Livingston - all the threads merged

[TheScarf]

Some achievement.  

There's a bit of a rivalry between ICT and Livingston having gone through the divisions together in the 90's.  Then our clubs took very different turns but f**k me, what a turnaround  for you lads and you have to doff the old cap.  Good luck next season and get it right up those Sportsound gimps for us.

[Jamie_M]

Really weird question but is black now your primary colour? With yellow secondary to it?

Reported for racism.

[Armand 2]

First of all, a doff of the cap to Livi. Best team over the two legs and fully deserved to win promotion against an abject Thistle side. Great support through on Sunday too and the 'Shite Jack Sparrow' song lightened a rather sombre mood in the Jackie Husband stand at least.

With the budget that Livi will be running on next year, there is a fair argument that Hopkin's stock is as high as it's going to be but I really can't see him leaving for Carlisle. Can't imagine Halkett or Byrne will be going anywhere either - I know we were credited with an interest in January but how the tables have turned...

As a club willing to give guys' second chances, would Livi fans object to signing David Goodwillie in the summer?

[EdinburghLivi]

I'm all for second chances but I think the likes of Goodwillie and Craig Thomson are too toxic even for us to take on. 

I agree with Armand 2 on Carlisle. Wouldn't have been surprised if we had failed to get promoted but this looks like a new chapter for the club which I imagine Hopkin et al. will want to take on.

Edited May 22, 2018 by EdinburghLivi

[R.R.FC]

Surely Hopkin is looking at the clubs Jack Ross is being linked with and thinking he can do better than Carlisle?

[Mpire]

13 minutes ago, R.R.FC said:

Surely Hopkin is looking at the clubs Jack Ross is being linked with and thinking he can do better than Carlisle?

Agreed - if he goes I hope its not to Carlisle! They are crap! Hope he stays loyal to the club that could have sacked him when we got relegated, even if for just one more year.

[LIVIFOREVER]

2 hours ago, Afro said:

 

I know it’s the Sun and all, but I think there may be some traction behind this. Didn’t seem too committal about his future with us following Sunday, naturally, but he may be wanting a crack at it in England whilst his stock’s high.

Hope I’m proved wrong but there’s no smoke without fire etc.

 

That isn't what I saw Afro, seemed happy enough talking about the future at Livi in post match reports in the media, saying all the players know they've deals if they want them and he wont be bursting the bank bringing in players, he'll just keep doing what he's done in the Championship. Get a few older experienced Premiership quality ones with a hunger to do well, (Alexander & Miller for eg) and some younger guys with ambition and hunger. Prob a couple of quality loan ones too, which wont cost as much. 

Course he may get a offer he can't refuse from a bigger club but I certainly didn't see any signs of him not wanting to stay at Livi to have a go in the Premiership. Should know by the end of the day though, he's meant to be sitting down and having talks with Livi today. Would be a real boost if he signs a new deal. He got us there and I think he'd make a decent fist of it keeping us up next season.

[AMC13]

[LIVIFOREVER]

Looks like fences have been mended between Livi fc and the Council, things are certainly looking a lot brighter these days.

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Callum Carson‏ @CallumCarson34 7m7 minutes ago

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West Lothian Council have voted unanimously to invite Livingston FC players, management and staff to a Civic Reception where their achievements this season will be officially celebrated by the council.

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New pitch going down soon too, just need Hoppy to sign up and we can look forward to an exciting season.

[Livilion28]

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/2676306/shaun-byrne-livingston-heartbreak-stronger-parents-play-off-win-premiership/

[third lanark]

2 minutes ago, Livilion28 said:

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/2676306/shaun-byrne-livingston-heartbreak-stronger-parents-play-off-win-premiership/

Wow mate I hadn’t realised he had to go through that tragedy so young

all the best to him for the future 

[Livilion28]

He’s been incredible this year for livi my player of the season along with Halkett. He’s had so much to deal with but hasn’t let it affect him at all. Very well done to him great credit 

[Afro]

Good article featuring an interview with John Ward in The Times. Debt is down to £700k from £1.5m, the artificial pitch is being installed... My main wish off the pitch is that there is some investment in how we are marketed; any marketing is better than none tbf.

The recent progress of Livingston has been so rapid, so unexpected, that it has taken even the club by surprise. As the team and their supporters celebrate a second, successive promotion under David Hopkin, the obligation to keep pace with developments is dawning on those who work behind the scenes.

Foremost among them is John Ward, to all intents and purposes their chief executive, although he has not been afforded that title, such is the modest, voluntary nature of the project he presides over. If that homespun culture is to change, they had better get to work. The Ladbrokes Premiership season starts on August 4.

“I genuinely didn’t expect us to go up,” he admits. “My biggest concern is that, from an administrative point of view, we are basically run by a couple of part-time people and a roll of Sellotape. We make it up as we go along. It’s a genuine community thing. Volunteers do the turnstiles, a lot of fans get involved, but we are going to have to professionalise it. I have been pushing for that anyway.

“I come from a background in aerospace where everything is to precise standards and specifications. So it doesn’t fit with me that we are sitting there on a Friday afternoon saying, ‘who can we get to do the catering tomorrow?’ Or ‘who can we get to serve at the bar?’ We don’t have that level of professionalism in our staff. That’s the next stage, I think.”

In many ways, those are shortcomings to be proud of, especially in the context of Livingston’s history. They used to be a byword for financial recklessness, having won the 2004 League Cup and finished third in the top flight with a strategy that was eventually punished with two descents into administration and a tumble to the country’s bottom tier.

Ward was introduced to the club in 2010, just as they were emerging from those dark days. One of his companies sponsored the team, he became increasingly involved in its ‘operations committee’ and, just more than a year ago, led a takeover that he hopes will result in community ownership. The debt has been reduced from £1.5 million last year to around £700,000 in the latest accounts. Many of the players with whom they have reached the Premiership were acquired when the club were relegated to League One in 2016. “What I like most about our achievement is that we have lived within our means,” says Ward.
The challenge now is to maintain that philosophy under the severest of pressure. Hopkin needs another contract, new players will be required to supplement those from whom the manager has squeezed every last drop, and existing ones, such as 22-year-old defender Craig Halkett, their player of the year, are sure to have their heads turned by bigger clubs.

Off the pitch, new staff will be hired, bigger responsibilities met and more service provided to the community. To that end, work will begin next week on the laying of an artificial pitch at the Tony Macaroni Arena, which will be ready for the start of next season. Brendan Rodgers, the Celtic manager, is unlikely to approve, but Ward has long believed that it is the way ahead for Livingston.

Not only have Hopkin’s team played rather well on synthetic surfaces, it makes economic sense for the West Lothian club, who have had to postpone lucrative matches because of bad weather. Undersoil heating is below the existing grass, but they cannot afford to service it, never mind switch it on.

The 4G pitch will also bring local youngsters to the club on a daily basis. “Livingston should be a huge community set-up, but I go in on a Wednesday, when the players aren’t training, and I’m the only person in the building,” says Ward. “That’s a travesty. If we can bring five or six hundred kids through the doors every week, that can only be a positive step.”

Whether they can do the same on matchdays is another matter. Since they relocated from Edinburgh in 1995, the club formerly known as Meadowbank Thistle have never been big at the box office, but their implosion, on and off the pitch, with a brand that Ward says was “toxic”, inflicted untold damage on attendances.

Despite their assault on promotion, their average crowd in the Championship was 1,350, which surpassed only part-time clubs Brechin City and Dumbarton, both of whom were relegated. Around 670 bought season tickets for the Tony Macaroni. On a good day, 150 would pay at the gate. Under-16s were admitted for £1 per match, but it never caught on.

The hope is that exposure to the Premiership will enable the club to attract new fans, but it won’t be easy. “We have played some really great football in the last two seasons and that hasn’t brought the fans back,” admits Ward. “If we are getting our asses kicked every week by bigger clubs, who is going to come and watch that?”

But will they get their asses kicked? Given their direct, aggressive style, maybe it will be the other way round. Having worked hard to engage the local business community, restore the club’s image and be rewarded with a successful team, Ward is a little frustrated with the assumption that Livingston will add nothing to the top flight. “I would contest that,” he says. “We have the capability of adding as much to it as Inverness or Ross County or Hamilton. It’s up to us, as a community, to prove it.”

[EdinburghLivi]

http://www.rocksportradio.co.uk/the-podcast/

Hopkin speaks for 10 minutes from 1:00:00.

 

 

 

 

 

[Bairnardo]

Looks like Shaun Byrne will be joining Hartleys revolution. Any good? Did he get much of a game for yous?

[sigton]

Hopkins knocks back Carlisle 

[sigton]

Hopkin

[Mpire]

8 hours ago, Bairnardo said:

Looks like Shaun Byrne will be joining Hartleys revolution. Any good? Did he get much of a game for yous?

According to who? Would seem like a strange move to take a step down a league to a club struggling near the bottom of the championship.

[Durnford]

6 minutes ago, Mpire said:

According to who? Would seem like a strange move to take a step down a league to a club struggling near the bottom of the championship.

Its a wind up; and a pretty poor one at that.

Sean has already indicated in an interview that he is waiting to see if Hopkins renews his contract with Livi. I think a number of his team mates are in the same situation.

[Bairnardo]

4 hours ago, Mpire said:

According to who? Would seem like a strange move to take a step down a league to a club struggling near the bottom of the championship.

Only part wind up. It was in the Sun that we have "joined the race" although I expect we are least likely of Livi then Dundee Utd to ever actially get him