Alpha Gordini

Wrong! I'm not a member of the SC or the Trust. I do have shares in the club, though, and I do listen to what people say (whether I like and/or agree with them or not) and think about it before coming to an informed opinion.

So here we are, stuck in another vacuum in limbo-land... Another crap season over, and all we get from the Chairman is yet more silence. There's 11 days until he steps down. That just seems crazy to me: he needs to go NOW. There's only about a couple of months before competition starts again, and there is so much that needs to be done: Sort out the board shenanigans (I'm including getting JB installed as chairman asap under this, and getting more directors on board, rather than the daft plans of the SC to replace them all, which will just make things much worse and use up more valuable time, while also not guaranteeing that things will get better. Get the board to start communicating with the shareholders and fans asap, and let's make it a two way thing. A lot of the pish on here and on other social media arises because people have little or no real understanding of what's going on at the club, and how it operates. Get a commercial director on board. I disagree with JB here, I think we need someone with the responsibility and authority to oversee the commercial side of things. It's a big job, and needs someone with drive and determination, rather than sharing the role among the directors. Start re-integrating the club with the community: if local people and businesses feel a tie with the club, they are more likely to stump up a few quid through buying tickets and merchandise, and/or sponsorship. I would also include under this explaining to people (a) that we need help, and (b) how they can help out by volunteering to sell programmes, to sell refreshments (the chip van may not be back next year), to drive the reserve team bus etc. And yes, we should keep the reserves, because that shows we're supporting younger local players. Decide on the management team (are Brownlie and Yano staying?). FWIW I think they should go. Sort out the team by getting a squad together (FWIW they were saying on the radio on Saturday that BSC get some good young loan players from St Johnstone, so we'll need to act sharpish) we need a mix of young and old heads. The parachute payment needs to be used wisely. FWIW I would also be knocking on Pat Nevin's door and asking him to become an ambassador for the club, and let him more or less define what that means (remembering that he was Chief Exec at Motherwell for a while, so he knows about running a football club that is in turmoil!) He offered to get involved at the anniversary dinner a couple of years ago, but nothing's been done about it, as far as I can tell. (We should also have got Jim Jeffreys involved in some way, before he went off to Edinburgh City.) We need to start seizing great opportunities like this, rather than letting them pass us by. I'm sure this list is incomplete, but time is of the esssence. We need to start NOW, not wait another couple of weeks, until Len moves aside. We've got to start looking forward, rather than back. otherwise we'll end up in mid-table mediocrity in the LL, and I don't believe any Berwick supporter wants that.

There's a lot of BS on here about JB, which is completely unfounded. It's clear that a lot of people don't understand how the board of a company operates. He can't unilaterally make decisions about anything except trifling matters. It all goes to the board for a vote, before action is taken. So, for example, it wasn't JB's decision about when JH got the boot, it was the board's. JB may have backed keeping him on, but so did the majority of the board. Similarly, JB didn't appoint him, the board did. The thing that the club has mostly been lacking is leadership from the chairman, who has never articulated any vision for the future of the club in his time in charge. That, coupled with a board that mostly comprised apathetic, and/or lazy members, has led us to where we are now. To give JB his due, at least he has put forward a vision to try and make BRFC a sustainable club going forward. And that's what it was: "a vision", not something set in stone, but laying out ideas for taking the club forward, and he has said that he's open to adjusting and amending it, so if people have got better ideas he's open to discussing them. The vision when it gers firmed up into a plan would have to be approved by the board. Talking of whom, I think it's also a crying shame that GM resigned from the board too. From the outside, these were the only two board members who appeared to be giving any consideration to the club's future. I don't think the SC's call for an EGM to oust the board makes sense at this point. It looks like they want to control what goes on (again) and we've seen how that's turned out in recent seasons. If there is an EGM, I hope that the club properly informs everyone on here who owns shares in the club (like me) about the meeting, and makes sure that we are told about how we can vote, either in person, or by proxy. I think @Redcar is right in what he says about better support for Robbie Horn would (probably) have meant that we didn't end up where we are now. However, I'm not besties with JB, in case anyone thinks I am, and I'm not JB either!

Yup. It's Ouzy See. He's been crocked all season. Brought back too early a couple of times. That's his first full game.

I agree to a large extent, but what's our unique selling point that's going to attract investors? JB's basic plan is to reconnect the club with the community (which is what he talked about in the paper at the weekend) and George had created the financial plans. Those seemed pretty sensible to me. I'd have started now, by offering tickets (maybe limited to 500) for a fiver to those people who show up at the club to collect them during some set hours before Saturday. Meanwhile, what have the other directors been doing? From where I'm sitting it doesn't appear to be a lot. Do they have any plans or ideas for bringing in money and/or taking the club forward? Like you say, it's collective responsibility, and most of the personal mud-slinging at JB is misdirected. There seem to be a lot of people on here happy to criticise, but very few offer sensible solutions to what are pretty deep-seated problems that will take time and effort (and money) to fix. You're spot on about Dom: given his background he would've known about the reputational damage to the club that a single tweet could cause.

I hope Brennan, Orru and See are all fit... ...and someone explains the offside law to Adamson...

Crowd on Saturday was 1955, and the Cove 50-50 draw prize was £975 (give or take a few quid). Nice little earner for someone, and a good chunk of money for the club too. At our last home game (Albion), where we got a good crowd of 975, the 50-50 draw prize was £177 (according to the web site). Can anyone explain why the payout looks so low in comparison? Is it just a mistake on the web site? For comparison purposes, the prize was £138 for the midweek QP game (12th March) when the crowd was 293, and for the last Edinburgh game (30th March) was £200 for a crowd of 468.

I really hope Brennan is fully fit for the return leg (he looked like he was still protecting his ankle in the warm-up). We said on Saturday that Goodfellow should've stopped two or three of the goals. Having watched the horrorlights, I reckon he could've prevented all four! He doesn't command his box enough, and seems reluctant to get in among it: there were at least two or three occasions where he should've clattered through people and punched the ball away. In addition, he lets the ball bounce straight back off him too many times, rather than pushing it away from the danger area. I still can't believe JH brought in Cowden's third choice keeper and made him our first choice.

We *are* shite at defending, but it's because (a) our midfield are shite (and don't protect the defence enough), and (b) we persist with one (one and a half, occasionally two) up top, so when we clear it, it keeps coming back very quickly. I don't think Healy's a great player, but he won most of his headers yesterday and flicked a lot of them on for Adamson (if he'd only stayed onside, we could maybe have sneaked an early goal). Then the manager subbed Adamson at half time... don't know if he was injured, but he was replaced by a defender (McIlduff)! We looked like we had a bit more of a threat (OK. maybe half a threat) when Barr came on later in the second half, and O'Kane (yup, really.. well he was a midfielder/striker earlier in his career!) was getting up to support the attack and got in some good positions. Barr HAS to start next Saturday. Hume has to be left out. I'd give my right arm to have Scullion and Fleming in central defence for the return leg. Scullion played like a drain about 1 game in 4, and Fleming was a bit raw, but learning a lot playing alongside him, and he was quick. I'm about as quick as our current central defence and they've got 20+ years on me! It's shit or bust time. A couple of early goals, and the defenders need to be winding up the Cove forwards too. Like @PELE says, if we can a couple of goals up. and one of the Cove players gets sent off, it could make things VERY interesting. Failing that, at least the speedway is on later that evening

The council owns the ground, but the Supporters Club (rather than the football club) hold the lease.

From yesterday's paper, scanned in in two parts, but readable (I hope): "The reason we are in this position is that other clubs work harder". Ignoring the fact that the top photo on the right isn't JB, there is some interesting stuff in here. It shows that we've drifted into failure. It's taken a combination of apathy and/or lethargy on the part of the Board who've just ignored what's been going on around them, heaving another sigh of relief (and self-congratulation?) in recent seasons when we've dodged the relegation play-offs, and poor team management (letting reasonable players go and replacing them with players who aren't as good). BR Part 1.pdf BR Part 2.pdf

A long, rambling collection of thoughts about today... This is what happens if you build a team full of LL/EoSL players. A big chunk of this is on JH (let's not forget he got three extra players in by getting them to break their contracts, which is shameful IMHO). Then the board for taking so long to hand him his P45. Then the current management for the line-up today... Unless Brennan is still not fit enought, Goodfellow shouldn't be in the team. He's too reticent to come for crosses, for starters. We reckon he was at fault on 2 if not 3 of the goals. Hume is a waste of space. He didn't do much more than get booked. O'Kane has often been a red card waiting to happen, and was a little unlucky to get booked. He should've scored, and at least he kept trying throughout the game. Bob Wilson, for all his faults, was the player who most looked like he *really* cared. He kept trying to raise the players, and made some good saving tackles and interceptions. He looked gutted to go off when he ws injured. Barr should have been on from the start. We need someone who can move around a bit, and has a bit of skill and can get to the byline and cross. We looked more impressive going forward (although TBF that wasn's *that* hard) after he came on. Healy worked hard, but it's pointless hoofing the ball up to him to win the header if we don't have anyone within 5 yards of him to get the second ball. If Adamson had watched the offside line better he'd have been on goal a lot more times than he was in the first half. Too many times he didn't get a shot away. Adamson flattered to deceive. Working with Healy he looked our best threat in the first half, but was subbed for the second. Brydon worked hard too, but made some rash decisions and tired late on. The rest of the (starting) players drifted in and out of the game at times. We don't look fit enough, and we don't seem to know when to pass and when to hold onto the ball. The injuries didn't help, given that two were at the back. The first half was pretty scrappy, even though it felt that Cove were on top, there weren't many clear cut chances. Cove deserved their win, for sure, but I hate the way they kept trying to con the referee. It happened last week when their pressure on the ref led to the second booking and sending off, and this week one player went down holding his face like he'd been hit (then got up and carried on when the ref ignored him) and another screamed blue murder right in front of us and was lying on the ground holding his calf but got up and started running within about 15 seconds without even limping when the ref ignored him. I said to my co-travellers at half time, I don't think Cove are a particularly good team. They hadn't carved us apart like some teams in SPFL2 have done. They got two goals later on as we tired and made more mistakes (again), plus we're not a good side, by any stretch of the imagination. Oh and Masson's goal for Cove was a peach (even *we* applauded it). He'd blazed a couple of much better chances over the bar earlier on, so it did come as a bit of surprise. I'm lucky. I can't make next week. I hope the board change their minds and let residents and season ticket holders in for free. We need to pack the place out, and we need the management team to (a) pick the best XI, and (b) set them up to create chances and score goals. It's a *humungous* ask, but there is an infinitessimally small glimmer of hope.

I believe not, it's 30 mins ET then pens.

Getting back to the thread... I really hope we can pull this off. If we can come away from tomorrow with at least a draw, and no injuries to worry about, I'll be very happy. As well as all the players, I hope *all* the BRFC directors will show up, for once. If ever there was a time we all need to pull together, this is it.

I suspect it will be very busy. Apparently there are some spaces at the ground, but the club are also going to be using company car parks in the area for the overspill. See http://berwickrangers.com/information-for-fans-travelling-to-cove/