KELTY HEARTS

Kelty Hearts US investors seeks 'sustainable' club growth

3
Skip to next photo
1/1
Show caption
1/1
This article is brought to you by our exclusive subscriber partnership with our sister title USA Today, and has been written by our American colleagues. It does not necessarily reflect the view of The Herald.

THE new consortium in control at Kelty Hearts have said that they are not at the club to "blow up the budget" or "spend millions".

Instead, they are looking to "build slowly" and develop in a way that is sustainable.

The US group, led by Jordan Gardner, have acquired an 80 per cent stake to take a controlling share of the New Central Park outfit.

It's a move that has raised eyebrows, but they say that they have become involved with the Maroon Machine due to their love of football, and a desire to "do something more at a smaller level, where people could be involved".

Jim Kirks, one of their directors, also stated that they have ambitions to become Scotland's leading part-time team, but that they won't put the club at financial risk to do so.

"We've been working on this on and off for a while, especially, in the last six months," he explained.

"We've looked at a lot of different football clubs, so, yeah, it's been going on a while.

The US group want to make Kelty the country's leading part-time club. (Image: David Wardle.)

"We're not here to blow up the budget. We're not here to spend millions of pounds.

"We're here to build slowly, improve the infrastructure, improve the pitch, improve the on-pitch performance. That's what we're about.

"You're not going to see this club next year put a bunch more money into players. It's going to be a slow process, sustainable process.

"We've been down this road before. You see it all the time, you see Americans buy into football, they drop a ton of money in and, 18 months later, they're in the wind because they didn't know what they were doing.

"We're not going to be that."

In 2019, Gardner led a group that invested in Danish club, FC Helsingør, taking them to third tier promotion a year later.

They came close to winning promotion to the Superliga, the country's top flight, after two successive fourth place finishes, before Gardner and his consortium sold their stake in 2022.

"I was in Denmark, I remember," Kirks continued.

"That was a little bit bigger of a club and the same principle.

"It was different there because we inherited a team that was in pretty good shape, and then we made it even better.

"We made it too good, probably, and then we made a run for the Superliga, the top league, and, so, once you get to that point, and you can smell it, that's when the football thing takes over.

The US group have acquired a stake of 80 per cent in the New Central Park outfit. (Image: David Wardle.)

"We were sustainable. We did bring it to a place where it had been losing a lot of money and brought it back from the brink, and levelled it out.

"We made it a better club.

"We don't want to be the people who come in and drop a ton of money. It is a hard, hard game, as you know.

"You can have all the money in the world, and you could still lose all that money and go home, right?

"It's as much being smart with the money, and then also, having some luck in football. You've got to be lucky!

"We want to be smart, we want to be sustainable."

Kirks spoke of his excitement at being involved, adding: "I'm thrilled.

"I love football, and I love being on the football side of things.

"I'm an operations guy, so this kind of thing is right in my alley.

"Every time someone says, do you want to come work in football, I'm like, yeah, absolutely!

"I would say almost all of the investors are all sports fans.

"I would say most of them have either some background in football, either played football or been big football fans, or run football clubs, and so you're going to find people that are excited about football.

"I mean, football isn't as big in America, of course you know that, but there are passionate people."

Get involved
with the news

Send your news & photos