NEW Coventry chairman Jon Sharp has outlined his vision for the Butts Park outfit – and it includes promotion to the Championship by 2014.
The 64-year-old businessman, who replaced Peter Rossborough a couple of months ago, met with supporters on Tuesday night and revealed his ambitious plans for the National One club.
Those include doubling both the playing budget, with next season’s war chest already 50 per cent up on the current campaign’s, and the attendances, which he would like to see rise to 2,000 in 2012-13.
And Sharp’s ultimate goal is to return Coventry to the top table of English rugby the Aviva Premiership over the next decade.
“If you don’t have ambition where are you going to go to?” Sharp asked the club’s followers.
“We have made huge strides in the last two years and I think we are looking at a rosy future, certainly a future with great prospects.
“We believe we can get a fairly early entry into the Championship. To do so, unfortunately, in today’s professional era is simply a matter of money.
“Phil Maynard is very clear about how much it is going to cost to guarantee with certainty, we think we can probably do it for slightly less, because we have a big rugby heartland here after all.
“We are going to have a tilt at it starting next year and we certainly believe we should achieve it within two years.”
Joint rugby director and operations manager Maynard is central to the new structure, which has seen the separation of the community foundation and the professional rugby side, Coventry Rugby Ltd.
The former Worcester, Stourbridge and Birmingham & Solihull coach is charged with driving the club as a business in order to generate revenues for the playing arm.
Key to that strategy will be maximising the outstanding commercial potential of Butts Park Arena, which Sharp feels gives Coventry an edge on most others at level three.
“What we do have that a lot of our competing clubs in this division don’t have is some pretty big facilities. You travel around to these other clubs, you go to Ealing with 200-300 supporters. OK there is somebody in the city with big money throwing it at them.
“But I don’t think that is a long term guarantee. You look at Wasps, maybe relegation this year, they are looking for a new ground, they don’t have a home.
“We do have a home, we have a heartland, we have a solid base of supporters, the Coventry rugby heartland. And I think that’s how we will build our success.
“Look at the way Leicester are doing it, the gate they have at their home games, the take, all the families that are there buying ice creams, pints of beer, burgers and going to the club shop.”
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