Raith Against The Machine

What a great idea, I'll definitely be all over that.

I don't think we do, really. I would've thought that we'd benefit a lot more from bringing in an attacking right back rather than a defensive one. Presumably Thomson is right footed? Our midfielders have a tendency to drift inside, and with Donaldson (the current right back) being left footed, he often cuts in too. It'd be nice to see someone maybe staying a little further out on the right flank and try to put in a cross or two.

That's it now confirmed that Jason Thompson and Jonathan Stewart will be on loan until the end of the season. I think that takes us up to seven Hearts players, for the season?

I don't know if anyone's had a read through the "Dunfermline" thread in the SPL Forum, but it's damn similar to this one. With Cowdenbeath potentially homeless in the next couple of years, and East Fife being, well, East Fife, it's looking like dark times ahead for Fife's football.

Did you typo "county" there, or are they worried about a US-wide crime syndicate?

What a brilliant quick freekick!

Volley it.

Snap! Queen of the South, for their part, have won one of their last nine. As you'd expect from a relegation battle, none of us are great shakes. The games between the three sides will almost certainly decide the order of the bottom three, with each side probably scraping about 4 or 5 points in total from their other games.

That's not really the point I was making. He's not fiddling while Rome burns, you can better your bottom dollar that he's spending all the time in the world working through these problems. He's not perfect, and of course I'd rather have a lazy manager who finishes first than a hard working one who finishes second, but we don't have The Good Lazy Manager chapping the door waiting to take over the job. On a separate, but related, note, I can't help feeling that John McGlynn would get a little more slack if he was more "media-friendly". People aren't hearing or seeing much from him (it is rather annoying that when we do hear from him it's the same three or four soundbites) and it makes it easy to think that he's out of ideas or he hasn't got a plan to go forward, because he's not going on about it every Tuesday night on Sportsound. Personally, I'm much happier that he keeps himself to himself, because I know that rather than commentating on Hearts versus St Johnstone he's off watching Ayr United or taking the Reserves through a game. John McGlynn has several failings. He's not the perfect manager. With what he had last year, he did the best of any manager in Scotland. This season he's much closer to the bottom than the top, but he's still the best man for the job, in my opinion. I'm genuinely interested to hear who people would like to succeed him, particularly with an eye on the medium to long term.

I get the (depressing) feeling I'm going to make this post after a lot of losses between now and the end of the season, but I'm still putting my support fully behind John McGlynn. I think he's got his head screwed on, he's fully aware of the task at hand, and there's nobody better to take the club forward. We're almost in the situation now where the results on the pitch are second to the results on the balance sheet. It's not pretty watching the Rovers at the moment, but there's not a manager in the world who could change that. We've seen from a thousand sources that John McGlynn is one of the hardest working managers in the country, and I think hard work is just about all we can ask for at the moment. The whole club needs to be stripped back even further than it has been already, and that's not an easy job for anyone. John McGlynn is fully aware of the situation, and no doubt has plans in place. If McGlynn was sacked, the next person to take the job would have to be ridiculously brave or ridiculously stupid. "Would you like to step into this club where there is absolutely no money, no squad beyond the end of the season and that has just sacked the Manager of the Year?" You could probably find someone like Jimmy Calderwood who'd step in until the end of the season and try to keep the club up, almost for the prestige more than anything else. If he succeeds, great, if he fails, well it's not his fault the club was always doomed. There's no way he'd stay for the season after that, though, so you'd go back to trying to find a manager to take on a team with no budget and no players. Now is not the time for short-termism. We have to play the long game, and I'd much rather entrust that to John McGlynn than anyone else I can think of. Perhaps there's a standout candidate that I've overlooked, but I doubt it.

Flynn.

I do find it very odd, more than anything else. Presumably these quotes from Ally McCoist about signing him have come today, and I'm not quite sure how he can possibly still hope to sign him. There will certainly be job losses at Ibrox, and I'm sure at least a few of them could be saved with an extra £5000 a week! It's another one of these things that makes sympathy very difficult...

How come the BBC are streaming this? I thought that anyone from Rangers who spoke to the BBC was to be sacked immediately...

This is a ridiculous notion, but it's just occurred to me. In the "Rangers are liquidated and Phoenix Rangers re-apply to join the SPL" scenario, presumably other clubs apply too? I'd love to see a handful of SFL clubs make a representation to the SPL. I wonder if there are any who could garner more votes than pseudo-Rangers.

The lot of you can f**k off! Anyway, turns out it wasn't someone else who's signed for it, it was the driver signing it to say it didn't have to be signed for... So I've still got no idea where my fucking jeans are. Rant rant rant.

I had a pair of jeans delivered to my parents' house on Monday, and I've just found out they never arrived. I checked the parcel tracker, and some thieving c**t has signed for them.

Shares in Raith Rovers being worth something? This I gotta see!

What Scottish football needs, and it'll never happen for a multitude of reasons, is for the chairmen of all the unsustainable clubs to reach a gentleman's agreement and cut their cloth at the same time. Right now, nobody wants to be the first to move, because it almost certainly guarantees relegation. We'll lose a couple more clubs before the widescale drastic action is taken.

Indeed. The words of Eric Drysdale: Right then. Turnbull's interview with the FFP has certainly got a reaction, some of it even before it was published! The board does listen to fans views, particularly via the Raith Forum but also through Fantalk. Everyone is entitled to their opinion on why we are in this position, but I did want to make a few things clear. First and foremost, this financial position is very serious indeed. You may feel the board is to blame, or you may feel it is down to other factors, but one thing I can assure you is that every single person at the club is pulling in the same direction, doing their level best to ensure the club's survival. We are blessed with a committed board, an extremely hard working manager, a strong backroom team, talented players, and very hard working staff in the commercial, groundstaff and admin departments. We also benefit hugely from the services of a number of volunteers. Most importantly of all, we have a wonderful hard core of supporters locally and around the world. I wanted to say a bit more about the board. There are no splits. We are united in our efforts. In aggregate I think we have something like 200 - 250 years experience in business. A retired industry leader hugely respected in business and football circles, a highly successful local businessman with a wealth of contacts, a Financial Director who is a chartered accountant of 33 years experience and is a recently retired partner of a large Edinburgh firm, a former Deputy Chief Executive of the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, a team leader in Fife Council Community Education, a retired senior manager of Bank of Scotland and myself, a current lending policy manager for RBS with responsibility for a number of industry sectors including football. Some are (or were) wealthier than others. I say 'were' because they have committed huge sums to the club over a number of years to keep it afloat. All members commit a huge amount of their time, for no reward at all. Has this highly experienced board made mistakes? Yes it has. Does it have the answers? No it doesn't. But until someone else comes up with a solution, and has the resources to implement it, this board will continue to do its level best. The board will welcome offers of constructive support and assistance from any quarter. It is not a closed shop. So why are we in this position? Well, first and foremost, like so many businesses, we are suffering in a prolonged recession. All areas of income are down and falling, and most costs are up and rising. The length of the recession has exceeded most observers' predicitions but is showing no sign of ending any time soon. But there is more to it than that. The current football model simply doesn't work. Not even in the SPL. Even down south, only 4 Premiership clubs and 3 Championship clubs made operating profits last year. The rest are either funded by multi millionaires and billionaires or are making huge losses still being funded by banks and creditors such as HMRC. It is always possible to drastically cut costs at the end of a season, but of course the lower the wage bill the greater the likelihood of relegation or lowly league position. That brings lower gate receipts and lower commercial revenue, and with that comes potentially greater losses. In other words, a downward spiral. The alternative is to 'speculate to accumulate' - a phrase often used on these boards and elsewhere. In other words, pay a bit more and hope for success. And if success doesn't come, again the income does not match the committed expenditure. Neither alternative works, and there are risks attaching to all possible strategies. Professional sport is unique in the business world in that success or failure can be, and often is, determined by luck or by a refereeing decision, or by something over which none of us has control. And with that unpredictability comes a high degree of business risk. That's where the Huttons and Cairas (and in our case other benefactors too) of this world come in. Without them and their like there would be few if any Scottish provincial clubs still in existence. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude, and they do not deserve the pelters they are getting from some quarters. But there's still more that lies behind our predicament. Our 2011/12 budget was agreed last spring, prior to the HMRC crisis and the other unexpected events of the summer. It was agreed at a time when we were a whisker away from the SPL. We knew that if we did not go up, Dunfermline would and we factored that in. We also factored in a flat-ish trading performance in 2011/12, as the politicians and economists were predicting. What we have got is increased cost inflation and a prolonged recession. And a team that has still to achieve the consistency of last season. Furthermore, as Turnbull alluded to at the open meeting, there were certain issues that emerged over the summer that set us back. These turned out to be still worse than we expected back then. In accounting terms these are being dealt with in the 2010/11 accounting period but, much more importantly, we have had to deal with the cash flow consequences this season, against the backcloth of much worse economic conditions than had been forecast. In other words, our too ambitious commitment of expenditure to build a robust infrastructure for the club's future and fund an ultimately unsuccessful promotion push are also partly what's behind this season's problems. What is certain, however, is that the current board is fully hands on in terms of financial management, far more so than in the recent past, and there has never been better financial stewardship of the club in my 13 years than there is right now, I'm glad to say. Meanwhile, while the board plus famous and not so famous benefactors have collectively contributed a substantial 6 figure sum this season alone, supporters have also been great. The Members Club has brought in £30k+ and all the Rally Round the Rovers initiatives continue to bring in vital donations. Sadly, it's still not enough. I was particularly delighted to notice on this thread (or was it on P&B?) that one individual is bringing three pals tomorrow. Thank you sir. That is exactly what we need. Other posters have posted very sensible thoughts and I know that, ultimately, we are all on the same side so I know you will all do all you can to attend yourself and bring along family & friends if at all possible. And I'm sure John and the team will do their very best to deliver a performance and a result. I hope this is helpful in setting out why we NEED your help for the club to survive, RIGHT NOW. It is, of course, your right to stay away if you so choose. But if you possibly can, please stick with it, in order to help ensure there is still a club to support next season, and for the next generation. Thanks Eric

There is a potential benefit to being part-time. With the greatest of respect to other part-time times, you could argue that (if the Rovers stay up this season) that by going part-time next season they'd be the "biggest" part-time team in Scotland. Although there would obviously be severe financial restraints, you would hope that the best and brightest in part-time football could be persuaded to join. Footballers, as much as football clubs, must be realising that being full-time is less of an option. I'd love the Rovers to be a home for footballers who could be full-timers but choose to work outside of football for the sake of their futures.

It would appear that someone is arranging a benefit match in London on the 19th, some sort of Pro-Am thing. Looks like Gordon Brown has had a wee word with Alastair Campbell, who's got the ear of some in the footballing world.

I think it's difficult to argue with the majority of the article, and I'd like to back Turnbull Hutton in this instance. The directors stepping in and paying wages is admirable, and turning that money into shares instead of "soft loans" even more so. Christ knows how much money is being pished away there. It's a very difficult situation. Actually starting the season with a budget that would allow the club to break even would be a self-defeating spiral. The players would have to be well below the standards required, and the team would be hammered so badly each week that nobody would turn up, and the whole thing would probably have to be repeated next season, in the Second. I think they've made the right choice in giving John McGlynn the lowest "competitive" budget they could, and hoping the team overachieves under a talented manager. I still believe that will happen, and the team will stay up. Next season will probably be the same, with the highest earning players out of contract either being released or asked to take pay cuts, as we saw at the end of last season. Hopefully the Pars will be back down again and the average crowd figure will lift and provide a little relief. As much as the club "don't rely on cup runs" they probably do account for a pessimistic "average income" based over the last 5 seasons or so from each of the cup competitions and you'd have to assume that this season is probably the lowest total cup income we've had in that period of time. Like everyone else, though, I do have an issue with the whole "crowds are lower than our estimation" business. If you make an estimate, and the actual figure is different, it's the estimate that's incorrect, not the reality.

Yay! Stupid customer conversations, my favourite subject. "Could you press the red button, please?" "On the remote control?" No, the one under the desk that launches the nukes. Of course on the remote control! Everything we've done for the last fifteen minutes has been on the b*****d thing!

Walker's staying until the end of the season. No word on Smith yet.

I had a wee check earlier, and under John McGlynn, the Rovers have only signed one player on transfer deadline day, and it was Stevie Hislop from Livingston in January 2007, so I wouldn't expect too much action. We also haven't sold a player on the last day of a window since John Sutton went to Millwall from £60,000 in January 2004. Also, John Baird has tweeted that he won't be going anywhere today.