Johnstone Burgh can today confirm that the club has been taken over by a recently formed consortium, led by investors involved mainly in the healthcare and engineering sectors, both of whom have a love of the game, and family ties to the local area and to the club.

Prior to the takeover, there was already a core of outstanding people working tirelessly within the club, some of whom have been involved for over 20yrs. Some recent additions to the committee have brought new energy and ideas, and helped to ensure the club has kept its head above water in recent years.

We hope the new investment will allow some of the dreams of long'standing members of the committee, and of the supporters, to be realised.

The intention is to build a sustainable community club, which can rise through the football pyramid as quickly and efficiently as possible, into professional football.

As part of the drive towards sustainability and progress, the consortium intends to purchase the stadium, redevelop the club-house and stand, along with the installation of state-of-the-art astroturf facilities. Talks have been ongoing in the background for several months now, with a focus on how, and indeed if, the current site can be developed, an issue on which we hope to update soon.

This will allow us to start the process of gaining our SFA licence, to run concurrently with the upcoming seasons, allowing us to be prepared as we try to step up each stage of the pyramid.

In addition to the purchase of the stadium, there will be investment into the youth set up within the club.

The club developed and has run a community club over the past 4-5yrs, with the focus on getting more kids in the area playing football. Presently, we have over 200 children playing, but unfortunately, due to the lack of local facilities, we have had to put the brakes on further growth until we can get access to, or build more, facilities that are usable all year round.

As part of our overarching plan to develop the best, local talent, we intend to create an academy that feeds into the development and thereafter first team squad.

To achieve this goal, the aim is to have all coaches within the academy holding a minimum of UEFA C coaching licence, with our academy teams working in conjunction with our community clubs to provide everyone in the local area the opportunity to play and enjoy football.

The recent signings of Kyle Lafferty and Graham Dorrans have been real coups, and have accomplished the goal of raising the profile of the club. We hope that the additional media coverage which included Sky Sports visiting the club, will bring increased interest in Johnstone Burgh and an increase in crowds with more local people becoming involved in the day-to-day running of the club. This was stage 1 of the project when we first got together and developed a strategy for moving forward.

Much has been said about the money involved in bringing these players in, all of it being untrue and coming from individuals with no knowledge of the facts or processes or circumstances involved.

These players will give the club a platform to progress quickly and professionally while passing onto the younger players, coaching staff, development team and community club their vast experience of playing at the highest level.

People may choose to look at this as overkill for our current level; however we are looking at it as the foundation of the project. Quick progress, allowing us to build a squad, capable of challenging as the club tries to progress through the leagues, is our target. People who know about football at our level will know we have also signed the best young players available. With their huge collective potential still to be realised, and continuing to develop this alongside more established and experienced players in the prime of their career, we will not require wholesale changes each season as we progress, as we have seen other ambitious clubs do.

Johnstone Burgh is and always will be a club for all members of the community regardless of age, race, religion or gender.

If people want to use previous clubs of our marquee signings as reason to stay away from the club then unfortunately that’s up to them.

These were the players that were identified who were available and we negotiated with and struck deals with.

They have over 100 international caps between them and played at the highest level in both England and Scotland and abroad, you cannot put a price on that experience.

We intend to bring the glory years back to club and give the town a successful club to be proud of which it has sorely missed for many years.

The negativity we have received, and the lies posted on social media - based on gossip, only makes us more determined to build this club to be a proper community club where everyone is welcome, regardless of what other colours they may wear or may have worn.

We will also continue with the fantastic charity work the club has been involved in, in recent years, partnering up with the local foodbank, arranging Easter, Christmas and fun days for the local kids, creating a boot swap for the kids in our community club teams meaning less pressure on parents to fork out large sums of money and most recently our mental health group that will be up and running very soon.

Should anyone like any further information on future plans then feel free to contact the club directly and we will be more than happy to answer any questions.

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