GERRY BRITTON has had to deal with a lot in the last two years. But the Partick Thistle chief executive believes that the coronavirus-induced lockdown of Scottish football - and wider society - has brought with it a sense of perspective.
"We've had three boards, three managers, a potential takeover [from a billionaire consortium], then the share transfer [when Colin Weir bought the club and gifted it to the fans] with the supporters and to top it all of this is unprecedented," he said.
"There’s no way you could have catered for this. But the important thing for us, and I’m sure it’s the same for every club, is that we come out of this. Everybody is dealing with closures and unemployment and just trying to get the basic services we have become used to, so it does give you a reality check."
Thistle fans, like many others, have been playing their part in safeguarding the long-term future of their club, raising over £13,000 for the club. It is a gesture that Britton - who confirmed that the club will continue to pay players and staff their full salary - finds humbling and inspiring in equal measure.
"We have been absolutely bowled over with the response from supporters," he said. "Everybody is going through an anxious time, everybody is uncertain about what is happening from one hour to the next never mind from day to day. So for our supporters to think of us and to come up with suggestions as to how they can help us in a financial sense, it was incredibly humbling.
"It is times like this that you get a reminder of the important things and for us, the lifeblood of our club always has been and always will be our supporters. They have showed that they are willing to back us to the hilt so in terms of the initiative we’ve put in place with the rebranding of the club, we felt it was the least that we could do to try and give something back to them."
The sudden indefinite postponement has wreaked financial havoc on many of Scotland's clubs. Income has dried up almost overnight, leaving some teams teetering on the brink of survival as they look to find new ways to make ends meet over the coming weeks and months
Fortunately for Britton, Partick Thistle are in a relatively healthy position off the field. Before purchasing the Firhill side, Euromillions winner Colin Weir and his wife Christine were long-standing benefactors of the club, pumping in vast amounts of capital before Colin eventually bought Thistle outright in November with a view to transferring the ownership to supporters.
That process has been delayed by Colin's untimely death in December but Britton is under no illusions as to why Thistle are in a better position than most to weather this financial storm.
“The financial backing and support the Weirs gave us since 2013 has really put us where we are today," Britton admitted. "Despite going into this uncertain period and despite being relegated two years ago, we are still a debt-free club.
“And despite on-field not having the season we all hoped for we were still working towards a balanced budget - and that was even after severe backing from the board in January in terms of investing in the squad.
“This situation has derailed that somewhat but again, given the solid financial base that we had, we feel we are in a position to deal with it probably a hell of a lot better than some other clubs as we work towards what would have been the end of the season.
“We can look three months ahead and say ‘how can we deal with this scenario?’ But if there is a continued period of uncertainty then we are the same as any other business and it gets harder and harder to forecast."
Britton added: “We have to plan for every eventuality. We are working on four different budgets and that throws up four different squads and budget availability to the manager.
“You can’t afford to leave things to the last minute.
“I’m sure most clubs are the exact same. Whenever we come out of this situation then we know we need to improve on the pitch and to enable the manager to improve on the pitch we have to do the hard graft off it.”
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