News

Chester sports journalist gets top job at city’s club

By Anton Rippon

Sports journalist Jim Green has been appointed as chief executive of Chester FC, the football club – or rather its successor – that he has supported since boyhood.

Sports journalist Jim Green (centre), the new chief executive of the Chester FC Community Trust, pictured with board member Mike Day and outgoing CEO Jon McCarthy. Photo: ChesterFC.com
Jim Green (centre), Chester FC Community Trust’s CEO, pictured with board member Mike Day and outgoing CEO Jon McCarthy. Photo: ChesterFC.com

Green worked as a news reporter for the Chester-based The Leader – the city’s first daily newspaper when it was launched by NWN Media in 1973 – before moving to the Trinity Mirror-owned weekly Chester Chronicle’s sports desk.

Now, he is to become CEO of the Chester FC Community Trust that runs the National League club that was founded in 2010 following the winding-up of Chester City FC which had spent 69 years in the Football League.

Green was the unanimous choice of the Trust’s appointment panel who interviewed five candidates. Besides his lifelong passion for Chester’s main football club – he was a member of the original City Fans United board that owns Chester FC – he also founded Chester Gladiators Rugby League club, of which he is chairman.

At Chester FC he succeeds Jon McCarthy, who has been appointed the club’s first team manager. Trust board member Sue Pearson said. “It was a very strong field of candidates … but Jim shone through. His passion for the club and the community was clear. He has made a success out of everything he has done – helping the club rise from the ashes, building the Gladiators from scratch, and we all know what a good communicator he is from his work at the Chronicle.”

Green is due to take up his new role next month. He told his former employers that he was “privileged and honoured” to be given the opportunity: “Football is at the heart of the Trust so developing coaching and education programmes for schools, improving and expanding our existing activities including Mini Kickers, Soccer Schools and Walking Football, and engaging and supporting the area’s grassroots clubs and leagues are three of the priorities for me.

“However I’m particularly relishing the challenge of taking the training facilities project forward and helping to deliver the long-held ambition of a top class facility that the Club, Trust and city of Chester can be proud of.

“I am a huge believer in the power of sport to enhance and change lives and hugely excited about the Trust’s vast potential.”


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