Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
In the red despite a double cup win
ST JOHNSTONE’S historic double cup winning season came at a cost.
Perth chairman Steve Brown has revealed the pandemic-hit club suffered a £508,000 loss during a campaign when boss Callum Davidson and his players’ Hampden heroics unfolded in an empty stadium.
In his report to shareholders for the financial year ending in May, Brown revealed Saints had eaten into around £1 million of their rainy-day savings 12 months ago – prompting them to take advantage of a £2.6 million Scottish Government loan.
“It must have been one of the most challenging years faced by the club in its 137-year history,” admitted Brown.
He said the outlook had been “very bleak indeed” last summer, with the managerless McDiarmid club operating with a skeleton staff, little or no income and no sign of football returning, with or without fans, as the pandemic left crisis-hit clubs in limbo.
But by the end of the 2020/21 season, the League Cup and the Scottish Cup were in the Saints’ trophy cabinet, with European football and a cash windfall on the horizon.
Brown said: “Given the most gloomy outlook at the start of the financial year, it is nothing short of remarkable that the club should enjoy its most successful football season ever.
“Who would have thought that a first ever League Cup triumph should be so shortly followed by a second Scottish Cup win, all in the one season?
“It’s an achievement which must rank with one of the best by a club in the history of Scottish football, particularly given the challenges of the pandemic and the greater resources of a number of rivals.”
Brown paid tribute to manager
Davidson, who replaced club legend Tommy Wright, and his coaches Steven MacLean and Alex Cleland.
And he said the half a million pound losses would have been even greater but for the cup prize money and a welcome donation to Scottish clubs from philanthropist James Anderson
“Given the straitened financial circumstances during the financial year, the loss, whilst unwelcome, is not as challenging as it might otherwise have been,” he said.
Since the accounts were signed off, the Perth club has banked £1.8 million from the sale of captain Jason Kerr and midfielder Ali McCann to Wigan and Preston.