Woodstock Jag

I would like to thank the person in hospitality who gave McGowan Man of the Match. That was the most entertaining thing to have happened all game. He should have been hooked at half-time. McCall's substitutions (in terms of who he took off) were a nonsense. Really pish game. Robertson was very poor in defence.

We should replace the penalty shoot-out with a "dribble-out". The keeper has to stay on the line Until the player as first touched the ball, then the player has 10 seconds to dribble round the keeper. The ball must be dribbled into the net (i.e. the last touch from the dribbler must be within 2 feet of the goal-line and a goal is automatically awarded if the keeper makes contact with the player without taking the ball cleanly. If the player loses control of the ball then a horn should sound and they cannot continue. Do you agree, siggy?

Just go in, then approach a steward and say you accidentally went in the home end and ask to be escorted to the away end.

Started replying shortly after the edit, but before refreshing the page so never noticed.

It's only taken him 7 games to work McGlynn out....

Pretty sure Dunfermline scored 4 at Firhill last season. This season it's been 0-2 Dunfermline, 1-2 Stirling Albion, 1-1 Ross County, 6-1 Stirling Albion, 3-1 QOTS. We'll only draw a First Division side in the League Cup and Scottish Cup anyway. Probably the same team that we'll draw in our second Challenge Cup game. I wouldn't rule out Morton for 4th (they're on a reasonable run), but I think Dundee will get it they haven't lost in the league since the 25th of September which was before they entered administration.

We've now lost only one game in the league in 4 months.

I think we are.

Servicing our debt and paying our bills. We can't do anything about police costs. They're imposed on us and already subsidised. Welcome to Scottish Football: il n'y a pas d'argent.

Some of our players are being paid an absolute pittance. Indeed barely double that magic JSA figure. The harsh reality is that for all the jiggery pokery with the numbers from our directors we lose £200k+ a year on current crowds and wages even with the Warriors pumping in £100kpa, and we have one of if not the smallest player budget(s) in the First Division ignoring the part-time teams. Dundee have trialists playing for free because these players are, for the most part, out of contract and using Dundee as an opportunity to attract interest from clubs in the summer. They are limited to 3 games and they cannot otherwise get game-time. We cannot afford to slash gate prices and pay for it by slashing the player budget. We have a mediocre team as it is and in order to make the football affordable to the people you mention it means having to cut the entrance fee by about half or more. That means we then need to increase the people through the gate by as much as 50%-100% just to stand still. If we then savagely cut the player budget the attendances will plummet when we're in a relegation battle, 2nd Division football, lower crowds and back to square one. Football is too expensive for would be punters and current punters: absolutely. But the harsh reality is that if Thistle cut their ticket prices they'll probably go out of business.

Whilst all this is true, we're going to die regardless. Giving a Jobseeker a concession entry at £12 isn't going to make the football any more affordable than paying the full whack at £17. If you cut the ticket prices to say £10 per person per game, what good would it do? Immediately decreases the Club's income by circa £14k a game on a 2000 gate and means you'd need a gate of 3400 (not going to happen) at every game just to stand still. The harsh reality is you probably couldn't get 5000 people into Firhill for a regular league game if everyone was let in for free.

And my remark when I used the word "now" referred quite specifically to MY timescale, which was this season and if the trend continues, likely beyond. And they suddenly don't "count" as games then? The question you asked was for occasions when we would have "struggled" to fill the North Stand. I provided you with those where we failed to fill it and a couple where we barely exceeded it. Stop shifting the goalposts. So what? Midweek games are still real games. They still count. Just because Barca are playing doesn't somehow mean that Thistle are excused from having to have 2000 at a football match to fit your argument. The 3 against promoted teams - so what? Last season only ONE GAME at Firhill in the league failed to get past 2100 and it was a midweek right at the very end of the season. This season we're only in March and have 6 home games left and yet already we have 5 games that have failed to hit 2024 and another 2 in the league that barely make it. The two weeks around Christmas thing also does not follow. Last season our last home game before Christmas took in 4453 fans and the Boxing Day game took in 2766. The season before that the figures are 2292 and 2465. The season before that the December figures were 2388, 2176 and 3611, followed by a New Year game bumper of 3299.

The operative word being "now". Let's just go through all the games this season where the attendance has been within 30 of the North Stand official capacity, shall we? Saturday 24th July - Clyde (Challenge Cup) - 1759 Saturday 10th August - Berwick Rangers (Challenge Cup) - 931 Tuesday 24th August - Falkirk (League Cup) - 1619 Saturday 4th September - Ayr United (QF Alba Cup) - 1831 Saturday 11th September - Stirling Albion - 1994 Saturday 30th October - Cowdenbeath - 1841 Saturday 11th December - Ross County - 1509 Sunday 26th December - Raith Rovers - 2036 Saturday 15th January - Stirling Albion - 1749 Tuesday 18th January - Falkirk (Scottish Cup Replay) - 2024 Tuesday 8th March - Queen of the South - 1001 Which gives us 11 of the 17 competitive fixtures at Firhill this season "struggling" and 9 of them "failing". 7 of 12 league fixtures "struggling" and 5 "failing". Highest Crowd: 2801 (Dundee) Average Crowd in league this season: 2152 For comparison purposes, the average attendance last season was 2636, the highest crowd was 4453 against Dundee, we had 7 games with a crowd higher than this season's highest in the league, and only 4 league games under 2200 (one of which was televised) and only one league game under 1500 (1151 midweek against Raith Rovers in April). We also had two League Cup and one Challenge Cup fixture at Firhill: 1472 v Berwick, 1527 v QOTS and 1746 v ICT.

Harsh reality is we only need the Jackie Husband stand. Edit: and at a lot of games now, we wouldn't even fill the North Stand....

Am I the only one who is absolutely livid every time the BBC call our top scorer "Doohlan" on their website? They're still at it click Fair enough, they made the mistake when he scored on debut at Palmerston: they won't have had any Wikipedia records to consult as he hadn't ever played for a senior team, and they might not have picked up on news coverage of the signing, and just heard the name over the phone or something, but ffs he's been with us for two seasons now and still the stray 'h'?

Given Queens' Borders locality, next time they come up to Firhill on a cold, wet, Tuesday evening with a beach for a pitch, I think a we'll need a rendition of "Only here for the rugby! You're only here for the rugby...."

Do you really think that would bring in more medium-long-term revenue than the Warriors?

I don't see where McGowan fits into our team. He's no better or worse than anything we already have except maybe a long-throw. Not that it's any use given we're incredibly static at throw-ins.

Queens are rotten. That said Fox made a couple of very good saves and but for the last 10 minutes or so I reckon he was probably a good shout for MOTM. Doolan's goal was a cracking one. Erskine's was slotted away nicely making-up for a below-par performance although he was crowded out quite a bit. Fraser's goal was well taken too, and he could easily have had a second. We're no great shakes, but we'll be safe with what we've got.

A wee bump of this. You can visit the Jagscast website at http://jagscast.blogspot.com/

The ignis sponsorship deal is ending so unless that's renewed they'll need a new set anyway. Suppose might as well take-up marketing opportunity for a new one there and then.

Alan Dickson interview available here Many thanks to ian_mac for taking the time to interview Alan and of course to the man himself. A fantastic look through Thistle history.

Alan Dickson's interview will be up within an hour. Stay tuned!

It's in its own thread as well but might as well catch the post-match ramblers! Jagscast This week we take a look at terrible goals, league reconstruction, why it's great to be a Jag and investigate a conspiracy theory as to the love interests of a member of the Wunderteam forward, the Austrian international Matthias Sindelar. Chris Erskine and Matthias Sindelar I can't tell the difference!

Clicky This week we take a look at terrible goals, league reconstruction, why it's great to be a Jag and investigate a conspiracy theory as to the love interests of a member of the Wunderteam forward, the Austrian international Matthias Sindelar. Have we found Chris Erskine's ancestor? Edit: we also have the belated Alan Dickson interview! It should be available either Sunday evening on our new soundcloud channel [hat tip to the admins for suggesting it] or else some point on Monday. Stay alert on Wednesday/Thursday for a possible mini-cast for the Queens game. Edit 2: Visit the Jagscast Blog, keeping all podcasts from now on in one place!