JAGS HAVE HIT THE JACKPOT

But there’s method in the ‘madness’ of this donation from EuroMillions winners

THERE’S an old wisdom about the easiest way to get £1million in this life. First, obtain yourself £2m and then find a football club prepared to handle your investment.

If only someone had told poor old John McGuinness. Remember him? The affable hospital porter who won £10m on the National Lottery in 1997 and, having splashed the cash liberally to friends and family, decided that a £4m splurge into Livingston Football Club was the prudent thing to do.

These days, the West Lothian outfit are languishing in the lower echelons of the second tier of Scottish football, the deep wounds of a subsequent insolvency and demotion to the bottom division still to fully heal.

McGuinness, meanwhile, lives as a virtual recluse. Finding the money to fund life’s essentials is a daily struggle.

Given how much publicity his sorry riches-to-rags story generated, it does seem remarkable that anyone with cause to pop champagne in front of the customary oversized cheque would ever countenance putting any of their new-found wealth into a football club.

But their reputations as a furnace for the folding stuff hasn’t dissuaded every well-heeled individual from getting involved. It’s just that not everyone views their new-found role as a chief signatory of blank cheques.

When word surfaced that Colin and Christine Weir, the Largs couple who scooped £161m on the EuroMillions four years ago, were not only Partick Thistle fans but were considering investing in the club, long-suffering Jags supporters perhaps envisaged a string of top European stars descending on Firhill on someone else’s coin.

The reality may have been somewhat different yet, as far as the rude financial health of the club going forward is concerned, the conditions attached to the couple’s largesse is likely to be hugely beneficial.

In gifting the club £750,000, the Weirs’ sole stipulation was it had to be used for youth development as opposed to lining the pockets of big-name, over-the-hill mercenaries. And so, in 2013, the Thistle Weir Youth Academy was born.

As is the nature of such things, tangible evidence of success takes time. Recently, however, the green shoots are pushing through.

Kevin Nisbet, a precocious 18-year-old attacking midfielder, has made two appearances for the first-team this season but if his regular forays for the development squad are anything to go by, they will not be the last. Frankly, were it not for the Weirs’ investment, he would probably be elsewhere.

Many more are soon expected to follow his path into the first-team.

‘In terms of attracting better players, which Kevin Nisbet undoubtedly is, we have become a far more attractive proposition,’ said Academy chief Gerry Britton.

More than anyone, former Thistle striker Britton can testify to the seismic change in Thistle’s youth programme since the Weir money came on board.

A qualified lawyer, he previously juggled his courtroom engagements with coaching part-time at his former club. When the chance to shelve his legal career in favour of putting all his weight behind the Academy came along, there was no decision to be made.

‘For me to be given the opportunity to set it all up and be involved from the start was too good to knock back,’ he explained. ‘It was something I’d always dreamt about doing but I never thought I’d see the day when it would be up and running.

‘We’ve still only got two full-time members of staff but the number of part-time staff we have has increased beyond all recognition.’

So, too, have the numbers through the doors on a weekly basis.

‘We now have eight squads running in the Elite Academy, whereas before the investment we had four,’ Britton explained.

‘We also have school programmes, a grassroots programme, girls’ teams and have taken on the women’s team. None of that was there before.

‘That’s opportunities to 500/600 kids each week to get involved in football that weren’t with us before. It’s made a massive, positive impact for us.

‘We’ve also been able to progress into the top tier, which gives you games against the other top academies.’

It’s not just a capacity to engage with more people of all ages in the wider community that’s been greatly enhanced.

As Jags chairman David Beattie explained, the quality of coaching has improved proportionately.

‘The difference these days is massive,’ he stressed. ‘The academy — if you could have called it that three years ago — was essentially Gerry and a few coaches working on a part-time and voluntary basis.

‘Now it’s a business in its own right with physiotherapists, nutritionists and many more coaches. It’s a proper structured academy. We’ve gone from two-star status to four-star within 18 months, which is quite considerable. It means we’re playing against the top teams in Scotland now.

‘We’re as well set up as any team in the country.’

Youth development is a business that offers no guarantees. Long, hard hours on the training field don’t always translate into ready-made first-team players, but without that unstinting commitment you have no chance.

Britton sincerely believes that, in time, the Weirs’ desire to see the academy grow into a self-funding business will be realised.

‘Right from the start, the philosophy was to increase engagement to help the wider community,’ he added.

‘It was never a case of just buying a couple of first-team players. Their ethos continues to be having a positive impact on young people’s lives. It’s been amazing.

‘They were very keen when the academy was set up that any financial benefit from players being produced and sold on was reinvested back into the academy and didn’t just sit within the club.

‘That’s why it was set up as a stand-alone organisation.

‘There is a provision that a percentage of the money from future player sales goes back into the academy, which is fantastic for us.’

If the 2013 investment by the Ayrshire couple was very much one for the future, their decision last month to snap up a 30-per-cent stake in the club — with 20 per cent being handed back to fans — has a more immediate impact.

‘It’s a massive thing for the football club,’ Beattie continued. ‘I don’t know many clubs in Scotland that are debt-free.

‘We don’t have that thought process of an overdraft and the long-term debt of the club. It means we are mortgage free. Hopefully, we can use that as a stepping stone to take it even further in the next few years.’

Debt-free and with an academy now bearing fruit. And all because a couple of lifelong Jags fans chose the correct numbers to make them rich beyond imagination. There must surely be mornings when Beattie awakes and wonders if it’s not all been a fevered dream.

‘Their hearts are in Partick Thistle,’ he smiled. ‘They are just there to help the club in any way they can.

‘They are very interested to know what happens on a monthly basis but there are no demands from them. They are very happy with the board of directors and the way we are trying to take the club forward.’

For Britton, the couple’s ongoing association with Thistle makes every day feel like a lucky one.

‘Their whole ethos and outlook on life is absolutely brilliant,’ he reflected. ‘If you were to pick people to win the Lottery, they are the type you would choose.’