The New Raith Rovers Thread

[Broken Algorithms]

Listened through to the Sim interview on K107. Firstly, Graeme does really well in terms of the interview. Like so many other volunteers involved with the club directly or indirectly, he's an absolute asset for the club.  

There's a lot of good things and bad things through it. He does deserve recognition for his attempts to improve the club, and the money he has put in. I'm glad that he's at least made attempts to discuss a plan of succession because for me that is an absolutely overbearing issue. For a good while, we'd not heard anything on what will happen moving forwards if there's a huge change of circumstances meaning he's no longer on the Sim. It's by no means clear as what will happen, but now is definitely the time to be looking at how we move forwards.

I feel like there's inconsistencies from within the club over what happened during the Goodwillie debacle. There's no chance our full board weren't aware of the signing. I feel he's gone into the interview with Alan Temple and 'shot from the hip' only for it to reopen the wound. In all honesty, when Goodwillie is gone, I couldn't care less about his views - he's entitled to them and at the end of the day it's him and the rest of the board who are the ones who need to live with it. The most important thing is how we grow the club moving forwards. 

The main take from me is on the commercial side of things. I do think that there's a lot of good people involved with the club directly at the moment and there's a lot of good ideas which are brewing. You'd expect that the CEO would be in charge of oversight and that we'd have been aware of the situation about the advertising. 

[grumswall]

I don't really think we need to be made aware of every aspect of things when it comes to the advertising boards etc but if what sim says is true about not taking any income from some of them then you really need to ask questions about that.
I listened live and had a kid screaming in my ear so could be wrong, but did he not say that we were very close to going bust 5/6 years ago also? We have a 150k hole in our finances, which again, you have to ask why? Is it due to the historic debt, are we over paying for players, or is it due to the costs of upgrading the stadium etc? There's alot of questions that need answered around all of that and by his own admission, it isn't easy to pin point where alot of the money has went.
I'm encouraged that he seems to want to leave the club to the fans when he "retires" as he puts it, but it's worrying that there's a 150k hole for a fan base of under 2k to fill when that time does come.

[Raith_Raver]

Dick Campbell saying the wind spoiled his game



 

[CountryBumpkin]

42 minutes ago, grumswall said:

I don't really think we need to be made aware of every aspect of things when it comes to the advertising boards etc but if what sim says is true about not taking any income from some of them then you really need to ask questions about that.
I listened live and had a kid screaming in my ear so could be wrong, but did he not say that we were very close to going bust 5/6 years ago also? We have a 150k hole in our finances, which again, you have to ask why? Is it due to the historic debt, are we over paying for players, or is it due to the costs of upgrading the stadium etc? There's alot of questions that need answered around all of that and by his own admission, it isn't easy to pin point where alot of the money has went.
I'm encouraged that he seems to want to leave the club to the fans when he "retires" as he puts it, but it's worrying that there's a 150k hole for a fan base of under 2k to fill when that time does come.

Covid and no supporters probably did a bit of that damage I'd imagine as well as those you mentioned 

[Hank Scorpio]

1 hour ago, Scottydog said:

Not disputing it, but what site do you visit for stats like that?

It’s from Wyscout. 

[grumswall]

Covid and no supporters probably did a bit of that damage I'd imagine as well as those you mentioned 

Maybe, he did say it was every year but didn't specify how long that had been the case. He did speak about 17/18 as a time where we should have been out of business though for the 3rd time iirc. It could be scaremongering or whatever but its certainly something we need to look at.

[Ro Sham Bo]

I imagine if you look at most clubs finances they will look like they 'should' be out of business. 

[Michael W]

13 hours ago, CountryBumpkin said:

Covid and no supporters probably did a bit of that damage I'd imagine as well as those you mentioned 

The club was given a £500k Scottish Government grant, which probably compensated us pretty adequately. Added into the £100k that the fans raised as well during the covid shutdown. I do think we would benefit from greater transparency of our income streams and also the outgoings,  particularly if we're going to mention £150k blackholes casually in conversation: why does this exist? Why are we tolerating it? What can be done to plug it?

It is a fair comment RE nearly going out of business, though. League One is the absolute pits and is where full-time football goes to die, so I'm not surprised the position looked grim. Our losses during our last spell down there were utterly horrendous (£600k in the first two seasons if I remember rightly). We spent to try and come straight up again and it backfired and we cannot have that happen again. Given the financial disaster of our first season down there, it is somewhat bemusing to hear Sim's positive opinion of Barry Smith, given his failure to do the necessary. 

I've not had the opportunity to listen to more than 10-15mins of Sim's interview yet, but I find it completely implausible that Sim knew nothing of the Goodwillie signing. Given his standing at the club I just don't buy that at all - he would surely have been involved in setting budgets/fee approval etc. Of course, if this was in fact under the CEO's remit, then it's another reason to put her P45 in the post this morning. There we go, £150k black hole reduced a bit. 

Edited August 22, 2022 by Michael W

[Double Jack D]

Aye, the interview did fall a wee bit short on detail of some major issues.

Sim has stated that the Goodwillie expense does not impact the P+L of Raith Rovers. Why the  accountancy speak? This is definitely hiding something. The obvious question which was never asked is where are the funds coming from to pay his wages and the legal team working on the resolution. If it is one of the shell companies, a director or a main sponsor then it's not too much of a leap to suggest that it is impacting the Rovers budget, even if it is not specifically coming from the P&L of the actual club accounts.

I do agree with Sim regarding the lack of any gratitude from the fans for people who invest money in the club. This has been an issue all my Rovers supporting life. I'm not sure where I stand on this though. We have never had any real transparency on this from any investors and I suspect that, although there will be financial support given, there are probably significant benefits to individuals from investing in a Championship club which they don't want publicised too. Whilst I think we (the fans) should perhaps have a bit more respect for the work and finance that goes into the running of the club, I'm not getting the violin out for these guys as I'm sure there are many tangible and non-tangible benefits to being in an ownership position at a football club.

The £150k/ year deficit I took as the average loss per year since 2005. He had said that the club had lost circa £2m over the duration however also stated that there is now no bank debt. Again there was little detail on this "loss", ie is it constant/ improving/worsening. Also what has the club contributed to SPP over the same time, does this include the fans fund money? and does it include any potential unrealised assets such as the sell on clause for Kieron Bowie etc?

I'm glad he didn't get his wish with Paul Smith to be manager. I think we have a much better managerial team in place now than we would have had with either McGlynn or Smith continuing in the role. His love of Barry Smith was a bit weird too.

I don't believe at all that he had limited involvement in the signing of Goodwillie. If that is true then he needs to have more involvement in decisions that could be ruinous for the club. He did acknowledge that it happened on his watch and has led to him extending his stay until it is sorted. Admirable, if true.

All in all, it was a decent interview but I have to admit that by the end I had the distinct feeling he was telling us what he thought we wanted to hear. Whilst I wouldn't quite describe the running of the club as a shambles, we could certainly do a lot lot better.

[Always next quarter]

Listened to most of the interview, not what I hoped it would be as it flowed into Sim setting the tone which meant it ran away from the interviewer.

No disrespect intended to the lad who IMO took on an almost impossible task. For balance I heard the Bill Clark one which was IMO excellent.  The interview we actually want kills the stations link to the club. Probably only a national media person gets that story.

In some ways that's better for Rovers as its less wild than we could have expected. It is however riddled with erratic interpretations of life at RRFC.

He knew nothing of the deal

Hasn't read Courier article

Titan wasn't motivated by hospitality 

Money going to GW doesn't affect club budget 

Board acted promptly to limit damage

Advertising not being paid for

The RAITH acronym..I was hoping the interviewer would have said what about the others

Does bridge building get mentioned- ladies team, volunteers etc

This is what jumped out, as I say not what I expected or probably wanted but maybe that's a good thing. Maybe some of this is covered at the end which I've not caught. Will try to do so when golfing later.

I'm still baffled that there is a highly paid CEO leading the club. I seem to type that a lot but I just don't understand what the value is. Maybe someone can educate me. 

Fair play K107 not an easy task to take on. 

 

 

[bobbykdy]

18 minutes ago, Always next quarter said:

Listened to most of the interview, not what I hoped it would be as it flowed into Sim setting the tone which meant it ran away from the interviewer.

No disrespect intended to the lad who IMO took on an almost impossible task. For balance I heard the Bill Clark one which was IMO excellent.  The interview we actually want kills the stations link to the club. Probably only a national media person gets that story.

 

 

 

Was the Bill Clark interview also on K107? Any idea what date? Haven't heard it and would like to go look it up & listen.

[Broken Algorithms]

1 hour ago, bobbykdy said:

Was the Bill Clark interview also on K107? Any idea what date? Haven't heard it and would like to go look it up & listen.

I think it was right after Goodwillie had signed and Clark resigned from the board. On a side note,  I do wish we had Clark still involved. I've only met him once,  and it was for about 20 seconds on my way for a train,  but I did thank him for everything he did for the club in the initial post pandemic period where he made sure we stood our ground on promotion. Just gave a wee smile and a thumbs up! 

[CALDERON]

I liked the interview.  There’s only so much you can expect a local independent radio to push, and the host did a good job I thought.

I’ve probably got a bit more time for Sim than most on here.  It’s clear he has the clubs best interest at heart, and he has been a major factor in the club still existing.  Think he gets a bit of a hard time for having a “biscuit tin” mentality – at the end of the day the club are not in a good place financially, I’d imagine keeping the club afloat and showing any kind of ambition at the same time is challenging at best. Seems like a fundamentally decent enough guy, with a genuine desire for the club to prosper.

That said, a few things weren’t exactly clear.  Goodwillie’s salary not appearing on the P&L sounds deliberately specific/pedantic, as does the insistence he isn’t the owner.  The club can’t survive currently without him, and being owner of Starks Park Properties surely makes him owner by proxy?  Also the line about needing a fan to win the Euro Millions doesn’t exactly back up his point that the club belong to the fans. I also agree with the point about him being a journalists dream – can certainly imagine you could take some things he says and get some mileage out of them.  I’d prefer if someone a wee bit more media savvy was the public voice of the board.

Clarks interview re the Goodwillie situation seemed to purposely put a bit of distance between the management team and the signing, whilst Sim’s did the opposite.  I’m assuming the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  Can’t imagine its the type of deal that goes through without either party rubber stamping it.

I imagine the thought around Mcglynn being lowballed wasn’t too far from the truth, but can’t say I’m that bothered.  It’s obvious both parties felt a departure was for the best, so if it came out in an amicable way then cant see the issue.  Will always have a huge amount of time for Mcglynn and Smith, but last season was an underperformance – especially given how much money was spent.  Still think you could argue that they were exceptionally lucky to see the season out – any other manager and any other club would have been given the bullet based on those results. The part around the bolt ons for deals was enlightening, as well as his obvious frustration with the Tait transfer.  I felt at the time the Tait transfer had too much emphasis on what was best for Dylan Tait and his development, which I have to admit did bother me.  I don’t know how these thing usually work, but the fact the Rovers haven’t been fully paid yet does question just how valuable the deal was to the club in the grand scheme of things. 

Felt the line about “potential return” was interesting, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if Mcglynn gets involved as some kind of Director of Football role in the future (hopefully not as head of attacking players recruitment)

Was a decent listen, even if it doesn’t answer a huge amount in the end.

 

 

 

 

[Ro Sham Bo]

I had a look on Companies House and noticed we appear to only have 3 directors - Sim, McDonald and Morgan.

No mention of Smart, SImpson or the new supporters' rep.

Looks like the club need to catch up on their admin.

 

 

[Daz80]

21 hours ago, grumswall said:

21 hours ago, Broken Algorithms said:

It's pretty incredible to think that within the last few years, our fans booed one of our own players being subbed on and Kyle Benedictus come out in the post match interview asking fans to not act like that as it had absolutely ruined the player's confidence. 

The way Allan was treated was absolutely disgusting. He wasn't really good enough but to boo any player stepping on to the pitch to play for our club is pathetic.

True, but your previous post just minutes before that said you slaughtered one of our players last week. 

[Enigma]

2 hours ago, CALDERON said:

Felt the line about “potential return” was interesting, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if Mcglynn gets involved as some kind of Director of Football role in the future (hopefully not as head of attacking players recruitment)

I hope he never comes back and I wouldn’t be happy if he did return in any capacity.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Enigma

[SirJimmyofNic]

Who actually oversees the Club finances on a week to week or month to month basis, since theres no longer a financial Director, it just seems to me that nobody is doing their job apart from the unpaid volunteers , theres not even a feckin team photo this season, 

[CountryBumpkin]

29 minutes ago, SirJimmyofNic said:

Who actually oversees the Club finances on a week to week or month to month basis, since theres no longer a financial Director, it just seems to me that nobody is doing their job apart from the unpaid volunteers , theres not even a feckin team photo this season, 

Good question. As for team photo they might wait until window closes so the whole squad is there. 

[grumswall]

True, but your previous post just minutes before that said you slaughtered one of our players last week. 

I critiqued millen, I didn't boo him on to the pitch. Quite a difference.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

Looks like 3rd team at Ochilview Queens Park away on October 1st could be bumped to a Friday night.

Syngenta v. Tweedmouth Rangers - Fixtures - East of Scotland Football Association & League (eosfl.com)