Club Philosophy

[erty13]

Fans have all the power.

 

No fans = no income.

 

The sad part of this equation is that by the time most fans realise they could do something it is normally too late.

 

The two outcome are

 

1. fans slowly drify away the club has a slow death

2. the bank makes a sudden change and the plug gets pulled.

 

Both options are currently both likely.

 

erty13

[northernsoul]

What has it got to do with the fans? Are you being serious?

The club is the fans without them it would be nothing.

If enough fans really objected would the property deal have got through?

 

It doesn't help that the BoD chose not to disclose certain information of the property deal to the Trust.

 

The complexity of the proposal was bad enough but how can you expect the normal fan to know the in depth details if the Trust were not provided all the information?

[patons left foot]

Good god We have only played 3 games and we are moaning already.Just think to-day you could be an Wigan supporter or a Dundee United supporter or even worse a Rangers supporter going to bed to-night worrying what the papers are going to say tomorrow morning about Alan Mcgregor!

[Big Col]

The season is young - lots still to play for. If we had hit consistent levels of pure fitba there is only one way to go. As it stands, things can only get better.

 

Yes the club is in financial bother but we are stuck with the current regime for the forseeable future so we need to make the best of it.

 

Football has always been a rollercoaster and that is what is great about it.

[Steven H]

We're going in circles here. With that in mind, I'll repeat myself. This is the war of the flea and the dog if it has to be fought.

 

For anyone who wants changes at board level organise a small but vocal group of shareholders to make a complete and utter nuisance of themselves. Take 100 shareholders, write a series of form letters and get each shareholder to send a letter a week. The continual pressure would sicken even the most hard-headed, bull necked of people.

 

Organise a group of 250 season ticket holders and have that group demand refunds on their season tickets. Make legitimate complaints about the standard of the 'product' and services. Do it over and over again. The club does not have the resources to deal with that. Snow the club under with emails and letters, and I mean snow. One or two won't cut it. One hundred will get someone's attention.

 

The question is, do you want to take your club closer to the brink? If you're going to tear something down you'd better have a plan to rebuild or make something better.

 

Three thousand Jags fans protesting is never going to happen. It's fiddling while Rome burns.

 

100 Shareholders would be no good, there are about 6 people (or groups of people) who own so many shares that they can basically decide amongst themselves what to do about X, Y and Z issues. We could protest, we could boycott, we could kick up the biggest fuss ever but, as you rightly say, without a plan to rebuild/improve things its all just lipservice.

 

If the Jags Trust, or any other group of fans, could get one of the main shareholders to back them and get one or two major investors then maybe change can be forced....however I doubt it very much. There appears to be no-one interested in investing in Thistle and the major shareholders are the same culprits people have been moaning about anyway. Would we accept Jim Oliver back? Would he be thinking along different lines to the current BoD? What about the McMasters or Springfords? Imo it would be a big fat no to all questions.

[McKennan]

100 Shareholders would be no good, there are about 6 people (or groups of people) who own so many shares that they can basically decide amongst themselves what to do about X, Y and Z issues. We could protest, we could boycott, we could kick up the biggest fuss ever but, as you rightly say, without a plan to rebuild/improve things its all just lipservice.

 

 

You didn't read my post, did you? Maybe you read what you want or expect to see. Default mode - those on the board have all the shares so naebdi kin dae nuthin'.

 

Read my post again. It's not about votes, it's about jamming up the works, it's about not co-operating, it's about paperwork. It's about putting the club in a situation where it has to reply to hundreds of issues raised by the paying customer that will only cease when there's change.

Edited August 23, 2010 by McKennan

[Dr.D]

I'm afraid lots of paperwork can be easily tossed into a bin without response. Same with E-Mails. Personal confrontation with these people seems the only way to embarass them in front of their Guests. Surely McMaster clan should also be targeted to hand back their shares to the remaining shareholders who are still around including the Trust.

[Steven H]

You didn't read my post, did you? Maybe you read what you want or expect to see. Default mode - those on the board have all the shares so naebdi kin dae nuthin'.

 

Read my post again. It's not about votes, it's about jamming up the works, it's about not co-operating, it's about paperwork. It's about putting the club in a situation where it has to reply to hundreds of issues raised by the paying customer that will only cease when there's change.

 

I did read your post but was only responding to the bit I'd put in bold. The rest of your post I agree with, should've maybe have made that clear. As for the default mode, it is not those on the board who own all the shares, the major shareholders of Partick Thistle are not on the BoD with the exception of Jim Oliver (who I believe is in an honourary position).

[McKennan]

Very true, but if people realise that it doesn't need a huge shareholding to make these changes, that sustained action from a small number of people can succeed, cracks will appear. Hell, the foundations are shakey enough. It can be done - but the price is damaging the club.

 

If people think Thistle is being run so badly that another hole in another wall is a price worth paying, will they go for it?

[McKennan]

I'm afraid lots of paperwork can be easily tossed into a bin without response. Same with E-Mails. Personal confrontation with these people seems the only way to embarass them in front of their Guests. Surely McMaster clan should also be targeted to hand back their shares to the remaining shareholders who are still around including the Trust.

 

Very unfortunate choice of words there, given what happened to Dick Campbell's family a few years ago. It's not the fault of anyone's family. That suggestion should also make the administrators of this website uncomfortable.

 

D, don't make the people at the club out to be supermen. They're not. Emails and letters work, they just have to be from the right people and delivered in a sustained manner.

 

Imagine 250 letters arrive in the office. Maybe the majority comes from fans but what if one is a bill, a cheque or the like and isn't opened? If you run a business and 250 of your customers suddenly want their money back or tear down your reputation, you'll panic.

[Guest mod4]

I don't think the poster in question meant "target" on a personal level (rather a formal level). However, any inferences of encouraging personal abuse on the forum will be frowned upon.

[Dr.D]

I don't think the poster in question meant "target" on a personal level (rather a formal level). However, any inferences of encouraging personal abuse on the forum will be frowned upon.

Quite right there guys. Perhaps being aware of feelings would have been better. The shares should not be considered as personal property and should be confined to the boardroom if not purchased through normal business dealings, i.e. as an investment.

[Collins Out!]

Very unfortunate choice of words there, given what happened to Dick Campbell's family a few years ago. It's not the fault of anyone's family. That suggestion should also make the administrators of this website uncomfortable.

 

D, don't make the people at the club out to be supermen. They're not. Emails and letters work, they just have to be from the right people and delivered in a sustained manner.

 

Imagine 250 letters arrive in the office. Maybe the majority comes from fans but what if one is a bill, a cheque or the like and isn't opened? If you run a business and 250 of your customers suddenly want their money back or tear down your reputation, you'll panic.

 

Nothing happened to them.

[Woodstock Jag]

Nothing happened to them.

 

I seem to recall it being mentioned that his family was subjected to some unwelcome behaviour while in the Jackie Husband Stand shortly before he was sacked, but then again I could be wrong.

[Gordie]

if you really want to bash the b.o.d, then join a Jags trust with some clout. The existing one will do, just need to get it pulling the one direction and you will have a say.

 

edited to add, i will join it when i feel the trust is doing just that

Edited August 23, 2010 by Gordie

[Phoenix]

It doesn't help that the BoD chose not to disclose certain information of the property deal to the Trust.

 

The complexity of the proposal was bad enough but how can you expect the normal fan to know the in depth details if the Trust were not provided all the information?

 

Was it not the Jags Trust own Board rep who chose not to disclose the information?

[Woodstock Jag]

Was it not the Jags Trust own Board rep who chose not to disclose the information?

 

The Trust set-up a working group with expertise in property matters, and asked the Club for a face to face meeting to discuss the ins and outs of the deal, but no effort was made by the Club to meet that request. The Trust Board Rep is, of course, bound by the infamous Confidentiality agreement, which restricts what the Club Board Rep can and can't report back to both the Trust Board and the Membership, but the question as to whether he withheld relevant information from the Trust Board is one you'd have to ask him personally. I'd be surprised if any substantial information that the Confidentiality agreement didn't prevent the Board Rep from passing on wasn't.

[McKennan]

Nothing happened to them.

 

Yeah. Right.

[McKennan]

I seem to recall it being mentioned that his family was subjected to some unwelcome behaviour while in the Jackie Husband Stand shortly before he was sacked, but then again I could be wrong.

 

No, you're not wrong. And it was well before he was sacked.

[Chris near Oxford]

Fan power can be of great power when something is seriously wrong and there is an obvious solution that fans can unite around.

 

However neither is the case for us. Most fans can see that the problem is the long term decline in supporter numbers, something that has been happening for decades, long before the current board and even before Dick Campbell. Our income is going down and the quality of players we have is falling with it. Thankfully we have not abandoned youth development, because that is the only long-term way of breaking even.

 

There is also no obvious solution. If there were someone willing to invest (I use the term loosely - perhaps "piss their money down a hole") in us with great plans to develop the club and bring us forward then we would have somewhere to go. But as far as I can see we have board members who are either not particularly rich or are not particularly willing to waste what money they do have.

 

There is also not anything particularly wrong with our manager. There is no obvious better solution - anything else looks like a wild lunge into the untried and unknown: and with our experiences of Murdo MacLeos, Sandy Clark, John McVeigh, Whyte & Britton, Gerry Collins and Tommy Bryce I can see the hesitation in making a step in the wrong direction.

 

As a club we have went through managers like bogroll. We need a bit of resolve to realise that some times managers have good seasons and sometimes they have bad seasons. A season with no money, where the quality of the squad has been depleted again is not really a fair time to judge his performance. He is doing the right thing by looking at the overall set up. He is the first manager in 30 years to be doing this and not going for the short term fix.

[kni]

 

There is also not anything particularly wrong with our manager. There is no obvious better solution - anything else looks like a wild lunge into the untried and unknown: and with our experiences of Murdo MacLeos, Sandy Clark, John McVeigh, Whyte & Britton, Gerry Collins and Tommy Bryce I can see the hesitation in making a step in the wrong direction.

 

As a club we have went through managers like bogroll. We need a bit of resolve to realise that some times managers have good seasons and sometimes they have bad seasons. A season with no money, where the quality of the squad has been depleted again is not really a fair time to judge his performance. He is doing the right thing by looking at the overall set up. He is the first manager in 30 years to be doing this and not going for the short term fix.

 

There is a lot wrong with McCall. His record without Britton is appalling. McCall's signings, often with 2 year contracts, have been mostly failures. I wonder how much it cost to pay off Corcoran.

 

We were the worst team in the league by far from January to the end of last season. Our strikers can't score against 1st Division opposition and Boyle is our only league scorer this season.

[Chris near Oxford]

There is a lot wrong with McCall. His record without Britton is appalling. McCall's signings, often with 2 year contracts, have been mostly failures. I wonder how much it cost to pay off Corcoran.

 

We were the worst team in the league by far from January to the end of last season. Our strikers can't score against 1st Division opposition and Boyle is our only league scorer this season.

 

I can see the problem is more how much money we are able to pay for strikers. We either have strikers that are at the end of their careers or are at the beginning of their careers and so, in essence, are a punt. Buchanan looks on the whole to have been a good punt, I can't quite tell on Erskine and Doolan yet.

 

Name a manager who didn't sign a bad or disappointing player? Lambie signed dross forwards such as Brian Gallagher, Andy Gibson, Isaac English.

 

Strikers are the hardest to buy. They are the most expensive players and there are not enough of them to go around. We are lucky in that Buchanan pre-injury was doing very well. He has obviously faded off and his confidence is low (hence rather pass than shoot) but he is fundamentally a good forward.

[Third Lanark]

I seem to recall it being mentioned that his family was subjected to some unwelcome behaviour while in the Jackie Husband Stand shortly before he was sacked, but then again I could be wrong.

I recall Gerry Collins saying in the press that he didnt think his wife and kids going to the game because they were going to be hearing a lot of abuse directed at him.

Dick Campbell said the same. None of the abuse was directed at their families. If there were people going to the game with the sole intentions or abusing Gerry Collins wife and kids or Dick Campbells wife and kids then some people need to take a good look at themselves.

[kni]

I can see the problem is more how much money we are able to pay for strikers. We either have strikers that are at the end of their careers or are at the beginning of their careers and so, in essence, are a punt. Buchanan looks on the whole to have been a good punt, I can't quite tell on Erskine and Doolan yet.

 

Name a manager who didn't sign a bad or disappointing player? Lambie signed dross forwards such as Brian Gallagher, Andy Gibson, Isaac English.

 

Strikers are the hardest to buy. They are the most expensive players and there are not enough of them to go around. We are lucky in that Buchanan pre-injury was doing very well. He has obviously faded off and his confidence is low (hence rather pass than shoot) but he is fundamentally a good forward.

 

Let's look at McCall's recent record - Paton (3 year contract) Hamilton, Boyle (2 year contract), Hodge (2 year contract), Corcoran (2 year contract, paid off after one) , Erskine (2 year contract), Doolan (2 year contract), Grehan (18 month contract), Shields (loan), Adams (loan), Kinniburgh (contract extension), Hinchcliffe (new contract).

 

The successes (Harkins, Twaddle, Cairney) are far fewer. Buchanan has faltered over the last 18 months. It was Campbell who brought in Tuffey, Robertson and Archie. There are several clubs with better squads on similar wages.

[Third Lanark]

Let's look at McCall's recent record - Paton (3 year contract) Hamilton, Boyle (2 year contract), Hodge (2 year contract), Corcoran (2 year contract, paid off after one) , Erskine (2 year contract), Doolan (2 year contract), Grehan (18 month contract), Shields (loan), Adams (loan), Kinniburgh (contract extension), Hinchcliffe (new contract).

 

The successes (Harkins, Twaddle, Cairney) are far fewer. Buchanan has faltered over the last 18 months. It was Campbell who brought in Tuffey, Robertson and Archie. There are several clubs with better squads on similar wages.

I dont think he has been a hugely standout player over the last 3 years or so