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What’s the craziest decision your club has ever made?


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20 hours ago, Dougie Mills said:

These acts of utter disregard towards our support from the board are the most obvious things that spring to mind.

Totally contemptable. But nothing compared to the Harkness era. 30 years of wilderness. And deciding the BoD knew how to pick a team. 

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1 hour ago, Cardle is Magic said:

What was the financial impact though? What did the club spend that the increase in prize money, ticket sales etc didn’t help with?

The major financial impact came from the Kelly era. After Penman left and we'd gone down and Nicholl came back. That run between 1997 and 2001 saddled us with a vast amount of debt as we chased top flight foot and spinning shitloads of money to do it - that's when we mortgaged off Starks Park IIRC

Really, McGowan and Anelka were just the final, rotten support beam finally going on a roof that had was long since past caving in.

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1 hour ago, Cardle is Magic said:

What was the financial impact though? What did the club spend that the increase in prize money, ticket sales etc didn’t help with?

Still too soon to talk about it... Someone above mentioned Paul Harvey for £400k. 

Our exploits between 1992 to 1996 should've set us up for a generation, instead we have had quarter century hangover from being billy big baws during the good times.

I'm not one of them but there are a considerable percentage of our fans who argue that we can't afford to go up to the Premier League. Our last adventure up there didn't do much to prove them wrong. 

The rate of decline in the club from the moment Danny Lennon's free kick went in in Munich was pretty fucking impressive tbh.

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1 hour ago, velo army said:

Cheers to @John MacLean for the recollection of 1986 and all that. Attended my first game aged 4 in October 1987, but I didn't know a y of that (my da and uncle obviously erased that from memory).

For me it was selling Liam Lindsay for near enough f**k all. A decision that still rankles tbh. It was tinpot, small time nonsense. He'd been arguably our most important player that season, was the only CB to make the Premier team of the season and scored about 8 goals too. Best defender we'd had since Paterson and we sold him for absolute buttons. He was still under contract as well. 

Ragin.

We are past masters of selling our best players for peanuts or even feck all, for decades we didnt even think about sell on clauses. Of all the shite pieces of business - and there are many - one of the worst was selling four of our best players to Livi after giving them a hiding at Almondvale, including Big Marv for £50K, an international player  who went on to win Livi the League Cup, was their player of the year, sold him to Rangers for feck knows how much where he was even player of the year at Ibrox.

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1 hour ago, Double Jack D said:

Still too soon to talk about it... Someone above mentioned Paul Harvey for £400k. 

Our exploits between 1992 to 1996 should've set us up for a generation, instead we have had quarter century hangover from being billy big baws during the good times.

I'm not one of them but there are a considerable percentage of our fans who argue that we can't afford to go up to the Premier League. Our last adventure up there didn't do much to prove them wrong. 

The rate of decline in the club from the moment Danny Lennon's free kick went in in Munich was pretty fucking impressive tbh.

Ok so you lost money because you overspent?

That’s easily fixed.

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4 hours ago, Double Jack D said:

To be fair, we got promoted in 1994/95, had 2 seasons in Premier League, won a national trophy and had a run in Europe.

26 years on and we still haven't fully recovered from the financial impact....

I'd put that down to financial miss-management fueled by a (mislead?) desire to make us an established top league club. 

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1 hour ago, Double Jack D said:

Still too soon to talk about it... Someone above mentioned Paul Harvey for £400k. 

Our exploits between 1992 to 1996 should've set us up for a generation, instead we have had quarter century hangover from being billy big baws during the good times.

I'm not one of them but there are a considerable percentage of our fans who argue that we can't afford to go up to the Premier League. Our last adventure up there didn't do much to prove them wrong. 

The rate of decline in the club from the moment Danny Lennon's free kick went in in Munich was pretty fucking impressive tbh.

The book Always Next Season has the Paul Harvey transfer fee as £212k. Rovers website has the record transfer (for Harvey) as £225k.

We also spunked £120k on Paul Browne from Aston Villa, £82k for Kevin Twaddle from St Johnstone, £90k for Paul Bonar from Airdrie, Think we paid a decent fee for Duffield too.

That said, we got £250k from Hearts for Colin Cameron, £900k from Milllwall for Crawford, Sinclair and Dair. £900k from Bolton for McAnespie and £500k from a German TV company. I suppose the ground redevelopment must have cost a fair bit. Probably wiped that out.

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30 minutes ago, Cardle is Magic said:

Ok so you lost money because you overspent?

That’s easily fixed.

The damage done can take a long time to heal, tbh. Not least because we have a stadium mortgage depleting income. 

It was only recently that the club and stadium were "united" again with John Sim owning both, albeit that the stadium and club are separate legal entities. We're now in a bit of a rob Peter and pay Paul type situation with the mortgage.

We got into a place where we were vulnerable to shysters and we duly opened the door to one in Anelka. He offered us a £300k (I think) initial investment and the board grabbed it. 

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The problem for us Morton fans isn't thinking of a disaster, its choosing one which stands above the rest since we are an ongoing, constant shambles and have been for my 25 years on this planet. 

 

 

In recent history these all spring to mind;

 

The stand from St Mirren that has never been put up, Ray MacKinnon, Dylan Dykes.

 

Appointing a fitness coach manager, paying a fee for Henk Van Schiek, having 1 goalkeeper, Sam Ramsbottom, letting Allan Moore continue for so long, Gary O'Connor, Nacho Novo, Warren Hawke's letters to fans and not letting JJ and Houston play Telfer only for them to quit a few hours before our game then for us to play Telfer anyway.

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1 hour ago, Cardle is Magic said:

Ok so you lost money because you overspent?

That’s easily fixed.

Maybe for 0p in the pound Dunfermline :)

Seriously though, I totally agree. If we are able to get top flight football again it must be done via a sustainable plan and managed properly to ensure the future wellbeing of the club.

However it's difficult to argue with the "we canny afford it" clique based on what happened to us following our last golden era.

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47 minutes ago, Scary Bear said:

The book Always Next Season has the Paul Harvey transfer fee as £212k. Rovers website has the record transfer (for Harvey) as £225k.

We also spunked £120k on Paul Browne from Aston Villa, £82k for Kevin Twaddle from St Johnstone, £90k for Paul Bonar from Airdrie, Think we paid a decent fee for Duffield too.

That said, we got £250k from Hearts for Colin Cameron, £900k from Milllwall for Crawford, Sinclair and Dair. £900k from Bolton for McAnespie and £500k from a German TV company. I suppose the ground redevelopment must have cost a fair bit. Probably wiped that out.

Jesus, it's hard reading the detail. 

Imagine in the space of 5 Seasons

  • Winning the Championship twice
  • Winning a National trophy
  • Playing 3 seasons of Premier League football
  • Having a successful Euro run including playing one of Europes biggest
  • Taking in £2m in transfer fees

We should've had 25 years of financial comfort off of that 😂

The damage Claude Anelka did was fairly trivial compared to the late 1996 to 1999 era. The stadium was a red herring, the transfer fees and wages being dished out at that time were fucking mental.

Edited by Double Jack D
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2 hours ago, nomad said:

Totally contemptable. But nothing compared to the Harkness era. 30 years of wilderness. And deciding the BoD knew how to pick a team. 

This crossed my mind too, but it was an era of misrule rather than a specific crazy decision.

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2 hours ago, renton said:

The major financial impact came from the Kelly era. After Penman left and we'd gone down and Nicholl came back. That run between 1997 and 2001 saddled us with a vast amount of debt as we chased top flight foot and spinning shitloads of money to do it - that's when we mortgaged off Starks Park IIRC

Really, McGowan and Anelka were just the final, rotten support beam finally going on a roof that had was long since past caving in.

I remember speaking to the late Ally Gourlay a good few years ago now and he actually credited Anelka with saving the club in a roundabout way as his incompetence was actually what brought the financial issues to the fore and if we'd kept plodding along the way we were it would be likely there wouldn't still be a Raith Rovers to support.

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I remember speaking to the late Ally Gourlay a good few years ago now and he actually credited Anelka with saving the club in a roundabout way as his incompetence was actually what brought the financial issues to the fore and if we'd kept plodding along the way we were it would be likely there wouldn't still be a Raith Rovers to support.
It was the best thing for the club long term as it finally brought an end to the years of the club being run in an amateur manner.
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4 hours ago, renton said:

The major financial impact came from the Kelly era. After Penman left and we'd gone down and Nicholl came back. That run between 1997 and 2001 saddled us with a vast amount of debt as we chased top flight foot and spinning shitloads of money to do it - that's when we mortgaged off Starks Park IIRC

Really, McGowan and Anelka were just the final, rotten support beam finally going on a roof that had was long since past caving in.

Didn’t Nicholl and his back room staff cost a fortune- him , Alex Smith, Terry Butcher and John Brownlie.

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