The New Raith Rovers Thread

[HIT THE CHANNEL]

15 hours ago, Broken Algorithms said:

Duncan sat down with Alan Russell from the Raith Trust recently to have a blether about the group. Within our group who we have on, we've some people who are actively involved in the Trust and some who have fallen off. Hopefully people find the chat as informative as I did. 

 

Thanks for sharing and for doing the interview. A big thanks to all the folks at ONNN in general, too.  It's been a brilliant addition to Raith Rovers as a club.

I found the podcast really informative and inspiring. It seems hard to say a big enough thanks to Alan and all members of the trust for what they have done over the years. But for what its worth, thank you!  What an stroke of luck to have such an asset. Really great to hear all the good work going on in the wider game as well. 

It also left me a wee bit embarrassed that, despite being Rovers daft (home and away, ST for 27 years) I hadn't given any real attention to the Trust. And this is despite caring a lot about the club being a vehicle/hub to be a real force for good in the community. I've now joined!*

I think it probably came from being too young to have understood the launch of the Trust and the financial crises in the mid 00s (born 92). Also, my ST is in the last block close to the Railway Stand and I always use the turnstiles at that end, so I have perhaps seen the Trust's hub in the South Stand just a handful of times over the years. So much so that until it was mentioned on the podcast, I had forgotten it was there!

On that note, I do think a bit more visibility would be helpful. Perhaps posters in the South Stand, a couple of annual podcast appearances, using social media etc. As an aside, I think social media is a social cancer and if humanity collectively deleted it we would all be much happier, but for now, its not going anywhere and lots of people use it!).

I also fully appreciate that folks are volunteers, so please do take this is a purely constructive! But I went on the webpage to sign up and the latest news on there was almost 2 years old. I clicked on 'fundraising' and the last entry was 2019. I imagine that rather than updating a website all this kind of info is emailed to members. But if I had not heard the podcast, I would have assumed that the Trust activity had stopped/the organisation was stale. Whereas, having listened to the podcast, it is clear the trust is very much alive and, building on amazing work in the past, continuing to do a lot of great work and is a vital driver of fan engagement/fan interests, community work and all round 'make the Rovers better' work!

So if seeking to reinvigorate and grow the membership, trying to ensure the Trust's work/activities are easier to see is something that, I think, would be worthwhile investing a wee bit time in. Whether through the website, more posters in the South Stand/toilets etc., social media etc.

Anyway, sorry to have not joined sooner and thanks for everyone's work and generosity to date!

 

*FYI for new folks joining if you plan on making a 'donation' to top up the £5 annual membership, you can set up a SO. So rather than paying £5 for the membership and then giving a one off donation when signing up, you can set up a SO for a 5er a month (this is the option I went for), 5er a quarter etc. to pay your membership and contribute a wee bit more to the funds.)

[Broken Algorithms]

1 hour ago, HIT THE CHANNEL said:

Thanks for sharing and for doing the interview. A big thanks to all the folks at ONNN in general, too.  It's been a brilliant addition to Raith Rovers as a club.

I found the podcast really informative and inspiring. It seems hard to say a big enough thanks to Alan and all members of the trust for what they have done over the years. But for what its worth, thank you!  What an stroke of luck to have such an asset. Really great to hear all the good work going on in the wider game as well. 

It also left me a wee bit embarrassed that, despite being Rovers daft (home and away, ST for 27 years) I hadn't given any real attention to the Trust. And this is despite caring a lot about the club being a vehicle/hub to be a real force for good in the community. I've now joined!*

I think it probably came from being too young to have understood the launch of the Trust and the financial crises in the mid 00s (born 92). Also, my ST is in the last block close to the Railway Stand and I always use the turnstiles at that end, so I have perhaps seen the Trust's hub in the South Stand just a handful of times over the years. So much so that until it was mentioned on the podcast, I had forgotten it was there!

On that note, I do think a bit more visibility would be helpful. Perhaps posters in the South Stand, a couple of annual podcast appearances, using social media etc. As an aside, I think social media is a social cancer and if humanity collectively deleted it we would all be much happier, but for now, its not going anywhere and lots of people use it!).

I also fully appreciate that folks are volunteers, so please do take this is a purely constructive! But I went on the webpage to sign up and the latest news on there was almost 2 years old. I clicked on 'fundraising' and the last entry was 2019. I imagine that rather than updating a website all this kind of info is emailed to members. But if I had not heard the podcast, I would have assumed that the Trust activity had stopped/the organisation was stale. Whereas, having listened to the podcast, it is clear the trust is very much alive and, building on amazing work in the past, continuing to do a lot of great work and is a vital driver of fan engagement/fan interests, community work and all round 'make the Rovers better' work!

So if seeking to reinvigorate and grow the membership, trying to ensure the Trust's work/activities are easier to see is something that, I think, would be worthwhile investing a wee bit time in. Whether through the website, more posters in the South Stand/toilets etc., social media etc.

Anyway, sorry to have not joined sooner and thanks for everyone's work and generosity to date!

 

*FYI for new folks joining if you plan on making a 'donation' to top up the £5 annual membership, you can set up a SO. So rather than paying £5 for the membership and then giving a one off donation when signing up, you can set up a SO for a 5er a month (this is the option I went for), 5er a quarter etc. to pay your membership and contribute a wee bit more to the funds.)

Thanks for the comments on the podcast. It was a no brainer after Graeme finished up the Saturday Sport Show on K107.  We've had a lot of positive feedback, along with some negative too. 

As for the Trust, one of the reasons that we wanted to get them on for a podcast was that a few of us in the group (myself included) had questions about their role and what they are doing at the moment. I'd been a member of the trust before, but my membership dropped off last year and I didn't see any tangible benefit to renewing it. I think one of the difficult parts on that front is that it's very hard to fit into a flyer or poster about all the work they're doing. As you say, if you can give someone as articular and well thought as Alan an opportunity to sit down and talk for an hour, you'll probably find you'll get a lot of your questions answered naturally.  

We're fortunate to have a bit of a soapbox and figured there was an opportunity to talk about the work which they've been doing. Even for stuff like the Trust's relationship between the current board of directors and John Sim - that isn't something you can put onto a poster or flyer. There are a lot of valid questions still outstanding about what happens with the club moving forward (notably over the stadium ownership should John Sim cease his involvement), but we figured if we can give the Trust a chance to answer some of the questions we had then there's every chance that the rest of the fanbase might find it a useful exercise.

I've said it before, but the same applies to other groups involved with the Rovers too. While there'll always be differences of opinion from fan to fan or possibly even group to group, it's beneficial to everyone to give people a bit of a platform to share the work that's going on. Ultimately, to steal the Trust's mantra, we're all benefit from a stronger Raith Rovers in one way or another. 

[raith1974]

Main Stand looking even better. Lower uncladded area has now been painted.

[Keyser Soze]

 

[GroundHoppingBear]

Was at Morton v Raith, first time seeing Raith this season. Thought that Pollock looks a player, and why did Byrne come off at half time? Totally changed the game.

[mrpaddyx]

Does anyone know what the crowd was for the Matthews Testimonial match?

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

7 minutes ago, mrpaddyx said:

Does anyone know what the crowd was for the Matthews Testimonial match?

According to Jim Foy, 1281

[CountryBumpkin]

9 hours ago, Zen Archer (Raconteur) said:

According to Jim Foy, 1281

Hopefully a few hundred more on the stream

[embow]

2 hours ago, CountryBumpkin said:

Hopefully a few hundred more on the stream

Plus those who bought tickets knowing that they were not, for a multitude of reasons, going to be able to attend. Or does the 1218 include these sales?

Edited Saturday at 12:32 by embow

[Raith2711]

1 hour ago, embow said:

Plus those who bought tickets knowing that they were not, for a multitude of reasons, going to be able to attend. Or does the 1218 include these sales?

Guessing that this includes those sales given the way we've calculated attendences for other games since this season and last. 

Vaughan's was given as 2240 and having been there, there wasn't anything close to that in the ground.

[Jilted John]

On 11/10/2024 at 17:50, raith1974 said:

Main Stand looking even better. Lower uncladded area has now been painted.

I’m actually pretty disappointed with it. Standing at the bottom of Pratt St looking up, we have three different shades of blue, the roof, the cladding and the paint. There’s maybe not much we could have done about the roof but why on earth did we not buy paint that matches the cladding? It looks silly. Hopefully it’s just a base coat but given it’s way darker, it doesn’t look like it!

[CountryBumpkin]

37 minutes ago, Jilted John said:

I’m actually pretty disappointed with it. Standing at the bottom of Pratt St looking up, we have three different shades of blue, the roof, the cladding and the paint. There’s maybe not much we could have done about the roof but why on earth did we not buy paint that matches the cladding? It looks silly. Hopefully it’s just a base coat but given it’s way darker, it doesn’t look like it!

The roof will be a darker blue in time, I believe they want to put solar panels on it. 

[Rover1883]

23 hours ago, CountryBumpkin said:

The roof will be a darker blue in time, I believe they want to put solar panels on it. 

Why wouldn't they that will be really affective in our relegation battle I'm sure of it 

[Jilted John]

Something I was wondering about, on the subject of our pitch. We are in a catch 22 situation. The current one needs replaced, you can tell by the way the ball is bouncing now that it’s not as good as it used to be, but will we shell out on a new one, knowing that we couldn’t use it in the top flight ‘when’ we get there? Anyway, given that some teams have hybrids, would it be within the rules for 3/4 of our pitch to be grass but the 1/4 in the main/south stand be synthetic to solve the problem of the lack of sunlight? Not sure if Scott Fleming from the podcast posts on here. He would maybe know of that feasible or not.

[Hank Scorpio]

49 minutes ago, Jilted John said:

Something I was wondering about, on the subject of our pitch. We are in a catch 22 situation. The current one needs replaced, you can tell by the way the ball is bouncing now that it’s not as good as it used to be, but will we shell out on a new one, knowing that we couldn’t use it in the top flight ‘when’ we get there? Anyway, given that some teams have hybrids, would it be within the rules for 3/4 of our pitch to be grass but the 1/4 in the main/south stand be synthetic to solve the problem of the lack of sunlight? Not sure if Scott Fleming from the podcast posts on here. He would maybe know of that feasible or not.

He isn’t but I’ll answer for him. That’s unhinged. 

[CountryBumpkin]

1 hour ago, Jilted John said:

Something I was wondering about, on the subject of our pitch. We are in a catch 22 situation. The current one needs replaced, you can tell by the way the ball is bouncing now that it’s not as good as it used to be, but will we shell out on a new one, knowing that we couldn’t use it in the top flight ‘when’ we get there? Anyway, given that some teams have hybrids, would it be within the rules for 3/4 of our pitch to be grass but the 1/4 in the main/south stand be synthetic to solve the problem of the lack of sunlight? Not sure if Scott Fleming from the podcast posts on here. He would maybe know of that feasible or not.

Thats not what hybrid means for pitches. We would likely have a hybrid pitch because they're usually more resistant to usage and weather. Its an interweaving of grass and synthetic fibers. But the surface has to be the same all over. 

 

1 hour ago, Rover1883 said:

Why wouldn't they that will be really affective in our relegation battle I'm sure of it 

Angle them properly and we could blind the opposition keeper in the North Stand goal. 

[Jilted John]

56 minutes ago, CountryBumpkin said:

Thats not what hybrid means for pitches.

I know what a hybrid pitch is, and that they are allowed in the top tier. The rules must allow a certain degree of synthetic. Would they allow a goal mouth or a corner section? Would it even be possible?

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

14 minutes ago, Jilted John said:

I know what a hybrid pitch is, and that they are allowed in the top tier. The rules must allow a certain degree of synthetic. Would they allow a goal mouth or a corner section? Would it even be possible?

Oldham Athletic installed a hybrid pitch last season, over the entire playing surface the 'plastic' element was less than 5% evenly distributed.

[Zen Archer (Raconteur)]

1:23

 

 

[CountryBumpkin]

29 minutes ago, Jilted John said:

I know what a hybrid pitch is, and that they are allowed in the top tier. The rules must allow a certain degree of synthetic. Would they allow a goal mouth or a corner section? Would it even be possible?

No. It has to be evenly distributed throughout the grass surface, it's not patchwork