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A more relevant question is how he can continue to prop up an FD who has year after year, or perhaps that should be season after season totally failed in his duty to control the clubs budget and so eroded shareholder value at every turn. Perhaps a mutually beneficial cosy propco relationship has something to do with this?

I know this will be unpopular but... If we go bust (again) are we not worse than Dundee?? Dundee went bust because they relied on one person bankrolling them, they ahd a commitment and spent money on that basis, then he reneged (for a variety of reasons mostly relating to his own personal and business difficulties) We however under the careful financial stewardship of Tom Hughes have continually underperformed against budget, entered property deals of dubious benefit, robbed peter to pay paul, and used HMRC as the bank of last resort. Dundee did it out of good faith, we did it out of (repeated) incompetence. BTW, whose careful financial stewardship is the club under now?? Are we on budget this year? Do we never learn from our mistakes? Every director who has failed to hold Tom Hughes to account is culpable if our club fails to survive and that includes the new kids on the block.

#Like you I have given McCall the benefit of teh doubt; today was just too grim though. But we cannot affford to sack him, that would appear to be the simple fact of the matter. And yo0u are so right, I can see us getting a draw and a win on pens in the semi final - just typical Thistle!!

I agree with the realism comment, however the (many) old players are all a year older, theres a lot of old legs in our team, so you have to take that into account; things are not the same as last year fr that reason I would rather play a bunch of kids...it was embarrassing today the lack of fight and the heads going down....there are players who used to shout and motivate on the park...Robertson and Rowson spring to mind, they are just anonymous now

#Is Gus Mcphersons brother not a Jags fan???

Now hopefully everyone can pull together because why do I suspect there is a lot of hard work to be done to turn things round on and off the pitch.

After 12 years of an ineffective trust, and the same period of complacent abuse by some on our club board, I am happy to give the Trust 10 days or so to try to change both those perceptions. Whats another week? Good luck guys.

Thats great to hear Tom. Lets hope Firhill can be filled with noise next week. a show of defiance, of hope, of support.

You've got to feel for Cowan, a conveyancing lawyer in the trough of a housing recession, despised and shown no respect by the fans of the club he is chairman of, and by the sounds of this no respect for him from the clubs manager either, a legal record for the club since he has been on the board which reads like our away record this season. The day before yesterdays man. List the attributes a fooball club chairman needs and you can probably be pretty sure he posesses none of them. Feel for him, I of course jest, bet theres a few who would swing for him though if he leads this club to the horrific position of effectively going bust twice in 13 years.

Great well-presented summary of where we are. I think Ronnie Gilfillan is a gentleman and cares deeply about the club though. And I think it should be remebered when criticising Billy Allans visibility that he did not seek this position, if I recall correctly from that time he was sought out by the Board as an emergency measure, and who is to say they did not put forward propco as what they needed investment in? We just dont know. Innocent until proven gulty and all that, although the others are serial offeners found guilty many times.

I've met her at a business function, had a conversation with her, and found her to be charming. She had had a few right enough.

Shocking treatment of any customer but a loyal one like yourself, it really just beggars belief. Commiserations to you for having your experience of being a customer of Partick Thistle ruined in this way. And congratulations to whoever sorted this out for you, and shame on those who didn't but claim a wage to do so. I think the previous posters advice to EP, may be a few words too long.

I am not saying you have an agenda, only that some might. I dont read the forum intently, but I had noted in a few posts a scepticism from you that there is not options out there and so no strategy to save club exists, but perhaps you were being sarcastic ir flippant, as I say its from quite a small sample of posts, so apologies if it misrepresented you, In any case, the point is, now is the time for us all joiningt ogether, what we have has not worked for a long time. Something needs to happen before the club ceases to be. Doing nothing does not seem to be an option.

I think we will be lucky to last that long tbh.

Don't believe it. But do nothing and we are doomed. Some like McKennan may not accept that, or they may have other agendas, but just do the maths from Saturday. Budgeted crowd less actual attendance minus kids multiplied by gate entry less Vat probably equals north of £10k....how many home games can that go on?? So come the day when the history of the season when Partick Thistle "died/were saved" is written, what are you going to say you did? Accepted it as a fait accompli? Said it can't be done? Took pot shots from the sidelines at anyone who suggested anything positive? Or join the fight to try to save the club you love?

I do not think it is for people to necessarily put themselves forward especially on a fans forum; that is just a way for those against any change to make a point. It is for the shareholders to decide who are the best people to run their club/company. At the moment we have a mix of discredited shareholders/directors and some who have been given the benefit of the doubt. I am sure the benefit of the doubt grouping know people who could fill each and every position of the discredited ones. The Trust are also a shareholder so may have suggestions also. As for the chairman, you certainly wont find the sort of chairman this football club needs on a forum; it needs to be someone with gravitas and integrity, someone whose ego will be flattered to be approached and who will relish the challenge of overseeing sorting out this mess. The chairman should be a non-exec figurehead tha everyone can unite behind and be proud of. IN MY OPINION.

They are, but I think they need called out not to be. And I think there is a reason for them to. Well, two actually.....1. save the club; 2. save their hard earned reputations.

Are you really telling me that people of the calibre of David Beattie and Billy Allan do not have in their address books multiple people who - a. could act like a chairman should, ie a figurehead with integrity b. perhaps produce a balanced budget c. f*ck up the Centenary Draw regularly I think there is a MASSIVE reputational risk to The Jags Trust Board, but more than that also to the aforementioned board members to not begin to hold Hughes, Cowan et al to account and subject them to some scrutiny. What would Billy Allan do in his other businesses if the FD kept getting it wrong? Please tell me how many consecutive seasons Hughes has got the budgets wrong - is he going for some kind of World Record. Anyone want to bet on whether we came in on budget last season?? Anyone want to bet that we are aleady behind budget this season?? Now all this would be bad enough wre it not for propco. But as investors in propco, here is where the reputational risk comes for Billy Allan and Beattie, but also to a lesser extent for the JTB if they do nothing. If we go bust, the Board members whgo have invested in propco will probably be better off. Its a huge conflict. To persevere with a chairman who drives away fans in droves, an FD who can't balance books looks careless to most, but to some cynical individuals it could look to be by design. Soemone needs to stand up about this and NOW. Now for what its worth, I for one do not think Billy Allan and David Beattie are anything but 'thistle minded' but they must see how it looks, and they must also know that if the football club goes pop, there is going to be a shitstorm and a LOT of mud thrown, and I mean A HUGE AMOUNT - I hope it sticks to the right people. What was todays crowd? What do we need to breakeven? I amsure I have heard different figures mentioned - 2500? 3000? Today was miles under that and bottom of the league, so it will continue. Face it, we are screwed unless there is a massive change at Firhill. I will relish throwing the mud but would rather still have a club to support. So how about The Trust, and the board members such as Billy Allan and David Beattie start pulling together, hold the performance of some of their fellow directors up to scrutiny and maybe, just maybe Save the Jags, but hey perhaps we can do it right this time?? I think everyone needs to pull together and unite behind something, and that thing is a change in the boardroom. Who would be with them?

But on the right things Sandy Why do we still have board members with a litany of failures behind them? Its not just for the Jags Trust to call them out, its for their fellow directors/shareholders also, or they are in danger of being tarred with the same brush. Heres some things people need to consider, feel free to disagree - Cowan - often seems to turn off fans; he is our legal expertise on the board, what is our wins and losses ratio for all legal cases and appeals,etc during his time on the Board? Is his commercial performance acceptable?? TH - great insolvency expertise at times of STJ, unquestionable; since then, is failing to balance the books year after year acceptable? Is setting or accepting the setting of budgets which are pretty unachievable when you know you did exactly the same the year before acting with due care to protect the shareholders interests?? Is his commercial performance acceptable?? EP - has the CF given the impression of being run by professionals since he took over running it? Has the major stakeholder in the club (the supporters) been partially alienated by the words and deeds of EP?? Is that good for revenue generation?? How has he positively impacted on the club since his appointment, what successes are attributable to him?? Is his commercial performance acceptable?? If you were the employer of these guys and it was staff review time, would they be getting a whopper of a bonus or dismissed??? Guess what....the Jags Trust and each shareholder is sort of their employers. I am retiring from this debate again now as I have been sucked in because I still care having successfully distanced myself from the shambles that is Partick Thistle for a long time. It is for others to provide the answers to the above questions. I just find all this so frustrating, I really do. I hope if teh JTB do manage to 'facilitate a meeting' someone might articulate some of the important questions. Good luck.

You won't get that Sandy...how long have you/the trust been trying to work with them and how successful has that been? The trust board needs to understand what right a shareholder has and start using them for specific purposes rather than general chat. Who is going to take responsibility for the worsening cash flow...it is not the customers fault. Someone on that club board, or maybe more than one is responsible...THINK ABOUT IT.....is PTFC the only buisiness in the world where the customers are to blame for worsening cashflow and budgets that don't work and erm the next year don't work again and the next year don't work again...do the trust have the balls to call them out?? FFS, show some passion - we are talking about the future of the club here. Diplomacy and politics have got the Jags Trust f*ck all...fact or fiction??? I am so frustrated to hear about calls for meetings and discussion from the Jags Trust over several years now. IT DOESN'T WORK.

I lapsed from JT membership for reasons I won't bore you with, but very good ones in my own mind!! IF the JTB are going to waste time arguing over the JTB representative, my renewal form will stay virgin clean for another year. If I heard they were going to adopt the role of an interested scrutinising shareholder and at least attempt to hold people to account who if they worked for a plc board would have been out on their ear a long time ago....how many FDs are allowed to totally fail to come anywhere close delivering a budget year after year after year for example?, then I would put aside my personal reasons for non renewal and do everything I could to help such an organisation. Thats what I have always wanted and expected it to be. But I am one voice and one not too bothered whether the Trust flourishes or not, but bothered whether PTFC does. The supporters and The Jags Trust are being set up to be fall guys in all this. Hypothetically, the only way for propco to accelerate their return on investment and maximise it, is for the football club to die. And that is what was always wrong with propco. An FD who ran up debt which precipated the asset sale stood to benefit from continuing to be unable to balance the books. And I view each and every decision of this board and each and every pronouncement now as tainted for that reason. I refuse to give anyone the benefit of the doubt based on their ethics or being 'thistle minded' as I have been a student of human behaviour for too long. Some people say I am too cynical for my own good. Perhaps. Time will tell, but one things for sure even if everything is proper and everyone has the best interests of the club at heart which could well of course be the case, it certainly does not look good from the outside looking in.

Its the blame game. In any other business the well paid chief executive would fall on his sword if trading performance were poor and he had been unable to influence it in a positive way. In PTFC, it is our fault. Yours and mine. Customer relations at its finest. Not for the first time. Some days I wonder if some people on the board want the club to fail....but what possible motivation could there ever be for that?

The Jags Trust is a shareholder. Shareholders own a club; the board run it for the shareholders. There is a common misconception on here that the board can only be replaced by people with pots of gold. Untrue. The directors should be the best people for the job in the eyes of the shareholders. The board of BT are not the owners, they are people appointed to run the business. Theoretically, the board can be held to account by the shareholders. Given the distribustion of shares it is pretty much the board who control the share voting too, but the Trust does have protections and whose to say that a credible well presented critique of the running of the club in recent times, say for example a call for a vote of no confidence in public by the Trust in certain individual directors they feel culpable or a demand for their resignation, would not resonate with the other board members??? It may be a longshot but guess you can never say never. It should not stop the case being made just because you think it will fail.

So we are really saying the same thing Steven!! I am just saying that if you want to tackle all those issues it can be done any time through being a shareholder. Perhaps this is the catalyst, but I think that rather than create a fuss which looks about a matter of self interest and is of limited value, would it not be better using the Trusts power as a shareholder to review the performance of the board in a whole range of matters....CF draws, cost benefit analysis of DMcQ and EP appointments, etc, etc.......a robust challenging questioning shareholder is worth much more than a poodle on the Board, and there are much bigger issues than whether the poodle is getting out to play.

You gave propco the benefit of the doubt. I didn't. You think this is a slap in face of all Jags fans and matters. I don't. Different takes on different situations. Anyone that thinks a meaningless virtual observer position where the observer then cannot comment on anything he observes is more improtant than the a deal with concerning ethics, inadequate transparency and scrutiny and which threatens the very future of the football club clearly has a different set of priorities to me. The Board Rep position is worth nothing given the rules surrounding it. The Trust's strength is that it is a major shareholder. It has fixated on the board rep position for too long. It would have been better fixating on being an oppressed minority shareholder without the conflict of interest the board rep position brings IMO. Sure Kieron has done great things for the community projects and that is to be applauded. But he did not need to be co-opted onto the Thistle board to do that. What benefit have you and I as fans, memebers of the Jags Trust or not, had from having a Jags Trust Board rep in situ for all these years???? Shareholders have rights and the board have responsibility to all shareholders.....do you think the board are discharging those responsibilities right now????.......if I were on Jags Trust I would be suggesting going down that route than getting all worked up over the board rep position