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Stenhousemuir FC - The Warriors - The 2023/24 Thread


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16 minutes ago, Am Featha *****h Nan Clach said:

The highest I've ever seen us finish in 25 yrs supporting us is mid 90's when we finished 4th.

I have no confidence we'll ever do much better in the short term and would trade everything I own for a league title or at least a good seasom
 

Did you take a gap year? We were promoted in 1999 after finishing second.

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Well done to big Andy Munro on his Supporters' Player of the Year award. He's only been at the club for three months but he's already made a big impact and I'm pleased he'll be here for next term.
Fair play to the lad must have had a massive impact on you lot since he arrived.
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I still rate big Morgyn and nobody doubts Marsh’s commitment but big Andy is an organiser and we have desperately needed that. Huge game on Saturday and I don’t think the play offs will be easy if we get there. I also think it would be nice not to have one season where we finish either top or at least out of the bottom 2. Either way I will renew my season as when I got my first one in 1987 I knew that it was not going to be all European Cup Finals [emoji23][emoji23]

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On 27/04/2019 at 21:35, Christophe said:

Absolutely not, put a bit of tin on the shelf just to get back to where we are now?? No chance. Will the opportunity to win the L2 title next year be a softening blow after digesting relegation?...perhaps. Do I welcome it?...never, that’s an absolute tinpot mindset.

I know what the guy is saying - our best chance of silverware you'd usually say would be in the bottom tier. It would be incredible to have the experience of actually winning something for a change. That said there is absolutely no way you can ambivalently wish away a season with a relegation, especially given the potential of a league campaign next season with a wounded and fragile Falkirk. I've never seen us play a league game against them in our history.

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I'm amazed there are so many fans in Scotland who actively wish relegation on their team through some weird and twisted notion that will automatically mean more success.  It's no guarantee, in fact quite often it's the opposite which happens.  Some of our fans were sick of being the underdogs in the Championship and wanted relegation because we'd win more games and play more attacking football, whilst we have won more games and at times played attacking football, it's been a fucking horrific season and I'd trade this for our last season in the Championship every day of the week. I'll bet Brechin fans were saying the same thing and they're on the verge of plunging two divisions.

When you do get relegated, what's the aim? To try and get promoted again.  What's the point in accepting relegation just so you can try and win a trophy, to then be in a position where you want relegation again?

Play at the highest level possible, wishing for anything else is weird.

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13 minutes ago, Francesc Fabregas said:

Definitely. I always want to see my club playing at the highest level possible; every supporter should be the same.

If Stenhousemuir are ever likely to win a title it'll probably be in League 2 but I wouldn't actively want us to be relegated.

If we get relegated we are only a season away from playing in the play - offs to remain in the league.  That is the bottom line -  you have one bad season and you are fighting to remain in the league.  Hopefully it will not happen but you cannot rule it out. We are looking at Brechin potentially and hopefully dropping 2 leagues in 2 seasons.

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7 minutes ago, Moonglum25 said:

If we get relegated we are only a season away from playing in the play - offs to remain in the league.  That is the bottom line -  you have one bad season and you are fighting to remain in the league.  Hopefully it will not happen but you cannot rule it out. We are looking at Brechin potentially and hopefully dropping 2 leagues in 2 seasons.

This is the very reason we must do all we can to avoid relegation. Wasn't that long ago both Albion Rovers and Berwick were ahead of us terms of their league position, and look at them now. 

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To be fair, if we are relegated, I think we'd be in with a decent shout of coming straight back up. We've got a good core signed up for next season and you can't imagine players like Mark McGuigan, Graeme Smith or Andy Munro scrambling about at the bottom of League 2.

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9 hours ago, Francesc Fabregas said:

Definitely. I always want to see my club playing at the highest level possible; every supporter should be the same.

tl;dr incoming...

This is a tricky one for me tbh.  On the few occasions that Brechin have been promoted to the second tier, it's been a non-competitive pummelling every single time, with last season obviously being an absolute disaster.  Alloa seem to have done marvellously well this season, but we never seem to do.  Although I won't forget our playoff success in a hurry, I remember quietly thinking "awww s**te, here we go again" afterwards, and it prove to be worse than I feared.

Would I prefer to see us mingle with fellow sized clubs, particularly our Angus neighbours, for a bit of competitive one-upmanship rather than head to the sit-down-shut-up atmosphere-less Lego grounds where the football on show is hardly electrifying (albeit better than ours)?  Probably.

Is that lack of ambition?  Yes, but I think Brechin fighting a relegation battle at the bottom of the Championship is as good as the 'village team' can ever hope to achieve in the league given our resources, and it's something that I've never enjoyed tbh.  With the 'big' Dundee clubs aside, even the better (current) Championship teams such as Ross County, Ayr & Caley coming to town provide little (or arguably even less) buzz.  The away days are generally worse as well.

Closer to the context of your discussion though, would I prefer Brechin to be in League 1 over League 2?  Absolutely, as it's a better standard to watch and we can be competitive in it, although what end of the table that may be happening at seems to vary considerably.  League 2 has the "wooo, we might win more games" factor, but I think deep down we all know that's  just something you say to make you feel better, like people telling themselves it's 'good luck' when a bird sh*ts on them or their expensive wedding day is a complete wash-out. 

Edited by Hedgecutter
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If you don't want your team playing at the highest level and hoping you win every game then what's the point?

You'll have shite seasons and maybe hit a glass ceiling but I'd rather that than just stagnate. Fans of clubs at this level don't often get much to celebrate so we really have to enjoy it and believe we can do it again.

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If you don't want your team playing at the highest level and hoping you win every game then what's the point?

You'll have shite seasons and maybe hit a glass ceiling but I'd rather that than just stagnate. Fans of clubs at this level don't often get much to celebrate so we really have to enjoy it and believe we can do it again.

This.

Had so many old firm fans from arbroath saying to me this year “ach well do you really want to go up?”. What a stupid question. We will be favourites to get relegated most likely, so it’s not as if we have anything to lose and I can’t see us disgracing ourselves like Brechin.
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2 hours ago, LoonsYouthTeam said:

If you don't want your team playing at the highest level and hoping you win every game then what's the point?

You'll have shite seasons and maybe hit a glass ceiling but I'd rather that than just stagnate. Fans of clubs at this level don't often get much to celebrate so we really have to enjoy it and believe we can do it again.

you-werent-there-man-you-werent-there.jp

 

If the truth be told, 'the point of it' for me is the day out, meeting up with folk for pints, etc etc rather than the actual football per se.   The seaside leagues are generally more fun with better non-segregated terraced grounds etc.  The winning v losing thing isn't normally that much of an issue, but when it's week after week after week with little or no reward for it, then it can eventually.

 

Eta: In the last three seasons when we've been in League 1 (i.e. completely excluding last season's horror show), we've lost over half of our games so it's hardly a case of preferring to be down because of a non-existent  desire to win every game.  To think that this is the place that I most prefer to be!  :(

FWIW: last season included, we've won 25% but lost >60% of our games over the past 4 years.  What a time to be alive.

Edited by Hedgecutter
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1 hour ago, Lichtie78 said:

I can’t see us disgracing ourselves like Brechin.

Much because you have a far superior squad than we did as your club is finally reaching its potential.

It's seemingly the case that there would have been no disgrace (as you put it) had we stayed in League 1, so you're effectively saying "you should want them to go up", only to point and laugh when they're completely out of their depth (this being a team that lost more than they won in the promotion season and avoided relegation to League 2 by a baw-hair the season before).   We were also ridiculed the previous time when we won ?2 games all season with your current assistant manager at the helm, albeit not to the same extent.

Although one couldn't predict or plan this out as a long term strategy, we arguably wouldn't be bottom of the table just now had we not carried over the demoralised losing mentality, hence we're staring down the trapdoor because we hit that glass ceiling.  Something for another thread though.

Edited by Hedgecutter
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Much because you have a far superior squad than we did as your club is finally reaching its potential.
It's seemingly the case that there would have been no disgrace (as you put it) had we stayed in League 1, so you're effectively saying "you should want them to go up", only to point and laugh when they're completely out of their depth (this being a team that lost more than they won in the promotion season and avoided relegation to League 2 by a baw-hair the season before).   We were also ridiculed the previous time when we won ?2 games all season with your current assistant manager at the helm, albeit not to the same extent.
Although one couldn't predict or plan this out as a long term strategy, we arguably wouldn't be bottom of the table just now had we not carried over the demoralised losing mentality, hence we're staring down the trapdoor because we hit that glass ceiling.  Something for another thread though.
I really don't want to continue to derail the Stenny thread but I'm going to anyway.

When Dumbarton were promoted we finished 3rd and entered the 1st Division with a complete amateur of a gaffer, with very little experience in the professional game, and a squad who were nowhere near good enough to compete in the league above. After a handful of games it was obvious things weren't working out and we swiftly moved to boot the gaffer out the door and appoint someone, who was a rookie, but had a mass amount of experience at the top level. It worked absolute wonders and we managed to survive from a seemingly impossible position with pretty much the exact same squad we started with.

Brechin's issue wasn't that they were some sort of village minnows in a league full of footballing superpowers, it's that their board allowed a complete bum of a manager to see out the entire season (and half of the next one) without acting. Pretty much that alone is responsible for your plight in the league above. They didn't even need to seek out the next Pep Guardiola, all they had to do was take a bit of a gamble. If it hadn't worked out then fair enough but to just sit back and watch one of the worst seasons in Scottish football history unfold before their eyes without trying to change it is pretty ridiculous and in the long run is looking like it could actually lead to a double relegation.
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1 hour ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

I really don't want to continue to derail the Stenny thread but I'm going to anyway.

When Dumbarton were promoted we finished 3rd and entered the 1st Division with a complete amateur of a gaffer, with very little experience in the professional game, and a squad who were nowhere near good enough to compete in the league above. After a handful of games it was obvious things weren't working out and we swiftly moved to boot the gaffer out the door and appoint someone, who was a rookie, but had a mass amount of experience at the top level. It worked absolute wonders and we managed to survive from a seemingly impossible position with pretty much the exact same squad we started with.

Brechin's issue wasn't that they were some sort of village minnows in a league full of footballing superpowers, it's that their board allowed a complete bum of a manager to see out the entire season (and half of the next one) without acting. Pretty much that alone is responsible for your plight in the league above. They didn't even need to seek out the next Pep Guardiola, all they had to do was take a bit of a gamble. If it hadn't worked out then fair enough but to just sit back and watch one of the worst seasons in Scottish football history unfold before their eyes without trying to change it is pretty ridiculous and in the long run is looking like it could actually lead to a double relegation.

Whilst this initially sounds fair enough, in the other season that I referred to in that post ('old' First Division) in which we were expected to do little but make up the numbers, we binned Ian Campbell midway through the season.  This turned out to be a financial disaster off the park and almost certainly played a part in our committee not wanting to risk the same happening again.  Also, last season, there was also a distinct lack of suitable managers with "a mass amount of experience at the top level" as you put it.  Barry Smith also has us in a poorer position than Dods had when he was booted, highlighting that taking a risk last year wouldn't necessarily bring a new-manager-bounce. 

To summarise my last few posts and stop the derailment:  it's a complex issue, but overall my life is a more enjoyable one watching my team in League 1, even if they lose half their games playing in it.

Edited by Hedgecutter
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