The Moonster

Glad to see our pre-match reverse psychology worked a treat.

Aye?

Was she impressed with your poem? If so, get rid immediately.

Confirmed by my boss today that I'll be going to do training in Japan for 4 weeks in April, will be living and working out of Osaka. Absolutely buzzing oot ma wee titties.

He's brought it on himself and can have no complaints. I was one who would've preferred everyone just moved on when he was sacked and I was disappointed that Stevie acted the way he did - sure, he was probably getting pelters and I'm sure after a while you would feel the need to defend yourself or react, but it showed a real lack of class. It must have been a bit of a kick in the teeth to the Dumbarton squad that HE built and HE apparently enjoyed working with. Can you imagine being a member of that squad, perhaps a member who didn't want Stevie sacked, and reading your former gaffer revelling in your defeat? I would've thought even after being sacked you'd have liked to have seen your squad go on and do well, regardless of any ill-feeling he has towards board members or certain fans.

Could be that other clubs haven't taken down old boards thus giving the illusion that they have more sponsors than they're being paid for. I can assure it's not through lack of effort from the club - effort is just not something we lack any more.

The spelling mistake is intentional - oor auld pal Stevie Aitken tweeted "tought you well mate" to Faz after Stranraer's previous victory over us.

Fair enough, it was more OKIs line of the hardcore fan base being asked to step up - we're always going to be asked to step up and that's the way it should be IMO. Think we've just moved them all to behind the goals: Suppose that's where goals are scored and as such more photos/action shots of behind the goals will appear in highlights etc. hence better exposure for the sponsor. I think the boards can look a bit tacky at times tbh but understand they're essential income for the club.

We're all now very aware of our current situation and why we're here though, fundraising is the only way out of this hole. I would argue that fundraisers should be arranged every season, not just because it raises funds but because it helps build a community feel at the club. Things are being put in place to help with long term sustainability, new caterers who appear very keen to utilise the function suites to their full potential for example, but right now fans are being asked to help get the club through this and if such a situation arises again then they'll be asked again. I'm not sure who else we can expect to keep the club alive.

It's almost like the style of football is completely different and suits different players differently.

I don't really agree here. Is a community club not what we want? A community club depends on it's fans and the local community to raise the cash needed. Our old model of letting whichever director fancied it that month to fire in a soft loan and claim it back later is why we're in this shit show right now. For years I've heard Sons fans talk about the club being a community club and how great it would be to get ownership in our hands, but as we now start to actually carry this out I fear that Sons fans like the idea of a community club more than the reality of it. Of course the fans are asked to step up and help fund shortfall's, it's our club, if we're not doing it, who is?

I got to the end of the season last night and luckily the £25M TV deal came in the day before the end of the FFP deadline, so I ended up with a loss of £11M which is delightful considering I was projected to make a loss of about £80M at the start of the season. Cassidy is so frustrating, dribbling and first touch is world class and if he starts scoring he'll be unstoppable. Frustratingly his value is only at £3.2M just now, I'm assuming purely because he can't score a fucking goal, so selling him makes little sense when he still has potential. If he was able to bring me in £10-20M I'd sell tomorrow. I wonder if there's some secret way you're supposed to play him aside from in his preferred role and position, I see FM blogs regularly tout him as a great signing but I'm yet to see it. Took on the play-offs last night, comfortable semi-final win over QPR (3-1), Crystal Palace in the final - domination from start to finish, 16 shots at goal to their 4, bar hit, post hit, finished 1-0 to Palace. Fucking tears. Unsure if I'll resign, I'm going to have a scout for a striker and if I can get an EPL striker in I might stay, I have built a good young side and we should finish in the auto spots next year, but I'm not sure I've got the long slog in me again.

I would share most of those concerns if I didn't know exactly what sort of skills our current board have. It's easily the most knowledgable and passionate board we've had in my 30 years on this planet and I have every confidence in them to safe guard us, they also have the backing of our 300 or so Trust members, around 8 of which have been formed as a working group to run certain fundraisers or matchday events to take some of the burden away from board. I don't expect it to be all plain sailing, but if we can get out of our current financial hole I think we can make life a bit more comfortable in the future with the way we work.

Without wanting to completely derail your thread here - we were taken over by a company called Brabco who are essentially a group of property developers. Their plan was to sell our current ground for houses (very profitable land we have down there) and move the club to a new "Community Hub" stadium a wee bit further out of town (sound familiar?). Brabco told us when they took over that they had no intention of investing or interfering with the football side of things and their main focus would be moving stadium - this has led to the current stadium being neglected for the best part of the last decade and we now have some pretty pricey repairs to carry out. The council knocked back Brabco's stadium move (after about 8 years of planning) and Brabco are now stuck with an investment in a football club they don't want and very few options for making their money back (we have a "Golden Share" which prevents our asset i.e. stadium being sold without the future of the club being safeguarded with a new stadium plan approved, so that removes the "sell the ground and run with the money" option). Throughout all of this we've had a Trust rep on the board (who has had his hands tied for much of the preceding years) and last year after our chairman Les Hope resigned we put a new board in place which is largely filled with Trust members. This has led to a change in how we operate - no longer will we operate on director loans to fill in gaps in cash flow which is what has contributed to where we are today financially (we owe some money to former chairmen/directors and it can cripple the club). It's now essentially operating as a Community club in all but name, we raise money through fundraisers and we now have new caterers/events managers involved who will be looking to rent the function suites we have to provide non-match day income. In the summer we dropped divisions which sees a huge reduction in prize money, we lost 25% of our season ticket holders and we have the aforementioned repairs, some of which are now critical. To add insult to injury, Raith progressed in the Scottish Cup which has meant we don't have a home game for 4 weeks (a situation we also ended up with in October last year). That on top of still having owners who don't want to put in a penny means we are in a very difficult position right now and need money urgently to see us through. If we can punt our owners and transfer ownership to the fans we'd have a much better time of it, IMO. Working with owners like Brabco is a fucking nightmare.

I have no idea what your point was then. You seem to be under the belief I'm having some sort of fit here when in actual fact I'm having a bit of a laugh on a football forum.