ChiThistle

Ninety ninety ninety six pages to go-o-o. I wanna be sedated. No one to sign, no bus to go-o-o. I wanna be sedated.

I think as a result of the “How does a team in the Scottish 2nd tier, with average attendances in the lower four digits, make sense for a consortium that owns Barnsley and Nice?”

In that case, it’s one of the biggest successes of any board since I’ve been supporting the club!

“The shortfall has been partly covered by the fees...” Are they saying: 1. The previous board factored the sell-on fees into the budget before actually having that money? And they STILL were running at a deficit? 2. The previous board did not factor the sell-on fees into the budget, meaning they were running at an even CRAZIER deficit? And Beattie & Co. have decided to apply the sell-on fees to help paper over those cracks? And either way, are we talking about portions of the Fitzpatrick/Lindsay fees? Or all of it? Still confused.

Okay, hear me out.... The team bus was canceled because it was actually a McGill’s bus. It turns out the mystery second bidder was none other than the Easdales, who are trying to stay ahead of the next Rangers liquidation by having a new club at the ready. The training ground was scuppered because they were near a deal to put the new training ground on the old Misco site in - you heard it here first - Greenock which they bought in 2018. The benefits bring it was on the waterfront and very close to an RBS mortgage centre. In preparation, they’d already begun building an underground tunnel between the two. Well, less of a tunnel and more of a pneumatic tube for lending. Meanwhile, NewCity was not keen on these guys trying to take their Barnsley Junior and turn it into The Future Rangers 3.0, so they got the directors sacked and installed their own preferred folks. The McGills Bus just happened to be the last remnant, along with the 200k which GC wanted to use to sign ONE player, slightly out of favor Borna Barisic at, you guessed it, Rangers. Due to language differences, he was able to convince Barisic that “K” is the abbreviation for “millions” and was ready to swoop if the Easdales could convince Gerrard to hand him his walking papers. Now you’re probably asking yourself, “well that’s all quite obvious, but how exactly is Jackie Macnamara tied up in all of this? And THAT is where it gets really interesting....

I would hope a full time club our size would always use a team bus regardless of venue. Being a team should mean traveling to the game together, playing the game together, and leaving together.

I figured it would be dicey, even at something like a 5% “second sale” clause that team 3 would have to agree to. It just sucks that we are talking about a guy who very well may be a Championship stalwart this season, could end up in the Scotland team, and we will only have about 800k to show for it.

Saw that Ryan Shawcross suffered a freak ankle injury for Stoke that opens up more playing time for Liam Lindsay. Anyone know if sell-on clauses typically go more than one sale beyond?

It will be awesome when Caldwell yanks him from a game, and he responds with a middle finger salute and a Stone Cold Stunner.

Appears to be an opinion/analysis piece, which is often light on facts or new info (read anything Derek Johnstone has “written”). Interesting the ET doesn’t specify that it’s an opinion piece though. Normally there’s an “opinion” or “analysis” banner, isn’t there? Maybe it’s different viewing on a mobile device? Or maybe they count on the headline with “<author_name>:” to signify it’s not technically a news story? Weird.

URL did not work for me, but in the Bradford City highlights I saw, he’s got some skill - including nifty footwork and playmaking ability - when healthy. Hope this turns out to be a Banzo-type situation where we stick with the guy and he pays off in the long term.

Hopefully a pub where they don’t let many in.

I dunno how much you can really say if there’s no formal activity. Official statements from most companies usually wait until there’s fire, not smoke. Even club statements regarding transfers usually wait - the papers report the rumours as they get them and the clubs report anything that’s actually happened.

Reflecting upon the title of this thread, the more intriguing question for me always has been “Aim for the stars or know your place?” My track record of supporting clubs of any sport is something like: 85% of seasons are duds 14.9% of seasons made significant progress toward “glory” 0.1% of seasons actually captured said “glory” So while I don’t go into it expecting to get kicked in the nuts 85% of the time, that’s what happens. Thistle is unique to all other clubs/teams I support. So if you’re stuck in neutral as we have often been, simply fighting to exist, it’s hard for me to be fearful of change. I guess with regard to club leadership and ownership, almost any change that gets us out of neutral is good in my eyes. Succeed or fail, at least we tried. But I often wonder if it’s all foolish - to envision a day when we are Premier League mainstays and Firhill is closer to packed than not. If that’s not the goal, what’s it all for?

He demands your full attention Once he collects his pension?

I’ll contribute the following bit of deep investigative analysis.... ”Chien Lee” is an anagram of “Nice Heel”, which in pro wrasslin’ parlance makes him the villain of Nice. Not PTFC. So I think we are in the clear here. Now let’s all settle back and see what Mr. Lee, Mr. Beane, and third consortium member and international man of mystery Rex de Thistle have in store to take our club to the top!

That Wikipedia article has incorrect attribution - the Thistle portion links to the purchase of Nice years ago and has naught to do with Thistle. Am I the only one who sees the footballing reasons for this? They could sell all of Firhill, the players, Kingsley, everything for what would be a pittance for a group of billionaire investors. I don’t see how the effort would be worth the payoff. Doing that would cast them in such a terrible light that they would be blackballed. What Thistle DOES give them is a minor-league system that fits into the Billy Beane Moneyball side of things. We sold them Liam Lindsay at tremendous value, everyone knows English clubs can get Scottish players on the cheap, and they’ve probably heard about Aidan Fitzpatrick and the Weirs investment into our training center development (jury’s out on that I suppose). That pipeline fits into the Moneyball ideal to a T in my opinion. I imagine someone looked at Lindsay and Fitzpatrick and said taking us over would provide a reasonable return on investment. So yes, it probably turns Thistle into more of a feeder club, but if the feeder club doesn’t succeed then it breaks the chain. The idea is that talent is developed and moved on instead of always having to look for value players outside your organization. We’d probably get a few players not ready for the Barnsley first team, but that’s more “scouting” than we’ve had the last, I dunno, decade? In that way, it’s hard to see much of a difference in Steven Gerrard bringing over Ryan Kent/Sheyi Ojo from his old club. The difference is this ownership group is establishing a more direct pipeline.

The suddenness of this news gives me a very “Carrie at the dance about 10 minutes before the bucket” feeling. If true, I hope we get a quick statement of intent from the prospective owners. Man, i always assumed “Firhill for Thrills” was about the football, not the off-the-park dealings. Chinese takeover, sun mascot, pink shirts, rainbow shirts, flirted with extinction....this club is too f**king weird not to be everyone’s darling.

Heard a new rumour that a consortium consisting of a priest, a rabbi, and a minister may be looking to buy the club. Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd go.

Anyone know when TTL puts these on its site? Or is the site only for overstock? Trying to take advantage of free shipping to the States but I need to act fast.

Is this our first “official” chief scout?

I think the obvious response to this news is.... What is Phil NOT telling us here? And why is he purposely stalling development on the training ground? I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the fact he let Kris Doolan walk is just hard to get over.

That would be chump change if they sell him for that. Hopefully a bidding war ensues.

Reading through this thread confirms one thing for me - I sure don’t envy the challenges faced by anyone running a club our size. Relying on team success/promotion to ultimately keep staff employed, often not owning your own training ground and having to arrange alternatives, hoping for the right cup tie to squeeze that extra bit of gate cash in, f**king around with your seating arrangements to get every last drop of cash from OF visits, relying on the miracle of EuroMillions winners (not to mention the double miracle of them being THISTLE SUPPORTERS) to help fund a youth academy which we were told was the future (and now may not be?), maybe hoping for that extra bit of sell-on cash for a Liam Lindsay type (sounds like a human rights violation, but Barnsley PLEASE sell Liam Lindsay) to help paper over the funding cracks. When you think about it, it’s all a little ridiculous. I’d imagine some on here (including myself) imagine it would be fun having a crack at running the club, but then I remember that livelihoods are at stake for players and staff alike, and it makes me realize you probably have to be a bit mental to take on this job, even if you already know what you’re getting into. With my American clubs never having to worry about cash flow and my other team being Bolton (why god must you hate me so?), it really puts the challenge of keeping this club going into perspective for me. I think the fans have every right to judge the decisions being made by/actions taken by the club, but I’d like to take a moment to offer at least a little of my respect to the people who took on the task of keeping this club going. I hope they have the same end goal we do. PS Shi**y decisions notwithstanding.

Mansell goal, Banzo penalty... All I need now is for Jack Storer to come on and be a polite gentleman for 20 minutes and this coupon is going to pay off handsomely!