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The Falkirk FC Thread


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22 minutes ago, Duncan Freemason said:

Our stretch target is probably around 1,000 members. There is only the well of paid up ST holders to drink from for 80% of the FSS membership. A family of say 2 patents and 2 young kids are not going to take out 4 FSS subscriptions.

Was going to mention this, a big portion of the fan base are children and teenagers who will still be and school, and if not, on a very low wage. So will not be attainable, I’d say maybe 20%ish are under 20 so that takes a big chunk of season ticket holders out of the equation for FSS

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Thing is, even with our perceived low uptake of 610 members, the monies raised are fairly quickly racking up a significant shareholding in the club to a point where all unsold shares will be swallowed up in a few years. Then what? Do the club then issue a new raft of shares to dilute everyone’s current shareholding by a significant %?

Or do we have the likes of the Rawlins (remember them?) seeking to unload their shares to the FSS (and in the process, contribute not one penny to the club).

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Guest Brockvillenomore
1 hour ago, AGPar said:

You've been openly asking on here for the reasons why people have not signed up.

And the simplest answer - in the politest possible terms - is that is it absolutely none of your - or anyone else's - business. It is not for you to understand

The whole "buying a season ticket/paying at the gate/going home and away is no longer enough" uberfan w****r narrative that intermittently rears its head can just get so, so, so far into the sea. And stay there.

You know both sides of this debate can actually be right. As a support we all have different perspectives, priorities outside the FFC bubble, expectations etc.

What we need to avoid is for these differences to become something that divides us and is used as a stick to batter each other over the head with  

We can’t deny is the facts and the reality these facts impose on all Falkirk supporters  

Fact 1. In our third season in League One our financial position while maintaining FT football isn’t positive. The rumours, if true about our loss last financial year says it all. 

Fact 2. For the last decade we’ve lost an average of £400k a year in both the championship and league one.

Fact 3. This season the BoD planned to lose that amount in the belief that we’d all buy the unissued shares. For whatever reason or reasons the level of take up didn’t materialise. 

Fact 4.  Based on all this fan ownership doesn’t like an option to get us promotion and challenge for the Premiership next season or the season after and arguably the season after  

Those that can afford to pay a little bit more over and above their ST etc should do so. 

Those that can’t or don’t want to aren’t a lesser supporter. 

Ultimately the coming weeks and months will probably decide what path we end up on and what sort of team we have on the park next season. 

The reality is the more that support FSS, or buy shares individually, or join the patrons the better chance we will have to succeed, unless we find a multi millionaire happy to lose £500k to £600k a year for the joy of seeing Falkirk back in the premiership. 
 

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Or perhaps some sort of study to better understand where our overheads sit amongst those of our competitors. We have been unable to best several L1 clubs these past few years all of whom operate on half or less of our turnover.

Now the Launderers might not be the perfect example, but other than that which goes unspoken, how is it a club with a core support of 800 (on a good day) outperform us with monotonous regularity. Like us, they occupy an ostensibly council owned facility, but pay rent on a sliding scale depending on what league they are in (in the top flight, it’s peppercorn, in the lower leagues, it’s half of sod all). All this in exchange for providing the good people on their council with a nice hospitality box.

They have a Trust that puts in less than £2k per season…..they have nothing like FSS.

We seem to be stuck with massive overheads. Doubtless there are reasons why.

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7 hours ago, Blame Me said:

At this point fan ownership isn't the aim of FSS.

It's understandable that the FSS - and the club - want rapid growth but whilst it's in its infancy I think it's going to be quite organic and slow.

Of course Fan ownership is the aim. If it isn’t my monthly subs are a waste of my money 

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11 hours ago, Springfield said:

Said weeks ago, with the previous/current circumstances it would be a struggle to attract significant numbers. Covid/Redundancy/Inflation/Soaring Fuel/Energy/Food costs. Add on four seasons of absolute shite with players not fit to wear the jerseys. It was always going to be a struggle.

Should we achieve promotion this year I would expect numbers to get near four digits. As said a decent season or two in the championship would expect numbers to increase.

I think the opposite. If the club were about to go pop everyone would rally then. That is what happened before and history shows that is what happens at other clubs. The irony is this scheme is there to stop the crisis but not enough are backing it sadly. 

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9 hours ago, Braes_Bairn said:

Personally I think the FSS model is all wrong, why would I sign up to pay £10 a month when I get nothing in return? I’d be much more likely to sign up to a share shave scheme where you actually get shares in your name.

What you get is collectively the club is owned by those who care the most about the club - it supporters. It give us collectively the right to elect people to run it on our behalf and protects the club from falling into the hands of a Mark Campbell (and his secret backers). It isn’t about “what’s in it for me” unless of course you don’t think being part of a collective owning and protecting what is important to you is not of any value. 

You have been able to buy shares as an individual for years and years. 

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6 hours ago, PedroMoutinho said:

For your £250 quid season ticket money you get access to 18 league games. For your £120 FSS contribution, you don’t get anything tangible.

Surely it’s pretty self explanatory what the difference is and why one scheme is far more popular than the other.

Other than collectively owning your club, which I assume is important to you, have an input into who runs it and protects the club from a vulture like Mark Campbell. You really don’t get it. 

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5 hours ago, Braes_Bairn said:

Exactly my point. I’m sure a share save scheme where supporters actually get shares in their own name would be popular. 

I bet you wouldn’t get 100. 

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6 hours ago, Duncan Freemason said:

Our stretch target is probably around 1,000 members. There is only the well of paid up ST holders to drink from for 80% of the FSS membership. A family of say 2 parents and 2 young kids are not going to take out 4 FSS subscriptions.

It isn’t going to work then. FFS Morton have 1000. How can a St.Mirren and Motherwell make this work and we can’t ? Motherwell have about 3500 members I believe. 
 

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4 hours ago, Duncan Freemason said:

Or perhaps some sort of study to better understand where our overheads sit amongst those of our competitors. We have been unable to best several L1 clubs these past few years all of whom operate on half or less of our turnover.

Now the Launderers might not be the perfect example, but other than that which goes unspoken, how is it a club with a core support of 800 (on a good day) outperform us with monotonous regularity. Like us, they occupy an ostensibly council owned facility, but pay rent on a sliding scale depending on what league they are in (in the top flight, it’s peppercorn, in the lower leagues, it’s half of sod all). All this in exchange for providing the good people on their council with a nice hospitality box.

They have a Trust that puts in less than £2k per season…..they have nothing like FSS.

We seem to be stuck with massive overheads. Doubtless there are reasons why.

The white elephant that it TFS. 

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8 hours ago, Braes_Bairn said:

Exactly my point. I’m sure a share save scheme where supporters actually get shares in their own name would be popular. 

If you don’t want to join the FSS You can do this, there’s nothing stoping somebody buying shares individually at the moment. The unsold shares are sitting there ready for purchase, I don’t see the point personally but if that’s the way you want to go then please go for it. 

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8 hours ago, Duncan Freemason said:

Thing is, even with our perceived low uptake of 610 members, the monies raised are fairly quickly racking up a significant shareholding in the club to a point where all unsold shares will be swallowed up in a few years. Then what? Do the club then issue a new raft of shares to dilute everyone’s current shareholding by a significant %?

Or do we have the likes of the Rawlins (remember them?) seeking to unload their shares to the FSS (and in the process, contribute not one penny to the club).

It’s a few years away but I actually asked some of the guys in the committee this question and long term once the society has established its shareholding they’d like to canvas the members and ring fence the money to be invested as the members see fit rather than never ending share issues,  one idea was that the FSS could perhaps fund the academy or something along those lines taking the burden away from the club. 

Edited by LatapyBairn.
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3 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

I think the opposite. If the club were about to go pop everyone would rally then. That is what happened before and history shows that is what happens at other clubs. The irony is this scheme is there to stop the crisis but not enough are backing it sadly. 

Exactly correct.

That’s why the directors need to be totally upfront regarding whether they have got the finance in place to see us through or not. If they don’t have it, tell us and we’ll rally round. What bothers me is the delay in having the AGM and the silence.

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Guest Ecosse83
12 minutes ago, Springfield said:

Am I correct in saying we start each (every) season with a 400K hole to fill ? 

I filled a hole a few years ago and it’s cost me a fortune ever since, I’m scared of holes now 🤦‍♂️

(yep I know really bad humour) 

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8 minutes ago, Dawson Park Boy said:

Exactly correct.

That’s why the directors need to be totally upfront regarding whether they have got the finance in place to see us through or not. If they don’t have it, tell us and we’ll rally round. What bothers me is the delay in having the AGM and the silence.

We would all like to know but I am sure if there was an issue in easing the funds we would have had another plea? That’s my take TBH

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Just reading up on the thread. 

I joined the FSS committee recently to try and help the guys grow the membership however it has to be appreciated, that for it’s infancy, 620 members is a good amount to have so we’re on the right tracks. I ran the CI for 2 years and we only had 400 different fans contribute to the cause so credit has to go to all the guys who got the FSS up and running and to this stage. This has created a £7.5k/month income to the club we previously didn’t have so need to acknowledge that too.

Unfortunately it’s not a fast enough growth to help further mitigate our current position but as stated in the article the biggest accelerator tends to be a crisis off the pitch. As BPM pointed out, the irony of this being we need more members to avoid that. 

There is absolutely room for growth but there does have to be some realism and reasonable expectation surrounding that. The FSS will not solely fill the £400k hole. As it said in the newsletter, the common trend amongst all organisations is that the ceiling for membership is around 50% of Season Ticket holders. That’s consistent to FoH, Dundee United ST, Aber DNA etc.

As for what you get in return then as LatapyBairn pointed out, the FSS is more like a Union of fans. You pay to have a voice with the collective shareholding and board representation that comes with it. It’s strength in unity to help protect the club against shysters and question the hierarchy should there be something of concern to the membership. 

Most of the groups mentioned do offer various other things in return. Most of these are simplistic offerings of sentimental value. FoH is the most impressive but even then it was administration that largely  rocketed their numbers. Morton offer much the same as FSS and although they have around 330 more members their average contributions are slightly less than us. Their campaign was borne out of crisis too.

What you have to appreciate is FSS has less resources so that has to be taken in to consideration as well. Additionally you want to make sure that these benefits/services can be maintained and not burden the volunteers who run it with a load of extra administration. Adding benefits costs money too resulting in less going to the club. You also have to service the existing 620 membership, whom are happy to contribute at present. The biggest worry too is that any benefits then make the FSS donations subject to VAT. That would be an instant 20% loss on earnings. 

Ultimately I think fan ownership is working. Not at the rate we’d hope but it’s getting there. The FSS has around 9% shareholding and combined with the Patrons that’s about 34% of the clubs total. 

The FSS will strive to get more and hopefully in future be able to follow in FoH’s foot steps where members continue to subscribe so they can have a say in how the club is run. 

What is worth saying too is that these   schemes are becoming a vital source of income for clubs and the more involved the better competitive advantage it gives us. We have a great fanbase that isn’t quite reflected in the FSS numbers so hopefully more will join in the coming months, not just for the ethos of fan ownership but to help field a better team on the pitch. 

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