Inverness Caley Thistle legend Charlie Christie is optimistic over return of Alan Savage to the club
Charlie Christie says he will give Alan Savage all the support he needs to get Inverness Caledonian Thistle back on a sound financial footing.
Savage stepped back into the fold at the Caledonian Stadium yesterday, being appointed to the club’s board of directors to steer the club back to stability.
As part of the move, former chief executive officer Scot Gardiner has left the club with immediate effect, while the prospective takeover from Ketan Makwana’s Seventy7 Ventures appears to have been scrapped.
Christie has worked closely with Savage over the years, having been Caley Thistle’s first team manager in Savage’s previous tenure as chairman.
The pair also worked together earlier this year to safeguard the future of ICT’s academy amidst the uncertainty over their financial future.
Christie, who has been part of the Caley Jags set-up since day one, says he is a fan of the way pieces are falling into place at the club while acknowledging that there is still plenty of hard work ahead to get Inverness moving back in the right direction.
“What I’ve been told is that the major shareholders were sceptical about the Seventy7 Ventures proposal and offer, and so they wanted to suspend that and look at investigating other potential bids,” Christie explained.
“I wondered that myself from day one. I would have thought that we would have opened the club up to all realistic bids. I’m not in that loop, so I don’t know whether that was done or not, but the major shareholders have raised concerns, as they are entitled to do.
“It has been a really difficult period for the football club over the past two seasons, which has been exacerbated by relegation. We’re at a level now that we haven’t been at for 25 years, and that doesn’t help, but we’ve got to look at some sort of forward direction from the club.
“Alan Savage is a former chairman, he was my chairman when I was manager and I enjoyed working with him then, and I’ve got to know him better since then.
“I’ve always liked the idea of him being involved with the club, because I know what he can bring and his level of professionalism, and he has very magnanimously come in and is prepared to help the club.
“He is going to need support from the business community and the major shareholders to get us through the interim. It’s not that long ago we were really looking down the barrel of administration – I said that we were on the edge of a precipice, and we’re trying to step back from that.
“Things are very positive, and Alan wants to take things forward, but from my perspective he needs the support of fans, the major shareholders and the local business community now more than ever.
“Alan has taken the reigns to try and do that. He’s a local businessman whose business is based in the Highlands, and has been hugely successful with it. He has used a lot of skilled labour from the Highlands to make his company a multi-million pound success, so I like the ethos of it being a local businessman.
“We’ve had guys like David Sutherland and Dougie MacGillivray who were tremendous chairman at the club before and did brilliantly, and they are still major shareholders. I’m quite sure they will be giving Alan as much support as they possibly can.
“I just think it’s a positive state, but there is a lot of work to do. On a personal basis, I have said to Alan that I will help in any way I possibly can.
“My take on it is, and I’ve spoken to a couple of the football department guys and players to say this, the best thing they can do is start winning matches and challenging for promotion from League One.
“That gives everyone a boost, but to do that at any level of football you need a solid foundation behind you. That’s what Alan is trying to put in place.”
While different people in charge of Caley Thistle in recent years have tried to look outside of football to galvanise the club, Christie particularly likes that Savage is so invested in the sporting side of the club.
Christie hopes that he can be a figure that the entire local community in the Highland capital can rally around given his history with the area, and background with the Caley Jags specifically.
“He is demanding, but fair, and he’s a football person,” Christie said of Savage.
“I’ve been involved with football for my whole life, so I like the idea of working with football guys who have an interest in football.
“I just like it because I’m an Inverness lad, and I like the idea of a businessman who has been hugely successful being here. I’ve worked with every chairman at the club, and I’ve seen ones I think are excellent and ones I think are not so excellent.
“People forget how successful we were last time Alan was chairman. The way the club was run, I remember us playing Rangers with Alan as chairman and over 7000 people at the stadium.
“He has had success at the club before, but I just take my hat off to him. He’s got a huge affinity for the area and the club, and you have to remember that even after he stepped away from the club he has sponsored football in the area with Clach and then our academy to support me.
“He just wants to see things be better, and put some procedures in place for things we can do better, and re-engage with the fans who we need.
“The club have got a huge amount of hard work ahead to get back on a level footing. It’s no secret the financial challenges the club has had over the past few years, and I don’t know exactly what it will take, but the one thing I do know is that we need to get everyone back on side again.
“We had arguments about decisions, but we were all pushing in the right direction, and personally I think we’ve lost a bit of that over the last two or three years. We need to get that back.”
