Ray Vaughn

Awfae quiet from the Stirling end. Not sure anyone is confident about the team after defeats to Elgin, Arbroath and Alloa. If we can get some goals we’ll do alright this season but that is definitely an IF at the moment.

Was at the Spain v Belgium game at Forthbank (Stirling Albion season ticket holders get in for free). Spain looked quite good, Belgium gave them too much respect for the first 30 minutes but gradually got into the game nearly scoring just before halt time. Spain got a penalty early in the second half and the game was practically done. Header from a corner made it 2-0 to Spain and a third was chopped off by the ref (the Lino was no help) Friday Is Spain v England so I will head on over again.

Isn’t Brechin’s pitch too small for regulations or something.? There was talk of them not getting a Licence a few years back.

I read that season ticket holders are getting free entry to the games at Forthbank. That happening at yours?

He was decent enough but he wasn’t the best keeper in our league last season. He romped our player of the year though.

Remember when they promised us variety with the new format League Cup. We’ve had Elgin, Brechin and Falkirk most years since it started this way.

Congratulations to Clyde on a deserved promotion. Many of us were rooting for you so we could get two trips to Annan next year. Getting out of this league is a priority as there could be a succession of overspending lowland league teams doing a Man City and spending money beyond the Fair Play rules. I suppose Kelly getting banned from the Champions League too would be a price worth paying for them. Personally I think Edinburgh and Annan might go backwards if their better players get cherry-picked so it could be an open title race unless Cove spend big.

The questions away regulars have been asking themselves today are: Where will be going for a pre-match bevvy at Cove? What’s your team going to be doing?

It is unclear who will finish 9th in League 1 but to be fair it shouldn’t make too much difference to the 4th Place team. Letting Annan finish 3rd to take on Clyde/Peterhead and knock one them out might be the smart move. No chance Edinburgh would come through two ties against Annan and Clyde/Peterhead.

What a scunner for the home fans. Lots of banging then it all went quiet. Draw at Hampden might be enough for them but seem to remember Stirling won about 5-0 at Cowden on the last day when we needed goals to (ultimately unsuccessfully) pip Stranraer to the 3rd division title many years ago. Clyde will win the playoffs if they go into them but we all know Peterhead have little confidence when it comes to playoffs. Shitting it might be an accurate description. Exciting stuff. Just what the doctor ordered.

Be a great coup for Newmember if he’s right about Tam Courts. Now you are sure he’s applied for the job? Edit: Got Newmember’s identity mixed up with someone else.

Someone is trying to rewrite history here. That specific allegation was definitely made that night, done in a way to try to alarm people with carefully chosen words when the reality was that there was not missing £500k from any accounts.

There was no specific reason given that night to why they wanted to get rid of Stuart Brown, other than hey could not get on with him. They chose to hide behind “reasons why we can’t go into it”. If you are going to bump someone then you really need to spell out why they cannot remain. I remember the meeting very well. Willie Irvine swaggering about the place before we sat down, never seen at Forthbank of course, calling a regular fan a “p***k”, guys you’d never seen before like Brian Kerr slating Stuart Brown’s business acumen when a League 2 club called Stirling Albion made more profit than his own company that year and, of course, yourself suggesting £500,000 was missing from the football club accounts when what you really meant was that the Junior Academy accounts were audited separately from the football clubs. Almost like you intended to alarm people. I’m sure it just came out that way and was not what you intended.

As there was no prior indication that such a vote was going to take place then it was only a quick show of hands where it was clear that the result was not going to be binding. People might vote differently if it had been binding and there were many who abstained that night would probably voted to keep Brown on such limited reasons to sack him. The meeting had minimal notice and many struggled to attend at such notice. Given that the then Trust Board would not give the reasons for sacking the chairman that night and, as far as I can see, have never given out a reason so important that it could not be revealed that night, something doesn’t add up here. The only thing that they could possibly not reveal that night (unless you know better) would be the impending court cases from the Youth Academy. But the then Trust Board has resolutely claimed that they did not know about the suspensions of coaches until days before it went to court. But when you recall that Tom Ogilvy knew about the suspensions and chaired Trust Meeting back then then you can see why the suspicion that something doesn’t smell right persists. Only the reasons not given that night being revealed would put his rumour to bed. I don’t think we should rake over this shameful episode in the Trust history. People put their own agendas over the best interests of the members. They are now history and any move on their part to return would cause much discord.

The timing is coincidental unless you are suggesting the Consortium picked the moment where the old Trust Board were are war with the Exec Chairman as the ideal time to launch a bid to run the club. Time for Change had its roots in the two Mayfield Centre meetings in Autumn 2017 where we had to collect signatures to get resolutions to the Trust Board. None of us had any inkling of the Consortium until the end of January, the night before the Golden Lion AGM. It is mischief-making to say that Time for Change (can’t remember when we formally adopted that moniker) was all about the Consortium bid. I can 100% confirm that the Consortium bid was added to the agenda at a much later date. At the meeting between Time for Change and three reps of the old Trust Board, the Consortium bid to run the club was not specifically discussed during that 2 hour meeting. Surely, if we were stooges for The Consortium as you imply, then it would have been top of the agenda. Bringing back democracy to our fan owned club was the ambition of Time for Change. It is a task which has been much harder to achieve in reality for reasons which will all come out at some point in the future when the time is right.

The Consortium bid for the club did not have anything to do with the formation of Time for Change. The shameful antics towards The Chairman of the Exec was the sole catalyst for the events that led to the collection of signatures to force a Trust Members Meeting and resulted in the mass resignations of the previous Trust Board before they were voted out at the Motion of No Confidence. It was the Supporters Club that invited Colin And John into the bar. The Supporters Club wanted to hear what they had to propose and they were welcomed warmly by the vast majority of the fans in the bar that day. Time for Change had nothing to do with this invite. Time For Change was about righting the wrong that nearly happened regarding the smearing of and attempted sacking of Stuart Brown. The Consortium Bid happened at the same time as the move to oust the Stuart Brown but the two are not connected and could easily have happened a year apart. It may not be a coincidence that many involved with Time for Change were clearly in favour of a vote on the Consortium Bid but the main issue was the governance of the Trust for the Members was the reason Time for Change put up a fight to restore order at the Trust.

Yup, 9 posts in 2 years. Not quite keeping up with Statement Man there.

The average Trust member has never been empowered by being a member of the Trust and has had no input into the direction of the club that the Exec take. That is why they see little difference between the Status Quo and the Consortium in terms of influencing the direction of the club. No-one expected weekly referenda to decide club policy but there has been little actual decision making other than what strip do you want. It is difficult to assess where the whole Trust Membership lies on the Consortium Bid versus the Associates bid. My, entirely subjective, view was that easily more than 50% of those attending meetings of the Consortium were pro-consortium but they never got even 50% of the total support. The Trust Board has shown it has big balls to stand up to all the external pressure that has been exerted in recent months. Some of the nonsense going on by certain parties will be revealed in the fullness of time but now is the time for calm heads to prevail and steer the correct course.

There is hardly a word in your replies that resembles the truth. Some of the Trust Board have been in different time zones with limited Wi-fi capability but a interim statement is on its way to be followed by a full statement in a few days. Trying to pin this on the Trust Board is a total travesty of the facts. When it all comes out in the wash, who did what and when, it will be clear who is responsible for the delays and I can assure you that the Trust Board are doing things by the book so that any votes, when they happen, cannot be challenged. Who can forget the absolute disgrace of the multiple-minute suspension of Stuart Brown. Anyone with their fingerprints on that fiasco should still be in hiding. Members of the Trust should expect our usual accurate and honest communication shortly. The Associates have no need to comment of course at the moment as there has been, as I type, no offer submitted to the Trust for consideration. Until they submit such a bid then that will be open to the accusation that they were just trying to de-rail the Consortium bid. I’m sure that is not the case though.

The guarantee that the club cannot go below the watermark of finances on the day that the consortium take over the running of the club (should both the members of the Trust vote YES to the consortium and the lawyers give the deal a clean bill of health) is reassurance that the club is unlikely to go into liquidation as they would be unlikely to spend sums of money which takes the club below that waterline and result in them forfeiting control of the club. The club reserves I believe to be £150k as we had £170k in the bank last season and lost £20k last season (mainly due to higher spending on players and lost games due to the weather I would guess) The Associates bid for the club has not yet been received by the Trust so is much harder to pin down any detail. Two things I have picked up about it though is that they only promise to invest £200k if “the club needs it” and said somewhere else that the club does not need money invested in it (whilst talking about the Consortium bid). I look forward to reading their bid to convince me that what they are offering is anything other than an overdraft facility.

C’mon Jake, they want to run the club under agreement but still owned by the Supporters Trust. Important distinction.

Might have been Mike Monaghan.

Unfortunately you cannot pin the blame for this entirely of SB. Some shocking manager appointments by the Exec aside, they have supported the managers with better than average budgets. Unfortunate that we find couldn’t sign them on better contracts but paying off £300k debt over seven years wasn’t achieved without difficult decisions being made. Being debt-free was top priority and losing a couple of players who may or not make it was the price paid to get debt-free. Time will tell if Brown did anything wrong here. Not telling the Trust about it may well prove to be consistent with a strong child protection policy. I with Broon on this one. He’s calmed right down on this. Lessons learned You keep banging on about this Mark and everyone is still yawning. Even when you suggested that £500k was missing from the club accounts being a sensationalist version of the Junior Academy accounts being done separately. Don’t see why the Junior Academy accounts should necessarily by part of the club accounts? The structure of the club is set by the Trust. The Trust members have owned the club for 7.75 years and have never had the vision to find a proper model for accountability of the Exec to the Trust members. Not Brown’s failure this one. The advisory vote held at 1st Mayfield meeting was just that. Considering the Trust Board had all their plants in like Brian Kerr, Willie Irvine and Mark Howarth then no wonder they edged the advisory vote. The meeting was held at relatively short notice but I bet all the Anti-Brown stooges knew well before that.

You’re right, a Chairman telling downright lies to justify his own shortcomings is disgusting and shameful. He had to be called out on his lies before his walk of shame oot the door as it was clear he was doing a runner like a coward. The arrogance of the man would not allow him to accept the verdict of the Trust Membership the following Monday and went before he was pushed while unsuccessfully trying to blame others for his going.

The only person who seems to think that there is a problem with the way the accounts of the Stirling Albion Junior Academy are handled is Mark Howarth, who has stood up at the last three public meetings of the Trust and got stuck into Stuart Brown each and every time. He is not a (now former) Trust Board member and, without doubt, has an agenda against Stuart Brown. Someone told me his laddie was released by the Junior Academy but I have no evidence to support this assertion. Hello Mark.