LatapyBairn.

Every spare penny will go towards the playing budget as has been the case the last couple of seasons I’d imagine. This BOD don’t need to be told how to speculate to accumulate.

No actual cash involved whatsoever

I’m not sure he does start for us at this stage in his career and it’s certainly not a point that can’t even be debated as you’re suggesting, Hanlons left sided so presumably you’d be dropping Lang? I think both Lang and Donaldson have earned the right to start the season in the team on merit with any centre half brought in starting the season as the understudy. Lang and Donaldson deservedly have the jerseys at the moment and unless their form were to dip this season against different opposition then it should stay that way at least initially.

Without that run to the Scottish cup final last year this would probably have happened to them the end of last season.

It’s the fact Jamie had well researched and educated points to make, he was actually looking for a constructive discussion yet ended up with a rude, incoherent slavering Neanderthal who was ignorant of the facts shouting over the top of him. Hats of to Jamie for coming across so professionally despite this, I’d have lost the plot! Cameron proved himself an absolute moron here, Jamie Swinney proved himself to be quite the opposite thank god.

Think this could be way off to be honest. Queen’s Park will definitely have the capacity to spend more than us, Partick thistle I reckon we will be roughly comparable to and both Hamilton / Ayr could also be above us here and possibly out bid us for players. Remember it was only last season Hamilton and Cove were able to put together a playing budget more competitive than ours on a fraction of our gates, if an owner is willing to subsidise loses by pumping cash in we are always at risk of being disadvantaged competing for players against these clubs. However I think your probably correct in saying apart from Airdrie and Morton there won’t be that much between the respective playing budgets when it comes to the rest of the clubs outside possibly Livingston who have the parachute payments and Raith who I’m told will continue to be backed by they’re new owners.

It sounds like that’s more or less what happens, how accurate the information spouted via these prawn sandwich meetings is I have no idea. Suppose it depends on the individuals involved but the respective club owners and directors certainly all seem to have a rough idea what each of their competing clubs are able to spend on players.

The unfortunate thing now is we will just have to suck it up and re-evaluate how much money we allow for spend on first team players or youth academy so we can fund ripping up our brand new state of the art 300k pitch up and replace it with mud! we’ll also have to arrange a permanent training facility and green keeping staff . It’s shite and will inevitably effect the quality of player we can bring in and the quality of player we could potentially produce but we need to start planning for it as it’s not going to change and as much as there probably should be there won’t be any financial assistance from the powers that be to help fund the transition.

The level of transparency we get now being fan owned is actually very healthy, there are very few things the guys sitting on the club board or the FSS committee are not prepared to openly discuss.

Without them all sharing detailed or intimate financial details we’d be daft to think directors of the respective clubs don’t have informal discussions semi regularly about these things, particularly in the board rooms before and after games. I know this to have been the case on at least a couple of occasions at the Falkirk stadium last season where various directors from other clubs attended. They all also tend to make educated guesses via squad sizes and when competing for the same pool of players then perhaps loosing out on a target due to what’s been on offer at various other clubs.

There are probably 7 or 8 sides this season that will realistically be targeting promotion and/or a play off place but the league will be tight and I’d wager they’ll be very little between the side that does finish 8th and the teams challenging to win the league. Falkirk should be targeting the promotion play offs as a minimum but could realistically end up anywhere just purely on the nature of division this season.

Sorry but I completely disagree, I’ve sat through to many games that have been completely spoiled (or cancelled altogether!) due to poor quality grass pitches (one game in particular last season still ticks in my head!) in the Scottish winters, the 4g technology now available solves that problem and should be embraced as it is by every other country in our hemisphere playing winter football. It does seem we are determined to drive our game back into the dark ages purely based on ignorance as opposed to moving with the times however.

The problem is there are possibly only 3 “quality” grass pitches throughout the winter months in Scotland, most of the others are not conducive to playing passing football. Unless adequately funded the best way to pay for and produce a higher quality product across the board is the use of top end 4g pitches that remain consistent throughout the year where needed, either that or we switch to summer football, its simply isn’t up for debate when you look at the mess most of our grass playing surfaces become in the winter months. Champions league semi finals are played on 4g surfaces, to suggest good football can’t be played on this surface just comes down to being ignorant of the facts.

Probably because games tend to actually go ahead on the scheduled dates and times, it’s actually possible to play attractive football and pass the ball on these pitches through the winter months as opposed to say attempting to play anything resembling football on the cow fields at Dundee or Motherwell.

Does have a feeling of deja vu for us Falkirk fans of that era but I’m aware we weren’t the only club that suffered one way or another at that time, changing the rules only a season after us having been denied promotion (again!) for Inverness was a bit sickening but in hindsight two wrongs don’t make a right so at least common sense eventually prevailed. The ill thought through proposals banning 4g pitches aren’t much better and although a club winning the league could at a push probably find a way to install a grass pitch in the event of promotion far easier than they could build a whole new stadium it is money that could and should be far better spent elsewhere, purely from our own point of view we are in the middle of trying to fund and reinstate our youth academy to the level it was running at previously and a massive part of that business model centred around using the 4G pitch which was only newly fitted less than a year ago, this ruling will most likely see that plan shelved or delayed. There’s just been no thought , compromise or fact finding put into this decision and as you say it draws direct comparisons to the ridiculous 10000 seated stadia rule.

I must be one of the few that actually quite enjoys sitting in that stand, it’s probably a nostalgia thing as it’s not to different to the old wooden stand at brockville. It even creates noise that only those old wooden stands can. I don’t mind the thing at all, even the pillars don’t really bother me but again it probably is just more for nostalgic reasons as opposed to any logical thinking.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story eh?!

Sounds like there may be a few examples of this recently, the club may need to re-evaluate its relationship with the foundation. I don’t get the impression they have been particularly co-operative of late.

Not sure if we have primary use of that pitch, I think the foundation more or less dictate when we are allowed to use it.

This! Reward teams that are at the top end of a league winning games rather than teams that have failed and ended up at the bottom of a league. Success should always be rewarded but our play off system rewards failure by allowing a team finishing 2nd last the easiest route. In England they just relegate you, down you go you’ve been shite all season! No play offs for you!

Which would be another loss of income for us, the money we’d loose from pitch hire, concerts and probably having to fund the cost and maintenance of a training facility plus a grass pitch going forward will no doubt affect our ability to compete in the transfer market and hinder our plans to expand the academy. All that added to the initial outlay of replacing the pitch, it’s sickening but we are stuck between a rock and a hard place so will just need to get on with it.

Hearts pitch being relayed from grass to grass / synthetic hybrid was quoted as costing 1.2 million. It’s not an option for us. There is a reason only three clubs in the country have a pitch like that, it’s down to cost!

Can you remind me last time Airdrie were in the top league?

We tried this before after being denied promotion via the office of fair trading and eventually had to stop , rumbled on for years after the initial decision and it just became a money pit. I’m sure the bill eventually ran into 6 figures which ended up being money down the drain anyway. Been over 20 years now so I’m presuming legal fees would be considerably higher now than they were then.

We’d find away to do it, I’m told by people in that industry there are cheaper ways for a grass pitch to be installed than the figures that are being quoted but it does not make it any less ridiculous. Huge outlay on our pitch only last year down the drain and ripping up what by all accounts is an excellent surface for no good reason seems absolutely insane, having to do this should we get promoted would also put us at even more of massive financial disadvantage to the clubs we’d be competing against if a big chunk of our income is spent replacing what is a perfectly good quality playing surface we already have and could likely end up seeing us drop straight back down. It’s actually sickening.