Jump to content

Sons' sorrow


Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, virginton said:

What are the EFL or any other football body to do exactly - arbitrarily stop people from owning a football club or existing owners from speculating with money they don't have to succeed? There is no credible legal measure to do so and the simple fact is that clubs have been spending and mispending money ever since the game was professionalised. 

So old man yelling at a cloud nonsense then. 

'Yes' is in fact the answer: if it was obvious to a blind man that things would go wrong then it was incumbent on Dundee and Livingston fans to either i) prevent such Walter Mitty owners to take oveor and/or ii) raise funds to empty them from their football club, pay off existing debts and retake control for at least the time required to give it over to suitable custodians.

People who want to abdicate all responsibility on behalf of the fans  and bewail why oh why this could have possibly happened are missing the fundamental lesson to be learned. The onus is on the fanbase to scrutinise chancers and if they can't prevent them from taking over to organise themselves to limit the damage and take responsibility if and when it is required. 

Another irrelevant, old man yelling at a cloud, straw man argument. 

The revenue at the second tier in Scottish football is larger now than it has ever been. Provincial clubs like Hamilton and Falkirk have succesfully flogged players for far more money than whatever players were being held against all contractual rights under the sun in your Hovis-themed good old days of football. 

Things have moved on and if some clubs have failed to adapt to that then that's just tough. It's been nearly 25 years FFS. 

Another irrelevant, old man yelling at a cloud, straw man argument. 

I've got nothing against Morton reducing their costs though. What I'm certainly not going to do is flail wildly about how it's somehow the Bosman ruling's fault, or the government's fault, or the betting companies' fault, or the players and their agents' fault that a professional football club has to balance its books like any other business. If its custodians are too incompetent or deluded to do that, then that's just tough. 

It's an interesting tactic you employ, in the absence of any response to a point you simply dismiss it as an irrelevance.  Quite Trumpian that.  And I really wouldn't know where to begin with the lazy logic of the passages I've highlighted.  As  a matter of interest, what was your personal involvement in th campaign to save Morton during the Scott period ?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't disagree with Tony more strongly here.
Fan's fall in love with football. We don't grow up supporting a balance sheet. Few fans are forensic accountants (although our current financial officer is) and for a lot of fans the idea of reading and digesting club accounts is completely alien. It's a weakness within UK football that fans are still so poorly engaged with what happens in the boardroom but it's part of our football identity. We're late comers to the whole issue of fan representation and fan involvement in the ownership and the running of football clubs. If UK fans aren't as engaged with football business as we need to be in the modern era then that's a reflection of the fact that we've been a professional game for well over 100 years. We've never had that ownership/membership culture.
It doesnt excuse fans who refuse to see what's in front of them. It's taking Sons fans some time to adjust to the realities of relegation and dwindling crowds. We're getting there as a support but only because in recent years we've faced significant concern with regards to our owners and their intentions for the club and with our club's finances. British supporters rarely wake up to the realities of modern football until their club reaches a crisis point.
But what is it that fans should really be taking the blame for? Should fans take the blame for carpetbagging, asset-stripping owners buying clubs on the cheap and borrowing heavily against assets? One of the things that made Bury such a problem was that every asset had a security against it. The stadium had been used to borrow against. Even the car park had been used as security for loans. There's little that supporters can do in those circumstances until a majority shareholder has already done the damage. Do fans expect clubs to spend beyond their means? Yes and no. You see arguments from fans who expect clubs to build the best squad it can and in that regard fans expect clubs to spend. But without ever knowing the details of player contracts, fans are working on limited information. What constitutes value? How can you judge if a club has spent it's wage budget wisely if you don't know the going rate for players in a particular division? 
Players cost more these days. Wages have increased to a level that's unsustainable. In England that's been driven by agents and by TV money. Players and agents knew that there was money to be made when TV started paying over the odds. That clubs capitulated and gave in to player demands is no fault of the supporters. It's a collective failure of football clubs. Had football clubs stayed united then player wages could perhaps have been kept under more control. Unfortunately there's always a rival out there who will break ranks and spend more than the rest. Fans can't do anything about that. Fans can't do anything about the people ploughing money into the game. In Scotland we're seeing stupid money being paid in the Lowland League and even in the West of Scotland juniors. Want to sign a player to give you a fighting chance of competing? If you won't pay the going rate then there's another club out there who will. Players hold far more power here than clubs. Far from being caused by fans having unrealistic expectations, fan expectations are being used by agents to keep wages higher than football can sustain because of the threat of taking their players to a rival who'll pay.
Fans need to be far more realistic with expectations and need to have a far greater awareness of the business side of football but that's only part of the problem. We've got a broken business model. We don't distribute sponsorship money fairly. We don't market the game properly. We don't attract enough sponsors to clubs. We don't attract enough fans to football. Supporters are the single biggest stakeholder group in football and yet we're the least represented. Club owners are reluctant to give up control. Governing bodies rarely take notice of supporters. We have a football association, managers associations and players associations who all have a voice in the game. What voice to the fans have? The SFSA is absolutely the right idea but its only a first start.
Fans are victims in all of this. Clubs that we invest time, money and huge amounts of emotion into are being run by other people and not for our benefit. We're an afterthought. In the English top flight most clubs could play a full season in a closed stadium and still just about break even through sponsorship, media rights and merchandise sales. What power to fans have to affect genuine change in a world where matchday attendance is on the decline, efforts at a continental model of greater fan representation have stalled and those who can spent are continuing to dictate the standards to which those who don't are forced to try to reach for?
Until we see proper change within football in the UK both north and south of the border, the supporters of Bury FC will not be the last group of football fans who will experience the heartbreak of losing their club. That we can do more to enter the 21st century and have a greater understanding of the football business doesnt begin to give us a meaningful voice to actually try to hold the authorities and club owners to any kind of account.

'Even the car park had been used as security for loans'. Sounds familiar
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Boghead ranter said:

In the old days of 2-3-5, I think it was the left or right player in the 3.

Both of those were wing-halves, the right wing-half and the left wing-half.

God, I can remember watching such a line-up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

It's an interesting tactic you employ, in the absence of any response to a point you simply dismiss it as an irrelevance.  Quite Trumpian that.  And I really wouldn't know where to begin with the lazy logic of the passages I've highlighted.  As  a matter of interest, what was your personal involvement in th campaign to save Morton during the Scott period ?  

Don't you realise that's an irrelevant, old man yelling at a cloud, straw man argument?

Edited by rockson
Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, PWL said:

The new associate directors announcement looks very positive and a real step in right direction. 

Quote

DUMBARTON FC is “taking the next steps in creating a more engaged, outward-looking, community club”, said vice chairman Colin Hosie this week, as the announcement was made of new advisers appointed by the board of directors.

Andy Gordon (Commercial Director of rail engineering company C&G Systems), Graham Casey (Managing Director of Signs Express Glasgow), and Simon Barrow (club press officer and supporters' spokesperson) are the three newly designated Associate Directors for the Sons.

All have a strong existing involvement with the club, with C&G being stadium sponsors and Signs Express supporting the programme and match day filming.

The appointments are honorary rather than statutory, and are part of wider developments aimed to “strengthen our operation commercially and in terms of community reach,” club chairman John Steele, says.

“Equally important are the many skilled volunteers who are helping on the operational side – including Robbi Docherty and Stephanie Park, who have taken up roles to bring in match day and activity sponsorship,” he added.

“We will also shortly be announcing our new Ambassador programme to help Dumbarton find further ways to boost support and to affirm the incredible work our fans already do to keep the club moving forward. Teamwork is what will give us a positive future”

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, super-son said:

 

 

Sam Wardrop?? 

Really? He was a solid enough player but by no means a stand out for me anyway.

 

 

 

I thought Wardrop was immense for us.

Injury robbed us of seeing just how good he could have been but when him and McLaughlin were both fit at the start of that season we were flying.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Number 1 has to be Sam Stanton for me with Dom Thomas coming a close second.

There was just something about Stanton when he was placed along side Carsy. Every time he touched the ball he was running at the opposition causing panic.

Him and Stirling in the team are fond memories of mine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, PWL said:

Joe McLeod. 

(Ask your parents kids)

 

Cracking loan signing, was great for us, but developed into a Bobby Barr style hate figure in the lower league game as the years went by.

I was delighted when he was part of the Stirling side we demolished at Forthbank in the promotion decider in the 90's. Especially when he had to go off injured.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Stanton was good for us but was surrounded by other good quality players. In terms of recent times the best loan signing for me would be Thomas, simply due to the impact he had on an otherwise struggling side.

Going further back I’d have Dobbie up there. I remember him putting one in off the post from a tight angle and thinking how ridiculous the technique (low first time hit) and accuracy was to get it in from the position he was in. Top player.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...