New Dumbarton owner Mario Lapointe believes he can get the club on a stable financial footing within the next two years.

A big part of his plans surrounds installing an artificial surface at The Rock and having the stadium in use all year round, including music and comedy festivals.

The League Two side are one of the oldest in the country, and twice national champions having won the top-flight title in 1891 and 1892.

They are now at the bottom of the SPFL pyramid, having suffered relegation from League One last season.

And Lapointe pinpointed that history, as well as the passion for football in the country, as one of the main reasons why he chose to come to Scotland.

He said: “My early goals are finances, because if you don’t look at the financial thing, you will not have a club, you were three weeks away from not having a football club here.

“It was very close to not being there, so that is my first goal.

The crowd at the opening match which St Mirren won 4-0. All that positive PR from Mario seems to have worked wonders. Maybe West Dunbartonshire Council should hire Mario on a consultancy basis?

“We don’t want to be relegated, of course, nobody ever wants to go down because nobody ever comes back again, statistically it is very hard to come back.

“So we have to make sure we invest in the right places and have a quick return on these things, and that money will then be reinvested in talent.

“Next year, June 2026, is when we will start digging this ground and put turf on it. After a full season on that turf, you get the full revenues, the rental revenues, and you get the new balance on your budget.

Lapointe has been looking to invest in a football club for the last couple of years and spoke to several others before deciding on Dumbarton.

He said: “I was looking at clubs in Scotland, Ireland, England, Spain, and Bulgaria, but Bulgaria was too scary. I don’t know if you know the stats that something like 11 owners have been shot in Bulgaria in the last 20 years.

“At the end of it, for the pockets that I have, I was not looking at teams worth £400m.

“In the end, there were Ireland, England, and Scotland.

“Scotland just felt the best option for me with the way I saw the whole thing happening, and that was it.

“You don’t realise the passion for football that you have here. And Dumbarton is a resilient club that has had so many different ups and downs over the years. I have spoken to fans with five or six generations of Dumbarton supporters in their family.

“So that was my attraction to this place: it was the heritage, the family values, and the community. I did not expect so many volunteers of this quality, and we have great quality at this club, so from then on the romance starts.

“I come in with positivity and full transparency. For me, there is a lot of potential here, and we just have to do it step by step now.”