Investment has helped build the town and club again, says Larne chairman Gareth Clements

Bruce became owner of the Inver Reds in September 2017 and has put his money where his mouth is as he has invested over £5 million into his hometown club in the process.

Larne’s meteoric rise under Bruce’s ownership has seen the club being promoted from the Championship to winning their first ever Premiership title.

A return to the European stage has also been accomplished within that time frame, with the club also opening a 'Larne Academy of Sport' facility which is used as a training base for the first team, full-time scholarship programme and academy teams, as well as also being used for community events and by other sporting organisations.

“The initial conversation was that he had been approached to put a few pounds into Larne Football Club,” Clements said.

"I met him seven days later and that seven days after I met him, it was then going to be £5m and we're gonna be in Europe in three years!

"Listen, everybody thought he was mad. He’s just that engaging of a man that you buy into him.

“When I saw the plans that had been put together within seven days, I knew the man was serious.

“And I knew it was for the club, it was for the town - and that was the one thing he made very, very clear to me at the start that yes, it wasn’t only about trying to build a football club to win trophies, but it was also about building the town again.

“He wanted to put a smile on the face of Larne town and give them something to cherish and something to hang on to because we feel that Larne was under invested in over the years.

“I said that when we came in, I just thought the town, the club, the ground, everything just needed a hug.

“And that's that's very much the way it was and we've done that. I just can't thank the supporters and the volunteers enough just every time we go and ask or every time we need anything they're there and the supporters come out in numbers.

“It's memorable and it's so emotional when I think about supporters who were there when I was following and the early to mid ‘80s and late ‘80s that I've gone now and haven't been lucky enough to see this.

“So I doff my cap to all of them because some fantastic stalwarts of Larne Football Club are no longer here and it's great that they've got the trophy that they all aspire to, but never got to see.”

Larne secured the title after a 2-0 success against Crusaders last Friday night and Clements remarked that victory completed a full circle after supporting the club since he was a youngster.

The Chairman further highlighted how Larne’s business in the January transfer window helped Tiernan Lynch’s side get over the line.

“I ran about the club when I was 10, 11, 12-years old right up until I was 17,” he recalled.

“Then I left for work, fell in love and stayed away.

“And yes, my brother and sister still lived in Larne and my late brother still followed the club throughout all the bad times and we kept in touch about things at Inver Park.

“But yeah, from when I was 10 years-old running about until I left when I was 18 and then Kenny rang me 29 years later to come back.

"Yeah, it was a circle I wanted to go around and it's a fairytale story, isn't it?

“January was a massive transfer window. Everybody sees that everybody knows that. Maybe there won't be an awful lot needed in the summer transfer window.

“A bit of tweaking and fine-tuning, but you know that when we came up from the Championship, we had a good starting XI but we had a weak enough bench.

“But as each transfer window goes, we're growing and we're getting stronger, and we can make changes from the bench that aren't weakening us. It’s very, very positive in that way.”

Larne will feature in the Champions League for the very first time in the summer and despite basking in the success of a very first League title, Clements outlined that the club still have other objectives they wish to achieve.

“Yeah, 100% this is the start,” he continued.

"European football is what we aspire to at the start of every season. That's the minimum expectation we would have now.

"That night we opened the stadium with the Rangers XI and Kenny went on TV having told us to play everything down.

“And he came over and straight on TV and said we're going to have the Champions League music here in three years!

“I went upstairs and said ‘Aye, thanks, pal!’ But listen, we've done it [won the league], but we're very, very grounded as a club. There’s so much we still want to achieve.

“We've just set out our new five-year plan. There's so much we still want to do about education. Having the European money helps bring more people into the club to help us invest in people that we haven't had before, because we haven't been running on a shoestring but we've been running it very stringently.

“Yes, Kenny has given us money and he has given us a basis from which to build but we have to make that sustainable and that's what we're doing, so I wouldn't say we're frugal but we keep an eye on everything.”