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I really shouldn't have bothered replying to him, but I couldn't resist... ------------------------- Hi Ian, I really hate to do this, but so much of what you have said needs to be addressed. Somehow, you have managed further to antagonise, insult and patronise supporters with this attempt at an explanation. Now, there is no question that there are complexities and financial realities to situations like this, I think most people who have contacted you will fully understand that. However, this is where we need to look at what you've said, both the content and (perhaps even more so) its tone. 1. "The Club has considered the attendances of Season Ticket holders and supporters at Old Firm matches in recent Seasons, and despite various incentives which have been offered, Home Support attendances have been modest, to say the least." - In other words, it's the fault of you loyal, season ticket paying fans (and regular match paying fans) who have forced us to make this decision. Contemptuous, to say the least. Surely a better, more forward-thinking response to these attendance numbers would be consulting with supporters to find out why exactly these fixtures aren't attractive and what could be done to make them more appealing, instead of further alienating them and making the problem irreparably worse. 2. "You may not be aware, but as this is a Cup game, the pricing of the tickets requires to be agreed with the opposition. Further to that, the ticket receipts are split 50/50, with the home Club incurring the Operational costs." - No, none us have heard of the Scottish Cup or know how anything works, clearly, but then again, adopting that same patronising tone, maybe you don't know either, seeing as the SFA Handbook 22/23 (page 196, 33.3.3) notes that: "The Home Club shall be entitled to make a deduction of 20% from the gross receipts" helping to cover those operational costs, with receipts then split 50/50. 3. "You will appreciate that we endeavour to ensure that the Club is run sustainably. If we were to restrict pricing to say £20 per adult ticket, this would have resulted in a net loss." - Several things here. 1. Presumably, much of these additional costs are due to policing/stewarding to accommodate the away support, so where then is the logic to increase their numbers even more across the stadium, surely making the exercise even more costly? 2. I wonder what running sustainably will mean if/when, let's say 500 season ticket holders don't bother renewing in the summer due to this fallout, or another 500 fans on top of that who frequently pay-per-game decide to keep their money for other activities. What's sustainable about that? Ultimately, Ian, you/the club have got this very wrong. The decision itself was misguided and visionless, how it was presented was tone-deaf, and the response to it since has been offensive, patronising, and trying to deflect from the reality. Layering stupidity with arrogance is a dangerous cocktail and I'm afraid that this whole sorry episode has reeked of it. People make mistakes, organisations get things wrong, but the failure to acknowledge that and show zero contrition will only cause lasting-damage.

Off for my first radiotherapy session on my leg - 1 of 33! Every weekday until late February. Wish me luck.

Thanks for all the kind wishes, folks. The radiotherapy went well - my appointment was 9:25 but didn't get taken until ten past ten but after that I was in and out in ten minutes. (Hi, Kenneth!) Feeling fine afterwards so let's hope that continues. One down, 32 to go...

Hope the Wales national team suffer a collapse that sees them on par with San Marino.

Queens Park are pathetic. Ooh look at me, I last won a trophy when players still wore top hats and tails for the second half of matches. I've signed Simon Murray and I'm top of the league. Grow up eh.

An unexpected 10 for Monday. Thought it would be about 7 when I clicked. A good few lucky guesses.

It should actually be a major selling point for our game that the club which essentially invented the modern passing game is currently doing so well. Unfortunately, as fans of everyone else knows, the media in this country only cares about two teams.

10 for Monday with 2 complete guesses on the a bomb and album

St. Johnstone have been taking their diehard supporters for a ride for years now but it's become incredibly apparent this season. £24 quid for an adult ticket to watch Scottish Football (which is a woeful standard at the best of times, dogshit at present) during a cost of living crisis. Not enough food and drink supplies for fans on a match day. Painfully slow service at cafeteria and no signage to say "no hot food left." Pishy wee ancient TV's in said cafeteria which used to show Sky Sports News - not switched on/working anymore Not enough matchday programmes. Tired, depressing stadium in dire need of a facelift. Shitey wee excuse of a club shop in a box room. Cash only gate has no option to pay by card, despite us living in the 21st Century. Halftime entertainment appears to be non-existent going by my last two visits. The list no doubt goes on. And now this Scottish Cup fiasco just sums it all up. Now the club want even MORE money out of you for the privilege to experience the points made above - with the added incentive of being punted from your home stand to accommodate more away fans. The club has enjoyed incredible success in recent years but has done nothing to build on this for the future and continues to this day to take its loyal supporters for granted. What a joke. Fair play to all the regulars still going to McDiarmid every second week - I think you're off your heads.

Not bad pair of custom Adi Spzl.by Kris at Dundee Sole. They were already a vintage trainer when he did them.

Get Ceefax on for the scores.

Considering the success of development work so far you wouldn't trust them to do it quickly, but throwing a terrace behind each goal could add a couple of thousand to the capacity. There is no reason to have an all-seater stadium and it's the only way to get the capacity to a reasonable level within the space available.

Enjoy your retirement.

Happy to see the content being received so well! As we said on Twitter, it's only as good as what we get from everyone who takes the time to talk to us! Video over 800 views already since this morning - more than twice the average! Check out the rest of series here: https://www.youtube.com/@airdriefantv See you in Kelty! Twitter | Instagram | YouTube - @AirdrieFanTV

This is the line that turns that from just being a disgrace of a statement attempting to defend a ridiculous decision, into a resignation matter for whoever is responsible. The real meaning there is "none of you have attended in large enough numbers for these games before, therefore this is actually your fault so you can f**k off if you want to complain about it. You caused this, it's not up to us to consider what we can change to get home fans turning up"

The fact that he prefers golf to football highlights how much of a wrong un he is.

This part is not correct. After paying a 5% levy to the SFA, and the costs of VAR, St Johnstone will retain the first 20% of the gate receipts for operational costs. The remaining money will be split 50-50. https://www.scottishfa.co.uk/media/9881/sfa_handbook-2022-23-digital.pdf

How can £20 result in a loss? Police costs? Maybe we'd be better off reducing the away allocation in that case.

Pretty much. Not suggesting that the fans should be designing the stadium, but we are the ones who are going to be using it all the time. Even just a short consultation on what folk wanted to see within the stadium would at least have shown a pretence that supporters mattered. It would be a huge mistake for the folk who’ve bungled this off the park to think the on-field stuff gets them off the hook. It absolutely does not. A club not rooted within its local community is not a properly functioning football club. They can point at anything they want, but a club playing 30 miles away is not a club rooted within its community. Leeann Dempster is not presiding over a properly functioning football club.

Never thought I’d say this when he first joined but if Algeria’s loan is being cut and we are without him for the rest of the season, that’s a big blow.

I’m not sure if he’s the answer long term but if we get rid now, you’re basically just repeating the same mistakes of the summer. They picked Hammell, now they have to back him. Give him what he needs to do the job. By the time we sack him and fanny about getting in a replacement, we’ll have wasted the window(again). And more to the point, to appoint who exactly? An ‘experienced’ manager that’ll make us difficult to beat- so back to the low risk, percentage hoofball everyone complained about all last season. I mean we’re in a relegation battle with Killie and Ross County, they both have experienced managers who had a full summer to plan for this season and they’re every bit as shit as we are(if not worse). Mind a lot of folk wanted Tommy Wright this time a few years ago anaw? Like he was some sort of get out of relegation free card. That worked out well for Killie. Things aren’t great but it’s time for cool heads and not rash decisions. The recruitment drive will be well underway, give Hammell what he wants and let him get on with the job he was deemed the best person to do in the summer but this time, give him the tools to do it properly.

Decent vlog from Friday's game with video of the Young Team's pre match march. Kudos to them for organising this and creating a bit of an atmosphere, hopefully they continue this going forward and keep turning up.

http://www.stmirrenprogrammes.co.uk/StMirren/STM_Match_Details.php?Season=2006&GameID=200609090 our record is honking there but that’s a particular highlight! Your team was filled with much better players some internationals. “Stewart Kean's late winner at Tynecastle stunned Hearts and allowed promoted St Mirren to draw level on points with their wealthy rivals. The 1-0 away win left Celtic clear at the top and saw Hearts slip down to third in the table.“

So he retired 2 years after he stopped playing?

No he didn’t mention financial trouble at all. You must be the only person that doesn’t see the financial benefit of playing this game on a Saturday. Every club in Scotland apart from Celtic needs to pull every financial lever they can and for Dunfermline, playing this match on Scottish Cup weekend, if at all possible, makes absolute sense.

In the last year or so Hearts fans have become extremely precious. One or two on here especially.

Anyone taking sides in this farce needs therapy. The only correct response is to laugh at what a joke it’s all making of an institution we’ve repeatedly been told is about stability and tradition and duty (but which is in fact about money, class, and entitlement). Reminds me a bit of an old French and Saunders show set in Versailles, where two of the toffs start glove-slapping each other whilst Dawn French, as a servant, mutters in the background, “remember … these are our betters.”

The guy who sits next to me's cousin is an East Fife fan and said Connell wasn't a championship level player. Although, what the f**k an East Fife fan would know about championship level players is anyone's guess.

They will literally use any reason possible to ban folk now. They know who they want rid of and will just find a reason to ban them. Rotten to the core

Is this Adeloye or Dipo in the future you are talking about?

I don't like him or his stupid face.

Pretty much exactly what was posted on here the other day, despite the poster being in no way associated with the club…

The outpouring of pure, unfiltered rattling by Scottish football fans since we went top last week is incredible. Plenty of rumblings of discontent all season, but the amount of "oil club", "buying the league" etc accusations coming out in the last 10 days has been extraordinary. 5-0 victory for Gold Diggers FC as Sheikh Haughey's men continue their waltz to the title.

Some finish. Season contender. 4. An Ayr fan just typed that he's signed and the deal is done.

Can't say I'm that arsed about these boxes being scrapped. The artists impression looked extremely tin-pot to me, basically a shipping container with some seats bolted on to the top. I'm sure they did say they had an agreement in place to rent one of them out which did surprise me, hopefully that sponsor will find another means of spending money in the existing hospitality set-up.

Why are fans from the provinces so obsessed with big teams from Glasgow?

Nah! Apparently all you do is fold your company, cheat all your debtors and local businesses, start a new company and go again. I’m told you can get away with it at least a couple of times.

The south stand, which is an integral design connecting to the East Stand, was specifically for Away fans and houses 500. Same poor seating plan, thougharguably worse behind a goal. It’s important we keep the debate going on PnB. The trend seems to be we flag up all the mistakes, the committee read and share with El Presidente and then we get an e mail update with all his good ideas that coincides with the fans’ good ideas. If there’s ever another biblical flood I hope to all the gods that our committee aren’t asked to build the ark.

If yir auntie had baws....... ...they'd be perfectly entitled to choose and express their own gender, sexuality and pronoun etc without the need for your cheap prejudicial jokes, thank you very much.

Supporters want a standing area but if you don't wear a wee QP tie on match day you can f**k off

Just got my ticket for Arbroath away. Might as well scope out the surroundings for next season.

It's being supported by a local rich local who's built up a global business from nothing. What outsiders don't see is the investment in the academy and the thinking is that there will be a few Andy Robertsons on their way. This time, though, other teams won't be able to steal them for a fiver. To be fair, whilst we're paying decent wages, Coyle hasn't been able to buy, or hasn't wanted to buy, the usual ex-Premier suspects. He's getting a helluva lot out of Murray, signed wisely re Thomas and Savoury, got a couple of excellent loan signings, and brought on the likes of Robson and Kilday. And so it goes on.

I was one of the last on the bus for most of our sackings bar Mowgli, I'm afraid my time is up with Hammy and it feels like I'm in a minority. It's for the following reasons: 1./ As a defender being coached in defensive tactics, drills, shapes, cover and tactics for 20 years including 550 senior appearances, you do not put that shit out for 10 games in a row. (I've give him 3 hall passes for the OF). 2./ The issue a lot of the time has been mental fortitude, being streetwise and doing the minimum stuff coached at U10's ... all basics and all stuff that's done at Dalziel Park that he has control over. 3./ I don't buy he fully inherited a shitshow. While we limped over the line, we started this season with what 9/10 of our top starters last season? His issues stemmed from bad luck and injuries and not securing the right signatures in August. 4./ He had one month in post before the window closed, the black hole was leftback, his gig for 20 years and he (and probably Daws) delivered. We did our usual and looked at an old matchday programme from 4 years ago and did the "he'll do, what's he up to now?" approach. A centre half was needed in advance of Ojala walking and when that happened it was two, to get none was criminal. I'll repeat .... One bloody month, dossiers and spreadsheets compiled in advance of him taking the gig. 5./ We are not playing to our strengths/deficiencies and lining up accordingly. At the moment, f**k worrying about giving Hibs problems. How about stopping Kevin Nisbet look like Mbappe, taking the absolute piss in our box three times. 6./ KVV is a gallus bastart and has a zero fucks given attitude and a lack of respect to guys like Tierney. Shooting rather than passing when he should. When Louis arrived there was a change in his behaviour where he viewed him as an equal colleague rather than a silly wee boys beside him. Hammy hasn't battered that away. 7./ Read the riot act to any shitebags, Goss and Spittal prime candidates, we're officially in the shit now and while enough time to get out of it and a meh league from 4th to 12th we need the epiphany of our line in the sand moment. Tell Slattery to stay on his feet and ride challenges rather than going to ground and losing any momentum, also because the resulting free kick will be a clipped floater by Goss to be swatted away by capable central defenders. For the next game he needs to look at what's gone wrong. I'd have the following players in the starting line up and reason why: Kelly - No comment needed McGinn - No issues with me, he's safe but that's it. He wasn't the best as right centre half in a back 4, in a back three I have to have hope Lamie - Under extreme duress Johnson - Let's see if he can have an impact like Hastie did upon his return from loan, granted not going to be among the goals to the same degree SOD - He was a Scotland starter 18 months ago (merits of that on another thread) and we as a club have sapped his mojo. He is effective if played to his strengths which is a wingback with adequate cover behind him to protect his lack of pace. Match fitness in question Penney - Milk him till he goes Blaney - A Hail Mary why the f**k not Cornelius - While having a few deficiencies he bleeds C&A and as a supporter is motivated more than the rest. Will put in 110% for Hammy Slattery - Our only baller just a bit ancy at times, I suspect he needs to be made to feel "special" Tierney - Wee fella has has a uphill battle his whole life and took it on. He has technique and gumption we lack McKinstry - Same as Dean and the only natural winger we have KvV - Because he's it, if we had an alternative I'd drop him for a game -------------- Kelly ------------ ---- McGinn - Lamie - Blaney ---- SOD/Johnson ----------- Penney ----- Slattery --- Cornelius ----- ------ Tierney - McKinstry ------ ------------- KvV ------------- Instructions: Dean you're the bulldog, Slatts box to box, Tierney and McKinstry you boys are young so you need to cover a lot of ground, Lamie screw the nut, Blaney postage stamp free kicks please, Kev don't be a dick. Still no leaders though.

Horrific club photos thread for this pish.

Managed to tick another one (71) off the 92 yesterday and really enjoyed it. £20 admission and programmes £3. Morecambe 2-1 Cheltenham Town @ Mazuma Stadium . EFL League 1. Really good game and atmosphere with both sides battling to stay up. 1-1 at the break, after Town had levelled, The Shrimps managed by Derek Adams retook the lead on 47 mins and held on to move out of the drop zone. Crowd 4677.