Hull FC CEO Richie Myler has explained exactly what his role entails whilst outlining when the club’s fans can expect silverware under the new regime.
Myler, who initially joined the club as Director of Rugby, ascended to the role of CEO when Andrew Thirkill and David Hood took charge following the departure of long-term owner Adam Pearson at the end of last season.
Since Myler’s initial appointment and under the ownership of Thirkill and Hood the club seem to have taken huge strides, despite there being plenty of initial doubts given the fact Myler assumed his initial role with what many considered to be limited experience.
However, his experience as a player that has been in and around winning environments has served him well and he’s recently spoken on The Bench podcast about the role he has and also how shocked he was at the state of Hull FC, relative to some of those club environments he has been in.
“My job as CEO is to fix the environment that I came into,” Myler explained to hosts Jon Wilkin and Jenna Brooks.
“I came into one that has clearly been under-resourced and under-valued for three, four, maybe five years and then last year was the repercussion of that.
“I walked into an environment in which I was a bit shocked, really, for a club of this size, and seeing the lack of stuff that we had, and the way that training environment was, and the way that the connection with the fans was. It was alien to me from what I’ve been used to as a player.”
Richie Myler gives honest opinion on when fans can see silverware and why Hull FC are ‘enormous’
Credit: Alex Whitehead/SWpix.com
That environment was one that saw Hull FC record their worst-ever season in terms of win percentages as the Black and Whites won just three games all season, a figure that they have already surpassed this season, albeit one of those wins came against amateur side York Acorn in the Challenge Cup.
As well as the environment, Myler pointed to poor investment as a key reason for that torrid season, stating: “We also did spend 2.5 million last year. It’s just where? And I mean that whole-heartedly. We spent it in the wrong areas, in my opinion, clearly on players that came and didn’t deliver and were playing probably out of position or overhyped for where they actually were in their development.
“That ultimately annoyed people because we were spending money but we were not competing.”
After knocking holders Wigan Warriors out of the Challenge Cup, it’s fair to say that Hull FC are certainly competing and based on that Myler would argue that the Black and Whites are one of the three biggest clubs in the sport.
Speaking about what Hull FC can be if they “get it right”, he said: “Ultimately there’s only three big clubs in my opinion. There’s Wigan, Leeds and us and that for me is because we can generate 15,000 fans on a regular basis, if we get it right.
“Saints can at times but that’s my opinion and you can see that by the buy-in that we’ve had over this short period of time, even though we’re a long way off the finished article on the field. We’ve got to have a few more recruitment cycles to fix the last eight years.”
He added: “This club is an enormous club in my opinion. We see that with all our revenue streams, they’re all up. Now, we’re still losing money, but every revenue stream is up because they’re getting the buy-in from them and it’s been tremendous, considering the season we had last year as well.”
Having already impressed early on this season and potentially being ahead of where many fans had expected them to be, Myler was asked when fans can hope to see real success in the form of silverware.
Answering that, he said: “Eamonn McManus said to me and Andrew, ‘It’s going to take you at least three cycles to get anywhere near’. Now we’ve had one cycle of recruitment. So I do believe in the next 18 months, two years, we are going to see a team that represents the club in a positive way.
“It’s the goal to walk out at Wembley and to lead the team out at Wembley and Old Trafford. That is the goal but we’re also in a competition where Wigan are flying at the moment and there’s other clubs that or four, five, six years ahead of our recruitment. We’re at the back of the line trying to catch up quickly.”
