A View From The Terrace.

[LIVIFOREVER]

28 minutes ago, Waspie said:

Lower league fans did indeed give Livingston a hard time but they weren't particularly liked by a lot of people on their way up the ranks the first time either, not just because they franchised Meadowbank but also because they assembled squads they couldn't afford. The second time they were in administration and seemed likely to go under there were a lot of excited opposition fans on here. I think in more recent times - the Martindale inspired rise up the leagues - there has indeed been far less anger directed towards them. Perhaps that is just the passage of time and younger fans who are not aware of the history and maybe everyone else just got used to Livi being here. Certainly is striking how differently they are treated in comparison to MK Dons. Airdrie too seem to have been forgiven by now for taking over Clydebank (who of course had a good shot at doing the same thing to East Stirlingshire back in the 60s).

Meadowbank were a good wee club who overachieved massively in establishing themselves in the second tier. Reached League Cup semi and would have made the Premier League in the 80s but for league reconstruction. They also brought through some very good players, one of whom played for Scotland in the World Cup. They did all that living within their modest means and they weren't in any danger of going under, that was something pushed by the regime who took them over with the intention of taking them to Livingston. Something of an irony that people throw that at Meadowbank who ran a tight ship only to be replaced by a club that was in administration twice in its first 15 years. 

Whatever people think about the way Meadowbank came into being and into the SFL, their loss was a terrible blow to almost all of their fanbase. A friend of mine was a fan and he never adopted another team. Nor did he ever forgive Livingston. 

Not sure Livi have grown as a club as much as those behind the franchise would have hoped. Over 25 years now, plenty of top flight seasons and currently established there, and a major trophy, but the crowds really aren't great. 

Nice wee feature on Pittman though . 

I'd dispute a lot of that but it has all been done to death on the Livi thread and this isn't the thread for it either.

[ATLIS]

On 25/02/2023 at 12:10, VincentGuerin said:

In what sense? They are a fitba club stolen from another community.

Is that just cool now, aye?

Fucking hell.

Meadowbank died, Livi are a different/seperate club. I'm certainly not going to sit and claim another dead club's history as my club's own like a certain fanbase . It's been almost 30 years so surely people are over it by now. Livi's formation happened before I was even born, so even less of a f**k to give about how it happened for me. 

You must be one of the very last people holding this grudge by now surely  

[gannonball]

2 hours ago, ATLIS said:

Meadowbank died, Livi are a different/seperate club. I'm certainly not going to sit and claim another dead club's history as my club's own like a certain fanbase . It's been almost 30 years so surely people are over it by now. Livi's formation happened before I was even born, so even less of a f**k to give about how it happened for me. 

You must be one of the very last people holding this grudge by now surely  

I think people are forgetting that the Scottish football league was a closed shop too. Literally the only way of getting in to it was another club being in trouble/defunct. I do think tarring all clubs that got in the league that way is a bit ridiculous as the scenarios as to how they did can differ greatly.

[kennie makevin]

4 hours ago, ATLIS said:

Meadowbank died, Livi are a different/seperate club. I'm certainly not going to sit and claim another dead club's history as my club's own like a certain fanbase . It's been almost 30 years so surely people are over it by now. Livi's formation happened before I was even born, so even less of a f**k to give about how it happened for me. 

You must be one of the very last people holding this grudge by now surely  

Livingston is a 'new town' and thus not allowed a senior football club. It's the one form of discrimination still deemed acceptable. See the shite thrown MK Dons way down south. 

[realmadrid]

12 hours ago, Waspie said:

Not sure Livi have grown as a club as much as those behind the franchise would have hoped. Over 25 years now, plenty of top flight seasons and currently established there, and a major trophy, but the crowds really aren't great. 

The failure of those in charge of the various versions of Livingston FC to in any way grow their support is why this will always be a cyclical club. I would guess within the next 10 years they will be back in league 1 for a season as its always boom then bust, with the fan base getting smaller and smaller. 

[realmadrid]

As someone involved in the filming of one of the videos featured on the latest episode it shows how far back do the researchers dig for material. 

That feature for Alan Storrar cars and St Johnstone was made in January 2018

 

 

 

 

[invergowrie arab]

I hold two contradictory views that Livi are here and have been for 30 years so there is no point moaning about it now but I would go as far as saying what happened (and with Clydebank/Airdrie) should be illegal.

There should be legislation in place that recognises football clubs as community assets (as is already the case in the community empowerment act) and puts protections in place to stop the movement of clubs outside of their traditional geographical catchments and/or substantively changing their identity - the Inverness scenario.

The fact we now have a semi-functioning pyramid means there is no legitimate reason for a similar situation arising again.

[Monkey Tennis]

The difficulty is that the guys behind the programme aren't that fussy about football governance issues.

They tend to treat such matters flippantly.

[ATLIS]

4 hours ago, realmadrid said:

The failure of those in charge of the various versions of Livingston FC to in any way grow their support is why this will always be a cyclical club. I would guess within the next 10 years they will be back in league 1 for a season as its always boom then bust, with the fan base getting smaller and smaller. 

I would say with the ownership that came in during our League 1 season, we're finally in a healthy and stable spot. I think our season ticket numbers then were around 650-700 with more turning up on the day. Compared to now we're seeing steady increases year on year, I think we're at around 1,200-1,300 which is around 84.6% up in 6 years or so? It's a long way to go but it's getting there, by the same numbers (nothing to say it will happen) would have us at around 2,200 by 2029 which would nearly sell out the home stand each game. 

In the past we've been a bit cyclical as we'd lived outside our means. We'd hit a point where the spending caught up, but now our owners wont let us spend more than we earn each season. We budget for 12th every season and manage to outperform. That'll likely mean one season we got caught out and go down but the healthy position we'd be in compared to 2015 means we'd likely be a top end Championship club if we did go down rather than one fighting off relegation and that's more so down to the financial benefits of sustaining top flight football and managing to sell players on.

Maybe a bit of blind hope but this time feels a little different and we're not racking up debt that could end up killing the club. I think in the last 2-3 years we've cleared the historic debt of around 1m and the only actual debt we have now is the government loan which we've just sat in the bank

[gannonball]

8 hours ago, kennie makevin said:

Livingston is a 'new town' and thus not allowed a senior football club. It's the one form of discrimination still deemed acceptable. See the shite thrown MK Dons way down south. 

I appreciate these type towns may appear a bit soulless or lacking character but given the reasons why they actually exist I'm not sure why they shouldnt be allowed a senior football club which helps give the town an identity. 

[johnnydun]

Which one of these c***s suggested Dundee would be top on Saturday and stay there? The AVFTT curse strikes again.

[ropy]

6 hours ago, johnnydun said:

Which one of these c***s suggested Dundee would be top on Saturday and stay there? The AVFTT curse strikes again.

‘Motherwell will never win another game again’ - thankyou.

[AJF]

21 hours ago, realmadrid said:

The failure of those in charge of the various versions of Livingston FC to in any way grow their support is why this will always be a cyclical club. I would guess within the next 10 years they will be back in league 1 for a season as its always boom then bust, with the fan base getting smaller and smaller. 

Livingston are severely hamstrung in trying to grow their support. Being a new town, a large portion of the early residents came from Glasgow. It’s the reason why there are so many Rangers and Celtic supporters clubs here. They are contesting with a legacy of Glasgow born families while being a relatively new club themselves with another 2 big Edinburgh clubs on their doorstep.

Edited March 1, 2023 by AJF

[VincentGuerin]

It's 27 years this May since Livingston won their first league. They won another in 1999 and another in 2001. It's over two decades since they first made it to the top flight and now over two decades since they made their debut in European competition.

Around this time next year it will be twenty years since they won their first major cup.

If that kind of success (all two decades ago - the kind of timeframe that should be showing in support in the town now) hasn't caught the imagination of the population of the town, it's hard to see what will.

And it's not like there hasn't been further success. They've won the Challenge Cup, they've been promoted back up the way, they've been back to Hampden for another cup final, they've established themselves as a top-flight club.

The population of Livingston is similar to that of Hamilton, and they struggle to pull a crowd despite having been there for a century and a half, so I think projections that Livi's support is going to increase are wishful thinking. An added problem is that shitey stadium that is too big for them due to the silly rules of the past. Why would any floating voter of a fitba fan be interested in paying a good whack to go and watch football there?

I reckon this is about as big as Livi ever get.

[LIVIFOREVER]

On 28/02/2023 at 11:25, realmadrid said:

The failure of those in charge of the various versions of Livingston FC to in any way grow their support is why this will always be a cyclical club. I would guess within the next 10 years they will be back in league 1 for a season as its always boom then bust, with the fan base getting smaller and smaller. 

Yet only been relegated to League One/3rd tier once in our existence, i see us as much the same as St Johnstone, St Mirren, Hamilton, Hearts etc, yo yo club in the top two tiers, that's where we've spent the majority of our time as Livingston fc. 

Edited March 1, 2023 by LIVIFOREVER

[LIVIFOREVER]

59 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said:

It's 27 years this May since Livingston won their first league. They won another in 1999 and another in 2001. It's over two decades since they first made it to the top flight and now over two decades since they made their debut in European competition.

Around this time next year it will be twenty years since they won their first major cup.

If that kind of success (all two decades ago - the kind of timeframe that should be showing in support in the town now) hasn't caught the imagination of the population of the town, it's hard to see what will.

And it's not like there hasn't been further success. They've won the Challenge Cup, they've been promoted back up the way, they've been back to Hampden for another cup final, they've established themselves as a top-flight club.

The population of Livingston is similar to that of Hamilton, and they struggle to pull a crowd despite having been there for a century and a half, so I think projections that Livi's support is going to increase are wishful thinking. An added problem is that shitey stadium that is too big for them due to the silly rules of the past. Why would any floating voter of a fitba fan be interested in paying a good whack to go and watch football there?

I reckon this is about as big as Livi ever get.

I reckon you're talking shite, again.

We had a decent enough fanbase when we won the League cup and were playing in the SPL, sure it was 4,000 ST at that time, West & South stands being where our fans sat. Two admins and all the shite that entailed with basket case owners/crooks trying to get their hands on the stadium, buying it from the Council, to sell the land for a profit kinda put a lot of them off.

As ATLIS posted, its steadily increased over the last 5 years, the sponsorship and corporate side has certainly been built back up, prob the best it has ever been, after the damage Massone did to it, with his fire sale and not paying any bills. An incredible job the new owners and Martindale are doing when you consider the complete shambles we were in before they took over, both on field and off field. 

[LiviLion]

A View From The Terrace is quite good eh?

[Junior_Arab]

10 hours ago, johnnydun said:

Which one of these c***s suggested Dundee would be top on Saturday and stay there? The AVFTT curse strikes again.

 

4 hours ago, ropy said:

‘Motherwell will never win another game again’ - thankyou.

They were slaughtering United last week so fingers crossed…  

[VincentGuerin]

13 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

I reckon you're talking shite, again.

We had a decent enough fanbase when we won the League cup and were playing in the SPL, sure it was 4,000 ST at that time, West & South stands being where our fans sat. Two admins and all the shite that entailed with basket case owners/crooks trying to get their hands on the stadium, buying it from the Council, to sell the land for a profit kinda put a lot of them off.

As ATLIS posted, its steadily increased over the last 5 years, the sponsorship and corporate side has certainly been built back up, prob the best it has ever been, after the damage Massone did to it, with his fire sale and not paying any bills. An incredible job the new owners and Martindale are doing when you consider the complete shambles we were in before they took over, both on field and off field. 

The SPL's official figures for your crowds in 03-04 are 5,116. You won a cup that season and the following year the official figure is an almost identical 5,157. 2005-06 it fell below 5,000. It's currently 4,480.

As mentioned before, that was an era when the club was very successful. So, if you reckon loads of people were chased off by admin etc, if they've not come back now, when do you think they will? You've had a decent team for a few season now, been to a cup final, done well in the league. It wouldn't really be a surprise if the last 2-3 years turn out to be a generational high-point for the club.

What are they waiting for?

 

Edited March 1, 2023 by VincentGuerin

[Busta Nut]

11 minutes ago, Junior_Arab said:

 

They were slaughtering United last week so fingers crossed…  

Lost cause mate