When I asked Leeann Dempster during yesterday's press briefing whether she had done her sums and worked out how many 18.75s go into 2.5 million the Hibs chief executive got a bit coy.

"I have," she replied, "but you can get a calculator later..."

Let's give her the benefit of the doubt and accept that even before a colleague had commendably won the post-briefing race to work it out, she knew it would take 11,110 of them to pay the recommended, symbolically significant monthly sum of £18.75 for a year for Hibs supporters to have control of their club within 12 months.

That is complicated slightly by the fact that existing individual shareholders and season ticket holders can buy shares without joining Hibernian Supporters Ltd, the organisation Dempster accompanied Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers and Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Government's former justice secretary in launching at Easter Road yesterday.

However since the club was pleased to get a gate of around nine and half thousand for Saturday's meeting with Falkirk which did little for their bid to get back into the Premiership at the first time of asking, that calculation places in perspective the challenge that has been thrown out.

Fan ownership was, of course, the theme of the day and there is a growing sense that this is the way forward for all but the wealthiest of clubs.

The emotions at play were inevitably best articulated by Reid who admitted that having previously bought season tickets for himself, his wife and their three sons he had gone through a period of not buying one at all.

"I think there has been an alienation between the support and the board here that has to be put right," he said.

Reflecting his own recent status MacAskill meanwhile indicated that fan ownership is something the Scottish Government favours, not least because of the importance of football clubs to the communities they serve, albeit he noted that each should set up individual models that suit their circumstances.

"Stirling Albion I have watched with interest so I think you have to decide upon - in the same way that Scotland is not Germany or Denmark or Sweden, much as you might admire what has happened at Borussia Dortmund, Brondby or IFK Gothenburg - we are dealing with Scottish clubs and each Scottish club has its own different scenario," he said.

Which is absolutely right, but all the more interesting given the formulaic approach that appears to have been applied to sports governance in other Scottish sports and, in particular, the way control of them has been removed from the participants who form the equivalent of a fan base, funding them through subscriptions, entry fees and gate money.

Central to this discussion is the question of whether money generated by a sports organisation is then invested in the sport itself, or is merely lining the pockets of administrators.

Over the course of the two briefings Hibs have held on this matter I have lost count of how many times it has been stressed and stressed again that every penny invested in this process by supporters will go towards football, because they know that the slightest suggestion that supporters money will be siphoned off by executives or board members is now toxic.

That this goes beyond any one football club and is now part of a growing movement was demonstrated by the generosity of Reid's sentiments towards what is a rival project in more ways than one.

"Hearts have proved that if people get behind you, you can do it," he acknowledged.

"I think their success this season has been remarkable and I congratulate them on it and for all that they are our competitors I think their experiment with fan ownership has proved a resounding success.

"It should give confidence to other clubs, not just Hibs, but all other clubs who want to engage their support. They are the bedrock of the club and in the end, when the chips are down, it's they who come in with the money that you need."

Quite right, of course and we may now be entering an era where we start to get a far better sense of the worth of sport and sports clubs to the communities they serve.

Sport is, after all, in one sense wholly pointless. It is in our emotional reaction and attachment to it that it serves a purpose.

That being the case Dempster is 100 per cent right in encouraging all of us to take more responsibility for the sports we love.

It's time we all got our calculators out and started to work out just what is going where and why.