Woodstock Jag

If a Thistle fan won the Euromillions, cleared the debt, paid off McCall, brought back Lambie, redeveloped the ground to 4 sides with two stands of 4000, one of 2000 and a 2000 safe standing area behind the City end, built up a state-of-the-art Youth Academy at Twechar, invested modestly into the first team so we won promotion then came 3rd in the SPL the following year with a team of Dorrans-esque youth sparks, got to the semi-final stage of the Europa Cup, being eliminated on away goals by the eventual winners, Hamburg, having surprisingly won the game in Germany 1-0... Will you change your username to gaz?

Thanks for the vote of confidence

The Dundee Courier is a complete and utter lapdog. Around the time of the Harkins signing, they were eating out of Melville's palms. The P&J hardly ever challenges the internal problems at the Dons. Almost everything is just manager rent-a-quote or a big exclusive on the next big stadium redevelopment/replacement idea before it fails and gets swept under the carpet until Aberdeen unveil another one. Actually... that's quite a parallel...

Impecunious?

He didn't name call though, which is sort of my point.

If you put yourself forward to run a football Club and you don't do it properly, in so doing leaving it in peril on and off the pitch, it's perfectly legitimate for the fans of that Club to criticise your record. Unless you are suggesting, as the Chairman seems to suggest, that people should only have the right to criticise those who they are better than at something... in which case no one in the Jackie Husband Stand would have the right to criticise Liam Buchanan every time he sclaffs a shot 2 foot wide, or every time Willie Bombscare swings his arms at the ball like a pair of axes.

In fairness, MTM didn't actually insult anyone as an individual in his e-mail to the Chairman. He stuck pretty rigidly to attacking their record, which given his apparent state of intoxication is frankly impressive!

Your username can't be a good starting point

Because Buchanan is crocked, football seems all erm... all Ancient Greek to the so-called Greek and the other options are youth players (i.e. Burns) who hasn't had a look-in all season.

More than that. 4 in 3. 1 v Cowden, 2 v Ayr and 1 today. Doolan is the only player to have scored in three consecutive competitive fixtures since Ian McCall became manager. Doolan is our ONLY goal threat of late. Only player even to have scored in one or more of our last 5 competitive matches, the only striker to have scored in the 8 competitive games we've played since the start of the league season, and McCall subs him when we desperately needed a goal, he was having a reasonable game, had already scored, and where the game was so finely balanced that defeat would send us bottom of the league. Why? For McCall's sake, he'd better have been subbed following a knock.

He seemed to pull up a bit really early on when he went onto the gravel. I'd have probably still subbed him today but I suspect that's why he was subbed when he was.

I'm talking about the balance of play. We looked comfortable after taking the lead and should have hammered that advantage home. We had all the possession and continued to press. Then they broke away and equalised and we started to crumble big-time. Same old story.

Taking off Doolan when he was the only real scoring threat left me absolutely speechless. First half we completely outplayed them, second half up to about 10 minutes after we scored, it was 1-0 going on 3-0 or 4-0. The way we capitulated after they equalised though... it could have been a 4-1 reverse. If I were Doolan I'd be absolutely raging at McCall for not giving me the full 90 minutes. Worth mentioning that Paton tried to use his left foot a fair bit today, and actually did okay with it. McNamara looked classy all game but was let down by his poor defending for the 2nd goal. We noticed that their 2nd actually came from a position where Cairney baulked at shooting just outside the 18 yard box and instead opted to pass sideways which was closed down and they broke away. So frustrating.

Honest opinion? Couldn't care less!

Working as a chartered accountant brings in a more stable source of income than chancing full time coaching/management.

Some senior players "below minimum wage", and but for the security Ian Cameron has in his job as a Chartered Accountant, he would see him as a future Thistle manager. I took down a lot of what was said at the MTM and at the request of THW there will be something vaguely giving semblance of sense up some point late tomorrow. Edit: Oh and he doesn't believe we'll go part-time and thinks the Challenge Cup Draw is "shit".

... to join on the night. Sorry, that should have been clearer. It was a partial cut and paste job from previous programme articles/web articles which also mentioned how people could join on the night or by the website. If people need to renew I'd recommend doing so on the night rather than online for the next day or so as the membership roster may or may not be updated to reflect it in time.

I think it's mostly been down to Chris being quite busy of late so being unable to host. All home games should have a HW.

I think we need to try to keep the current situation on and off the pitch divorced from the allegation of spitting. Gobbing at people is absolutely disgusting and if, given there is no reason to disbelieve Tam and others, it is true, the person concerned should be utterly ashamed of themselves. Thistle fans have reason to be cynical about a lot of things, but this isn't one of them.

To be honest, it really depends on what radiator you're talking about. If we're talking about those in the Aitken Suite, McCall is probably in with a good shout of a win.

Cup ties with Rangers helped plug the annual budget deficit. Greaves deal impact is anyone's guess. Harkins and Twaddle helped with the downpayment on a debt to HMRC Rugby money is substantial. Without it we'd be losing even more money every year. PropCo only reduces the overall debt and the level of interest repayments on our debt to the BOS. The core of our problems results from two issues. One is cash-flow. Put simply our overdraft is so substantial that we are put in a vulnerable position if there is a spell of poor attendances and unimpressive levels of gate money. The second issue is that the interest payments on our core bank debt make up the vast majority of the losses we make every season. For example if you take last season where we lost more than £200k, all but about £30k of that loss could have been averted if we didn't have a debt which was accruing interest. I don't know the exact situation with all other Clubs, but certainly many are in dire straights too. Dundee, for example, don't own their ground (it's owned by Dundee United director Bennett!) and rely on crowds regularly in excess of 4000 to support their budget. Dunfermline lost something like half a million pounds in 2009 and are about 11 million in debt, mostly in the form of soft loans to directors. They don't own their stadium (again owned by a director IIRC) and would be in serious danger if those debts were ever recalled. Queen of the South have had their budget massacred after (by all accounts) having more than used up all the money from their Cup runs and Euro exploits (Davie Rae doesn't seem willing to throw as much of his own cash at them either). Dougie Rae at Morton's patience , you'd think, will wear thin soon having thrown a fair bit of cash at them in the not to recent past for little return. Falkirk don't own their stadium (Council owned) and have a parachute payment from the SPL to assist them. Raith Rovers run a hybrid team (mostly full-time following some of their cup money from last season allowing them to replace 2 part-time players with full-time ones and move another to a full-time contract, leaving 4 part-time players). Their cup run covered their operating debt and allowed them to decrease their structural debt a little. The ownership of their stadium is (IIRC) a bit of an ugly mix and not directly by the football Club. Ross County seem to do well out of their Youth Academy. I don't know about their wider financial situation though. And Stirling and Cowdenbeath are Part-time. The lesson we can draw? Pretty much all FT clubs are either sustaining considerable losses or are being backed by an external investor. Given our weakness both with respect to cash-flow and how much and to whom we owe our structural debt, we are especially vulnerable. Simple maths says it doesn't add up to pay full-time wages when it puts the Club at risk of being wound-up through being unable to pay its debt repayments. Whilst you do have to account for the greater risk of relegation and likely drop-off in crowd numbers, PT football has to be considered as a serious option. We ultimately have to ask ourselves if we'd rather take the risk of having a team which generally yo-yos between First and Second Divisions or no Club at all. If we keep losing money like we are just now, the latter is a very serious risk.

Trial by 1831 person jury.

We were comfortable except a wee spell in the 2nd half. Doolan was unlucky not to be able to get on the end of a couple of chances to complete his hat-trick. Buchanan penalty that never was was a stonewaller. Bannigan did well as did Paton in the first half. Jaggie Mac was classy which covered quite well his lack of match fitness. Semi-Finals. Job done.

As per David's statement yesterday, the situation changes if no ground is made towards a resolution soon.

Update on attempts to hold meeting with Club Board Clicky