John Ward

Stepping down as Livi's CEO and Director of Livingston FC, saying it's time for some new investment and talent.

He's done a marvellous job at Livi, taking us to the top flight and sticking to a budget that was as low as possible for a FT club with a small fanbase. At a time when we had barely recovered from Massone's reign of horror, and Livi5 were beginning to crumble with infighting, Ward came along and brought stability to the club, success on and off field, the fans sure as heck appreciated having calm brought to the club these past few years, and i'm sure the players and management team appreciated his steadyness at the helm too.

I really hope that whoever come in after him follows in his footsteps and sticks to those same ideals.

I wonder if they have someone in mind to replace him. It seems a bit sudden but surely he must have given his fellow directors a bit of notice. Or maybe that's not how it works. What do I know.

Where is that LF? - don’t see anything on the OCS or the official twitter feed....

Perhaps a few choruses of “John Ward must stay” and “There’s only one Johnny Ward” would persuade him to change his mind?

I would agree with his sentiment re new investment as next season will be even more of a challenge than this one. However his steady hand at the helm coupled with new investment would be better than his departure & an unknown element coming in.

We do have the bulk of this squad retained for next season but look like losing 2 vital elements of our defence. That is going to make next season even harder than this as we won’t be the surprise package anymore & will have a largely untried defensive set up.

If however it is a confirmed unchangeable decision on his part then he deserves credit & appreciation for a job very well done. I never dreamt we’d see our team back in the top flight in my lifetime after losing the play-off to Stranraer, I fully expected us to be bottom half of tier 2 at best.

He announced it on Twitter last night Bertie. Strange way to do it I thought.

Yeah, I am constantly frustrated by the use of social media ahead of the official club site. The OCS should be the place where such news is posted first. After that by all means throw it onto social media for comments & discussion.

Aside from two Livi fans discussion boards I have no social media presence & I don’t go looking there unless I see something on the twitter feed on the OCS.

IMO far too much of people’s lives are shared on things like Facebook & Twitter. I simply don’t want to know how many corn flakes someone had in their bowl for breakfast. (I exaggerate but that is often the level of inane drivel I don’t have time to wade through just to find something of interest.

Callum Carson's twitter is always worthwhile checking out for Livi related news Bertie, that's where I saw JW's tweet. https://twitter.com/CallumCarson34

Hi. In regards to John here is a documentary that I produced with John's help. I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to pass the link on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wbftZ_UDq0&t=548s

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee's Baaaaaaaaaack.


Looks like we're stopping pretending we just want to stay up this season, and 10th place would be a good season.

Livingston FC is delighted to announce the return of John Ward as club Chief Executive.

John will provide strategic leadership as we progress our campaign to remain in the top six of the Premiership.

Liviforever wrote:Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee's Baaaaaaaaaack.


Looks like we're stopping pretending we just want to stay up this season, and 10th place would be a good season.

Livingston FC is delighted to announce the return of John Ward as club Chief Executive.

John will provide strategic leadership as we progress our campaign to remain in the top six of the Premiership.

My biggest concern is still the size of our home crowd. Excluding away support we rarely seem to manage more than 12-15k in the West Stand. Take the ICT v. Dundee match the other day managed a crowd of over 4500 for what was little more than a mid table championship game that's a pretty impressive crowd.

Its difficult to know what we can do to improve this. I know quite a few vowed not to return whilst Martindale is involved but surely that's hundreds rather than thousands?

Free tickets to schools worked in the past; maybe worth another shot?

12-15K is the West stand the Tardis?

Take it you meant hundred.

Yeah on field we can't really do much better than we have done, playing in the top tier a 2nd season running, maybe a cup run might help right enough.

Just looking back to the promotion play offs I had hopes of at least 2K in the home stand the following season, we took at least that amount to the Partick Th away game, and had over 3K in the home games, having to open the South stand.

A lot of neutrals attend play off games. I know I have in the past.
On the other hand a few years ago we were struggling to get more than 600/700 in the home stand.
Our home crowds are still pathetic considering the division we are in but we are surrounded by teams with long histories and generations of dedicated fans.
Just have to keep punching above our weight to attract more. Nothing succeeds like success.

orco wrote:A lot of neutrals attend play off games. I know I have in the past.
On the other hand a few years ago we were struggling to get more than 600/700 in the home stand.
Our home crowds are still pathetic considering the division we are in but we are surrounded by teams with long histories and generations of dedicated fans.
Just have to keep punching above our weight to attract more. Nothing succeeds like success.

Agreed but I still remember our first season in the SPL when I believe we sold around 3000 season tickets. Where are they all now?

I know its was a novelty at the time but this time we really are here on merit.

We can't discount the awful events of two administrations and numerous court appearances. It sickened a lot of fans who walked away and have never come back. Building up a fan base after all that was never going to be easy. It's going to take time.

orco wrote:A lot of neutrals attend play off games. I know I have in the past.
On the other hand a few years ago we were struggling to get more than 600/700 in the home stand.
Our home crowds are still pathetic considering the division we are in but we are surrounded by teams with long histories and generations of dedicated fans.
Just have to keep punching above our weight to attract more. Nothing succeeds like success.

Must've been over 2,000 of them, maybe even 3,000 in the 1st leg against Partick.

Feel sorry for anyone coming into the club thinking they can grow the support, although I haven't really seen much in the way of any kind of advertising sales drive to do so. Basically most of our owners think it'll happen all by itself. That the on field success will get bums on seats, it wont, we need some effort from the club to attract new fans down to the stadium. An open day during pre season, with special offers on 3 game deals, some free tickets too, sales drive to get ST's sold, get it advertised in plenty time too, and not just on the Livingston website.

The free school tickets to kids is always a good thing, apart from when we're playing Celtic and The Rangers our stadium always has plenty empty seats.

Liviforever wrote:

orco wrote:A lot of neutrals attend play off games. I know I have in the past.
On the other hand a few years ago we were struggling to get more than 600/700 in the home stand.
Our home crowds are still pathetic considering the division we are in but we are surrounded by teams with long histories and generations of dedicated fans.
Just have to keep punching above our weight to attract more. Nothing succeeds like success.

Must've been over 2,000 of them, maybe even 3,000 in the 1st leg against Partick.

Feel sorry for anyone coming into the club thinking they can grow the support, although I haven't really seen much in the way of any kind of advertising sales drive to do so. Basically most of our owners think it'll happen all by itself. That the on field success will get bums on seats, it wont, we need some effort from the club to attract new fans down to the stadium. An open day during pre season, with special offers on 3 game deals, some free tickets too, sales drive to get ST's sold, get it advertised in plenty time too, and not just on the Livingston website.

The free school tickets to kids is always a good thing, apart from when we're playing Celtic and The Rangers our stadium always has plenty empty seats.

Free school tickets was the reason I started coming to Livi with my kids and two of them are still season ticket holders almost 20 years later.

Prior to that, and having not being able to regularly support my earlier team of Cardiff FC, I'd only been to the occasional match normally as a guest of a friend but had never bothered taking my kids along. Livi represented a far safer environment for families than anything I'd experienced before - once the free tickets dried up I was "persuaded" to continue to bring them along; originally PATG, but that was a horrendously expensive day out, and soon converted to full season ticket holders with our own reserved seats.

Would love to see a cheaper family section opened in the south stand again. Hey they could even make it a non-category "A" game season ticket....

Having a women's team might also help, there'll be girls that wouldn't have had anything to do with Livi's men's team that will be attracted to watching the women play, and it could lead to them coming to see Livi games in the Premiership too.