Raith Against The Machine

"The club's fine, and we're definitely not desperate for cash. Just give me £2 and I'll explain the whole situation..."

It sounds like GM started his company (The Stadia Group? Something like that) with the idea of taking ownership of a lot of grounds in Scotland and then using expertise to generate extra income and reduce costs by routing them all through his company, with most of this money going to the clubs and some coming back to him as profit. On the face of it, it's actually not a horrible idea. Convincing clubs to part with their own grounds is a massive ask though, and I imagine you'd need at least four or five grounds on board before you started to see benefits across the board. Of course, it helps to get the ball rolling if you happen to be majority shareholder of a club that owns its own stadium...

Okay, I give in, could someone PM me too please? This is ridiculous

Has anyone heard any rumours concerning cracks in the South Stand? My Dad's just texted to ask and I can't say that I have. Don't know if it's just someone mischief making or something more serious.

'Note to self re: being The Fonz. Mark, you are not The Fonz.'

I'd really like someone to tell me a story about a football club (that is definitely NOT Dunfermline Athletic) and maybe include some themes about recent developments in, say, an ongoing financial saga?

"f**k" That bothers me. Those two wee asterisks. Not just on this website, in general. I don't have too much of a problem with "****"; if you're going to censor a word then do it properly. But dropping the middle two letters is utterly pointless. Is there anyone who doesn't know exactly what that means? Although, in saying that, I do prefer it to people taking daft routes to try and avoid the wee swear filter. "Fvck" and "Fukk" and the like. Ridiculous.

"It'd have to be a fucking good poster to get this dog back."

"Who do you think I am, Jeremy? Some sort of dog-murdering, mafia-man?"

I've got the week off work, I think I might back-to-back every single Peep Show episode in preparation for this. "I've accidentally run to Windsor!"

I'm amazed at the number of deid grandparents that read Facebook.

No, we're through to the next round of the Scottish Cup because we beat Airdrie. I'm really not sure what you're point is here.

f**k you, Bush.

Is there a jet wash in Stirling? Or failing that, somewhere I can go along and have some fella wash the car. I don't trust those big carwash b*****ds. Like something out of an (admittedly very low budget) horror film.

Did the Rovers do half season tickets last year? I've just changed jobs and would be in a position to partake around about Christmas if they're on offer again.

I imagine we're looking at Mensing into the back in place of Hill and Stuart Anderson into Mensing's role as the more defensive of the two central midfielders. Hamill will almost certainly take Walker's place in the 11, and it's anybody's choice as to how you spread Hamill, Grant Anderson and Smith across the two wings and the central attacking role. If it was me, I'd straight swap Hamill for Walker in the centre. If Thomson has hit the suspension limit then Donaldson is his natural replacement.

Is it just me, or does this "Wraith Rovers" thing look like the biggest crock of shit ever?

Has anyone used Black Circles to get themselves new tyres? I fancy getting myself some decent tyres for a change and I've heard good things. Alternative suggestions welcome...

Those six are all currently active, and at least a couple have undergone name changes at various times. Four years ago, the Trust had a go at explaining the situation here and most of it is still pretty accurate, although there have been changes since then. I might get onto the Trust actually, see if they and the club can have a go at updating that article.

I'll say one thing... if you'd like to waste several hours and be utterly fucking confused then try to understand the ownership structures of Raith Rovers and its various companies. If you think that having a separate company to run your youth set-up and commercial income is complicated, try to organise the following: Raith Rovers Football Club Limited Stark's Park Ltd Raith Rovers FC Holdings Limited Stark's Park Properties Ltd New Raith Rovers Limited NRR Investments Limited

In the interests of fairness, I was going to compare and contrast with the Rovers for the same year, but there's different information available. For example, there's no details on wages, salaries or number of employees for the Rovers, but there is a list of shareholders, which there isn't for any of the Pars-related companies.

It's not much to go on without context, but just while I'm having a wee look at the accounts, for the same year, directors took £47,000 out of the club.

Either it's a hell of a coincidence, or someone has just pulled that figure straight from the accounts to year end 31/05/2011.

It would appear so. To continue the goalkeeper discussion... I don't think there's any chance of Laidlaw keeping his place, and I'm of the opinion that that is entirely correct. If you've got two experienced keepers then you can keep one in place until he makes a mistake, but when you've got your Number One and an understudy then I think it's only right that the former regains his place, without trouble, once he's fit again.

The biggest problem we had that season, budget wise, was down to the fact nobody thought we'd get close to winning anything. The players win bonuses for individual games were significant and we won twice as many games as we thought we would, without actually winning anything at the end of the season to pay for them. The board were pretty open about that. Our overspend that season wasn't down to a title-chase, it was the exact opposite!