Football Focus Issue 72 | Page 39

Ruthin Town In the last few years we have also deployed a process whereby the current under 16 Manager is asked to move to the Development Squad manager’s role to ensure the players have a known structure to work under. We are one of the few clubs in North Wales who run three senior teams. One of the reasons we do so is to help the transition from youth to senior football. Our development squad is very important in this respect and we utilise some of our experienced players to help in this transition. Some players are ready to go straight into the reserves and even the first team in one or two cases, most take a little longer to develop. FF: Would you consider yours to be a community club? PC: Very much so. The Town is a huge part of this club. Every first team player is a local player and all either live in Ruthin, its surrounding villages or in the Vale of Clwyd. Over 90% of them actually played youth football for Ruthin, including the entire first team management team. We rely heavily on our local sponsors without whom we would not be able to support the three senior teams and the infrastructure we maintain in the form of the club house and three pitches. Even with a promotion to the Cymru Alliance last season we have not seen a huge rise in revenue into the club compared with the increase in running costs for officials, match day staff etc. We also have a massive task in completing a new 250 seater stand and additional FAW Tier Two requirements to the ground and clubhouse facilities to ensure we remain compliant for the 2017/18 season. We have set up a crowd funding account to help build funds for these. We also relied purely on material donations www.footballfocusmag.com 39