The New Raith Rovers Thread

[Mr.Blue]

Couple of cracking signings by Rovers. I'd say Hamilton is a player that would have been welcome at every club in the championship.

[San Starko Rover]

1 hour ago, Zen Archer (Raconteur) said:

 

Good to see our board have done the right thing on this one, the idea is an abomination and would relegate over 100+ clubs who’ve only recently signed up to the pyramid (some more willingly than others).  B teams belong nowhere in Senior football leagues and would ruin the lower divisions for the benefit of a few top tier teams. Time we banned all B teams from Senior Competitions.  

[tazz1903]

4 hours ago, OhnononoGeordieMunro said:

If I was any of the other Championship teams I'd strongly consider keeping some budget back and having a crack at the title 24/25 as 23/24 is gone now.

Be mental watching us in the Prem, cannae wait.

It's all going to end in tears  Cannae wait 

[Enigma]

5 minutes ago, tazz1903 said:

It's all going to end in tears  Cannae wait 

Enjoy floating about League Two and League One for eternity. Maybe you’ll get a crack at the Lowland League one day.

Edited May 30, 2023 by Enigma

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

2 minutes ago, Enigma said:

Enjoy floating about League Two and League One for eternity. Maybe you’ll get a crack at the Lowland League one day.

I feel sorry for the lad, he lost the roof over his head when they knocked down the Bawbee Bridge.

[tazz1903]

2 minutes ago, Enigma said:

Enjoy floating about League Two and League One for eternity. Maybe you’ll get a crack at the Lowland League one day.

Aye ok , but wait n see where you end up  cannae wait 

[tazz1903]

2 minutes ago, Zen Archer (Raconteur) said:

I feel sorry for the lad, he lost the roof over his head when they knocked down the Bawbee Bridge.

 just wait n see ?  Enjoy yer season tho 

 

[raith1974]

16 minutes ago, Enigma said:

Enjoy floating about League Two and League One for eternity. Maybe you’ll get a crack at the Lowland League one day.

No chance that East Fife will get back to league 1 they're pish.

Edited May 30, 2023 by raith1974
Spelling

[Specky Ginger]

23 minutes ago, tazz1903 said:

It's all going to end in tears  Cannae wait 

Tears for us is relegation to league one.

Valhalla for East Fife is promotion to league one.

Spot the difference.

[RR #1]

41 minutes ago, tazz1903 said:

Aye ok , but wait n see where you end up  cannae wait 

Where we end up? Obviously that's going to be in The Premier league. Ye ragin aye?

[RAITHROVERS84]

1 hour ago, tazz1903 said:

Aye ok , but wait n see where you end up  cannae wait 

Rather than watching from afar why not come along and watch your closest full time team playing in front of 6500/7000 fans against the pars and Dundee United. 

Gotta be better than the utter dross and dismal viewing you’ll get served up against the giants that are Elgin and Bonnyrigg surely ?

Oh nearly forgot what’s going on with your season ticket prices. They’re nigh on the same as championship sides - WTF is that all about.

[Raith_Rasta]

Stop biting ti tazz it’s cringe. Stop hinking we are go win the World Cup, as a come back ti him.. Cringe AF 

[North British 2]

8 hours ago, Mr.Blue said:

Couple of cracking signings by Rovers. I'd say Hamilton is a player that would have been welcome at every club in the championship

Mullin is also a cracking signing for Rovers , we played him on the right side with Logan Chalmers on the left . Worked a treat . Superb set price delivery and a great crosser of the ball . One of the fitest guys at Ayr last season , always topped the stats list . He'll do fine at Rovers ..

[TxRover]

So, Mullin and Connolly can both play right or left wing, Hamilton is the forward, that leaves an awful pileup for the AM/10 spot. The obvious choices are Stanton, Vaughan plus perhaps Easton and Arnott. We have Brown and Matthews (or Spencer) at DM, with McGill and Stanton as cover. Ross, Easton and McGill provide winger depth…and Gullen, Vaughan and Mitchell provide forward depth.

With that set of options, I would expect Arnott loaned out to either show something or get released next year…Mitchell to get a half year loan to start with and show development. If that happens, we might see one more attacking signing.

The back line is skint right now…we’re starting Corr and Masson or Dick…and if it’s Dick, that’s likely McGill at LB. Millen at RB is solid, and I think IM likes Dick enough at LB, so we’ll likely see at least one experienced CB, if not two. Assuming that, we could still use a utility FB as well. Masson likely needs to be loaned out if we want to keep him and don’t start him…so that another reason to find a FB capable of playing either side…and I think a primarily defensive FB would be fine, we have enough other crossers now.

19 signed, needing at least 3 defenders and a keeper…that leaves one to three additional spots to hit the 24-26 range…plus replacements for any loaned out (possibly as many as 3). I also have rethought Corr, since it’s a one year deal. If we don’t play him much, we can sign him next year for longer and possibly lock in some value if he develops like we hope…but we have to risk playing him enough to keep him happy here…tricky job.

[R.R.FC]

Leaving aside the trolling from the East Fife weirdo, I do think signing the likes of Mullin and Hamilton will attract attention with claims of Fif£ Gr£tna and it’s obviously something to keep an eye on.

However, I think the investment in the infrastructure and commercial side of things shows the plan is for things to be sustainable. The Commercial side of things has been badly neglected in recent years and I think with the expertise we now have there, there can be massive growth quite quickly.

Also, if we were just recklessly throwing huge sums of money at the team on the pitch, I doubt we’d have lost Lang and potentially Spencer and we wouldn’t have offered reduced terms to MacDonald resulting in us losing him too. I think the length of the deals offered has been the biggest selling point for both additions rather than astronomical wages (albeit they will obviously be on good wages for this level). 

[Broken Algorithms]

21 minutes ago, R.R.FC said:

Leaving aside the trolling from the East Fife weirdo, I do think signing the likes of Mullin and Hamilton will attract attention with claims of Fif£ Gr£tna and it’s obviously something to keep an eye on.

However, I think the investment in the infrastructure and commercial side of things shows the plan is for things to be sustainable. The Commercial side of things has been badly neglected in recent years and I think with the expertise we now have there, there can be massive growth quite quickly.

Also, if we were just recklessly throwing huge sums of money at the team on the pitch, I doubt we’d have lost Lang and potentially Spencer and we wouldn’t have offered reduced terms to MacDonald resulting in us losing him too. I think the length of the deals offered has been the biggest selling point for both additions rather than astronomical wages (albeit they will obviously be on good wages for this level). 

Excellent and fair post 

While I understand the reason for the concern of some, I could not give a single f**k about this. We've seen plenty of other teams rocket up the pyramid while having about 500 fans going to games while their backers poach full time players. We've seen other clubs who have had years and years of financial mismanagement get up to the top flight, only to come back down and go into administration with their fans giving it the teary eyed "JuSt WaNt A cLuB tO sUpPoRt!!!111" in front of the cameras. Meanwhile we had to slog through Reclaim the Rovers with McGowan threatening to bulldoze our club. We didn't get the luxury of wiping out our debt through a CVA. 

As you say, it might be risky, but the new board seems to have a good strategy and it's a break from our perpetual cycle of going season to season without much direction. Ideally they'll work to get the stadium and club back as one entity. It might sound entitled, and there's zero guarantee of any success, but our support has been long suffering so we deserve a chance to enjoy this new optimism and direction.

[Raith Against The Machine]

There's no shying away from the fact there's more money involved. Without the takeover, we'd not have gotten Hamilton and we might've been in the mix for Mullin but could easily have lost out to an Ayr or an ICT.

The three year deals interest me more than the wages, mostly because it just feels like the actions of a club with a more mature, longer-term outlook. There are huge caveats here, because chucking about long-term deals hasn't always gone well, you only have to look at the business James McPake did at Dundee to see that. But with these, it looks sensible. 

Hamilton is the obvious one in as much as he could potentially have sell-on value. If he has two back-to-back 15 goal seasons (or one 20-25 goal season), he'll attract interest. It might not be huge, but it'd be there. He's proven at this level, so you'd think the worst case scenario is just that he's alright, but there are much worse things than having an alright striker tied down for three years, as we've found out to our cost over the past couple. 

Mullin is interesting because he doesn't have any sell-on value. He's not getting money spinning move elsewhere, not at this point in his career. But he's only 30. Barring a catastrophic injury, over the next three years is he good enough to play Championship football? Absolutely. On the off chance that we get promoted, is he good enough for the Premiership? Probably not, but off the back of a league winning season, maybe? Either way, bit of a champagne problem that one. 

The flipside of that outcome is the more relevant one. What if we get relegated? Well, Hamilton and Mullin (and Connolly et al) are more than good enough for League One, but prior to this close season, we'd have been terrified of offering them longer deals in case we went down. That's clearly no longer the case. And that means there are two possible scenarios. Either the new board are rolling the dice on that just not happening and it'd turn into a crisis, or they're prepared to underwrite it if it does come to pass, and use those players to come back up (a la Dunfermline). 

[Michael W]

On the other hand, Jamie Macdonald is away because he rejected our offer of a contract. It's a fair assumption he'd have been one of our higher earners, so clearly we are not prepared to pay any cost to bring in or retain players. I remain disappointed about him leaving and do worry about replacing him, but I am assured that we are conducting business in a sensible manner. 

It was also highlighted by Sim that the contract offers we were giving out in the past included automatic increases, which absolutely gubbed future budgets. Of course, you can't really complain about things that happen on your watch if you don't apply the correct amount of oversight, but things like this will have been eliminated under the new structure. 

In terms of how the new board address the financial position of the club, that remains to be seen. There are some very easy wins here for them - actually sell hospitality and match sponsorship for starters. But I'm sure we'll hear more about that in due course. 

For the avoidance of doubt, if we continue wracking up losses, I will absolutely be the first person to complain about it. 

[Broken Algorithms]

15 minutes ago, Raith Against The Machine said:

There's no shying away from the fact there's more money involved. Without the takeover, we'd not have gotten Hamilton and we might've been in the mix for Mullin but could easily have lost out to an Ayr or an ICT.

The three year deals interest me more than the wages, mostly because it just feels like the actions of a club with a more mature, longer-term outlook. There are huge caveats here, because chucking about long-term deals hasn't always gone well, you only have to look at the business James McPake did at Dundee to see that. But with these, it looks sensible. 

Hamilton is the obvious one in as much as he could potentially have sell-on value. If he has two back-to-back 15 goal seasons (or one 20-25 goal season), he'll attract interest. It might not be huge, but it'd be there. He's proven at this level, so you'd think the worst case scenario is just that he's alright, but there are much worse things than having an alright striker tied down for three years, as we've found out to our cost over the past couple. 

Mullin is interesting because he doesn't have any sell-on value. He's not getting money spinning move elsewhere, not at this point in his career. But he's only 30. Barring a catastrophic injury, over the next three years is he good enough to play Championship football? Absolutely. On the off chance that we get promoted, is he good enough for the Premiership? Probably not, but off the back of a league winning season, maybe? Either way, bit of a champagne problem that one. 

The flipside of that outcome is the more relevant one. What if we get relegated? Well, Hamilton and Mullin (and Connolly et al) are more than good enough for League One, but prior to this close season, we'd have been terrified of offering them longer deals in case we went down. That's clearly no longer the case. And that means there are two possible scenarios. Either the new board are rolling the dice on that just not happening and it'd turn into a crisis, or they're prepared to underwrite it if it does come to pass, and use those players to come back up (a la Dunfermline). 

As I said yesterday, the likelihood is United will piss the league next season. There's no guarantee of course, but you'd expect Goodwin will get a tune out of that squad with a small turnover of players. Unlike before when we've gone season to season, I think we're looking at a squad which will be over a couple of years where they can get familiar and have a crack at the league in the next couple of seasons. 

Next season will likely be a more difficult league but I think we'll see a continuation of each team taking points off of each other and it being tight between 2nd and 6th/7th. 

 I'm keen to see how we do in the league cup. We've only made the knockouts once, and that got us ties against Aberdeen and then Celtic. Last season, and most other campaigns, it's felt like we've gone in and suffered due to a lack of depth. While the prize money isn't great, the seeding if you make the latter stages gives you a decent chance of getting the Old Firm and a pay day. It's also historically a good tournament to find out which top flight team are in turmoil to start their season - Aberdeen two seasons ago, and then Hibs last season.

[D.Armour Appreciation Society]

37 minutes ago, Broken Algorithms said:

We didn't get the luxury of wiping out our debt through a CVA. 

Hell Yeah !  All of that shit should have come with an automatic relegation, for the clubs involved.

If club owners want to spraff THEIR money, then fair enough.  Just don't expect the Tax Payer to ride to the rescue.