The more i hear from this guy, the more i like him. Finally we seem to have someone in charge who isnt a complete arse!!
SWINDON Town and "well-run football club" are words that have seldom been used in the same breath - quite the opposite in fact with the club lurching from one financial disaster to another in recent years.
But when Andrew Fitton outlined his ambitions to transform the club's fortunes his laid back manner could not hide a steely determination to finally stop the club from being a financial laughing stock.
While issues still need to be sorted with the Inland Revenue to finally seal his consortium's permanent takeover at the County Ground, Fitton's enthusiasm for the future suggests the dark days could finally be a thing of the past.
advertisementTwo previous spells of administration, crippling debts and threats of winding up orders have hardly made for pleasant viewing over the past 10 years but at last there is real hope for the future.
The man charged as the club's saviour spoke with refreshing honesty and realism before Saturday's win over Hartlepool, as he focuses all his intentions on rebuilding a very tarnished reputation.
Fitton said: "There is an awful lot to do and we will attack the low-hanging fruit first of all. Then we will get onto the more difficult stuff like redeveloping the ground.
"Our objective is to turn this into one of the best-run and managed clubs in the country. If we do that we think we can produce a successful football club. It has to have a firm base and recently that has been shifting sand.
"If you look at every division of football there are some really well run clubs, some poorly run clubs and some that just get by. I want us to be one of the well run clubs.
"Whenever you take control of a business you grip it hard and you take control very fast. One of my business partners rang me and said who is going to run this. He said one man can't run this alone. There are too many fingers going into too many holes in the dyke in order to sort this place out."
With Coventry, Luton, Leeds and Rotherham just some of an increasing number of clubs suffering from financial hardship in recent years, Fitton believes it is time there was a change in attitude towards ownership in the game.
He said: "I think the way the finances have been run in football in general is something that can't carry on. Lord Malwinney, chairman of the Football League, is now hot on the case and saying it is time to clean up the act.
"It is true that throughout football and non-league football the problems are the same - it is just the higher up you go they have more zeros on the problems.
"I think you will find the well-run clubs are every year doing reasonably well and the poorly run clubs yo-yo up and down. They get lucky one season but then they get into trouble. That process has to stop because it can't continue forever."
After three previous failed attempts to purchase the Robins, Fitton is excited to have finally got his club - even though many could question his sanity.
"The biggest challenge I have got is managing my wife actually," he said. "She is not happy about this. I have always been excited about this.
"I wanted to run a football club about 20 years ago, before it was fashionable to do so. I got in a car with a stockbroker, a man I really admired. His experience of football was he advised the Gallagher brothers, who bought Wolves, and that turned out to be a financial disaster for them.
"He said if I got involved in football ever then he would have me certified
