Yeovil need 'sustainable' growth
Yeovil Town's new owner Prabhu Srinivasan said the club needs "calm and sustainable" growth to get back to the English Football League.The entrepreneur's family office, Inflection Holdings, acquired all shares in the National League outfit last month, with Srinivasan also becoming club chairman.Srinivasan becomes the club's third owner since 2023 following periods of turbulence under previous regimes in recent years. "Our desire is to get to the EFL as soon as we can but we want to be very measured on what we do, we want to get some sustainable growth for the club, therefore we need to work on the pitch and off the pitch," Srinivasan told BBC Radio Somerset."We need to make the club competitive. I don't want to do a one-season wonder club. We need to create an atmosphere of calm in the club, there's been a lot of rollercoaster - this season will be about calmness and sustainability."
Srinivasan's takeover of Yeovil comes following a period of instability and tension between the ownership and fans stretching back over the past two club owners. At their peak, Yeovil played in the Championship during 2013 but a decade-long spiral followed and they have not played in the EFL since 2019. Former owner Scott Priestnall left in 2023 at a time the club temporarily tumbled down to regional football in the National League South. Martin Hellier then took over and while the club won promotion back to the National League in 2024, his relationship with fans was incredibly strained in the final months and ended with hostility. Srinivasan said it was a "huge moment of pride" when the takeover was confirmed."At the same time we realised there's a lot of work to be done, the pride flipped into what we need to do to transform the club," Srinivasan said."We will be competitive on the pitch but competitive in terms of what we pay the players. We also want to make sure that Mark [Cooper, manager] - who has done a lot of work the past two years - and his team are augmented with the strengths they need, and the training facility is appropriate."
Training facility relocated to Bristol
Srinivasan says the "DNA" of his family is sport. He ran a youth sports platform in India and the Middle East, although his own experience is more in the finance and technology industries with investment banking within English football among his work in recent years.Srinivasan's first experience of Yeovil was in April after a friend suggested he look at the club and he came to the Huish Park to watch them play Sutton United."I had to come down and feel it, I'm glad I was here. This is not something I would have done remote, I came here to be with the people," he said."I spent almost three weeks here connecting with the people and I went away saying this is a place I want to be deeply involved."
One of the first major acts of the new ownership has been to move the club's training base to Bristol, to the South Gloucestershire and Stroud College campus in Filton, ahead of the new season. Srinivasan cited injuries within the squad as part of the reason to relocate, as well as the need for the players to train on grass and not 4G pitches. However, he stressed they would not lose their Somerset roots."We went and saw the facility and it's outstanding," he said."The one thing we need to understand is this does not mean we will not have players from Yeovil. We will keep coming here checking for players, evaluating them on their capabilities and then taking them to Bristol for efficient training."
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