Ian Maxwell has hailed the creation of the Partick Thistle Football Club Trust, which aims to build a genuine link between the club and its’ fans.

Further details were revealed yesterday about the Trust, which was set up as a stipulation of the deal that saw the Firhill club write off its bank debt earlier this season.

The Trust is now the single largest shareholder in the club, with a holding of 19.28%, and initially comprises three board members and two representatives of the fanbase – Pauline Graham and Foster Evans – although there is scope for further Trustees to be elected.

Managing director Maxwell, himself one of the Trust board members, hopes that its’ formation will help strengthen the bond between the club and their support.

He said: “This means that the supporters have a genuine, tangible route to communicate with the club.

“One criticism of football clubs is that supporters come and pay for a season ticket and pay money on matchdays for things like food and programmes, and then you have the board and in a lot of cases there is quite a big disconnect between the two.

“Supporters sometimes think that boards don’t think about them and make decisions based purely on finance, and they would like a voice and a means of communication on a regular basis so that they know something is actually being done.

“It’s not just lip service. I think we should be looking to put something on fairly regularly that says ‘this is what we’re doing with the club, this is where we are’ and if we are making decisions which are going to be contentious, then we have a means of going to the supporters and saying ‘right guys, this is what we want to do and these are the reasons why we want to do it.’

“I think if we do that and we talk people through things, then 99 times out of 100 people will be able to see the benefit of what we’re trying to do.

“There’s a difference between doing it that way and just coming out on the website and saying ‘this is what’s going to happen.’

“That instantly gets people’s backs up and I can understand it.”

Maxwell hopes that supporters will embrace the idea of putting their views to the club through the vehicle of the Trust, and hopes that it can flourish from this initial embryonic stage.

“We really want to stress that this is a starting point," he said.

"It’s not us telling the fans that this is the Trust, this is how it’s set up, this is the constitution and that’s it. It’s very much a work in progress.

“We’ve got the bones of it now, and a framework that we feel could work, and now we want to engage with the fan-base and look for their thoughts."