JinglinGeordie

Out of interest, what was the immediate reaction from fans in 2001 when we signed George O'Boyle? Not comparing him to a rapist but must have been bad PR for the club to sign a player who had just been caught snorting cocaine in a nightclub toilet and subsequently sacked by St Johnstone. I was young at the time and only just started going to matches regularly, so relatively unaware of the reaction from media and supporters when we signed him.

Yeah several. I 100% agree, I'm in no way trying to defend him as a manager. My point is, clubs our size have to take risks with managers, whether it's hiring someone for their first senior management role or hiring a younger manager who has performed well at clubs levels below. Barry Smith was considered a decent appointment by most of us last May, now we all want him sacked and quite rightly so - he's been terrible.

Indeed he was. 43 when he joined and in the younger bracket of Scottish football managers this season. As I said, go back the thread to see exactly what we were all saying when he was appointed.

Surprised you dismiss Danny Lennon and would find him an uninspiring appointment. Danny Lennon got Cowdenbeath two successive promotions before he moved to St Mirren where he kept them in the Premier League in his first season then won the League Cup in his second season. Also what he's achieved with Clyde this season is remarkable and extremely underrated - when he took over this season Clyde were second bottom, since then he's averaged over 2 points per game, stretching back to November! We have to accept we're a small club and as a small club we're extremely limited with who we can realistically afford to appoint. With all clubs our size a lot of the time it is a gamble when you appoint a new manager - just look at some of our appointments in the last 10-15 years to see what credentials they had before joining us: Antonio Calderon - first managerial job was Raith, signed him as a player/manager, huge risk at the time especially since he demanded a bigger than normal budget to bring in a lot of foreign players. Considered a success. John McGlynn - again, first managerial job. Previously a first-team coach at Hearts - highly regarded in that respect. Considered a success. Grant Murray - once again, first managerial job. Cheap option for the club, kept us in the Championship and won us the Ramsden Cup. Not entirely considered a success but wasn't a catastrophe. Ray Mckinnon - achieved two play-off finishes and an 8th placed finish with Brechin before joining Raith - we were only his second senior club to manage. Considered a success for getting us a Premiership Play-Off place. Gary Locke - terrible appointment and we all knew it straight away, inexcusable 'gamble', less said about him the better. Considered a failure. John Hughes - extremely experience manager in Scottish football, we all thought he was the answer to our problems last season but he wasn't. Considered a failure but we were all happy at the time. Barry Smith - deemed 'young and upcoming' by a lot when appointed in May, could easily argue he had better credentials than guys like McKinnon and McGlynn when it comes to senior management. Most likely has failed to achieve his main objective of getting us promoted this season and is considered a failure of an appointment. For reference, go back to pages 2158, 2159 and 2160 of this thread to see what we all thought of the appointment. Who's next?! I'd be very satisfied with Danny Lennon based on what he's achieved at clubs of different sizes. What I would like to know is how do we pick managers? Who is advising our board of directors (who are made up of predominantly accountants)? Do we have a 'football head' who also joins in the interviews to ask questions which our board and chairman wouldn't think to ask/consider? It's quite easy for a club our size to make mistakes with managerial appointments but surely we're due a bit of luck with the next one!

Have you checked if Rovers_Lad has the other half of your pie?

Canny stand in the boys way, he's supported Hamburg since he was a wee loddy.

Can someone please translate this for me?

Rovers_lad = clueless.

Of course you’d still need additional training facilities but it would reduce the amount you need to spend on facilities. For example, Kilmarnock train most days on the Rugby Park pitch. Club also spends thousands a year on pitch hire for U20s to train and play. Costs which would be saved with our own artificial pitch. Might be wrong here but do the club not also bear for the women’s pitch hire too? Another saving. Baffles me that people still can’t understand this is a separate project which isn’t being funded by the club which will offer more facilities to the community as well as hopefully saving and bringing in more revenue for the club. People will genuinely always try and find a negative first.

God, I give up. I'm off for a Pad Thai.

Can see your point in that, but from their point surely you'd wait and see how the season pans out first. We could in some mysterious way still win this league then all of a sudden we'll have 1 big home gate as well as increased season ticket sales next season. For me, it makes sense to try and raise the funds elsewhere before Allan Young has to go to John Sim with his tail between his legs asking for more money. Even if that happens it definitely won't be putting a halt to the plastic pitch plans, I would imagine.

They are not the same entity. SPP own a majority in the club but are not responsible for the day-to-day running of the club. The chairman is responsible for the running of the club and financial mismanagement comes when SPP are expected to patch up these mismanagements to the detriment of other projects. The financial mismanagement is a result of many things; we haven't had a home match in over a month, our injury bill will be stacking up AGAIN and we've done absolutely nothing of note in any of the cups this season. As well as that we're also now probably not going to win the league which means the remaining home matches will be below season average. My point remains, in hindsight the club has mismanaged the budget given by SPP in many ways as well as being unlucky in others, but as fans we can't start bemoaning the other business decisions of SPP because of it.

It's not at all, if anything it's strict financial management. It's pretty simple, John Sim gave the club a budget for the season which they've now overstretched themselves on. Now fans are expecting John Sim to take money out of a separate project, which will benefit one of his assets, to sort this cash flow issue. I completely agree the club has mismanaged their budget, that's a separate point. I just find it ridiculous that fans bring up the plastic pitch project which is entirely separate. I also completely agree that season ticket money is the most valuable income a club has, it's unfortunate that we've not had a home match for over a month so have to take these measures to raise finances.

It's not terrible at all. John Sim and David Sinton own Stark's Park Properties which obviously owns the stadium in which the club pays rent to use. Last season the rent on the stadium hadn't been paid for months, this is one of the reasons John Sim decided to go one step further and buy a majority in the club under Stark's Park Properties. A budget was then set for the running of the club to obviously to cover coaching and playing staff and other running costs. Meanwhile the funds in Stark's Park Properties is entirely up to John Sim and David Sinton with how they want to use them, whether that's to put additional funds in to the club or to use it to upgrade the stadium. The project of changing the surface of Stark's Park as well as potentially demolishing the Railway Stand to allow for more hospitality spaces is the decision of John Sim and David Sinton as owners of the stadium. They believe, and I agree, this will benefit the club in the long term as it COULD bring in more revenue from the community but it will definitely save the club costs on paying for other pitches for the youth teams to play on and the teams to train on. The recent statement about season tickets is clearly a short-term cash flow issue, but nonetheless can be viewed as quite worrying. The reassuring thing is if push came to shove I'd feel comfortable in the fact that Sim would be able to dig us out a hole because there are clearly funds there. However, from a business point of view it seems completely necessary to try and obtain the funds in other ways, like encouraging early bird season ticket offers, before Sim having to put money in himself as a last resort.

People can’t seem to get their head around the fact that the funds aren’t all in one big pot. The budget of improving Stark’s Park is completely separate to the running of the club. The plastic pitch will be going ahead regardless of whether we stay in this league or not.

This beauty.

John Sim owns Stark's Park Properties which owns Stark's Park. The funding is likely to be a bank loan to Stark's Park Properties, not John Sim dipping in to his current account.

The club loses tens of thousands on our youth teams having to use other facilities around Fife. There is no doubt that this will save the club a lot of money in the long run as well as bringing in more money from local use. If Sim is wanting to use his own cash to fund it then I think it's a great idea. No doubt we'll get the short sighted moaners piping up "how's that money no being used to sign players", though... ????????

As far as I'm aware Sim is funding the whole thing as part of a personal project in expanding Raith to the community. Not a huge fan of plastic pitches but if it'll help the club in the long term I'm all for it!

Well there are only two home matches in the group, one of which is the final match against Israel which we hope to be a decider. The other at home to Albania will still easily attract over 25k fans. It's going to be the first competitive match with a new manager (we hope) and potentially new faces in the squad, it'll easily attract over 25k fans so why on earth would the SFA put it to a smaller stadium?

Great news. Will update you all if I see him in the gym changing rooms tonight.

Saw Zanatta in the gym changing rooms last night so obviously asked him if he's coming back, whilst he was drying himself. I can confirm he's got absolutely no tan from Spain and I don't think he's coming back.

Standard 'let's have a dig at the board at any opportunity' post. As Matthew Elder tweeted yesterday, players on a development loan can be recalled by the parent club during a transfer window, this is an SPFL rule, so clearly not the club's fault.

I would be extremely surprised if Vaughan turned down any Premiership club right now. Callachan and Vaughan have completely different personal circumstances. As far as I'm aware, Callachan has a son who lives with his mother, not Ross, don't think he would've liked moving up north to play for County - sacrificing his time with his son. You also can't see it as a given that if Vaughan bides his time he'll get a move to Hibs. If I was Lewis and a Dundee or a Motherwell came in for me, and the money was right, I'd be off.

Eh?! So we're already promoted and Dundee have been relegated? Quality. Ridiculous logic there. As things stand Dundee are safe in the Premiership and we're in a play-off place in League One. Dundee come in and offer him more money, obviously, and the chance to play Premiership football, course he's going to take it. He's hardly going to sit there and worry about the possibility of ending up with a 'relegation on his cv'.