Bainsfordbairn

I might get in trouble for posting this, but a couple of years have gone by now so I think it's time for the story to be told. Gary Holt was appointed DOF on 14th Jan 2021. The leagues had been suspended sometime after our loss to East Fife on 2nd January because of covid. The team were allowed to train before the league resumed on 20th March and during that period we had a trialist goalkeeper - Luke Holt. Nobody knew about him because professional football was in lockdown and fans couldn't get into matches, but I saw him a couple of times when I was asked to cover training and closed-door games. He wasn't signed. I don't know why, but I'd guess the goalie coach didn't rate him.. In April we lost our top-of-the-league spot after a truly horrendous game in Peterhead. I was there to watch it and it's one of the worst performances I've ever seen from a Falkirk side. Unsurprisingly, given the social media comments at the time, Miller and McCracken were sacked the next day. What WAS surprising was that the goalie coach was also sacked, given that he'd been there a long time and was very well liked by everyone at the club. As all Bairns will know, that season ended extremely badly. Summer of 2021 brought us a new hope. Paul Sheerin was appointed, as was a new goalie coach who knew Gary Holt from their Livingston days together. He was only there a month, but it was long enough to presumably recommend that a returning trialist goalie - Luke Holt - was good enough to get a two year contract. I leave you to draw your own conclusions. The ironic thing is that I found Luke to be a nice lad. I liked him, as did several of the volunteers who were around the club and spoke to him frequently. He didn't deserve the horrendous abuse which he received from some of our fans. But he should never have been signed.

Normally the stands are cleaned between games but with the two days after the match being Hogmanay and NYD, I'd guess the cleaners had something better to do those days.

Literally EVERYONE at the stadium was working on the surface. Manager, Asst Manager, CEO, BOD members, kitman, backroom staff, media staff. The whole club were pulling together. I turned up at 1240 but couldn't do anything as there were no spare snow shovels. I approached McGlynn and offered to take his shovel so he could do something more important and he told me where to go.

Current forecast is for it to turn to rain by one. In theory two hours of rain should clear the pitch. The question is how long do the club give it before making a decision? Because any late call-off will lead to the inevitable barrage of criticism. I guess the best option is to wait for the ref to turn up and then it's up to him.

The impression I've always had right from day one is that the only investment is from the fans. Not unless someone external wants to join up, donate some cash and do it without getting a majority shareholding in return. The only alternative is to abandon the current ownership model. I assume that idea has no support from the fanbase given that there's no clamour for it, almost a thousand people are currently backing the status quo with monthly donations and the only negative voices are a few anonymous posters on here. I'd hope the BOD have a Plan B if things go badly in May. As the alternative might be part-time football next season. But right now, when the team are doing so well and giving us all hope, I'm not sure why you're expecting investment news. The owners - the fans - are already investing what they can.

The club could certainly offer that, though I have no idea whether they would. However, let's say your theory is accurate and it would cost us (picking a number out of thin air here) an extra twenty grand out of this years budget. That twenty grand would pay for an extra player this season. A player who might make the difference between us getting promoted or not. If we get promoted, we'll be playing in front of bigger crowds so presumably bigger salaries and win bonuses for the players next season. A season that Hendo will have committed to if he signs an extension in January. So it's in his own interests for us to go up. Were I in his shoes, I'd be telling FFC to pay me that twenty grand in June. Out of next seasons budget. I'm guaranteed to get the money anyway, but deferring payment gives me a greater chance of increasing my income next year. TBH though, my suspicion is it's unlikely we'll be doing extensions until we know what league we'll be in. McGlynn told us (I think at the AGM) that if we don't go up the likes of Spencer will not be here to complete the second year of their contract. So if the Spencers, Langs, Millers et al can all walk in the summer if we fail, presumably to protect us financially if we have to go part-time, I can't see anyone getting an extension in January. Particularly on an increased salary. Not unless the FSS number are big enough by then to sustain a fulltime budget in league one for next season. Or the board have something else up their sleeve. We shall see.

Err, no they wouldn't. Promising to keep on paying Finn Yeats / Call Morrison after their contracts expire in May won't cost anything until June, which would come from next years budget.

We played Woking in a preseason friendly 2014. They were English nonleague at the time (probably still are?). I remember speaking to one of our officials afterwards and he said that their budget blew ours out of the water several times over.

Leaving out the "tapping up" aspect of the alleged approach, that's pretty unprofessional from your DOF. Assuming it's true of course. It's not a good look for a club official to give out what is obviously confidential information concerning another club. When he was in charge at Falkirk, Peter Houston was asked at a fan forum about the possibility of us going for Stephen Dobbie. Houstie responded by telling the room what Dobbie's salary was and the QOTS fans on P&B went nuts about it afterwards. Even though he was basically explaining why Dobbie was beyond our reach. Football clubs know a lot more about opposing dressing rooms than most fans would believe. But it's not really the done thing to put that knowledge out in public. If your DOF did, then I'd suggest it was an error of judgement on his part. As to whether the story is actually true, I have no idea. We'll all know for certain once the January window closes.

A year or two back, that comment would have likely been aimed at Morrison. As he was easily our best player and the only one who could create something out of nothing. He's scored a few crackers this season, such as the third goal against you last week and his last-minute winner against Montrose. He's superb on his game, but can be inconsistent as he proved today by not doing anything particularly special against Annan. Whereas we now have so many other good players who can step up and contribute instead of always relying on just the one creator. As today showed when we scored two absolute peaches - from our each of our centre halves. One of whom has that in his locker as it's not the first time he's done it. And we have a very strong bench. If we lose one player in January - which I think you're insinuating - it should make very little difference to us, And I'm not so sure we'll lose anyone as whoever you're referring to has a very good chance of picking up a medal at the end of the season.

Last time I was at your ground it pished down. The forecast says more of the same tomorrow. Does the sun ever shine in Annan?

They've been doing that since (I think) 2014. Albeit they didn't get into the ward in 2020, 2021 and 2022, probably because of covid. Massive shout out to the nurses and the NHS in general. I met the ward sister on our first visit and it was great to see her again on Monday, nine years later. No matter who the players or management are they're always very good with the kids, as anyone who's attended the junior bairns training days will know. But the real heroes are the nurses. They do an amazing job.

Matty was up there recording the video analysis for the manager, though that type of recording tends to be very wide so that you can see patterns of play and individual player positions. Which often makes it unsuitable for match highlights. The players look like stick insects when shot so wide. I have no idea whether they would redo it or not. I don't think Hamilton release a video package for games.

Not for me. The YT video is at 1080, which is high resolution by their standards. I don't think I've seen any YT video at higher resolution, though it's not my area of expertise so I'm happy to be corrected. I assume the Alloa TV guy who posts on here and seems to know his stuff may have an opinion. And yes, it's disappointing that he didn't get the ball flying into the net. However, we've now scored 53 competitive goals this season and I don't think the camera operator has missed any others. The camera decided to go "techie" at the wrong time for one of our goals at Cove but that's hardly his fault. It's the same old story when you're involved with a high profile organisation like a football club. No-one is perfect and everyone makes mistakes, which I assume that was. When you get it right, no-one remembers. But when you get it wrong, no-one forgets.

Unfortunately she was ill and couldn't make it.

Injured.

It caused literally thousands of people massive inconvenience because they had to make what was an unnecessary visit to the club shop when they could have been doing other things. Not everyone lives five minutes from the stadium. Never mind Falkirk having to open the shop for longer hours than normal, all of which costs money. You may have told us it would happen - and Falkirk expected it - but until your club confirmed the presence of a pay gate everyone had to jump through hoops to get tickets. Hardly a big fuss about nothing.

We have something roughly similar, in that we're tenants in our ground and have our own stadium company to deal with, which is owned by the local council. The difference is that we seem to have a good relationship with them, at least to judge by multiple statements made by our current BOD. Genuinely curious about your situation. How can an external body have an input in ticketing? We own or have century-long leases on all the seating areas, even though some of the floors below them are owned by the stadium company. So nobody else has control of our tickets. And despite the lunatic ravings of one of our regular posters on here, it doesn't matter even if the stadium owner has "utter contempt for football fans". Because we own or have secure rights over the parts we need to run a football club. Which from your post, and seeing what happened to Clyde, obviously isn't the case elsewhere. Maybe some of our boards past and present have done better that they're given credit for. I may be opening a can of worms by asking the question, but what exactly is the position with your stadium?

It's safe to go in, as per the announcement from the stadium company earlier today. If it weren't the team wouldn't have been allowed to train there this morning Facebook

I would say it's the best plan, if it can be made to work. Surely as fans we want to be the only people in control of the club? The alternative is inviting in folk like Mark Campbell, George Fulton or Hamish Deans. If you're old enough to remember the last two names you'll know how well they worked out for us. I would be great if we could have well-off local people investing in the club as part of the third leg of the stool. But if none of them are coming forward to chuck in a few hundred thousand, then it's up to the fans. Which means FSS.

I don't pay much attention to the midweek training sessions because I'm usually sitting inside waiting for the players to finish up so they can do commercial things, school visits or pick up awards. I'm sure I've seen him recently doing Saturday warmups though. I'll ask the question next time I'm in if no-one else answers first.

The clause was inserted by the CEO. The manager he appointed two months later decided not to enforce it the following summer. Nothing to do with the club IMO, unless we're reopening the debate about whether a board should interfere in a managers football decisions.

Most managers won't keep a player who'ld rather be elsewhere. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any Falkirk player post-Bosman who was forced to see out their contract against their wishes. Maybe in the last six months of their contract if they're considered useful injury cover, such as Liam Craig when Martin Rennie was allegedly interested. But not for a first team player with a year still to go.

I can probably clear that one up, given that it’s old news now. The story is false. Sibbalds contract was up in the summer of 2017. He was 22, had just won player of the year and had seen the likes of McGrandles, Fulton, Wallace & Kingsley move on to better things. Not unreasonably, he wanted to do the same. But there was no interest in him from anywhere that he wanted to go. I think there was an offer from Sweden which didn't appeal and he went on trial at Luton, but no offer was made. Any buying club would have had to pay us compensation. In the end his best option was to sign another contract at Falkirk. It was a one year deal with a one year option. That option lay with the club. He struggled at first in 17/18, as many of our players did, but he kicked on after Hartley arrived and finished the season as one of our better players. In the summer of 2018 the club could have compelled him to stay another year, but he preferred to leave and Hartley didn’t want anyone at FFC who wasn't fully committed. There were stories being made online at the time that the club had screwed up the paperwork and our option had lapsed. That wasn't true. The football admin person at the time was a close friend of mine and he vehemently denied it, and he was backed up by several directors and staff whom I spoke to afterwards. He simply got an offer which gave him a chance to showcase his talents on a bigger stage. And undoubtedly for more money. He would have been a fool to refuse, even though he’s a genuine Falkirk fan. Eventually the day comes when you have to put your own interests first, just as Crunchie did when he signed for Chelsea.