Our 140th Anniversary
This year will mark the 140th anniversary of the club’s official incorporation date of 1884.
This is a time to celebrate our continuing links with our local community and our commitment to the game that we all love.
It is also a time to reflect upon the contributions of so many people over those years as players, volunteers, supporters and officials.
However, it should also be a time to look to the future and ensure we are equipped to take the club forward and create the next 140 years of history.
This season, both our men’s and women’s teams are doing well in their respective leagues. Our men’s team achieved a record breaking 12 game winning run and currently sit top of the table in the cinch SPFL League 2. Our women’s team are enjoying their own unbeaten run of 12 games and are vying for the top spot in the SWF League 1. However, for both teams, there’s still a lot of football to be played between now and the end of the season so I’ll say no more than that for now, with the exception of wishing both teams continued success. The players have all accounted for themselves admirably, and I’m sure that all supporters will continue to give them and the management teams every support until the end of the season.
As mentioned previously, our anniversary is a good time to take stock and plan for the future.
With this in mind, I wanted to keep all our supporters updated on our future plans and direction.
Some personal news first, I will shortly complete my sixth year as Chairman. As someone who wholeheartedly believes in embracing change and progress, I wanted to give early notice that I intend to step aside from this post later this year. This will allow for a new Chairman to be appointed who will bring their own ideas and their energy to the role and help take the club forward on our continuing journey.
In order to take the next steps as a club, we see the need to reinvigorate the club board by adding new directors. We will be making further announcements about this shortly, however, we would also encourage anyone who might be interested and has something different to offer the club, to get in touch and be part of the club’s next chapter. You would love it!
As well as adding new talent to our board, we also want to continue to build our capacity as a club. We have ambitions for our first teams to be playing at the highest level possible, and this will take finance and resource. We are currently developing a new commercial group and focus which will be the platform to ensure that at whatever time our teams advance up the leagues, we are always ready to ensure that we can match that progress with the appropriate finance and resource.
Achieving this will require help from us all. We’ll be announcing new fundraising and commercial opportunities, and we will need the support of our supporters, both near and far, and our local community to help us get there. We’ve just announced the return of our sportsman’s dinner, our annual prize draw and our summer family day. These are events where we need your support.
We’ve already seen how the progress we have made thus far has impacted our performance on the pitch in the football sense, and off the field with our community activity.
Our newly established club charity, the Stenhousemuir FC Community Foundation, is now up and running with its own Trustees at the helm. Together, we will continue our work in the community, to build on the efforts of all our volunteers during the covid pandemic, and ensure we have the strongest possible links between club and community. This is a big part of our DNA at the club.
For now, our focus for the months ahead will be on building for the future as we transition the club to be able to meet the next stage of our progress.
We are working on a couple of things to mark our 140 years, and hope that we can also celebrate some football successes too.
I’ll keep everyone updated on any further changes, but for now, thanks for all your support so far this season, and I’ll see you at the remaining games.
