Generous Stenhousemuir staff bid to ease club’s cash hardship

The Warriors’ main revenue stream – football matches – have ceased forth with during the coronavirus closure of Scottish football – a move that will see the cash coffers at Ochilview, hit by £60,000.

The club’s office, community and ground staff stepped forward at the start of the week and offered to take a wage reduction if collectively, it meant saving all jobs and helped the club.

They followed Irons’ and McGoldrick’s insistence that they would forego their wages to ease the burden.

McGoldrick told The Falkirk Herald it “just felt like the right thing to do”. He explained: “It’s a great club and great staff behind the scenes. I couldn’t have it on my conscience if anythging happened to them. I’m not taking the team or training so why should I be taking money when there’s none coming in? Davie felt the same.

“It’s our way of giving back.”

Club chairman Iain McMenemy added: “Within a day or two of the decision to suspend match football, I received a call from Davie – at a time when we were still reeling from shock this was an incredible gesture and speaks volumes of the commitment they give to the club, and the type of people they are.

“Davie was insistent, it wasn’t a negotiation, they wouldn’t take their wage. If that helped the club through, or to lessen the impact on other staff or the players, then they wanted to play their part.

“At a time when all clubs face an uncertain future, where all main income streams have been curtailed, then offers like this go along way to helping us survive.”

Staff at the club have also turned to help others across the local Larbert and Stenhousemuir community during the recent periods of self-isolation, social distancing and the current effective ‘lockdown’. Their actions not only mean there is help at hand in these troubled times, but also that there can still be a football club operating at the end of it.

The chairman added: “All of these people rely on their wages like the rest of us, but here they were thinking of others and shouldering their part of the shared financial burden.

“They want the club to survive, and want to remain part of the club’s future. We always talk of the club as a community, and these sorts of generous acts really underpin what we are trying to do.”