COWDENBEATH will apply for the £50,000 windfall grant made available to Scottish football clubs by philanthropist James Anderson – but it won't solve all their problems.

Apparently his daughter is a fan of the Blue Brazil and the money he's gifted to help the game in its hour of need has been described as a "fantastic gesture" by the club's director David Allan.

But lower league clubs still don't know when their season will start, they can't afford to play behind closed doors for long and are not clear on the best testing regime for players and staff.

Mr Allan said: "There's a drive towards starting in mid-October and that's fine, it gives us a target to work towards, whether it's achievable we'll find out in due course depending on how the virus develops.

"If you ask us to play behind closed doors for two home games, we could probably live with that, but it's not feasible to do any longer than that if there's no other income."

He continued: "If you were live streaming the games, maybe you'd get a couple of hundred people paying £8, that's £1,600 but it's not going to cover the wage bill.

"I'd say the average wage in our league is probably £150-£175, if you run with 20 players that's £3,500 a week. "Add in the manager and his staff and it's probably about £5,000.

"If you take them off furlough you've got to find that money to pay them on an income stream without gate money, hospitality, sponsorship, advertising around the ground and in the programme, you couldn't do catering and you can't sell merchandise other than online.

"There are the extras, like a sportsman's dinner and reunion event we had lined up, they all help generate the income to help cover the player costs and they're lost.

"That's why things like Club 135, which has raised over £14,000 for us during lockdown, is so vital.

"People have asked about buying season tickets and that would help but we can't do it now as what would they cost? How many games would there be? Right now we don't know."

The stipulation that the money from Mr Anderson should also benefit the community, and the tight timescale given to clubs to get their application in, were added complications and Cowden are still considering how best to splash the cash.

It's likely to go on tests for players and staff, in order to get the game up and running again, but it would certainly add up.

Mr Allan said: "You're probably talking about testing 20 players, another four with the manager and coaching staff, the physio and kitman, that's 26 off the top of my head.

"And you're probably testing twice a week, maybe more. On a match day you've probably got more people, the club doctor, safety officer, various other officials, I don't know if we test the opposing team, their staff and directors too?"

Money could also be spent on a new system which would allow them to live stream matches.

He explained: "Championship teams like Dunfermline and ones that have recently been in the Championship, like Falkirk, have a system called Pixellot which was paid for by a company called Watch and Bet.

"It's a multi-lensed camera system that covers the whole pitch, it will film a match and follow the action

"It was a deal with the SPFL, presumably so people could watch the games and bet on them.

"We're looking at that for League One and Two. Can we afford to do that? It costs about £10,000 and we're going to see a demo in the next week or so."