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Hopeless Unbeliever

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Everything posted by Hopeless Unbeliever

  1. This is increasingly coming across as a very bitter vendetta against the current board/manager and a blind defence of the previous manager. Most of your last post there is not even worth engaging with it's so baseless. You are now dragging down every thread you appear in with your incessant arguments which detract from the sensible points you do have (which are in there somewhere).
  2. But you are allowed to count substantial six-figure income from unreliable and irregular events entirely outwith the board's control.
  3. I think the conflation of TJF and the club board is lazy at best, and disingenuous at worst. On TJF firstly, I think people forget how bleak the outlook was little more than a year ago. The fact that TJF have got us to where we are today is nothing short of miraculous and they deserve a tremendous amount of credit for that. I say that as someone who was extremely skeptical about a group putting themselves up for election as a block, but it probably helped them to hit the ground and, in my view, they have delivered in spades. Regardless of your views on fan ownership, that is what Colin Weir wanted and TJF have brought us from a position where fan ownership was effectively going to be stymied indefinitely to a position where we have an entirely open and democratic structure, effective engagement and a massive income stream for the club. It gets overlooked how quickly they got people to rally behind TJF and the number of members they have managed to accumulate has been incredible in a short space of time (a greater % of home gates than the Foundation of Hearts which has been established a lot longer). I don't think people appreciate how bad the alternative could have been. The Club board are, relatively speaking, pretty fresh in the door, inherited a disaster and appear to have cut our underlying losses from c. £600K in 22/23 season to c. £150K in 23/24 season. I don't know (as I suspect most/all on here also don't) how much they've invested in hospitality facilities versus how much they've invested in "ordinary fan" facilities but I'd be willing to wager a year's TJF subscriptions that more money has gone into the fan facilities than hospitality facilities (even proportionate to their numbers/income per game). The simple fact is that maintaining a ground the size and age of Firhill to a basic standard is a considerable cost even before you look at improvements. It's also somewhat unfair to simultaneously demand that losses are reduced while also demanding that expenses are increased. Any board in Scottish football would love to increase gates by 10% overnight, but the quickest way to that is putting a good team on the park, which the board have done a pretty good job of facilitating given our summer losses. In the absence of informed opinion it's very easy to fill the void with accusations and supposition. Our journey since the previous board were ousted appears to be on a positive trajectory so it seems to me that they deserve the benefit of the doubt in continuing that. I do have concerns about the level of turnover in the boardroom but hopefully that will settle over the next 12 months. One point common to both the TJF board and the club board - generally speaking we appear to have people in these roles eminently qualified to hold them. Ours is a small fanbase and the options available relatively limited. David Beattie and Billy Allan aren't coming back to Firhill to serve on the board of a fan owned club. Be careful what you wish for and where you want to end up.
  4. Agree with all of this, especially the last paragraph.
  5. I can see both sides, but if you accept that referees can be influenced by crowds, and whether you think VAR balances that or exacerbates it, then either way there is a potential advantage for one side if it's installed at one ground and not the other. I think even if you don't find that argument convincing, it has to be seen to be equal conditions for both teams across the two legs and VAR in one leg but not the other risks that.
  6. Killie and County can't both catch St J so they're guaranteed safe.
  7. Graham dropping into midfield created our only goal against Ayr. He did similar to good effect against QP. With Turner, Lawless and Tiffoney we have plenty of other players capable of getting forward and scoring. Graham is a better player when he drops off a bit and gets the ball into feet than when he gets involved in wrestling matches with the centre half.
  8. Docherty started the two QP away defeats (but was absent for the real horsing at home) and also the Hamilton home game recently as well as the Caley defeat.
  9. I wasn't there, but I struggle to believe it was as bad as the late 90s (Albion Rovers at home in particular springs to mind) or some of the demolitions at the hands of Gretna under Campbell. Mine was gone completely after Cove at home but a flicker of hope has re-emerged and Doolan clearly deserves the credit for that. Agree with every word of this unfortunately.
  10. I think it is the Peterhead game, I think it's Marc Smyth in the picture? Could have been Billy Gibson though, not 100% sure.
  11. But who will manage the permanent players?
  12. I thought it was Thursday but there was definitely something there. Doesn't appear to be there any more though.
  13. We are now evidently being lied to by people at the heart of the process to put our club into "fan ownership," and yet some people would rather focus on the appropriateness of the behaviour of The Jags Foundation? Whether or not you agree with TJF's approach to everything, or even if you agree with fan ownership at all, it's absolutely critical that we try to understand why we are being lied to here? What is the motivation? I don't honestly believe there is a wider existential threat to the club, but we are not being lied to for no reason. Stewart Macgregor is clearly closely involved in this whole situation and he doesn't want us to know it, the club don't want us to know it and the PTFC Trust guys don't want us to know it.
  14. Nobody seems particularly upset around here. Everyone is entitled to post. Everyone is entitled to ignore who they wish. I think given the way the discussion has gone over the last few pages, suggesting the use of the ignore function will hopefully improve the debate on here such as it is. Denis' views on TJF are well documented. He clearly has issues regarding their approach. He is, in my opinion, repeatedly misrepresenting the comments of one of the Board of TJF. I don't believe that his posts over the last few pages have added anything new, they are just rehashing the same points and the same debates with people. This is a hugely important topic to the future of the club and my concern is that the more the discussion here gets bogged down the more risk that this thread slowly peters out. I don't think TJF is immune from criticism however repeating the same criticism desipte numerous responses from various Directors of TJF is getting us nowhere. There is a separate thread regarding action against the Board where people who are of the opinion that that is the correct course of action can discuss options in that regard. Meantime as a member of TJF I do not believe that that is the correct approach for TJF at this stage. Again various members of the Board have explained that this is not the current view of the board of TJF (including at the EGM which WJ has helpfully posted). I'm sure if they received representations from a majority of their members that this was the approach they wished them to take, they would adapt accordingly, they have shown considerable flexibility to date. This thread can remain useful if it remains a forum for TJF Directors to be available to discuss and answer points openly and honestly, which they have done admirably well thus far. At times I wouldn't blame them for walking away and think that people need to start agreeing to disagree on certain poins rather than pushing them incessantly if we want this to remain a useful discussion. Edit: I should add that I think Denis has added a lot to the forum and his contributions on many of the other threads have been interesting and informative.
  15. Hi @admin , is there a block function on this forum? Thanks.
  16. I'm not quoting all of this for the sake of brevity but this is largely completely unfair on TJF individuals. This has always been 3BC ball and they were always going to dictate. It's not about hard nosed business people or otherwise. TJF have released a very reasonable document with a lot of very reasonable questions. The crucial questions which I would hope could be put to some of the individuals tomorrow evening are: 1. Who has the right to appoint/remove Trustees of the PTFC Trust? Clearly there has been some movement in this regard from the previously publicly available information. Previously, there were 3 "Supporters Trustees" and 3 "Director Trustees". We now have (as far as we're aware) 5 trustees of whom none are directors of PTFC Ltd (assuming there are not any as yet unregistered appointments). This to me is the most crucial question and gets to the heart of who controls the Trust. 2. How were the current Trustees appointed to the PTFC Trust? We know that none of the 5 Trustees who signed yesterday's (revised) statement were Trustees as at the last Deed of Variation which is available, dated in December 2019. For clarity, the six Trustees at that point were: Alan Caldwell, Andrew Byron, Gerry Britton (The Director Trustees), Euan Couperwhite, Robert Taylor and Gordon Shaw (The Supporters Trustees). When and how were the changes to the Trustees of the PTFC Trust made? What are the terms for resignation as a Trustee? Previously, there was a requirement for 3 months writing (or termination on ceasing to be a Director in the case of Director Trustees). 3. Are there any restrictions placed on the PTFC Trust's ability to exercise the voting rights attached to the 74.28% of shares that they hold (or will hold) by the Trust Deed or "Memorandum of Understanding?" Ties in closely to question 1 and is probably at least as pertinent if not more so. On this one I'd be interested in a legal opinion on the ability to restrict ownership of shares in such a way. Not sure if we have any corporate lawyers available? It may be that there are reasonable answers to these questions. Initial Trustees who were happy to not 'rock the boat' would be to an extent understandable if 3BC wanted to ensure that the model gets up and running without too much initial disruption. I'm trying to retain an open mind to the whole thing. However, without detailed answers to questions 1 and 3 above we cannot possibly be expected to blindly "Trust the Trust." I can envisage a situation where the Trust Deed now effectively sets up e.g. 2 Trustees to resign every 3 years. That effectively buys the Board 6 years before the Trust would not be controlled by the "Original" Trustees. That's about the most optimistic situation I can envisage along with no restrictions on voting rights. Since this is the first time I've posted on this for a while I'd also like to put on record my thanks to everyone who was involved in TJF at any stage and I truly hope that their commitment to the club manages to endure through this whole episode.
  17. I honestly wonder how some people cope as Thistle fans if they think that was a dreadful performance today. Hamilton are a decent side at this level and made the game difficult but we were well on top when they scored. While it is a freak goal Mitchell should have a) waited for the ball and collected it b) not booted it 2 yards off the ground into his own player. Second half I thought we picked up well considering and could have won the game in the end. We have real depth in the squad from an attacking point of view and also the ability to change the shape which we lacked last season. Thought McMillan was excellent again although it's obvious he feels more at home as a full back, Lawless is already proving doubters wrong and Brian Graham continues to look as good as he ever has at 34. Always room for improvement but it feels like there's plenty to be positive about there.
  18. Do you have a link for this? Only DeeTV option I can see is £5.99/month with no live coverage.
  19. I'm keen not to wade into the due diligence debate in great detail as I think there's good points on either side, but one thing I would note is that TJF are (hopefully!) taking on the role of majority shareholder in PTFC. It is not the role of shareholders to have a business plan in place, nor is it the role of shareholders to have a plan to address any 'black hole' in the club's finances. That's the role of the existing Board of Directors of PTFC and will continue to be so after the transfer of ownership of the shares. I confess I haven't taken as close an interest as I should have to date in TJF's progress or why it stalled the first time around although clearly this seems to have been primarily driven by the club. Is our understanding that it failed largely around the due diligence debate? Reading the statements from PTFC/3BC does not leave much of a road back for TJF. While I think there are questions remaining around TJF's mandate given the relatively disappointing membership numbers so far, it's difficult to see how 3BC can possibly come up with an alternative with a stronger mandate.
  20. Bannigan's issue is he needs able and willing runners, give him runners and he will find them over and over. He also retains possession exceptionally well. I saw mention on here that Docherty is a better passer which is outrageous. He's better at quite a few things but passing is absolutely not one of them. Our issue this season is that our team has no discernible shape. We have Tiffoney on one wing who wants the ball into feet (understandably) and given the chance to go one on one with the full back. Without a marauding left back/left sided midfielder though he is always going to get doubled up on, even more so when we don't have any viable alternative on the opposite side of the pitch. Compare Bannigan's frontline in 12/13 when he had Erskine, Lawless and Doolan constantly moving and creating space, with ATS and O'Donnell supporting and taking advantage of that space. This season we've (typically) had Foster and McKenna as full backs, with Tiffoney/Graham/Smith up front (Rudden was the one guy who really moved to make space). He also has a midfield that is not especially mobile going forward, particularly in terms of providing width. I do think he has regressed in the defensive side of his game a little in recent years but that's probably understandable. I think if McCall can get the shape right next season, and the indications so far are he sees us going forward with a 3-5-2, that there is still a central role for Bannigan to play.
  21. The original letter, which many fans supported, called for change and said that it wanted to ensure that the best possible people came forward to fulfill the board roles in TJF. Of the 700 or so people who have now signed the letter, the 7 put forward under the Jags for Change banner were all original signatories of the letter. It feels a bit clumsy and to use it as a mandate for your election prospects seems slightly disingenuous given that the original letter made no mention of any of the original signatories standing. These are minor points in the grand scheme of things however and I think a lot of credit has to go to anyone willing to put themselves forward for these roles (a point that equally applies to the previous TJF members who came forward). I would hope that the club did not have an issue with all of the individuals previously involved with TJF and hope that more of them may see fit to stand again as that would speak to some level of optimism from experience that there is a viable solution here. My biggest concern at this stage would be that a new TJF Board coming in on the back of the Open Letter would immediately be setting off on the wrong foot with the club at a time when bridges require to be built. That is absolutely not a criticism of the Open Letter but there has to be a willingness to engage and not prejudge the past from both sides here. I am not sure how that is achieved as at this juncture we feel as far away from it as we ever have. It probably requires an acceptance on both sides that mistakes have been made and to find common ground, that the club has made important steps forward in recent years in several areas for which the current board deserve credit but also that there is never going to be a perfect solution put forward for fan ownership and that a compromise has to be reached. On a smaller point, I do have concerns about setting the membership rates so low as it's very difficult to uplift this in any significant manner once established, and gives a fairly easy argument against the legitimacy and ongoing viability of the organisation. Good luck to all standing, even for those who doubt fan ownership (and I don't include myself in that) it has to be recognised that this is the way the club is going and we have to ensure that it is done in the best way possible.
  22. I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment here, though I do think there is a basis to question his character and influence on the dressing rooms at the clubs he's been at recently. Mostly here to defend Doolan though. Miller has 5 league goals so far this season. Doolan scored 14 league goals in 16/17 (in the SPL), 4 in 17/18 (SPL) and 7 in 18/19 (Championship - including of course his excellent goal against Morton). For all the general sentiment was it was time for Doolan to move on, his goals to minutes ratio last season (1 every 295 minutes) was better than Miller's this season. Onwards and upwards.
  23. You can't possibly be bitter that a player was open to a move to a team at a significantly higher level than Thistle? Very odd.
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