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‘We’ve got to be creative in selling Ross County’ says Stuart Kettlewell


By Andrew Henderson

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Stuart Kettlewell says Ross County have had to get creative when pitching the club to potential new signings this summer.

Picture - Ken Macpherson, Inverness. See story. STRICT EMBARGO 7.00PM tonight 24 June. Ross County co-manager Stuart Kettlewell yesterday(Wed) welcomes new signing Stephen Clark.
Picture - Ken Macpherson, Inverness. See story. STRICT EMBARGO 7.00PM tonight 24 June. Ross County co-manager Stuart Kettlewell yesterday(Wed) welcomes new signing Stephen Clark.

If given the choice between Ross County and a team of similar stature in the central belt, players will often choose to be closer to Glasgow or Edinburgh.

County’s trump card has been the facilities they can offer with the Highland Football Academy, but under pandemic conditions prospective new signings are unable to visit Dingwall to see the club in person.

So to help convince targets to make the move north, County have had to do things a little bit differently.

“Over the last couple of years the likes of Hamilton, Kilmarnock, St Johnstone, St Mirren and us have all been vying for the same players,” Kettlewell said.

“We will be looking at the same sort of bracket in terms of what we pay out, so it’s just trying to steal a march.

“We have to be creative in how we sell the facilities we have here, and hopefully the culture is one people can see themselves fitting into, so the club has put together a minute-and-a-half video of drone footage of the club to try and familiarise people with what we have here.

“It has actually been a great tool for us, because people recognise what they are coming to.”

Being able to sell the club is all the more important when signing players who are not familiar with Scottish football.

This summer, Alex Iacovitti and Regan Charles-Cook signed from Oldham Athletic and Gillingham respectively, while Jordan Tillson joined from Exeter City in January.

Kettlewell finds players at that level are keen to move to the Scottish Premiership for a variety of reasons.

“The idea of the teams that we’ll face and the grounds that we’ll go and play at is massively appealing to these guys,” he explained.

“If you stretch that even further, you can look at the potential television deals and games being streamed, so the exposure that they’re going to gain is something that they often feel can put them in the shop window as well.

“I’m not trying to wish their career away, but they feel as if there’s a greater exposure potentially here than there might be at some of the clubs down south.”

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