The Arbroath Thread

[farflung lichtie]

We are where we are. Except perhaps in the highest tier areas, I cannot really see the justification for a continuing blanket ban on any spectators at live games. Depending on the progress of infection rates, I would expect to see limited numbers permitted to attend games which, with suitable vigilance would increase. With vaccines rolled out, we might expect a potential return to near normality within 4-6 months.

All of which means the season is going to be a complete financial washout. Other than various business support schemes with limited relevance to football clubs, I can’t see much financial support on the horizon,unless another benefactor rides over the hill (like the Baillie Gifford guy). Can the Lichtie support be tapped for another round of fundraisers?

So, there seems little alternative to ‘trying to hang-in there’. I think most consider the streaming as a poor alternative but better than nothing. And maybe it keeps the interest going since, slightly longer-term, we need to keep fans connected.

All the above is clearly stating the bleeding obvious. I’m slightly more concerned about the immediate league campaign and the need to get our season up and running. The second season/album is always much trickier (thinking back to our last foray in the 2nd tier - footy not covid restrictions) and the teams seem stronger this year. A result or two would lift the spirits

[lichtie23]

Talking of streaming I was speaking to a couple of pals over the week. Both long time fans who have travelled all over the country supporting the club. 1 says he is definitely not watching while the other would rather play golf than watch the stream. I feel sorry for these guys, their enjoyment of Saturdays has been completely drained from them.

[SimonLichtie]

1 hour ago, farflung lichtie said:

So, there seems little alternative to ‘trying to hang-in there’. I think most consider the streaming as a poor alternative but better than nothing.

Agree with the majority of your post, apart from this part 

My feeling is that people felt this way at the start of the season, but having now realised the reality of the entire season is going to be this, are now beginning to feel nothing would be better. I could be wrong on that though, it's my opinion as opposed to fact.

If i was in the small minority in terms of how I feel, I'd honestly shut the f**k up and get on with it as the vast majority were happy/ entertained and therefore it was worthwhile. However, I really feel the feedback I've seen from fans shows this certainly isn't the case.

38 minutes ago, lichtie23 said:

Talking of streaming I was speaking to a couple of pals over the week. Both long time fans who have travelled all over the country supporting the club. 1 says he is definitely not watching while the other would rather play golf than watch the stream. I feel sorry for these guys, their enjoyment of Saturdays has been completely drained from them.

This is the sort of thing that worries me. There's a difference between something not being on and missing it/ looking forward to it coming back and a person choosing to step away from something as they don't enjoy it at all. The latter is, for me, far more worrying for the long term. If people take a step back from the football while it's going on, I feel they're far more likely to lose interest medium/ longer term than if we weren't playing at all.

[AFC360PUNK1320]

16 hours ago, Housecaptain said:

You know I cant say for sure about the keeper, but did Tosh not score his second with a penalty and  later him and the keeper had a punch up at a corner. The main thing is we won and it was a great night.

No, you are correct the keeper also got sent off, was funny not long after we were going by train down to Wembley on the train and 2 goal scorer that night Crag Martin was getting on the train in Edinburgh and came and sat with us as he saw the "Arbroath FC" flag on the window, hard and good player and great lad 36-0.  

[AFC360PUNK1320]

16 hours ago, SimonLichtie said:

Majority = over 50%.

The viewing figures for all of our home games  this season have been under half the equivalent fixtures attendances played last season, or at best around 50%. I'd also suggest that not every single person watching these streams is completely for us playing football every week short term knowing the effects it'll have in the medium/ longer term.

If we had 200 odd people turn up for a cup match it'd be our worst home attendance in living memory. Considering this wasn't a dead rubber game and if won (which we obviously did) we'd qualify for the next stage, it's even worse. I can only think of one game we've played in my entire time watching the club where less people have watched a competitive game we've played; 169 down at Stranraer on a midweek Tuesday in winter. These fixtures only relate to Arbroath; if you look at other club in Scotland it's around the same, and with quite a few it's even worse.

Again, the above isn't my 'view'. It is fact based on viewer numbers of streams this year in comparison to attendances at equivalent games last season. I'm not 'having a go' at our fans, or fans of other clubs. It's just looking at extremely basic data and doing comparisons.

People watching Sky Sports and Soccer Saturday and watching scores come through is not going to financially help the club, and with respect I'm far more concerned about the fans that follow us all over the country and money actually going into the football club we support than supporting a TV channel that has billions of income per year. Is the argument here than even if we had no fans watching us at all, if people enjoyed seeing our score come in along with 100s of others on Soccer Saturday it makes it worthwhile?

 

 

You have totally lost me with this, i gave up after paragraph 2 of this novel......36-0. 

[SimonLichtie]

16 minutes ago, AFC360PUNK1320 said:

You have totally lost me with this, i gave up after paragraph 2 of this novel......36-0. 

No worries my man - wee bit of friendly advice though...... don't waste your own time asking other people questions if you aren't bothered what the answer is

[keptie]

17 hours ago, SimonLichtie said:

If we have fans who deny science, data and facts then I have an issue with them - but that is irrelevant to football/ Arbroath. I have no issue with any of our fans not watching this season, or any season frankly. People can do what they want, that's fine, but denying basic fact/ the obvious is wild and absolutely fair play to call it out. If I say black is white, and someone who is an Arbroath fan disagrees with me, I'm not gonna come away with 'why are you having a go at your fellow supporters?' am I?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gobbledygook

[lichtiekev]

Would of liked to see Ruth start today, hard to change a winning team but Miko has to play too in my opinion,

[lichtie23]

Would of liked to see Ruth start today, hard to change a winning team but Miko has to play too in my opinion,

Nice options to have off the bench

[AFC360PUNK1320]

Meant this for this thread rather than the match one :-

Well that was a frustrating game and in the end 2 points lost against a very poor Morton team.

Now i am a realist and apart from Alloa we are playing full-time (or mainly full-time) teams every week so in reality we should be in the bottom 2 as if i was a supporter of a full-time team and my team was beaten by a part-time team i would be fuming, also the 2nd season in the Championship was always going to be harder especially with less games.

Got to agree with the Gaffer starting with the same XI who easily defeated Elgin City last week but i was concerned with the lack of crosses getting into the box and also players seeming to be afraid to have a shot at goal especially in the 1st half when we had the wind at our back.

My other concern is the lack of threat from corner kicks, in the last 3 home games we have had 18 corner kicks and never made the opposing keeper make a save from any of them so this is something we should be working on. 

I like Doolan, i think he can take a chance but the worry is he is not getting good service it is either humped up to him in the air with his back to goal or like today he was getting frustrated and was coming out of position looking for the ball which meant we had nobody in the box if a cross did go into the area (like Bobby's great cross in the 2nd half which went right across the goal with no maroon shirt near it).

We are doing okay but like Scotland (and Dick said this in his post match interview) we need to start scoring goals, it was a mystery to me why the Gaffer never brought on both Ruth and Swanks as they are a goal threat or can make chances, Ruth especially has looked very dangerous in his last few sub appearances with his pace, also young Smith looks decent.

Also both Miko (cannot believe i would be saying this) and Hilson are not firing on all cylinders so we have more to come from them which will be a boost to us.

SO positives - even including the Raith game we have not been "hammered" in a game and we have had chances to win every game this season, we are off the bottom as well, we also have a decent squad with no weak links on the bench we just have to get the right combination, just look at today Bobby had 2 decent chances to win the game and we would not discussing this now if we had won.

Also i do not know if people knew how windy it was today as it was pretty strong which was not great conditions for good football.

Changed days when us Red Lichtie fans are disappointed only getting a point from full-time teams like Morton and Queen of the South so upwards and onwards, C'MON THE RED LICHTIES 36-0.

 

[SimonLichtie]

45 minutes ago, AFC360PUNK1320 said:

Meant this for this thread rather than the match one :-

Well that was a frustrating game and in the end 2 points lost against a very poor Morton team.

Now i am a realist and apart from Alloa we are playing full-time (or mainly full-time) teams every week so in reality we should be in the bottom 2 as if i was a supporter of a full-time team and my team was beaten by a part-time team i would be fuming, also the 2nd season in the Championship was always going to be harder especially with less games.

Got to agree with the Gaffer starting with the same XI who easily defeated Elgin City last week but i was concerned with the lack of crosses getting into the box and also players seeming to be afraid to have a shot at goal especially in the 1st half when we had the wind at our back.

My other concern is the lack of threat from corner kicks, in the last 3 home games we have had 18 corner kicks and never made the opposing keeper make a save from any of them so this is something we should be working on. 

I like Doolan, i think he can take a chance but the worry is he is not getting good service it is either humped up to him in the air with his back to goal or like today he was getting frustrated and was coming out of position looking for the ball which meant we had nobody in the box if a cross did go into the area (like Bobby's great cross in the 2nd half which went right across the goal with no maroon shirt near it).

We are doing okay but like Scotland (and Dick said this in his post match interview) we need to start scoring goals, it was a mystery to me why the Gaffer never brought on both Ruth and Swanks as they are a goal threat or can make chances, Ruth especially has looked very dangerous in his last few sub appearances with his pace, also young Smith looks decent.

Also both Miko (cannot believe i would be saying this) and Hilson are not firing on all cylinders so we have more to come from them which will be a boost to us.

SO positives - even including the Raith game we have not been "hammered" in a game and we have had chances to win every game this season, we are off the bottom as well, we also have a decent squad with no weak links on the bench we just have to get the right combination, just look at today Bobby had 2 decent chances to win the game and we would not discussing this now if we had won.

Also i do not know if people knew how windy it was today as it was pretty strong which was not great conditions for good football.

Changed days when us Red Lichtie fans are disappointed only getting a point from full-time teams like Morton and Queen of the South so upwards and onwards, C'MON THE RED LICHTIES 36-0.

 

 

8 hours ago, AFC360PUNK1320 said:

i gave up after paragraph 2 of this novel......36-0. 

(I actually didn't, I'm lucky enough to be able to read multiple paragraphs in a row and I agree with the majority of what you've said ) 

The corners part I particularly agree with - I didn't know it was as many as that, but I'd lost count of the wasted corners over the past few weeks. I've no idea why we ask Bobby Linn to take them left footed, when he could use his stronger foot, or we could put an actual left footer on them from that side. I get why we'd want to keep Hammy in the box for his threat, but if half the time we don't get the ball past the first man with a guy taking it with his wrong foot, it's kind of irrelevant whose in the box for it.

[SotesBornalichtie]

Finding it difficult to comment on the game, probably because there wasn't much in it to get excited about. Nobody had a bad game but we created next to nothing. As has been said, playing one (Doolan) up front doesn't work that well when he gets little service and  high balls out of defence.

Thought Stewart would have come on to replace Thomson after his injury and kept Gold in midfield.

I also find it strange that Ruth and Smith aren't being used more, both bring energy to the team when they have been used.

Trying to be positive I suppose that one point is better than none, but we really need to start getting goals. The fact that we scored three against Elgin is irrelevant. Scoring against teams from a lower league is no guarantee that the same can be done against Championship sides.

Overall we are back to where we were at the start of last season when the main object was to avoid relegation. Looks like that will be the goal for this season as well.

[AFC360PUNK1320]

Must add after Dick explained the reason John Young was missing yesterday was because of a very close family bereavement it puts things into perspective. 

I am sure every Red Lichtie fan expresses their condolences to John Young and all his family after hearing this tragic news. 

[ecto]

Right here goes, I get no enjoyment or excitement from watching the games, as we are at present, whether this is down to the quality,of the games, which have been poor, or the actual stream, which is awful, in sound and vision, I now have reached the point where I may pay for the stream and not watch, this may be where we are, but it's a poor substitute. 

[farflung lichtie]

Right here goes, I get no enjoyment or excitement from watching the games, as we are at present, whether this is down to the quality,of the games, which have been poor, or the actual stream, which is awful, in sound and vision, I now have reached the point where I may pay for the stream and not watch, this may be where we are, but it's a poor substitute. 

Well I thought both tracking and commentary were OK and definitely an improvement on previous weeks.

We maybe could have done a bit more to try and unlock the defence but our final ball was fairly woeful. But to be honest, it’s not easy to break down a packed and organised defence - Morton maybe showing Arbroath too much respect but showed no ambition other than nicking a goal at the occasional set piece or breakaway. I’m a bit concerned about injuries especiallyThomson and, if I hear correctly, O’Brien. We’ve not got much in the way of defensive cover.

[lichtie23]

So you have season ticket holders who have paid good money to support the club in these difficult times. These supporters are being made to watch the game on a substandard stream while at the same time the club are inviting folk down who don’t support the club for free to watch the game. That’s a massive kick in the teeth. This guy apparently hosts a podcast.

What makes it worse is the c**t called it an exciting game!

[36-0 Maroon]

55 minutes ago, lichtie23 said:

So you have season ticket holders who have paid good money to support the club in these difficult times. These supporters are being made to watch the game on a substandard stream while at the same time the club are inviting folk down who don’t support the club for free to watch the game. That’s a massive kick in the teeth. This guy apparently hosts a podcast.

What makes it worse is the c**t called it an exciting game!

Where’s our invite who the f**k is Cole Bertie

[CALDERON]

I'm presuming that most clubs were working on the basis that fans would be allowed in at some point over the season, and that streaming was a means to get by until then.  Don't really see a problem with that logic.  Obviously the situation is a bit more precarious, but things were looking much more optimistic in the Summer at the time when these decisions were made.

The flip side is, we could have potentially been in a situation where clubs had agreed to mothball the leagues, yet at some point during what would have been the season, fans would be permitted to attend games again.  That would have been much harder to take, in my opinion.

The streaming isn't great, especially for those who are used to regularly attending games, but the football is back on a Saturday.  For some (myself included) that's enough for now, but can see why it isnt for others. 

[Skyline Drifter]

1 hour ago, lichtie23 said:

So you have season ticket holders who have paid good money to support the club in these difficult times. These supporters are being made to watch the game on a substandard stream while at the same time the club are inviting folk down who don’t support the club for free to watch the game. That’s a massive kick in the teeth. This guy apparently hosts a podcast.

What makes it worse is the c**t called it an exciting game!

To be fair, there's no scenario in which the club can "invite" a season ticket holder to attend. If you don't have some sort of job function, you're not there. I've never heard of this guy so I don't know how important or relevant his "blog" is but presumably he was there on some sort of press pass which is permitted. Perhaps the term "invited" was exaggerated?

17 minutes ago, CALDERON said:

I'm presuming that most clubs were working on the basis that fans would be allowed in at some point over the season, and that streaming was a means to get by until then.  Don't really see a problem with that logic.  Obviously the situation is a bit more precarious, but things were looking much more optimistic in the Summer at the time when these decisions were made.

The flip side is, we could have potentially been in a situation where clubs had agreed to mothball the leagues, yet at some point during what would have been the season, fans would be permitted to attend games again.  That would have been much harder to take, in my opinion.

The streaming isn't great, especially for those who are used to regularly attending games, but the football is back on a Saturday.  For some (myself included) that's enough for now, but can see why it isnt for others. 

Clubs were advised to assume there would be no fans before Xmas. I imagine some thought that was probably worst case scenario and hoped for better but they were advised to make decisions on that basis. Personally I think on that basis we should have mothballed to January but the decision was made not to and it remains to be seen if it was the right thing to do.

The quality of streaming varies signficantly in the Championship. It's already clear that some are barely worth the experience and some are fine. Unfortunately Arbroath are on the wrong side of that scale. Inverness is borderline unwatchable. Abroath is watchable but not great. I've not seen Alloa yet but it's using Pixellot so it's probably not magic. The others are apparently all decent enough, though very few will likely ever see Hearts and Ayr seem to have had some issues since the opening week when they were fine against us. Raith's is at the top end of the quality scale so your experience won't be near as bad as Arbroath fans are having.

[SimonLichtie]

I'd like to take this opportunity to announce my new podcast - 'The Arbroath Way'.

I mean, if it works for random people with no connection to the club whatsoever, you'd expect a season ticket holder and fan who attends every game home and away to have no problem getting a press pass in that situation, right? Especially considering my podcast will be specifically focusing on Arbroath FC.

If someone can clarify this - I'll spout some shite into my laptop mic for 15 mins, stick it on SoundCloud and then await my invite to Gayfield