Club passes cash milestone

One would suggest St Mirren’s remarkable reversal in fortunes on the park can only be rivalled by those off it.

As Saints prepare for their return to the Premiership after three seasons away from the top flight, it is easy to forget just how close the boys in black and white stripes came to slipping into the obscurity of the so- called “seaside leagues”.

But just over two years ago the boardroom was also in a state of flux as negotiations continued over the future ownership of the club.

First there were the rumoured Argentinian buyers, then the failed 10,000 Hours bid that had seemingly kicked the idea of fan ownership into touch.

But behind the scenes SMISA (St Mirren Independent Supporters Association) cont i nued to plug away.

Alongside former director Gordon Scott, the trust eventually seized control in the summer of 2016 to herald a new era for the club – but that isn’t where the hard work stopped.

The fine print of the eventual deal meant that the trust were still paying back the old board to the tune of £380,000.

SMISA, backed by the monthly f i nancial cont r ibutions of approximately 1,270 members, had to make regular payments to the club’s former owners for their shares as part of that agreement.

Now, after just two years, the full sum has been paid, taking St Mirren fans a step closer to bringing their club into the hands of the Paisley community.

The fans group initially expected they would need a loan to do this – but with member numbers rising and staying well above the initial target of 1,000, the milestone was reached without a penny of borrowing.

“There is no getting away from it, it really is a major milestone for SMISA”, SMISA’s member on the board David Nicol told Express Sport.

“You can look at it from a number of different perspectives but this really was the riskiest part of the whole deal.

“If something was to have gone wrong and we were unable to pay off the old board, then that could have opened up a whole can of worms with regards to what the next step would have been. We would have had to take out a loan to cover the cost, or the old board would have been entitled to their old shares.”

Nicol added: “In the end, it wasn’t something we even had to concern ourselves with.

“A drop in membership would have been the main stumbling point but instead, we have, over the whole, managed to keep a stable membership and we are well ahead of where we had projected we would be at this stage.

“We have done it all off our own bat and that is something that we can be proud of.

“Some people will have looked at the so-called accelerated payments that we have made to the board and believe we have paid more than they were due. “That isn’t the case at all. “The accelerated payments meant that the old board would receive their money ahead of schedule whenever there was an unexpected increase in cashflow, ie; transfer revenue from the likes of Kyle McAllister and Lewis Morgan for example.

“The old board received what they were due, and thanks to these transfers the money owed has been paid off sooner than ultimately expected.

“But we have got the deal over the line without borrowing a single penny, and that is thanks to our members.”

It would be easy to trace the roots of St Mirren’s success in the Championship back to the buy-out of 2016, with the feel-good factor of the fans and the club pulling as one stemming from the arrival of the new men at the helm.

It wasn’t without it’s teething problems though, as the sacking of Alex Rae proved less than four months in to the new regime, but with a charismatic figure in Jack Ross championing a reunion between the fans and the board, Saints were on to a winner.

SMISA members pay £ 12 per month, with £ 10 going towards the share purchase and – in what is believed to be one of a kind – £2 goes into a separate pot allowing members