capt_oats

Jaw dropping levels of idiocy from Roger Mitchell. An absolute roaster of the highest order.

That's incredible. How does that even happen?

Calling this now. Locke binned in a couple of months and McCall takes over.

The coverage of this has been amazing; CNN, GQ even Time have covered it. On top of that some of the memes have been absolute gold. Genuinely one of the most entertaining stories I've read in ages. Nicely done Thistle.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned but at a guess I'd suggest that what he's gained is while the Sevconians are losing their mind focussing on what they think he's trying to hide in actuality he's just shown that a judge agreed with Sports Direct that RIFC can't be trusted to honour terms of a contract. Add that to King's well known reputation as the GASL he is plus the likely outcome of any resolution tomorrow then I can imagine that further down the line when he chooses to go to court to call in his £5m (that King will refuse to pay) it's another reason for a judge to side with SD. See that bit in Die Hard where the bank vault opens because the FBI cut off the power, it's like that (and that's the way it is). Sevco are basically doing absolutely everything the way Ashley would expect them to but they're too dumb to see it. All of the above is total speculation of course but what would worry me were I a Sevco fan (thankfully I'm not) is "why is Ashley raising a resolution where shareholders will clearly side with King?" and just to avoid any doubt take them to court (and win) the day before.

Courageous Journalism no less.

I'm paraphrasing here but I'm pretty sure they described him as having been "one of the hottest managerial properties in English football" at the weekend.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that, though he's nowhere near as inept as McCoist, McCall's definitely cut from the same cloth. He has a lack of faith in youth structures, is generally in thrall to "big" names and when it comes down to it, tactically he's fairly limited. Like McCoist he's also a "Ranjurz man" whose experience of success there was simply to chuck money they didn't have at the team and buy in players rather than develop them themselves. I'd also suggest that he's equally confused as to why these teams in the Championship aren't simply lying down to them on the "journey" on their way back to their "rightful place in Scottish football". I'm probably being quite reductive here but as MJC pointed out earlier in this thread, our pre-season pretty much consisted of a jolly to Portugal and there were some really interesting comments from our new owner in his interview on the Motherwell podcast earlier this week, along the lines of him being surprised at the players lack of fitness and a clear lack of structure when he arrived at the club. That's directly attributable to McCall and Black, indeed it's telling that since we've cut Black loose and appointed new coaches at Fir Park our form and performances have improved markedly and suddenly we seem to be playing the sort of football the new manager said he wanted to play when he arrived but anyway, I digress. Everyone seems to focus on McCall's league record with Motherwell and I suppose that's understandable given that it's the big selling point of his CV however given it's apparently the case that he's only at Ibrox til the end of the season and his remit is to get the best out the players that are there in the remaining fixtures it's a bit of a moot point. In that respect, for me, his fairly dismal cup record is much more pertinent to the situation he finds himself in now. I've said this about him on various threads but my main issue with McCall (beyond his teams lying down to Oldco Rangers and Newco for that matter) was that he seemed totally incapable of motivating his teams to play above themselves. For examples see the Scottish Cup final vs. Celtic where we didn't really turn up (3-0 loss, 1 attempt on target, 1 attempt off target, 38% vs 62% possession) and the various European ties against the likes of Panathinaikos (5-0 agg defeat), Levante (2-0 defeat at home, 3-0 agg), Kuban Krasnador (2-0 defeat at home, 3-0 agg), Stjarnan (5-4 agg, having led 2-0 in home leg & been up twice away), then you start looking at cup defeats to Albion Rovers and the 3rd division incarnation of Sevco along with a few cup exits at the first time of asking. You could also point to his record in the league against Oldco Rangers, 1 point from 18 and a 17-1 aggregate. Over the course of a league season (save this current one) McCall proved to be a decent enough manager for Motherwell however put him in game where his team needed to play above themselves or simply needed to win then more often than not he came up short. At the time I had a suspicion that him walking away from Fir Park when he did was less the noble act he painted it as and was more a strategic move as he saw that the possibility of the Sevco job on the horizon. However, who knows, maybe he genuinely didn't know how to fix the shambles he'd created at Fir Park.

On the contrary, as someone who used to go to Fir Park for most home games and travel to the occasional away game through the 90s and into 00s I found it fairly easy to simply stop going (actually I think my first 'Well game was in 1988). That's not to say I lost interest in football or gave up on the game but simply I found other things to do with my time and ultimately I got out of the habit of going to games and the urge to head along at 3pm on a Saturday largely dissipated. It's a different context to the Sevco situation obviously but the tipping point really was the realisation that what I was paying to get into games didn't match the enjoyment I was getting out of going, this was compounded I guess by the fact that I used to go along with my Dad who pretty much felt the same way. For what it's worth I was back at Fir Park a few times last season for literally the first time in years and found the experience enjoyable again. It's a fairly selfish outlook but I've never really been one to subscribe to the whole "support your team no matter what" mantra I guess. By and large I suppose it depends why you go is it socially driven and you feel included as being part of something, that might be a bit harder to shake but for me it was a case of going to watch a game of football. It's something that depending on the context you can very much take or leave.

What a pleasing moment to chance upon the Daily Record's website's sports pages and find that all your Sevco news is now neatly filed under the SFL tab. It's actually quite beautiful.

So at what point do they stop waiting around for Sevco and go for #spartansforSFL

I think it's Green, I'm more than willing to be corrected but was part of the Regan agreement not along the lines of Green will accept the sanctions if SFL1 happens? Therefore there would have been no dispute.

Hmmmm, I wonder what these "issues" are: STV Sport ‏@STVSport Charles Green: ‘Number of issues between Rangers and SFA over club licence’ http://t.co/80s2O9vC

Doncaster in that interview on SSN basically saying "I just did what the SPL clubs told me to do".

Dundee promoted says Twitter.

It genuinely astounds me that there are people who'd argue that the Record is anything other than a Rangers fanzine. That Hately article. Ooooft! Talk about embarrassing!

So now ICT seem to have taken a collective Valium along with Aberdeen, Utd and Hearts being fairly straight about no Sevco in SPL hopefully that calms things down a bit. (Though I'm wary of jinxing things) Are we likely now to see something along the lines of: - Sevco's D3 application goes through. One of Dunfermline/Dundee goes up. Life goes on as normal. - Regan & Doncaster get their jotters. (Ogilvie too hopefully) - League reconstruction discussed over the coming season and put in place for 13/14 season. Depending on how the reconstruction plays out then Sevco are out of the top league for at least 2 seasons. (Assuming they've not gone out of business by then)

New ICT statement. Someone's had a word I think. Edited to add: That's along the lines of the statement they SHOULD have put out on Friday.

In fact, statement from ESPN is completely to the contrary. They say they're not going anywhere. That said the more Gilmour talks, the more he's revealing of the stitch-up the SPL/SFA had planned.

Jesus wept! Can someone please just pack Regan's bags for him and get him and Doncaster booted. The two of them are walking facepalms. Ogilvie can clear his desk as well.

Chic's "joke"...tumbleweed. Oh dear.

Alloa statement is aff the scale good.

Just read Clyde's statement, have nothing but admiration for them. Every SFL club who may be undecided should be paying attention to them and taking their lead.

Actual LOL

Brilliant statement from Clyde. Good news from Berwick too.