The Falkirk FC Thread

[gav-ffc]

4 minutes ago, Donathan said:

Did the club just casually announce that local nightclub the Maniqui is now our shirt sponsor (In a tweet about killers ticket holders getting cheap entry)?

Back of shirt sponsor.

[RRFC_Liam]

1 minute ago, Raithie said:

Nothing official as of yet but would be surprised if it's not the case. Had McGlynn made it known he was keen to bring the majority of our out of contract players to Falkirk or was that purely speculative paper talk? With it looking likely Spencer will stay with us and Bene heading to Dunfermline there's not many left for you to take. Are you needing a right back as there's been heehaw talk on what's happening with Tumilty?

Rumours flying about everywhere on here, Twitter and FB it’s looking like Tumilty is away to the premiership just don’t know who, there were people saying St Mirren/Livi but nothing has materialised yet 

[Salvo Montalbano]

On 04/06/2022 at 22:13, Passionate said:

Will Gary Oliver and Sean Mackie improve you that much.....

Gary Oliver only scores against the Pars. So if we are going to be challenging you for the title, he'd be a good signing. If we are jobbing about the mid table (Falkirk style? Too soon?) then maybe not so much.

[Sarah67]

 

We both went along to the early session the other night and I’ve tried to summarise the best I can for any fans who weren’t there. Just trying to be helpful so please don’t shoot the messenger! 

 

After a brief introduction from Keith Gourlay, the opening section was from Kenny Jamieson and was around the performance in 2021/22. Summarised as:

• for context, 450k is the average yearly operating loss in historic years
• we’ve had 17 operating losses in the last 20 years he said
• we had 720k in bank at start of 2021/22 (we were lucky due to apparently receiving a sell-on clause for Will Vaulks and some residual Rawlins investment)
• since taking over in 21/22 the new board are running at 2 times the normal operating loss (anticipated loss this year will be a staggering 900k+)
• serious current cash flow concerns he said, club is not in a healthy position
• KJ confirmed it is “the worst cash flow position at the start of any season since we were at Ochilview”
• he said they just paid the wages a few days ago but that there is very little left in the pot now
• begging bowl went out for more FSS members or anyone who wants to throw in 10k to join his patrons group
• this FSS plug was repeated about four times during the night and leaflets left on all our seats too

 

He said income needs to be boosted by 300-400k via the appointment of Graham Stewart, who was introduced to everyone as our new commercial manager, apparently he’s been brought in as he’s related to one of the patrons group a gentleman sitting along from us said so he is a known face to them. If Graham isn’t successful at boosting income by 300-400k then KJ explained the only other option for the club is to run at an operating loss and ideally he wants to cap the operating loss to a maximum of 400k a year. So taking about 10% off the average 450k figure he gave previously. This year is over double that though. 

 

They said they didn’t think the club would literally have ran out of money in recent months and when asked why not, the reply  was “I’m sure the board would’ve found soft loans from somewhere”…. but there was no indication at the session of where that would actually be. It did make us both worry a bit that it sounds like the new controlling group don’t actually seem to have any rainy day cash. 

 

Non-footballing costs have been reduced, because four people have walked out recently. The board confirmed we now only have the equivalent of 9 full-time staff left at the entire club and both Nigel Serafini and Gordon Wright said it’s the volunteers in various areas who have basically saved us and that they are vital because if we lose them, then our costs will increase further and put even more strain on the current finances. 

 

KJ acknowledged that the new board have worked in business but that none of the new board has any football experience and since they decided to fire Gary Holt they have now inadvertently created a football knowledge gap, but he said that we shouldn’t worry as Martin Rennie has guided them in terms of football structure on what “a well run club looks like” and they are following his guidance, plus info from other people they have spoke to.

 

The next bit of info was the one that was really contradictory, having just said that they wanted to control costs given how bad the finances now are, they went on to say they actually want to spend more cash on a new grass training facility of all things. They said they are close to exploring/sealing options and wouldn’t say what. It’s a badly kept secret though that they’ve apparently done a deal to spend roughly £30-35,000 to hire Little Kerse, as coaches of youth teams down there have known about it for a few weeks now and have been openly talking about it when we took our grandson down to his training recently. It seems a strange decision especially given the serious cashflow concerns mentioned and I can’t help but feel it’s just a waste of money. Neither of the two of us could see how they needed this and if it turns out to be true and we do indeed move training to Little Kerse then to spend what little precious money we have left like that is just wrong, as that sort of cash should be given to the manager to get us a competent striker for once. Personal opinion only and each to their own I guess. 

 

We’d also lose the slight advantage of being used to our own pitch if we train instead on grass all week. The very thin justification offered for it all was that grass would help “player recovery”. Personally, I’d still rather have a striker. 

 

Continuing pitch chat, they said that no cash has been put aside by them for pitch renewal yet. The money from the upcoming Killers gigs will apparently be ring-fenced towards pitch renewal costs, but they admitted later during the Q&A that it will only pay a small portion of it. They have no idea currently where the rest of the cash is coming from. 

 

Everything about finances was depressing to be honest. Douglas Moodie gave one positive and said it previously took six and a half weeks to generate a set of “management accounts”, but under his guidance and a new finance software system they have bought, they can now generate these reports within two days. Sadly, it seems all that’s done is maybe make them realise how much of a worry the cash situation is!

 

Overall, while a couple of them spoke well in terms of delivery of the content, the actual content itself didn’t stand up to much scrutiny, especially the financial stuff. As a result my husband and I both left really disheartened. I applaud them for trying and sincerely want them all to do well as they are fans the same as we are, but at the moment it doesn’t yet feel like a safe pair of hands and there seems to be a lack of outright leadership as they’ve still not chosen a chairman. Thankless task though I’m sure and not one I’d do, so I can understand their hesitation at stepping up to the role. 

 

We couldn’t make previous fan event sessions as our daughter has an auto-immune condition and had to isolate for long spells until she was well enough to get fully vaccinated, but we both went along to the early session the other night as we wanted to genuinely engage with the current board and so that we knew we had made an effort to actually meet them in person and listen to what they had to say, but we both came away a little downbeat, mainly due to the financial concerns. 

 

The one bit of critical feedback for them we’d give is that they need to stop blaming everyone else but themselves. It’s not a good look. They’ve been in place about 8 months now and we both genuinely understand they won’t fix every problem overnight and we are genuinely grateful to them for trying, most fans have been supportive too rather than give them any sort of hard time, but constantly trying to say that every negative in or around the club is still somehow someone else’s fault fully 8 months later just no longer cuts it I’m afraid. They need to accept that it’s now their performance, not anyone else’s. 

 

They’d genuinely have gotten more respect from us both if they’d actually stood there and publicly admitted they’ve made mistakes just like previous boards have too i.e. wasting an alleged £2,500 per week on an overweight Leigh Griffiths who only scored two goals, a supporter posting on Facebook that they were apparently seen at Goodwillie’s house trying to sign him, not to mention the totally failed appointment of Martin Rennie as manager. 

 

Me and my husband, plus our kids, their partners and our grandkids will all do our bit and renew our season tickets and we’ve all signed up to FSS to help too, even though it’s difficult with all our bills going up just now, plus supporting our daughter while she was off work ill, but the undoubted overriding worry we both came away with chatting in the car on the way back to Larbert is that given the serious cashflow concerns and the money blown on Griffiths, multiple personnel payoffs and various other things, it seems like we may be heading down the path towards administration and we both truly dread the thought of that happening. 

 

If you can, join up to the FSS. It sounds like it’ll be badly needed. 

 

 

 

 

 

[FFC 1876]

8 minutes ago, Raithie said:

Nothing official as of yet but would be surprised if it's not the case. Had McGlynn made it known he was keen to bring the majority of our out of contract players to Falkirk or was that purely speculative paper talk? With it looking likely Spencer will stay with us and Bene heading to Dunfermline there's not many left for you to take. Are you needing a right back as there's been heehaw talk on what's happening with Tumilty?

Just all paper talk and hearsay, we've not had much leaked out the club lately as to who we're trying to sign which is a dramatic change, last season we got our pre season update from a fairly frequent poster on here who'd bumped into our then chairman in Tesco.

[Marshmallo]

Nice unbiased account of the meeting there I'm sure 

[Russ]

Fair play to anyone attempting to give that a read btw.

[RRFC_Liam]

29 minutes ago, FFC 1876 said:

Just all paper talk and hearsay, we've not had much leaked out the club lately as to who we're trying to sign which is a dramatic change, last season we got our pre season update from a fairly frequent poster on here who'd bumped into our then chairman in Tesco.

Think it’s one of those easy link type things McGlynn leaves us goes to Falkirk oh who’s out of contract let’s link such and such to them of who he managed before, I think there was interest but that’s as probably as far as it went 

[bairn88]

33 minutes ago, Sarah67 said:

 

We both went along to the early session the other night and I’ve tried to summarise the best I can for any fans who weren’t there. Just trying to be helpful so please don’t shoot the messenger! 

 

After a brief introduction from Keith Gourlay, the opening section was from Kenny Jamieson and was around the performance in 2021/22. Summarised as:

• for context, 450k is the average yearly operating loss in historic years
• we’ve had 17 operating losses in the last 20 years he said
• we had 720k in bank at start of 2021/22 (we were lucky due to apparently receiving a sell-on clause for Will Vaulks and some residual Rawlins investment)
• since taking over in 21/22 the new board are running at 2 times the normal operating loss (anticipated loss this year will be a staggering 900k+)
• serious current cash flow concerns he said, club is not in a healthy position
• KJ confirmed it is “the worst cash flow position at the start of any season since we were at Ochilview”
• he said they just paid the wages a few days ago but that there is very little left in the pot now
• begging bowl went out for more FSS members or anyone who wants to throw in 10k to join his patrons group
• this FSS plug was repeated about four times during the night and leaflets left on all our seats too

 

He said income needs to be boosted by 300-400k via the appointment of Graham Stewart, who was introduced to everyone as our new commercial manager, apparently he’s been brought in as he’s related to one of the patrons group a gentleman sitting along from us said so he is a known face to them. If Graham isn’t successful at boosting income by 300-400k then KJ explained the only other option for the club is to run at an operating loss and ideally he wants to cap the operating loss to a maximum of 400k a year. So taking about 10% off the average 450k figure he gave previously. This year is over double that though. 

 

They said they didn’t think the club would literally have ran out of money in recent months and when asked why not, the reply  was “I’m sure the board would’ve found soft loans from somewhere”…. but there was no indication at the session of where that would actually be. It did make us both worry a bit that it sounds like the new controlling group don’t actually seem to have any rainy day cash. 

 

Non-footballing costs have been reduced, because four people have walked out recently. The board confirmed we now only have the equivalent of 9 full-time staff left at the entire club and both Nigel Serafini and Gordon Wright said it’s the volunteers in various areas who have basically saved us and that they are vital because if we lose them, then our costs will increase further and put even more strain on the current finances. 

 

KJ acknowledged that the new board have worked in business but that none of the new board has any football experience and since they decided to fire Gary Holt they have now inadvertently created a football knowledge gap, but he said that we shouldn’t worry as Martin Rennie has guided them in terms of football structure on what “a well run club looks like” and they are following his guidance, plus info from other people they have spoke to.

 

The next bit of info was the one that was really contradictory, having just said that they wanted to control costs given how bad the finances now are, they went on to say they actually want to spend more cash on a new grass training facility of all things. They said they are close to exploring/sealing options and wouldn’t say what. It’s a badly kept secret though that they’ve apparently done a deal to spend roughly £30-35,000 to hire Little Kerse, as coaches of youth teams down there have known about it for a few weeks now and have been openly talking about it when we took our grandson down to his training recently. It seems a strange decision especially given the serious cashflow concerns mentioned and I can’t help but feel it’s just a waste of money. Neither of the two of us could see how they needed this and if it turns out to be true and we do indeed move training to Little Kerse then to spend what little precious money we have left like that is just wrong, as that sort of cash should be given to the manager to get us a competent striker for once. Personal opinion only and each to their own I guess. 

 

We’d also lose the slight advantage of being used to our own pitch if we train instead on grass all week. The very thin justification offered for it all was that grass would help “player recovery”. Personally, I’d still rather have a striker. 

 

Continuing pitch chat, they said that no cash has been put aside by them for pitch renewal yet. The money from the upcoming Killers gigs will apparently be ring-fenced towards pitch renewal costs, but they admitted later during the Q&A that it will only pay a small portion of it. They have no idea currently where the rest of the cash is coming from. 

 

Everything about finances was depressing to be honest. Douglas Moodie gave one positive and said it previously took six and a half weeks to generate a set of “management accounts”, but under his guidance and a new finance software system they have bought, they can now generate these reports within two days. Sadly, it seems all that’s done is maybe make them realise how much of a worry the cash situation is!

 

Overall, while a couple of them spoke well in terms of delivery of the content, the actual content itself didn’t stand up to much scrutiny, especially the financial stuff. As a result my husband and I both left really disheartened. I applaud them for trying and sincerely want them all to do well as they are fans the same as we are, but at the moment it doesn’t yet feel like a safe pair of hands and there seems to be a lack of outright leadership as they’ve still not chosen a chairman. Thankless task though I’m sure and not one I’d do, so I can understand their hesitation at stepping up to the role. 

 

We couldn’t make previous fan event sessions as our daughter has an auto-immune condition and had to isolate for long spells until she was well enough to get fully vaccinated, but we both went along to the early session the other night as we wanted to genuinely engage with the current board and so that we knew we had made an effort to actually meet them in person and listen to what they had to say, but we both came away a little downbeat, mainly due to the financial concerns. 

 

The one bit of critical feedback for them we’d give is that they need to stop blaming everyone else but themselves. It’s not a good look. They’ve been in place about 8 months now and we both genuinely understand they won’t fix every problem overnight and we are genuinely grateful to them for trying, most fans have been supportive too rather than give them any sort of hard time, but constantly trying to say that every negative in or around the club is still somehow someone else’s fault fully 8 months later just no longer cuts it I’m afraid. They need to accept that it’s now their performance, not anyone else’s. 

 

They’d genuinely have gotten more respect from us both if they’d actually stood there and publicly admitted they’ve made mistakes just like previous boards have too i.e. wasting an alleged £2,500 per week on an overweight Leigh Griffiths who only scored two goals, a supporter posting on Facebook that they were apparently seen at Goodwillie’s house trying to sign him, not to mention the totally failed appointment of Martin Rennie as manager. 

 

Me and my husband, plus our kids, their partners and our grandkids will all do our bit and renew our season tickets and we’ve all signed up to FSS to help too, even though it’s difficult with all our bills going up just now, plus supporting our daughter while she was off work ill, but the undoubted overriding worry we both came away with chatting in the car on the way back to Larbert is that given the serious cashflow concerns and the money blown on Griffiths, multiple personnel payoffs and various other things, it seems like we may be heading down the path towards administration and we both truly dread the thought of that happening. 

 

If you can, join up to the FSS. It sounds like it’ll be badly needed. 

 

 

 

 

 

Very informative, thanks

[ShaggerG]

10 minutes ago, Russ said:

Fair play to anyone attempting to give that a read btw.

Why, what's wrong with it?

[Grangemouth Bairn]

13 minutes ago, Russ said:

Fair play to anyone attempting to give that a read btw.

How come ?

[Harry Kinnear]

I get the point made in the post but I came away from the meeting with a totally opposite frame of mind. I felt positive after the meeting that the board were up front and honest about the current situation. It is a mess, we know it’s a mess and it’s going to take a lot longer than 8 months to turn things around but they are working on it.

If they had stood up and said everything is just fine and a few months down the line the shit hit the fan they would be slaughtered.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Harry Kinnear

[Dawson Park Boy]

12 minutes ago, ShaggerG said:

Why, what's wrong with it?

A reasonable attempt at a summary but I didn’t come away quite so downbeat as Sarah.

Regarding the grass training pitch I got the impression that this was something that McGlynn wanted, as he didn’t like the idea of the players spending all their time at TFS, especially after a defeat on the Saturday

I thought their ideas about trying to engender a feeling of ‘family’ into the club embracing everyone including, players, youngsters, management and directors was good and, again, I think McGlynn is very much for that.

Yes, finances are bad but I thought they showed how things can improve, albeit from a very poor state.

Personally, I was impressed with the people who are now in charge.

Anyway, it’s good that someone spent the time to give their take on it.

[Grangemouth Bairn]

10 minutes ago, Brockvillenomore said:

58 minutes ago, Sarah67 said:

 

We both went along to the early session the other night and I’ve tried to summarise the best I can for any fans who weren’t there. Just trying to be helpful so please don’t shoot the messenger! 

 

After a brief introduction from Keith Gourlay, the opening section was from Kenny Jamieson and was around the performance in 2021/22. Summarised as:

• for context, 450k is the average yearly operating loss in historic years
• we’ve had 17 operating losses in the last 20 years he said
• we had 720k in bank at start of 2021/22 (we were lucky due to apparently receiving a sell-on clause for Will Vaulks and some residual Rawlins investment)
• since taking over in 21/22 the new board are running at 2 times the normal operating loss (anticipated loss this year will be a staggering 900k+)
• serious current cash flow concerns he said, club is not in a healthy position
• KJ confirmed it is “the worst cash flow position at the start of any season since we were at Ochilview”
• he said they just paid the wages a few days ago but that there is very little left in the pot now
• begging bowl went out for more FSS members or anyone who wants to throw in 10k to join his patrons group
• this FSS plug was repeated about four times during the night and leaflets left on all our seats too

 

He said income needs to be boosted by 300-400k via the appointment of Graham Stewart, who was introduced to everyone as our new commercial manager, apparently he’s been brought in as he’s related to one of the patrons group a gentleman sitting along from us said so he is a known face to them. If Graham isn’t successful at boosting income by 300-400k then KJ explained the only other option for the club is to run at an operating loss and ideally he wants to cap the operating loss to a maximum of 400k a year. So taking about 10% off the average 450k figure he gave previously. This year is over double that though. 

 

They said they didn’t think the club would literally have ran out of money in recent months and when asked why not, the reply  was “I’m sure the board would’ve found soft loans from somewhere”…. but there was no indication at the session of where that would actually be. It did make us both worry a bit that it sounds like the new controlling group don’t actually seem to have any rainy day cash. 

 

Non-footballing costs have been reduced, because four people have walked out recently. The board confirmed we now only have the equivalent of 9 full-time staff left at the entire club and both Nigel Serafini and Gordon Wright said it’s the volunteers in various areas who have basically saved us and that they are vital because if we lose them, then our costs will increase further and put even more strain on the current finances. 

 

KJ acknowledged that the new board have worked in business but that none of the new board has any football experience and since they decided to fire Gary Holt they have now inadvertently created a football knowledge gap, but he said that we shouldn’t worry as Martin Rennie has guided them in terms of football structure on what “a well run club looks like” and they are following his guidance, plus info from other people they have spoke to.

 

The next bit of info was the one that was really contradictory, having just said that they wanted to control costs given how bad the finances now are, they went on to say they actually want to spend more cash on a new grass training facility of all things. They said they are close to exploring/sealing options and wouldn’t say what. It’s a badly kept secret though that they’ve apparently done a deal to spend roughly £30-35,000 to hire Little Kerse, as coaches of youth teams down there have known about it for a few weeks now and have been openly talking about it when we took our grandson down to his training recently. It seems a strange decision especially given the serious cashflow concerns mentioned and I can’t help but feel it’s just a waste of money. Neither of the two of us could see how they needed this and if it turns out to be true and we do indeed move training to Little Kerse then to spend what little precious money we have left like that is just wrong, as that sort of cash should be given to the manager to get us a competent striker for once. Personal opinion only and each to their own I guess. 

 

We’d also lose the slight advantage of being used to our own pitch if we train instead on grass all week. The very thin justification offered for it all was that grass would help “player recovery”. Personally, I’d still rather have a striker. 

 

Continuing pitch chat, they said that no cash has been put aside by them for pitch renewal yet. The money from the upcoming Killers gigs will apparently be ring-fenced towards pitch renewal costs, but they admitted later during the Q&A that it will only pay a small portion of it. They have no idea currently where the rest of the cash is coming from. 

 

Everything about finances was depressing to be honest. Douglas Moodie gave one positive and said it previously took six and a half weeks to generate a set of “management accounts”, but under his guidance and a new finance software system they have bought, they can now generate these reports within two days. Sadly, it seems all that’s done is maybe make them realise how much of a worry the cash situation is!

 

Overall, while a couple of them spoke well in terms of delivery of the content, the actual content itself didn’t stand up to much scrutiny, especially the financial stuff. As a result my husband and I both left really disheartened. I applaud them for trying and sincerely want them all to do well as they are fans the same as we are, but at the moment it doesn’t yet feel like a safe pair of hands and there seems to be a lack of outright leadership as they’ve still not chosen a chairman. Thankless task though I’m sure and not one I’d do, so I can understand their hesitation at stepping up to the role. 

 

We couldn’t make previous fan event sessions as our daughter has an auto-immune condition and had to isolate for long spells until she was well enough to get fully vaccinated, but we both went along to the early session the other night as we wanted to genuinely engage with the current board and so that we knew we had made an effort to actually meet them in person and listen to what they had to say, but we both came away a little downbeat, mainly due to the financial concerns. 

 

The one bit of critical feedback for them we’d give is that they need to stop blaming everyone else but themselves. It’s not a good look. They’ve been in place about 8 months now and we both genuinely understand they won’t fix every problem overnight and we are genuinely grateful to them for trying, most fans have been supportive too rather than give them any sort of hard time, but constantly trying to say that every negative in or around the club is still somehow someone else’s fault fully 8 months later just no longer cuts it I’m afraid. They need to accept that it’s now their performance, not anyone else’s. 

 

They’d genuinely have gotten more respect from us both if they’d actually stood there and publicly admitted they’ve made mistakes just like previous boards have too i.e. wasting an alleged £2,500 per week on an overweight Leigh Griffiths who only scored two goals, a supporter posting on Facebook that they were apparently seen at Goodwillie’s house trying to sign him, not to mention the totally failed appointment of Martin Rennie as manager. 

 

Me and my husband, plus our kids, their partners and our grandkids will all do our bit and renew our season tickets and we’ve all signed up to FSS to help too, even though it’s difficult with all our bills going up just now, plus supporting our daughter while she was off work ill, but the undoubted overriding worry we both came away with chatting in the car on the way back to Larbert is that given the serious cashflow concerns and the money blown on Griffiths, multiple personnel payoffs and various other things, it seems like we may be heading down the path towards administration and we both truly dread the thought of that happening. 

 

If you can, join up to the FSS. It sounds like it’ll be badly needed. 

 

A lot right here. Some thats a personal perspective and not my take away and some off the mark. Key difference is the investment in December from the patrons,  bairns for life and FSS (£250k) kept the club afloat. The Dec transfer window was largely cash neutral with players leaving and those coming in on low cost loans. 

The cost overruns were those they inherited and the staff leaving are being replaced. 
 

As I said in a previous post it’s difficult to be open and transparent without being open and transparent. But I agree the time to fix it is now and it’s the board and all of us. 
 

Overall message was clear, if we want a sustainable club we need to invest. That’s the model. It’s not a begging bowl IMHO  

i think they said there will be a follow up, with the management team, so let’s all go and ask questions. 
 

 

Thanks to both you are Sarah for your updates, really helpful  - I’m guessing from your update the board want us to invest through season ticket sales, buying merchandise etc rather than just handover money as seemed to be Sarah’s take ?

[ShaggerG]

56 minutes ago, Sarah67 said:

 

We both went along to the early session the other night and I’ve tried to summarise the best I can for any fans who weren’t there. Just trying to be helpful so please don’t shoot the messenger! 

 

After a brief introduction from Keith Gourlay, the opening section was from Kenny Jamieson and was around the performance in 2021/22. Summarised as:

• for context, 450k is the average yearly operating loss in historic years
• we’ve had 17 operating losses in the last 20 years he said
• we had 720k in bank at start of 2021/22 (we were lucky due to apparently receiving a sell-on clause for Will Vaulks and some residual Rawlins investment)
• since taking over in 21/22 the new board are running at 2 times the normal operating loss (anticipated loss this year will be a staggering 900k+)
• serious current cash flow concerns he said, club is not in a healthy position
• KJ confirmed it is “the worst cash flow position at the start of any season since we were at Ochilview”
• he said they just paid the wages a few days ago but that there is very little left in the pot now
• begging bowl went out for more FSS members or anyone who wants to throw in 10k to join his patrons group
• this FSS plug was repeated about four times during the night and leaflets left on all our seats too

 

He said income needs to be boosted by 300-400k via the appointment of Graham Stewart, who was introduced to everyone as our new commercial manager, apparently he’s been brought in as he’s related to one of the patrons group a gentleman sitting along from us said so he is a known face to them. If Graham isn’t successful at boosting income by 300-400k then KJ explained the only other option for the club is to run at an operating loss and ideally he wants to cap the operating loss to a maximum of 400k a year. So taking about 10% off the average 450k figure he gave previously. This year is over double that though. 

 

They said they didn’t think the club would literally have ran out of money in recent months and when asked why not, the reply  was “I’m sure the board would’ve found soft loans from somewhere”…. but there was no indication at the session of where that would actually be. It did make us both worry a bit that it sounds like the new controlling group don’t actually seem to have any rainy day cash. 

 

Non-footballing costs have been reduced, because four people have walked out recently. The board confirmed we now only have the equivalent of 9 full-time staff left at the entire club and both Nigel Serafini and Gordon Wright said it’s the volunteers in various areas who have basically saved us and that they are vital because if we lose them, then our costs will increase further and put even more strain on the current finances. 

 

KJ acknowledged that the new board have worked in business but that none of the new board has any football experience and since they decided to fire Gary Holt they have now inadvertently created a football knowledge gap, but he said that we shouldn’t worry as Martin Rennie has guided them in terms of football structure on what “a well run club looks like” and they are following his guidance, plus info from other people they have spoke to.

 

The next bit of info was the one that was really contradictory, having just said that they wanted to control costs given how bad the finances now are, they went on to say they actually want to spend more cash on a new grass training facility of all things. They said they are close to exploring/sealing options and wouldn’t say what. It’s a badly kept secret though that they’ve apparently done a deal to spend roughly £30-35,000 to hire Little Kerse, as coaches of youth teams down there have known about it for a few weeks now and have been openly talking about it when we took our grandson down to his training recently. It seems a strange decision especially given the serious cashflow concerns mentioned and I can’t help but feel it’s just a waste of money. Neither of the two of us could see how they needed this and if it turns out to be true and we do indeed move training to Little Kerse then to spend what little precious money we have left like that is just wrong, as that sort of cash should be given to the manager to get us a competent striker for once. Personal opinion only and each to their own I guess. 

 

We’d also lose the slight advantage of being used to our own pitch if we train instead on grass all week. The very thin justification offered for it all was that grass would help “player recovery”. Personally, I’d still rather have a striker. 

 

Continuing pitch chat, they said that no cash has been put aside by them for pitch renewal yet. The money from the upcoming Killers gigs will apparently be ring-fenced towards pitch renewal costs, but they admitted later during the Q&A that it will only pay a small portion of it. They have no idea currently where the rest of the cash is coming from. 

 

Everything about finances was depressing to be honest. Douglas Moodie gave one positive and said it previously took six and a half weeks to generate a set of “management accounts”, but under his guidance and a new finance software system they have bought, they can now generate these reports within two days. Sadly, it seems all that’s done is maybe make them realise how much of a worry the cash situation is!

 

Overall, while a couple of them spoke well in terms of delivery of the content, the actual content itself didn’t stand up to much scrutiny, especially the financial stuff. As a result my husband and I both left really disheartened. I applaud them for trying and sincerely want them all to do well as they are fans the same as we are, but at the moment it doesn’t yet feel like a safe pair of hands and there seems to be a lack of outright leadership as they’ve still not chosen a chairman. Thankless task though I’m sure and not one I’d do, so I can understand their hesitation at stepping up to the role. 

 

We couldn’t make previous fan event sessions as our daughter has an auto-immune condition and had to isolate for long spells until she was well enough to get fully vaccinated, but we both went along to the early session the other night as we wanted to genuinely engage with the current board and so that we knew we had made an effort to actually meet them in person and listen to what they had to say, but we both came away a little downbeat, mainly due to the financial concerns. 

 

The one bit of critical feedback for them we’d give is that they need to stop blaming everyone else but themselves. It’s not a good look. They’ve been in place about 8 months now and we both genuinely understand they won’t fix every problem overnight and we are genuinely grateful to them for trying, most fans have been supportive too rather than give them any sort of hard time, but constantly trying to say that every negative in or around the club is still somehow someone else’s fault fully 8 months later just no longer cuts it I’m afraid. They need to accept that it’s now their performance, not anyone else’s. 

 

They’d genuinely have gotten more respect from us both if they’d actually stood there and publicly admitted they’ve made mistakes just like previous boards have too i.e. wasting an alleged £2,500 per week on an overweight Leigh Griffiths who only scored two goals, a supporter posting on Facebook that they were apparently seen at Goodwillie’s house trying to sign him, not to mention the totally failed appointment of Martin Rennie as manager. 

 

Me and my husband, plus our kids, their partners and our grandkids will all do our bit and renew our season tickets and we’ve all signed up to FSS to help too, even though it’s difficult with all our bills going up just now, plus supporting our daughter while she was off work ill, but the undoubted overriding worry we both came away with chatting in the car on the way back to Larbert is that given the serious cashflow concerns and the money blown on Griffiths, multiple personnel payoffs and various other things, it seems like we may be heading down the path towards administration and we both truly dread the thought of that happening. 

 

If you can, join up to the FSS. It sounds like it’ll be badly needed. 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the summary Sarah.

I attended the second session and share many of your worries. Regarding the hiring of Little Kerse however I feel that there will be two major benefits from doing this. Firstly, if the team aren't training on  our pitch then, presumably, that will allow it to be rented out during the day which, again presumably, will raise more money than the outlay to LK. Secondly I think that playing on plastic does dissuade some players from joining a club that trains on it every day. Training on grass does help with a player's recovery from injury so that may help in trying to attract players to the club.

There's no doubt that we're struggling for cash however and I really hope that they are able to raise more money soon or things could get very bad very quickly.

[FFC 1876]

1 hour ago, Sarah67 said:

 

We both went along to the early session the other night and I’ve tried to summarise the best I can for any fans who weren’t there. Just trying to be helpful so please don’t shoot the messenger! 

 

After a brief introduction from Keith Gourlay, the opening section was from Kenny Jamieson and was around the performance in 2021/22. Summarised as:

• for context, 450k is the average yearly operating loss in historic years
• we’ve had 17 operating losses in the last 20 years he said
• we had 720k in bank at start of 2021/22 (we were lucky due to apparently receiving a sell-on clause for Will Vaulks and some residual Rawlins investment)
• since taking over in 21/22 the new board are running at 2 times the normal operating loss (anticipated loss this year will be a staggering 900k+)
• serious current cash flow concerns he said, club is not in a healthy position
• KJ confirmed it is “the worst cash flow position at the start of any season since we were at Ochilview”
• he said they just paid the wages a few days ago but that there is very little left in the pot now
• begging bowl went out for more FSS members or anyone who wants to throw in 10k to join his patrons group
• this FSS plug was repeated about four times during the night and leaflets left on all our seats too

 

He said income needs to be boosted by 300-400k via the appointment of Graham Stewart, who was introduced to everyone as our new commercial manager, apparently he’s been brought in as he’s related to one of the patrons group a gentleman sitting along from us said so he is a known face to them. If Graham isn’t successful at boosting income by 300-400k then KJ explained the only other option for the club is to run at an operating loss and ideally he wants to cap the operating loss to a maximum of 400k a year. So taking about 10% off the average 450k figure he gave previously. This year is over double that though. 

 

They said they didn’t think the club would literally have ran out of money in recent months and when asked why not, the reply  was “I’m sure the board would’ve found soft loans from somewhere”…. but there was no indication at the session of where that would actually be. It did make us both worry a bit that it sounds like the new controlling group don’t actually seem to have any rainy day cash. 

 

Non-footballing costs have been reduced, because four people have walked out recently. The board confirmed we now only have the equivalent of 9 full-time staff left at the entire club and both Nigel Serafini and Gordon Wright said it’s the volunteers in various areas who have basically saved us and that they are vital because if we lose them, then our costs will increase further and put even more strain on the current finances. 

 

KJ acknowledged that the new board have worked in business but that none of the new board has any football experience and since they decided to fire Gary Holt they have now inadvertently created a football knowledge gap, but he said that we shouldn’t worry as Martin Rennie has guided them in terms of football structure on what “a well run club looks like” and they are following his guidance, plus info from other people they have spoke to.

 

The next bit of info was the one that was really contradictory, having just said that they wanted to control costs given how bad the finances now are, they went on to say they actually want to spend more cash on a new grass training facility of all things. They said they are close to exploring/sealing options and wouldn’t say what. It’s a badly kept secret though that they’ve apparently done a deal to spend roughly £30-35,000 to hire Little Kerse, as coaches of youth teams down there have known about it for a few weeks now and have been openly talking about it when we took our grandson down to his training recently. It seems a strange decision especially given the serious cashflow concerns mentioned and I can’t help but feel it’s just a waste of money. Neither of the two of us could see how they needed this and if it turns out to be true and we do indeed move training to Little Kerse then to spend what little precious money we have left like that is just wrong, as that sort of cash should be given to the manager to get us a competent striker for once. Personal opinion only and each to their own I guess. 

 

We’d also lose the slight advantage of being used to our own pitch if we train instead on grass all week. The very thin justification offered for it all was that grass would help “player recovery”. Personally, I’d still rather have a striker. 

 

Continuing pitch chat, they said that no cash has been put aside by them for pitch renewal yet. The money from the upcoming Killers gigs will apparently be ring-fenced towards pitch renewal costs, but they admitted later during the Q&A that it will only pay a small portion of it. They have no idea currently where the rest of the cash is coming from. 

 

Everything about finances was depressing to be honest. Douglas Moodie gave one positive and said it previously took six and a half weeks to generate a set of “management accounts”, but under his guidance and a new finance software system they have bought, they can now generate these reports within two days. Sadly, it seems all that’s done is maybe make them realise how much of a worry the cash situation is!

 

Overall, while a couple of them spoke well in terms of delivery of the content, the actual content itself didn’t stand up to much scrutiny, especially the financial stuff. As a result my husband and I both left really disheartened. I applaud them for trying and sincerely want them all to do well as they are fans the same as we are, but at the moment it doesn’t yet feel like a safe pair of hands and there seems to be a lack of outright leadership as they’ve still not chosen a chairman. Thankless task though I’m sure and not one I’d do, so I can understand their hesitation at stepping up to the role. 

 

We couldn’t make previous fan event sessions as our daughter has an auto-immune condition and had to isolate for long spells until she was well enough to get fully vaccinated, but we both went along to the early session the other night as we wanted to genuinely engage with the current board and so that we knew we had made an effort to actually meet them in person and listen to what they had to say, but we both came away a little downbeat, mainly due to the financial concerns. 

 

The one bit of critical feedback for them we’d give is that they need to stop blaming everyone else but themselves. It’s not a good look. They’ve been in place about 8 months now and we both genuinely understand they won’t fix every problem overnight and we are genuinely grateful to them for trying, most fans have been supportive too rather than give them any sort of hard time, but constantly trying to say that every negative in or around the club is still somehow someone else’s fault fully 8 months later just no longer cuts it I’m afraid. They need to accept that it’s now their performance, not anyone else’s. 

 

They’d genuinely have gotten more respect from us both if they’d actually stood there and publicly admitted they’ve made mistakes just like previous boards have too i.e. wasting an alleged £2,500 per week on an overweight Leigh Griffiths who only scored two goals, a supporter posting on Facebook that they were apparently seen at Goodwillie’s house trying to sign him, not to mention the totally failed appointment of Martin Rennie as manager. 

 

Me and my husband, plus our kids, their partners and our grandkids will all do our bit and renew our season tickets and we’ve all signed up to FSS to help too, even though it’s difficult with all our bills going up just now, plus supporting our daughter while she was off work ill, but the undoubted overriding worry we both came away with chatting in the car on the way back to Larbert is that given the serious cashflow concerns and the money blown on Griffiths, multiple personnel payoffs and various other things, it seems like we may be heading down the path towards administration and we both truly dread the thought of that happening. 

 

If you can, join up to the FSS. It sounds like it’ll be badly needed. 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for the detailed summary.

There's been a fair few posts on here lately about the fact Mcglynn wants to train on grass so spending 30-35k to train at little kerse in my eyes wouldn't be a bad deal especially given how bad our pitch actually is at the moment, the less it's used by our first team the better until it's replaced. 

The new board do need to take responsibility yes but I think it's only fair they lay out what they've had to work with as all the mess they inherited will have undoubtedly slowed down any progress they've been able to make especially as they've had to spend a massive whack of their time fixing the off field stuff.

Rennie was guff, hindsights a wonderful thing but at the time I reckon the majority of people would have had him over Brian Rice so the majority of us would have also made the wrong decision. Rennie then chose to sign Griffiths with the budget he was given the board shouldn't really have anything to do with who the manager signs, just ask Lex Miller.

Mcglynn on the face of it is a cracking appointment so it's now time for us all as fans to come together and do all we can to give him as big a budget as possible for next season so he can sort out the mess left on the park. 

Bring in the sexy signings!

Edited June 6, 2022 by FFC 1876

[HoBNob]

Jesus christ, running at a 900k deficit? No wonder Sarah is downbeat. 

[LatapyBairn.]

The big take from the fans meetings for me is that if the club is going to succeed it needs a collective effort from everyone, those fans who can afford to need to did deep and buy season tickets, sign up to the FSS or buy merchandise ect. The club need to do they’re bit by expanding the patrons group or seeking further external investment, the commercial income needs to grow and it’s the hierarchy’s responsibility to make that happen. All these things really have to fall in place as we can’t rely on a cup run or player sale. Fans as well as the club BOD both need to take a level of responsibility. 

Edited June 6, 2022 by LatapyBairn.

[HopeStreetWalker]

1 hour ago, FFC 1876 said:

Just all paper talk and hearsay, we've not had much leaked out the club lately as to who we're trying to sign which is a dramatic change, last season we got our pre season update from a fairly frequent poster on here who'd bumped into our then chairman in Tesco.

Better standard of conduct by the board members keeping such information confidential. Good on them and long overdue.

[ShaggerG]

7 minutes ago, LatapyBairn. said:

The big take from the fans meetings for me is that if the club is going to succeed it needs a collective effort from everyone, those fans who can afford to need to did deep and buy season tickets, sign up to the FSS or buy merchandise ect. The club need to do they’re bit by expanding the patrons group or seeking further external investment, the commercial income needs to grow and it’s the hierarchy’s responsibility to make that happen. All these things really have to fall in place as we can’t rely on a cup run or player sale. Fans as well as the club BOD both need to take a level of responsibility. 

We need to pray that someone buys Jay Fulton this close season because I think that he's the last one left that may give us a windfall. That's assuming that a sell-on clause was built in to the deal of course.