Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[BigTamMuller]

Not overly sentimental towards what happens with our stadium, perhaps its the business head thinking but I'd rather see us playing somewhere that doesn't end up costing us ridiculous amounts of money every year to keep playing at. Last years AGM hinted that it's still a good few years away yet that we'll be in a situation where it would make sense to build a new stadium than pay whatever it would take to maintain Fir Park. Also got to factor in property markets and such for when the land Fir Park is on will be at its best value to sell - an issue right now for Aberdeen it seems in selling the land Pittodrie is on for their new stadium plans. 

On Robbo, can't begrudge him the opportunity to earn a larger salary with a bigger club (budget, stadium size etc). I come and go on whether I can see it happening, as I do subscribe to the argument that he's a "good fit" at Motherwell and has built something exciting this season that he wouldn't want to leave this early into a project. Perhaps that's naivety though as it is a hard one to say no when the chance to increase your salary comes along from a big name in football. Time will tell at the end of the day. 

[Desp]

I love Fir Park as much as the next 'Well fan, but we need to realise that the place is in its final years. It costs a lot of money to maintain each year. 

With regards to the new stadium, I'm assuming the land next to the new College is where we'd be looking? In saying that, I hope theres someway of improving the transport links as one through road would get very busy very quickly on a matchday. I remember there was chat about opening a train station in Ravenscraig. Is that still a possibility? 

As for how the stadium will look, I've got every confidence, with the people in charge we currently have, it won't be a horrendous St Mirren style effort.  If you take the time to look around (certainly around Scandinavia) then you'll find great wee stadiums around the 10,000 mark which would be ideal for us. 

[Luke92]

All the tabloids seem to be convinced that Robinson is the #1 target for Hearts and that the £120k pay-out isn't going to be much of a stumbling block.

I tend to think that we could see him move on in the next week or so. Regardless of league position, I find it difficult to believe he would say no to Hearts. The only hope I have is he is holding out for something down south and genuinely wants to keep building the good things we are doing right now.

Like them or not, Hearts are a bigger club with more fans, with a bigger budget and will likely double his wage. They have big potential as a club.

If Robinson does go he goes with my best wishes. He has created a model for the club moving forward and has on the whole been a success. One thing I do worry about is whether his recruitment team i.e Martin Foyle would follow him. It would be good if we could try to keep a hold of him but I doubt it.

[Ron Aldo]

I didn't think initially that Robinson would go and that it was just paper talk but it now seems more and more likely that he'll be away.

Who would we be looking at as a replacement? I have to be honest in that as much as I love the guy, the idea of Lasley getting the job at this stage gives me the fear. Would Jack Ross be a possibility / someone the fans would be happy with?

[Swello]

40 minutes ago, Desp said:

I love Fir Park as much as the next 'Well fan, but we need to realise that the place is in its final years. It costs a lot of money to maintain each year. 

This is where I am TBH. Love going to FP, it's been part of my life since I was a kid and would hugely miss it - but it's a museum piece and Burrows is 100% right to at least consider a move to a new ground as deciding the 10-20 year strategy for the club is his actual job and I'd be more far more concerned if he was coming out with the sentimental pish that we all do. The biggest embarrassment would be that we stay put and ironically end up in a 3 sided ground because tighter standards mean the main stand is deemed unsafe to operate.

We're lucky that the folk that run the club are pretty attuned to where the supporters are - and I think we can safely assume they have picked up on the "nae soulless lego ground!" requirement.  The difficult part for them is to work out how to deliver on it.

2 minutes ago, Luke92 said:

If Robinson does go he goes with my best wishes. He has created a model for the club moving forward and has on the whole been a success. One thing I do worry about is whether his recruitment team i.e Martin Foyle would follow him. It would be good if we could try to keep a hold of him but I doubt it.

Hearts have a different recruitment and scouting model in place than we do - and it's unlikely that gambling on lower league jobbers from England is going to be a road that they go down (or one that their supporters could deal with). One of the things that Robinson would need to adjust to at a bigger club is that he wouldn't get to decide stuff in the way he does now - they have a Director of Football role to deal with stuff where Robinson would be in charge now and I seriously doubt that he would be in a bargaining position to tell them to rip that up as a condition of him taking the job if Hearts wanted to keep that in place.

[0Neils40yarder]

2 hours ago, Squirrelhumper said:

See when you move, please get a plastic pitch and 3 stands.

Just so I can see @ONeils4Oyarder face.

I'm being honest here, if either of these things come to fruition, I'll not be back. 

 

f**k sitting in a desolate shite hole like Ravenscraig watching a game on that plastic shite and/or in a ground that isnae even enclosed. 

[Desp]

That's a good point about Robinson, Swello. He would go from being a manager at Motherwell to a Head Coach at Hearts. 

In saying that, I still believe he would take it if he was offered it (although I don't believe Hearts will offer it to him). 

When Robinson eventually does move on, having Keith Lasley as the manager gives me the fear. 

[0Neils40yarder]

1 hour ago, Desp said:

I love Fir Park as much as the next 'Well fan, but we need to realise that the place is in its final years. It costs a lot of money to maintain each year. 

With regards to the new stadium, I'm assuming the land next to the new College is where we'd be looking? In saying that, I hope theres someway of improving the transport links as one through road would get very busy very quickly on a matchday. I remember there was chat about opening a train station in Ravenscraig. Is that still a possibility? 

As for how the stadium will look, I've got every confidence, with the people in charge we currently have, it won't be a horrendous St Mirren style effort.  If you take the time to look around (certainly around Scandinavia) then you'll find great wee stadiums around the 10,000 mark which would be ideal for us. 

I'm not sure how us selling Fir Park to a housing developer, would ever be enough to finance a new fitba ground... 

 

... Say we sell it for £10,000,000...which is probably being very generous, where does the rest of the cash come from for a 10,000 seater stadium that isnae just four wee breeze block and sheet cladding stands? 

 

[Swello]

A couple of interesting snippets from Jamie Borthwick on twitter from an Ann Budge presser happening now:

So Director of Football is indeed going to be a thing and the fact that they want them in place first....

"Very experienced and High Profile" does not sound like Robinson at all...

Edited November 4, 2019 by Swello

[Desp]

7 minutes ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

I'm not sure how us selling Fir Park to a housing developer, would ever be enough to finance a new fitba ground... 

 

... Say we sell it for £10,000,000...which is probably being very generous, where does the rest of the cash come from for a 10,000 seater stadium that isnae just four wee breeze block and sheet cladding stands? 

 

I don't have the answers mate.  There's a possibility that we end up with a St Mirren style effort, but my feeling is that we won't. I'm sure Alan Burrows has spoken informally in the past about the Scandinavian stadiums being an ideal template. 

As for how much it'll cost, I haven't a clue. I don't have a scooby how much the land at Fir Park is worth either. However, I do have faith in those in charge that whatever funds we raise through the sale of FP, and if any further funds are generated through sponsorship etc, they'll be creative with the budget to ensure it's the best stadium possible for MFC and the fanbase.

Of course, fixing and renovating FP would be my no.1 choice, but I'm also realistic to know that's not an option. 

[thisGRAEME]

On 03/11/2019 at 10:28, gannonball said:

the idea of that the debt was owed to the fans that will never realistically ever be called in. 

I'll be honest, after taking a pumping off Aberdeen I tried to call mine in, but that was just a huff.

On Fir Park... I dunno like. It kind of depends what Ravenscraig as a whole is going to be. While at the moment, it would feel like the middle of nowhere, I kind of assume the developments at the edge of it are going to start moving on, so weirdly, having a Stadium/Training Centre of sorts bang in the middle of that keeps us as part of the community, just a slightly different community to where it is now.

Something that I wondered the other day, and someone who knows more may be able to disavow me of such a notion, but given the big empty spaces where Taggarts and the various car dealerships were, would it be feasible to build a new school there, opening up the back of the east stand for development?

[0Neils40yarder]

5 minutes ago, Desp said:

I don't have the answers mate.  There's a possibility that we end up with a St Mirren style effort, but my feeling is that we won't. I'm sure Alan Burrows has spoken informally in the past about the Scandinavian stadiums being an ideal template. 

As for how much it'll cost, I haven't a clue. I don't have a scooby how much the land at Fir Park is worth either. However, I do have faith in those in charge that whatever funds we raise through the sale of FP, and if any further funds are generated through sponsorship etc, they'll be creative with the budget to ensure it's the best stadium possible for MFC and the fanbase.

Of course, fixing and renovating FP would be my no.1 choice, but I'm also realistic to know that's not an option. 

The last paragraph is the bit that I really don't get. Why isn't an option to redevelop Fir Park... Pull the main stand down and rebuild it? Tart up the East Stand? 

[Desp]

3 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

Something that I wondered the other day, and someone who knows more may be able to disavow me of such a notion, but given the big empty spaces where Taggarts and the various car dealerships were, would it be feasible to build a new school there, opening up the back of the east stand for development?

I know you're a big TV star now, but you'll need some game to get North Lanarkshire Council on board with this one... 

[capt_oats]

There seems to have been a conscious effort to work on Robinson's brand since the turn of the year. The change in style of his team has been a big part of that but he's also become a far more visable manager. In turn, given the nature of the media up here, that's kind of meant it's his turn as flavour of the month just like Jack Ross, Tommy Wright and many others before him.

Off the top of my head this year he's been linked to varying degrees with Luton (he may even have been bookies favourite for that gig at one point), Doncaster, Barnsley, Millwall and now Hearts. I think the Hearts job feels a bit more realistic because of the small pond that is Scottish fitba' and also the fact that Robinson's comments about the club have seemed to be a bit more than the usual platitudes, the Sportsound interview he did with Naismith being a case in point.

Agree with @Swello though, going by the comments from Budge being reported by Jamie Borthwick that profile doesn't really fit Robinson. Which is fine.

[MP_MFC]

I love Fir Park as much as the next 'Well fan, but we need to realise that the place is in its final years. It costs a lot of money to maintain each year. 
With regards to the new stadium, I'm assuming the land next to the new College is where we'd be looking? In saying that, I hope theres someway of improving the transport links as one through road would get very busy very quickly on a matchday. I remember there was chat about opening a train station in Ravenscraig. Is that still a possibility? 
As for how the stadium will look, I've got every confidence, with the people in charge we currently have, it won't be a horrendous St Mirren style effort.  If you take the time to look around (certainly around Scandinavia) then you'll find great wee stadiums around the 10,000 mark which would be ideal for us. 

They are apparently building a link road from the M74 to the M8 that is going to run up through ravenscraig. No idea where our how but that was the chat a few months back when they announced the start of the next phase which has just started.

https://www.motherwelltimes.co.uk/news/traffic-and-travel/190m-road-will-link-motorways-1-4640530

[Swello]

2 minutes ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

The last paragraph is the bit that I really don't get. Why isn't an option to redevelop Fir Park... Pull the main stand down and rebuild it? Tart up the East Stand? 

The the logic is that it would be more expensive to fully redevelop FP than to build new. If you take away the money that the sale of Fir Park would generate, you've got a big black hole in the finances needed to actually redevelop the ground in the first place... 

[thisGRAEME]

2 minutes ago, Desp said:

I know you're a big TV star now, but you'll need some game to get North Lanarkshire Council on board with this one... 

I'm at best a middling TV star.

Just a wondering, more than anything, given that every school across the country appears to have been rebuilt and shifted about 250 metres foot left or right in the last decade.

Just give it a wee wiggle over the road, swap the east to where the main stand is the now, effectively, and then we can have the Main stand where the East is with a big plaza for folk to spraypaint CHALMERS OUT on when his swashbuckling attacking side concede 4 to Billy Reid's Kilmarnock. 

[Desp]

6 minutes ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

The last paragraph is the bit that I really don't get. Why isn't an option to redevelop Fir Park... Pull the main stand down and rebuild it? Tart up the East Stand? 

We'd be funding the building of a new stadium from the sale of the existing one. 

If we are simply knocking down and rebuilding half of our current stadium, where is the money coming from to do this? Also, isn't a well known secret that the South Stand was built fairly poorly, as well? 

[0Neils40yarder]

1 minute ago, Swello said:

The the logic is that it would be more expensive to fully redevelop FP than to build new. If you take away the money that the sale of Fir Park would generate, you've got a big black hole in the finances needed to actually redevelop the ground in the first place... 

We're going to have a blackhole regardless though, because the sale of our stadium won't finance a new build elsewhere 

[Swello]

1 minute ago, 0Neils40yarder said:

We're going to have a blackhole regardless though, because the sale of our stadium won't finance a new build elsewhere 

It wouldn't fully finance it, correct but you'd have the Sale of Fir Park money as a big down-payment. I'm no expert - but I'd imagine that the rest would be made up of Grants, Sponsorship and other external funding - and a big f**k-off mortgage (assuming we're allowed one these days) to bridge the gap.