William Powrie has done his best to make Brora Rangers’ position clear.
They, along with Kelty Hearts, have been the outsiders looking in, as the SPFL lurched from confusion to chaos and various outposts inbetween.
As champions of the Highland and Lowland League, ordinarily they would be playing each other for a shot at becoming a Scottish league club. But these are no ordinary times.
Both clubs are waiting with baited breath for the outcome of reconstruction discussions, in the hope an extension to the number of member clubs grants them their wish. Ambition to join the SPFL ranks has been no secret for either side, with Kelty going so far as to offer sacrificing their first season of prize money for a place in the senior leagues.
Brora laid their costs bare last month, projecting a £30,000 shortfall for the current period without football, owing to the absence of hospitality, match-day income and sponsorship. A proposal of three leagues of 14, which was prematurely and perhaps unhelpfully put into the public domain without any such model being agreed, would see Kelty and Brora remain in their current divisions for another year.
“It would affect our business model hugely,” said Powrie, the Cattachs chairman. “The prize money for playing in the SPFL ranges from £75,000 down to £45,000. The Highland League prize money is very modest indeed, so it absolutely affects our business model.
“Our costs, all bar coach travel, are pretty much fixed and while I’m sure Steven (Mackay, manager) will be looking at the composition of the squad going forward, we have an idea of what the budget is going to be.
“If we’re not dining at the SPFL table it will very much affect our financial position. We absolutely need to get up.”
This is far from a plea for help from Powrie, an antiques dealer in Dingwall, but a realistic statement of where ambition has left them.
“It’s just a financial consequence. We’re without future hospitality going forward, which we don’t think we’ll be able to do for some time yet, and even then I think there’ll be a great unwillingness, or a degree of reticence, for people to come back into close proximity.
“The consequences will live with us, whether you’re in the SPFL or the Highland League, for at least 12 months to come.”
Their players have been furloughed, like many clubs across the country, as they await some clarity of what league they are going to be playing in. Manager Steven Mackay made that same point earlier this week; it is not so much when football will return, but what landscape they need to prepare themselves for.
“The uncertainty is there now – we know where we are financially. We’re not going to be able to carry out any fundraising functions that we normally do at this time of year, through David Dowling and his commercial committee. We know we’ve lost them and also the games to take us through our league run-in for the championship, all of which were almost sold out for hospitality.
“That money, we’ll never get back regardless of what happens. As every club will, we’ll have to sit down and cut our cloth accordingly moving forward.
“It’s so much more difficult to knock on a sponsors’ door and say ‘here’s your bill for the season for your pitchside board’ when he’s not been open for a period of time. If you replicate that for the 70 or 80 boards you’ve got around the ground, for all the clubs in the Highland League and SPFL, there’s going to be a huge deficit of funding coming into all clubs’ coffers.”
They have representation on the SPFL’s working group on reconstruction, with the Highland League flag flown by secretary Rod Houston. Powrie knows his club’s cause will be championed at the negotiating table, given they were crowned title winners at a league management meeting back in March. The proposal to do so was put forward by their nearest challengers Fraserburgh, evidence of the good will and common sense that exists in the Highland League.
“We’ve had various messages of best wishes and good luck but they’re just like us really. They’re looking from the sidelines and I guess they will want to know what’s happening with Brora Rangers. If we’re in the Highland League next year, it will look very different, I guess, than without us. The interest goes far beyond just Brora.
“There will be a lot of twists and turns and water to flow under the bridge before a resolution is agreed upon. The answers will come, there’s absolutely no doubt. We just hope when they throw the dice it falls favourably for us.”
