Mario Lapointe reveals investment in Dumbarton goes beyond cash as owner bares his soul to management and punters

Daily Record

3 days ago

The new Dumbarton owner is bullish over the events which have transpired since he took the reins at The Rock in Jun
Right now Mario Lapointe is a happy chappy.
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The new Dumbarton owner is bullish over the events which have transpired since he took the reins at The Rock in June after the Good Ship Sons ran aground in the form of liquidation and the subsequent forming as a newco after a 15-point penalty put paid to their League One status.
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Scottish football is no stranger to unexpected saviours but a French-Canadian musician who has made his money in the world of electronics is the unlikeliest spark for a club in need.
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But Lapointe is bullish over the Sons' future with ticket sales on the up, added investment in the club's youth set-up and pioneering pay it forward schemes directly engaging youths in the Dumbarton area.
They will start the League Two season with a five-point penalty but the mood music around Lapointe's most ambitious project yet is rising after a Premier Sports Cup campaign which started with a win over Stirling Albion and ended with a victory over crisis-hit Hamilton.
Montreal native Lapointe is a big personality but his role as custodian of Dumbarton doesn't come with a laissez-faire attitude – just ask the management team who hear from him after every game.
Football advisor Neil Watt, appointed by Lapointe himself, and manager Stevie Farrell receive an instant debrief from the boss who is back in Scotland for their League Two opener against Clyde as they aim to quickly wipe out the deduction they were slapped with.
Speaking exclusively to Record Sport, Lapointe said: "I'll be watching our games and I take notes and I take notes and after the game I'll write to our adviser Neil Watt and Stevie, our coach, and I'll share my notes.
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"I coached hockey 19 years and there's things in hockey that we cannot take a low effort or something like that or we're attached to details because it's a very fast game, ice hockey is very fast compared to football
"I write what I see, just like I'm talking to you now, I'm a guy that's very direct. I don't beat around the bush too much. and so, I write exactly what I see.
"And then to push my efforts, I'll make sure that if I have a solution for it, the solution will be there too, and I send it to them and they (management team) probably go, "Oh my god.",
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"And this is why I went to get Neil Watt at the same time. I had set five different aspects for me to evaluate our coaching staff and those five aspects.
"So for me to be able to evaluate, let's say, the coaching staff, the confidence level, it's like statistics, you have a certain way of saying things, but what's your confidence level? for the coaching staff to receive it, it could not just be from this French Canadian guy that knows about hockey and coaching. It had to be also from a guy that agrees with it, or doesn't agree with it in Neil Watt, right now in our perspective, he's that guy. He's taking care of it.
"He's the mentor of the coaching staff, but also he's a guy that's taking his notes as well, and he receives mine. And maybe our notes match sometimes, and perhaps they don't. I cannot be everything, which I am not the best at everything, but I'm pretty good at everything. But I surround myself with some of the best. I'll try to anyway. and that's what I tried to do in this case."
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The new man in town is an open book and appears willing to self-evaluate after admitting the emotions of his first voyage to the Shire resulted in emotions running high and a club legend offering a quiet gesture to avoid the owner boiling over in front of his public.
Lapointe admits his primal reactions in the stands came as a surprise to himself.
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He added: "During the game, I'll say nothing. I'll watch. If I'm at the stadium, it's a different thing though because at the stadium, I did find myself getting mad a couple of times last time and that's not usually me.
"But when you coach for so many years behind a bench, you're not a guy that lets yourself go so much because everything's planned and you're going at it, But when you're in the stands, it has been a while that I haven't been in the stands for a long time. It was good because I was sitting next to Murdo MacLeod and he put his hand on my shoulder a couple of times
"So, I don't know if he noticed that, but he was really trying to calm me down, I think. And that's fine because I am a competitive guy. I like to obviously win and I don't mind losing. I've never been a bad loser, but every loss is an opportunity to find out why you lost and how you can do something different and right now I'm happy."
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Lapointe comes with no airs and graces despite his success in life and his modesty in the abode he rests his eyes on when he makes the trip from Canada to his new home.
And his open doors policy has stretched to his social media presence, with Dumbarton fans invited directly to his personal Facebook page as he toyed with letting those beyond the stadium hear about the success of a team under new ownership.
He said: "They say that change is hard to happen, and for me I don't have that problem of being uncomfortable. You know what I mean? if I send you where I live when I go to Scotland right now it was a mattress in an empty apartment and that was it, and I got it late and stuff and I couldn't care less.
"I had a picture on my Facebook with a huge church bell that comes in the rack and a lot of people, 'my god, what does he want to do with that and stuff?' And I didn't buy it, of course. but in Montreal, one of the biggest things is that people have a losing team,..but when they score, the whole town knows because you can hear that bell ringing, and it puts a smile on your face every time."