The New Raith Rovers Thread

[TxRover]

3 hours ago, Against The Machine said:

I wouldn't read too much into it at this stage, it sounds like it's just a bit of corporate admin. As detailed above, there are literally thousands of shareholders across the three or four group companies, and I imagine the club have no idea how to contact two thirds of them. 

I'm sure there was talk in the past of simplifying the structure again (although possibly it came from the Trust rather than the club) which I presume would involve having to convert shares in the likes of NRR into an equivalent (in terms of overall control, rather than direct shareholding) stake in Raith Rovers FC Ltd, but I've no idea how realistic or achievable that is. 

With the various interested parties floating around and inspecting the books, there's a renewed focus on the various shareholdings, and it makes sense whatever the outcome to try and update the register. 

That’s exactly how I see it. There are hundreds or thousands of theoretical shares/shareholders outstanding. The actually value of the shares and the percentage of control of the Club, if any, is negligible, but it is an essential part of any due diligence to properly attempt to track down as much as possible to ensure there are no surprises outstanding. Ideally, this would result in a single entity, such as the Raith Trust, getting ownership of a majority of the “missing” shares and simplifying the legal aspects of the Club’s ownership (such as a 979 compulsory buyout) if purchased.

[Rovers_Lad]

18 hours ago, Zen Archer (Raconteur) said:

 

I bought shares in 2011 this was for New Raith Rovers, it was getting promoted by Eric Drysdale at the time.

My mrs dug out my share certificate and my shares were purchased in Raith Rovers FC holding company in October 1999

[Ro Sham Bo]

Happy Saturday night Rovers fans. Huge win to put any relegation worries to bed and push us into the battle for 4th.

Now two cup matches to come with no league pressure and nothing to lose. 

[R.R.FC]

Fantastic win today and all credit to Murray and the players. First season in charge inheriting a side that hadn’t won a home game in 7 months, were in relegation form the second half of last season with the fallout of the Goodwillie debacle, reduced budget, loss of our most experienced and one of our best players from last campaign on the eve of the new season and uncertainty over the club ownership to be 5th place in a cup semi final and the last 16 of the Scottish Cup, 10 games unbeaten is good going particularly after a poor start.

Tough run of fixtures coming up so things can change very quickly but can really see what Murray is trying to build. The attitude and workrate of this team is fantastic. 

On a slightly less positive note, who the hell starts up front for us next Saturday? Gullan and Vaughan surely massive doubts and Akio cup tied. McBride doesn’t strike me as a lone striker but we don’t really have any other choice. Brown will be a big miss too. Not throwing the towel in at this stage but it’s a real shame to be missing some key players as I’d have given us a really good chance if we were full strength. 

[dysartrovers]

The team spirit is amazing within the squad. The way the players celebrated the final whistle and then came over to the fans was great to watch 

[TxRover]

23 minutes ago, R.R.FC said:

Fantastic win today and all credit to Murray and the players. First season in charge inheriting a side that hadn’t won a home game in 7 months, were in relegation form the second half of last season with the fallout of the Goodwillie debacle, reduced budget, loss of our most experienced and one of our best players from last campaign on the eve of the new season and uncertainty over the club ownership to be 5th place in a cup semi final and the last 16 of the Scottish Cup, 10 games unbeaten is good going particularly after a poor start.

Tough run of fixtures coming up so things can change very quickly but can really see what Murray is trying to build. The attitude and workrate of this team is fantastic. 

On a slightly less positive note, who the hell starts up front for us next Saturday? Gullan and Vaughan surely massive doubts and Akio cup tied. McBride doesn’t strike me as a lone striker but we don’t really have any other choice. Brown will be a big miss too. Not throwing the towel in at this stage but it’s a real shame to be missing some key players as I’d have given us a really good chance if we were full strength. 

OK, so Motherwell…

We can’t use McGill, Akio, Young or Brown…we can assume Vaughan is out, but Gullan should be fine unless you saw something today…a sub at 60 minutes is Murray’s plan for Gullan.

So Gullan up top, McBride is he’s not available…

Stanton in the middle, with Connolly and Easton wide…

Dick and Spencer in front of the defenders…

Ngwenya, Nolan, Lang and Millen in the back.

[R.R.FC]

4 minutes ago, TxRover said:

OK, so Motherwell…

We can’t use McGill, Akio, Young or Brown…we can assume Vaughan is out, but Gullan should be fine unless you saw something today…a sub at 60 minutes is Murray’s plan for Gullan.

So Gullan up top, McBride is he’s not available…

Stanton in the middle, with Connolly and Easton wide…

Dick and Spencer in front of the defenders…

Ngwenya, Nolan, Lang and Millen in the back.

Murray said in his post match interview that both Gullan and Vaughan pulled up at the same time. He hopes since they caught them straight away the damage won’t be too severe but he won’t take any risks with them.

So it didn’t sound particularly bleak for either but I’d be very surprised if they were available for Saturday.

[Offshore Rover]

7 minutes ago, dysartrovers said:

The team spirit is amazing within the squad. The way the players celebrated the final whistle and then came over to the fans was great to watch 

Speaking of that, what was with the steward trying to stop them? Total w**k in my eyes. I did see one of the players tell him where to go but not sure who it was 

[Ro Sham Bo]

7 minutes ago, R.R.FC said:

Murray said in his post match interview that both Gullan and Vaughan pulled up at the same time. He hopes since they caught them straight away the damage won’t be too severe but he won’t take any risks with them.

So it didn’t sound particularly bleak for either but I’d be very surprised if they were available for Saturday.

Sounded like Kieran Mitchell is about to be recalled. Again. 

[Ro Sham Bo]

14 minutes ago, TxRover said:

OK, so Motherwell…

We can’t use McGill, Akio, Young or Brown…we can assume Vaughan is out, but Gullan should be fine unless you saw something today…a sub at 60 minutes is Murray’s plan for Gullan.

So Gullan up top, McBride is he’s not available…

Stanton in the middle, with Connolly and Easton wide…

Dick and Spencer in front of the defenders…

Ngwenya, Nolan, Lang and Millen in the back.

Not much point speculating about Saturday until we get through the match on Wednesday first. 

[TxRover]

26 minutes ago, R.R.FC said:

Murray said in his post match interview that both Gullan and Vaughan pulled up at the same time. He hopes since they caught them straight away the damage won’t be too severe but he won’t take any risks with them.

So it didn’t sound particularly bleak for either but I’d be very surprised if they were available for Saturday.

Right, hadn’t see the interview yet…Gullan pulling up has been 2-3 weeks before return…Vaughan, who knows.

[TxRover]

18 minutes ago, Ro Sham Bo said:

Not much point speculating about Saturday until we get through the match on Wednesday first. 

Well, the question was asked about Motherwell because Brown and Akio are out for it…so I addressed that.

[grumswall]

21 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Right, hadn’t see the interview yet…Gullan pulling up has been 2-3 weeks before return…Vaughan, who knows.

Such a recurring theme with gullan unfortunately. We really need willy to work out to give gullan a break to recuperate properly. 

[Mr November]

I see Raith won today after bringing on a striker for a defender, was this a rare instance of Murrayball working or just shifting players around with normal tactics?

[Hank Scorpio]

13 minutes ago, Mr November said:

I see Raith won today after bringing on a striker for a defender, was this a rare instance of Murrayball working or just shifting players around with normal tactics?

He brought on McBride for Millen but it was as part of a change of shape to 3 at the back whilst we were 1-0 down. Evidently it paid off as we equalised within 2 minutes and then scored the winner after another 7 minutes - with McBride actually getting the winner. Soon after we went 2-1 up we changed the shape again with another sub and went back to a back 4. Murray has calmed right down from the early part of the season where we regularly saw centre halves being pulled off for strikers whilst chasing the game which without fail ended up in us completely losing our shape and any momentum in favour of launching the ball up the park. Think we’ve seen an evolution of Murray’s tactics since then and whilst he is still definitely not scared to make subs when needing a goal, it’s in a far more measured manner and obviously today, it really worked. 

Edited February 4, 2023 by Hank Scorpio

[Mr November]

1 hour ago, Hank Scorpio said:

He brought on McBride for Millen but it was as part of a change of shape to 3 at the back whilst we were 1-0 down. Evidently it paid off as we equalised within 2 minutes and then scored the winner after another 7 minutes - with McBride actually getting the winner. Soon after we went 2-1 up we changed the shape again with another sub and went back to a back 4. Murray has calmed right down from the early part of the season where we regularly saw centre halves being pulled off for strikers whilst chasing the game which without fail ended up in us completely losing our shape and any momentum in favour of launching the ball up the park. Think we’ve seen an evolution of Murray’s tactics since then and whilst he is still definitely not scared to make subs when needing a goal, it’s in a far more measured manner and obviously today, it really worked. 

That makes more sense. Prime Murrayball with six strikers on and no shape, just vibes is undoubtedly the most entertaining football I’ve ever watched on the couple (well, one main one) of occasions it really worked but very frustrating when it doesn’t. 

Any time I’ve looked at this thread fans have seemed pretty split on Murray, near enough from the start. He had similar with us, despite steady progress each year it took until last season for the majority to fully buy in to what he was doing. His teams tended to be stronger in the second half of the season, particularly his last couple where we went from 6th after 14 games to 2nd, 2 points off top, in the shortened 22 game season and then a ridiculous 20 game unbeaten run to finish last season. Ultimately it didn’t count for anything with the play-off defeats but if he can repeat something similar with Raith then they’ll have a great shout at grabbing that final play-off spot.

[Wardy]

Since we won up at Arbroath the last time we’ve only lost 3 games in 18 (in all competitions) 

[roverthemoon]

Definitely feels like the team is slowly improving, but wary of getting carried away as there are a lot of draws in the unbeaten run and more importantly draws where it felt like we chucked away the three points - Morton, Cove, Inverness. Incredible to think if we’d held on in those three games we’d currently be joint second.  It still feels like there’s a bit of a soft centre in our defence when we are under real pressure. Yesterday was great, but thought Arbroath were pretty poor and, wind aside, not much of a threat. Still, it’s good to be still in the cups and looking up rather than down. 

[pub car king]

Having a bench with more than 2 players and a young goalie has really helped in recent weeks. Hopefully Ross will be back soon as well to add to this. 

Losing both forwards today is a blow though. Vaughan will be treated quite rightly with kid gloves to make sure he's fully recovered. Gullan seems to do this frequently every 5 or 6 games he gets a strain or a knock and is out for a few weeks and then off we go again. 

Stanton is the obvious replacement for Vaughan but we are losing Brown for the Scottish cup so it might be a bit makeshift up front.

[R.R.FC]

42 minutes ago, roverthemoon said:

Definitely feels like the team is slowly improving, but wary of getting carried away as there are a lot of draws in the unbeaten run and more importantly draws where it felt like we chucked away the three points - Morton, Cove, Inverness. Incredible to think if we’d held on in those three games we’d currently be joint second.  It still feels like there’s a bit of a soft centre in our defence when we are under real pressure. Yesterday was great, but thought Arbroath were pretty poor and, wind aside, not much of a threat. Still, it’s good to be still in the cups and looking up rather than down. 

Agree with most of this but although we were 2-0 up vs Morton and to throw away that lead is frustrating, I wouldn’t put it in the same category as the Cove and Inverness games. I thought we were piss poor in that game until the last 15 minutes and we were very fortunate to be 2 up having only been in Morton’s half 3 times at that point. Definitely didn’t have the same level of control we had in the other 2 games mentioned.

I take the unbeaten run in two parts. Before and after the Hamilton win. We weren’t playing well before that even though we were 4 unbeaten after the Hamilton game. The Morton cup game was a dull dud and I thought that Morton league game and second half performance the following week against Arbroath were our worst 2 home performances of the season and I had real concerns about us at that point.

There been a huge improvement since then though. Like you say, it’s crazy to think where we’d be without dropping those silly points against Inverness and Cove but the key thing for me is the performances and we are playing well just now, and have kicked on since that win at Hamilton.

We obviously still have our weaknesses though, if you take out the games against the QP reserve side and 6th tier Talbot and Linlithgow we have kept 1 clean sheet in 12. I would also agree about us having a softness recently but coming from behind in tough conditions to win at Gayfield is hopefully a step in the right direction on that front.

Losing Gullan and Vaughan for any length of time when we have just got close to a full squad is also a blow. Really down to the bare bones in the Motherwell game with no Akio, McGill, Vaughan, Gullan, Brown, Matthews and probably Ross. And who knows if we’ll pick up any further issues in midweek. I also think, on paper we won’t be favourites for our next 5 games so things can turn around very quickly so we shouldn’t get carried away as it could be all doom and gloom again in a few weeks but yesterday was a very important win.