capt_oats

It's Ewan McVicar's da

I suppose for balance it's worth pointing out he was at Netflix when they did the Juventus series in 2018. He's quoted about it in the article below: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/juventus/news/netflix-set-to-launch-juventus-documentary-series-in-2018/1abhdnfbb4c3l1u4w3sv7ir5xm

There you go. $14.54B https://companiesmarketcap.com/netflix/total-debt/#:~:text=Total debt on the balance,current and non-current debts.

I doubt it. The Wrexham thing is just a pretty obvious link for clicks. See also the Record calling him a 'mogul' he was an employee of two admittedly very large companies (and very successful with it by all accounts). It's worth mentioning that Weir was quite open at the AGM in saying that the deal on offer wasn't 'transformational'. If you actually look at the content his production company puts out it's generally originals from non-US territories LatAm, Scandinavia, India. His focus seems to have been developing international content and placing them with streamers eg: Amazon, Netflix. The question remains as to what he'd actually be getting out of it but I very much doubt it has anything to do with a documentary. I mean, for a start he wouldn't need to purchase a stake in the club to do that - the folk that made Sunderland Til I Die weren't obligated to buy into that particular shitshow. They just made the series. I clocked your post on Steelmen just there but seeing as I don't post there I thought I'd chip in here. He was Senior Director at ESPN in Business Development for 6 years so there's your sports angle. Again, as @Handsome_Devil mentioned when the name first appeared on the thread, and this is possibly what you were getting at, there's no history of him having been involved in an actual sports team before. Which tbh, I take as a good thing - his background is almost entirely business development rather than seemingly wanting to own a football club. I don't know if you're being facetious about the contacts book thing but he wrote a book, published by Simon and Schuster in 2006 called Why Fantasy Football Matters: (And Our Lives Do Not). What's interesting about that is that it was co-written with Max Handelman - who is Max Handelman you might ask? As well as being a sports writer he's also Elizabeth Banks' husband and partner in Brownstone Productions who produced the Pitch Perfect series, the Charlie's Angels Kristen Stewart re-boot, Cocaine Bear and Bottoms amongst others. Long and the short of it their estimated net worth according to the internet is $50m. I mean, it's not them who are investing but taking things at face value Barmack seems to be an actual, real person rather than a Walter Mitty type of the Craig Whyte 'wealth off the radar' school. I guess one of the criticisms of the board/club over the past while is that it's been populated mainly by...erm, old men whose business experience is on the traditional side. I'll admit that I'd be quite curious to see what inserting someone who has held senior positions at companies such as ESPN and Netflix might bring to the club in terms of approach to infrastructure etc especially since his business is literally doing deals on an international platform. Again, you have to ask the question what he'd actually be getting out of it though. Probably aye.

The latest last resort (according to The Sun…f**k The Sun) is behind closed doors in Airdrie on Monday at 3pm.

It’s the Netflix guy that was mentioned on here ages ago and was the offer that seemed to be preferred at the AGM. I see Bret Easton Ellis is following him on IG (as is Dee, which is more pertinent to this thread I guess).

I'd be lying if I said I'd been keeping up to date with the pitch chat through the day but while I get that the inspection being held today seems a bit pointless I guess if it had failed earlier then there would have been a push to discuss alternate venues given forecasts and what not. I suppose it passing today and them working towards that means it's more likely just to be P-P on Saturday rather than relocated after it pishes down between now and kick off. (and also as @Ludo*1 says Dundee get to keep up appearances by showing everyone that they *really* tried)

Not that it has anything to do with Aberdeen or anything but we are kind of the opposite. I think you have to go back to the McCall era to find a Motherwell team that the 4231 worked for. We've been absolutely cursed any time we've tried it since. Hammell tried it last season and it was shambolic. Whereas variations on 352s have probably been our more successful teams - Robinson's 433 being the exception. As I say, f**k all to do with Aberdeen but I'm quite amused by the idea that certain shape work for some teams more than others.

Get him on the plane.

Good write up from McGarry about the investment stuff in his Herald mail out just there. Tbf, I realise that there's stuff that can't be commented on publicly and I wasn't expecting or asking for any sort of clarifications from @JayMFC. He's got more than enough to be doing at the moment than replying to idiots like me running their jaws on the internet. There's a heavy Withnail & I energy about the whole thing.

Absolutely. Like, I understand that the Executive Board includes WS representatives but it seems absolutely nuts to me that we're in a position where the majority shareholder is stating that they're not involved in the negotiations. It opens up a broader series of questions eg: Did the WS instruct the whole 'investment' project? If not, who is the driver? If it's McMahon then, as you say what mandate does he have? Did the WS have any sort of veto on the video? Do the WS have any sort of input in the negotiation? Being flippant about it, it feels like we're in a position where the club has opened itself up for pitches for investment that the majority owners didn't instruct with a creative that they didn't approve and the negotiation is being entirely driven by the club chairman who is stepping down in a couple of months. I mean, I'm not suggesting anything underhand or malicious but...what?! The optics of that are mental.

This seems worth noting... I mean, I know there are reasons but it will never not seem backward to me that the Well Society Board (as an entity) is not involved in these negotiations.

I mean, ethics of taking the cash of Human Rights abusers aside, Gillespie's pretty much living the dream.

Aye. There's definitely a expectations vs reality issue here. It's impossible to tell anything from a statement that, lets face it, says very little but at this point I'm far more sceptical of McMahon's judgement than I am of the potential investor(s).

Tbh, the interesting thing about that incredibly brief statement is that it feels quite carefully worded. It's a "US based family" which seems separate to the mooted investors previously mentioned ie: it's not that Australian/Middle Eastern mob. Also, it feels relevant that the investor has "expressed his desire to work in partnership with the Well Society". Which again, given the previous offers mentioned were talking about diluting the WS ownership down below 50% - working "in partnership with" suggests a bit more balance. Then again it goes from "US based family" to the "investor" having "expressed his desire"...which is it lads? A family or a single investor?

Opponent scoring first in 68% (SIXTY EIGHT) of our games is a giggle as well. Then again, mind in Robinson's last season when he was on course to relegate us and we hadn't managed an equalising goal until January and we had a new manager. Others have mentioned it but there's definitely something to be said for the indefatigability of this group. Tbh, I wrote a big screed about Kettlewell the other day but ended up deleting it. The gist was that one of the curious things about Ketts is that where other recent managers (Robinson et al) would probably have changed something, anything in the face of a run of 1 win in 15 or whatever it was Kettlewell by and large stuck with what he was doing - he hasn't gone out to try and shitfest wins. Which ordinarily you'd expect some sort of credit to be given. The same criticism can definitely be levelled at Kettlewell as Hammell in so much as on a fundamental level he hasn't been able to fix the defensive side of things however the obvious trade off is that we were losing games under Hammell. Whereas with Ketts we simply haven't been winning but we've still been picking up points. I think it might have been @YassinMoutaouakil who mentioned this a while ago but some of the football we've played under Kettlewell in patches has been the best we've seen aesthetically probably since McCall. But it doesn't really feel like that in the grand scheme of things. Even on Saturday, a lot of our messiness on the park came from us rushing and trying a bit too hard to play football. Ironically, St Mirren's goal was a case in point, if McGinn just hoofs that ball from SOD then their goal the corner doesn't happen and they don't score. It was interesting to listen to both managers post-match interviews with Kettlewell saying he didn't think we were at it (we weren't) while Robinson's giving the same sort of patter we're all familiar with in saying it was a good performance from St Mirren. Was it? Really? I think a lot of the discourse around Kettlewell at the moment is kind of informed by how much mileage you have with him. There are plenty who have never been convinced by him and he hasn't really done enough to win them over so it's just a case of the jury being out for some. He's not the first Motherwell manager to be in this position and won't be the last. I think this season kind of comes round to a couple of points @crazylegsjoe_mfc made in a post over the weekend, specifically the below:

via https://www.soccerstats.com/team.asp?league=scotland&stats=4-motherwell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect

Me. Agreeing with every word @crazylegsjoe_mfc just wrote there.

Fair play, this is an amusingly niche stat. Moult's best league return in a full season was 15. With 7 games still to go it's not impossible that the big man matches that.

Get him on the

Not to flog this dead horse again but in a way this is why the general messaging of McMahon's video seemed ill judged given we're a fan owned club with The John Boyle Experience still in relatively recent memory. Kieran Maguire broke down the Wrexham accounts the other day and while I've no doubt that Van Wilder and Mac are good for the money presenting a scenario where there's £9m owed to the owners who are charging £8k p/w in interest as aspirational (as McMahon did - even if it was in a quirky or tongue in cheek way) definitely jars (IMO).

Aye, I mean as I said I find it interesting in that there seems to be a scramble to assign blame and I'm not posting this to be sceptical about us appointing him. It's more that it's quite a pivot from the positive noises that were coming from Shrewsbury fans when he stepped down (McGarry was talking about how beloved Caldwell seemed to be in his Herald mailout yesterday). From my POV I'm quite curious to hear from him and get a handle on how he approaches the role compared with Burrows and Weir. There's a lot of "how did this happen" Helen Lovejoy-ing in this thread on the Shrewsbury forum. https://blueandamber.proboards.com/thread/107032/accounts-due £800k increase in wages, £500k increase in "administrative costs". Again, that's interesting compared to the approach we've seen this season with Weir in the role as interim. The main gist of the rumour, innuendo and slander seems to be directed towards their former manager Steve Cotterill and Caldwell. Cotterill for running up the costs and Caldwell for signing off on it. It looks like it's been this statement from Shrewsbury's owner following Cotterill's exit that's lead their fans to jump to the conclusion that something was amiss:

I know folk are pretty much over the whole CEO/Investment chat but while admittedly very much looking at this from a distance it's been mildly interesting to see Shrewsbury fans scapegoating Ewan McVicar's Da after the £3.02m loss they've just posted for the year end when he left the club. Quite timely given he officially starts with us next week. Lots of finger pointing, rumour and blame being dished out by a support who don't seem to have worked out that lower league English football is just deeply, deeply fucked given their loss isn't anywhere close to being an outlier for their league (Oxford just posted a £6m loss) or the league below *waves at Van Wilder and Mac* and Stockport lost £4.5m. Either way it seems Shrewsbury's cash balance has gone from £1.6m to £80k. Turnover was £6.2m (which is roughly the same as our £6.4m over the same period).