Clyde FC; Season 2022-23

[jamamafegan]

Reading a lot of the comments on social media; I think you can see a real cultural divide
The only other people apart from Gammons and VL’s defending him are women of a certain vintage.
 

I’m not reading the same social media as you then. The vast majority of people are saying it’s a witch-hunt, let him rebuild his life, why weren’t folk bothered 5 years ago etc etc. Properly shameful reading and folk seemingly too thick/ignorant to understand why this saga is an issue in 2022.

[Yorky]

5 hours ago, jamamafegan said:

 

I’m not reading the same social media as you then. The vast majority of people are saying it’s a witch-hunt, let him rebuild his life, why weren’t folk bothered 5 years ago etc etc. Properly shameful reading and folk seemingly too thick/ignorant to understand why this saga is an issue in 2022.

 

Thing is many people were bothered 5 years ago,  Clyde themselves lost a good few supporters, I know one or two who said they would never return. I attended a few games as they are a local team and he got dogs abuse from other supporters of other clubs and not just the usual Ned element only there to wind up the opposition fans. It became more high profile after he left Clyde but it was always there.

[Jack Burton]

All but a few? I must have made a mistake then.

I don't think Dumbarton fans are in a position to comment. There was a registered sex offender playing for them for the previous two seasons and the fans didn't bat an eyelid.

[Jack Burton]

North Lanarkshire Council is run by a Labour minority, backed up by the Conservatives.
The Leader of the Council is Labour's Jim Logue. Jim Logue was at the very forefront the last time Clyde were threatened with eviction back in the early 2000s. He didn't get his wish back then but interesting that he's not long back in control and there's an eviction notice posted on the club.
Clyde fans should be very, very concerned as it can't be assumed it's business as usual now that Goodwillie is back in Kirkcaldy.

It's a very serious situation but as with back then Logue would have to have a good reason to forgo the rental income paid by Clyde. There's hardly a queue of teams waiting to rent an 8k seater stadium in Cumbernauld.

[SLClyde]

It’s quite clear that some of our own support think Goodwillie is bigger, better and more important than the club itself. Even now after the council’s announcement, utter madness. 

[shawfielder]

31 minutes ago, Jack Burton said:

7 hours ago, Interesting... said:

North Lanarkshire Council is run by a Labour minority, backed up by the Conservatives.
The Leader of the Council is Labour's Jim Logue. Jim Logue was at the very forefront the last time Clyde were threatened with eviction back in the early 2000s. He didn't get his wish back then but interesting that he's not long back in control and there's an eviction notice posted on the club.
Clyde fans should be very, very concerned as it can't be assumed it's business as usual now that Goodwillie is back in Kirkcaldy.

It's a very serious situation but as with back then Logue would have to have a good reason to forgo the rental income paid by Clyde. There's hardly a queue of teams waiting to rent an 8k seater stadium in Cumbernauld.

 

With the new ethics the NLC are taking , it will be difficult to rent out Broadwood. What kind of state would we be in financially if they had banned Celtic from Broadwood and we missed the revenue from the cup games,  although there has been a couple of them jailed, their ban will surely come after their up and coming court cases.

 

[The Moonster]

49 minutes ago, Jack Burton said:

I don't think Dumbarton fans are in a position to comment. There was a registered sex offender playing for them for the previous two seasons and the fans didn't bat an eyelid.

That's not true, plenty fans said at the time they didn't like Layne or his past. But we're talking about a guy who continually felt a womans arse in a nightclub, not guy who took an incoherent lassie back to a hotel, raped her with his pal then left her there. FWIW, Layne has found it much more difficult for employment than Goodwillie, mainly because he doesn't have a wee band of weirdos who hero worship him. 

[Bully Wee Villa]

Seem to have been banned from the Clyde forum for criticising the decision to sign DGW. 

[Yorky]

34 minutes ago, SLClyde said:

It’s quite clear that some of our own support think Goodwillie is bigger, better and more important than the club itself. Even now after the council’s announcement, utter madness. 

The club should always come first, it has a very proud history. The worry is that one player is going to end up destroying the club. If those in charge had any sense they would ditch him. Put out a grovelling apology, and get back to the council  and sort it out. 

[forehead7]

1 hour ago, SLClyde said:

It’s quite clear that some of our own support think Goodwillie is bigger, better and more important than the club itself. Even now after the council’s announcement, utter madness. 

They can f**k off with Goodwillie and the sponsor(s) trying to blackmail the club into signing him. They're not true fans of the club.

[lennyzer0]

13 hours ago, the_bully_wee said:

I don't disagree with the general gist of your post but my reading of the situation is that the board called it spot on in telling Raith, after their initial approach, that they had no interest in having Goodwillie return to Clyde. The outcome of that approach was then communicated to the Glasgow Branch of Clyde supporters - whether that was the result of a board member or Goodwillie blabbing, I've no idea. Upon finding this out, the Glasgow Branch - in their infinite wisdom - started to make a lot of co-ordinated noise, which then brought an independently wealthy, long-time individual backer (and possibly also a club sponsor too) to allegedly threaten to withdraw all future funding of the club if the board didn't make a U-turn. I don't know the timeline of events, but allegedly there were also concurrent threats made to the board that enough membership numbers would be rallied to call for an EGM and force a vote on the board's future. I'd also be surprised if Danny Lennon wasn't very keen for the deal to be done himself, given his general level of job security at the moment and historical statements on Goodwillie.

As a result of these factors, the board seems to have been left in an almighty pickle with just a couple of days left of the loan window. I'm not even sure the footballing side of things was a consideration for them. Either they a) stuck to their guns and blocked Goodwillie's return, knowing that move would be harmful financially and very possibly result in their own forcible removal as board members or b) acquiesced, and caused the coming shitstorm. The former obviously looks like the much better choice as things stand, but only those with an inside knowledge of the club will know just how catastrophic that option could also have proved. Because of their being forced to choose between two utterly ruinous and high-risk outcomes, I don't apportion the crux of the blame to the board on this one. They get plenty wrong, but this seems like it was a total no-win scenario in terms of the club's health. If there are people with the relevant skills and the requisite affection and time to join the board, then new blood would of course be welcome - but as I alluded to above, those who know Clyde well will know that the club has struggled in terms of attracting or harbouring quality boardroom assets for many years now. That struggle has just become profoundly more biting.  

The board's next move is extremely important. I'm not sure whether their best move would be to be totally transparent about the series of events, but a robust and sincere statement has to come very soon, and it has to categorically state that David Goodwillie will never again play for Clyde FC. What happens with NLC will depend on how relations between the parties have been of late. They definitely improved circa 2018 through to 2020, but I suspect the board's decision to re-evaluate (again!) where the club's future lies has fractured the relationship somewhat even before now. We are in a horribly weak position to negotiate now, but we have to secure our future for the coming years so that we have a foundation from which to rebuild and try to gradually repair some of the seismic damage done to the club's reputation in recent years. When Goodwillie initially moved to Raith Rovers, I thought that this task would be tough to accomplish. It'll take some doing now.

Sensible post, imo.

[spiders4ever]

50 minutes ago, Yorky said:

The club should always come first, it has a very proud history. The worry is that one player is going to end up destroying the club. If those in charge had any sense they would ditch him. Put out a grovelling apology, and get back to the council  and sort it out. 

It's not the player who is destroying the club but those who were responsible for bringing him back.

[Yorky]

2 minutes ago, spiders4ever said:

It's not the player who is destroying the club but those who were responsible for bringing him back.

It actually does end up being that one player, he’s the catalyst for what’s happening even though he’s not the one making the decision other than his willingness to return. I take it he’s no interest in any damage to the club other than his own ambition

[WBR]

16 minutes ago, forehead7 said:

They can f**k off with Goodwillie and the sponsor(s) trying to blackmail the club into signing him. They're not true fans of the club.

The problem is that they will believe anyone that disagrees with their view is not a true Clyde fan - so much so that they cannot conceive of the potential for damage by taking the stance they took.  The whole “kicking the club when it’s down” (where have we heard that before?) attitude reeks of unjustified hubris (just as it did elsewhere a decade ago).  It appears that the, now-absent, posters were likely an attempt at a P&B media campaign to sway opinion.  Had I known there was an influential group pushing for this catastrophic decision, I would likely have tried to contact the club to put my opposing view across (for what it’s worth). In trying to save my club, the GB would view me as not being a true fan.  It doesn’t matter what Clyde fans think of DG - the response from outside our bubble was always going to dictate how this played out.  Events in Kirkcaldy made that all too clear and inevitable.  

[Raith_Raver]

What could be lower than North Lanarkshire Council holding Clyde to ransom, threatening to evict them if DG enters Broadwood. That's bad enough, but they're telling the club who they can and can't sign and play. Where's the SFA and SPFL in this? Besides that, Goodwillie must have a cast iron case for NLC denying him basic human rights.

[Brian Carrigan]

13 hours ago, the_bully_wee said:

I don't disagree with the general gist of your post but my reading of the situation is that the board called it spot on in telling Raith, after their initial approach, that they had no interest in having Goodwillie return to Clyde. The outcome of that approach was then communicated to the Glasgow Branch of Clyde supporters - whether that was the result of a board member or Goodwillie blabbing, I've no idea. Upon finding this out, the Glasgow Branch - in their infinite wisdom - started to make a lot of co-ordinated noise, which then brought an independently wealthy, long-time individual backer (and possibly also a club sponsor too) to allegedly threaten to withdraw all future funding of the club if the board didn't make a U-turn. I don't know the timeline of events, but allegedly there were also concurrent threats made to the board that enough membership numbers would be rallied to call for an EGM and force a vote on the board's future. I'd also be surprised if Danny Lennon wasn't very keen for the deal to be done himself, given his general level of job security at the moment and historical statements on Goodwillie.

As a result of these factors, the board seems to have been left in an almighty pickle with just a couple of days left of the loan window. I'm not even sure the footballing side of things was a consideration for them. Either they a) stuck to their guns and blocked Goodwillie's return, knowing that move would be harmful financially and very possibly result in their own forcible removal as board members or b) acquiesced, and caused the coming shitstorm. The former obviously looks like the much better choice as things stand, but only those with an inside knowledge of the club will know just how catastrophic that option could also have proved. Because of their being forced to choose between two utterly ruinous and high-risk outcomes, I don't apportion the crux of the blame to the board on this one. They get plenty wrong, but this seems like it was a total no-win scenario in terms of the club's health. If there are people with the relevant skills and the requisite affection and time to join the board, then new blood would of course be welcome - but as I alluded to above, those who know Clyde well will know that the club has struggled in terms of attracting or harbouring quality boardroom assets for many years now. That struggle has just become profoundly more biting.  

The board's next move is extremely important. I'm not sure whether their best move would be to be totally transparent about the series of events, but a robust and sincere statement has to come very soon, and it has to categorically state that David Goodwillie will never again play for Clyde FC. What happens with NLC will depend on how relations between the parties have been of late. They definitely improved circa 2018 through to 2020, but I suspect the board's decision to re-evaluate (again!) where the club's future lies has fractured the relationship somewhat even before now. We are in a horribly weak position to negotiate now, but we have to secure our future for the coming years so that we have a foundation from which to rebuild and try to gradually repair some of the seismic damage done to the club's reputation in recent years. When Goodwillie initially moved to Raith Rovers, I thought that this task would be tough to accomplish. It'll take some doing now.

I agree with this for the most part, but I do think that even in this scenario, no-win as it may have been, there was a clear right and wrong path. The example of what would happen was laid bare in public not one month ago.

What's been presented is essentially the choice between self-preservation and martyrdom, with the board finally given the chance to do the right thing and begin righting some wrongs. The result of either choice would have been catastrophic, but at least one was catastrophic-good as opposed to catastrophic-evil.

Imagine a scenario where the board said publicly something along the lines of "We turned down an approach from Raith re: the return of DGW. Upon finding this out, one of our top financiers has threatened to withdraw funding". The board could and should have consulted with NLC about the consequences of bringing Goodwillie back, as this isn't just 'a signing'.

I'm not saying the board are entirely to blame, but their short sightedness in regard to this situation has been absolutely staggering.

[lennyzer0]

2 minutes ago, Raith_Raver said:

What could be lower than North Lanarkshire Council holding Clyde to ransom, threatening to evict them if DG enters Broadwood. That's bad enough, but they're telling the club who they can and can't sign and play. Where's the SFA and SPFL in this? Besides that, Goodwillie must have a cast iron case for NLC denying him basic human rights.

Joke post, presumably? Has to be.

Surely?

Or are you really suggesting the right to play lower league football in Scotland is a basic human right? Nobody's stopping the rapist from working in general, just from working in one industry.

[The Moonster]

7 minutes ago, Raith_Raver said:

What could be lower than North Lanarkshire Council holding Clyde to ransom, threatening to evict them if DG enters Broadwood. That's bad enough, but they're telling the club who they can and can't sign and play. Where's the SFA and SPFL in this? Besides that, Goodwillie must have a cast iron case for NLC denying him basic human rights.

Being a semi-professional footballer isn't a human right. If there was a cast iron legal case I imagine Clyde would stand by him and fight it, they shat themselves and terminated the loan within hours of NLC issuing their statement. 

[Benjamin_Nevis]

What could be lower than North Lanarkshire Council holding Clyde to ransom, threatening to evict them if DG enters Broadwood. That's bad enough, but they're telling the club who they can and can't sign and play. Where's the SFA and SPFL in this? Besides that, Goodwillie must have a cast iron case for NLC denying him basic human rights.

Why do you relentlessly go from thread to thread defending a rapist?

[shawfield_hare]

Seem to have been banned from the Clyde forum for criticising the decision to sign DGW. 

Same thing happened to someone else I know