Fellow Traveller

Is football today as smart as it thinks it is? There's nothing about that 1980 Celtic game that I wouldn't happily pay to watch every week. Not that every game was like that - God knows it could be grim and clueless at times - but that "just mental" stuff is the stuff we desperately need back in the game. But it isn't coming back and neither are a lot of those fans.

Includes an article called Thistle: Glasgow's soccer gypsies.

He might be Jack the Ripper on his nights off, but on the day in question his crime seems to have been to be moderately intoxicated at a football match. He does sound like a fairly heavy drinker ("22-year-old in unhealthy lifestyle shocker!"), but he's not charged with being a poor role model, nor is he to blame for drink being the curse of Scotland. If he needs some help, I'm sure he'll now have a chance to get it, but any form of punishment on top of the publicity he's already having to endure would be a nonsense.

If this report is all there is to it, it would be a very good thing if the club, privately or even better publicly, put in a good word for this guy as regards the possibility of a banning order. That's a sanction for extreme cases and is brought into ridicule when it's mentioned in a case like this. Ask fans to drink responsibly and behave reasonably and hammer them if they disgrace the club, but also stand up for them when they might be getting a raw deal.

By any reasonable standards this is one of the dumbest things to ever happen. Really feel sorry for the guy concerned for being dragged into a situation where he's being criminalised and subjected to all this publicity for what looks like a mostly gutless system picking on a soft target.

I'm all for the fans putting maximum pressure on the current board over Propco - although it makes more sense to be putting pressure on the Propco board and investors, since the club's independent voice is non-existent in there - but two thoughts occur: What's the alternative now that we're here? Seriously. We've screamed and yelled and we're here anyway. So what's the alternative? Why aren't the custodians who set this whole thing up being tarred and feathered for their efforts? It will be a sad, sad day when the wrecking balls return, but at least some of them have cushioned the blow by allowing for a wee personal profit to accrue from the destruction of Firhill.

I'm no master tactician, but it would seem like getting all fired up and hungry for change would be a really great idea a couple of months before the JT elections instead of, as it always seems to be, a couple of months after them. I might think the current and recent JTB membership has been a catastrophic disaster zone for the fans and the club, but they have powers of endurance that none of the rest of us have shown. Endurance without any obvious purpose, but nonetheless...

I guess it's just one of those arithmetical miracles that the views they've received balance so perfectly, but if they say that's the feedback they've got, who can doubt it? Can't say I've come across a single fan discussing this issue who isn't either for or against and it's even more surprising that anyone would take the trouble to contact the JTB to urge them to park their bahookeys back on the fence on such a clearcut yes/no decision, but there you go.

When you say active, do you mean active i.e involved in doing stuff all year round, or do you just mean currently a paid-up member?

Something new or a JT that steps up to the plate. I really couldn't care less what it is or what it's called, so long as it's a listening and doing organisation. It's seriously embarrassing that the club doesn't have a highly active, visible and popular supporters' movement, but it's nobody's fault but our own. I've never found it much of a problem to take an interest in the club politics stuff and also participate in fundraising activities, but that seems to be where problems arise for many. So long as it's got more of a focus on people who want to do things rather than people who want to control things (and that's a big difference) it would be fun to join up. But, as others have said, if people can't be bothered to muster enthusiasm to spark life into the JT, what hope is there for something starting from scratch?

Absolutely. It's only because Mr Cowan, on whose every utterance I try to place my absolute faith, had said positively that the deal was for five years and no less than five years that I got a bit excited and thought maybe he'd got one right for once. What a fool I am.

Thanks for the clarification, David, because that really leapt out at me as a "WTF?" answer. Perhaps the update being sent to those of us who weren't there would be a fairer reflection of his reply if it said he didn't know offhand the exact date of the break rather than "if there was a release clause in the contract".

I'm another one who was completely ignorant of his achievements after leaving here. Excellent article and nifty to see the Tommy Bryce connection.

Thanks for the update, via email too. Lots of useful stuff in there. Just to pick up on one thing at the moment... What?! The prospect of Warriors exercising a break clause to leave for next season has been considered by the council and reported in the media and the chairman doesn't have the information as to whether such a clause exists or not?

August, '74. Pre-season game against Aalborg. Can't remember a damn thing about it except it seemed very exciting to me. Comparing that to the way I feel about pre-season friendlies now just shows what you lose as you get older and more jaded.

As you well know, Allan, I got involved, I put myself forward. My views on where the Trust needed to go were clearly not widely held as the members opted to head in a totally opposite direction. And that's fine - we've all seen how that's turned out. I didn't like who I was sitting round the table with, I wasn't prepared to piss away month after month on internal tussles and, as such, was clearly not fit for the role. External tussles, that's something else.

Thanks to everyone for the reports of the night. If these financial reports are accurate (and they're a lot more specific than anything we used to be told), the turnaround since these guys took charge is amazing, and happened just in the nick of time. I know we're being asked not to harp on about the past, but how can you not wonder at the chaos that was going on at the club before that? The kindest thing you could say about the former directors is that they didn't run a very tight ship. So thanks for your efforts, chaps, but don't embarrass yourselves by thinking you can lecture Beattie and Allan about finances, communication, management or how to be a worthy custodian of the club. I hate the whole Propco thing, but that isn't going to make it go away, so the only concern now has to be making sure it works as well as possible for Thistle's benefit. As for the Trust, if they decided not to enter the discussion and still vote against, then they are clearly finished. My money is on them caving in and clinging on. But I've got a tenner set aside if someone wants to set up something that really speaks to and for the fans.

I think I just get nervous every time the club board start having ideas and doing things. It's a shame they've made faith a bad word over the years when, in the absence of cash or success, it's the stuff football clubs live on. But when you're not sure which way to go, going the opposite way from the Trust is usually a fairly safe bet. They've been on the wrong side of every argument since Willjag was a boy. If the motion is defeated again, before anyone does anything hasty I think we'd be entitled to inquire what plans the objectors have for keeping the club alive. If all it amounts to is asking Beattie and Allan to pick up the tab while they stymie them at every turn, then we'll see just how bankrupt (or perhaps impecunious) they are in the ideas department. And then they should do the decent thing and bugger off, leaving the current board to get on with it, with all of us keeping a wary eye on what they do next. That's about the best we can hope for, but it's a lot better than the alternatives.

Indeed. A guarantee for five years either lasts for five years, guaranteed, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it's a misleading statement.

I'm another one who won't be in attendance on Thursday night. That's no great loss, but it's a shame so many people who have taken an interest in this topic won't be able to be there. To me that just highlights the weakness of board/fan communications being conducted via occasional set piece events like this rather than through a continuous process of open engagement, but there you go. Those who can be there will find it beneficial and hopefully reassuring so that's one small step.

This might be a good point to reflect on the words of our former chairman in April 2009: And now it turns out they have a get out clause and want to exercise it. Amazing how so many bold statements from the former directors have turned out, in time, to fall apart when put to the test. Whatever concerns exist about the current directors (and there's cause for a few), it'll be a good day when the club is freed from the stifling influence of that shower.

Whatever point you think you're making when you sing it, that's not what the rest of the (sane?) world hears. If you want to indulge yourself and at the same time drag Thistle into a shitstorm, keep singing it. If you actually care about the club, do them a favour and button it. Life isn't fair. That's another part you might have to learn to accept.

One thing that looks a bit off was the Trust holding Mr Prentice's proxy vote. If they wished to vote against the motion, so be it, but agreeing to also cast a proxy vote for a former director tends to give the impression, mistaken or otherwise, that they were part of an organised faction, a faction that has now been called out by David Beattie as wreckers. As a representative body, they should focus on being there for their members only and let Mr Prentice and any others find themselves some other willing stooge.

A thousand times yes to this. The previous directors may well be evil incarnate (or just a bit useless), but Beattie and Allan have to raise their game here and spell things out much more clearly. More facts and figures, less badge kissy bullshit. And then we might start getting somewhere we'd all like to see the club get to.

That's a positive aspect of all of this. The board would never acknowledge the conflict of interest problems before, over Propco or indeed allowing the McMaster shares to go off with him to another club. But now that the Trust, Eddie Prentice, Allan Cowan and others with their proxies tucked inside Gordon Peden's pocket have brought the whole conflict of interest issue to the fore, you have to assume they're now willing to discuss it in the terms jaf outlines. Why didn't the lawyer/chairman intervene at the time? Or the director/investor Prentice? Or the director/investor Beattie? Or the financial supremo/investor Hughes? I think it's absolutely terrific that these guys are now open to addressing the conflict issue and explaining their history with it. This is just the sort of open dealing I always knew deep down they believed in. (We could go back to PTF Developments as well, while we're at it.) You can only commend them for belatedly facing up to this, irrespective of any damage it might cast on their professional reputations.