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Jags v Queen of the South


exiledjag
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2 hours ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:

Thinking the same. I doubt anyone knows for certain on here unless they're drainage experts, and even at that they'd probably require knowledge of the individual circumstances. 

Not a popular opinion, and one I'd have reservations about myself, but the groundsharing could be a blessing in disguise. Assuming the actual state of the pitch surface has had nothing to do with the cancellations (ie waterlogged regardless) then the additional income from rental to QP may be crucial. We already started the season £350K down in grant money in competition with most of the other league clubs. Each rearranged home fixture moved Saturday to Tuesday will result in a considerable drop in gate money and hospitality revenue plus likely higher outlay on lighting etc. Perhaps without the incremental income from QP we couldn't afford the quality or quantity in terms of our playing staff?

Of course if groundsharing is contributing to the postponements then we have to offset these Saturday to midweek drops in income against the rental. That would make the groundsharing agreement much less lucrative.

Just putting across another view of things. One I'm far from certain about so don't shoot me. 

There's no easy answer to this one.   The additional games played on the pitch, and the additional traffic on the wide areas where teams warm up and down, damages the grass and compacts the soil, making it less able to drain.  Ground staff have been 'opening up' the wide areas and covering them when rain is forecast, but there are limits to what these measures can achieve 

I think  you're absolutely right about the financial factors involved in the groundshare arrangements, and the benefits and risks involved in the Board's decision.  Given the financial impact of Covid, relegation, and the 350k hit, the decision to share is completely understandable, even if it may not work out as we might have hoped. 

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56 minutes ago, CotterJag said:

You're right FT, it would be no season ticket for me.

I can barely take football seriously on an artificial pitch. Maybe we could get a wee roof as well and it would be like futsal.

We've had a very nice surface in the past and need to get back to that.

An artificial pitch equals artificial football.

We really need to be a little more pragmatic and a little less precious about this. We play in Maryhill and can expect Maryhill weather.  I have a season ticket at a Belfast club. We put a plastic pitch down a number of years ago. It transformed the ground. The pitch is used every day.  Our Premier League, reserves, under 20's,ladies teams , all play on it. We've had N I ladies internationals, junior cup finals on it. Is the football as good? That's debated every week. (if we're not winning) If we were Barcelona I'd vote against it. We're not.

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I'm not a fan of so called plastic pitches. But if finances dictate we have to switch so be it. Would we lose many fans? I somehow doubt it would be more than a handful. Also worth reminding our best performance by fat this season was the 6 1 demolition of Hamilton where we played brilliantly. 

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1 hour ago, Fawlty Towers said:

That would be your right.

So this means then you only want us to play on a grass surface. I would then assume you want it to be a decent surface so that means playing the minimum number of games possible on it or spending more on its upkeep. Financially it is perfectly possible to survive with a grass pitch that does not generate any income as we have done in the past. However it does mean that we need to find income from other sources and inflation is going up, energy costs will increase and NI contributions will increase as well. These all impact directly on the club and will impact on the supporters as well. We also have to be constantly looking over our shoulder now in case other variants of Covid appear and restrictions possibly return.

As I have said it is not an easy decision and some will be unhappy but those making the decisions have to consider the bigger picture.

I feel so strongly about this, that I'd ban them completely to avoid any type of financial reward.

I'd never do anything to hurt our team financially, so the bit about not buying a season ticket, is, upon review, just not true.

Up The Jags.

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52 minutes ago, belfastjag said:

We really need to be a little more pragmatic and a little less precious about this. We play in Maryhill and can expect Maryhill weather.  I have a season ticket at a Belfast club. We put a plastic pitch down a number of years ago. It transformed the ground. The pitch is used every day.  Our Premier League, reserves, under 20's,ladies teams , all play on it. We've had N I ladies internationals, junior cup finals on it. Is the football as good? That's debated every week. (if we're not winning) If we were Barcelona I'd vote against it. We're not.

All fair comments and I do understand the argument.

They're not worth what we'd lose for me though.

As an example, and I know penalties have been missed on plastic but I'm sure even at my age, I'd score a penalty against any keeper on plastic. That would not be the case on grass.

If all pitches were plastic, there would be professional footballers playing that just would never have made the cut on grass pitches.

I know I'm a traditionalist when it comes to this but games on plastic just feel like a training kick about to me. 

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17 minutes ago, dl1971 said:

I'm not a fan of so called plastic pitches. But if finances dictate we have to switch so be it. Would we lose many fans? I somehow doubt it would be more than a handful. Also worth reminding our best performance by fat this season was the 6 1 demolition of Hamilton where we played brilliantly. 

That was an aberration- Hamilton’s pitch is/was so bad I actually gave up going there some time ago. 

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5 minutes ago, CotterJag said:

All fair comments and I do understand the argument.

They're not worth what we'd lose for me though.

As an example, and I know penalties have been missed on plastic but I'm sure even at my age, I'd score a penalty against any keeper on plastic. That would not be the case on grass.

If all pitches were plastic, there would be professional footballers playing that just would never have made the cut on grass pitches.

I know I'm a traditionalist when it comes to this but games on plastic just feel like a training kick about to me. 

I don't know what age you are,but I'm rightly on. When it was muted at Seaview our pitch was so bad I'd have settled for lino. That's nearly what we got. It took a good while for the club to get it right, and some fans and players never took to it. Opposing teams with grass hate it. But we haven't called a game off in years. You can teach an old dog new tricks. I'm beginning to sound like that bloke in The Graduate "I've got only one thing to say to you Benjamin. Plastic" (that's how old I am)

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3 hours ago, dl1971 said:

I'm not a fan of so called plastic pitches. But if finances dictate we have to switch so be it. Would we lose many fans? 

I can only speak for myself tho' others I know have gone along similar lines. I'd certainly chuck in buying a season ticket but I'd no doubt attend a good few home games regardless. Put another way I wouldn't pay money to see us playing any games I considered not that important. When we aren't playing I used to watch other games only if played on grass. Can't emphasis enough my distaste for plastic pitches

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On 2/4/2022 at 8:54 AM, JAG1970 said:

Robbie Crawford reveals Ian McCall connection was behind Partick Thistle switch | Glasgow Times

“There is a real togetherness here and I think he’s done something similar to when I was at Ayr. When he came in there were a few cliques, the dressing room wasn’t together. But he managed to fix that.

“From my first three or four weeks here it’s definitely something similar to what he built at Ayr in terms of togetherness and team spirit. He puts a lot of thought into what boys are like, not just as players but as people, too.

Interesting. You could see and feel this sense of team spirit and togetherness  in the second half of last season when we faced that punishing run in. I think it was very noticeable  during the demolition of Montrose and  Falkirk,  in the general celebration of goals which involved all the players and the connection between players and fans.. 

This team spirit etc has clearly continued into this season and its good that new players like Crawford  feel they are welcomed into the dressing room.

Hopefully this team spirit and togetherness will see us through a similar second half of season this year.

I suspect the need to  protect team spirit and togetherness  might have contributed to IMC's  recommendation to the Board to let Rudden go.

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As an aside from the pitch discussion,  todays' results suited us (as did in the long term Arbroath's defeat of Kilmarnock).  In fact I think  some results last time we missed a game suited us.  We have lost very little ground and now have 2-4 games in hand over the teams above us.  I know the old adage that points are better to have but we don't have to win every game - a rn of draws would put us in the mix and a couple of wins would  shoot us right up.  

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There are so many myths about pitches which have poor drainage that if they persist become fact.

As a youngster I recall watching us play a summer cup match at Cappilow  where the ball brought up a spray of water everytime it was kicked/passed. This happened in the middle of a long dry spell! Asking why there was so much water I was told the pitch is always like that because it lies below the level of the River Clyde. Years later I heard this was rubbish and that upon inspection it was found that nearly every drain under the pitch had, over the years , become blocked or broken. All the drains were renewed, problem solved!

Similarly at Firhill I watched ground staff, players from both sides and volunteers sweep water off the pitch to get a game played. It had been raining heavily all morning but cleared to become a lovely sunny afternoon. I was looking forward to watching  my heroes,  under a clear blue sky,  trounce the opposition. The referee inspected the surface and it was game on. The setting perfect a warm sunny day with a verdant surface. 30 minutes into the match  the referee decided to  abandoned the game due to flooding. Apparently it was subsequently discovered that roughly a metre under the surface there was a rock hard layer of clay. Water drained down, hit the clay and came back up!!

I thought the clay was removed when we installed the undersold heating but perhaps its still there. If so then no wonder games are postponed as this would in addition to overuse certainly contribute to the pitch becoming  easily waterlogged.

 

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On 2/2/2022 at 11:54 PM, exiledjag said:

A must win game for us  Saturday.

With the exception of Arbroath v Killie (Friday night) the fixtures on Saturday have a top half  verses the bottom half of the league look.

If Arbroath v Killie is a draw and ICT, Raith and the Jags win the table will look like:

Arbroath 42 pts  (23 games)

Killie  41 pts (23 games)

ICT 41pts (24 games)

Raith 40pts (25 games)

Jags 39 pts (22 games)

Our catch up games are Morton (H) and ICT and Arbroath (both A); so perhaps not as good as the above looks. However our record at ICT isn't too bad and surely we are overdue a result against Arbroath!

Given Queens result v Raith I think we are looking at a very hard game on Saturday. If the team with a good attitude turns up then I would hope that would be good enough to give us a win.

 

 

Apologies for quoting myself.

So results failed to turn out as I thought they might. Arbroath won, ICT and Raith failed to win and we failed to play!

Results though generally went our way. How about the following league table:

1. Arbroath - 1.91 ppg

2. Kilmarnock -1.74 ppg

3. Jags - 1.71 ppg

4. ICT - 1.58 ppg

5. Raith Rovers - 1.52 ppg

I think we should call the leagues right now and go straight into the play-off stage. Tough on Raith though!!

Our catch-up games are now

Morton (H)

ICT (A)

Arbroath (A)

Queen of the South (H)

Morton under Imrie are still getting the new manager bounce but perhaps by the time we play them it hey will be getting back to normal! I still think 7 points is attainable though worry about the stop-start nature of playing for our momentum, rustiness and confidence and generally about frustration setting in!

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9 hours ago, dunnikierjag said:

I am sure the SPFL will be asking serious questions about our ability to finish this season while we are allowing QP to ground share.  Did Motherwell not have issues a few seasons ago about their amount of postponements. 

Maybe if we win our games in hand and find ourselves top of the league we'll be awarded the title on a points-per-game basis, because based on recent history that's fair.

Or we & QP end up having to complete our home fixtures at...Hampden :lol:

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2 hours ago, Mr Bunny said:

As an aside from the pitch discussion,  todays' results suited us (as did in the long term Arbroath's defeat of Kilmarnock).  In fact I think  some results last time we missed a game suited us.  We have lost very little ground and now have 2-4 games in hand over the teams above us.  I know the old adage that points are better to have but we don't have to win every game - a rn of draws would put us in the mix and a couple of wins would  shoot us right up.  

I am not sure that Arbroath winning is a better result than a draw.  It makes an assumption that either Arbroath will falter or Kilmarnock will start living up to pre season expectations. In my mind it is better if all the teams above us drop points every game.

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8 hours ago, belfastjag said:

I don't know what age you are,but I'm rightly on. When it was muted at Seaview our pitch was so bad I'd have settled for lino. That's nearly what we got. It took a good while for the club to get it right, and some fans and players never took to it. Opposing teams with grass hate it. But we haven't called a game off in years. You can teach an old dog new tricks. I'm beginning to sound like that bloke in The Graduate "I've got only one thing to say to you Benjamin. Plastic" (that's how old I am)

I'm 51 .

Was wondering how Jags fans would react given the choice of either;

a. Stay at Firhill and play on plastic

b. Move away from Firhill and play on a lovely grass pitch

I'm unsure myself at this point...

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13 hours ago, MonehJags said:

Maybe that NatureScot article explains the problem:

Their "sensors and computer forecasting will provide early warning of wet weather then move excess rainfall from housing and business sites to parts of the canal where, in preparation, the water level will have been deliberately lowered..........."

Oh, great, and then perhaps allowed to seep or even flow through the bottom of the canal onto or under the Firhill pitch??!!!

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4 hours ago, CotterJag said:

I'm 51 .

Was wondering how Jags fans would react given the choice of either;

a. Stay at Firhill and play on plastic

b. Move away from Firhill and play on a lovely grass pitch

I'm unsure myself at this point...

Move away? To where? The only potentially acceptable location for many fans among the various possibilities touted over the years was probably just on the other side of the canal, and possibly also Scotstoun Stadium, now both "out." And what would we probably get, a Lego 8,000-seater identical to various others? (Or more likely, half of that, with vague plans to "complete" the stadium at a later date......

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8 hours ago, CotterJag said:

I'm 51 .

Was wondering how Jags fans would react given the choice of either;

a. Stay at Firhill and play on plastic

b. Move away from Firhill and play on a lovely grass pitch

I'm unsure myself at this point...

Remaining at Firhill would be my priority with those choices as at least the plastic could be temporary but moving away would not and it would break my heart driving by in 5 years time to see a big ugly Aldi where there was once so many happy memories.

Lessons hopefully learned re ground-sharing and next season when back in the top flight the pitch will get a rest with winter break.  :fan:

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9 hours ago, CotterJag said:

I'm 51 .

Was wondering how Jags fans would react given the choice of either;

a. Stay at Firhill and play on plastic

b. Move away from Firhill and play on a lovely grass pitch

I'm unsure myself at this point...

You have, i think inadvertently, 'loaded question (b) by including the word 'lovely'.

Frankly I am not too bothered. The Jags have had many 'homes' in the club's life so another would make no difference. The advantage of moving would possible include:

a) a new stadium,

b) an area that gives us a bigger fan base (than Maryhill) but is also convenient for existing supporters to travel too ; rules out Springburn but perhaps not a return to Partick,

c) a 'lovely" grass pitch.

I have to admit that sometimes when I go to Firhill I find the place depressing. The derelict bing and the main stand which looks neglected remind me of former glories and seeing them now is soul destroying..

However if there is a plan to regenerate the canal area the authorities will not want a crumbling old football ground sitting in the middle of a modern communications network, or a designated  eco and nature reserve area.

As we don't have the money to modernise the stadium we may have to sell and move. What we must avoid is becoming like Clyde a nomadic club finally settling at Broadwood!

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