the_bully_wee

Did a bit of digging to make sure I wasn't havering utter shite here, but what I remembered does appear to have been the case - Not to try to deflect any attention away from Clyde or Goodwillie here, but it was entirely needless for NLC to try and exonerate themselves from any kind of responsibility for Clyde's continuing presence at Broadwood. Their statement would've been sufficient without that wild attempt to rewrite history.

I've no idea about the structure of NLC but as I understood it, NLL was essentially a subsidiary of the council which specifically operated Broadwood - in that sense, you'd imagine the council could've pulled a move like this if they ever wanted to. I could be wrong in saying that, but if I'm correct then they could've done better than trying to cover their own backs with that statement. If they could've, it's understandable that they didn't take action before now though - Goodwillie's first spell at Clyde largely flew under the radar and any noise was pretty much strictly confined to those in lower-league circles, so evicting Clyde on that basis wouldn't have made a great deal of sense. The landscape has now changed drastically, Clyde's name is now ubiquitously - and deservedly - caked in the thickest of muck and any sort of public or business association with the club at present is complete PR suicide for all involved. It doesn't matter what anyone thinks about any hypocrisies, inconsistencies or the arguments about Goodwillie's suitability to play football - the baseline fact is that the entire game has changed as a result of the Raith move and the sheer body of critical public opinion that followed. That the people who made this return happen didn't see any of this coming is just completely and utterly mind-blowing. It was a complete inevitability.

I can't see him playing for us after this. Unless, of course, someone who chucks in five figures in donations every year demands that Goodwillie plays for Clyde even if it's at Glasgow Green in a Sunday pub league. I hope the decision will immediately be undertaken to terminate the loan agreement before trying to build bridges with the council. Eviction from Broadwood next year would be the end of us in any meaningful sense, unless some moneybags appeared and wished to finance a stadium for us.

That's mental stuff; I wonder how long it'll take these chancers to realise that there's a reason others have failed to pull the fast one they're trying. Hopefully you guys can find a sympathetic benefactor and pursue fan ownership or something similar (without following the Clyde model of fans being able to strongarm a board into objectively horrendous actions) before making any move on your own terms.

We deserved absolutely everything we got from this. I hope each and every person who voiced support for his return, and even more so those who pressured the board into ratifying it, feels proud of themselves this evening! Thank you for putting your love of a rapist on a pedestal above the future of our club.

Can't say I've ever seen a situation like this before. Surely a binding contract was signed which non-payment of funds would breach? Does this company have any discernible links to the latest questionably-intentioned owners?

I actually think we stand a decent chance here. East Fife looked from the highlights as though they could've, with a bit of luck, nicked a win over Falkirk last week. As has been said, Rennie is yet to string two wins together in his spell in charge and he's even started deviating from what seemed like the formation he was keen to implement and stick with. If we field Cunningham and Jamieson up top then I expect their pace and directness to cause a pretty fragile defence some bother. I'd still make Falkirk favourites obviously but I wouldn't be surprised to see us take something from the game.

Might be a good idea to delete this and instead post the screenshot itself with the most egregious parts and the identity of the named party in the post redacted. That post is an extremely cowardly attack on one individual, a fairly prolific Clyde P&B poster who might end up seeing this, if he hasn't already.

This is the same organisation that apparently had a whip round to finance a car for Goodwillie, something that he obviously had no chance of affording himself on £1k a week. Mental.

You do seem to enjoy wasting your own time given your re-appearance every couple of pages to denounce all but a few Clyde fans as rape apologists and scumbags. If you bothered to actually read any of the thread, though, you'd find most active on this site (including myself) speaking out against Goodwillie's signing, and articulating very well why that is. I understand that doing so might not appeal to you as much as sharting out sensationalist blanket statements of condemnation, however.

Nothing creative or bullshittish there at all - just a factual account of why Goodwillie was signed in the first place. Given the lack of noise and impact at the time, it was then easier for the club to keep him thereafter. If you're happy to be ignorant of that and put it down to any Clyde fan who retained support of the club being a rape apologist, then so be it.

You spoke about Clyde fans being scum being the only reason he was signed in the first place, you clueless simpleton. Patently not the case.

Yep, that reason being we needed something (or someone) spectacular to save us from what looked like an inevitable slide into a regionalised fifth tier league, something no relegated League Two club has come close to recovering from. It's fanciful to suggest no other club would have done the same in that very desperate situation.

He's not wrong. The amount of compensation that was ordered to be paid was paid, however Clair never saw any of it due to the extent of the legal fees she had incurred.

For many of those so-called "two faced b*****ds", myself included, the reality is that there isn't much ideological opposition to David Goodwillie playing football. However, the opposition that this has been met with is the result of a variety of very new factors, including: Goodwillie's ultimately successful attempt to force a move away from the club he stated he was in love with and wanted to be at forever The manner in which Raith Rovers quickly became a near-unanimous figure of (inter)national attention and condemnation over his signing The intense financial, reputational and structural damage which the signing did to Raith Rovers - something Clyde were lucky to avoid for so long The fact is that a reasonable proportion of fans who maintained their support of the club throughout his first spell at the club did so in spite of Goodwillie's presence. Not every fan regarded him as a club legend and a personal hero like many do. What good would "whimpering" have done throughout those five years when absolutely nothing would've come of it, given his on-field importance and messianic status among parts of the support?

What are the Keans up to these days? A name change might actually now be a great thing for us given what we've allowed to happen to the current one.

Thing is, NLL/NLC aren't even listed as club "partners" (sponsors) on the website. Per their statement, NLL no longer operates Broadwood and their main shirt sponsorship of us was only in effect last season. To me this can only mean a review of our tenancy agreement at Broadwood, which could end up in complete and utter catastrophe. You're right though, I'm hoping there will be some way out of this dreadful mess but the plaque bestowing our reputation as pariahs of the Scottish game - if not already handsomely secured - has had a few more emphatic nails hammered into it today. It's absolutely crazy that nobody saw how lucky Goodwillie and Clyde were prior to his Raith signing; this was a genuine opportunity to move on and gradually repair our reputation. That chance is now completely gone, because of the comically narrow-minded and short-term thinking of a worryingly large group of individuals.

Unfortunately, as I understand it this is true. I don't know of the second entity but one is an individual who's been a considerable and long-time sponsor of Clyde. It would appear that the board has had to relent here under financial pressure from said sponsors (though who knows how our other ones will all feel now), and also under threat from fans vowing to push for an EGM if Goodwillie's return wasn't secured. We all know how easy it would be for large-scale regime change at the club given our ownership structure, and we all know the sort of characters that would be sniffing around to replace the current board. In this regard, I do have sympathy for the current custodians whose choice appeared to become a toss-up between signing Goodwillie and facing financial and structural crises that would destabilise the club's future - immediate and potentially long-term - enormously. In spite of this, I think the board should've held firm and stuck to their guns. The present - and coming - shitstorm was an inevitability, and quite why the "Goodwillie Legend" brigade thought this wouldn't do serious damage to the club this time around is completely and utterly unfathomable. NLC are now tweeting that they will review "all commercial partnership arrangements" with the club, which is really quite an ominous message given they're not even a club partner. There are folk on Twitter aggressively tweeting the rest of our sponsors, and even digging deep enough to find people who own or are involved with said sponsors to ask for their views. I'm dismayed at how all of this has played out. It's entirely possible that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg so far today. All this just to placate a number of people with a massive hard-on for a 32-year-old striker who recently demanded a move away from the club they're supposedly diehard supporters of. Deary me.

We must be the first club in history to have a section of fans which continues to hero worship a player who handed in a transfer request mid-season to force a move (never mind all the rest). I can't fathom it myself. I see it's now been formally announced by the club, with a comically sheepish adjoining statement and tweet. Deary me, what an absolute mess they've made here.

It was sarcasm, m8

Not sure whether it would make it more or less bone-headed a move if it was just until the end of the season, but I suspect that'll be him happily stationed here until he retires. You really do have to say "fair play" to the same fans he gave the middle finger to just a month ago for pressurising the piss-weak individuals on the board into this.

Whatever your personal stance on his return is, for the club to come to a decision one way and then go back on it in a matter of days is absolutely pathetic. Entirely summative of the circus act we are at the moment.

What has become of Clydebank's recent play-off qualifications? Other than blind optimism a few weeks later when you bin half your flops and replace them with the new batch of part-time mercenaries, of course.

Spectacular tears from the above. Airdrie not only incapable of beating a Junior level outfit, but noted for never, ever running the clock down. Enjoy League 1 next season, and the season after that, and then the one after that, and so on.

Goodwillie was desperate to get away from the club throughout January so I'm not sure why he even wanted to return anyway I fully expected that the board would sanction re-recruiting him, so fair play to them for making the sensible decision. Glad it's finally put to bed and hopefully we can now assemble a proper, balanced squad for next season rather than a dozen empty jerseys with Goodwillie up top.