Ref. 25731-58SIR SETON WILLS feels Swindon Town's long-term prosperity is linked to making a new home in a modern stadium.

The club's major shareholder has fond memories of the County Ground but is committed to looking to the future rather than dwelling on the past.

Sir Seton is widely acknowledged as saving the club from almost certain closure but he knows Town need more than a single beneficiary to rely on if the club is to prosper.

He feels the tide is slowly starting to turn both on and off the pitch with money no longer disappearing into a black hole.

He said: "I think football clubs need a modern new stadium to get the all-year round income streams that are so essential.

"If you look at our position here at the County Ground, the amount of income we make apart from football is very very limited.

"The commercial team do a very good job but we are limited by the stadium we are in.

"If we were in a new ground, a huge new world of income would be opened up to us. That is important for all professional clubs today."

Sir Seton feels part of ensuring future progress is acknowledging and learning from the mistakes of the past.

He said: "Mistakes can suddenly mushroom into something so horrific that it forces a club like ours into administration.

"We had to go down that particular track and if we can bring the club back in the next five years, we will hopefully be able to pay the creditors.

"I feel bad about it. It's never nice to owe anybody money.

"That's why it's so important to get Swindon Town operating as a profitable business."

Sir Seton said he was confident the right 'team' was in place to help bring about a recovery.

He said"Mark Devlin's management of the football club has been absolutely outstanding.

"We simply have to aim to be bringing in more than we are spending. Proper budgets are in place and we are not spending a pound if we don't have it.

"Football is a business. I know all us fans treat it as something far more than that but the fact is that Swindon Town is a business and we have to get all the basics right.

"The measures need to be there which make a football club efficient and hopefully profitable.

"If we can bring the club back in the next five years, we will hopefully be able to pay the creditors. That's our task."