The Falkirk FC Thread

[Ranaldo Bairn]

A natural process of losing motivation or interest I think. Can't criticise too much for that, but you can criticise for a lack of oversight of their appointees and not selling to an appropriate buyer some time ago.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Ranaldo Bairn

[Stainrod]

I really don’t know if there is an ending to this craziness that seems to have overwhelmed everything the MSG/BOD touches.

Some of the managerial appointments would appear to be ok, but then something behind the scenes turns all to hell. The only common denominator (other than the MSG) seems to be not that they simply trust the people they hire (that should be a good thing), but that they give them so much latitude, that they can actually wreck the club. George Craig in everything he touched and Hartley’s recruitment policy being the two most glaring cases.
It’s almost as if they give them the job and also the keys to the toy shop to do as they fancy. There just doesn’t seem to be any kind of joined up writing to any of it.

The problem is they want hands free success. Hands on is either beyond them or past them . The msg push forward a continuous stream of numpties ( and they have saved the best to last )to run the club for them whilst they enjoy the Saturday hospitality scene as fans with benefits.. Either employees, fans or misguided minority shareholders these people are just not equipped to compete in the rough and tumble of fitba where the opposition are owner directors who are 100% committed to success. That recipe with owner working closely with their managers works better and often they can punch above their weight ie Alloa Arbroath Hamilton Ayr etc . I joked a while back that The project initiated by Craig and Campbell could end up with us following Third Lanark into oblivion . Unfortunately it’s no longer funny and real fans should withhold any financial support to bring down the MSG and get the out ASAP. They continue to grossly overestimate their ability in this fiasco and underestimate the consequences.

[Guest]

There’s also the stadium vanity project that has saddled us with ridiculous overheads.

They say a camel is a horse designed by a committee. We should have had a small scale Desert Orchid, but we ended up with the camel.

[Stainrod]

This must be the first question for the AGM

The answer is that to succeed in football at our level you can’t play with a straight bat. It’s not like other businesses it’s a hard mans game.Pen pushers and computer geeks like our crew get eaten alive. You need not only to bend it like Beckham you need to be prepared to scrap like a street fighter and be as shrewd as a fox .Unfortunately when I look at our lot these skills are glaringly missing !

[Stainrod]

There’s also the stadium vanity project that has saddled us with ridiculous overheads.

They say a camel is a horse designed by a committee. We should have had a small scale Desert Orchid, but we ended up with the camel.

The stadium mess was Martin ritchies fault he handed the oversight to a little man called Douglas Paterson who was a jumped up accountant who knew nothing about football . He loved the power of spending the clubs money to gain favor and kudos elsewhere. Unfortunately he got in his corporate property pals to design the stadium and again they had a ball at our expense!

[Gaz FFC]

2 hours ago, Shadwell Dog said:

SO the question is how come Sandy Alexander and Martin Ritchie can own successful own multi milion pound businesses and yet are happy to preside over the shambles that is Falkirk football Club?

 

2 hours ago, Bantabairn said:

This must be the first question for the AGM

 

4 hours ago, Gaz FFC said:

The amount of successful businessmen who turned up at a football club and discovered that this is a more bespoke or Niche market to their horror is astronomical.

I'm no big city businessman but I can tell you for free everything you learned elsewhere is useless to you.

There you go.

[Bairnardo]

Away from the doom-mongering, Jay Fulton kicked a ball in and scored -
 
 

Add ons? [emoji1696]

[TxRover]

3 hours ago, Stainrod said:

The answer is that to succeed in football at our level you can’t play with a straight bat. It’s not like other businesses it’s a hard mans game.Pen pushers and computer geeks like our crew get eaten alive. You need not only to bend it like Beckham you need to be prepared to scrap like a street fighter and be as shrewd as a fox .Unfortunately when I look at our lot these skills are glaringly missing !

From what the filings say, you have 2 accountants, two engineers, an oil businessman, a lawyer and a commercial director. Of them, the commercial director seems to be doing his job, but as you say, the others have no basis for understanding football management. Any fan, put onto the Board, would likely do a terrible job, just like these schmucks, because of no field of reference with regard to managing a football operation. Accountants have a great place as advisors, but should never be in a decision-making role in most businesses, in my opinion.

FFC have the advantage of a revenue stream from TFS rentals, but judging by the loses, it’s only a few farthings to the massive outflow of pounds. We lost almost £400,000 in 2017-2018 in deciding to stay full time in League One, and surely your figures will at least match that. Your spending is certainly higher, but you have the larger attendance to offset to some extent. From all that, you would have thought that Raith would have learned from the reclaim results, someone else owning the stadium, etc, but we’re back on marshy ground again.

FFC have to be very careful not to end up in the same debt trap that the Rovers are in. We’re slowly working on digging out, but clearly at the cost of foregoing a real run at the automatic promotion spot. We could get it anyway, but it’s certainly going to be a rough road. The other problem with the debt is that if we, or FFC, get promoted, the debt hinders spending to keep in the Championship, probably resulting in a couple of years of bobbing along near the foot of the table and sweating relegation.

[HopeStreetWalker]

3 hours ago, Stainrod said:

The stadium mess was Martin ritchies fault he handed the oversight to a little man called Douglas Paterson who was a jumped up accountant who knew nothing about football . He loved the power of spending the clubs money to gain favor and kudos elsewhere. Unfortunately he got in his corporate property pals to design the stadium and again they had a ball at our expense!

The first phase main stand was an ego trip and set the template for the wing stands.  The seating at the back was too far away from the pitch and out of proportion with the size of the stadium. 

We could have had 4 smaller stands for the same money for we have now with the potential to fill in the corners at a later date.

 

[FalkirkBairn93]

The first phase main stand was an ego trip and set the template for the wing stands.  The seating at the back was too far away from the pitch and out of proportion with the size of the stadium. 
We could have had 4 smaller stands for the same money for we have now with the potential to fill in the corners at a later date.
 

I always felt we never needed the top tier of seating in the main stand. You just need to see the number of empty seats in the main stand to realise how grossly oversized it is

[Bula Bairn]

1 hour ago, FalkirkBairn93 said:

 

I always felt we never needed the top tier of seating in the main stand. You just need to see the number of empty seats in the main stand to realise how grossly oversized it is

 

We've sold out the main stand plenty of times though.  Our capacity is fine, it's the stadium deal that's killing us and one that board can never explain or justify. 

[FalkirkBairn93]

We've sold out the main stand plenty of times though.  Our capacity is fine, it's the stadium deal that's killing us and one that board can never explain or justify. 

At the time, when we just had one stand it will great as it could accommodate the home support, but I feel like we should’ve just built it smaller and put up four stands. Thus, we wouldn’t had no need for an oversized main stand.

If the fourth stand ever goes up, I feel we are going to have four disproportionately sized sides, unless they opt for a boca juniors wall with some seats

[Marshmallo]

Wee quiz for today. Which current Falkirk player liked this tweet?

[Rugster]

21 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

Wee quiz for today. Which current Falkirk player liked this tweet?

Mad mental mikey Doyle nae doobt. 

[Bairney The Dinosaur]

Wee quiz for today. Which current Falkirk player liked this tweet?

f**k sake. I'd seen much less of a bigots Twitter love in from our players the last few years.

[Marshmallo]

3 minutes ago, Rugster said:

Mad mental mikey Doyle nae doobt. 

Reported for bigotry 

[HopeStreetWalker]

1 hour ago, FalkirkBairn93 said:

 

At the time, when we just had one stand it will great as it could accommodate the home support, but I feel like we should’ve just built it smaller and put up four stands. Thus, we wouldn’t had no need for an oversized main stand.

If the fourth stand ever goes up, I feel we are going to have four disproportionately sized sides, unless they opt for a boca juniors wall with some seats

 

If the league do bring back standing at a game then re create the covered terracing at Brockville. Corrugated iron roof ( pre rusted ) so when the ball hit the roof the rust can rain down on the fans. Oh the banter and swearing in particular if it fell in the Bovril. Used to be a right laugh when it came a surprise to away fans first experience of it.

[Reggie Perrin]

Much as I loved Brockville times have changed and I bet plenty of us on here reminiscing about the old days would be pretty vocal about the need for a “fit for purpose” stadium if we were still there.
As always the powers at the club made an arse of the New Stadium project but we have a stadium that can still be a great environment to watch a game if the action on the park is good.
My last visit to Somerset Park was enough to dispel any lingering nostalgia for 100 year old facilities.

[HopeStreetWalker]

8 minutes ago, Reggie Perrin said:

Much as I loved Brockville times have changed and I bet plenty of us on here reminiscing about the old days would be pretty vocal about the need for a “fit for purpose” stadium if we were still there.
As always the powers at the club made an arse of the New Stadium project but we have a stadium that can still be a great environment to watch a game if the action on the park is good.
My last visit to Somerset Park was enough to dispel any lingering nostalgia for 100 year old facilities.

You make a good point but Brockville could have been redeveloped. If they could do it at Tynecastle that had more land constraints. Then it could have been done as it was known the incinerator was closing. The club got taken to the cleaners by the council and got well and truly screwed.

It should be remembered that the original Brockville was supposed to be built further back from Watson Street where the main stand was to be and the stadium was to be a 40,000 capacity. 

[ShaggerG]

Anybody any idea of who the 30 or so applicants may be?