[Clyde FC; Season 2022-23]

I'd rather the club had a set up giving the ability to pay standing order donations. I'd happily set one up paying regularly into the club an amount of my choosing.
 
Asking for £30/month means that fans unable to pay that much feel they'll be unable to help.
 
Allow fans to contribute when they can to an amount they are comfortable with.
 
I also liked the idea of £100 towards the season ticket and the balance (if any) when the league starts.
 

The £100 down payment on a season ticket would give the club some money initially but not so much on an ongoing basis. What if there is no football until January for example.

I was thinking of some kind of ongoing scheme to keep cash flowing in. I’m sure some people would be happy to donate monthly regardless but if something could be given back as a thank you that might encourage more people on board.

I agree with your point on a minimum amount putting people off though.

Maybe it could be like a ‘virtual season ticket’.
Eg donation received:
£15-£29, 1 virtual match attended, choose tier 1 reward.
£30-£44, 2 virtual matches attended, choose tier 2 reward.
And so on....

Each month you could receive an email with a certificate of how many virtual matches you attended, plus claim your reward based on this. Then refresh/change the rewards each month.

Would that appeal more widely than just a blind donation?

[Clyde FC; Season 2022-23]

The club might not be in a position to sell season tickets anytime soon due to uncertainty around when or if next season will take place.

However, what about some kind of loyalty/reward scheme.

Fans could pay a minimum of £30 a month and gradually build up rewards based on the number of payments made (or maybe cash amount targets hit).

Rewards could start off low like free programme voucher, £5 off match entry voucher, free child season ticket. Could then build up to things like free items from club shop, 1 free match entry, free football shirt etc.

The more contributions the better the rewards you are eligible for.

Just an idea, far from a complete proposal, but what do people think on how feasible / likely to benefit the club such a scheme would be?

[The SPFL recommendation?]

I'm not really comfortable seeing clubs relegated from this. I would have liked to have thought a more simple solution could have been found to promote the sides from 1st and 2nd place in the leagues and save the relegated sides. 
The proposal put forward was fucking wild. Effectively promoting average mid table sides and effectively punishing teams who weren't sitting in relegation places. Kind of flied in the face of the whole "no team should be worse off" and was interesting to see a bit more silence from fans who would have seen their club benefit from that than we saw about a month ago. 
I don't know how much people really care about reconstruction. This was going to be done to save Hearts. And in my opinion there could have been an easier way to do it than propose such a weird league structure. 
All that being said, Stranraer were fucking terrible and were getting relegated if the season had finished. I understand the sporting integrity argument, but surely nobody can stand up and seriously argue that they were going to stay up. 
 

They were absolutely guaranteed their third league win of the season on the weekend fixtures were first called off.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

St Johnstone havent finished in the bottom 4 of the top flight since their relegation in the early 00s m8, spent more time in the top half than bottom in the last 11 years.

Give it time, with Tommy Wright away now I’ll bet you are wishing for a bigger top flight before too long.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

Aberdeen, St Mirren, St Johnstone, Ross County, Hibernian and Dundee United (!) are the guilty clubs according to the BBC.

What doesn’t make sense to me is that at least 4 of those clubs have a more than realistic chance of being in the bottom 6 of a 12 team league and at risk of relegation any given season.

Surely increasing the league to 14 gives you more of a buffer against relegation and a chance to consolidate as a top tier side.

Surely maintaining long term top flight status is more financially beneficial than the short term season by season how much cash can we leach from the old firm approach.

[The Falkirk FC Thread]

"Ah, you want to hire the stadium for a Scottish Cup replay in 3 days? Please fill out this form in triplicate 28 days in advance of your intended booking"
"A re-scheduled match on a Tuesday night? Sorry, the Polmont junior ladies team are training that night"

It was a similar match day access only arrangement we had in place at the time that led to the absolute embarrassment of having to rearrange an important playoff match due to a BMX tournament at the stadium.

[Clyde FC; Season 2022-23]

No, cove are coming up, stranraer are going down.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

 

 

And some people on here really thought that league reconstruction was possible? How naive can you get? That duplicitous toad Doncaster shitting all over us yet again.

As much as I have sympathy for some of those clubs I would rather teams in relegation positions went down and teams not in automatic spots didn’t go up if the only other option was relegating clubs NOT in relegation places to shoehorn in a 14-14-14.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

Why are Premiership clubs getting the blame? They were open to reconstruction and expansion of divisions. 

6 premier league clubs coming out and saying they wouldn’t back ANY form of reconstruction at this time doesn’t really suggest they were open to it.

[Clyde FC; Season 2022-23]

At the very least we should be demanding a substantial compensation package to try and lessen the financial impact and allow us to challenge better.

Longer term you would like to think we could establish ourselves in the second tier far more easily than under the current setup.

However, getting out of that bottom 14 would not be easy as cove & kelty seem to have money to burn. QP seem to have some financial backing now too plus teams like Peterhead and Forfar who are similar strength to ourselves. Getting stuck down there for another long spell would be soul destroying and isn’t a gamble we should be having to take if ‘fairness for all’ is being applied.

[Clyde FC; Season 2022-23]

McStay, Grant, Lamont, Syvertsen It would apply to. 
 
For me only grant and mcstay would be worth a decent development fee. I don’t even know what the going rate for that is? Would it net us 10k each? If so could be worthwhile - especially if they’re off and going to reject it anyway which I expect Grant will.  Not made my mind up on What I think mcstay will do yet. 

On the other hand if they accept that’s more players we are paying with limited income. Would love to keep grant, possibly Mcstay and lamont but can’t see it in current climate. Imagine we will want as little outgoings as possible.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

Glass half empty [emoji106]

Clyde ahead of peterhead. Cove be a challenge, are kelty that much of a challenge? Don't think so

The fact they can throw cash about to sign players from the championship would suggest they will be a problem.

Barry Ferguson is a shite manager but their cheque book will be hard to compete against.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

It's never £4 for a burger at Peterhead. Especially for Clyde fans, they get them for free.

#burgergate

[Clyde FC; Season 2022-23]

Contracts will be up at the end of the month anyway will they not? 
 
For what it’s worth, I think we should at least be offering The better players that are under 23 a contract the same as what they’re on just now (grant, mcstay) I’d say it’s unlikely grant will stay anyway but at least it would make us entitled to a development fee if they decide to leave. 

Can’t see us offering any contracts just now until there is more clarity. When the league is going to start and what level of opposition we will be facing has a huge impact on the budget.

I’m sure we will keep the 6 or 7 under contract and wait to see what happens.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

52 games a season seriously???
No way it would be 39 or 32.3 times a season tops.

Obviously we won’t have 52 games. I would imagine there will be 26 games and then a split.

If not, the other option of playing 3 times is even worse.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

Agreed about 14-14-16..that is just vile.14-14-14 isnt perfect but its probably the best of what there is.Even if i prefer 18-12-12.I know its no gonnae happen but still...playig 4 times a season is just tiresome.

In a 14-14-14 setup you will still be playing teams 4 times so would be as well leaving it as it is.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

I was originally for this, now i'm not convinced of the case to promote Kelty and Brora.
Just leave it as is.

You shouldn’t need to be convinced of the case to promote them.

Does the premier league need convinced of the case to promote Dundee United? No, they won the tier below, you get promoted. That’s kind of how a pyramid system works.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

Promoted along side Brechin who were fighting relegation all season, sounds fair.

They spend a small fortune to cake walk the league and turns out it’s all for nothing. Pleasing in a way....

[The SPFL recommendation?]

Cove will be promoted.  They will be in tier 3 next year instead of the tier 4 this season. 

They are still in the bottom tier of the SPFL, one tier above the highland league and with all the same clubs they played last season, some of whom they beat by cricket scores. I’m not sure that will seem like much of a promotion.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

It's clearly not just to save Hearts. If 14/14/16 gets voted through it'll require 75% of clubs to vote for it. Why would all those clubs only care about not relegating Hearts?

If 100% of clubs don’t vote in favour then it has failed to meet the ‘nobody is disadvantaged’ criteria stated by the working group.

Although we all know what they really meant is nobody important is disadvantaged.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

Reports that the preferred option is 14-14-16 with Brora & Kelty Hearts into bottom tier.

 

So not only are Clyde and others relegated to the bottom tier and Cove Rangers not promoted, prize money will be divided by 44 instead of 42.

 

All to save Hearts from one season in the championship.

 

 

On reflection cove are probably quite happy. Their path to the second tier is significantly easier than it would have otherwise been. Plus being new members of the SPFL they won’t have the same ‘repetition fatigue’ issues with playing mainly the same sides again.

 

Unfortunately ourselves, Peterhead and Forfar are getting absolutely screwed. Stranraer less so as they have been abysmal, but why should hearts and thistle escape relegation and not Stranraer. (Before someone claims otherwise it’s a relegation on all but paper).

 

Sadly I can’t see enough teams objecting to kick this into touch. Our best hope is premier league teams but an increased buffer from relegation (14 teams instead of 12) will probably be enough to sway most of them in favour.

 

There should be financial compensation (parachute payment style) made available to Clyde, Peterhead and Forfar as a result of this, which I won’t hold me breath for but definitely something we should pursue.

 

Automatic relegation from bottom tier is a must too.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

It's always been thus.
Not remember Derek Johnstone and Jim Craig on Friday night Sportscene back around 1990 FFS.

Derek Johnstone could be the worst I’ve ever seen. I used to watch ‘Football First’ a lot in the early 00’s for our highlights and he was terrible. Came across as totally wooden and like he was reading the autocue constantly. Didn’t have a clue about players at that level either, the show was riddled with mistakes, embarrassing stuff.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

I suggested something in an earlier post re keeping playoffs in place and rather than it involving the second bottom team, making the bottom team playoff against the teams in positions 2-4 in the divisions below.

But the bottom teams place in the division has already been taken by the champions of the league below. So you would end up with 1 extra team from your playoff winner.

Eg raith are promoted.
Thistle, Falkirk, airdrie, Montrose playoff for a promotion slot. We now have 11 teams in the championship.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

They don’t , three leagues have teams at the top but NOT champions just as the leagues have teams at the bottom but NOT relegated.

But as things stand thistle and Stranraer ARE relegated. The only way this will not happen is through reconstruction. If nothing can be agreed you’re down.

[The SPFL recommendation?]

What happens at the end of next season if Clyde aren't above Falkirk and Airdrie/Montrose/East Fife/ Dumbarton?   Another vote for something else?

 

Obviously not, this isn’t about Clyde, it’s about knowing what your playing for in advance of the season starting. If Clyde are towards the bottom of league one next season under my proposal and slipped into the bottom tier we could have zero complaints. The lines in the sand were clear from the off.

 

That’s massively different to what’s being suggested now using this aborted seasons standings to craft new leagues in retrospect.

 

The rest of your post was a bit of a word salad to be honest but a couple of points I would raise.

 

1. I am well aware of the financial repercussions of expanding the top flight and haven’t suggested expanding it beyond 14 at any time.

 

2. You do realise that not all our leagues need to be exactly the same size. We could easily have an 18 team middle or bottom tier in a 3 league system.