.... about the clubs ambitions, stadium info, communication and why he chose Rovers. Here is an exclusive interview with Bristol Rovers new CEO Martyn Starnes with the Bristol Post. The Post have decided not to put the full interview out but instead are putting out parts of the interview each day. Below is 3 different articles from the last 3 days, put together in one place. Here it is.... Everyone at Bristol Rovers is pushing to make the club as good off the pitch as they intend to be on it this season. After a strong summer in the transfer market this summer, which has seen the club lose very few key players, but make five additions so far - with at least a couple more expected before Rovers head to the Netherlands on a five day training camp, things are in good health on the playing front. And the club's new CEO Martyn Starnes is in a confident mode with the new season just three weeks off, discussing his ambitions for the side, both this year and in those to come. Starnes said: “At the very minimum we want to be top six in League One each year. It is very easy to say that but it is much harder to deliver. Now I have met with Darrell Clarke, and Darrell is a winner, and he is passionate about the football club and I was really impressed with that. He has got a fantastic coaching staff and he's putting together a very strong competitive squad I believe. All of us at the club want Rovers to be challenging for the top six and if that means promotion and a place in the Championship then fantastic - does that mean the job is finished? No it doesn't, because in the Championship it is a different world and it becomes a whole different story trying to stay there. And we all know that if we are being realistic. But we want to develop the club so that as well as having a football club that is performing at a higher level on the pitch, we have a whole football club performing better. And for people to want to come and use the football club not just on match days but in the wider sense. The clubs is there for people to use and enjoy if we are putting on the right sort of things." Starnes message of getting more people through the door and spending, not just on match days but throughout the week using the club's improving conferencing facilities, is not a new one - but an important one. Talking about the facilities. The new CEO has put the record straight about the Memorial Stadium development work. Widespread confusion reigns over the Bristol Rovers stadium plans following the collapse of their deal to build a new ground in partnership with UWE last August. However Starnes has gone some way to clarifying the club’s short term strategy and how the recent renovations at the Memorial Stadium fit into the grand plan. He only started his new role at Rovers last Monday, while building work has been taking place since early May to the main club bar, the shop, the pitch and have created a new small canopied family stand with seating. Starnes said: “I had no material input in the projects before arriving because Tom Gorringe, our commercial director, had already set sail with those, which I was very supportive of. So when he showed me around after I had been offered the job, the plans had already been drawn up but the work had not started. And I thought this is very good and the right way to go so I was very supportive and pleased with what has been done so far and there is more to do.” After the proposed stadium move fell through last summer, club president Wael Al-Qadi said if a new location could not be secured, a plan to develop the Mem "stand by stand" would be drawn up. With some of the most significant building projects for years currently underway at the Mem this summer, many questioned whether this was indeed the first step to that second option. However, Starnes has put the record straight about Rovers plans. He explained: “The work going on at the Mem right now is not the discussed development of the stadium. This is to try and improve what we have got while we try to develop a long-term plan. We are investing in this stadium in the interim, in a relatively small way, to hopefully try and make some major improvements for fans. So it is a relatively small investment to get a good return in terms of match day experience. I think quite understandably previous owners have said we are not going to spend any money on the stadium because we are going to move, and they were much further down the line I guess with Sainsbury's and the student lets projects, but all those have fallen through. We decided you can only wait so long before doing some basic maintenance and improvements and a decision was made prior to me joining, that now is the time to bite the bullet and certainly make some improvements. The sort of things that we are doing now, to improve the shop, to improve the bar, there is a little more of that to do, a small stand, but there is nothing major at the moment." His first job at the club is to get everyone playing to same beat and quickly outlined his mentality. Starnes said: "What I want is the best for the football club, because the football club comes first, second, third and last for me. I have enjoyed my first three days here, I have met a lot of people. I gave a very brief insight into my philosophies at a meeting of all the staff who were able to attend first thing on Monday morning. Several people have come up to me since saying they like the sound of it, which is basically that I want unity within in the club. I want us to have an attitude of continuous improvement within the club. That is not to be critical of each other but to work together, be a team. I use the analogy of the football team, that you are not going to get any success unless teamwork is ultra-effective, in football it is the manager's job to get the players working together smoothly, and it is no different off the field for me; to have this club running as smoothly and effectively as possible, not only for financial reasons but for the benefits of the fans ultimately, we have got to work as a team. We have got to be self-critical and we have got to say, rather than be critical of people and say you are to blame for this and you are to blame for that, 'what can we learn from this?' Something has gone wrong, okay, what can we learn from this? How can we do it better next time? That is the approach I want." And Starnes said there will be changes at Rovers as he looks to make improvements. He explained: "We do have to recognise the world doesn’t standstill, and therefore we can’t ourselves, we have to move forward, while maintaining our core values, but look to modernise. You have always got to be open to change, you can't be resistant to change. I mean technology has changed dramatically over the years and football has maybe been slow to react in the past but with the help of the EFL we are all getting good information and help about CRM systems and how to communicate better with fans. I know some fans might say, not just at this club, that football clubs don't communicate very well with their fans, but football clubs are communicating better than ever with their fans because of all the mediums available now. It used to be just the match day programme and the local press but it is now the club website and social media, podcasts - you name it. And we have to be in the vanguard of that. I know some fans might say, not just at this club, that football clubs don't communicate very well with their fans, but football clubs are communicating better than ever with their fans because of all the mediums available now. It used to be just the match day programme and the local press but it is now the club website and social media, podcasts - you name it. And we have to be in the vanguard of that. I am very impressed with his enthusiasm for football and for this football club. He wants to do well. I thought when I made my decision to leave Argyle I would give Mr Al Qadi a call and see how he was doing and what opportunities there may be - not really expecting there to be a job available at Bristol Rovers. But he said come and see me, which I did, and we had a very good chat, and he told me what his plans were for the club, and I was quite excited for the opportunity when he said come and join us, so I did." CEO is a new position for Bristol Rovers, so Starnes took the time to outline what his role and responsibilities will be at Rovers. He explained: "I will be pulling together all the different departments at the football club, I will be empowering people to lead their department and helping people do their job to the best of their abilities, whether that is retail, commercial, PR, and media, hospitality, that type of thing. I will be working closely with the department managers, who will all have their own budgets, and we will be helping them to work to those budgets so we can have some certainty, as much certainty as you can have in football, about our performance off the field. The better we can do off the field, and in terms of encouraging people to come and watch football here at the Mem, will help the manager; because the more money we can give the manager towards his playing budget, the more chance we have at finishing high up the league which is why we are all here and our aim in life. But we are also here for the community, I am really passionate about the community and Adam Tutton [Bristol Rovers Community Trust chief executive office] is doing a great job with the community trust and we need that message about Rovers going out to a wider audience and the community trust is a great way of doing that."
