gmca

Many thanks

Terrific win that. Perhaps even more importantly, he's won 3 matches in a row. Grass maybe takes less out of him, but putting a run of results together seemed to be eluding him. Hope he can go further and perhaps even win the tournament, though Kyrgios and Berretini (assuming they get through) would be pretty difficult on grass. His ranking must be getting a good boost too.

My optimism got the better of me

We've got 15 players signed up, so would expect something like another 4 to come in plus maybe a couple of loans. Think we're comparatively better off for numbers at the moment than most other teams in our league. Manager was quoted as saying he hopes to confirm 1 or 2 in the near future. Pre season starts next Thursday. A couple of really good signings and I can see us pushing for 5th.

Why does there have to be an interim board? Why can't the existing board continue until the new board are voted in (assuming the existing board would be happy to continue)? I would have thought we'd have more stability that way unless the interim board members can hit the ground running. Creating an interim board suggests there's some sort of emergency requiring immediate action. Things are obviously fraught between the 2 boards, but we don't seem to be in any financial or legal difficulties that need the existing board to be ousted immediately.

You say that £4,000 funds were gifted to the club. Just speculating, but I wonder if there was some tax advantage in setting up the separate entity in a specific way, in the sense they may have been able to claim something akin to gift aid which the club itself couldn't have claimed.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. A girl is abandoned by family and left to live alone in a shack on the edges of a marsh in North Carolina, giving rise to her being called the marsh girl by distrustful locals. Throw in a murder mystery and I felt there were slight echoes of To Kill a Mockingbird. Can't recommend this book highly enough. It takes you on an emotional rollercoaster while also having lyrical passages describing the wildlife and natural beauty of the marsh.

Yeah, was just being greedy, hoping for better than what we have. Agree with what you say, and said in a later post I wouldn't have the dread if we went in with our current central defenders. A fit McLean would help too.

The West Stand has answered the Banner question for me. Had counted him as a defender, but the manager I'm sure intends to use him as a defensive midfielder. It's still a new role for him, so hopefully he develops even more next season. Could be a big player for us. I always like to see 4 central defenders in a squad. McLean, McGregor, Cummins and McNiff should be okay for this level. We badly missed McLean this season. Would like an upgrade on one of those 4, but wouldn't have the dread if we went in with those 4 in place. Left back needs to be a priority I think. Obviously miss Hancock, but full backs/wing backs are so important in the modern game. Midfield and upfront need to show a big improvement on last season. Moore, Flanagan, Leitch and Carrick are all decent players, but, from what I saw and heard from others, they all mostly underperformed. I expected to see a couple of them released, but they're all capable and might fare better in a team that's more solid at the back and with better players around them than those who were released. As ever the summer transfer window is one of the most important times in the year. Hopefully DY has a master plan, and gets all his targets.

Not sure it's a major rebuild. By my reckoning, there are 13 first team squad members remaining who haven't been released (not including Aaron Dunsmore about whom nothing has been said so far). Some of those won't resign I would imagine, but that's where we are as it stands. 9 of those 13 are goalkeepers and defenders.

Cheers, good luck in the playoffs.

Not quite as much of a cull as I expected. Going by the chairman's twitter, the rest of the squad have been offered terms for next season. Thought one or two defenders might have been on the released list, but the manager seems to think they can all do a job. Midfield and upfront have been pretty weak imo, so looks as if DY is looking to improve there. Hope he's successful in doing that!

Boris said in parliament today the scientists weren't aware at the time that asymptomatic transmission was a thing. No doubt that will be looked at in any inquiry (he says in a rare moment of optimism). Got a text today advising the Highest Risk list will be ended on 31st May because vaccines and treatments mean those most vulnerable are only as likely to fall seriously ill as the rest of the public.

Yeah, £600k rings a bell. Accounts to 2021 financial year end showed about £300k in the bank and Rangers money said to be about £250k if I remember correctly. There will have been other incomings and outgoings in the meantime of course, but would think we may not be far off the £600k now. Stuart Brown recently said money would be used for short, medium and long term use. Sounds sensible to me.

If I'm reading this correctly, the issue is the legal entity. Because we're a community benefit society it would be against the law to take a profit out of the society. A person could invest, but couldn't take out a profit. Changing the constitution wouldn't change this fact. We couldn't change the law through a change to our constitution.

Pretty much agree with you. My point was purely if an individual tried to vote more than once for themselves.

Thanks for that. Would hope anyone trying to vote more than once would be identified and, as you say, have their votes treated as invalid.

Is there any way this can be done under the Trust's constitution? Assuming the "additional" members are intended to vote in the club executive's favour, the Trust, it seems to me, would either have to reach agreement with whoever arranged these additional members to have their membership withdrawn, or cancel their membership themselves. Given what's been said, the former option seems a bit unlikely. I would have thought the latter option could open the Trust to difficulties if those members object, since the Trust hasn't taken the legal action the Police indicated was possible. Don't envy the Trust.s position.

Thanks for that. Seem to remember the Supporters Trust are required to have a majority holding. Not being able to take profit out of the club seems potentially like a double edged sword by perhaps putting off potential investors, the charlatans included.

Sounds like we've reached an impasse. If the Trust Board feel the working relationship with some or all of the executive board has broken down, is there not some requirement for the directors of the executive to put themselves up for re-election every so often (think it's every 3 years for limited companies), allowing them to be removed that way by the shareholders, presumably the Trust members in our case. I did wonder why Rhilston put forward his resolution for removal if there was already a mechanism in place. I seem to remember there was talk of possibly changing the constitution following John Neil's aborted attempt to inject funds a few years back. I assume we're still in a position where we aren't legally allowed to accept outside funding If we were, that might satisfy our current executive in accepting a sort of hybrid fan ownership model. Apologies if I'm way off the mark and/or covering old ground. It seems to me that something fairly drastic needs to happen for things to work more smoothly behind the scenes. Perhaps Rhilston's resolution proposal to merge the Trust and Executive Boards is the way to go.

Cheers.

I see Bill Orr has left or is leaving the club. And KR has been appointed manager at East Kilbride.

Decent post Albion Man. I agree entirely with the bolded part, and wondered if that had been part of the problem. If the respective roles and responsibilities have not been clear or adhered to, and/.or the protocols you set out have not been in place, that would suggest a level of incompetence that concerns me.

Trust me, the defecating has already begun.

It really has been a bizarre season. 19 points from the first quarter and 8 points from the next 16, with only 1 win. First quarter total flattered us a bit, but the drop off has been totally inexplicable to me. We have been comfortably the worst team in the league in that period, bordering on Berwick/Brechin levels of direness. How the hell has that happened? Young's first few games showed some signs of better play without getting wins, but Saturday's shitshow fills me with a bit of foreboding for the rest of the season. Need to get a reaction in the next game. We've got a decent lead over Cowden, but, if that's chipped away at over the next month or so, we could very easily find ourselves bottom of the pile come the end of the season. I wouldn't be very confident of winning the play off in those circumstances. All a bit pessimistic, and I do believe Cowden have a bit too much to do to get off the bottom of the table. Going forward though, it's hard to see how we improve to the extent of challenging to get out of this league. We've had what appeared to me to be good squads the last couple of seasons, and haven't looked like getting promotion. Hard to be hopeful about the future.