Rutherglen Glencairn secretary Peter Ferguson admits floodlight costs at the Hamish B Allan Stadium are soaring but says plans for clubs to save money on energy bills by moving kick-off times won’t affect his club.
The SFA have given permission for Scottish Cup kick-off times to be moved from 3pm in a bid to help clubs save on electricity and heating bills this winter amid the cost of living crisis, while the SPFL has signaled that it could come into play for league matches, too.
While the West of Scotland League where Glens play haven’t yet made comment on the initiative, Ferguson says it is unlikely they will see any reduction in bills with games already due to be brought forward by 30 minutes in November, as in recent years.
“It doesn’t really affect us because we kick off at 2pm, so we don’t tend to use the lights unless we’ve got an evening match,” he said.
“When it comes to mid-November, the kick-off times change to 1.30pm to allow for the light, and that’s because not every club has floodlights, so it’s probably catered for by us and more aimed at the senior ranks.
“But we’re looking to use our floodlights as seldom as possible – our electricity bills have rocketed, the same as everybody else.
“We’ve been briefed on prices and I don’t know what the specifics are, but I certainly know they’ve gone up considerably.
“We don’t train at the stadium, so we don’t use the floodlights when we train.
“We train down at Glasgow Green, but even down there prices have rocketed.
“It’s affecting absolutely everything, and unfortunately it’s the way of the world at the moment.”
Ferguson says the club have tried to mitigate for rising costs and fans have been happy with measures so far.
He said: “When it came to looking at our gate prices for the start of the season, we had moved down from the Premier League into the First Division, but looked at our bills and thought ‘we really can’t afford to stay where we are’.
“We put the adult price up by £1, explained on our social media why we were doing that, and we didn’t get one single complaint about that.
“Other clubs have done exactly the same as us, and I think people are understanding that. We kept the concession price the same as last year, put the adult price up £1, but we still let the kids in for free and things like that.
“I didn’t think that was unreasonable.”
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