By Jonathan Mitchell – courtesy of the Greenock Telegraph
MORTON have appointed Tom Elliott as full-time community engagement manager for the new Greenock Morton Community Trust, the Tele can exclusively reveal.
The 47-year-old is a former Partick Thistle, Stenhousemuir and Petershill player and has spent the past decade heading up award winning community programmes at Stenny and Falkirk.
After an interview conducted by a panel including club consultant Warren Hawke, Elliott was unanimously chosen as the ideal candidate and will take up his role with the GMCT on April 8.
Hawke told the Tele: “Crawford Rae, Chris McCorkindale and I conducted the interviews for the community engagement manager and were highly impressed with all four candidates.
“But appointing Tom was an absolute no-brainer. He is the guy who has been there, seen it, done it and bought the t-shirt.
“We could have had any person with a community coaching background in the whole of Scotland apply, and none of them would have come as highly recognised as Tom Elliott. Simple as that.
“He brings a fantastic pedigree with him, having started up two highly successful community programmes from scratch. He spent four years at Stenhousemuir and then a decade at Falkirk.
“He started the Falkirk Foundation and his own admission stated at the beginning he had just a pad, a pen and a telephone – and at the end he had 11 full-time staff teaching 2,000 plus children every single week.
“I wanted to find someone who replicated Trusts passion for engaging with the Community across various ages and initiatives, and I think we’ve got him in Tom. I know him personally and I knew some of the glowing references he was given.
“I asked a good contact of mine who appointed Tom at the start with Falkirk, in hindsight was he the correct choice? The answer was a resounding yes; in fact they replied ‘Tom Elliott is 100 per cent, totally the guy you need at Morton at your stage.’
“As my role as Consultant to the club progresses, this is another huge step in the right direction, for me, we have the best possible guy running the youth academy in Derek Anderson and the now best possible guy running the community project in Tom.
“He will take up his role on 8 April, but I’ll have a couple of hours with him between now and then during the bedding in period and will support him as much as I can thereafter.
“Tom knows exactly what he’s doing he will drive these projects forward and everyone at the club and the Trust will support him 100%.”