The Falkirk FC Thread

[Bigbri Bairn]

If you are an FSS member, go to one of the 3 upcoming live events, and ask the question? If there answer is yes, let them know that that decision alone shows they are not fit for purpose and you will not be voting for them again. 
I don’t think a tenner a month should get you any more say than that tbh. 

Exactly. The £10+ is not a gift it is your entry fee into the decision making process. To get a result from your money get personally involved. Okay your views may not be in the majority but at least they are being heard. EASY

[Guest Caractacus Potts]

24 minutes ago, bairn88 said:

If you are an FSS member, go to one of the 3 upcoming live events, and ask the question? If there answer is yes, let them know that that decision alone shows they are not fit for purpose and you will not be voting for them again. 

I don’t think a tenner a month should get you any more say than that tbh. 

Didn’t say anything about the tenner a month, just talking about how we can judge the job the representatives are doing. 

I’ll take your point on board but as has been said previously I imagine the answer will be that these decisions are protected by boardroom confidentiality.

[Shadwell Dog]

3 hours ago, Barga Bairn said:

I agree with a lot of what you say but I think there are some important things to consider. Here's my take on it

Hughes found himself facing a transition with the loss of Latapy and the academy being 2 years short of producing enough players. So he signed quality but experienced players to see him through. It didnae work particular well, but he didn't take us down and we should have won the cup.

Presley was also full of bluster, but he made some very good signings on a low budget.  He brought in El Alagoui, McGovern, Higginbotham, Taylor, and Marc Millar for example.

He also signed great youngsters like Murray Wallace, Will Vaulks and Luke Leahey, and played them.

He had possibly the youngest ever team in Scotland when he brought in Sibbald, Kingsley, Murdoch, Alston, Jay Fulton, Connor McGrandles.

Credit where credits due, these were all great players for us. The young team were a team worth supporting.

Holt was a disaster, both times.

Things were far from perfect, but I think Houston was unlucky, as Rangers and Hearts were dumped on us. That held back our promotion efforts.

I contend that it was from then it all went seriously, calamitously wrong. We made a bad mistake when we sacked Houston. His team looked tired and shorn of its best players after 2 decent efforts. He would possibly have turned it round and rebuilt. The guy had shown he was a decent manager in a business where few can be called that.

There were plenty of fans who wanted him out. There were also a hell of a lot of fans supporting the Hartley signings, the so called Brentford model. Plenty of idiots wanted rid of the academy. The utterly stupid board said the club couldn't support the academy financially,  sidestepping the money we had made and the obvious fact that our best players on the park for a number of years were actually academy graduates.

The unfathomable mess started with Hartley and the sub moronic board, pushed even further towards oblivion by the Deans board.

I'm shattered by the last 4 seasons. I've no idea where we go from here as even starting all over again looks impossible.

Hughes success was signing players from arsenal , Ipswich etc . Young players that weren't quite good enough for them but we're more than good enough for the Scottish top flight.  He merged them with some more experienced Scottish talent. However, he suddenly veered completely away from that and it was a financial disaster. 

For every decent player Pressley signed he signed 2 or 3 absolute duffers which meant turning to playing the youngsters from the academy. To have all those great youngsters come through though and never get near a promotion place was pitiful. If he'd done better in his experienced signings we would've had far more chance in going up. Too many Haworth's though and not enough farids. Leahy started 5 games under Pressley and vaulks 4 so he didn't really play them. Houston got the best out of leahy and Holt played vaulks far more. 

Houston was packing in at the end of the season anyway but should never have announced it as it gave the players an excuse to down tools. He certainly wasn't going to hang about for a rebuild that's for sure. He was tactically astute but did far better with Pressley and Holts players than he did with the players he brought in. His recruitment was God awful with the likes of Taylor Morgan and Rory boulding stinking the place out. A constant decline in the calibre of players being brought in lead up to the disastrous final season of his. 

Edited March 21, 2022 by Shadwell Dog

[Guest]

1 hour ago, knee jerk reaction said:

I've said I'd be open to Rennie staying and having a summer transfer window to really do something and people are right to both critisise and defend him as he's not had long but there hasn't been the improvement hoped for.  Let's be honest though even under Sheerin we were never going down!

I am not so sure. The QP game wasn’t a blip, it wasn’t just one of those unexplainable results that come along every now and then. It was a team that had well and truly chucked it.

Aye, they put in a half hearted performance once Sheerin had gone, but it was for Danny Grainger who was walking around with a face like a smacked arse declaring his loyalty to Sheerin. By that stage, any sense of unity of purpose was broken beyond repair.

Remember too that three of our team/squad were there for the previous humiliation at Firhill. Two games at Firhill in which we scored a big fat zero goals and conceded eleven. Morrison was on the pitch for both (Miller and Mutch for the first), with Miller on the bench for the second thrashing.

We will never know where Sheerin was taking us if he had been allowed to see out the season. At no point did it ever feel like an upwards trajectory. MR might be trying to nurse a few battered egos through to the end of the season.

As I said before, once we cannot be relegated or promoted, then I expect the gloves to come off wrt our playing squad. I want to see clear direction then before I will be convinced one way or the other. Do we plod on, or is there a real sense of sleeves being rolled to deal with the here and now? If it’s the latter, I will stick around for a while yet (but as I get older, I have to accept that Gods have a bigger say in how long that might be).

I now know that what keeps me away from FFC isn’t bad football…….it’s bad people, and this past year I have learned to separate the two.

[Bairn in Exile]

14 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

Having pressed for meaningful change for 12 years I am happy to be patient for the new Board to rebuild this wreck of a football club. 

 

13 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

. Most of the players Rennie has brought in are an upgrade IMO. 

 

13 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

Would he? He wouldn’t have had 230k from Patrons so doubtful. 

 

11 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

 

The club is now in good hands. 

. I will support this Board to the end as they are good people. If they fail it will not be because they have not tried to do the right thing for the club or run it to suit their own personal agendas like it has been in the past

 

10 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

he has improved us IMO. We would be staring relegation in the face if we had not got investment and players in. 

I have told you before if being supportive and loyal to people running the club I rate and like then so be it. If that is bias so fucking be it. 
 

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Bairn in Exile

[Dunning1874]

15 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

Would he? He wouldn’t have had 230k from Patrons so doubtful. 

 

14 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

not investing won’t help. Chicken and egg really. We either trust the new regime or we don’t. Those who don’t won’t invest but it won’t improve things much. If Rennie is appointed and it is their red line then so be it.

So if individual fans don’t want to invest in a new boardroom structure because they don't like the manager in place then they're not helping the club, they're "lost causes" and various other thinly veiled digs which amount to them not being real Falkirk fans like you. However you seem to be implying that your mates wouldn't have invested £230K if Paul Sheerin was still manager, and that money was dependent on his removal?

For what it's worth I agree that investing in a fan membership scheme trying to establish a stake in a club and presumably increase it over time shouldn't be dependent on the short term consideration of who the manager is. We had the same issue at Morton where our fan organisation owns the club outright, but we had people threatening to cancel memberships or actually doing it over Gus MacPherson not being sacked quickly enough, among other issues. While appointing and standing by a shite manager is absolutely an issue an elected board should be held democratically accountable to the fanbase for if they consistently make such poor decisions, declaring that the whole model is doomed to fail every time something goes wrong on the park misses the whole point of the exercise and is simply a guarantee you'll have no long term stability as your fan organisation can't sustainably plan for the future if they fear losing dozens of members with any poor run of form.

None of that makes your blind insistence that as this board appointed Martin Rennie he must be the next Alex Ferguson any less ridiculous. What's even worse are your attacks on anyone who acknowledges the fact - not opinion, the literal fact of his league record - he has an almost identical record than Paul Sheerin, as if the only way anyone could believe this is if they are sleeper agents planted by Gary Holt trying to undermine the new board and bring Gary Deans back.

There is certainly someone fawning over a Falkirk board and refusing to accept any criticism of them here, and it's not people criticising Martin Rennie's managerial record.

[Springfield]

Without covering old ground on Rennie (handed a team of charlatans/notoriously difficult transfer window etc)my main concerns/worries;

1.didn’t address our main weaknesses which has haunted us this season, “decent midfielders”

2.persisted with a back five of mix and match and clearly didn’t work, persisted with certain players clearly uncomfortable/not capable, and bizarre substitutions.

If we’d addressed these issues we’d probably be in the mix. 

[Guest]

44 minutes ago, Springfield said:

Without covering old ground on Rennie (handed a team of charlatans/notoriously difficult transfer window etc)my main concerns/worries;

1.didn’t address our main weaknesses which has haunted us this season, “decent midfielders”

2.persisted with a back five of mix and match and clearly didn’t work, persisted with certain players clearly uncomfortable/not capable, and bizarre substitutions.

If we’d addressed these issues we’d probably be in the mix. 

He hasn’t played a back 5 for weeks now and we are in the mix. 4th place was the only chance we had after Sheerin 

Edited March 22, 2022 by Back Post Misses

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

 

So if individual fans don’t want to invest in a new boardroom structure because they don't like the manager in place then they're not helping the club, they're "lost causes" and various other thinly veiled digs which amount to them not being real Falkirk fans like you. However you seem to be implying that your mates wouldn't have invested £230K if Paul Sheerin was still manager, and that money was dependent on his removal?

For what it's worth I agree that investing in a fan membership scheme trying to establish a stake in a club and presumably increase it over time shouldn't be dependent on the short term consideration of who the manager is. We had the same issue at Morton where our fan organisation owns the club outright, but we had people threatening to cancel memberships or actually doing it over Gus MacPherson not being sacked quickly enough, among other issues. While appointing and standing by a shite manager is absolutely an issue an elected board should be held democratically accountable to the fanbase for if they consistently make such poor decisions, declaring that the whole model is doomed to fail every time something goes wrong on the park misses the whole point of the exercise and is simply a guarantee you'll have no long term stability as your fan organisation can't sustainably plan for the future if they fear losing dozens of members with any poor run of form.

None of that makes your blind insistence that as this board appointed Martin Rennie he must be the next Alex Ferguson any less ridiculous. What's even worse are your attacks on anyone who acknowledges the fact - not opinion, the literal fact of his league record - he has an almost identical record than Paul Sheerin, as if the only way anyone could believe this is if they are sleeper agents planted by Gary Holt trying to undermine the new board and bring Gary Deans back.

There is certainly someone fawning over a Falkirk board and refusing to accept any criticism of them here, and it's not people criticising Martin Rennie's managerial record.

People have every right to be critical if they want. My point however is two fold

1. As a club we have been mismanaged for years. The new guys are sorting out all sorts of problems that is not going to take five minutes to fix and some seem to think they should have things turned round already. Progress is going to be slow IMO.

2. Rennie has been left the worst squad since the 70’s. I thought it would have been better I have consistently said that it was never going to be great overnight. IMO it is still too early to judge Rennie properly. 

[Guest Caractacus Potts]

9 minutes ago, Back Post Misses said:

He hasn’t played a back 5 for weeks now and we are in the mix. 4th place was the only chance we had after Sheerin 

Hate to bring some objectivity in to the discussion again but we were 4 points away from 3rd and 4th when Sheerin was sacked and only 6 points off 2nd and 9 from 1st. 

Due to Graingers subsequent defeat we were then 4 points from 4th, 7 from 3rd, 9 from 2nd and 12 from 1st when Rennie took over. If Rennie was adamant a 6 point gap wasn’t insurmountable with 7 games to go then I’d like to think he’d have fancied his chances of climbing a 9 point gap with 19 games left to reach 2nd. 

For absolute clarity on the ‘progress’ made since Rennie has been in charge the swing in points from 1st to 4th after 17 matches when Rennie took over to now, are as follows:

1st: was 12 now 25 so 13 points worse off

2nd: was 9 now 20 so 11 points worse

3rd: was 7 now 11 so 4 points worse off

4th: was 4 now 3 so 1 point closer

[HopeStreetWalker]

11 minutes ago, Back Post Misses said:

People have every right to be critical if they want. My point however is two fold

1. As a club we have been mismanaged for years. The new guys are sorting out all sorts of problems that is not going to take five minutes to fix and some seem to think they should have things turned round already. Progress is going to be slow IMO.

2. Rennie has been left the worst squad since the 70’s. I thought it would have been better I have consistently said that it was never going to be great overnight. IMO it is still too early to judge Rennie properly. 

That's a fair assessment but what's is needed is a clear indication of the way ahead.

Full time / Hybrid / Part time. Squad size. 

[Shadwell Dog]

There is no point in joining fss if you are going to stop your direct debit every time they appointment a manager you don't agree with or sign a crap player and play 5 at the back. Just because folk have the club at heart etc doesn't mean they won't make mistakes especially in the short run when they are learning how to run a football team.  They aren't deans crew just in it for the blazers and the addition to their CVS. They've pumped their own money in for a start.  It's far easier to be popular if things on the park are right so they will be doing everything they can to achieve that . If they continue with Rennie they must believe he can do the job. I'm not 100 percent convinced but time will tell.

 

[Guest Caractacus Potts]

18 minutes ago, Shadwell Dog said:

There is no point in joining fss if you are going to stop your direct debit every time they appointment a manager you don't agree with or sign a crap player and play 5 at the back. Just because folk have the club at heart etc doesn't mean they won't make mistakes especially in the short run when they are learning how to run a football team.  They aren't deans crew just in it for the blazers and the addition to their CVS. They've pumped their own money in for a start.  It's far easier to be popular if things on the park are right so they will be doing everything they can to achieve that . If they continue with Rennie they must believe he can do the job. I'm not 100 percent convinced but time will tell.

 

I agree with this entirely.

The only thing I would say is that in fairness Deans and some of the old board did put money in to the club. As much and in some cases more than the patrons.

There has been a bit of bleating about guys putting their own money in which seems at odds to me when the old board did too. Ofcourse that’s laudable but it isn’t that different from previous incumbents.

The difference is that having heard from folk who know the board is that these guys, like you say, are proper fans who aren’t in it for themselves. That gets my backing, however doesn’t mean to say I won’t stop being critical about decisions I don’t agree with. 

[Guest]

59 minutes ago, HopeStreetWalker said:

That's a fair assessment but what's is needed is a clear indication of the way ahead.

Full time / Hybrid / Part time. Squad size. 

Maybe the Board will lay that out at the supporters meetings? 

[Shadwell Dog]

3 hours ago, Caractacus Potts said:

I agree with this entirely.

The only thing I would say is that in fairness Deans and some of the old board did put money in to the club. As much and in some cases more than the patrons.

There has been a bit of bleating about guys putting their own money in which seems at odds to me when the old board did too. Ofcourse that’s laudable but it isn’t that different from previous incumbents.

The difference is that having heard from folk who know the board is that these guys, like you say, are proper fans who aren’t in it for themselves. That gets my backing, however doesn’t mean to say I won’t stop being critical about decisions I don’t agree with. 

Deans mob put in a pittance compared to the Rawlins and the patrons though. They had zero investment in the club when they got on the board and it was only when the share deal was done that they actually put any cash in.  They were there for a good while spending other people's cash badly before then.

[HopeStreetWalker]

3 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

Maybe the Board will lay that out at the supporters meetings? 

They had better for if they try to waffle they well get telt.

If we are in serious trouble as a lot of people think then we deserve to be told. There will be more respect for the new board if they are honest.

[Guest]

19 hours ago, champions said:

I would have went for Ian Murray, whether he'd be interested who knows, but if you dont ask you'll never find out.

Who applied for the role?

 No idea but it was widely reported Brian Rice was interviewed 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, HopeStreetWalker said:

They had better for if they try to waffle they well get telt.

If we are in serious trouble as a lot of people think then we deserve to be told. There will be more respect for the new board if they are honest.

No reason not to be honest IMO 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Back Post Misses said:

Maybe the Board will lay that out at the supporters meetings? 

At the FSS meeting, Nigel said there were no plans to look at anything other than full time for next season. I know he was looking to the other Board members for assurance on that, but there were no dissenting voices.

Personally, I wouldn’t be against two or three quality part timers given that some of the best players in L1 are part time. I guess Arbroath are not proof that all part timers can compete with full timers at Championship level, but it shows that if recruitment looks at the right traits, something good can be created from it.

Would anyone fancy our team versus Arbroath on Saturday? I think that is one part time team that right now could rag doll us until they lost us.

If we need anything right now from our coaching structure, it’s the right kind of recruitment. That is what will make the difference, not 3-5-2 or 4-4-2 or 3-4-2-1.

[Springfield]

4 minutes ago, Duncan Freemason said:

At the FSS meeting, Nigel said there were no plans to look at anything other than full time for next season. I know he was looking to the other Board members for assurance on that, but there were no dissenting voices.

Personally, I wouldn’t be against two or three quality part timers given that some of the best players in L1 are part time. I guess Arbroath are not proof that all part timers can compete with full timers at Championship level, but it shows that if recruitment looks at the right traits, something good can be created from it.

Would anyone fancy our team versus Arbroath on Saturday? I think that is one part time team that right now could rag doll us until they lost us.

If we need anything right now from our coaching structure, it’s the right kind of recruitment. That is what will make the difference, not 3-5-2 or 4-4-2 or 3-4-2-1.

Think it’s the key to any successful team, whether it’s football or hockey.