Ally_D
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Posts posted by Ally_D
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19 hours ago, rhliston said:
How many managers has the current Board appointed and then had to sack because they were not up to the task.
Take the previous manager KR, they gave him a new contract when it looked like we were heading to the playoffs and then look what happened, talk about making a rod to beat your back with.
A couple of decades ago, managers' contracts were seen out and not renewed. Relatively dignified and allowing renewal to happen through the summer.
The repeating pattern over the past decade has been different. Several times, after a season has turned to mulch, I have expected change and instead been astonished to hear that the management contracts have been extended. That has allowed them to repeat lacklustre recruitment (usually involving a couple of players whose sole good performance the previous season seems to have been against SA at Forthbank), and then turned into a crisis by autumn by which time they have to go.
I can understand this happening once: a loyalty bond building up between chair and manager, a sense that we are in this together. But not more. The cycle from boosterism to circle-the-wagons crisis does nobody any good. It may even have prevented the innovative approach that has been sought. For example, might broader consideration have reached a consensus that this or that rookie incumbent is an inspiring coach but dreadful at recruitment, or at reading a game, or may benefit from advice from a Director of Football or some such? Who knows, but crisis and rip-it-up-and-start-again means we never find out.
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As a season, this is ominously like the first Ray Stewart season: starting with expectation that a squad had been assembled to challenge for the top (it is almost one year since the confident announcements preparing for this season ), then eroding into a slump towards the bottom. Despite mutterings disparaging keyboard warriors, there is a dearth of comments about the situation. Watching the stream of yesterday's match at Elgin, it was dire stuff. Was enough done in January to shore things up? Or has it been assumed that if the upward play-offs were out of reach, a new manager could bring enough spark to get to the end of the season in mid-table? Even that is looking challenging just now.
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On 14/12/2021 at 15:44, rhliston said:
From the names being quoted Darren Young takes my fancy, did a decent job with East Fife, lets hope its someone who can motivate this squad of players.
And Darren Young it is: link.
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22 minutes ago, headthebaw said:
We need someone with the experience to get the maximum out of this group of players. Alan Moore fits the brief but there will be others out there.
Since his time as Binos manager, doesn't Moore's track record show issues with turning around a team's run of bad performances? A skill which is the single biggest necessity right now.
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14 hours ago, BB_Bino said:
Although I’m happy with the decision, I do wish him all the very best and I’m actually tinged with a bit of sadness because when he first came in, I wholeheartedly bought into his enthusiasm, charm and charisma and desperately wanted him to succeed. As it transpired, I found his football dull and unadventurous and probably would have pulled the plug before now as ultimately he was well backed by a loyal board, had built a good squad after being left a shambles by Dave Mackay but failed to move us forward, despite what he said in his statement.
Initially he did ok in pepping up a disjointed squad (assisted by the key goalscorer coming back from injury). But the following summer's recruitment was poorly judged and in the seasons that followed, I can only think of a period around a year ago when there was briefly the kernel of an exciting team - in retrospect reliant on Paul Mclean and Andy Ryan.
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1 hour ago, Boris Badenov said:
Who next?
I was very impressed with Tranent. Calum Elliot I thought had them playing good attacking football.
Lets not pussy foot around with interviews, decide who you want and go after him or her.
Lets think differently this time
Aside from Jocky, every Binos appointment has aspired to think differently, but with disappointing outcomes more often than not. Back in 2016, Stirling, Arbroath and Montrose were much of a muchness in the depths in this division. Both Arbroath and Montrose made what looked at the time as dull, unimaginative appointments, but the difference in outcome has been dramatic and lasting.
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23 hours ago, headthebaw said:
One win in the last seven league games and we are clinging on to our play-off position. If KR doesn't sort this out quickly the teams around us will pull away and we won't make it again this season. There's still a lot of games to play but our form is worrying. Yes, players aren't performing as well as they have but some of them that looked like positive signings are failing to impress. Let's hope the manager has some solutions.
Unfortunately, he hasn't had a great record of finding ways to turn things around, either when a game starts to run away (for example after half-time yesterday) or over the course of a season.
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3 hours ago, rhliston said:
Second half we looked in command until Ray Grant got sent off for a challenge when he should have known better and that enabled City to believe that they could get the win and they did with a late goal.
Grant didn't seem to learn from being pulled up earlier for tackles in similar positions, but I don't think the game turned on his 2nd yellow. The strange set-up at the back always looked awkward and ready to crumple once the City forwards got themselves together, as they had already intermittently and did again for their well-taken 2nd goal.
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2 hours ago, craigkillie said:
The issue is surely the other way round though - streaming Scottish League 2 games might not affect the attendance at Old Trafford, but streaming games from Old Trafford would almost certainly have an impact on Scottish League 2. If anything, it's the Scottish lower league clubs who should be fighting for the retention of this rule in the long-term (even if it's not ideal now).
Isn't the detriment on the Scottish game from attention and availability of games elsewhere already fully worked through? Those going to matches, especially lower league, are unlikely to be swayed by a Big Game elsewhere. Even when a freezing winter midweek game clashes with a match between European Super League would-bes, I don't think that has a significant impact on crowds.
It is worth being wary of authorities claiming benevolence to justify their protectionist rulings, especially when its practical impact is to limit the less powerful from adopting new options.
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Following up on the announcement, I want to pay tribute to all those who have been involved in providing SAFC's excellent streaming service since Covid.
The cessation is bad news for those of us who still regard attending events as too risky, but I could see that the numbers of users dropped significantly when it returned to being a personal judgment whether to attend games.
(I really don't get the restraint-on-trade position of UEFA/SFA etc., however. It is unlikely in the extreme that the enticement of any streamed Scottish League Two fixture is going to result in rows of empty seats at Old Trafford, Prenton Park, etc., but there we are.)
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21 hours ago, BB_Bino said:
Going to make the journey down, been a number of years since I was last at Stair Park. Hoping for huge improvements on the 3 games played already this season.
A journey best taken on an air of confidence.
It has been a long time since the season when Stranraer and Stirling teams that were both excellent for this level competed and prevented Gretna's rise for a year.
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17 hours ago, BB_Bino said:
First full season he was really good and had us playing a good brand of attacking football and the club seemed to be on the right lines with him, having Callumn Morrison on loan from Hearts made a huge difference, but we simply ran out of steam, stumbled over the line and flopped badly in the Play Offs against Peterhead.
The following season he seemed to lose the plot. Summer signings were awful, the season start was awful and in the end he was shown the door after a disastrous loss to an Albion Rovers side that were made up of lower Junior players and were the leagues whipping boys. The team had no identity or leadership by this point and he left it as bad as he found it.In fairness, my recollection is that there were significant players carrying injuries into the playoffs (though which team doesn't?), but also that some carried into his final season - particularly Darren Smith who could otherwise have been expected to score goals, as he did when he recovered. And also that some of his signings came good for us afterwards (Danny Jardine, for example). But, as is often the case, he couldn't turn around a sustained period of poor form and a management change was beneficial.
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11 minutes ago, BinoBalls said:
Annan must have one the smallest budgets in the league yet won 3-0 at Stranraer and 3-1 against us. Clearly their manager — unlike ours — knows how to get the best out of the players at his disposal.
For all that Cove, QP, Kelty's push out of this league gets the attention, it is surely Arbroath and Montrose that are the more interesting model: teams that were stuck languishing towards the foot of this division but were then propelled upwards by decent management.
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11 hours ago, rhliston said:
Agree, sorry to say this but our performance in the first half when we lost 2 goals within 60 secs cost us the match. Second half we at least created some chances and might have been on level terms but could not get that second goal and a late breakaway in the 85th minute to make it 3-1 meant it was game over. All credit to Annan today, as for us its on to Stranraer next week and lets hope the team that started to play in the 2nd half turns up if not then we will get nothing.
Unfortunately, I think you are being too kind, glossing it as a closer match than it was. Once again, the Binos side was huffing and puffing without guile. If they appeared to be pressing in the 2nd half, that is probably just down to the tendency of a team at this level with a 2 goal lead to sit back. I doubt Greg Fleming will have felt he had a stressful afternoon. Lacking McLean and Leitch, this team is shaky at the back and creating little from the middle. Like last year's, this team is less than the parts.
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Normal service resumed. That was so like all those Forthbank games after the March resumption. Different players but the same outcome: stuck on the back foot with a total lack of any cunning to get forward.
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6 hours ago, rhliston said:
Believe it was a 1 year contract, did get a fee for him but suspect it wasn’t much as he had a clause in his contract allowing him to move if a full time club came in for him.
Fees have been few and far between! It's a long time since we got £30K from Airdie for Eddie Forrest (from memory, and the old club were rather tardy about paying it). Then there was Iain Turner - and that's about it for the past 20 years?
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Loss of Andy Ryan to Accies (link) puts a whole new perspective on the coming season. A player who was the catalyst for every good aspect last season. Who can step up?
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18 minutes ago, beano said:
if the club are actually serious about the airy fairy statement they issued theyd be keeping someone like binnie. stupid!
It's not as if the club didn't run into problems in the previous season with lack of cover for injured keepers. And having both Binnie and Currie at various points this season has been very necessary.
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11 minutes ago, rhliston said:
this squad should have been good enough to get into playoffs at least. Poor tactics from KR and the fact we struggled to score at home against teams in the top 5 cost us a chance of a place in the playoffs.
The Boards decision to give KR and his team a new contract without having achieved anything is quite astounding. The failure to get to playoffs brings into question the Boards ability to get this club out of this League. They have in effect rewarded failure
Extending the contracts probably looked deft and smart on March 28th when the season stood at W6 D4 L1. But as they say, it is a mistake to assume past performance is indicative of future performance. And so it proved.
There has been a pattern over the past decade of extending management contracts too early. It is commendable to appreciate those you are working with, maybe there's some Stockholm Syndrome between Board and management, I don't understand the dynamic. But these early extensions surely remove much fo the leverage for a frank end-of-season assessment where the management team are challenged to demonstrate exactly how they will do better next time, if they are given the opportunity.
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7 minutes ago, Thom & Gerry said:
Not my business I know. You missed out by the slightest of margins for top 4, you weren’t far off second. Better to retain and build or wholesale change which a new manager would inevitably bring?
Yes but it is a pattern of several years mid-table finishes when the target has clearly been set higher. And given that the record against the better teams in the division was dismal,especially since March, I doubt anyone really believes that this team would have been capable of coming through the playoffs if yourselves or Stranraer had dropped a couple more points.
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On 05/05/2021 at 18:21, BB_Bino said:
This is where ai differ with you Ally_D although for long spells of the season it was “winning football” I don’t think I’ve enjoyed watching it since KR came in. I like him and the way he conducts himself and I want him to get it right, but I genuinely think the last enjoyable performance I watched was under Dave Mackay.
Under KR we are well organised and structured, but it’s built on not giving much away and I tend to think the players are playing in shackles.
A lot of times at Forthbank last season I switched off and my mind wandered, this season watching on the laptop, my mind wanders again. Yes we have some exciting players (you mentioned 2 in your comments) but our performances throughout KR’s reign have been far from exciting in my opinion, the odd 20 minutes or so but not for throughout games.I think the best football under KR was just after he started, when he was working with Mackay's squad. He seemed able to coax better from them - although he also reaped the benefit of significant players (D L Smith) coming back from injury. After that initial period, everything seemed to sink into a mid-table norm, not helped by poor signings. The 19-20 team I found particularly hard going, with poor signings turning in performances that recalled some really tedious days out in the past (Gala, Hurlford).
This year's squad was better chosen and should have achieved more. Questions need to be asked why they didn't. Tonight's club statement pointing to injuries and the schedule of games really doesn't hang together. I am sure each and every team had to safeguard against similar issues.
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2 hours ago, AlbionMan said:
We brought in good players to start the season but struggled to create a cohesive unit out of them.
And achieved nothing better than the same mid-table position that has become the norm. Also unconvinced that Darvel was the place to look to strengthen the squad. It just seemed to unsettle whatever cohesion there had been.
Compare and contrast Arbroath and Montrose, two teams which were in the same morass and changing managers: a massive contrast in achievement since then.
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Another desperately poor finish to a season. As with the curtailed early-2020 games, since the 2021 resumption the team was losing as many as it won (and those generally against the teams at the bottom).
I enjoyed watching this season's team much more than the previous, there's been some players linking well going forward, but the really telling point is that in neither season was the management team capable of turning around poor form against the better teams.
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1 hour ago, AlbionMan said:
Yes Andy Ryan will be a loss, but for me the player we have missed most since the restart is Paul Mclean who only lasted 20 minutes of the first game, the defence hasn't had the same organisation without him.
I agree, prior to the break the defense looked confident, the same can't be said since, and that is probably down to the loss of McLean. And unfortunately, the team never looks like recovering from the loss of a goal. Let's hope someone can step up with a bit of magic today.
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A Message to All Stirling Albion Trust Members
in Scottish League 2 General Chatter
Posted
A lot has happened since Baz wrote that, so I maybe shouldn't base another comment on it now, but isn't periodic change a good opportunity to look at things afresh?
If any organisation becomes dependent on any one individual, that is a failure of governance. At the most gloomy level, it would throw the organisation into crisis if that person were to be involved in a traffic accident. Knowledge / experience need to be shared broadly. So the norms are for periodic refresh (for example 3 year term as Chair), for separation of duties and rotation. Sadly that hasn't been happening at SAFC.
Instead we have what looks like a classic Schmittian politics, wrestling over sovereign decision-making, intensifying into friend/enemy distinctions. It happens repeatedly, it results in people who have added value to the Club, and who could continue to do so, becoming weary and standing aside. That is not good.
Without wanting to scapegoat for the years of drab on-field performance, the sovereign decision that have been made have often been poor: managerial contracts surprisingly renewed rather than allowed to expire in a dignified way. Would that have happened if broader discussion had occurred?
However... If and when the Trust voting returns, I am likely to surprise myself regarding the Resolutions about particular Club Directors. For the governance reasons above, I do think that te current Chair's term should be coming to an end, indeed that this should have happened several years ago. However I also think it crucial that expertise is retained and that in any organisation a former Chair should be a valued member of a subsequent Board. This leaves me unable to agree with the second leg of the proposition to remove him as both Chairman and Director.
I do feel that the Supporters' Liaison communications through this season have been poor: sometimes inaccurate, often peevish in tone, and declining to meet the Trust Board recently really isn't on. However, my understanding is that the individual concerned makes valuable contributions in other ways, so while unsuited to that role could be a useful Director in another role.
Really, though, the structures need to be refreshed so that side-taking doesn't recur. The "oversight" Resolution should be the basic grounding and the development of a shared Business Plan in a reasonable timetable should be the next step.