The Falkirk FC Thread

[gav-ffc]

Mr Campbell added: “Youth development has been part of Falkirk’s DNA. Me? I want success in the Premiership as part of the club DNA, not staying in the Championship with young players. The number one aim of the plan is to take the club back to the Premiership.”

What a good c**t.

[Poet of the Macabre]

14 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

We won't take financial lectures from you with your clubs disgraceful record of zero p in the £

 

Um...surely taking advice from a club that's suffered huge financial issues in the past would be a good source of information of what steps should be taken to avoid similar strife?

[Gaz]

7 minutes ago, gav-ffc said:

Mr Campbell added: “Youth development has been part of Falkirk’s DNA. Me? I want success in the Premiership as part of the club DNA, not staying in the Championship with young players. The number one aim of the plan is to take the club back to the Premiership.”

What a good c**t.

Loads of folk giving it the old 'community club' and 'Falkirk family' pish.

I don't give a flying f**k if we're a community club or not. I want a club that fucking wins once in a while and doesn't make shite decision after shite decision after shite decision with the support of a large number of lickspittle arsehole fans who think that by saying "ah well never mind COYB" they're some kind of fucking amazing fan.

Get us established in the Premiership again and we'll become a community club again by virtue of more folk wanting to come and see us.

[Guest Back Post Misses]

 

According to BPM it was "nothing like 400k" and was more in the region of "100-150k".

 

Another cutting edge exclusive from the Club Insider.

 

There is 120k going into the academy and 200k got into the U20 team.

[Musketeer Gripweed]

It was nice while it lasted, but in all honesty it wasn't getting the desired return. A return to the natural trickle down effect that happens with youth players in Scotland is the correct thing to do. Let Celtic (and Rangers eventually again) invest money in youth development and once they don't make it there, make sure clubs like Falkirk are ready to pick up the best available.

It also put a lot of pressure on the manager to bring through players who weren't ready and has, in some cases, actually hindered their long term development.

[Marshmallo]

 
There is 120k going into the academy and 200k got into the U20 team.

Source?

[Guest Back Post Misses]

Source?

That is how the approx 340k is made up.

I think the Phrase Directors use is youth development for it all.

We pay 10k per month to FVA. It was shown at the AGM

If I was betting in think the U20’s will go at the end of the season too.

If we were looking for significant savings I would rather we ditched that than the Academy. I think the plan to look further afield is good. Talk is easy though, don’t think implementing it will be easy

[HopeStreetWalker]

Great idea in principle. But depended on the one 6-10 million pound gem to be produced, to kick us onto the next level. Motherwell , St Johnstone , Dundee United, Hamilton for example managed it.  Falkirk after nearly 10 years never came close. Just one multi million pound deal with add on's and  things could have been do different. But it never happened.

The scouting and coaching has just not been good enough.

The squad needs gutted and start again from scratch.  Are the likes of Finlayson , Peggie , Stowe for example going to be in the first team or on the bench this season ? If not give them a chance of a career at another cub and free up the wages for a first team regular.

 

 

 

 

[Bainsfordbairn]

1 minute ago, Back Post Misses said:

If I was betting in think the U20’s will go at the end of the season too.
 

 

I think the U20s were always going BPM, simply because there will be no U20 League. There will be U18s for Project Brave clubs, plus reserves for them and everyone else. Or at least that was the state of play last time I asked a few months back. Happy to be corrected by someone who has more up-to-date information though. 

So if there was no U20 League, and we'd decided to stay with FVFA, then any 16-year old we signed from them next May would have been playing in a reserve league come August. Against potentially a team full of 35 year old Simon Mensing-type cloggers.  I doubt many would have thrived in such an environment. 

As an example of that, I'm not long back from our U20 game at Kilmarnock tonight. . We played an extremely young team, with no first team players and probably no-one over 18 or 19. While Killie had a few older heads in their squad. We lost 6-1 and were probably fortunate that it wasn't a hell of  a lot more. They were absolutely miles ahead of us. Many of those boys will still be around next season. If tonight was hard, next year will likely be even harder, though at least they'll (presumably) have a lot more experienced players in beside them. 

Assuming we field a reserve team of course. 

 

[Guest Back Post Misses]

I think the U20s were always going BPM, simply because there will be no U20 League. There will be U18s for Project Brave clubs, plus reserves for them and everyone else. Or at least that was the state of play last time I asked a few months back. Happy to be corrected by someone who has more up-to-date information though. 
So if there was no U20 League, and we'd decided to stay with FVFA, then any 16-year old we signed from them next May would have been playing in a reserve league come August. Against potentially a team full of 35 year old Simon Mensing-type cloggers.  I doubt many would have thrived in such an environment. 
As an example of that, I'm not long back from our U20 game at Kilmarnock tonight. . We played an extremely young team, with no first team players and probably no-one over 18 or 19. While Killie had a few older heads in their squad. We lost 6-1 and were probably fortunate that it wasn't a hell of  a lot more. They were absolutely miles ahead of us. Many of those boys will still be around next season. If tonight was hard, next year will likely be even harder, though at least they'll (presumably) have a lot more experienced players in beside them. 
Assuming we field a reserve team of course. 
 

Clearly changes were required and overall I have much more beef with how this has been communicated than the business decision. I just don’t think it is right to have the press tell people. At least have the good grace to inform staff, parents and kids first.

Financially I believe it points to choppy waters. Last seasons losses are looking like they will increase so the money saved will simply be that.

There will be less players which is good but will we have enough overall to bring the quality Hartley said at the AGM he wants? Difficult times

[Senor Bairn]

More investment into the first team means a better product on the park (hopefully) therefore I am all for this. 

[Hughsie]

Not sure how I feel about this and I think any talk about increased investment in the first team is naive.

Time will tell.

[Senor Bairn]

Not sure how I feel about this and I think any talk about increased investment in the first team is naive.
Time will tell.

@me next time fam I will wreck u

[101]

I think Falkirk have been the first casualty of Project brave, as far as I can tell there are not explicit details about staffing levels required and the relevant coaching badges they must hold, how can any club plan for the next season and the next financial year without knowing exactly what will be required from their academy. It's a bit crap if they've let the coaches and players know 11 days before they pull out, but the decision makes sense and had it been properly handled by your media team then there wouldn't be any drama about it.

[Bofabairn]

12 hours ago, MrDust said:

two players in every position

Yer hole - nae players for certain positions and six or seven for others.

[Guest Back Post Misses]

More investment into the first team means a better product on the park (hopefully) therefore I am all for this. 

There won’t be any more investment in the first team when you are currently running at a huge loss even taking out the Academy

[Guest Back Post Misses]

I think Falkirk have been the first casualty of Project brave, as far as I can tell there are not explicit details about staffing levels required and the relevant coaching badges they must hold, how can any club plan for the next season and the next financial year without knowing exactly what will be required from their academy. It's a bit crap if they've let the coaches and players know 11 days before they pull out, but the decision makes sense and had it been properly handled by your media team then there wouldn't be any drama about it.

I agree with most of this.

The Academy is a victim of a club being run poorly for years. The Academy in isolation will have generated nearly £2m return for the club in 8 years. That money was merely used to fill holes because of the club’s inability to get a sustainable model.

The new CEO has got to get the club to that point and pretty quickly.

That will mean more going out than coming in for sure and more cuts elsewhere I would guess.

[Believe The Hype]

1 hour ago, Back Post Misses said:

 

There won’t be any more investment in the first team when you are currently running at a huge loss even taking out the Academy

 

Where's your source for this ? Where's the credible facts that you have to back up the claim we are running at a huge loss even when cuts will and are being made ?

Sorry if I take 99% of what you say with a pinch of salt until it is backed up. But you have a record of talkin absolute shite on here as if you are above everyone else with inside knowledge.

[Reggie Perrin]

Initially I thought the decision to scrap the Youth Development system was a huge mistake and then after some consideration began to see the merits on focusing solely on the first team with the aim of getting us out of this holding pen league of failing / badly run clubs at the earliest opportunity.

However I had a lengthy conversation yesterday with someone with credible contacts within the club and the information given did not make for happy listening.

The contribution to FVA (not the development team) is £120K, I had thought it would have been significantly higher tbh, this figure could be reduced to £60K if the academy relocated to The Falkirk Stadium from Stirling.

In the overall scheme of things an annual cost of £60K to continue the Academy which by all reports have some extremely promising players coming through at the U 15 and just below age groups would be a sensible use of a modest amount of the club's money, the alternative which is to lose these talented youngsters who would be pushing for first team involvement within a very few years to our competitors is short term thinking of the worst kind.

Another factor is the loss of the hard won credibility the club has in the youth development area should we withdraw form FVA, it would be a very long and difficult process to restart an Academy from scratch in some hypothetical future where we are an established top tier team.

The U20 development team is poor and has been for a couple of seasons mainly due to the restructuring when our own system was merged with the mighty resources of the Shire and Stenhousemuir in FVA, if savings have to be made this would be the place to do it.

The communication from the club as per usual was pathetic incompetence, if you tell a journalist what you are planning to do (it was not a leak) don't be surprised when the guy does what he is paid for and writes a story!

The upside to all of this is the stated intention of putting in place a proper scouting network which, if done properly, would be a valuable resource that frankly we should already have in place.

There were some other incidents relating to our BOD and MSG that I won't detail here but made for rather depressing listening, we really are not in a happy place just now.

Next year will be the 50th anniversary of my first trip to Brockville and this is genuinely as bad a time as I can remember, still it can only get better...

 

[Believe The Hype]

Were you talking to BPM ?