Bainsfordbairn

It was accurate at the time plans for the ground were being drawn up. The East side was to house a training technical centre of excellence, or something similar, which would be built in conjunction with Falkirk college. The blast zone rules at the time killed that idea and the new college was eventually built adjacent to the old one. The story is about 20 years out of date, at least from what I recall. You can always google old Falkirk Herald stories to get the details which might be slightly different from what I remember.

At one point there was a plan / hope that the Foundation would be able to get grants to build facilities on the other side. This was envisaged to include a small stand or standing areas which would look both ways. ie onto both the community pitch and the main one. Under this would be changing rooms and probably more office space. Whether that will ever happen - or indeed is still hoped to happen - I have no idea. At the moment there are insufficient changing rooms at TFS. There are two sets; the main ones for the professional club and a community set at the South end of the main stand. These are owned by the council. In theory two sets of changing rooms are fine as there are only two pitches. However, when the pitches are in constant use and teams will be in the changing room maybe 45 mins after fulltime and want access an hour before kickoff, there isn't enough space. Particularly as FFCs home dressing room isn't made available for community use. I'm involved with one of the Foundation teams and we regularly change in the warmup room, Foundation classroom or whatever other space we can get.

It is. I chose it because it was was taken from a cherry picker when the PA system was being renewed so it gave a higher viewpoint than would normally be available. Was one of three I took that day which give an different perspective on the stadium.

They film from the top of a scaffold tower behind the tannoy operators box. The stadium was designed for that to be the club TV position. There is no room for any other cameras on the platform, so I presume all visiting club cameras are in the back row of the main stand. The FFCTV tower has direct access to cabled broadband, power etc. I'm not so sure about the back row of the stand.

I don't know if many folk read the article rather than just looking at the pics, but it would seem there will be a heritage kit every year in the leadup to our 150th anniversary. Maybe one for each of the four quarters which make up the council badge, or possibly with things like Charlotte Dundas, and a Carronade. Either way it's excellent marketing. These will be unique and probably not repeated in the same way as the old Budvar top which had every Falkirk player on it who'd appeared at Brockville when we left the old stadium. If the club released a third strip every year they'd likely get slated but doing it this way for a limited time comes across as classy IMO.

Wow. Dropping hints about the colourscheme of an unreleased strip because you saw it (I presume) on a Prematch Ops document. I thought those were confidential. Way to go Leodhas.

He was. Luke was a prolific goalscorer and a decent player for our youth teams. At the time he became too old for the U18s there was nothing in place at FFC for him to progress further like we have now. I remember his dad having a real go at the club and the setup on one of the FB pages at the time. He subsequently signed for Alloa. No idea whether he's still there and out on loan, or has been released.

We have two part-time media officers. One is currently on holiday, the other was doing video analysis yesterday because the employee who normally does it was abroad with the SFA covering a Scotland youth team. The MO who eventually got the highlights up probably spent most of his night doing match analysis for the gaffer.

They did. They quoted facts and figures which will be available to anyone who listens to the podcast again. I can't remember what they were and can't be bothered checking, but my abiding memory of that podcast was the BOD members reaction when he was asked the question. He was surprised how good the deal was, which suggested that he, like most of us, assumed we were getting screwed. Evidently that's not the case. The stadium size for me is about right. It holds around 8,000 and we have a normal home support of around half that. For big games it can rise to 5K+ and if the opposition are decent we're not far off a sellout.

I can't think of any Falkirk player who had a contract with a release clause for the last six months of it. The ones that we know about have always kicked in at the end of a season in which we failed to win promotion. The only unexpected losses we tend to get in January are planned season-long loans, as those almost always have a release clause for the January window.

Having read the AGM notes carefully, I suspect this is the final push and if it fails then it won't be raised again. "At present it remains unclear how much appetite Falkirk fans have for making fan ownership work for our club. There’s clearly some appetite – around 15% of our core support is currently participating in fan-funding – and the club is hugely grateful to all fans who have supported the initiative so far. However, there’s no way of knowing whether we’ve now reached peak appetite or whether there’s still capacity for further growth. We must therefore use sign-ups between now and December as a gauge and plan accordingly going forward." For me the last sentence is the crucial part. I read that as inferring that if the money raised by FSS doesn't increase significantly by the end of the year then the board will have to go down a different route. What route that will be remains unknown. I suspect the most likely options are seeking external investment, going part-time, approaching the former MSG or crossing our fingers and hoping that we get promotion this season.

No-one yet, but he said that some players are free to do so in January. I'm paraphrasing slightly here, but it was along the lines of: "I know Cal Morrison's agent and he's not talking to me, so I'm sure he's out there talking to someone else. And at the moment I can't offer him anything so why wouldn't he?"

TJ is a goalkeeper. He and Sam Gardener tend to alternate as starting keeper with the U18s any time I see them.

I wouldn't want to put pressure on the kids by naming them on a public forum. but yes some of them looked very good. In terms of breakthroughs, if you mean first team then probably not. I've been watching Scott Honeyman for two years since he played in the first "new" academy game as a U16 player in August 21. He only signed a professional contract (as a modern apprentice) in the summer and he's currently on loan at the Shire. He's a very good player and I have high hopes that he and others may be regular starters for our first team in the future, but he's a wee bit away from that yet. Maybe next season for him and Rhys in particular. Or maybe after January? Who knows. If he's not going to break through in 2023 then neither will a 16/17 year old schoolboy who started tonight and is currently playing as an unpaid amateur. There's definite potential in a few of them though.

I turned up on Sunday for my first 18s game in ages, as I don't often get the chance to see them as my Sundays are spent with the womens team. I barely recognised them as there's been a bit of a cull at some point and most of the players were new to me. They were really impressive. Passed the ball quickly and accurately and never stopped running. It was the same tonight. Livvy were bigger, stronger and had more of the ball, but they were restricted to very few chances. And on the few occasions they did get through. our goalie was excellent and stopped everything they had to offer. Both Paul Smith and John McGlynn were watching and will probably already have their eyes on some of these boys for apprenticeships next season.

In his head. He's a windup merchant who posts shite to get a reaction. Just look at his posting history.

That was one of my issues with the decision to close the academy. I don't think anyone would have argued that we weren't in a financial position to run a full scale operation. Particularly with what I believe were increasingly demanding requirements to remain at the elite level. But why couldn't have we have run something less, rather than close everything, generate masses of bad publicity and completely destroy our reputation? Something like we have right now? Particularly as there were stories at the time of wealthy fans being prepared to keep the academy going while they downsized?

That's an interesting observation, and not one I think I've heard before other than hints from the FFC board who decided to pull out of the academy. Would you like to expand on it, or maybe give some facts and figures to explain your reasoning?

We have a fulltime sports science person, although technically his job title is "Head of Performance". He also does a number of other tasks. The difference is we only have one such person & physio, whereas clubs with full academies, reserve teams, youth teams etc will have several. There are a number of academy staff at Falkirk but they're all part time as we only have two teams in the U16s and U18s.

I haven't a clue. She was there when I took the staff photo with the gaffers MOTM on Tuesday morning. We only have the one physio so I'm assuming she's found a role elsewhere which pays more and has handed in her notice. Shame as she's a really nice girl who's liked by everyone. We have lost someone to Livi. Erin who does sports science for the academy on a part-time basis qualified from Uni and got a fulltime role at Almondvale.

Thanks for all of that, and I'm sure everyone at the club including the staff whose wages you're helping to pay appreciate it. Can I make an observation about fans spending money that I don't think has been put forward yet? Every time someone buys a strip, books hospitality or takes a sponsorship it helps massively. Before launching these things the club make an educated guess as to how many will be purchased. They then build that assumption into the budget and if they get it right we don't make a loss at financial year end. What these purchases do is help FFC meet their targets and pay current bills, such as player and staff salaries. Joining FSS is slightly different. When you join you’re basically making a promise that you’ll spend money in the future. Buying strips or merchandise are a help, but until you walk into the shop and pull out your credit card the club have no idea if they’ll receive your cash. So like cup runs, their assumptions are conservative because if they get it wrong and spend money they don’t receive we’ll be bankrupt. Whereas joining FSS lets the club budget for the future. Because they know the money will come in next season, so they can make offers to players who’ll be out of contract long before summer arrives and next years budget is finalised. (As budgets can’t be confirmed until we know what league we’ll be in.) If you have a spare £200 that you’re going to spend on the club, don’t buy strips or hospitality. Join the FSS. Because by doing so you’re making an ongoing commitment which is far more helpful than one-off sales.

Sorry, but that's complete and utter nonsense. I'm not a patron, but if I were and I'd scraped together a spare 10K I'd be seriously pissed off if someone posted on a message board that my group of 20 people had to match what was being raised by 750. Or 1200. Or 2000. Please get this "others need to do more" idea in the bin. FSS are the only group which was set up to provide CONTINUAL, ONGOING funding. Because it's the only group that's open to thousands of us and allows a level of donation which most will be able to afford. In my eyes it's up to all of us, as fans and members, to do what we can to help the FSS grow. We either find a way to make it work or give up and look for external investment.

The fans DO own the club. Apart from the Rawlins, I wouldn't think there's a single shareholder who's not a fan. The fact that wealthier ones have their own shares doesn't matter IMO. (thinking about the former MSG members here) They're not using those shares to block anything that FSS wants to do. They're not involved in making decisions and have no input at board level. I think everyone on the board is an FSS member. The fans own the club and work together to run it. That's the important thing in my eyes, not a 25% figure which doesn't have any impact on the board or decision-making structure.

The FSS email to the members tonight shows they're donating £104K PA, which translates into 80K after the government loan repayment. And is confirmed by the club statement of a projected 327K operating loss. So fan ownership has reduced the gap by slightly less than a quarter in a season where there are no expected big away supports and no cup runs. Hardly "no progress". As for when people will accept it, that depends on the circumstances. We're not there yet, as your current -5 reputation for that post shows. It seems the majority of people who post on here are still behind fan ownership.

Is the three legged stool still a thing? You'll know better than me, but I wouldn't have thought the likes of Sandy Alexander / Martin Ritchie were involved now and we're obviously not seeking external investment atm. That just leaves patrons and FSS. I have no idea who all the patrons are or their financial circumstances, but I wouldn't have thought someone who's already put in 10K would be expected to do it again. Whereas a guy putting in a tenner a month can do it for years to come. Albeit some of the patrons did put in more cash to buy shares recently, which resulted in all sorts of wild theories about their motives. In my eyes patrons and FSS are the same thing: ordinary fans who give what they can to help the club they love. I kind of think of it as a one-legged stool nowadays. Am I wrong?