Mediocre Pundit

Yaaaaaaaaaaas! ****** YAAAAAAAAAAAAS!

What happened with the banner?

I've been wondering how replicable something like the FoH would be to Thistle. Ignoring the galvanising factor of a near death experience, how possible would it be to get something similar set up at Thistle to generate additional budgetable income per year? What would need to be given back to encourage you to sign up? As an example, Hearts have the ability to pay between £10 and £500 (!) per month and to 'top up' by between £25 and £10k (!!) on an ad hoc basis. However if we got 2,000 Jags fans to contribute £10 per month that would be an additional £250k per year of income that could make a big difference on the running budget of the club. This would obviously be a long term aim - however what would the club need to offer as part of this to encourage you to commit to a regular payment? I'll start off by saying this should replace TAG and the Centenary Fund so all benefits of these could be rolled into it (or made free to all, i.e. some of the media content). I would also include prizes of some of the other non-cash items the club has done - being part of the squad etc... - plus a special club event each year with players and BoD etc... Maybe also board representation through a democratic election (must pay for at least 12 months to vote etc...) [ignore the obvious point that this should be done through the Jags Trust, I appreciate that this is very similar to the ideas behind the 1876 Club...] Really just spitballing here but keen on what peoples thoughts are..?

Ok, anecdotal evidence time. I've just bought a house that needs renovating so don't have much spare cash - I've not been to Firhill yet this season. However the wife asked if I'd like to go see Braehead Clan last week in their 'Champions League' match and we chose to spend £50 on two tickets - primarily as I get to combine watching good sport with some time with the wife (I work in London most of the week) She enjoys the atmosphere and facilities at Braehead - she hates Firhill (probably more so given how often I've dragged her along against her will) albeit would go if it was possible to sit in a comfier chair with me, be away from any aggression / bad language and have some decent food - i.e. if watching Thistle could be a transactional rather than an emotional decision. We've had the chat about kids too - I think I've won the argument by playing the trump card that if I don't brainwash them to support Thistle then they'll end up being brainwashed into supporting the OF when they go to school (and thus lose their father) but I've got to agree that I wouldn't be happy taking them to Firhill at times. The world has moved on in the last 20 years - football is competing with so many other things for a share of your wallet and we're not as relatively attractive an option as we used to be. I'll continue to drag myself to Firhill on occasion and I'll continue to be unable to explain why to anyone who doesn't have an emotional attachment to a football team themselves. We need to make ourselves more attractive to a wider audience. Braehead have built as big a fanbase as us within 5 years in a niche sport. While we can laugh at the cheesy way they do it and the type of 'fan' that they attract (from my experience many people that are there for an evening out and don't really understand the sport...sounds a bit like Firhill actually...) it's proving successful and there are lessons we could learn from them. ETA: I'm in no way saying we're doing worse than others on these measures - football as a whole has to adapt or continue to shrink...

i like, nay, love Balatoni for his time with Thistle - however we have three adequate first team central defenders in Frans, Lindsay and Seaborne and - barring any significant long term injuries - don't need a fourth. If we sign an U20's central defender (Rudovic maybe...) then that would provide appropriate additional cover given our budget. I'm surprised Balatoni didn't get anything sorted out, especially given he was willing to move globally...

Ryan Scully (H) for me - a potentially solid product of our youth setup.

Fraser Kerr (mentioned above) is a defender. Not sure how well regarded he was by Motherwell (playing ability rather than fighting ability) though...

******* hell, if that's the deal we were trying to do then it doesn't say much for Amoo's chances at Firhill...

If Saunders could stay fit, and if previous injuries haven't taken too much of a toll, he would be a decent signing. Those are two big ifs though...

Apparently signed on loan from Dundee United until January. A bit out of the blue but should give us a good option up front - fast and direct.

I think some people are missing the point here. The club is generally very good on a reactive / transactional basis. In my opinion they are pretty amateur on a proactive / strategic basis. ETA: the "very good" tends to be when speaking to a person - there is still plenty of anecdotal evidence of reactive / transactional issues when dealing by email (lack of responses), logging into TAG, trying to join the Centenary Fund, trying to use ptfctickets etc...

Why would you need a reminder? Because maybe you're not sure about doing it again. Or maybe you just forgot. Maybe you did it two years ago, couldn't afford it last year, but could be tempted to do it again this year. Maybe just because it shows that the club remembers and cares about the money you gave them? As a minimum the club should build a database of anyone who has sponsored players, bought hospitality etc... in the past (ideally with enough basic detail to establish any relevant trends) and use this to approach (along with RCA on reasons people say no) to improve penetration rates. Likewise, my dealings with people at the club have always been good; my issue isn't about people, it's about structure. As a simple example lets use the Centenary Fund again - you more than most should appreciate the wasted opportunity this has been (on multiple levels...) - this should surely be a simple yet effective way to bring in additional revenue. Finally, I don't think it's easy to get more fans to attend; indeed I think the problem with Thistle (and a lot of football clubs) is that they look for a silver bullet solution that doesn't exist and, in the process, discount a number of small solutions that, combined, could make an impact, e.g. some sort of low-cost customer engagement programme (annual survey) with published findings and clear actions, including a few focus groups / meetings would help mitigate some of the complaints about matchday experience while being a good opportunity for the club to further engage with fans. Simple things like this, done consistently, would drive increased engagement which in any other industry is a good indicator of propensity to buy / wallet share. If it even encouraged half of our semi-regular fans to attend one game more per season that would be an additional £50k for Archie's budget.

The general running of the club is an amateur shambles - certainly the bit that comes into contact with customers. Thistle isn't a complicated business - it should be really easy to do a small number of basic things very well to encourage fans to attend more and widen general share of wallet - but we've been getting this wrong for as long as I can remember. When you read countless stories of how the club is losing out on money fans were prepared to give then it's little wonder we're skint.

Shall we start discussing players who have had promising starts to their Thistle career and ended up doing nothing? I'll start you off with Ryan McStay - still one of the biggest disappointments in my time supporting Thistle given how well he started with us. When Jack Hendry puts in consistently strong performances for at least three months then I'll consider him "tested". Lets also remember that we've developed him for just one season - he's not a product of Thistle Weir, he's a guy we picked up who had been released by other clubs who is turning out to be quite promising (see also Steven Lawless, Sean Welsh, Stephen O'Donnell and Aaron Taylor-Sinclair)

You don't think £100k for an untested youngster on a one year contract who we've only developed for one season (after his release from Dundee United) is decent business? Really?

Agreed. £1m is mental, reckon we will get a "six figure sum" which to all intents will mean £100k. And that's still decent for an unproven youngster (who we've only had on the books for a season)

Why? He's played a couple of games, is learning the trade and would no longer be our 'talent' to develop. If Everton sign him (a big 'if') I'd rather see another experienced defender as back-up and to help develop Lindsay.

I personally don't give much of a shit about away gates at Firhill - they'll depend on how other teams are doing at the time. Our focus should be entirely around increasing the home support which, whether people like it or not, are in decline. The first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem. The board should convene a fan meeting to outline the current situation, what their thoughts are, get fan input and co-create a collaborative plan for the next 5 years.

Reducing the cost of entry. Spending money to improve facilities. Entering into partnership agreements to give the fans discounts. These are all complex and/or expensive ways to try to increase the fanbase (or at least how often that fanbase attends Firhill). It strikes me that some stakeholder meetings would be much cheaper - all they would require is the BoD to have the courage to engage directly with the fans. Set up the federation structure, have regular dialogue, use this to understand the quick wins that will get more bums on seats for minimum cost. That's not to even mention Tag and the CF - we have two existing initiatives to generate money for the club and they're run terribly - they've clearly been put in the "this is too hard" box. What a shambles. Look at Hearts for example - they have 10k fans contributing £5 a month (or something like that) for the good of the club. Ok, we're smaller, but what happened to the CF "100k a year" target? What happened to Tag? The club needs to choose a couple of initiatives and execute them properly and consistently. That would be a start.

Only if you start another thread on it...

I think the poor uptake in the NS is due to fans reticence to sit behind a goal - you get a significantly poorer view when we're shooting towards the bing. However the fact that we have a stand where we can stand and sing is a massive improvement on the morgue that Firhill has been for most of my time supporting Thistle - I think it's been a success, can be an even greater success and is the last thing we should change. It's amazing that we have a 11,000 seat stadium and an average gate of 3,500 yet we continually debate how to change out seating...

If you took the freebie you could all pay £20 and get in...

I imagine England wouldn't want any part of it but a Celtic Cup (obviously / sadly not named that) including Scotland, Wales and the Irelands could be cool.

I've not yet paid you the £10 I owe you so let's call it £20. I'd vote for Sean Welsh's home top for the 4th top if possible - I'm confident he'll sign a new contract but if not I'm sure we could change?

In if it's being organised.