Peter Grant insists he is already relishing the opportunity to pick the brains of Thomas Meggle and Damir Keretic following DAFC Fussball GmbH’s takeover of Dunfermline.
The East End Park boss has been in regular dialogue with the pair who, along with Nick Teller, now represent the majority shareholders on the board of directors.
Meggle boasts vast experience in his homeland with St Pauli, representing the Hamburg outfit as a player, coach and director of football during a combined 12 years at the club.
Keretic, meanwhile, was a Davis Cup standard tennis player for Germany and reached the third round of Wimbledon on four occasions. He was also a handy ice hockey player in his youth.
And Grant reckons it would be folly to ignore two former sportspeople from a nation steeped in athletic glory.
“You think of Germany and you think of success,” said Grant. “Germans have always been winners at everything they do.
“Supporters should be excited that it is a German consortium that has taken over because they have proven that, in the football world, they want to be the best.
“Look around sports and they are always near the top so we have to try and achieve that. They obviously see something that has a possibility of happening here and hopefully we can make that dream come true.
“I speak to Thomas [Meggle] twice or three times a week. FaceTime is magnificent so I will sometimes just go back and have a chat with him because he used to play football — he understands it.
“Damir was a tennis player and there are a lot of things that you can ask, in terms of what they did, individually.
“Tennis is obviously completely different from football so you can learn about psychological things that happen. How did they deal with that? How do you prevail in a one-to-one sporting situation?”
‘They respect the community’
Meggle, in particular, has been hands-on — as much as such a thing is possible given travelling restrictions — ever since DAFC Fussball GmbH purchased a 30 per cent stake in the club last year.
He was integral to Grant’s appointment as manager and his influence in Fife will grow once he is able to visit Scotland with more regularity.
The director status of Meggle, Keretic and Teller was rubber-stamped when the group increased their stake to a majority holding of 75.1 per cent last week.
And Grant added: “I can only judge it on what I have done since I come through the door, they are very professional in everything they do.
“They show great respect to the community, which is so important.”
