The New Raith Rovers Thread

[Raithie]

I thought we were on bbc alba for the semi-final as well..? I could be wrong..I probably am wrong.

No you're right. Semi final was defo on Alba.

[McGuigan1978]

By my reckoning, our gate money is down by approximately £250,000 to £300,000. Our cup runs, and win, will definitely have recouped a fair whack of that back, maybe even surpassed it this season, but I doubt it's led to a big increase in our income, compared to a few years back.

Presumably though the runs did finance the acquisitions of Robinson, Baird and Mullen.

It shows how tight things are, that despite having 2 games against Celtic, and a couple of home games against the Pars, without the Sky cash from last year's Scottish Cup game, we would only have broke even.

[p&b is a disgrace]

Unless we spend a whole load of cash ( and I really hope we don't ) then avoiding relegation next season should be the only objective. I just can't see us winning that many game.

[McGuigan1978]

We'll have at least 2 part-time teams in the league next season, possibly more depending on play-off results and Livingston's situation.

Aiming for the top four might be fanciful, but I'd like to think that the warm embrace of mid-table obscurity could be convincingly achieved.

Unless Cowdenbeath put half-a-dozen past us on Saturday of course.

[Raithie]

New away top goes on sale this weekend.

[Rovers_Lad]

Then there's also being televised 3 times as well this season..or is that including that? Thought it would have been a bit more than 200k

thats why i said 200k+ and it was a conservative figure

Saints game and the final, you sure there was another??

Our total crowds for cup games this season is around 50,000, half of that even at an average of a tenner a head is 250k, believe we received around 90k for Scottish Cup game on sky before any prize money for reaching QF. Again there was prize money for winning Ramsdens cup but not sure how much this year and no idea how much if any we got for being live on telly?

All in all an unexpected windfall of a cup season.

its something like 82k each for the cup games on sky and bbc.heard the prize money for winning the ramsden cup is something like 15k and 5k for televised game .on money from attendances,we wouldn`t see the full half of them the time the policing costs etc are taken off along with the suits cut,havind said that still trousered a fair sum of money from our cup exploits

By my reckoning, our gate money is down by approximately £250,000 to £300,000. Our cup runs, and win, will definitely have recouped a fair whack of that back, maybe even surpassed it this season, but I doubt it's led to a big increase in our income, compared to a few years back.

Presumably though the runs did finance the acquisitions of Robinson, Baird and Mullen.

It shows how tight things are, that despite having 2 games against Celtic, and a couple of home games against the Pars, without the Sky cash from last year's Scottish Cup game, we would only have broke even.

the fact we posted a small profit on the last set of accounts,cut back on the budget yet again along with the possible money trousered from our cup run this season would expect to see a profit on our next set of accounts

[baillieinleeds]

Whats happening with the new home top. I'd love us to go back to our traditional navy blue, or the amazing half and half in our promotion season.

[renton]

Whats happening with the new home top. I'd love us to go back to our traditional navy blue, or the amazing half and half in our promotion season.

Think we are keeping the white shirts for next year.

[baillieinleeds]

Think we are keeping the white shirts for next year.

Suppose it makes sense, it'll certainly free up some money for next season.

[renton]

For me the big issue this season has been squad size. Even good players don't play well all the time, and players sometimes need a rest - beyond that, a couple of injuries and your whole team shape is scuppered.

Murray made a gamble on Ellis still having a season left in him, and on the 4 young guys being a bit more ready than they perhaps turned out to be. In the event it's led to Murray trying to eke through the season with two senior centre backs, two senior central midfielders and only two recognised wide players. Virtually the only place we've had competition for berths is up front.

So two long term injuries between the keeper and the 2 centre backs wasn't exactly ideal. Laidlaw's form in goals was patchy and neither Ellis or Donaldson looked solid partners for Hill, and it's really that month - December, where we have lost McGurn, lose Watson, then we play Dumbarton and lose both wide players. Cardle reckoned the last ditch 3-3 draw at Cowden punched Rovers in the gut that took them a while to overcome, you'd also have to look at the Livi game immediately afterwards where 3 mistakes gifted Livi the game (it was also the situation then that several guys were carrying knocks - Fox hadn't trained properly in weeks at that point, such was the fear of him breaking down in training) - I think over those couple of months they found it impossible to get any kind of momentum going.

It's January before the walking wounded are fit, your keeper situation hasn't improved and we are down to putting Thomson in at centre back. Chopping and changing can't have helped as well, and you could see them looking more nervous, more risk averse and thinking twice about things - which generally is what leads to the kind of individual f**k ups that cost us in the second half of the season. We stopped doing a lot of the good things, I think Shaun mcGuigan on THHP noted that the Cardle/Booth overlap just didn't happen with the regularity that it had in the first few months of the season.

What's interesting for me is the fact that generally, we didn't play that badly in games, some times - Falkirk on Saturday, Cowden back in February we were generally atrocious from abck to front, but in other games, we've generally looked decent in spells, even the front six have been good - and fallen apart at the back. Part of this is not being able to settle the defence without Watson, part of it is certainly the lack of McGurn, he no doubt gives his centre backs confidence that they can go up and try to win balls knowing that he's there when they need him, when you start to think the man in the sticks, or the man besides you is shakey, it affect show you play your game (Todd Lumsdenw asn't a bad player and when paired with Campbell and Andrews was more than fine, but with Mcleod next to him and Brown behind him?)

This isn't to excuse Murray, he's made mistakes but generally he's put the best team out and gotten reasonable performances out of them which they've then gone and let down through individual rather than systemic mistakes, for me the big things has not being able to adequately replace the injured - gambling on the young guys who need a bit more time, and maybe not having guys with the mental strength to plow through (one of watson's great strengths is communication) - McG said in one of his interviews that he always asked what players were like when he signed them, you can see that he wanted certain personalities to help keep the team together, is Murray's curent team a bit lacking in that department? Possibly. f**k knows how we'll match Cowden for motiviation on saturday but we have to try.

All in all, there are three or four guys we could let go but I'd be looking to build a bigger senior squad than the one we had this year, ironically though, next year (assuming we don't get turned around 5 or 6 goals this weekend and next) looks like a tempting one fo rthe board to cut costs and make money from the Rangers and Hearts crowds.....

Edited April 24, 2014 by renton

[Raithie]

Suppose it makes sense, it'll certainly free up some money for next season.

True but we won't have the usual upsurge of people buying the home top as most will already have it. Hopefully the away top is a big seller. Haven't a clue how much it will cost the club to have the tops produced and/or if the club end up making a profit from punters buying it.

[baillieinleeds]

True but we won't have the usual upsurge of people buying the home top as most will already have it. Hopefully the away top is a big seller. Haven't a clue how much it will cost the club to have the tops produced and/or if the club end up making a profit from punters buying it.

Hopefully the new away strip gets a lot of interest as its merely a collectors item. I'll be begging my girl for one for my birthday thats for sure.

For me the big issue this season has been squad size. Even good players don't play well all the time, and players sometimes need a rest - beyond that, a couple of injuries and your whole team shape is scuppered.

Murray made a gamble on Ellis still having a season left in him, and on the 4 young guys being a bit more ready than they perhaps turned out to be. In the event it's led to Murray trying to eke through the season with two senior centre backs, two senior central midfielders and only two recognised wide players. Virtually the only place we've had competition for berths is up front.

So two long term injuries between the keeper and the 2 centre backs wasn't exactly ideal. Laidlaw's form in goals was patchy and neither Ellis or Donaldson looked solid partners for Hill, and it's really that month - December, where we have lost McGurn, lose Watson, then we play Dumbarton and lose both wide players. Cardle reckoned the last ditch 3-3 draw at Cowden punched Rovers in the gut that took them a while to overcome, you'd also have to look at the Livi game immediately afterwards where 3 mistakes gifted Livi the game (it was also the situation then that several guys were carrying knocks - Fox hadn't trained properly in weeks at that point, such was the fear of him breaking down in training) - I think over those couple of months they found it impossible to get any kind of momentum going.

It's January before the walking wounded are fit, your keeper situation hasn't improved and we are down to putting Thomson in at centre back. Chopping and changing can't have helped as well, and you could see them looking more nervous, more risk averse and thinking twice about things - which generally is what leads to the kind of individual f**k ups that cost us in the second half of the season. We stopped doing a lot of the good things, I think Shaun mcGuigan on THHP noted that the Cardle/Booth overlap just didn't happen with the regularity that it had in the first few months of the season.

What's interesting for me is the fact that generally, we didn't play that badly in games, some times - Falkirk on Saturday, Cowden back in February we were generally atrocious from abck to front, but in other games, we've generally looked decent in spells, even the front six have been good - and fallen apart at the back. Part of this is not being able to settle the defence without Watson, part of it is certainly the lack of McGurn, he no doubt gives his centre backs confidence that they can go up and try to win balls knowing that he's there when they need him, when you start to think the man in the sticks, or the man besides you is shakey, it affect show you play your game (Todd Lumsdenw asn't a bad player and when paired with Campbell and Andrews was more than fine, but with Mcleod next to him and Brown behind him?)

This isn't to excuse Murray, he's made mistakes but generally he's put the best team out and gotten reasonable performances out of them which they've then gone and let down through individual rather than systemic mistakes, for me the big things has not being able to adequately replace the injured - gambling on the young guys who need a bit more time, and maybe not having guys with the mental strength to plow through (one of watson's great strengths is communication) - McG said in one of his interviews that he always asked what players were like when he signed them, you can see that he wanted certain personalities to help keep the team together, is Murray's curent team a bit lacking in that department? Possibly. f**k knows how we'll match Cowden for motiviation on saturday but we have to try.

All in all, there are three or four guys we could let go but I'd be looking to build a bigger senior squad than the one we had this year, ironically though, next year (assuming we don't get turned around 5 or 6 goals this weekend and next) looks like a tempting one fo rthe board to cut costs and make money from the R

angers and Hearts crowds.....

Agree with all that, we certainly need more strength in depth. whether we go for some talented part timers or cut price full timers to slot in to our more crucial positions. Bert will have a hard job trying to tempt players to join us.

[McGuigan1978]

Completely agree with the strength in depth. Our bench for the opening day of the season was Spence, Laidlaw, Donaldson, Callachan, Ellis, Vaughan and Matthews, and that was us at full strength. We've obviously added to that since then, but as people said at the time, our squad was wafer thin, which appears to be a gamble that hasn't really worked.

On another note, I've always agreed with folk when they talk about the standard of this league getting worse, but when you compare it to 2010-11, it maybe isn't.

As was proven by their dismal showing in the top tier the next season, it was won by an average Dunfermline team, while we were second but hardly world beaters.

Stirling Albion finished bottom and were terrible, and a Cowdenbeath team that lacked the quality of this year's side finished ninth. Meanwhile, that Dundee team that was put together after administration only lost about 2 games in 29, suggesting that the rest of the league was fairly dross. Falkirk were okay, Queen of the South weren't bad, but Ross County, Morton and Partick Thistle were all pretty hum-drum.

It's hard to compare like-for-like, but when you look at it, I'd say the current league might actually compare reasonably favourably to that one.

[Double Jack D]

For me the big issue this season has been squad size. Even good players don't play well all the time, and players sometimes need a rest - beyond that, a couple of injuries and your whole team shape is scuppered.

Murray made a gamble on Ellis still having a season left in him, and on the 4 young guys being a bit more ready than they perhaps turned out to be. In the event it's led to Murray trying to eke through the season with two senior centre backs, two senior central midfielders and only two recognised wide players. Virtually the only place we've had competition for berths is up front.

So two long term injuries between the keeper and the 2 centre backs wasn't exactly ideal. Laidlaw's form in goals was patchy and neither Ellis or Donaldson looked solid partners for Hill, and it's really that month - December, where we have lost McGurn, lose Watson, then we play Dumbarton and lose both wide players. Cardle reckoned the last ditch 3-3 draw at Cowden punched Rovers in the gut that took them a while to overcome, you'd also have to look at the Livi game immediately afterwards where 3 mistakes gifted Livi the game (it was also the situation then that several guys were carrying knocks - Fox hadn't trained properly in weeks at that point, such was the fear of him breaking down in training) - I think over those couple of months they found it impossible to get any kind of momentum going.

It's January before the walking wounded are fit, your keeper situation hasn't improved and we are down to putting Thomson in at centre back. Chopping and changing can't have helped as well, and you could see them looking more nervous, more risk averse and thinking twice about things - which generally is what leads to the kind of individual f**k ups that cost us in the second half of the season. We stopped doing a lot of the good things, I think Shaun mcGuigan on THHP noted that the Cardle/Booth overlap just didn't happen with the regularity that it had in the first few months of the season.

What's interesting for me is the fact that generally, we didn't play that badly in games, some times - Falkirk on Saturday, Cowden back in February we were generally atrocious from abck to front, but in other games, we've generally looked decent in spells, even the front six have been good - and fallen apart at the back. Part of this is not being able to settle the defence without Watson, part of it is certainly the lack of McGurn, he no doubt gives his centre backs confidence that they can go up and try to win balls knowing that he's there when they need him, when you start to think the man in the sticks, or the man besides you is shakey, it affect show you play your game (Todd Lumsdenw asn't a bad player and when paired with Campbell and Andrews was more than fine, but with Mcleod next to him and Brown behind him?)

This isn't to excuse Murray, he's made mistakes but generally he's put the best team out and gotten reasonable performances out of them which they've then gone and let down through individual rather than systemic mistakes, for me the big things has not being able to adequately replace the injured - gambling on the young guys who need a bit more time, and maybe not having guys with the mental strength to plow through (one of watson's great strengths is communication) - McG said in one of his interviews that he always asked what players were like when he signed them, you can see that he wanted certain personalities to help keep the team together, is Murray's curent team a bit lacking in that department? Possibly. f**k knows how we'll match Cowden for motiviation on saturday but we have to try.

All in all, there are three or four guys we could let go but I'd be looking to build a bigger senior squad than the one we had this year, ironically though, next year (assuming we don't get turned around 5 or 6 goals this weekend and next) looks like a tempting one fo rthe board to cut costs and make money from the Rangers and Hearts crowds.....

Hard to disagree there. We definitely lacked depth and didn't appear to have much dig to get through the tough period of the season. I think Murray was lucky he signed his Contract when he did.

My opinion is if the core of the squad is maintained and a net increase of 3 or 4 decent players are brought in with the anticipated increased revenue for next season, we could do reasonably well. Murray and Ellis should retire their playing roles and I would probably release one of Smith or Spence and loan out some of the younger players like Vaughn and Laidlaw. Callachan I think is ready to replace Fox so I would release him too. That would be around 6 players released/ loaned. If we could bring in 9 or 10 signings to strengthen the Quality and Depth of the squad I think that is as good as we can be looking for the new season.

Of course that is assuming the rest sign up for longer....

[baillieinleeds]

Hard to disagree there. We definitely lacked depth and didn't appear to have much dig to get through the tough period of the season. I think Murray was lucky he signed his Contract when he did.

My opinion is if the core of the squad is maintained and a net increase of 3 or 4 decent players are brought in with the anticipated increased revenue for next season, we could do reasonably well. Murray and Ellis should retire their playing roles and I would probably release one of Smith or Spence and loan out some of the younger players like Vaughn and Laidlaw. Callachan I think is ready to replace Fox so I would release him too. That would be around 6 players released/ loaned. If we could bring in 9 or 10 signings to strengthen the Quality and Depth of the squad I think that is as good as we can be looking for the new season.

Of course that is assuming the rest sign up for longer....

totally agree about Vaughan, Laidlaw and Donaldson if he signs again to go out on loan.

I'd like us to keep, and these are just opinions mind

1, McGurn ( nobody more commited to the Rovers than this guy)

2, Mullen ( the potential is there)

3, Booth ( an absolute must, but aware that he'll be back at Hibs)

4, Hill ( a fucking tank of a man, and should be made captain)

5, Watson (brilliant sideman for Hill, they feed of each other and have a good understanding)

6, New left back

7, Callaghan ( come on leaps and bounds)

8, New CM

8a, Moon

9, Cardle

10, Anderson

11, Elliot

12, Baird ( please please please)

Then fill the team up with part timers that are good enough to replace the current players either through injuries and suspensions

Edited April 24, 2014 by baillieinleeds

[Raithie]

totally agree about Vaughan, Laidlaw and Donaldson if he signs again to go out on loan.

I'd like us to keep, and these are just opinions mind

1, McGurn ( nobody more commited to the Rovers than this guy)

2, Mullen ( the potential is there)

3, Booth ( an absolute must, but aware that he'll be back at Hibs)

4, Hill ( a fucking tank of a man, and should be made captain)

5, Watson (brilliant sideman for Hill, they feed of each other and have a good understanding)

6, New left back

7, Callaghan ( come on leaps and bounds)

8, New CM

9, Cardle

10, Anderson

11, Elliot

12, Baird ( please please please)

Then fill the team up with part timers that are good enough to replace the current players either through injuries and suspensions

Moon?

[baillieinleeds]

Moon?

Do'h, sorry forgot about him, i'll make the ammendments

[Pride of Fife]

Not sure what will happen at Morton next season player wise but if they decide to cut costs and lose a few players then surely there are one or two who could do a job for us?

Bachirou has energy and keeps the ball well, David Robertson if over his injuries could be a standout at this level.

Imrie was close to joining us last year, on his game he is a very good player.

Hands looked a prospect earlier in season too before injured.

Garry O'Conn ........ Let's just leave it there!

[baillieinleeds]

Not sure what will happen at Morton next season player wise but if they decide to cut costs and lose a few players then surely there are one or two who could do a job for us?

Bachirou has energy and keeps the ball well, David Robertson if over his injuries could be a standout at this level.

Imrie was close to joining us last year, on his game he is a very good player.

Hands looked a prospect earlier in season too before injured.

Garry O'Conn ........ Let's just leave it there!

Bachirou at a push.

[Broken Algorithms]

The only one I'd possibly even consider would be Bachirou who could feasibly work well with Moon. Even then, you could argue they are very similar midfielders in their style. I'd say Moon is better at the moment, Bachirou hasn't been as good since he angled for an SPL club and failed to find one.