Statement of Thanks

A statement of thanks from Coleraine Football Club to its departing directors…

Today, five men have stepped down from the board of Coleraine Football Club. Between them, they have given this club almost 60 years of service. We owe them more than a bland press release.

• Colin McKendry served on the board for 16 years, including 14 years as Chairman, in some of the most uncertain years of the club’s recent history. He chaired through a period when the alternative to careful stewardship was no club at all, and he steered it through. The Coleraine Football Club that walks into Europe this summer rests on foundations he helped lay.
  

  Colin McKendry

• Raymond Smyth gave 15 years to the club, much of it dedicated to the club shop — which under his hand became the proudest part of the operation and a credit to him personally. The shop will outlast all of us. It is his legacy.
  

  Raymond Smyth

• Allister Kyle served for 12 years, bringing to the boardroom a precision and a discipline that the club benefited from. The standards he set were higher than the club always met, and the club is better for the asking.
  

  Allister Kyle

• Richard McFetridge served for 9 years through a period of significant change. Serving on the board of a football club in transition is not easy work and is rarely thanked at the time. We thank him now.
  

  Richard McFetridge

• Mark Kane served for 7 years, of a family — his and his son Lyndon’s — woven into the fabric of Coleraine across generations. There are families and there are club families. The Kanes are both.
  

  Mark Kane

The quintet helped the club achieve four runners-up finishes in the Premiership, two Irish Cup victories and a League Cup triumph. Furthermore, the club competed on the European stage across four different seasons, with a fifth to follow this summer. The legacy continued off the pitch as the club financed the installation of a new pitch at The Showgrounds, as well as changing rooms.

Football clubs are built by people, and over time. The era these five men represent is the era in which Coleraine moved from part-time to full-time football, restructured for sustainability, and rebuilt itself for what came next. What came next is a 2^nd place in the League, Cup silverware in the cabinet and European football this summer.

Coleraine Football Club is also their club and always will be. They are welcome at the Showgrounds for as long as they wish to come.

Gentlemen — thank you.

Henry Helle-Ross
Chairman, Coleraine Football Club