Mantle: Robins need new blood to take off

Ambitious Ilkeston FC chairman Dave Mantle is seeking financial support to help him lift the EVO-STIK League club to the next level.

In three seasons since launching Ilkeston FC following the liquidation of Ilkeston Town, Mantle has guided the Robins to promotion and seen the club become an established force in the EVO-STIK League’s top flight while also setting up a thriving academy.

All but four of the current squad - the average age is just 19 - are academy graduates and the fourth-placed Robins firmly underlined their potential this week with a 4-0 away win over undefeated league leaders Stamford AFC.

It has been a costly exercise though for the club's sole director. To take the Derbyshire outfit even further, Mantle, pictured, is now seeking fresh investment and has already talked to a number of people who’ve expressed an interest in introducing new blood at board level. If circumstances are right, he says he could be prepared to part with some of his shareholding and might even consider his position as chairman.

Mantle remains as committed as ever to the project he took on four years ago and on Wednesday said: "We have a huge amount of untapped potential, surrounded as we are by the cities of Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. Our decision to build from the bottom and base the club on youngsters is proving to be a wise one and with the right sort of investment, I’m convinced we will continue to climb.

"We've built a fantastic platform at the New Manor Ground and our academy scheme is the talk of Non-League football. We get calls every day from clubs who want to follow our lead and we’ve had a real influence on football at this level across the country.

"This shouldn’t set alarm bells ringing for supporters because every penny of the debt shown on our accounts is owed to me personally - and I’m comfortable with that. A lot of it stems from one-off costs involved in setting up the new club and taking over the assets of the previous regime, and from things like creating purpose-built classrooms on site for our academy scholars to use.

"We are where I’d hoped we would be in our fourth season and everything is going according to plan. But it has reached the point where we now have to do something positive to pull our income and expenditure more into line."

He added: "I knew what I was letting myself in for and was happy at the outset to cover what it would cost to get us up and running at a reasonable level. But it would be very irresponsible to allow any debts to continue building and I won’t let that happen. If needs be we will have to cut our cloth accordingly - but I’d far rather press ahead."