BerwickMad

It’s utterly ridiculous how this is still happening, despite many people mentioning it after the Hibs game. Dennis McCleary is better at it anyway.

That’s all very well for the long term future of the club. However, even if they do all get on and start working together today, by far the most important issue at the moment is the team on the park. If those now making the decisions in the boardroom cannot realise that the playing budget and current squad is woefully inadequate and don’t take some further action, we’re heading for disaster. I’d love to know what the grand plan is, but appointing Eric Tait as DoF and Watkins as VC with next to no explanation hardly inspires confidence in decision making.

Bring back the World Cup.

I’m a member of both and on the committee for the Supporters Club. The SC AGM took place last Tuesday with 3/4 directors in attendance. There was a pretty decent discussion at the end where people raised some points with directors regarding the season ahead. For example I suggested the budget for the manager should be higher as ‘money in the bank’ is pointless if we go down. I said pretty much what I’ve said on here, that the club need to make itself as attractive as possible for potential investors and new leadership and the rats in a sack behaviour in the boardroom for the last decade plus needed to stop or it’s a total turn off for anyone new. The committee isn’t at full numbers, so Dougie Watkin put himself forward to come on and was voted on. Absolutely nothing was mentioned about him becoming Vice Chairman at the meeting. Nothing was mentioned about Eric Tait becoming director of football or why we needed one. Nothing was mentioned about the board changing their decision on Tweedmouth Rangers playing on Shielfield. Nothing was mentioned about the stair lift thing (not that I was desperate to find out about it). These decisions as far as I’m aware were made AFTER the SC AGM. They weren’t made by the SC, our representative on the board, or the Trust, whatever we think about these decisions. But anyway, the SC and Trust don’t make the decisions. The committees of each will have their view and ask their representatives on the board to push for this or whatever, but it’s not their job to justify decisions the board make. The board have made decisions and not run these past the SC, and I doubt they have the Trust either. I suppose it’s open to to debate whether they should or not. Just to add, when Lenny became chairman he was asked to stand down from the SC committee and he did so. I would expect Dougie Watkin to do the same, if asked. I’m sure he had some idea about what was going to happen with his position on the board before he put himself forward. We’ll see.

Totally agree there needs to be some explanation as to why these decisions have been made, especially the Director of Football decision, and what Eric is actually going to do. The DoF interviewing the manager is utterly ridiculous too so that needs to stop. As for supporters club officials high fiving on Facebook, well she’s entitled to her opinion as is any fan. Don’t mistake it as an SC position.

Shawcroft is still on the Labour NEC, and still on the disputes committee. Time is ticking. The longer she stays, the more hollow the words from the top of the Labour Party are.

Right, so now we have the recently elected head of the internal disputes panel of the Labour Party, Christine Shawcroft resigning. She sent an email on SUNDAY opposing the suspension of a Labour candidate who denied the holocaust. She claimed that the candidate was victim of a ‘partisan dispute’ rather than antisemitism. The Times say her email was sent to 10 recipients, including Jon Lansman and Jennie Formby. It’s taken until tonight for her to stand down, and only after being exposed by The Times. Some people need to wake up.

I didn’t even mention Israel. You’ve straight away gone to talking about what officials in Israel say. These were Jewish people saying enough is enough to anti-semitism following, for whatever reason, the discovery of a comment Corbyn made about an anti-Semitic mural. These were not people defending actions of the Israeli state. You’ve linked the two simply because they’re Jewish. Can’t you see the problem with that? If Muslims make a stand against Islamophobia over say Zac Goldsmiths mayoral campaign, do you straight away start looking for vile, racist things Muslim officials have said in Iran, Pakistan or another majority muslim country?

Yes, let’s ignore it when talking about anti-semitism in the Labour Party because it has absolutely nothing to do with it. It’s whataboutary. Being called a c**t by someone with as vile opinions as you means absolutely nothing to me.

Aye, let’s ignore anti-semitism because worse things have happened. And anyway, the vote for the war in Iraq was 16 or so years ago. A lot of those making a stand against this vile anti-semitic element of the Labour Party weren’t in Parliament then.

Some of the replies to this.

Btw, it’s clear that there is a problem with anti-semitism in the Labour Party. Absolutely clear. You just need to look at the frenzied twitter mob today, or the comments on articles by the New Statesman on their Facebook page. My local private CLP Facebook page has more discussion on what a great people Tony Greenstein and Jackie Walker are fighting back against zionists than they do about things like education. It’s utterly depressing. I don’t think Corbyn is anti-Semitic, and part of me wants to give him the benefit of the doubt over that mural comment, but he has been far too weak on all of this. His statements over the past couple of days have been better, but he should have nipped this all in the bud years ago. Checking to see if someone is pro or anti Corbyn before deciding whether a criticism is valid or not is pretty frightening too, but i suppose this is politics today.

Fuckin hell!

Simply supporting Corbyn seemed to be enough to get him the gig.

Apologies for the late reply, but the most positive comments are from Celtic fans.

The Tory > The Economist > Lib Dem > Mann > Stanley

I doubt you’d need extra stewarding or police, because nobody would go. Who’s going to bother their arse to contact Rangers or Celtic for an away ticket to see their youth team in a League 2 game, when you could simply walk up and pay on the day through the home gate. You might get a handful for the first game or two, but assuming Berwick stay in this league, Celtic and Rangers youths would be playing at Shielfield 3 times a season each. Any interest in the pointless fixtures (for them) would disappear fairly quickly. A quick look at reserve attendances in England. Man Utd, the best supported club, had an average attendance for reserve games of 486 at Moss Lane in 2010. In a stadium basically on their door step, against rivals reserve teams and other potential starts of the future. In what universe are people living in if they expect Rangers or Celtic fans to hold an interest in colt games against part time players, 2 hours from home?

Haha. Aye, the arrogance of that. Even if it were true, 6 times a season would soon become tedious. Another point. One of the good things about supporting teams is rivalry with other clubs. Even at this level, you enjoy beating those around you and there are games you look forward to going to more than others. With this, beyond the devalued 3 points, I wouldn’t actually care win, lose or draw. There’s no pride in beating a Colts team who aren’t even playing for the same reason as your club. It’s basically beating a nothing team with no fans.

They’re inviting comments on the Berwick Rangers Facebook page. Here’s mine. It was before I’d read anything on here: “I’m totally against this idea. One reason being that it ruins the competition. As mentioned, teams playing in the same league with different objectives and outcomes (relegation and promotion) is a bit farcical. I’ve no interest in seeing Berwick play a colts team. I could go and watch English Premier League reserves down the road for £3, never mind paying a normal League 2 match price to see a far poorer standard. Also, look at the state of the old Challenge Cup. It’s become a farce. That opened the door, and they’re ploughing ahead with it regardless, despite the horrendous crowds. Let’s be honest, this won’t stop with a two year trial and who then decides whether it’s a success or not? I also fail to be convinced that this would help Scottish football or the development of young players in any way. They always point to Spain and Germany as evidence that B teams work, but I’d suggest facilities and the number of qualified coaches per head in those countries compared to Scotland is more important. If they were really serious in trying to improve the Scottish game, maybe they’d come up with an idea to distribute revenue in a fairer way rather than the current 2% to League Two. How about using some of the pie to improve football facilities in each clubs locality. Or to train up more qualified coaches. This idea seems to benefit Rangers and Celtic more than Scottish football as a whole. I understand the financial pressures considering the recent loses the club has made, and will continue to make, but the £15k per club will mean very little. Basically because all clubs will be getting it. Some will just spend it on players and wages. In order to keep up, Berwick will also have to do that. It won’t simply go to reducing the loss the club makes each year unless we’re happy to continue spending the same way we are whilst others use it towards their playing budget. I doubt there’s any suggestion that this money across all teams will be ringfenced to improve facilities or train up more coaches for the community. If we get promoted there are similar sized teams in the league above. We’d lose that income and gain very little in extra revenue from promotion. For me, Rangers and Celtic want to do this for their own benefit, and they and the SFA are desperately trying to put together an argument to support the plan. If they were to go back to the drawing board to think of the real reasons why Scottish football is failing, they wouldn’t come up with this ridiculous idea in an attempt to solve the problems.” To add, at our supporters club meeting last week there weren’t any positive comments towards the proposal. Can’t stress how important it is that everyone tells their own clubs what they think of the plan.

They were all absolutely shit.

Corbyn is no more principled than the people his supporters, egged on by his henchmen, constantly attack as ‘unprincipled careerist Blairite blah blah blah’. His supporters getting all upset with people like Murray and Umunna now, pretending they’re grandstanding and not looking at the over all impact or knock on consequences is hilarious. When the Blair and Brown governments were delivering the biggest progressive change the country had seen in decades from a moderate/centre-left position, he’d be grandstanding himself, pretending to be principled while conveniently ignoring the overall picture. He spent about 30 years not even bothering himself to be on the parliamentary committees, scrutinising the government, so their stance now criticising others is ridiculous.

Not the wisest of decisions and she seems to be in a ‘don’t give a f**k’ mood at the moment. That said, the amount of outrage and abuse aimed at her over this, compared to what Alex Rowley has received is unbelievable. The raging trolls and moral guardians on twitter and on Labour discussion groups need to get a grip. Clearly a lot of who she is, and not what she’s done.

They were already to the left of the SNP.

Wasn’t much of a choice by the looks of it.