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12 minutes ago, Blame Me said:

Perhaps that's one reason there isn't the expected uptake - FSS explicitly say that's off-the-table currently.

The club is effectively fan owned at present. The Rawlins are the only real non Falkirk fans with a decent amount of shares in the club and their shareholding has diluted to about 20%.

The FSS is a vehicle for fans to be part of a large shareholder and therefore have a stronger voice within it. 

As stated too, there is currently the option for fans to buy shares in their own names too but as far as I’m aware there doesn’t appear to be many buying. 

Would be good to know why a lot of the fanbase aren’t signing up if it’s for issues other than finance however unfortunately there will always be some that you’ll never be able to convince, no matter what. Some people just want to turn up and watch the football and to be honest I think that’s fair enough. 

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4 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

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. 
 

All of them playing football at a higher level and to a better standard than us.  Better results and performances on the park might lead to fans digging deeper. 

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1 hour ago, Newbornbairn said:

All of them playing football at a higher level and to a better standard than us.  Better results and performances on the park might lead to fans digging deeper. 

Not to the tune of 2900 more (in Motherwells case). 

Motherwell have used fan ownership to integrate with the local community fully embrace more than we ever will with our current structure.

The one that I don't understand is that we are lagging way behind Morton. 

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Morton's has been running since 2019 and Motherwell's first started in 2011 so it's easy to see why they both have more members than us at this point. 

600 odd in the first year is a fantastic number and hopefully with all the positive things going on at the club this season more people buy in. 

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15 minutes ago, FFC 1876 said:

Morton's has been running since 2019 and Motherwell's first started in 2011 so it's easy to see why they both have more members than us at this point. 

600 odd in the first year is a fantastic number and hopefully with all the positive things going on at the club this season more people buy in. 

 

27 minutes ago, latapythelegend said:

Not to the tune of 2900 more (in Motherwells case). 

Motherwell have used fan ownership to integrate with the local community fully embrace more than we ever will with our current structure.

The one that I don't understand is that we are lagging way behind Morton. 

Beat me too it. My reply 👇

As of September 2022, MCT had 945 members and began in 2019. 

FSS began in 2021? and have 620 by January 2023. In anyone's book that is a hefty uptake if not the desired target of those involved.

Comparing all these other groups membership numbers without context doesn't paint the complete picture and as @Van_damage mentioned some of these other schemes have incentives or are structured slightly differently to the FSS model.

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Does anyone remember the rough number of season tickets sold when we were doing well in the championship? Imagine it's quite different to the number of season tickets sold in the last 2 or 3 years as well. 

If the threshold is 50% of season ticket holders then that will also still be lower just now than it would have been if we were competing for top of the championship.

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2 minutes ago, Jimmy1876 said:

Does anyone remember the rough number of season tickets sold when we were doing well in the championship? Imagine it's quite different to the number of season tickets sold in the last 2 or 3 years as well. 

If the threshold is 50% of season ticket holders then that will also still be lower just now than it would have been if we were competing for top of the championship.

Having a proper breakdown of the ST numbers would be helpful from an outside perspective but you'd hope the FSS had access to the real numbers to base their target on - which I suspect they do.

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St mirren just posted a massive loss recently and would be struggling I'd think if they weren't linked to that charity and simply fan owned. Motherwell have been going for years and Morton would probably not exist if it wasn't for the fans group.  

I just think  that people simply aren't keen to sign up to direct debits/standing orders in the current climate. Season ticket for the vast majority is a one off payment and thats it. This is a commitment no matter how small the payment is and I get the feeling that kind of scares people these days. Just my opinion but I don't know how we would get round that. 

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46 minutes ago, latapythelegend said:

Not to the tune of 2900 more (in Motherwells case). 

Motherwell have used fan ownership to integrate with the local community fully embrace more than we ever will with our current structure.

The one that I don't understand is that we are lagging way behind Morton. 

We may be about 3,000 members short of Motherwell(which includes Junior membership) but we are only about £5.5k short on our monthly contributions. Another 450 members paying an average £12 and we’ll surpass that. 

Our club is structured differently and the Junior Bairns effectively is our Junior membership which Sarah has been diligently running for years and contributing to the club. There could be a gap for the 14-18 year old group though when the kids are too old for Junior Bairns. 

We also have the Foundation as our community arm. Motherwell are great at working with the local community but I wouldn’t necessarily contribute that to the Well Society which is set up very similar to us.  

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2 hours ago, Newbornbairn said:

All of them playing football at a higher level and to a better standard than us.  Better results and performances on the park might lead to fans digging deeper. 

All three took on fan ownership on the back of an issue at the club. It has nothing to do with League status imo 

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12 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 big reason livi are ahead of us isn't just finance though it's recruitment it's as simple as that. Whoever handles it is lightyears ahead of what we've been like over the past 4 or 5 years. They sign good players and sell a number on for very decent sums of money which can then be reinvested.  Lyndon dykes for instance they got a fortune in for him and will no doubt get a wad of cash for nouble.  If our recruitment had been half as good we wouldn't be struggling in league one.

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14 minutes ago, SouthStander1876 said:

So what do you suggest is the reason then?

 

I think if we got promoted, it wouldn't be a surprise if we got to 1,000 a lot quicker.

Apathy ach someone else will sort, think they paying enough already, can’t afford, don’t believe in it, want my old mates back on the board ……

variety of reasons 

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17 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?

This has been scoffed at a bit and initially I did the same because a collective Falkirk Supporters Society just makes complete sense to me. However, see when I've been trying to convince folk to sign up this exact argument that comes back just about everytime. The idea of of a collective voice, a union and being part of something bigger than ourselves just doesn't appeal to everyone. It's a shame, a bit embarrassing I think, but this is probably one of the biggest barriers for FSS to address - what can we give back?

Not convinced that changing the structure of FSS to allow members to hold the shares in their own name is the right way to go. Anyone can do that as an individual anyway. Seems @Van_damage is suggesting that benefits would subject donations to VAT charges, be interesting to hear a bit more about this. I'm assuming it refers things like free gifts, club shop discount etc. If FSS was to offer membership only events (like the McGlynn Q&A) is this considered a benefit? The FSS prize draw doesn't impact on VAT charges? May be some work around here.

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18 minutes ago, Back Post Misses said:

All three took on fan ownership on the back of an issue at the club. It has nothing to do with League status imo 

Performances definitely help. FoH had a lot leave under Levein and then rejoin once things started to improve on the park. The main driver does seem to be an issue at the club though. 

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18 minutes ago, SouthStander1876 said:

So what do you suggest is the reason then?

 

I think if we got promoted, it wouldn't be a surprise if we got to 1,000 a lot quicker.

Goes both ways though, Dunfermline had a scheme where we had 1000+ members contributing £20 a month, however that number would fluctuate if we done poorly. Which we did, allot. 

10 minutes ago, Shodwall cat said:

The big reason livi are ahead of us isn't just finance though it's recruitment it's as simple as that. Whoever handles it is lightyears ahead of what we've been like over the past 4 or 5 years. They sign good players and sell a number on for very decent sums of money which can then be reinvested.  Lyndon dykes for instance they got a fortune in for him and will no doubt get a wad of cash for nouble.  If our recruitment had been half as good we wouldn't be struggling in league one.

I think people conflict running of a club, with the management of the football side. 

Now I'm not saying that the likes of Livingston and St Johnstone aren't well run, however they are where they are because they've appointed good football managers. Under our previous chairman (Ross McCarthur) we were run superbly as a buisness, but if you appoint Peter Grant and John Hughes and persist with Stevie Crawford you're only heading in one direction. 

Livingston are in the Premier because they have David Martindale. St Johnstone are financially in a great position, and on the pitch they've had success which fans of similar sized clubs can only dream off. However you go on their thread and they aren't very enamoured with Stevie Brown. 

Edited by Grant228
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Just now, Van_damage said:

Performances definitely help. FoH had a lot leave under Levein and then rejoin once things started to improve on the park. The main driver does seem to be an issue at the club though. 

I am not saying that performances don’t have an influence but issues would spark many more into life.

I think that the entry level should be reduced (for new members) to £5I have heard all the nonsense spouted about voting rights but for me it is easy. You are a member you get one vote. If you can get the numbers up you can increase what you bring on from the members in other ways IMO. 

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