Roque

I don't know how steep & narrow stands factor in with regards to "safe standing" sections in stadiums, but ideally it would be as steep as possible, to try and hide whatever apartment block ends up connected to the back of it.

In an ideal world it wouldn't figure in at all, and we'd have a safe-standing terrace/stand for 1,000-1,500 at the city end with nothing else included. I'm realistic, though. The people we sold that land to won't make any kind of return on something which would only have a benefit to Partick Thistle, and not them. Maybe Colin Weir's next act of generosity towards the club could be to buy out the propco shysters, but I won't be holding my breath on that one.

I appreciate not everyone will share this view, but give me a a small safe standing stand with accommodation built on the back to complete our ground, over 3 stands and an embarrassing grassy mound at one end.

Only thing I could find is - https://ptfc.co.uk/ptfc-news/playing-squad-update/ Although it doesn't specify when in August, usually these types of listings are until the end of whatever the month mentioned is. And I'm sure Archie has stated it in one of his interviews as well, but no idea which one!

Would agree with that, unfortunately. I think we'll be alright, in terms of surviving. There's enough quality in the squad to see us through, and if things do really fall apart with Archie we'll punt him and bring in a Jim Duffy type screamer who will see us to safety. Not saying I want Duffy or anyone like that, but can see him being the option if we do have to punt Archibald.

It's until the end of August. Any feedback from the Q&A would be great. What sort of questions were asked? I'm assuming it won't have been the happiest Q&A session there's ever been.

I can't see Ross County not winning the league. They've chucked a load of cash at it (surprise surprise!), and have a really strong squad for this level. At this point, anywhere between 2nd and something like 7th/8th wouldn't surprise me. Really hard to predict much when most teams still have quite a few holes to fill, including us. Thankfully we still have time to add to the squad, and surely new signings will be on the horizon now we've cleared Barton's wage from the budget.

I do think Sammon would be a good signing for anyone in this league, and equally I doubt he would be one of the players Archibald was referring to with his 'not giving a shit' comments. However, I do think he would be well outwith our price range in the Championship. Rumours were Hearts were already subsidising a decent percentage of his wages when he was with us last year. His wages will be the same, but with out budget inevitably smaller, they'd have to contribute an even higher percentage. They'd probably hope they can ship him to someone who could contribute more. Who knows, though? Possibly an option for us later in the window if Hearts haven't been able to punt him anywhere else by then.

Agreed. Bonner is there to appeal to the masses of moronic Celtic fans who probably share his 'Celtic are great, I don't need to know anything about anyone else' attitude - which is terrible, but at least you can kind of see the target audience element of it. Thick, ignorant Celtic fan appeals to other thick, ignorant Celtic fans. On the other hand, with Miller I have no idea what the point is. Just a grumpy old man who doesn't know anything about anyone outside his Dons.

Honestly, I don't really care that we don't get much media attention. Probably takes the pressure off us when things aren't going well - which is usually for the first 3 months of every season.

They've only ever given three sides when there's been a title on the line. Usually it's just behind both goals. They did when they had fans in the Chadwick Stand (opposite the normal away end) - now that this is closed to home fans, they don't have to move any of their supporters when the bigots come to town. Fwiw, we're in a tough situation with Firhill given its current setup. Either we inconvenience our own supporters a few times a season or we lose out on a pretty substantial amount of cash. I'm not saying it isn't rubbish losing your seat that you've paid for a couple of times a season, but I do think it's the right decision, considering doing it for these games probably makes us enough money to afford that extra couple of players every season.

Keep Paton as far away as possible. We've got better players, and he's a dick.

I'd have said it was the pace of the game in the top flight that Muirhead struggled with the most. Couldn't handle anyone with a bit of pace and technical ability running at him.

Got to disagree with this. I think the chance of some of the younger lads coming on and making an impact is probably very low, but there are a few reasons I think we should always fill the bench, even if it's with youngsters. What if we lose 3 defenders during a match and only have, for example, Nitriansky as a sub? I'd rather have all positions covered (and ideally double-covered) on the bench than having to rely on formation switches/players being moved out of position multiple times in a match should that kind of thing happen. Additionally, it would give the young lads experience of being around the first team squad on a match day, rather than just in some training sessions. You never know; they could pick up something valuable. Finally, development matches generally aren't played on the same day, and so they're never going to be occupied with a match and are always available anyway. Archie obviously disagrees, but can't think of many other managers who feel the same as him. Look at Celtic and Hearts - their bench is full of teenagers most weeks.

The level of negativity in football would go through the roof if teams could get 3 points from a 0-0 draw. Which is why this doesn't happen.

I agree, I think it looks great seeing the whole back row of the North Stand red & yellow, with all kinds of different flags.

I'd like to think the club wouldn't have lied to the police about it... It may well have been the case that it was our own incompetence in leaving gates open and not having any stewards or security present in the NS after the match, which lead to the first flag being stolen, but despite claims to the contrary from the club about the others, you seem determined to shift the blame from these thieves onto Thistle. Or at least, that's how it's coming across.

If that's what people claim to have seen then I have no reason to doubt it. I just heard that there was a break in as well. Two separate instances, possibly. Wee scumbag that did it after FT, which lead others to go back for more later on?

I don't really know anything more other than that it was done later on, and not post-match. And that's from a club source.

Yeah, they broke into the stadium in the middle of the night because we gave them the Jackie Husband instead of the Colin Weir. ******* hell.

It wasn't budgeted for initially at the beginning of the season, but I'd guess that the fact we ended up signing both Storey and Sammon very shortly after that fixture was announced means that it jumped straight into the budget...

Seems to look out for Thistle results. Definitely a good 'un. Congrats to him.

The right decision. Our support base is at a pretty low point currently, and on top of that many of our fans don't like seeing us play the OF anyway. Putting them in a different place will make absolutely zero difference to the number of Thistle fans in attendance, imo. I'd guess there would be no more than 3,000 Jags at the game even if we did restrict the OF support. I get the whole atmosphere thing. I also remember when we played Celtic with them only in the North Stand and the couple of sections at the end of the JH, and they were still louder than us all night. The only way we could totally diminish the noise they'd create would be by giving them the smallest possible section, and even then that would probably just create the whole siege mentality and motivate them even more anyway. Plus it wouldn't make any financial sense.

^Absolutely this.

I don't really understand what you mean about the attendance going up by 4500. Even if our average attendance for non-OF games is 3500 and with them it's 8000, that doesn't address what I said. My point was the amount of money we'll make from the away crowd in the one-off games against the OF is in the six-figure region - I didn't say the amount more that we'd make than when we play Motherwell, for example, so you can't just suddenly start subtracting the attendance of the away end like it's some sort of average scenario. We sell just under 6000 tickets to the OF dregs, not 4500. A second reason that logic doesn't work is that the average number of Thistle fans who attend games with the OF is substantially less than the average for all the other games. I don't have figures, but I've attended enough games in the past few years and have seen the crowds to know this is absolutely the case, so even if those average figures are logical, they aren't taking into account home fan reduction. I really struggle to give any credence to those police costs, either. I've found an article stating policing for recent Old Firm games have ranged between the £37,000 and £50,000. Absolutely no chance the figures for a Thistle v Rangers game at Firhill come even close to half that total. Additionally, and it's a small thing, but I'm pretty sure in the two games we played against Hibs at home in our first season back up, they brought less than St Mirren, Kilmarnock and Dundee United did. Admittedly with the feelgood factor around the club right now they'll probably double their last support at Firhill when they come to visit this season, but their travelling support is generally pretty poor in relation to their average home gate, so their relevance in a "big away supports" debate is questionable. Tl;dr version: your post is wrong on numerous counts.