On A Side Note

[ChewinGumMacaroonBaaaz]

The current PR c0ck up from PTFC Ltd has inspired some talk "fan ownership", Can't say I'm sold on the idea as others might see it nor that convinced it would be successfull at Firhill.

 

Regardless of their flaws, and current bloopers, I think we have much to be grateful to the current "custodians" for.... £3M to £600k in debt or something like that? Whether you agree with me about that or not the list of truely succesful "fan owned" clubs in the UK is not all that long nor is it inspiringly illustrious. Added to that the story of the The Jags Trust is not exactly one of unity and corporate tact achieving its' stated goals and aspirations.

 

I do beleive in fan power and hope the current display of solidarity over the NS results in a positive result for the masses. However, wouldn't it be good to have some financial clout over the established, and on the whole, currently, reasonably, ... argueably well run... ... ... .... surviving?... Ltd, co. without having to brandish the fans favourite weapon "that's me done/stick your season ticket up yer pipe". We all know that aint healthy for any club.

 

So... TAG ... So far, not much good. I'm being a bit flippant, but prize draws, dicounts i'm unlikely to use, membership cards and a glass of wine with a director don't really juice up my jaggyboz. I'm thinking, we're in the top flight for another season, We're told we're breaking even and in no imminent danger of armageddon but being asked to give more cash to people, who openly admit they are no experts, to spend on our club for ultimately our benefit.

 

So, while waiting for a peep from the hapless heid honchos 'bout the NS boo-boo, thought i'd run this up the ol' noo thread flag-pole for keyboard warrior target practice. It's mostly a re-mix of a previous post on a TAG thread, but never got much of a bite before. Maybe the past few days of director-fan disconnect might get a few folks thinking...

 

Scrap Tag. It would be a better idea to set up a club for those who can contribute a little more financially or with there time, on the basis free registration for those willing to volunteer and the creation of a fund generated by members who can afford it. The use of that fund being democratically decided by the members.

 

At the first stage, whatever you as member thought helpful, productive, commercial or even just fan friendly fun could be proposed. For example, toilet refurbishments, pie stal upgrade, employ a janny, disabled fan access and viewing improvements, add to Archie's player fund, donate to Thistle Weir, a 100x100 foot keep the north stand red and yellow flag!!!

 

A shortlist of such projects and others, recommended or requested by the board, could be whittled down through a series of online polls by the club members. A final vote would decide how any money raised is spent, or even saved or invested for a rainy day. That would give the members clarity on the direction and benefits of their contributions and their membership real power, value, significance and influence.

 

Some level of basic registration, without the benefits of Tag Core or Plus, free of charge to my mind is essential( there could be 2 levels of paying membership with certain benefits, but people coud give as little or as much as they felt able). Perhaps it would just mean being put on an e-mailing list or acces to an on-line forum similar to this, but that would serve as a statistics gathering and maketing tool for the club and help make potential contributors feel a little more "connected". We do not want those with an unnurtured interest being turned off if developing or even registering that interest starts to become costly without so much as seeing the team play!

 

Perhaps basic membership would involve some kind of voluntary service, programme selling, 50/50 draw selling, sweeping up, painting and decorating, flyering, flyer design, social networking, web/I.T. assistance....

 

The club would have to contribute the office space and possibly commit to staffing costs until it could fund itself. Current Tag prizes that would cost little to deliver, like team bus travel and e-mailed programes to Nomad fans are great, but the emphasis of such a club for a business running on a level such as the Jags Ltd. should be of the "ask not what your club can do for you, ask what you can do for your club" type."

 

Tag hopes to get 5000 on board spending 60-120 quid a year and if reaching that target raising, i approximate, £300k-£500k. Wouldn't it be nice if we all had at least a little say in how that was spent on our club, saved for our club, invested for our club?

 

Edited May 12, 2014 by ChewinGumMacaroonBaaaz

[ian_mac]

The debt was never as high as £3m. That was pure spin from Beattie.

[ChewinGumMacaroonBaaaz]

The debt was never as high as £3m. That was pure spin from Beattie.

 

Right... ... ... well .... ... ... Give us the real figures and let's talk about that if you want to and move on.

[jags365]

Right... ... ... well .... ... ... Give us the real figures and let's talk about that if you want to and move on.

Was approx £1.8M in debt, they then sold half of the debt to themselves (Propco) to take us down to approx £900k debt. However, reducing that by just over half in 3 years while winning promotion is decent but not spectacular.

Especially when you consider if we didn't have Harkins and Twaddle to sell....

[Norgethistle]

Would love to see fan ownership......... hell currently I'd rather have Oliver in charge

[jlsarmy]

Agree with a lot with Chewinggum says but the part about being grateful to the current board for the reduced debt kind of sticks in my throat. One of the things that Rangers fans are fighting against is any sell off of Ibrox, Murray Park and the Albion Car park, unfortunately for us we've already sold off 50% of the Main Stand and the City End of the ground, in effect for PTFC we've sold the Crown Jewels . Our main asset within the football club was the stadium that value has now been considerably diluted. When the propco deal was done we were told that the Main Stand and the City End would be redeveloped , probably determined by market conditions but that was back in 2009. I agree with Ian Mac think the debt at that time was probably about 1.6 million and the deal was done for about 800 thousand , therefore halving the debt . As far as I can see there has been very little investment in the Main Stand and now because we're in the Premier League that is now causing us problems. If the board of directors at the time saw this as a last resort then fair enough but if David Beattie , Billy Allan etc don't want any personal gain out of this then there should have been a buy back clause put in the deal to own the whole stadium when we were in a healthier state, then they could be classed as true supporters.

 

 

[allyo]

Would love to see fan ownership......... hell currently I'd rather have Oliver in charge

 

Sorry, I'm too busy

[Woodstock Jag]

My memory suggests we had £1.8million bank debt, and the sale of Harkins and Twaddle were used to eliminate/reduce arrears with the HMRC. It wouldn't surprise me if at one point the total debts exceeded £2 million but it probably wasn't as high as £3 million.

[David Stevenson]

Tag hopes to get 5000 on board spending 60-120 quid a year and if reaching that target raising, i approximate, £300k-£500k. Wouldn't it be nice if we all had at least a little say in how that was spent on our club, saved for our club, invested for our club?

 

 

A few years ago, I believe "cash for influence" was the direction that a number of members wished the Jags Trust to take rather than the "cash for nothing" situation preferred by the BoD. To the former end, the 1876 Fund was set up by the JT. It built up quite nicely, though on a modest scale until it was subsumed into the Centenary Fund as a result of a voting "coup" within the Trust orchestrated by Club Board members and some allies within the JT. Part of that arrangement was that the Trust was to be allocated extra shares. That has never happened and says a lot about the trustworthiness of those involved on the Club side. In parallel, the Trust has been completely sidelined in terms of influence. It is sadly shunned by the Club and also by many fans. I imagine membership is on a one-way track downwards as a result. Whatever ones views of the Trust, that situation is not serving the fans well and is possibly what the BoD had hoped for in the first place.

 

We also have half our stadium hawked off to Propco. The only thing which has allowed the stadium to remain intact has been the financial and property collapse since 2007. The planning application which was ultimately accepted by the City Council looks appalling.

 

On the other side of the country, Hearts fans are in the position of having the opportunity of owning their club, lock, stock and barrel (no pun on their departed manager intended). They need to raise £6M over 5 years to do so. A tall order, no doubt about it: equivalent to £120 a year from 10,000 fans. We don't have that number of fans unfortunately, though as JJ pointed out elsewhere, the aim is to ultimately have 5000 registered fans in TAG, so I suppose if we raise our sights, it could perhaps be done. TAG really doesn't attract me though. As far as I can see, it is a continuation of the cash for nothing principle with a wee pat on the head for being daft numpties and continuing to sign up to it.

 

I currently donate £120 via the Centenary Fund for no return (bar a signed shirt that I didn't collect back in the McCall era). Given the crap we often have to put up with from the club, it is seriously grudged. If there were 1000 fans capable of directing £120 to a "purchase" fund, we would be on the same footing as the Hearts fans (in respect of the amount of cash that Propco generated). Jambos will get something for their money. We don't. In fact, we get taken for granted and viewed as an inconvenience. It may always have been thus for football fans, but perhaps those days are coming to an end.

[lady-isobel-barnett]

The debt was never as high as £3m. That was pure spin from Beattie.

 

It's all spin. Beattie just needs to add the word "projected". Used to.do it in another life myself. If I hadn't stepped in and blah blah our projected debt would've been £3m. Actually I'm surprised he stopped there.

[yoda-jag]

Agree with a lot with Chewinggum says but the part about being grateful to the current board for the reduced debt kind of sticks in my throat. One of the things that Rangers fans are fighting against is any sell off of Ibrox, Murray Park and the Albion Car park, unfortunately for us we've already sold off 50% of the Main Stand and the City End of the ground, in effect for PTFC we've sold the Crown Jewels . Our main asset within the football club was the stadium that value has now been considerably diluted. When the propco deal was done we were told that the Main Stand and the City End would be redeveloped , probably determined by market conditions but that was back in 2009. I agree with Ian Mac think the debt at that time was probably about 1.6 million and the deal was done for about 800 thousand , therefore halving the debt . As far as I can see there has been very little investment in the Main Stand and now because we're in the Premier League that is now causing us problems. If the board of directors at the time saw this as a last resort then fair enough but if David Beattie , Billy Allan etc don't want any personal gain out of this then there should have been a buy back clause put in the deal to own the whole stadium when we were in a healthier state, then they could be classed as true supporters.

 

correct me if i'm wrong, but was one of the lines we were fed at the time of armageddon propco, not "it's thistle minded folk" that were investing in propco?

like jlsarmy it sticks in my craw too the selling off of half of firhill to propco, but (we were told by them, our "trusted custodians") that it was the only option to save the club at the time.

i agree with the loose proposal that somehow it would be better if we, as a collective of supporters, could get an increasing influence in ptfc with goal of either part or full fan ownership (but that would be a long term project to achieve), through as suggested rebranding and restructing tag and where the money generated goes.

if the propco members are indeed so staunchly "thistle minded" as i believe we were told 7 or so years ago, then they would gain themselves much respect and goodwill if they committed to a arrangement that saw the ptfc support over a period of several years buy out propco and return the 50% of firhill back to the full ownership of the club.

 

so, i lay down that challenge to the propco board if they are reading this forum and thread (i know some do, so hello!) ..... come out and publically say you are willing to discuss with fans groups the possibility of propco selling back your ownership of 50% of firhill to the ptfc support. show us how "thistle minded" you really are.

 

 

 

Would love to see fan ownership......... hell currently I'd rather have Oliver in charge

 

knew how to come up with a brilliant stadium design at least, he did.

[yoda-jag]

A few years ago, I believe "cash for influence" was the direction that a number of members wished the Jags Trust to take rather than the "cash for nothing" situation preferred by the BoD. To the former end, the 1876 Fund was set up by the JT. It built up quite nicely, though on a modest scale until it was subsumed into the Centenary Fund as a result of a voting "coup" within the Trust orchestrated by Club Board members and some allies within the JT. Part of that arrangement was that the Trust was to be allocated extra shares. That has never happened and says a lot about the trustworthiness of those involved on the Club side. In parallel, the Trust has been completely sidelined in terms of influence. It is sadly shunned by the Club and also by many fans. I imagine membership is on a one-way track downwards as a result. Whatever ones views of the Trust, that situation is not serving the fans well and is possibly what the BoD had hoped for in the first place.

 

We also have half our stadium hawked off to Propco. The only thing which has allowed the stadium to remain intact has been the financial and property collapse since 2007. The planning application which was ultimately accepted by the City Council looks appalling.

 

On the other side of the country, Hearts fans are in the position of having the opportunity of owning their club, lock, stock and barrel (no pun on their departed manager intended). They need to raise £6M over 5 years to do so. A tall order, no doubt about it: equivalent to £120 a year from 10,000 fans. We don't have that number of fans unfortunately, though as JJ pointed out elsewhere, the aim is to ultimately have 5000 registered fans in TAG, so I suppose if we raise our sights, it could perhaps be done. TAG really doesn't attract me though. As far as I can see, it is a continuation of the cash for nothing principle with a wee pat on the head for being daft numpties and continuing to sign up to it.

 

I currently donate £120 via the Centenary Fund for no return (bar a signed shirt that I didn't collect back in the McCall era). Given the crap we often have to put up with from the club, it is seriously grudged. If there were 1000 fans capable of directing £120 to a "purchase" fund, we would be on the same footing as the Hearts fans (in respect of the amount of cash that Propco generated). Jambos will get something for their money. We don't. In fact, we get taken for granted and viewed as an inconvenience. It may always have been thus for football fans, but perhaps those days are coming to an end.

 

excellent post.

[ChewinGumMacaroonBaaaz]

@ David Stevenson

 

I advise any Jagsfan to stop paying for the centenary fund if you do not think it's worth it, or worse do not think it is suitably well run. I've never been so close to the club to know exactly how precarious the finances are, but I'd be extremely surprised if it ever went under due to that sham failing.

 

To my mind the minute the trust leadership tried to do business with the club was the minute to walk away. Seat on the board? shares in the club? Fools gold. It's independence was it raison d'etre. It's strongest hand was to be strong for the club NOT strong with it.

 

What happened with the trust was a shame. Good jags people, with real love for the club and absolutely no desire to damage it, seemed to have f*cked it too. It promised so much.

 

However y'gotta learn from mistakes. And sometimes you gotta simplfy to learn and move on. That is what i'm suggesting.

Edited May 12, 2014 by ChewinGumMacaroonBaaaz

[ChewinGumMacaroonBaaaz]

@ Yoda

 

I don't think it is unimaginable that a mass fan collective driven propco buy-out is possible. However the scale of the challenge may be bigger and murkier than I currently perceive it.

 

Originally, led to understand PTFC "owned" 50% of Firhill developments and investor's staked £1m approx for the other 50% anticipating a 5% return. We didn't sell half but effectively 1 quarter. But I doubt the truth in that and contractual realities.

 

Regardless, we gotta start getting more value from the club. I still say gate prices are too high!

[David Stevenson]

CGMB:

 

Fair enough, but I'm not sure that what you are suggesting is much different from where we are at the moment really. The Club has volunteer helpers in a number of roles and the JT has donated cash to specific projects when requested by the Club. OneThistle has been a conduit of support also. None of these gain influence with the BoD or management and I would see a "vote for a project" situation as a sop.

 

If I have understood JJ correctly from previous contributions, he sees TAG as a means to gain such influence by showing willing and providing cash and support. I'm far from convinced that will be successful.

 

Re the CF, I'm not sure the facts have ever been unequivocally laid out, but it has been implied/stated many times that the previous Director associated with running the scheme took a wage of £35Kpa. For running a sweep, badly. I saw it as a donation to the Club and found the implication that i was effectively just making a donation to a Director more than a bit galling. Despite that, I have not yet got to the stage of cancelling, but when the well of sympathy for the Club runs dry, the cash will too. I really would rather it was spent on something more constructive and that was why my donation was originally an 1876 Fund payment which transferred to the CF.

[ScottyDFA]

Let's buy back Firhill.

 

Seriously, can we try to get this off the ground?

 

Propco is the elephant in the room at Partick Thistle. Part of me wants to trust the motives of the Propco investors - I want to believe that they're all "Thistle-minded". The one fact that would appear to lend some credence to this is that, I dare say, they could have put their money into something with better prospects for return on investment.

 

The rest of me thinks the whole thing stinks to high heaven. The club owns 50% of Propco but has 20% (if I remember correctly) of voting rights... My head spins thinking about conflict of interests... asset stripping...

 

In any case, the ultimate objective of Propco is to turn Firhill into a joke of a football ground - a hotch-potch of residential and retail, with a wee bit of football stand thrown in. Kevin McCloud and camera crew on standby.

 

The bottom falling out of the property market bought Firhill a stay of execution - nothing more.

 

This kind of thing wouldn't be tolerated in Govan; why is it okay in Maryhill?

 

Does anyone have ideas re. what can be done, and how to proceed?

[1 John Lambie]

Those voting in Propco also vote for the club, as they are largely the same group of people. So the vote the club has is even more irrelevant.

[Jaggernaut]

If propco were truly Thistle-minded they would now give the stadium back to the club (or sell it for the price they paid); the club's finances are probably healthy enough now to handle that. Then look to the best way forward for developing the stadium as a stadium, not as has been said a mixture of housing and commercial units with a couple of stands on two sides.

[Trotter]

I'm sure I'm right in saying that many in boardroom at the moment don't own the majority of shares in PTFC?

 

A bit fanciful perhaps but maybe the Sevconians are on to something by putting their ST in a separate account until they get the security of certain assets.

 

We still have 50% of Firhill available to us.

 

Although I was never anything to do with the setting up with the 1876 fund, I thought the day & hour it was voted into the club's paws & relaunched then it was a step further away from fan ownership.

 

It's probably proved more than a step.

[peagreenboy]

A proposal has to be set up, where X amount of money needs to be raised in a set amount of time. A concrete plan with a final figure in mind, that can be taken to the directors and see if they will agree.

 

What we really need is a true "Thistle-minded" business person, similar to Fergus McCann or Anne Budge - someone who knows what they are doing and is capable of formulating a goal and a map to get there - instead of plans which consist of neither nowt nor summat.

 

There are plenty of brownfield sites around Firhill where residential property can be built - as we have seen across the other side of the canal; indeed there's new flats going up right now. Turning our stadium into some sort of Frankenstein's Monster of stadium and flats is a sham of an idea, meaning no further expansion could ever be made, and reducing the value of the remaining ground.

 

It can only ever be all or nothing in my view. If a convincing case were to be made for doing a St Mirren was made, I'm sure most of us would accept it. We've seen how our fans can change a soulless ground into a welcoming one with the North Stand. But if not, our stadium needs to remain a stadium, otherwise the slow, Clyde-like death of our club will follow.

[stolenscone]

Of course the support could buy the propco share back if it wanted to and if the propco investors were willing to co-operate. It's not that difficult.

 

1. Speak to the investors to ascertain if they will sell and if so, at what price;

 

2. Set up a supporter owned company to contract for and hold the asset;

 

3. Agree a sensible timescale with the investors to raise the funds;

 

4. Enter a contract now with the investors to buy the property at the agreed price, conditional on funding with a longstop date for clearing the funding which is in line with the timescale agreed with the investors;

 

5. At the same time, agree a simple agreement for lease with the football club which formalises their position by agreeing to lease the fans' 50% stake to the club at nil rent should the purchase complete. ( Needed to protect the Dan company from potential rates liability and also to protect the club.)

 

6. Raise funds;

 

7. Complete purchase and grant lease.

 

If the target us not met, the funds are returned to their source. The structure allows monthly payments to be accepted, making it more practical to reach the target.

 

The fan company need never look to buy the club's 50% share unless it wanted to (and why bother?). Owing a half share effectively sterilises the site and limits the possibility of future asset stripping.

 

Realistically, however, you are probably looking at 2 or 3 years to raise the money and I'm no expert in such matters, although there is that Goodwin chap at supporters' direct along with other marketing experts within the fan vase to help with such matters.

 

It would be a bit of a slog, and would require the initial support of the investors, but it could certainly be done.

[Jaggernaut]

I don't think a fans' buy-out of the propco-owned land is feasible. Remember the sheer size of the Save The Jags operation which was for a much more serious reason. Massive effort from Jags fans and well-wishers alike, and at the end of it the amount raised was somewhere in the region of only 100K (so we were told; as far as I can remember the accounts were never published). The land and main stand were bought for around 800K. I think it's the club that should now buy back, not the fans.

[Mad Mull Jag]

Ive always thought we do a McCann type scenarion, we raise funds to buy blocks of shares, start with the small holdings and work towards larger blocks. Its easy to obtain a list of shareholders the problem arises as the shares arent traded so are pretty worthless and thus hard to put a value on.

 

Also i think the club are the ones who have the final say on transferign ownership. there is a large percentage of our club not owned by the current board

[twinny]

Could this fan group not simply raise funds for the bing, and at least get a quarter of the ground back so we can build flower arrangements and a mini stand to house the gnomes.

[stolenscone]

Of course it's achievable, and it isn't comparing like with like to make comparisons to Save the Jags. That was a distressed situation requiring funds to be raised very quickly.

 

What it would need, however, is large scale fan buy in and time.

 

2500 people paying in £20 a month equates to £50k a month / £600k a year. If the answer is that we couldn't get a couple of thousand supporters to pay £20 a month for a couple of years to help secure their club's future, then frankly what's the point?