R.R.FC

We faced 3 different managers in our 3 games against Ayr last season as well! Davie White has managed as many games against us (two) as any Ayr manager since Ian McCall.

Hasn’t the final been confirmed as Saturday 2nd April? The club tweet doesn’t make any mention of ‘the weekend of’ it’s just the Saturday mentioned. Motherwell are at home on that date so can’t see it being Fir Park. I will be surprised if it’s not Livingston but I hope I’m wrong.

Any new found optimism will quickly evaporate if we get beat on Saturday, that’s a must win for me. However, there are definitely some signs of positivity with Spencer back and the last couple of performances being much improved. Hopefully we can build again with a win on Saturday to really give hope a corner has been turned and give a bit of positivity looking ahead at the remainder of the season. Hopefully Zanatta is fit for the weekend as well as Varian. Even if they don’t start, it gives us options. With Gullan still to return we should hopefully have a very strong bench soon which can only help. Great to see to players who have come through our youth team get the goals, Arnott impresses me every time I watch him, definitely looks a prospect.

Yeah, I thought Val did a great job at the start of this issue and her voice certainly helped save us the site of seeing rapist on the pitch in a Raith Rovers shirt and I will always be grateful for that. However, her recent comments do not cover herself in glory. The above comments seem like taking another opportunity to stick the boot to the board rather than a full and reasoned understanding of the situation. That post and her previous ‘Val McDermid vs Raith Rovers, there was only going to be one winner’ are disappointing takes driven by ego rather than a sticking up for what was right as she did initially with a strong moral stance.

Absolutely awful stuff, dreadfully dull game of football. Killie worthy of their lead. Comfortably ahead and have now dropped off knowing full well we don’t have the creativity to break them down. I would get Williamson and Mackie/Dick off for Connolly and Poplatnik. Get Gullan behind Poplatnik and Connolly and Ross out wide. The games already gone but it would be nice to at least put up a fight second half to salvage some sort of positivity going into next week. Also, someone might want to send that half time feature from Killie to the Raith boardroom to take some notes…

A lot depends on the fitness of Berra for me. McGlynn has him as 50/50 at the moment. However, if there is any risk whatsoever he shouldn’t play, we can’t afford to make the injury worse and lose him for a significant period of time. Without him, our starting centre half’s will be our 4th choice centre back alongside a left back on loan from Hibs who hasn’t started a game since November 2020. Musonda has been better the last couple of games so hopefully that can continue now he’s getting regular game time, he’ll have his hands full against the experience and quality of Lafferty. If Berra is fit, we might sneak a 1-1 draw but without him I’d predict 3-1 Killie. Given our recent form it seems bizarre that a win could put us right back in the mix, just 2 points behind Killie but because of that recent form, it seems highly unlikely and I doubt you’ll find many Rovers fans confident of a win.

Any word on when Berra is likely to be back? I am sure one of McGlynn’s interviews after the Morton game suggested the Killie game was the realistic target? Let’s hope that’s the case, obviously with injuries to Lang and Bene it has highlighted the need further but even without that, it is impossible to overstate how important he is to us. Having a look back at our record with and without him is very eye opening. Looking at games he has completed the 90 minutes, his record is: Played: 29 Won: 16 Drawn: 10 Lost: 3 PPG: 2.00 (not all league games but used to illustrate) GA per game: 0.79 Games where Berra hasn’t played or hasn’t completed the 90 minutes: Played: 8 Won: 0 Drawn: 4 Lost: 4 PPG: 0.50 GA per game: 1.6 The above includes the 3 games Berra has went off this season which were: 1-0 defeat to Partick Thistle (0-0 when Berra went off) 2-1 defeat to Arbroath (1-1 when Berra went off) 2-2 draw with Morton (0-0 when Berra went off) So our points average is 4 times higher with Berra on the pitch and on average we concede half the amount of goals. If we are to hold on to any hope of the play offs we need him back ASAP and to stay fit till the end of the season.

Hopefully Steven MacDonald paid approximately £150k for the sponsorship yesterday.

Didn’t think Zanatta was too bad on Tuesday, thought he showed flashes of his start of season form, albeit he didn’t do it nearly enough but I still think he’s a little unfortunate to miss out. Glad Lang is back in for Musonda, that change had to be made. Poplatnik unlucky to miss out but Gullan has improved the last two games and is gaining sharpness, hopefully can get himself a goal from open play today and kick on.

Stick Bene back on them!

Do you feel that Rennie and Miller should resign? I would imagine not, and understandably so, it would be silly to demand the resignation of a manager for suggesting a signing target. However, the same as John McGlynn, they wanted to sign a rapist. The only difference is our club, unfortunately, had the finances to push a deal through. But the request from the manager remains the same. McGlynn also knows Goodwillie on a personal level from 18/19 years old and I am sure would have had a good relationship, as he does with nearly all his former players, before his rape conviction. That conviction should absolutely supersede any previous thoughts on his personality and be enough to stop any deal and sadly it hasn’t. People are entitled to want McGlynn to go and I respect and understand that opinion, without him putting the name of Goodwillie forward he is not signed, that’s a fact. However, I think people are naive if they think John McGlynn is the only manager who has put forward the name of David Goodwillie to their board in the last 5 years. However, no other board has been stupid enough to actually agree to the deal. Manager’s come and go, they have a responsibility to manage and put together a successful team on the pitch. They should always consider the wider effects of any signing but I don’t believe that is the sole responsibility of the manager. I believe it the main responsibility of the board is to protect and safeguard the reputation and uphold the values of the football club. I don’t see how they are not at least equally as culpable as McGlynn for this shitshow, more so in my opinion. All they had to do was say no as many boards around the country will have done in the past. The key thing is how much McGlynn pushed for this. The panic has obviously set in at the club given our recent form and the huge opportunity of promotion. If McGlynn has went back to the board around deadline day and said ‘we must sign Goodwillie or we won’t go up’ and put demands or a serious level of pressure on the board to make this happen, then he needs to go, absolutely no doubt about it. However, it could also be a case that he put the name to the board at the start of the window and after the Celtic cup draw, and on the back of a bad run of form, they have returned to McGlynn, who is out of contract at the end of the season with a level of expectation on his head to earn a new deal, and said, ‘We now have the cash for Goodwillie, if you still want him’ and McGlynn has said yes, I’m not sure I would demand his resignation for that but I appreciate and respect anyone that thinks differently. But unfortunately, I’m not sure we’ll ever find out that level of detail on how the deal came about and was pushed through. I think the first course of action must be inviting Clark and Mill back to the board. If they don’t wish to accept that is understandable and they should be asked their terms to return. Val McDermid should return to the board and we should look to further diversify the profile of the board. John Sim leaving is fanciful at this stage but I would expect to see the rest who voted in favour step down. I appreciate Sim ultimately always has the final say but I would like to hope the changes above would ensure if a vote ever happened again, the balance of views is not in favour of John Sim and his stooges. Once this new board is in place, they should consider how this deal came about, speak to the manager and ultimately make the decision they feel is correct on his future and I will support whatever this is.

Can I ask, has your opinion changed since Tuesday night? I listened to your excellent podcast with Andy Harrow on the subject on Tuesday night and you suggested that you would consider going back, although not immediately, if they cancelled Goodwillie’s contract because it would at least show they eventually listened to the fans but you said, as we all thought at the time, that wasn’t going to happen. They have obviously done that now but the comment above appears a lot stronger that your thoughts on Tuesday night regarding this hypothetical situation. Not having a go in any way, just genuinely interested to hear your thoughts. Is it just a simple case of you were speaking about a hypothetical situation you didn’t think would happen or at least not for a long, long time and now it has, much quicker than we all thought, that in the light of day with the feelings involved you still feel the same level of anger and raw emotion which changes your position slightly or has there been anything else which has changed your feelings? Again, I am not having a go, it was a great listen, just interested to know. I appreciate doing something like that less than 24 hours after the event is difficult to digest everything and even understand the depth of your true feelings on the subject at that stage particularly as this has been so fast moving. None of us expected to be in the situation we were in on Monday night and then from that point, I don’t think any of us thought we’d see the change as quickly as yesterday.

I hope it’s enough for you to at least return the Raith back to your username!

It’s really fucking depressing that the best case scenario from this is that we hand over a 6 figure pay off to a rapist…

I’ve heard there is another statement being released before the weekend. No idea if it is any form of U-turn or if it will be doubling down on the previous double down. I’m not really sure I see the point tbh. Unless it’s ‘We can confirm we have cancelled the contract of David Goodwillie’ which it won’t be then I don’t see how it can improve the situation. They will only make it worse as they did with their previous attempt. Even any form of apology is empty and doesn’t resolve anything at this stage.

It really shows you how a couple of weeks can change your perspective on things. If you’d asked me a couple of weeks ago how I’d feel if we got beat by Banks O’ Dee, I’d have said it would be the worst result in our history. Turns out, with hindsight, it could have been our best.

I am sure it was the actual number in attendance. We have over 1500 season ticket holders so if we were giving the attendance as ‘tickets sold’ it would have been in excess of that figure.

The attendance last night was 1005. Probably a couple of hundred down on what we would normally have but not as low as I expected. Midweek games in winter aren’t always the best indicator though, as they are generally quite low for run of the mill league games particularly with streaming an option just now. I am sure we had a sub 1000 crowd against Forfar in our last season in League One. Saturday will give a better gauge of the full impact. 1500-1600 would be the usual expected attendance for that one which we won’t be anywhere near.

Aye it seems you’re right, that’s news to me. It has never even been referenced, as far as I am aware, when she was appointed or in any of her interviews. Thanks for mentioning it, definitely changes my perspective on her culpability.

Not for me it wasn’t. Literally the first I have seen it mentioned. But fair enough, I take back what I said, she is equally as culpable as the rest.

That is literally the first I have ever heard of that! I take back what I said if that is true but I had no idea that was the case. Where did you see this, out of interest?

She is in a very difficult position tbf. She wouldn’t have had a say in the vote to sign Goodwillie, I’m not even convinced she would have been seriously consulted. The people responsible are: John McGlynn and looking at the directors page, those who voted in favour would be John Sim, Dave Sinton, Tom Morgan and Steven MacDonald. She is different to a lot others in that she is in a paid position by the club. She may well be strongly opposed and I would expect she is severely pissed off about being left to deal with the shitstorm which is not of her own doing. However, when you have a mortgage and bills to pay, it is very difficult to walk away from a job that is probably quite well paid. I wouldn’t be surprised if she is looking for work elsewhere before tendering her resignation but I have no inside information on that.

In terms of how we move forward as a club, terminating the contract of David Goodwillie (which seems unlikely to happen) is now only part of the issue. Even if that was to happen, we would still be left with a manager and a board of directors who choose this course of action. The board were well aware of the feelings of the fans and sponsors and pressed ahead regardless either not believing the strength of opposition or not caring. Now John McGlynn is out of contract at the end of the season and may well walk away, he looked a broken man last night but for me he isn’t the biggest issue. And even if he was, he is by far the easiest to remove. John Sim and his stooges pushed through and approved the deal without a care, despite knowing the feelings of supporters, volunteers, sponsors and fellow directors when they are supposed to be custodians of the club and maintain and live by a club concordat they helped put together. From what I have heard about John Sim this seems exactly in line with what you would expect. He is extremely single minded and will generally do whatever he wants and unfortunately he has the power to do so at the club. He controls everything with regards to the club. There is no doubting he has done a lot of good for the club, until 48 hours ago, I had some concerns but was generally very happy with the job he had done. However, that was all undone with the signing of Goodwillie. Naively, I had thought they had perhaps spoken to Val and other key stakeholders who had raised concerns as well as volunteers and staff around the club to gauge feelings and explain their reasons (obviously nothing they could say would really justify it). But it seems they didn’t and just pressed ahead any way because ‘he’s quite good at football.’ It’s fine for us, as supporters, to sit back and demand the resignations of the board, however, surely we all know deep down that isn’t going to happen. The resignations of those in opposition yesterday and the subsequent statement show they are doubling down. I have never been convinced that fan ownership works for a team of our size but surely that is our only way out of this? I saw the Raith Trust statement yesterday and whilst it is to be commended and it is obviously less than 48 hours since Goodwillie was signed, we really need to move quickly with some action. I would love the trust or any other supporter organisation to do some work into the viability of fan ownership and start the fundraising as soon as possible. A model similar to Falkirk’s where you have 10-12 high value contributors supported by other fans making smaller monthly contributions seems the best option. I don’t know if there is any real appetite for this or how viable it would be given Sim has the stadium as well as the club but I just feel sitting asking for resignations of board members won’t actually achieve anything, they are going nowhere and the longer things are left, the more the fans who are taking a stance just now will be lost forever. We are not a big enough club to afford to alienate and lose any section of our fan base. Tl;dr version; the board who made this decision aren’t going anywhere unless we find a viable alternative and I would like to think some work will be started quickly to find this.

Agree with this. A 3-3 draw always suggests the strikers did their jobs and the defenders let the side down. That’s partly true, 3 goals at home to the bottom side should clearly be enough to win but we created plenty chances throughout the game and really should have had 5/6. However, the defending was horrendous. No idea what has happened to Musonda but he is miles off it. Bene hasn’t been great but I thought he was miles better than Frankie tonight without being particularly good himself. Ideally Berra will be fit for the weekend. Berra and Lang is definitely our strongest pairing. The game and rest of the season seems almost trivial in the context of the last 24 hours but that was definitely the best we have played in a while and something to work with going into Saturday. Like you, I am dreading when Goodwillie makes an appearance, things will definitely turn nasty. Already heard some young guy at the back shouting his name at the end of the game to get a reaction and it will turn poisonous with more people involved and tensions running high. Impressed with Connolly and Cameron for QOS. The latter had little quality service to work with but made the most every ball put forward in his general direction and bullied Musonda at times. Absolutely sensational strike for their third goal.

With a proper goal scorer (a non rapist one) we would have had 5/6 tonight quite easily. However, you are correct we were a shambles defensively too which was just as much of an issue. Need Berra back pronto, Musonda is all over the place and a complete shadow of his former self.