existing 29 members of the SFL will meet at Hampden on Thursday 3 July to elect a new club to play in the Third Division next season.

The SFL has confirmed that five formal bids were received, from Spartans, Annan Athletic, Preston Athletic and Edinburgh City of the East of Scotland League, and Cove Rangers from the Highland League.