Woodstock Jag

On Project 2000, it’s what it says on the tin. It’s an overarching goal to grow the membership of the organisation to more than 2000 members, so that it represents a larger proportion of Thistle fans, raises more money than before that can go into supporting the Club, Academy, Women’s team and the supporter experience. That’s it. Nothing fancy, just a target. If we don’t meet it, we can’t (significantly) increase the levels of financial support we currently provide. That’s the consequence. Lots of things have been done since that target was set to make progress towards this. We had a list of initiatives under that banner which mainly involved better aligning the relationship between the Club and the Foundation, which individually sound small and are probably taken for granted by those not involved in the day to day, but which simply weren’t in place last year. It’s included getting the Club to actively promote the Foundation to fans (something that simply didn’t used to happen). This has been done in email signatures, on the website, in their newsletter and so on. It’s included using Club media platforms to explain to other audiences what the Foundation is and why it’s here (including Jamie’s interview on JagsZone for the hospitality takeover/foundation shirt day). It’s included the Foundation shirts initiative itself, which was (timing-wise) responsible for most of our membership growth this season and was a deliberate and symbolic attempt to remind people that we are now a fan owned football club and that it means something. When we announced the aspiration to reach 2000 members our membership was a little over 1600. It’s now over 1800. It’s included trying to work with the Club to improve the fan experience and to provide more explicit member benefits. To give just one example, this season TJF members had extended to them the hospitality discount that was, historically, only available to season ticket holders. There’s more to do in this area and it’s not always a straightforward endeavour (there are always those who complain that somehow TJF members are being given too much, a take I personally find bizarre), but progress is being made there. We’ve been working with the fan reps this season to support their universities and colleges outreach work, which has as its ultimate goal fan acquisition. Our partnership with PTWFC is also an important part of that, as it brings the Thistle brand to a new audience. The Captain’s Sponsorship there brings a member benefit in the form of a regular prize draw for tickets. If members have ideas about how we can make further progress towards the target we’re always keen to hear them.

You literally don’t understand what the phrase “if you can’t take it, don’t dish it out” means do you? Representatives past and present of TJF “take it” (it being abuse, false allegations, disproportionate criticism) literally all the time from (thankfully) a small and vocal minority of our support. We put up with it (sometimes rather more than we really should). It’s the price of being democratically elected representatives. We robustly defend ourselves. We are no shrinking violets. Some of those critics really don’t like it when their own words or actions attract a bit of scrutiny, or they’re held to the same standards they would have others held to.

Or put another way, don’t dish it out if you can’t take it back.

I agree with almost every word laukat. It wasn’t a terrible performance, just not a pretty one, and clearly dictated by personnel and fatigue/fitness levels. And Ayr looked very ordinary. This is far from over just yet.

One bad defensive error in a game that otherwise would have probably seen a draw as a fair result. It's clear the squad is tiring and (much like at Stark's Park last season) an early goal will be vital on Friday to keep the tie alive. Referee absolutely honking this evening. Obscene number of yellow cards handed out relative to what was warranted and at least one clear penalty denied.

Worth saying this error happened on the old ticketing system! Fanbase platform only started getting used this season.

From memory, the capacity of the John Lambie stand has to (for safety certificate reasons) be lower where there's unallocated seating vs where there is allocated seating. So my guess is about 1200+ sold already if fewer than 500 left.

The proliferation of injuries (including long-term injuries) over and above what is typical has left us short of fit players at the end of the season. The actual squad size is (objectively) a perfectly reasonable one. A first team squad of 21, consisting of: 2 Goalkeepers 6 Defenders (I've excluded Drysdale) 6 Midfielders 4 Wingers 3 Strikers supplemented by 4 players from the development squad including: 1 Youth Goalkeeper 1 Youth Defender 2 Youth Midfielders should not, even allowing for (say) 4 long-term injuries and the occasional knock, leave us short of fit players at the end of the season. Our problem has been that Lawless, McKay, Martin, Stanway and Mackenzie (and in the first half of the season, Mitchell and Muirhead) all suffered sustained periods unavailable or not fully fit, whilst a large number of players have also picked-up short-term injuries in games themselves (Chalmers, Reid, Megwa, Kelly, Banzo plus his suspensions and Jakubiak). You really can't pre-empt for that except by having a significantly larger than average squad. Something for which, simply put, there wasn't the budget.

I am ready to be hurt again.

The Livi Thistle feed is on iPlayer. Watching it now. Pitch looks a total riddy.

It is true that the top 12 ranked leagues in UEFA have a larger top flight than Scotland. However, I think this is correlation rather than causation. There is a confounding variable, as the mathematicians would put it. The strongest predictor of having a larger top flight is being a bigger country (one with 10 million or more people). Only Norway, Serbia, Bulgaria and Belarus can really be said to buck this trend, and of those, only the first ranks in UEFA's top 20. Other strong trends are that: (a) countries with population similar to Scotland's are much more likely to have a 12 team league, or failing that, a 14 or 10 team league (b) if those leagues with 12 or 14 teams have a fixture calendar with at least 30 games, it almost always involves a split (Hungary and Bosnia are the outliers, and they play three round robins) (c) while there are different ways of splitting leagues of 12, 14 or 16 to get beyond 30 games, this is generally done such that teams that have performed similarly well are playing 3 or 4 times a season What is unusual about Scotland's split is that it happens relatively late-on in the league season (after 3 round robins). Another common way of doing the split has been still 6-6, but after two round robins (basically what the SWPL1 does). But to get even above 30 league games with that format, you've then still got to play another 8+ post-split games, which gets you right back to playing some teams 4 times. This is a very long-winded way of saying I understand why the split exists, and it's not just because of a desire for 4 Old Firm games. I think we do the status quo a disservice on that, even if we think it would be better replaced.

A larger Championship, on its own, without expanding the Premiership, would (IMO) be a complete disaster. It's not going to improve attendances (Stenhousemuir won't bring the crowd Falkirk do, let's not pretend otherwise). It's not going to improve the quality of the product on the park. It simply brings a pool of the very worst full-time football teams and a handful of part-timers into the second tier. It's not going to improve prize-money or TV/sponsorship (on sponsorship the opposite will be true as on average clubs will receive less money even if you pool some of the League One pot into the new league, as it's being split among more clubs). It's not going to reduce the number of meaningless or uncompetitive games; it risks increasing it if you have a league with a big gulf between its full-time and part-time participants. Playing teams 4 times a season might seem repetitive, but going down to 2 or 3 times a season doesn't mean you're going to get only the 2 or 3 most exciting ones. We had to play Falkirk 4 times before we got an enjoyable one this year! The elephant in the room here is that the prize-money isn't split equitably enough, and the solidarity money is being shamelessly hoovered-up by the Premiership clubs. Almost every other league in Europe distributes UEFA solidarity money down the leagues. Scotland (and Italy) are outliers. The SPFL, SFA and top flight clubs say they want an environment to bring through young talent, and then they consistently reach agreements that raise the barriers to more than the largest of football clubs being able to invest in doing it properly. League reconstruction is a distraction.

... they finish above us for a superior head-to-head record. So you're right. 4-4 is the most Thistle outcome.

No it isn't. Drawing 3-3 with Livi after conceding a late equaliser, but Raith winning 4-0 with a late 4th is the most Thistley outcome!

You could have stopped there tbh!

Ahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahaa

I can think of several ways it would save money, but it depends entirely on what they need and what's on offer. If an arrangement means that the Club is taking on short-term lets instead of (say) putting someone up in a hotel or AirBNB that will save money. If an arrangement includes a sponsorship contra arrangement, that will save money. And yes, if someone is out there and willing (for whatever reason) to charge below market rate for a vacant property then that will save money. If you don't ask the answer is always no.

I don't know if we did. I used him as an example of a Scottish player, based in Scotland, who needed to relocate to the central belt to take-up full time football, having signed from another Scottish football team based more than 2.5 hours away by public transport or car. The point was that the accommodation appeal does not imply that signings will come from England. If you live in Carlisle, or Newcastle or Manchester, the commute to Glasgow will be comparable, perhaps even shorter, than for players in other parts of Scotland. Others have mentioned on this thread that Aaron Muirhead (from the Borders) was put-up in digs for a while, as was (central belt-based!) James Penrice. So it's not a remarkable thing to do to say that, if staff need to relocate to take-up a position, assistance with short-term accommodation is a sensible thing to have on-tap and ready. It doesn't imply anything about signing policy, be that the nationality or the residency of those being recruited. If we are competing for other Scottish players, based in Scotland, playing for other Scottish clubs, there will be cases where we are competing with other Clubs who are offering support with accommodation/relocation. If we aren't, we are putting ourselves at a competitive disadvantage.

I’m sure folk will be delighted to discover when we lose out on the next Harry Milne from Cove, Peterhead, County, Inverness or Arbroath because Morton or Ayr put him up in digs for a couple of months, but we didn’t have somewhere cheap and cheerful to put him while he got sorted. Probably hear chatter about “lack of ambition” and “no strategy” while we’re at it.

David Klein played for us in 2001, having previously turned out for Clydebank. Dmytro Pronevych played for us in 2005, having previously been on trial at Kilmarnock. Gabrielle Piccolo played for us between 2013 and 2014. Armand One had spent three seasons in English football before playing for us between 2004 and 2005. Viteslav Mooc played for us in 2008. Stephane Bonnes spent 4 years on the books at Celtic before we played him in the 2003-04 season. So six examples of players, all of whom were signed more than a decade ago, and only two of whom were signed less than two decades ago. Several of whom played for Scottish or English teams before we signed them. Which to me suggests: Scottish teams have, since at least the 1990s, always signed the occasional overseas player (mainly EU-based ones because of freedom of movement and, to a lesser extent, the Bosman ruling) It isn't particularly a fad that's grown (if anything, there's been a bit of a reverse in overseas signings by Scottish teams in more recent years) There's no evidence that Thistle have pursued a "sign them because they're foreign" strategy - the reality is there has been a "sign them on a short-term deal because they're free agents/have impressed in a trial or available for cheap from their parent club" strategy

My point was we aren’t prone to it at all.

I don’t think this take holds up. With the exception of Terry Ablade (who is Finnish and contracted to an English team) every player in the Thistle first team squad is either Scottish or, in the only two cases of those that aren’t, are from England or Ireland and were signed directly from Scottish clubs (Englishman Megwa from Hibs, Irishman O’Reilly from Raith Rovers). Even taking account of Wasiri, Roberts, Sayers and Nilsson leaving (3 English, the other from an English youth set-up) the non-Scottish contingent in this season’s Thistle squad is bang average by numbers.

Relocation payments are common in this and other industries for those who incur extra costs moving to take up a new role. There’s no obvious reason why you’d restrict this artificially to football players. Being in a position to cover someone’s accommodation for a few weeks (for example) might mean they can start their role sooner. Whether that’s a new goalkeeper from Wrexham, a physio from Peterhead, a commercial manager needing to relocate from Rotherham, or a new head coach from Genova, the same principle applies.

This is a really boring piece of comms from the Club. It doesn’t imply anything at all about the signing policy at all. Sometimes accommodation support is part of the package when clubs in this division sign new players from further afield, be that a significant distance away but still in Scotland, from the rest of the UK, or from abroad. Absent commercial partnerships or preferential arrangements, you end up paying market rate, and competing with the general rental market for short hotel stays/AirBNBs or for short-term lets. This means you can’t offer as much on wages and other clubs have an edge over you in securing your targets. Last year, Morton literally bought a (shell of a) flat, got some of their sponsors and local trades to renovate it at discounted rates and for sponsorship contra deals, and it can now be used to put up players/other club staff in the process of relocating or only temporarily joining them. Other Clubs have directors, owners or sponsors who are also landlords and/or letting agents. This is just an exercise in understanding what options are out there in the Thistle community, to get more predictable access to short-term accommodation at (hopefully) preferential rates.