AndyMac
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Posts posted by AndyMac
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On 2/22/2020 at 5:59 PM, Norgethistle said:
Having no debt does not make a company solid or stable.
If (I still live in hope) we go down, our revenue drops dramatically even if our fanbase stays level.
Admission price is lower
League money is lower
Sponsorship is lower
Traveling supports are lower
We still need to fund Firhill, a full-time team, a full office, a youth academy, a women’s team. One or more of them will take a significant hit.
Falkirk have managed to stay full time by utilizing the ground 7 days a week and axing the academy.
Raith due to their chairman funding it.
Us? Our Stadium is used once a fortnight, we have no rich chairman, and we have an academy we need to start paying for next year.
We spent significantly in January which I’d imagine would have eaten in to our cash reserves as I don’t see where any other funding could come from.
We will only remain solid and stable if we can generate more than we can spend and with another relegation looming that looks tricky
I don't disagree with you Norge. All that you state is true.
My point is that as a club, through the generosity of Colin Weir, we own our ground and have no debt. I believe that this is an enviable position to be in. Far better than being in the hands of vulture capitalists.
However, I too have absolutely no faith whatsoever in Jacqui Low and her sidekicks, who've pretty much ridden along on Colin Weir's coat tails. These charlatans, if left in charge will in short time have the club deep in the financial mire. I wouldn't trust them to run a bath. Nevertheless, at the moment it does appear that the club is in sound and stable financial position, that we can hopefully capitalise upon, when a new more capable board is appointed (hopefully sooner rather than later).
I do agree that we need to cut our cloth to suit our circumstances and to seriously look at ways to bring new and greater income sources into our club.
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I might as well throw my tuppence worth in.
On the pitch, the results pretty much speak for themselves. We may be at, or may yet have further to travel before hitting rock bottom, but lets face it we're totally rank rotten and as soft as window putty on a hot summers day. If we can leave the abject failure of our team aside for a moment, it's a big ask I know, but if we can just forget about it for a moment let's look at the overall picture.
Things could have been and could be much much worse. Colin Weir has done our club a fantastic service, we now own the club and the stadium, lock stock and barrel and are debt free. Thanks to Mr Weirs generosity we are as a club in an truly enviable position. OK, we do not at present have strong leadership off the pitch, but surely we can and will get the club moving in the right direction. Thankfully, we are not in the grip of mercenary vulture capitalists bleeding our club dry of every dollar & cent.
Alan Archibald as a player, was tasked out of the blue to take over a promotion chasing team and managed to galvanise the team into winning the championship. As a rookie boss he managed to keep us in the top flight for 5 seasons, with no director of football, or ultra experienced assistant holding his hand and leading the way. Sure, Archie has his faults, who doesn't? Nevertheless, both he and Shaggy deserve great credit for keeping as up for so long in the top flight and for hitting the top six.
I first remember Ian McCall as manager of Clydebank where he worked minor miracles for them in very trying circumstances. I always thought that he would go on to achieve great things in football management, I know he has had some success, but I have always had the hunch that he would go on to do something really special, I think in some ways Ian McCall is a managerial underachiever.
Sometimes you can put people together and they amount to much more than the sum of their parts. This is what I hope of in McCall & Archie, they both have different qualities that should compliment each other. Perhaps they were destined to work together at our club at this time?
I wanted Jim Goodwin to take over from Archie, I believed he was the right man at the time for our club, indeed I would say that the St Mirren job was the the wrong job for him, the obvious job, but the wrong one nevertheless. I will tell you something though if Goodwin (or any other manager) had been successful with us he would soon be off to pastures new.
Due to the solid and stable footing of our club, I truly believe, that given time; Ian McCall and Alan Archibald will build one of the best and most successful Thistle teams that any of us have ever seen.
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13 hours ago, Kingleo said:
I Hope that that gang of imposters and failures are being run hard over a thawing loch this morning. Hopeless wasters
Absolutely.
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6 hours ago, BowenBoys said:
That's me, Andy. I don't seek to disparage but I understand that it can come across as "clever".
I'm old and I know that my views on the use of English may seem old-fashioned.
Reading some posts actually hurts. The forum is all about written communication. If a poster wants to make a point then it is best done by using the conventions of written English. I shouldn't have to try to interpret what a poster is trying to say. That defeats the purpose of writing anything.
It's just I have seen a few posters ripped to bits because of their writing being perceived as not good enough.
The points they made, whether good, bad or indifferent were ignored, not deemed worthy of any consideration or debate and they were basically just made fools of. I can think of a couple of posters that this has happened to and understandably, they don't post anymore.
It just doesn't seem right to me, I don't like that kind of thing.
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Some of the posts are not my cup of tea. I find some of threads very boring and struggle to read them. However, I don't have to read them, it's not like I am stuck in a room with folk droning on and on, or being subjected to some dull as dishwasher speaker at some god awful event, who's in love with their own voice, that's steadily making me lose the will to live.
I am not keen on the following though:
People who rip it out of others because they are deemed to have a poor standard of writing. I think these "clever" people are the ignorant ones and not those that they seek to disparage.
You have the morality police, the ones that say things like there is "no place" for views, thoughts, or opinions like this in "today's society". These folk have some front, thinking they can go about, laying down their law. Who do they think they are?
Then you have the characters that always shout about "diversity", until it's a something that they don't agree with, then they suddenly become very reactionary and diversity goes right out the window.
Some of the folk on this forum aren't too easy breezy. That's for sure.
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Thought Penicuik were very good, seen worse teams come away with a win.
Our team is very poor, think we have too many rotten apples in the barrel and it really isn't helping matters.
We have a smattering of honest pros that have the guts to stand up and be counted, take pride in themselves and the club and refuse to hide and drift through games. Sadly, this is countered with the fact that we've far too many wasters, bums and passengers, that are at best, totally and utterly anonymous.
Let's be honest, who in their right minds would want to "take on" many of these players?
Can't see this being sorted out in a single transfer window.
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You can't please everyone can you? and nothing lasts forever.
Nevertheless, let's put it this way;
Nicola Sturgeon - SNP - widely supported and respected by her own.
Ruth Davidson - Conservative - widely supported and respected by her own.
Kezia Dugdale - Labour - not widely respected or supported by her own.
Was Kezia Dugdale's leadership held in poor regard by Labour people because she is a women, or was it because she was a total calamity in the job and unable to provide what her own people wanted?
All this Tories have no place a Firhill stuff, is (IMO) nothing more than bigotry.
I couldn't care less that JLow was a woman, or that she was a Tory. It was her inability to do the job that bothered me.
Jlow couldn't run a bath, never mind run a football club.
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13 hours ago, Semi Nurainen said:
He and the other poster deliberately and ridiculously misinterpreted what I wrote and continue to misinterpret not to mention refusing to answer poins), when the meaning was clear, in order to make a cheap debating point; 'wassock'; was getting off lightly. More Boris Johnson, really.
You want more Boris Johnson?...........cool
Have to say, I agree with Javeajag on this one, I would take TFE over the consortium any day of the week.
Colin Weir has done much good for Thistle. Furthermore, I would much rather see Colin invest his money in Thistle, rather than waste it on the SNP
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To be honest, I've seen a lot worse. Both teams at least tried to play football and the game could have gone either way.
I think once the decks have been shuffled a bit in January we will start to move forward.
Delighted to have Ian McCall and Archie back, think they will compliment each other and will be a greater force than the sum of their parts.
I also hope that Colin Weir buys the club.
We didn't become a bad team overnight and we won't become a good one overnight either.
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5 hours ago, scotty said:
Surely a lot of this is wishful thinking?
No
5 hours ago, scotty said:Do you know these things or are you just, like many of the posters on this thread putting forward your tuppence worth?
I am just speculating. What are you doing?
Pot, kettle, black.
5 hours ago, scotty said:Have you even taken into consideration that Colin Weir is not in the best of health and that he and his wife have been reported to have separated?
Yes, that's why I think they may be selling the club.
5 hours ago, scotty said:A thread which is so full of conjecture, egotistcal one upmanship, guesswork and malicious rumourmongering cannot be good for the health of the club.
Which respect, you're talking nonsense. It's the people running our club that are overwhelmingly responsible for it's health.
What is wrong with people expressing their opinions on a forum? That's what it's there for.
Why do you want to shut down debate?
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3 minutes ago, jaf said:
Why would you think that the fans and the weirs would be bankers to support the status quo?
I don't think the Jags Trust would go for the consortium buy out, although I may be wrong. They may not support the status quo either. I don't know.
I think the Weir's 10% share and the Partick Thistle Supporters Trust 20% share are one of the same thing, a 30% share block controlled by the Weir's.
On the face of it with the Weir Thistle Academy, the training complex , the Colin Weir stand, general generosity, largesse etc etc, most people would be forgiven in thinking that the Weir's have a long term ongoing commitment to Thistle and it's therefore not possible, that the Weir's are actively touting to sell their share of the club.
As previously posted, I think because the way the numbers stack, that it's probably the Weir's who are engaged with the consortium.
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29 minutes ago, jaf said:
So Colin Weir gets a board member (10%) but the supporters do not (allegedly 27%)?
It's more than a bit odd, is it not?
Some may say that the Weir's own 30% of the club!
However, if we add together the Weir's, The Partick Thistle Football Club Trust and the Jags Trust shares, all of whom (you would think) would be considered as bankers for supporting the status quo. This combined shareholding amounts to 37% of the total shares in the club.
If this is the case, the consortium has to buy 51% out of the remaining 63% of shares, which are scattered far and wide. This is a big ask. In these circumstances it is extremely difficult to see how they'll be able to buy the club.
Perhaps, it's the Weir's that are selling? if so, then it's a completely different ball game. Some might say, that the consortium would then only have to buy 21% out of the remaining 70% of shares to own our club.
Stranger things have happened.
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6 hours ago, Thistleberight said:
What I want in my keeper is a shot stopper and a general at the back. Constantly communicating with the back line. That's what we get with Fox. Remember when he was out injured? we were a little lost with him out.
Funny, how. people see things differently. I thought he was pretty poor at organising the back line. When he got injured, I believed it was a blessing in disguise, as Paul Gallagher was a much better keeper in every respect and pretty much saved our season.
Hope you're proved to be right Thistleberight, I really do
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Funny you should post this CCjag.
I took my boy up to Cathkin Park last night to show him. His Grandad and great uncle were big Third's supporters and sadly his Grandad passed away a year before my boy was born. Think there must have been a bit of reincarnation going on as they are both very like one another.
Not long before my father in law passed I took him Cathkin Park, he was kind of forgetful, but remembered everything about Third Lanark, and was very animated telling me about it all.
I also remember as a kid, you used to get cheap plastic footballs (which were always rock hard, misshaped and flat) with all the different teams names printed on the panels, Third Lanark's name was still always on the balls and this was the mid 1970's!
It's a very sad tale though, how financial mismanagement/dishonesty totally destroyed the club.
I have never seen the footage your father shot. Thanks for sharing it. I hate it when old grounds are demolished and clubs move to Lego land stadiums, but it's incomparable to a club dying out.
I hope by some miracle, someone, somewhere brings Third Lanark back and that they rebuild Cathkin Park to its former glory. It's a weird wonderful place. That's for sure
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Sorry don't rate Scott Fox at all.
Very slow to get down for low shots, not good with catching the ball at crosses and generally flounces about a lot. Never mind he's a Thistle "legend" and will get by as a he was part of the championship team that's so fondly remembered.
The first season up, much is correctly made of the contribution, in the seasons second half by Higgy and Lyle Taylor. However, of as much importance was Scott Fox getting injured and Paul Gallagher getting put between the sticks, all the big mans saves, bravery and organisational skills helped keep us up that year. If Fox hadn't been injured I think we would have gone down.
Hope to be proved wrong. He reminds me of Cammy Bell.
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1 hour ago, West of Scotland said:
Widely reported? Let's see:
The Daily Mail posts a non-story with no attributable sources or real information, a eighteen-month-old quote from the owners of Barnsley, and a single line from the club, where they say it's "business as usual." That's clearly an intern who is paid buttons to lift rumours from facebook.
The Scottish Sun repeats the story almost word for word with the same quotes, stating that they learned it from the Daily Mail. No news, no information.
The Herald has an "unnamed businessman" (pal of the reporter) giving his opinion of the generalities of whether or not Scottish football clubs may or may not be of interest to foreign investors. No news. No information.
The BBC "football gossip" page, has a link to the Daily Mail article.
Apart from that, if we hadn't signed an ex-currant bun, we wouldn't have even registered as a blip on any other site in the past week.
As a demonstration of how utterly dead journalism is this could be featured in Private Eye but, there is absolutely nothing to this story except for someone "in the know" on facebook.
If anyone has found any actual facts, please correct me.
There's no smoke without fire? There's no smoke without smoke.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go soak my computer in bleach after visiting those disgusting websites.
Fair comment, perhaps the consortium takeover bid wasn't widely reported by "every" major newspaper. Nevertheless, it was reported on by the The Sun, The Herald, The Daily Mail and The BBC.
If you're right and it's no more than rumours or gossip. Why don't the club simply issue a statement of the "facts", stating that there's no truth whatsoever, in the alleged takeover bid?
If the club were to put out such a statement, it would certainly help to clear up the matter and bring all this wild speculation to a close
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8 minutes ago, javeajag said:
Ok I assume today has been a bit warm and your feeling confused.....
the guys rumored to be buying us are not venture capitalists they are investors in businesses and at the moment they have a strategy in football although it may not be clear to us what exactly what that is
the present board representing anybody when they don’t actually own a share is a bit of a stretch but they will need to ensure they represent the interests of all shareholders......you do have to laugh
so why should we support the present board ? I think you need to check the hostile bid stuff this isn’t Sainsburys and Asda.... we are a private company with a turnover smaller than the subclub !
Why would you not sell ? Suddenly you have shares no one ever thought would be worth anything in the money ? It’s not like the last two years have been outstanding or we are going anywhere.
lets turn it round forget the potential new owners present your case for the existing owners to continue .,....
a board with no financial commitment to the club nor connection to it
an unclear relationship between the board and shareholders
a supporters trust that is captive by the board and a sham
no articulated strategy for the club
poor business
So on the hand change might not be bad ie it might be good !!!!
Perhaps the board will be good enough to make a statement. It would certainly help to clear matters up and put an end to all this mindless speculation
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7 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:
Why haven't who ?
What is the medium for the current shareholders to do so ? As I said, the board may not know any more than we do and the current shareholders are all private individuals.
If we look at who holds the shares and when you add up the Weir's, The Partick Thistle Football Club Trust and the Jags Trust, all of whom would be considered as bankers for supporting the present board, this shareholding amounts to 37% of the shares in the club.
This takeover bid is not just a Facebook, forum or twitter rumour. It has been widely reported in all major newspapers.
If the present board were against the takeover they could declare it as a hostile bid and would only have to gain the support of 14% out of the remaining 63% of shares. When you consider the make up of this 63%, with most of them having been with the club through thick and thin, it shouldn't be too hard to secure the numbers to see off a hostile bid.
I am really struggling to get my head round, to why so many long term shareholders, should suddenly all come together, wanting to sell their club to venture capitalists. It just doesn't add up.
Today's Thursday, the club have had all week to put out a statement. I would have expected something along the lines of the present board being the best people to steer the club into the future, talking about the work of the Academy, the forthcoming Davie McParland training ground. The importance of keeping Thistle as a community club. I would also have expected them to come out with all guns blazing fighting for the future of our club............Nothing........not a cheap.........not a whimper...........The silence is deafening.
My take on it?
The Partick Thistle Football Club Trust seems to be a sham. It's a Trust that's supposed to benefit supporters, but doesn't appear to have any known supporters as documented beneficiaries.
I must say that, that it looks very much like the Weirs control 29% of the club and have JLow doing their bidding.
I would also guess that the Weir's (for whatever reason) want to sell up and the most expedient way of doing this is to sell the club in its entirety.
I might be right. I might be wrong. But this is what I think.
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22 minutes ago, Dick Dastardly said:
or maybe they were contacted, but nobody was interested in selling and the investors have gone away
Perhaps.
They could make a statement to this effect and put an end to much of the speculation.
Why haven't they?
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13 minutes ago, Dick Dastardly said:
But the chair may know as little as we do. Remember that the board (as has been reported ad infinitum on here) are not share holders, so will have had little need for contact with anyone wanting to buy any shares that may, or may not be up for sale.
Perhaps the chair is babysitting 30% of the shares and trying to shepherd another 21% to make a sale?
Who knows?
As the old saying goes - there's no smoke without fire - somethings gone/going on.
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Again this is speculation.
We all seem to under the impression that it's long term Thistle shareholders that have come together to sell the club. Many are re assured by this, as they know these people through their actions and deeds over many years and understandably believe that they've the best interests of the club at heart.
Say it's not the long term share holders, perhaps it could be the Weir's wanting to sell their personal share (for whatever reason) combined with the shares of the Partick Thistle Football Club Trust. This comes in at just under 30% of the club.
If this is the case. It really puts a different light on things.
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The Partick Thistle Football Club Trust is a legal entity that owns 20% of the club.
As we know Trustees have been appointed by the club. The appointed Trustees control what happens to this 20% share of the club.
The legal beneficiaries of the Trust are Thistle"supporters". The qualifying criteria to become a beneficiary is to hold a season ticket for the past 3 seasons. Season ticket holders details are obviously known to the club.
If the Trustees decided that it was in the best interests of the club to sell the shares to the consortium. The beneficiaries of the Trust would be entitled to any financial gain.
So, a Trust was set up to the benefit of supporters. Does anyone know of any supporter that's actually a certified beneficiary of the Trust?
There must be a few on here, surely?
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"It was asked if the Trust Deed would be available online for supporters to read. It was noted that fans could review the Trust Deed at the Club Offices, however there was currently no intention to publish the deed online."
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This might be a better question.
The Partick Thistle Football Club Trust has Trustees, this we know.
It is one thing to say that supporters are beneficiaries, however, how many supporters have actually been made beneficiaries? How many Jags fans have a legally binding document stating that they're beneficiaries of the Partick Thistle Football Club Trust?
There must be at least few hundred supporters known to the club, that meet the criteria to be card carrying beneficiaries of the Partick Thistle Football Club Trust?
There must be a good number on this forum?
New Chairman announced...
in Main Jags forum
Posted
This will not end well.