Walking Down The Halbeath Road

[The Toun Clock]

1 hour ago, Wacky said:

So we go again this weekend against QP. I hope Holmes gets a start. He looks like he has a bit pace about him, the was playing off the shoulder of the last man, and was bending his runs to try and stay onside. 
I think he could be the the player to inject a bit of energy into the team, maybe the spark we need 

I would absolutely start Holmes because apart Sutherland he’s the only true striker. Wighton is an attacking player who beefed up and decided he was a #9, McCann doesn’t know what he is.

[da_no_1]

20 minutes ago, The Toun Clock said:

I would absolutely start Holmes because apart Sutherland he’s the only true striker. Wighton is an attacking player who beefed up and decided he was a #9, McCann doesn’t know what he is.

I always think Lewis looks pretty decent on the LHS behind a striker, rather than being up front as a target man. Saturday was terrible all round, unfair to single him out.

[Wacky]

7 hours ago, parsforlife said:

Agreed,  a long time ago, I can’t exactly remember when but I think McIntyre was in charge I looked up our historic average finishing position and it was 16th, it will be lower now due to the shitty period we have endured but it never felt like it was an unfair standard to hold the club too.

I would like to ask that question to our board members both recent and historic pars United guys over what they view as a minimal acceptable standard, I suspect it’s either much lower than that or that they’d refuse to answer and give some wish washy pish about just hoping we do our best.

 

I haven’t looked so only going by memory here, didn’t McIntyre win the championship 2011-12 and then administration hit us while in the premier league? We had debts of around 10-12 million and it almost finished us.
I agree with Rob1885 about going down but for different reasons. I’d rather we went back down being frugal than staying up and spending money we can’t sustain. We’ve all looked with envy at the Rovers flying in the league, but many on P&B have said that they surely can’t sustain the spending they have poured into that position? Why would anyone think it’ll be any different for us?

Either way I don’t think Rob will get his wish that the board will walk away. So for me our minimal standard should be to avoid folding as a club. (I’m not suggesting that’ll happen to the Rovers) 
It’s funny how we all see things differently, I’m happy to go with evolution where others want revolution. We’ve had two shite seasons out of the last three, and the world hasn’t stopped turning. I’d rather we take our time and climb the leagues with a steady and sustainable balance sheet 

[Chubbychops]

2 minutes ago, Wacky said:

I haven’t looked so only going by memory here, didn’t McIntyre win the championship 2011-12 and then administration hit us while in the premier league? We had debts of around 10-12 million and it almost finished us.

No. We won the championshipin 2010-2011. Premiership 2011-2012 the went into admin 2012-2013. The debts were aroun 20 million I think. Debts that were accumulated during the Calderwood era not McIntyre. We had been cutting back for years before McIntyre.

[Wacky]

1 minute ago, Chubbychops said:

No. We won the championshipin 2010-2011. Premiership 2011-2012 the went into admin 2012-2013. The debts were aroun 20 million I think. Debts that were accumulated during the Calderwood era not McIntyre. We had been cutting back for years before McIntyre.

Ah! Thanks for putting me right on this. My memory is eh!….. em!…. I’m going to the shops soon……..what were we talking about again? 

[Rob1885]

52 minutes ago, Wacky said:

I haven’t looked so only going by memory here, didn’t McIntyre win the championship 2011-12 and then administration hit us while in the premier league? We had debts of around 10-12 million and it almost finished us.
I agree with Rob1885 about going down but for different reasons. I’d rather we went back down being frugal than staying up and spending money we can’t sustain. We’ve all looked with envy at the Rovers flying in the league, but many on P&B have said that they surely can’t sustain the spending they have poured into that position? Why would anyone think it’ll be any different for us?

Either way I don’t think Rob will get his wish that the board will walk away. So for me our minimal standard should be to avoid folding as a club. (I’m not suggesting that’ll happen to the Rovers) 
It’s funny how we all see things differently, I’m happy to go with evolution where others want revolution. We’ve had two shite seasons out of the last three, and the world hasn’t stopped turning. I’d rather we take our time and climb the leagues with a steady and sustainable balance sheet 

I think the accounts will show we were hardly sustainable in league 1 last season. These guys don't know what they're doing.

[timbermill tactician]

On Saturday we need to get back to basics. Get set up so as not to Concede.

I'll settle for a pishy 0-0 draw and take it from there.

Saturday was back to grant/Hughes grimness. No more comic cut goals.

If we can't get  at least 4 points from the next 2 games then I'll start to get really worried.

Time for everyone, including the fans, to step up to the plate.

Coyp

[Wacky]

25 minutes ago, Rob1885 said:

I think the accounts will show we were hardly sustainable in league 1 last season. These guys don't know what they're doing.

I really hope you’re wrong about this. I think our accounts will look bad due to the academy costs. I say think when I mean hope. I’m sure the Germans were footing the bill for this too so it’s not coming out the team accounts? I have to stress that I don’t know this, again it’s more hope than anything else. I also think that if the alarm bells were ringing after the meeting we’d know about by now, so IMO those in a position to see and question the accounts must be pacified at the very least?

I think we should all stop speculating about the state of affairs until we know for sure, we don’t want a panic amongst the fan base before we know the facts. The accounts looking bad is one thing, it’s what the Germans are doing about it that’s most important IMO, and again the fact that the guys questioning it before the meeting aren’t saying anything so far tells its own story. 

[Double Jack D]

1 hour ago, Rob1885 said:

I think the accounts will show we were hardly sustainable in league 1 last season. These guys don't know what they're doing.

League 1 is the killer for full time clubs.

John Sim had said that we had averaged a £150k loss over the 15 or so years he has been in charge at Rovers. When you drill down though, we are fairly sustainable in the championship however the main losses come in the league 1 years.

Could be quite critical maintaining your championship status in the next couple of months. I was amazed at the lack of business done by the Pars in January.

[The Toun Clock]

9 hours ago, da_no_1 said:

I always think Lewis looks pretty decent on the LHS behind a striker, rather than being up front as a target man. Saturday was terrible all round, unfair to single him out.

I wish I was only talking about Saturday... He's been off form for a while now, before Christmas. I appreciate there was a couple of weeks away with injury.

I agree, I'd play him out on the left to use his pace and cut in. He scored doing that against Falkirk away last April and in the league cup game at Starks in the summer.

[Wacky]

24 minutes ago, Double Jack D said:

I was amazed at the lack of business done by the Pars in January.

So are many Pars fans.
We can’t have it both ways though. Many believe we are in some sort of financial dire straits while being furious about our lack of spending to improve our league position. 
we can’t balance the books and pay wages for the type of players that many feel we should be signing. 
we all know that a large chunk of the clubs playing staff wages are on the physios table right now, but fans want more money spent. 
We’ll be getting players coming back at various points in the coming months and they’ll be like new signings for us, this is why I think we’ll manage to escape the drop by the skin of our teeth. We can then regroup and look at maybe making the playoffs next season. IMO this season is now about staying up and nothing more. 

Edited February 7 by Wacky

[Andriy_Parmolenko]

23 minutes ago, Wacky said:

 IMO this season is now about staying up and nothing more. 

Not so sure that's true just yet to be honest. 
Things look grim just now there's no doubt, and we need to be a world away from that Morton performance as quickly as possible. However, I think it's easy to forget how small this league is, things can change for the better as quickly as they can change for the worse. 

We are not miles behind the rest of the league just yet. String a few results together and we're right back in it, and in the next 2 weeks we have an opportunity to get that ball rolling. Hard to imagine just now, and if we play like we did against Morton then of course it's not going to happen... but there's still enough football left for me to not be completely doom and gloom (although I certainly felt it on Saturday). 

[Double Jack D]

29 minutes ago, Wacky said:

So are many Pars fans.
We can’t have it both ways though. Many believe we are in some sort of financial dire straits while being furious about our lack of spending to improve our league position. 
we can’t balance the books and pay wages for the type of players that many feel we should be signing. 
we all know that a large chunk of the clubs playing staff wages are on the physios table right now, but fans want more money spent. 
We’ll be getting players coming back at various points in the coming months and they’ll be like new signings for us, this is why I think we’ll manage to escape the drop by the skin of our teeth. We can then regroup and look at maybe making the playoffs next season. IMO this season is now about staying up and nothing more. 

Aye fair enough.  It's a tough balance and I'm glad it's not my decision to make

The cost of 2 or 3 championship players wages for 6 months versus costs of a potential season in league 1. 

No doubt a fully fit squad sees the Pars survive quite comfortably (probably even challenge top 4) but I'm not sure how confident you can be of that happening. 

 

[Salvo Montalbano]

Couple of things on ownership, finances etc:

We went into massive debt originally because of the stadium and then bad business decisions by the Masterton/Yorkshire regime. If they'd been more realistic (they'd budgeted on an average crowd of about 8,000 IIRC), hadn't made bad investments (anyone remember Dunfermline Homes?) and hadn't had such a friendly relationship with the banks (Masterton and Matthewson were high up at HBoS and RBS respectively I think and were essentially loaning themselves money?) it wouldn't have come to a head. There is definitely a way to be a decent club and not fo hugely into debt, especially these days when the Crawford on £5,000 a week deals etc. aren't the norm even in the Premiership.

I think when AJ won us League One we actually made a small profit in the seaside leagues, although we had made losses the previous season(s). He didn't have legacy contracts of Championship players on Championship money of course (Mehmet, Chalmers, Wighton, Todarov, etc would have been on decent wages you'd think) but it shows that you can still compete in League One without going completely mental. You'd like to think relegation wage cut clauses and the like might be in play although given the "ambition" I worry that instead there will be automatic incremental increases (which the McGlynn era Raith used and which meant their wages spiralled out of control somewhat) and promotion incentives etc as well. 

The one thing that I've never really understood and I can understand people being a little apprehensive about is why a group of Germans with no connection to the place would invest in a  middling Scottish football club. As I said earlier, it's possible to be a sustainable and even profitable club but any profits would be marginal and could easily be wiped out by various disasters (infrastructure, staffing, sporting). We aren't a Glasgow Giant, who could generate Champions League money, we aren't an Aberdeen/Hearts/Hibs/Dundee/Dundee Utd who might get into the Europa League and sell a player for a million, so what is the motivation? Prior to the economic and social self harm of Brexit, I could understand if foreign owners looked at a Scottish club and thought "bring in some Eastern or Central Europeans, if they're decent we can sell them to bigger Scottish clubs or down south and if we strike it lucky we might sell one to the EPL" but that isn't happening any more. There was talk about the community aspect and all that, but we are hardly unique in that regard. I can see why people might be a bit confused and concerned.

[The Toun Clock]

12 minutes ago, Andriy_Parmolenko said:

Not so sure that's true just yet to be honest. 
Things look grim just now there's no doubt, and we need to be a world away from that Morton performance as quickly as possible. However, I think it's easy to forget how small this league is, things can change for the better as quickly as they can change for the worse. 

We are not miles behind the rest of the league just yet. String a few results together and we're right back in it, and in the next 2 weeks we have an opportunity to get that ball rolling. Hard to imagine just now, and if we play like we did against Morton then of course it's not going to happen... but there's still enough football left for me to not be completely doom and gloom (although I certainly felt it on Saturday). 

This is very true. I do personally feel like make 8th and I'll take it at the moment but a couple of wins and you're back talking about 5th or 6th etc, it really is a small league and as mentioned on the relegation thread, everyone apart from Dundee Utd, Raith and Thistle could be drawn into the relegation dogfight. Another couple of wins for Morton and they should be fine but not yet. 

[DA Baracus]

9 minutes ago, Salvo Montalbano said:

anyone remember Dunfermline Homes?

No! What was this? 

[Wacky]

18 minutes ago, Andriy_Parmolenko said:

Not so sure that's true just yet to be honest. 
Things look grim just now there's no doubt, and we need to be a world away from that Morton performance as quickly as possible. However, I think it's easy to forget how small this league is, things can change for the better as quickly as they can change for the worse. 

We are not miles behind the rest of the league just yet. String a few results together and we're right back in it, and in the next 2 weeks we have an opportunity to get that ball rolling. Hard to imagine just now, and if we play like we did against Morton then of course it's not going to happen... but there's still enough football left for me to not be completely doom and gloom (although I certainly felt it on Saturday). 

You are right, things could change game to game, but not hitting the promotion playoffs isn’t a disaster whereas going down will be, not only for the wellbeing of the club but for the dotnet levels of seethe we’ll have to endure on here. 

16 minutes ago, Double Jack D said:

No doubt a fully fit squad sees the Pars survive quite comfortably (probably even challenge top 4) but I'm not sure how confident you can be of that happening. 

I’m more confident of staying up with a fully fit squad than I am about going down. 
Truth is none of us can predict what will happen, but IMO a full squad can only help the possibility of staying up. 

[Wacky]

17 minutes ago, Salvo Montalbano said:

The one thing that I've never really understood and I can understand people being a little apprehensive about is why a group of Germans with no connection to the place would invest in a  middling Scottish football club.

I’m sure the Germans said they expect a return on their investment via the academy. The talk was about Meggle having fingers in a lot of pies all over the planet regarding players. Isn’t he an agent for some players? 
It was my belief that they felt they will make money from selling players through the academy. 
If they do it right and build the club up to the top league, then it’s not a stretch to believe we can evolve into the top six, that’s when we can ask for higher amounts of money for our players. If/when we start hitting top six, it’s not impossible to start hitting euro places, that’s when we can demand even more for our players and they will start to get their money back then some. 
I’d like to think we can do this in my lifetime, and again it’s not impossible. My son in law doesn’t know it yet but my grandkids will be at EEP as often as I can take them, and I’d love for them to be supporting a Pars team at the upper end of the premier. I still believe the German model will be our best chance of that in my lifetime 

[Rob1885]

Nae danger is this model the best chance to get us to the premiership.

[da_no_1]

15 minutes ago, Rob1885 said:

Nae danger is this model the best chance to get us to the premiership.

All the other models we've tried are guaranteed to bring success right enough.

Fact is, the only model(s) that worked for DAFC (got us into the top flight) in the last 25 years nearly killed us as a club.

Edited February 7 by da_no_1