LATEST NEWS: A new chairman and directors sought as Peterborough Sports plan some big changes

But Stephen ‘Tommy’ Cooper will still be heavily involved in a city club who have their eyes on further promotions after reaching step four status for the first time in their history.

Cooper’s grand plan is to create a board of directors to work alongside the current managament committee.

Cooper intends to become managing director of the new board. The club will also appoint a commercial director and there will be board places for anyone prepared to contribute ‘a significant monetary sum’.

Applicants will be sought for a new chairman as well as a media officer to sit on the management committee. Applications are also invited for the commercial director post and for board membership.

“The increased level of compliance and professionalism at step four level has been a real eye opener,” Cooper stated. “We are a semi-professional club now playing with the big boys.

“With this in mind we have agreed that we need to re-structure the club if we are to maintain our current position at step four and then look to possibly move forward.

“From next season we will see a split of responsibilities and the creation of a proper board of birectors alongside the current management committee.

“The board of directors would be responsible for providing an operating budget to the club at the start of each financial year which would be reviewed every quarter. The board will also include a representative of the vice presidents club and a member of the management committee would also sit in at the quarterly meetings.

“The management committee would then basically run the club. We have just appointed Lawrence Derrante to be our ground manager who will sit on this management committee as well as Pete Foskett as our welfare officer. A representative from our growing academy will also sit on the management committee.

“I would step down as chairman at the end of this season when we will be replicating a model in force at a number of clubs at all levels of football from Chelsea to Yaxley.

“It has been something that has been going through my mind since the end of last season, and recent events have magnified the need to instigate this change. “I only have a finite amount of time I can give to the football club, given that I have a full time job and a hobby business, and I am spending too much of that time in minutiae and not getting to the bigger issues.

“Bigger picture stuff includes corporate sponsorship and a second set of changing rooms etc for our Eaglesthorpe pitch as well as developments to that side of the ground in general, including the 150-seat stand that we already have planning permission for, and that is what would and should be keeping me busy.”

Peterborough Sports won the United Counties Division One and Premier Division titles in back-to-back seasons to gain promotion to Division One South of the Evo Stik League. They are currently 17th in a 22-team league.

Anyone interested in the positions created by the changes should contact Cooper on 07957 626587.