The Falkirk FC Thread

[Marshmallo]

Not bad at all for a player who isn't prolific!

[AL-FFC]

Back onto football IF the vote goes in the way of completing this season once the restrictions are lifted and provided the team have kept their fitness levels high enough we wont have a better chance to winning this league but question is when it resumes is it straight into the games or will there be a mini preseason to get players fitness up again.

[HopeStreetWalker]

37 minutes ago, AL-FFC said:

Back onto football IF the vote goes in the way of completing this season once the restrictions are lifted and provided the team have kept their fitness levels high enough we wont have a better chance to winning this league but question is when it resumes is it straight into the games or will there be a mini preseason to get players fitness up again.

There would have to be a delay for a number of reasons. There would be players out of contact and there would have to be some sort of ruling on signings short term to see the season out. Players would not want to sign if they were not sure what division they would be playing in. There would have to be training and shake down matches for fitness and wellbeing of the players. Hopefully the ruling authorities have this ready to go when life starts to get back to normal.

[Numbers_One_To_Eleven]

Is there any other club in Scotland that bangs on about our stadium like we do? Not having a go, like someone said earlier, “over to the board to clarify”, but all this talk about who owns what etc is really tedious. Do Hamilton talk about their two stand stadium a lot for example? Clubs either have their stadiums in order nowadays or are like Morton or Ayr United and just accept their old fashioned stadiums. We are the biggest in limbo club in Scotland!

[HopeStreetWalker]

7 minutes ago, Numbers_One_To_Eleven said:

Is there any other club in Scotland that bangs on about our stadium like we do? Not having a go, like someone said earlier, “over to the board to clarify”, but all this talk about who owns what etc is really tedious. Do Hamilton talk about their two stand stadium a lot for example? Clubs either have their stadiums in order nowadays or are like Morton or Ayr United and just accept their old fashioned stadiums. We are the biggest in limbo club in Scotland!

Yep ! just us. 

[TxRover]

5 hours ago, Shadwell Dog said:

So far we've paid circa 800k in rent to SSDL.  That would put us almost a third of the way through paying it off the 2.5m it cost. I'd like to think that once we've done that SA would do the decent thing and hand it over surely.

There’s actually more to it than that. Looking at some previous financials, the payments seem to be on either an escalator clause or somehow calculated based upon some unspecified metric. They reached £75,000 just the last year or two, and looked to be increasing at a steady rate,  but then this £22,750 future due note pops up in the FFC disclosure. For comparison, 2011 was £72,000 and 2012 was £58,000. There is also no indication anywhere on if the payments FFC is making will result in an ownership share, or outright ownership, of the South Stand at any future point. I expect SA (and perhaps Paul Kenny, who is the second director listed for South Stand in 2012) are depreciating the South Stand for tax purposes, and that’s how they are making money on this white elephant he signed for.

The TFS company appears to be deep in the hole, to the extent that a significant portion of the shareholders investment is effectively gone. How long have concerts and such been generating income for them, because if they are pissing away money like that even with income from third party events, at some point the Council will have to inject cash, something they are sorely lacking.

2019 value for Falkirk Community Stadium Limited real property was £4,680,000, written down from £11, 223,449 in 2017. Current Council secured loans are £6,223,670. Cash in the back dropped by £188,000 or so, and the balance on March 31, 2019 was a smidge over £100,000. If anyone who really understand accounting can dig through this, it looks like TFS is a real mess, but I can’t tell how much of one.

[Numbers_One_To_Eleven]

Anyway, back to nostalgia. I watched the 1991 Scottish Cup 4-3 game v Partick game today. Lots to admire, of course, atmosphere, entertainment, drama. 
 

Even to the point where we used to shout BULLSHIIIIIITTTTTER when the opposition keeper ran up to take a goalkick.
 

Stephen Cody, what were the thoughts on him? I remember his long range cracker in the 7-1 win v Raith and again was part of a great squad though didn’t feature too much.

[Dawson Park Boy]

Alex Taylor was a superb player.

Very underrated.

Cody looked as if he was going to be quite good but faded out very quickly.

I think he may have come from Stranraer?

[Shadwell Dog]

1 hour ago, TxRover said:

There’s actually more to it than that. Looking at some previous financials, the payments seem to be on either an escalator clause or somehow calculated based upon some unspecified metric. They reached £75,000 just the last year or two, and looked to be increasing at a steady rate,  but then this £22,750 future due note pops up in the FFC disclosure. For comparison, 2011 was £72,000 and 2012 was £58,000. There is also no indication anywhere on if the payments FFC is making will result in an ownership share, or outright ownership, of the South Stand at any future point. I expect SA (and perhaps Paul Kenny, who is the second director listed for South Stand in 2012) are depreciating the South Stand for tax purposes, and that’s how they are making money on this white elephant he signed for.

The TFS company appears to be deep in the hole, to the extent that a significant portion of the shareholders investment is effectively gone. How long have concerts and such been generating income for them, because if they are pissing away money like that even with income from third party events, at some point the Council will have to inject cash, something they are sorely lacking.

2019 value for Falkirk Community Stadium Limited real property was £4,680,000, written down from £11, 223,449 in 2017. Current Council secured loans are £6,223,670. Cash in the back dropped by £188,000 or so, and the balance on March 31, 2019 was a smidge over £100,000. If anyone who really understand accounting can dig through this, it looks like TFS is a real mess, but I can’t tell how much of one.

The stadium company dont run the concerts though the football club do through an ffc events company .  The stadium company is nowt to do with ffc it's the council that owns that  to run their side of the ownership . I would suggest they will get a small fee for use of the hospitality areas or will just take some of the cash raised via that. The vast majority of the money from the concerts  comes to the club .

[TxRover]

10 minutes ago, Bantabairn said:

Thanks very informative and helpful

YW. After watching (from afar) the mess that was unsorting the ownership mix at Stark’s Park, I feel more sympathy the more I hear about the Gordian knot that is TFS and the fucking of FFC by Falkirk.  The internet makes for useful data (see Campbell, Mark) but can be very difficult to reconcile unless you are a Chartered Accountant, which I am certainly not.

Hopefully, someone can look through some of these papers and the  pencil documents and see if FFC has a viable way to move forward at TFS, or if it will end up in a ugly divorce. The talk of walking and leaving Falkirk Council holding the bag is fun, but that would leave FFC with no home, the money spent there gone, and some serious ongoing issues. BTW, who was the genius involved with the sale of Brockville and agreement to move to TFS.

[TxRover]

3 minutes ago, Shadwell Dog said:

The stadium company dont run the concerts though the football club do through an ffc events company .  The stadium company is nowt to do with ffc it's the council that owns that  to run their side of the ownership . I would suggest they will get a small fee for use of the hospitality areas or will just take some of the cash raised via that. The vast majority of the money from the concerts  comes to the club .

OK, that explains how they are bleeding cash with such a lucrative possibility. Finally something smart on the FFC side, obviously someone wasn’t completely asleep in the TFS agreement.

[Grangemouth Bairn]

21 hours ago, Reggie Perrin said:

Other cross border friendlies against QPR, Leeds twice, Everton twice and a brutal booting match against Bristol Rovers which Brian Brown says was caused by Alan Mackin noising the visitors up in the tunnel pre match.

I remember being at the Leeds game in the 80’s and was about 10. It was bang in the middle of when English clubs had there biggest issue with hooliganism and their fans were mental. I was shitting myself.

[Grangemouth Bairn]

4 hours ago, Marshmallo said:

Not bad at all for a player who isn't prolific!

Stop trying to turn the conversation to football. It’s not what we do.

What’s your views on the council having offices in the main stand ?

 

[Shadwell Dog]

3 hours ago, Numbers_One_To_Eleven said:

Is there any other club in Scotland that bangs on about our stadium like we do? Not having a go, like someone said earlier, “over to the board to clarify”, but all this talk about who owns what etc is really tedious. Do Hamilton talk about their two stand stadium a lot for example? Clubs either have their stadiums in order nowadays or are like Morton or Ayr United and just accept their old fashioned stadiums. We are the biggest in limbo club in Scotland!

Hamilton dont talk about it because it works for them.  The club makes a lot of money from the usage of the stadium by other people which allows them to compete with and do better than us despite only getting 1000 home fans every home game.  We are restricted by the fact that south stand bar and gym apart we make zero cash from the stadium outside football matches and have to pay the council to use certain areas. That needs to change somehow and is why we discuss the stadium situation at length.

[Guest]

One thing I have learned Shadwell from the last days posts on this subject. There are so many fingers in the pie regarding the stadium. FFC  buying it outright is impossible and was never a workable option.
We have to sever all ties regarding having a share in the Stadium. If that means handing our shares in the Stadium Company over to the council so be it. Nothing to lose as it has never made money. Lets be nothing more than a company that hires the venue when required. It would save FFC a fortune per season. 
 

We don’t have shares in this company it is a wholly own subsidiary of Falkirk council. I two minute google search will give you that info.

The JVC set up with the council when we moved to the stadium still has a lump of debt which we are still liable for. £3m was the number I was told. Doesn’t seem to get mentioned much that one - I wonder why?

[Guest]

Sounds spot on to me mate. Just needs some clarification. Surely someone on here must know what the score is.

 

Not 100% sure of the accuracy of this but i was told he will leave the stand to the club when he passes away. As he is in his 70’s then as BB says it would probably turn into a good deal unless he lives well into his 90’s. Probably the reason for the rent agreement rather than a mortgage. However had it been a mortgage the figure we paid up till now would have been lower.

[Shadwell Dog]

2 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

 

Not 100% sure of the accuracy of this but i was told he will leave the stand to the club when he passes away. As he is in his 70’s then as BB says it would probably turn into a good deal unless he lives well into his 90’s. Probably the reason for the rent agreement rather than a mortgage. However had it been a mortgage the figure we paid up till now would have been lower.

If you look back at the press articles on this when it was first mooted its painted as if he was just giving it to the club for free which was very misleading and made him out to be doing it only because that's where he stood at brockville.At least we can make a few quid via the bar and gym I suppose to offset that payment. Would say this is very much the lesser of two evils when compared to the council situation.

Edited April 8, 2020 by Shadwell Dog

[Numbers_One_To_Eleven]

7 hours ago, @footballCFB said:

Gordon Young on his time at the club with Paul Hartley - https://anchor.fm/footballCFB/episodes/Football-CFB-with----Gordon-Young-Part-2-ebj994

What a tremendous spin he put on what happened! Failed to mention 27 shots on goal to our 3 against Queen of the South which hastened things dramatically but the sacking was “absurd”. He mentioned three of the young players brought up, Sammat, Nelson and Jakubiak, of course, the latter two at the tail end of the previous season where things improved and had nothing to do with the pre season disaster. Of course, the fans “expected us to piss the league”! From the school of Ray Mackinnon spin.

Edited April 8, 2020 by Numbers_One_To_Eleven

[Hank von Hell]

3 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

 

We don’t have shares in this company it is a wholly own subsidiary of Falkirk council. I two minute google search will give you that info.

The JVC set up with the council when  we moved to the stadium still has a lump of debt which we are still liable for. £3m was the number I was told. Doesn’t seem to get mentioned much that one - I wonder why?

 

Owed to whom?

How do you rack up that kind of debt or was this what paid for the north stand?  

That should put an end to the pipe dream of buying the council out once and for all..   

Edited April 8, 2020 by Hank von Hell

[HopeStreetWalker]

1 hour ago, Hank von Hell said:

Owed to whom?

How do you rack up that kind of debt or was this what paid for the north stand?  

That should put an end to the pipe dream of buying the council out once and for all..   

Buying the place is now out of the question in light of the last few days posts. We owe the facility no loyalty goodwill or affection.

In all my 40 + years in business, have never encountered such a contrived and complicated arrangement.

Sever all ties and financial commitments to it. Our only involvement should be as a potential client hiring bits of the facility as and when required.

It would be a prudent course of action cutting our overheads on one of our largest weekly outgoings of funds.