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Ray Vaughn

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Posts posted by Ray Vaughn

  1. Was at the Spain v Belgium game at Forthbank (Stirling Albion season ticket holders get in for free).
    Spain looked quite good, Belgium gave them too much respect for the first 30 minutes but gradually got into the game nearly scoring just before halt time.
    Spain got a penalty early in the second half and the game was practically done. Header from a corner made it 2-0 to Spain and a third was chopped off by the ref (the Lino was no help)

    Friday Is Spain v England so I will head on over again.

  2. I see Forthbank is also one of the host venues for the women's under 19 UEFA championships next month, along with McDiarmid Park, Firhill and St Mirren.  
    You lot getting any exciting ground improvements out of it?  We're getting the old dugouts ripped out and replaced with a technical area at the front of the Main Stand, hopefully resplendent with big comfy leather chairs with an embroidered St Johnstone badge on, along with some other stuff that I can't remember.

    I read that season ticket holders are getting free entry to the games at Forthbank.
    That happening at yours?
  3. Congratulations to Clyde on a deserved promotion. Many of us were rooting for you so we could get two trips to Annan next year.
    Getting out of this league is a priority as there could be a succession of overspending lowland league teams doing a Man City and spending money beyond the Fair Play rules. I suppose Kelly getting banned from the Champions League too would be a price worth paying for them.

    Personally I think Edinburgh and Annan might go backwards if their better players get cherry-picked so it could be an open title race unless Cove spend big.

  4. I think you're fast losing your grip on reality my friend!

    Someone is trying to rewrite history here.
    That specific allegation was definitely made that night, done in a way to try to alarm people with carefully chosen words when the reality was that there was not missing £500k from any accounts.
  5. There was no specific reason given that night to why they wanted to get rid of Stuart Brown, other than hey could not get on with him. They chose to hide behind “reasons why we can’t go into it”. If you are going to bump someone then you really need to spell out why they cannot remain.

     

    I remember the meeting very well. Willie Irvine swaggering about the place before we sat down, never seen at Forthbank of course, calling a regular fan a “p***k”, guys you’d never seen before like Brian Kerr slating Stuart Brown’s business acumen when a League 2 club called Stirling Albion made more profit than his own company that year and, of course, yourself suggesting £500,000 was missing from the football club accounts when what you really meant was that the Junior Academy accounts were audited separately from the football clubs. Almost like you intended to alarm people. I’m sure it just came out that way and was not what you intended.

     

     

  6. As there was no prior indication that such a vote was going to take place then it was only a quick show of hands where it was clear that the result was not going to be binding. People might vote differently if it had been binding and there were many who abstained that night would probably voted to keep Brown on such limited reasons to sack him.

    The meeting had minimal notice and many struggled

    to attend at such notice.

     

    Given that the then Trust Board would not give the reasons for sacking the chairman that night and, as far as I can see, have never given out a reason so important that it could not be revealed that night,

    something doesn’t add up here.

    The only thing that they could possibly not reveal that night (unless you know better) would be the impending court cases from the Youth Academy. But the then Trust Board has resolutely claimed that they did not know about the suspensions of coaches until days before it went to court. But when you recall that Tom Ogilvy knew about the suspensions and chaired Trust Meeting back then then you can see why the suspicion that something doesn’t smell right persists.

    Only the reasons not given that night being revealed would put his rumour to bed.

     

    I don’t think we should rake over this shameful episode in the Trust history. People put their own agendas over the best interests of the members. They are now history and any move on their part to return would cause much discord.

     

  7. The timing is coincidental unless you are suggesting the Consortium picked the moment where the old Trust Board were are war with the Exec Chairman as the ideal time to launch a bid to run the club.
    Time for Change had its roots in the two Mayfield Centre meetings in Autumn 2017 where we had to collect signatures to get resolutions to the Trust Board.
    None of us had any inkling of the Consortium until the end of January, the night before the Golden Lion AGM.
    It is mischief-making to say that Time for Change (can’t remember when we formally adopted that moniker) was all about the Consortium bid.
    I can 100% confirm that the Consortium bid was added to the agenda at a much later date. At the meeting between Time for Change and three reps of the old Trust Board, the Consortium bid to run the club was not specifically discussed during that 2 hour meeting. Surely, if we were stooges for The Consortium as you imply, then it would have been top of the agenda.

    Bringing back democracy to our fan owned club was the ambition of Time for Change. It is a task which has been much harder to achieve in reality for reasons which will all come
    out at some point in the future when the time is right.

  8. The Consortium bid for the club did not have anything to do with the formation of Time for Change.

    The shameful antics towards The Chairman of the Exec was the sole catalyst for the events that led to the collection of signatures to force a Trust Members Meeting and resulted in the mass resignations of the previous Trust Board before they were voted out at the Motion of No Confidence.

     

    It was the Supporters Club that invited Colin And John into the bar. The Supporters Club wanted to hear what they had to propose and they were welcomed warmly by the vast majority of the fans in the bar that day. Time for Change had nothing to do with this invite.

     

    Time For Change was about righting the wrong that nearly happened regarding the smearing of and attempted sacking of Stuart Brown. The Consortium Bid happened at the same time as the move to oust the Stuart Brown but the two are not connected and could easily have happened a year apart. It may not be a coincidence that many involved with Time for Change were clearly in favour of a vote on the Consortium Bid but the main issue was the governance of the Trust for the Members was the reason Time for Change put up a fight to restore order at the Trust.

     

  9. The average Trust member has never been empowered by being a member of the Trust and has had no input into the direction of the club that the Exec take. That is why they see little difference between the Status Quo and the Consortium in terms of influencing the direction of the club.
    No-one expected weekly referenda to decide club policy but there has been little actual decision making other than what strip
    do you want.

    It is difficult to assess where the whole Trust Membership lies on the Consortium Bid versus the Associates bid.
    My, entirely subjective, view was that easily more than 50% of those attending meetings of the Consortium were pro-consortium but they never got even 50% of the total support.

    The Trust Board has shown it has big balls to stand up to all the external pressure that has been exerted in recent months. Some of the nonsense going on by certain parties will be revealed in the fullness of time but now is the time for calm heads to prevail and steer the correct course.

  10. There is hardly a word in your replies that resembles the truth.

    Some of the Trust Board have been in different time zones with limited Wi-fi capability but a interim statement is on its way to be followed by a full statement in a few days.

    Trying to pin this on the Trust Board is a total travesty of the facts. When it all comes out in the wash, who did what and when, it will be clear who is responsible for the delays and I can assure you that the Trust Board are doing things by the book so that any votes, when they happen, cannot be challenged. Who can forget the absolute disgrace of the multiple-minute suspension of Stuart Brown. Anyone with their fingerprints on that fiasco should still be in hiding.

    Members of the Trust should expect our usual accurate and honest communication shortly.

    The Associates have no need to comment of course at the moment as there has been, as I type, no offer submitted to the Trust for consideration.
    Until they submit such a bid then that will be open to the accusation that they were just trying to de-rail the Consortium bid. I’m sure that is not the case though.

  11. The guarantee that the club cannot go below the watermark of finances on the day that the consortium take over the running of the club (should both the members of the Trust vote YES to the consortium and the lawyers give the deal a clean bill of health) is reassurance that the club is unlikely to go into liquidation as they would be unlikely to spend sums of money which takes the club below that waterline and result in them forfeiting control of the club.
    The club reserves I believe to be £150k as we had £170k in the bank last season and lost £20k last season (mainly due to higher spending on players and lost games due to the weather I would guess)

    The Associates bid for the club has not yet been received by the Trust so is much harder to pin down any detail. Two things I have picked up about it though is that they only promise to invest £200k if “the club needs it” and said somewhere else that the club does not need money invested in it (whilst talking about the Consortium bid).
    I look forward to reading their bid to convince me that what they are offering is anything other than an overdraft facility.

  12. Under Stuart Brown the club is now a League 2 club, way below where Albion should be

     

    Unfortunately you cannot pin the blame for this entirely of SB. Some shocking manager appointments by the Exec aside, they have supported the managers with better than average budgets.

     

     

    Top young talent signed on amateur forms so hoovered up for nothing by Premiership clubs, not once but twice.

     

    Unfortunate that we find couldn’t sign them on better contracts but paying off £300k debt over seven years wasn’t achieved without difficult decisions being made. Being debt-free was top priority and losing a couple of players who may or not make it was the price paid to get debt-free.

     

     

    Being slow to tell the owners about interest in the club and two police investigations into coaches.

     

    Time will tell if Brown did anything wrong here. Not telling the Trust about it may well prove to be consistent with a strong child protection policy. I with Broon on this one.

     

     

    Being a walloper on social media.

     

    He’s calmed right down on this. Lessons learned

     

     

    The youth academy operating outside of the club with no audit of accounts or the youth players disappearing to the USA.

     

     

     

    You keep banging on about this Mark and everyone is still yawning. Even when you suggested that £500k was missing from the club accounts being a sensationalist version of the Junior Academy accounts being done separately. Don’t see why the Junior Academy accounts should necessarily by part of the club accounts?

     

     

    Says he’s a great believer in democracy yet not been elected in seven years. Even Putin stands every six years!

     

    The structure of the club is set by the Trust. The Trust members have owned the club for 7.75 years and have never had the vision to find a proper model for accountability of the Exec to the Trust members. Not Brown’s failure this one.

     

     

    The advisory vote held at 1st Mayfield meeting was just that. Considering the Trust Board had all their plants in like Brian Kerr, Willie Irvine and Mark Howarth then no wonder they edged the advisory vote. The meeting was held at relatively short notice but I bet all the Anti-Brown stooges knew well before that.

     

     

     

  13. Your analysis is wrong.
    Perhaps addressing the points I put forward might help you and your chums run the club properly now instead of revelling in the kind of disgusting and shameful scenes witnessed at the Golden Lion on Monday. This is supposed to be a senior football club.
    As a start, it might help if you knew the difference between the Junior Academy and the Youth Academy.
    I truly fear for Stirling Albion.

    You’re right, a Chairman telling downright lies to justify his own shortcomings is disgusting and shameful. He had to be called out on his lies before his walk of shame oot the door as it was clear he was doing a runner like a coward.
    The arrogance of the man would not allow him to accept the verdict of the Trust Membership the following Monday and went before he was pushed while unsuccessfully trying to blame others for his going.

  14. I know the supporters trust have been getting pelters but it’s been one way traffic.
    Playing devils advocate, below are the arguments I've heard being put forward for Stuart Brown leaving.I’d like to hear what his backers say in response.

    Under Stuart Brown the club is now a League 2 club, way below where Albion should be.
    Top young talent signed on amateur forms so hoovered up for nothing by Premiership clubs, not once but twice.
    Being slow to tell the owners about interest in the club and two police investigations into coaches.
    Being a walloper on social media. The youth academy operating outside of the club with no audit of accounts or the youth players disappearing to the USA.

    Says he’s a great believer in democracy yet not been elected in seven years. Even Putin stands every six years!
    There was a vote last year where members voted for him to be removed but he’s still here.

    Having been elected by the members to look after the best interests of the club, are the trust board not entitled to change who runs the club?
    Is that really a vandetta?

    PS I'm not a Trust Board member or fan.


    The only person who seems to think that there is a problem with the way the accounts of the Stirling Albion Junior Academy are handled is Mark Howarth, who has stood up at the last three public meetings of the Trust and got stuck into Stuart Brown each and every time.
    He is not a (now former) Trust Board member and, without doubt, has an agenda against Stuart Brown. Someone told me his laddie was released by the Junior Academy but I have no evidence to support this assertion.
    Hello Mark.
  15. When the Trust Board resigned in disgrace (they would have been sacked the following Monday anyway) and walked out, there were a few moments of confusion. Paul Goodwin did an impression of Ben Johnston to get to the front of the hall. I stood up to get a show of hands to whether we should elect an interim Board until a fresh Board could be elected by the Membership.
    Paul Goodwin was desperate to get in there and I told him that he was not the person who would help in this situation. When Goodwin did start to self-publicise, sorry speak, he got a hostile reaction from many present. Pleasing. Bye bye Paul.
    June, a member of the consortium and somewhat experienced in running a large Industrial & Provident Society, was able to take the meeting forward with some helpful words and eventually Duncan Strathdee was chosen to be a spokesman for the Trust and organise a meeting of the Trust to elect a new Board.

    Ken Lewandowski started the meeting with a statement and told bare faced lies about intimidation and threats from supporters being the reason for the lot of them resigning en mass. Supporters called him out on his lies during the statement as it was obvious that they were about to walk out and there would be no right of reply. Such is the class of the man he referred to one regular critic of him as a “Fat b*****d” on the way out.

  16. Totally agree with your comments, the Trust has concentrated on reducing the debt on taking over the Club which is understandable in the circumstances and has neglected to deal with who does what and what the roles and responsibilities of the Exec Board of the Club and thus we have a situation now we find ourselves in, two fractions fighting each other supposedly in the best interests of the Club. 
    Given the fact that the Trust called for an EGM of the Club`s Shareholders and as yet I as a Shareholder have not received any communication from the Club to when this EGM is to be held it does not bode well for the Club in the short term. 


    As a fellow shareholder I haven’t heard a cheep out of them yet but I will be there and by god are they getting both barrels from me.
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