A View From The Terrace.

[gannonball]

10 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

They were designed to be out of reach.

The regulations were introduced as an act of drawbridge hoisting.

Whilst there was a bit of this I think those involved got delusional as to what the 'SPL' was going to be. The fact it got scrapped by a totally unanimous vote suggests it was never the main aim, the 10 thousand figure was utterly ridiculous though.

[Moomintroll]

18 hours ago, johnnydun said:

So I take it you will all be supporting Dundee in this seasons Championship, in order to stop the Glasgow Gretna that is Queens Park?

Hell Yeah!

[Monkey Tennis]

31 minutes ago, gannonball said:

Whilst there was a bit of this I think those involved got delusional as to what the 'SPL' was going to be. The fact it got scrapped by a totally unanimous vote suggests it was never the main aim, the 10 thousand figure was utterly ridiculous though.

That's probably fair, but it certainly came to be used in that way and was very damaging.

[afca32]

I'd just like to say, f**k Gretna!

[Dons_1988]

Anyone who says something like ‘it’s his money to do what he likes with’ is a moron. 

Whacking huge liabilities on a company isn’t ok just because you fund it in the short term, especially if there’s no contingency plan. 

[johnnydun]

3 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

Anyone who says something like ‘it’s his money to do what he likes with’ is a moron. 

Whacking huge liabilities on a company isn’t ok just because you fund it in the short term, especially if there’s no contingency plan. 

[gannonball]

9 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

Anyone who says something like ‘it’s his money to do what he likes with’ is a moron. 

Whacking huge liabilities on a company isn’t ok just because you fund it in the short term, especially if there’s no contingency plan. 

Its only a 'liability' though if your racking up debt which didn't really happen at Gretna untill their last few months IIRC? Of course it starts to become that once the funding goes which is what happened eventually to Gretna but that only happened once they got in to the SPL and he got ill. It was a model that was always going to go tits up if the backer pulled their funding though. I think your more thinking of the likes of  Dundee owners where they were putting the majority of the debt right on the club right from the off.

Edited March 26, 2023 by gannonball

[Dons_1988]

Just now, gannonball said:

It’s only a 'liability' though if your racking up debt which didn't really happen at Gretna untill their last few months IIRC? Of course it starts to become that once the funding goes which is what happened eventually to Gretna but that only happened once they got in to the SPL and he got ill. It was a model that was always going to go tits up if the backer pulled their funding though. I think you’re more thinking of a the likes of  Dundee where they were putting the majority of the debt right on the club right from the off.

If you’ve contracted a guy for three years it’s a liability. It might not appear on your balance sheet the way a debt does but that’s an obligation that company needs to meet. 

[Otis Blue]

It (the 10k seat rule) nevertheless damaged a number of our clubs financially in trying to meet the requirement and of course now we have a number of clubs saddled with oversized stadia and playing in soulless mostly empty (unless the OF visit) grounds.  Setting that requirement was an almost criminal act.

By way of some mitigation, I think at the time there was possibly also an element of crowd safety at play (maybe due in part to the Bradford fire disaster where an old wooden stand had caught fire and instances of safety with large crowds like at Heysel) here.  However, rules could have been set about phasing out old wooden structures in a realistic timeframe and maybe setting a minimum seating requirement at a lower and sensible level.

[afca32]

Who could have foreseen a man with a diet consisting mostly of fags and lucozade having heart problems? Not me.

[gannonball]

3 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

If you’ve contracted a guy for three years it’s a liability. It might not appear on your balance sheet the way a debt does but that’s an obligation that company needs to meet. 

I get what you are saying but 'obligations' as you call it now were met year on year before this without issue really. It's different when it's a guy racking up debt or loans no matter how soft it seems against companies even ones they own like Romanov but the only thing stopping Gretna was Mileson croaking it which would be a hard thing to predict.

15 minutes ago, afca32 said:

Who could have foreseen a man with a diet consisting mostly of fags and lucozade having heart problems? Not me.

......ok fair point.

[Dons_1988]

5 minutes ago, gannonball said:

I get what you are saying but 'obligations' as you call it now were met year on year before this without issue really. It's different when it's a guy racking up debt or loans no matter how soft it seems against companies even ones they own like Romanov but the only thing stopping Gretna was Mileson croaking it which would be a hard thing to predict.

......ok fair point.

What you’re talking about with debt is worse yeah but not sure why that’s relevant. 

Mileson put that club in a position which was entirely reliant on his subsidies. That’s a hugely irresponsible thing to do. You may not have foreseen him dying but if he really cared about the club and community he’d have been safeguarding the club against anything happening to him. The club and the community were left to pick up the pieces of the financial burden he placed on the business. 

[parsforlife]

Mileson didn’t care what would happen if he died,  he wouldn’t be around for the ego boost which is all he was after. 

[TheScarf]

On 25/03/2023 at 11:09, Comrie said:

I think Bingham dropped down to Gretna due to them offering near four figures a week and a three year deal.

Wildest wages that level until Rangers threw a big suitcase of cash at Kevin Kyle.

The Caley offered him 900 a week to stay on for another year and Gretna offered him 1200 a week for 3 I've heard.  Plus he'd be nearer his family.  A no brainer for him really.

[Crawford Bridge]

Elaborate comb overs on the two jambos this week. 

[realmadrid]

There was a great symmetry about Fridays show

For all that i hate Gretna im not sure the Saints team of 06/07 were ready for promotion and the success from 08/09 onward while it took longer to build has been worth the wait.

David Wotherspoon would most probably been at the Hamilton game that afternoon when Grady scored (if not his family will have been as they are all massive Saints fans) and the 3 national trophies that followed may not have if "living the dream" had not happened. We will never know 

 

[TheScarf]

I was thinking that. If I was a St Johnstone fan I wouldn’t give the slightest shit now about that day in Dingwall (I was at the game incidentally). You’ve won 3 national trophies since then and Gretna are dead as fuck.

[RandomGuy.]

 

57 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

I was thinking that. If I was a St Johnstone fan I wouldn’t give the slightest shit now about that day in Dingwall (I was at the game incidentally). You’ve won 3 national trophies since then and Gretna are dead as f**k.

That was a special squad, probably still my favourite tbh, and it was genuinely devastating that they lost out in that manner. Its sounds fake but there was a genuine bond between the fans and that squad that season. Sure theres photos of Hardie and MacDonald in tears on the pitch.

Its obviously worked out pretty well for us, but aye, im not sure we'll ever see a squad with such a close bond to the fans suffer something like that again.

[Rugster]

2 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

 

That was a special squad, probably still my favourite tbh, and it was genuinely devastating that they lost out in that manner. Its sounds fake but there was a genuine bond between the fans and that squad that season. Sure theres photos of Hardie and MacDonald in tears on the pitch.

Its obviously worked out pretty well for us, but aye, im not sure we'll ever see a squad with such a close bond to the fans suffer something like that again.

I’ve said this before but Peaso McDonald is one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met in football. Genuinely just a really nice guy who got a lot of bad press over one tackle. 
 

oh, and f**k Gretna. 

[Francesc Fabregas]

This is a very polite reminder that A View from the Terrace is on the BBC Scotland channel tonight @ 10:30pm.

This should be a very good episode - there's apparently chat about Scotland's sterling start to the Euro 2024 qualifying campaign and an interview with larger-than-life football agent John Viola.

You might as well give it a go!