Fellow Traveller

I haven't got a clue which way we went. I said I thought we'd be a sneaky yes and we're certainly acting shifty since the vote, but it may just be down to some petty stubbornness after the chairman being forced to do an about turn on his stated wishes. Either way (and one's a lot worse than the other), the handling of this has been an absolute embarrassment.

Where on earth can someone like that go? <looks around> Hm...

To flip it on its head, I think any no vote from us will be through gritted teeth and we'll vote yes if we can possibly get away with it. Personal opinion, just a hunch, delighted to be proved wrong etc.

Don't start me! It's a very serious point, though. Looking at it purely through the business perspective beloved of our own board and one or two others, only a reckless idiot would jeopardise the stability of the league by letting in an applicant with such flimsy information to go on.

Before the inevitable crash of their website again, here's the latest Clyde FC statement. Bang on the money as per usual: Thu, 12th Jul 2012 2:40pm The Board of Clyde Football Club has received the papers in advance of tomorrows SFL meeting and will consider the Heads of Terms supplied. We continue to have the same fundamental concerns about this process, however the overriding concern is a point which we have made to the SFL. We have received absolutely no information on the organisation Sevco Scotland Ltd whom we are being asked, and encouraged, to vote straight into the top division of the SFL under resolution 2 and possibly into SFL 3 under Resolution 1. We have no business plan, list of directors, details of ownership, statement of capital adequacy or any proposals relating to the provision of any similar information in the near future. David Longmuir has clearly stated that he will distribute all the information he has got or is able to distribute. Whilst the notion that there is a leap of faith to be taken in terms of some of the matters, there can be no leap of faith with something as fundamental as knowing who is being admitted to the league. The very fact that there is no information of any kind being made available on this company undermines the authorities efforts to direct the new entrant to SFL 1. It is actually impossible for any member of the SFL to make an objective assessment of the proposals under Resolutions 1 and 2 and could be seen as irresponsible to support either proposal in such a void of information. It is our hope that some credibility can be introduced to this process and we would ask that whoever holds information on Sevco Scotland Ltd provides a full and detailed pack to David Longmuir in order that even at the eleventh hour the SFL clubs are given reason to support any Resolutions that they might wish to vote on. We have to assume that the SFA and SPL hold such information otherwise they would not press so heavily for entry to SFL 1. If a leap of faith is to be taken, then in the current circumstances it will be taken blindly and the only logical outcome of taking that kind of risk would be to enter them to SFL 3, where, should any subsequent issues arise they will be contained within the lowest league rather than disrupting the top flight of the SFL. The other matter that is entirely outside the gift of the SFL is the need for the SPL clubs to confirm that contrary to what Neil Doncaster stated on their behalf, the SPL will meet its obligations to the SFL under the Settlement Agreement.

We're all tired of it, understandably, but it's coming to the crunch with these meetings and the season (I hope) about to start, so might as well slog through it to the bitter end. The mind-numbing tactic of being such a constant and complete disappointment that folk get fed up and eventually just leave you to get on with it is a Scottish football classic from the Jags Trust to Craig Levein to the corruption of these administrators. Time should be up on that one.

There's still just no connection between the need to restructure and the placing of the newco and anyone who forces them into one bundle is immediately not to be trusted. Uncouple them, put newco in Div 3 and start discussing this plan on its own merits on Monday morning.

If automatic promotion and your own TV deal is a punishment, you have to wish they'd come down on us like a ton of bricks.

Diplomatically expressed!

But if the clubs are saying put sentiment and sporting notions aside and take a purely business viewpoint, they can hardly gripe if people make a financial judgment on the outcome. What they seem to want is for them to take purely financial decisions and fans to take purely sentimental ones. Well, that's a business gamble and it's theirs to make.

I'm probably exactly the sort of person Iain's not happy with. So we can agree to differ, but let's not have any cobblers about people looking for reasons to walk away. People are crying out for reasons to love their club and feel proud of the stand it has taken. It's the biggest open goal ever offered to a board of directors and all they need to do to have people throwing money at them is stand up for what's right without any further humming and hawing and "yes, but, no, but' rubbish. It's a sitter. Please, please, please, stick it away and let's get on with the season we were meant to have.

That's an outstanding demolition job. Imagine what a club like Livi might be making of this as they sit nursing a grievance and considering legal challenges to any preferential treatment if they try to force it through. It could all get ten times worse if they don't all just back down and accept SFL3. David Longmuir hasn't looked too great in this either, but he seems to retain some confidence among his member clubs, which has to count for something. How bad must Regan and Doncaster's double act have been last week to piss clubs off quite so badly? Mindboggling.

I'd love to know what you asked them. "As a Partick Thistle fan, I'm looking to closely replicate decades of disappointment, the occasional high and a lot of laughs with decent mates to make it all bearable as we go nowhere fast. I am well accustomed to taking defeat with a weary shrug, but would prefer if it was done fair and square. If your board are mostly useless and you have one or two massive clubs nearby who make you want to vomit on sight, that would also help make me feel at home. Make me an offer." Football's done OK out of me and my family over the years and the memories have been a very fair trade off for the time and money spent. But everyone has a line they won't cross without feeling like a total mug and Friday looks like either a fresh start for everything or the absolute end of it for me.

Looks like somebody will have to go back to whatever backstreet business school gave them a qualification to be an administrator and retake the lesson on How To Succeed By Lying and Threatening People. It would be more than justified if Friday's meeting produced a unanimous call from the SFL clubs for these men to resign

I really don't think anyone's talking about boycotts because boycotts are more in the nature of targeted actions to achieve a specific result. I've had a season ticket for maybe 34 or 35 years out of the last 38. In recent seasons, for a combination of family and business reasons, I've hardly been an active fan at all and it's taken this mess to make me admit to myself how much I was missing it. I would absolutely expect to take up a season ticket again in due course and become one of the old dodderers JJ says make up the decaying bulk of our support. But if there really isn't going to be even the pretence of a game that allows for the unpredictability that makes sport so exciting (and which has been Thistle's stock in trade for generations) then there's not going to be anything to come back to. So it's not going to be a boycott, just a parting of the ways. Life is full of other possibilities and they don't all have the stench of corruption about them.

Er, that's me. It's no big mystery. And I posted it on the blog so folk on here who don't like that sort of thing wouldn't be able to greet about it. Oh, well...

They're obviously going to come up with a package to offer the clubs midweek and then give them the chance to get it through by handing it over to the board who can decide "for the good of the game". I think when it gets to that stage it's all over anyway, so pressure on every club would still be the way to go. Say for argument a third are happy to vote for a deal, a third are against and a third are keen to have the deal but too scared to vote for it and then face their own fans (hello, Mr Beattie). This option would let them ease it through. It's the only reason for it to exist.

According to folk on Twitter... SFL board apparently: Gordon MacDougall (Livingston), Jim Ballantyne (Airdrie), Ewan Cameron (Alloa), Anne McKeown (Arbroath), Gilbert Lawrie (Dumbarton), Malky Mackay (Queens Park), Ken Ferguson (Brechin), Jim Leishman (Dunfermline).

So the first question gets past their rule of a club having tp be an associate member for four successive years just to get into the league at all, and the second one hops them up two divisions without any gutless chairmen having their fingerprints directly on it. Hard to see anything other than Div 1 or SPL2, whatever you choose to call it, because they will stop at absolutely nothing to bring this about. Clubs like Raith deserve all the credit in the world for their stance so far, but they're getting steamrollered pretty damn hard now.

You need to take your full billing now as David Stevenson - The Mentality We're Up Against.

With every day that goes by, you'd think this would be the most pressing problem. How can the SFL leave their clubs in so much doubt so close to the start of the season? Unbelievable. How can any club anywhere sell season tickets at the moment? Most significant part of the new Raith statement might be the last line: Are they possibly considering not even participating in this nonsense any longer? If clubs decide just to press ahead with the season as planned and run down the clock, can anything really be imposed on them at this late stage?

One of our fans on Twitter, not sure what his name is on here, spotted that Raith have another statement out tonight: http://www.raithrovers.net/3998/sfl-special-general-meeting-friday-13th-july-2012.htm Straight talking keeps coming from elsewhere.

Must cut both ways, though. For a small country, we get our football shown in a market 10 times the size. The price I'd expect to pay for that is that we don't get the prime kick-off slots, Scottish games maybe used as a lead-in to English games. That would be a pain (mainly for OF fans) but understandable. Getting your whole game gutted for it seems a bit much, though.

He's putting the imp back into impresario! I expect pre-match entertainment to kick up a notch now we've got our very own Sir Low Grade on the scene.

When in doubt, ask yourself what Captain Kirk would do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru