The Falkirk FC Thread

[Bainsfordbairn]

6 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

Crowd in 2010 - 10,662

Crowd in 2016 - 11,013

That's the total attendances though. They're slightly skewed by the fact that we sold out (I think) the away end last year, whereas in 2010 we had just over 2,000 fans.

[Shadwell Dog]

54 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Sorry to jump into your debate but that's just not true. They had £10m of debt, not a hope in Hell of paying it off, and came to an arrangement with Bank of Scotland and Billy Bowie to write it off with the hotel business being hived off and Bowie funding some of it in return for Michael Johnston taking a bit of a back seat. They "paid it off" in the same way that Dundee did at one point, by the bank accepting it was irretrievable and taking a fractions of pence in the pound deal to lose it.

Bowie took on 6.4 million of the debt and bought the hotel for 2.4 million.  Moffat also cleared his debt which was over 800k.  That was all then used to clear the near 10mill debt to the bank the club faced. I certainly don't recall them agreeing a pennies in the pound deal with the bank.

[roman_bairn]

Bowie took on 6.4 million of the debt and bought the hotel for 2.4 million.  Moffat also cleared his debt which was over 800k.  That was all then used to clear the near 10mill debt to the bank the club faced. I certainly don't recall them agreeing a pennies in the pound deal with the bank.

Irrespective, it does not address the original point anyway.

I don't think there's anyone at our club who could (or should) be writing off such a debt.

This only emphasises the lack of balanced budget and appropriate management strategy that I mentioned earlier.

[Shadwell Dog]

5 minutes ago, roman_bairn said:

 

 

Irrespective, it does not address the original point anyway.

I don't think there's anyone at our club who could (or should) be writing off such a debt.

This only emphasises the lack of balanced budget and appropriate management strategy that I mentioned earlier.

 

I don't think anyone Is saying lets go hell for leather in a carefree spend blitz to get into the premier. However, to win the league we need to be far more innovative in the way we spend our budget and preferably we're going to have to loosen the purse strings a wee bit too. Our recruitment needs to be a lot better for starters. Also why not look at ways of raising more funds for the playing budget. Normally fans are happy to pay a bit more if they know its been ring fenced for new players. Its something we've done successfully before in the back the bairns days.

[Gaz FFC]

1 hour ago, Marshmallo said:

Crowd in 2010 - 10,662

Crowd in 2016 - 11,013

I'm unsure what your point was meant to be here.

 

[Skyline Drifter]

1 hour ago, Shadwell Dog said:

Bowie took on 6.4 million of the debt and bought the hotel for 2.4 million.  Moffat also cleared his debt which was over 800k.  That was all then used to clear the near 10mill debt to the bank the club faced. I certainly don't recall them agreeing a pennies in the pound deal with the bank.

I'm pretty sure a sizeable chunk of the bank debt was simply written off but even if that wasn't the case, the scenario you outline above whereby Billy Bowie effectively gifts them £9m to clear the bank debt is hardly the club "paying it off" in a normal fashion as you suggested. Whether the bank wrote it off or Bowie took it on and relieved the club of the liability is splitting hairs. The point is the club didn't pay it.

EDIT - I'm not spending long looking for it but the top hit on Google was this:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/kilmarnock-fc-fans-breathe-sigh-3264730

which makes it pretty clear the bank wrote off the majority of the debt and that was certainly my understanding at the time.

Edited May 9, 2017 by Skyline Drifter

[Marshmallo]

I'm unsure what your point was meant to be here.
 

"Most" Kilmarnock supporters were at both games.

[Shadwell Dog]

1 hour ago, Skyline Drifter said:

I'm pretty sure a sizeable chunk of the bank debt was simply written off but even if that wasn't the case, the scenario you outline above whereby Billy Bowie effectively gifts them £9m to clear the bank debt is hardly the club "paying it off" in a normal fashion as you suggested. Whether the bank wrote it off or Bowie took it on and relieved the club of the liability is splitting hairs. The point is the club didn't pay it.

EDIT - I'm not spending long looking for it but the top hit on Google was this:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/kilmarnock-fc-fans-breathe-sigh-3264730

which makes it pretty clear the bank wrote off the majority of the debt and that was certainly my understanding at the time.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/club-sold-park-hotel-24-3429341

The above was how I remembered it eventually panning out. And having Bowie paying it off is no different to the soft loans from directors we used to pay off some debt recently. In my mind as long as someone associated with  the club is paying  whats due (in that case a director)then thats far different  from paying 1p or zero p to the pound in a cva, I mean if QOS make a loss who covers that? Surely the bod end up having to do it like any other club? 

Edited May 9, 2017 by Shadwell Dog

[Skyline Drifter]

36 minutes ago, Shadwell Dog said:

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/local-news/club-sold-park-hotel-24-3429341

The above was how I remembered it eventually panning out. And having Bowie paying it off is no different to the soft loans from directors we used to pay off some debt recently. In my mind as long as someone associated with  the club is paying  whats due (in that case a director)then thats far different  from paying 1p or zero p to the pound in a cva, I mean if QOS make a loss who covers that? Surely the bod end up having to do it like any other club? 

Even that article there says it's expected that Bowie will come to a deal with the bank to bring that debt down or write it off completely! I recall fairly clearly at the time all the publicity was the bank were agreeing to write off a large chunk of the debt as part of the restructure. Now whilst the actual deal itself was of course not published, it's pretty likely that was the case. I don't think it's all that similar to Falkirk paying off their creditors, though I am happy to be corrected if that was such a massive sum?

It's not the same as the club paying it off and there's not a cat in hell's chance that Kilmarnock could ever have funded that debt level, which is why the bank was willing to talk about it in the first place.

Ultimately, if QoS trade to a loss above existing reserves the directors will have to pick up the slack of course but multi millions is a different world, for us anyway. The Kilmarnock scenario isn't like every other club. This was very historic debt with no chance of ever paying it off, not current losses. It would be difficult for any football club to establish such debt in future as banks simply won't lend to them any more.

[Rugster]

2 hours ago, Marshmallo said:

 

"Most" Kilmarnock supporters were at both games.

 

That's what he said. 

[roman_bairn]

Even that article there says it's expected that Bowie will come to a deal with the bank to bring that debt down or write it off completely! I recall fairly clearly at the time all the publicity was the bank were agreeing to write off a large chunk of the debt as part of the restructure. Now whilst the actual deal itself was of course not published, it's pretty likely that was the case. I don't think it's all that similar to Falkirk paying off their creditors, though I am happy to be corrected if that was such a massive sum?

It's not the same as the club paying it off and there's not a cat in hell's chance that Kilmarnock could ever have funded that debt level, which is why the bank was willing to talk about it in the first place.

Ultimately, if QoS trade to a loss above existing reserves the directors will have to pick up the slack of course but multi millions is a different world, for us anyway. The Kilmarnock scenario isn't like every other club. This was very historic debt with no chance of ever paying it off, not current losses. It would be difficult for any football club to establish such debt in future as banks simply won't lend to them any more.

 

Way more eloquently put than I could ever have written....

[Gaz FFC]

4 hours ago, Marshmallo said:

 

"Most" Kilmarnock supporters were at both games.

 

Pretty much exactly my point.

Celebrate their team staying up like a new born son and then don't come back til the next time they're in the shit.

Seems they really care

Edited May 9, 2017 by Gaz FFC

[Guest]

Crowd in 2010 - 10,662
Crowd in 2016 - 11,013

Bigger crowd last year because we probably had 2000 more there

[NavyBlueArmy1876]

19 hours ago, Marshmallo said:

Crowd in 2010 - 10,662

Crowd in 2016 - 11,013

Falkirk fans there in 2010 = 2,039. Falkirk fans there in 2016 = 4,235. A fair decrease in home support there alone, did they manage a single 4000 home gate between those two matches? 

[Shadwell Dog]

1 hour ago, NavyBlueArmy1876 said:

Falkirk fans there in 2010 = 2,039. Falkirk fans there in 2016 = 4,235. A fair decrease in home support there alone, did they manage a single 4000 home gate between those two matches? 

Kilmarnock have suffered like a lot of clubs from the effects of long term midtable mediocrity. They've gone from an average home attendance of over 11,000 in 1999 to just over 5000 this year. Supporters tend to drift away when clubs are in that position with many only coming back when relegation threatens or they look like winning something.

[Gaz FFC]

2 hours ago, Shadwell Dog said:

Kilmarnock have suffered like a lot of clubs from the effects of long term midtable mediocrity. They've gone from an average home attendance of over 11,000 in 1999 to just over 5000 this year. Supporters tend to drift away when clubs are in that position with many only coming back when relegation threatens or they look like winning something.

Horrible situation to be in for them really.

Sure financially you want to be in the Premier league but with crowds dropping that's a concern.

The Championship may provide them with bigger crowds if they were up there at the top but playing diddy teams and making less cash.

[Shadwell Dog]

14 minutes ago, Gaz FFC said:

Horrible situation to be in for them really.

Sure financially you want to be in the Premier league but with crowds dropping that's a concern.

The Championship may provide them with bigger crowds if they were up there at the top but playing diddy teams and making less cash.

It would be the same for ourselves if we ever managed to actually stay in the top flight for more than 4 or 5 seasons. Clubs get stale and fans get bored. You need a good relegation/promotion battle now and again to get folk going. 

[MrDust]

20 minutes ago, Shadwell Dog said:

It would be the same for ourselves if we ever managed to actually stay in the top flight for more than 4 or 5 seasons. Clubs get stale and fans get bored. You need a good relegation/promotion battle now and again to get folk going. 

Then you look at St Johnstone, who over achieve each season, regularly do a European qualifier match and fail and still get pish crowds.

As much as I want success for my team, the top league is a stale wreck of a league that only is exciting at the bottom,in which the much of muchness of the league has had around 6,7 teams challenging to avoid the bottom two spots. Still cash is king and that's where the cash is, but its a mess

[Shadwell Dog]

1 hour ago, MrDust said:

Then you look at St Johnstone, who over achieve each season, regularly do a European qualifier match and fail and still get pish crowds.

As much as I want success for my team, the top league is a stale wreck of a league that only is exciting at the bottom,in which the much of muchness of the league has had around 6,7 teams challenging to avoid the bottom two spots. Still cash is king and that's where the cash is, but its a mess

Lets face it though no matter what league St Johnstone play in or how they are playing no ones really interested in fitba in perth. Same with Hamilton. People in hamilton tend to support the biggot bros no matter how well Hamilton are doing and ICT again are the same. Won the Scottich cup but were still only getting a couple of thousand every other week.  

[Guest]

Then you look at St Johnstone, who over achieve each season, regularly do a European qualifier match and fail and still get pish crowds.
As much as I want success for my team, the top league is a stale wreck of a league that only is exciting at the bottom,in which the much of muchness of the league has had around 6,7 teams challenging to avoid the bottom two spots. Still cash is king and that's where the cash is, but its a mess

St.Johnstone have always had a shite support. Win lose or draw