The Greenock Morton Thread - It's Better Than Yours

[Dunning1874]

7 minutes ago, Rocco said:

There’s one thing that doesn’t make sense about that statement. I keep reading that Hopkin is extremely wealthy so he doesn’t need to have another job lined up, but if that was the case why wouldn’t he just do the job for free? I would suspect that isn’t the real reason

Aye. It's entirely believable they've had a conversation about reducing expenditure and the outcome of the conversation has been Hopkin resigning due to finances, but it's ended with an "if you want to cut the budget you can stick your job up your arse then" resignation rather than "I will nobly fall on my sword to protect the wages of everyone else at the club" resignation.

If it was actually as amicable as the latter you'd think they'd have some comments from Hopkin in the statement, he wouldn't just be fucking off 48 hours before a game and it wouldn't have taken over six hours after the story broke for the statement to be released - it's far more likely that it took that time because Rae was trying to get his story straight.

[HoBNob]

From the outside, Greenock Morton don't seem terribly well run. 

 

Haven't kept up to date with there owner situation, what's the craic about this takeover? 

[TheGoon]

24 minutes ago, Grant228 said:

From the outside, Greenock Morton don't seem terribly well run. 

 

Haven't kept up to date with there owner situation, what's the craic about this takeover? 

(Should be) moving to fan ownership in the summer, so the current ghouls are obviously unwilling to invest anything.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

5 hours ago, Dunning1874 said:

Two scenarios here:

1. That's a fabrication to hide the real reason, in which case the board are lying to the support and their position is untenable.

2. Far more worrying, it's true and they've made such a pig's ear of budgeting for the season that despite receiving £10K a month from MCT and allowing the manager to build a 22 man squad, they literally can’t afford to pay the wage of a fucking manager, in which case the board are more incompetent than any of us could ever have imagined and their position is untenable.

Almost certainly 1, above...

If it's 2, then there's a third scenario (already pointed out by Supersouth): if we can't afford to pay the current manager, then we can't afford to replace him, so somebody already on the books will have to fill the gap... step forward Jim McAlister and Chris Millar (you just know that's a very Crawford thing to do...).

I've got a lot of time for both Millar and McAlister, but we may just have become favourites for the drop here...

 

[The Ghost of B A R P]

Worth a separate post to say that the only thing Crawford Rae can now do for Morton is accept that the financial decisions his father made can't now be fixed or undone and walk away with nothing, including the ground.

If he can't or won't do that, he should beat it with immediate effect, not wait until the end of the season.

The idea that retaining the ground is somehow 'protecting' the club is bullshit.

[vikingTON]

10 hours ago, Rudolph Hucker said:

 

Yet again vt attempts to ignore much of the content of a post he quotes, simply to let him peddle his own brand of cynical, jaundiced vitriol.

What part of “Yes, the general running of the club has been in the main pretty shambolic during their tenure, There’s no getting away from that. ” don’t you get?  Or try this: “Like many of the support I’m slightly uneasy about them continuing to own the ground” . You’ve a funny idea of what constitutes  “craven bootlicking nonsense”, champ.

You can whine all you like about the ownership of the ground remaining with Golden Casket. Like I said, I’m not that happy about it either. HOWEVER, the reality is that those IOUs that you mention were not FROM Douglas Rae, they were owed by Morton FC TO him (or to Golden Casket, to be precise).  Answer me this: if your family (no, not some hypothetical wife and kids of yours, that thought’s just too ridiculous ) had poured a fortune in loans into a business, would you be happy about simply writing it all off to give a new buyer a greater chance of success? Or if you were an interested potential buyer, would you be willing to buy and take on that level of inherited debt? (To save you from thinking about it, the only sensible answer to both questions is “NAW!!” )
 

Which, like it or not, brings us to the reality of the situation here. The Raes want no further involvement in running Morton and are desperate to get out. MCT are desperate to take over the club but it would take them years to get together anything like the capital required to buy the club and pay off the debt. The result: a compromise is agreed where the club is sold to MCT more or less debt-free and the Raes, through Golden Casket, retain ownership of the ground - with legal guarantees, not your Boy Scoutish “pinkie promises”, about Morton continuing to play there for as long as the club continues to exist.  It ain’t perfect, and you and I don’t have to like it, but we have no say in it, and in the real world it’s a workable compromise and gives an acceptable deal to both parties.

Them’s the hard facts.   Champ.

 

 

 

The 'reality of the situation' just 24 hours ago was that your big mate 'Hoppy' had an 18 month contract and so would be going nowhere - until he did just that.

The 'reality of the situation' 18 months ago was that the Raes would be in charge  until the Easdales inevitably took over - except that hasn't happened either.

It's almost as if - despite your braying insistence on the status quo - that reality is in fact subject to significant and rapid change. The moment when the disinterested and feckless owners of a football club openly appeals for the fans to shell out £14 a pop for streams to keep their show on the road is a golden opportunity for the fanbase to achieve yet more change and overturn the gormless future that the squalid brood of Raes have set out for this once-proud football club. 

If you want focus on making sure that there's always a place for your tartan blanket and packet of Half Pounders in the main stand for a Lowland League match then by all means look after number one. Your 'contribution' won't even remotely be missed.

 

[stuartk12]

https://mortonclubtogether.com/2020/12/11/morton-club-together-statement/
 

Worrying. Very worrying.

[Rudolph Hucker]

1 hour ago, virginton said:

The 'reality of the situation' just 24 hours ago was that your big mate 'Hoppy' had an 18 month contract and so would be going nowhere - until he did just that.

The 'reality of the situation' 18 months ago was that the Raes would be in charge  until the Easdales inevitably took over - except that hasn't happened either.

It's almost as if - despite your braying insistence on the status quo - that reality is in fact subject to significant and rapid change. The moment when the disinterested and feckless owners of a football club openly appeals for the fans to shell out £14 a pop for streams to keep their show on the road is a golden opportunity for the fanbase to achieve yet more change and overturn the gormless future that the squalid brood of Raes have set out for this once-proud football club. 

If you want focus on making sure that there's always a place for your tartan blanket and packet of Half Pounders in the main stand for a Lowland League match then by all means look after number one. Your 'contribution' won't even remotely be missed.

 

Dear oh dear. Where do I start with this nonsense.......

Well, the first two paragraphs.......    First, Hopkin ain’t “my big mate” . Never met the guy. Second, I never touted the Easdales as owners and never particularly wanted them to buy the club. So, two paragraphs of hot air then, no substance to them at all.

Next, nae idea what you’re on about. How and where am I “insisting on the status quo”?  Mouth music. Absolute bollocks.

As for the rest of your pointless verbal effluence, it’s almost like you are spiteful enough to want the club to fold, just to get it up the Raes.  And that’s pretty sad, even by your standards. Personally, I’ll keep hoping that we still have a Championship club to support next season.

Keep up the personal insults tho. They give always give me a smile, and not least because you always revert to the personal stuff when you can’t counter the points made and you’ve  nothing worthwhile to say.  Pleasing.

[Rudolph Hucker]

9 minutes ago, stuartk12 said:

https://mortonclubtogether.com/2020/12/11/morton-club-together-statement/
 

Worrying. Very worrying.

Yes, very worrying. Much more important than the personal bitchiness that has gone before on this thread and elsewhere. 
Let’s all hope that we can get through to the end of the season and maintain Championship status. Really quite difficult, almost pointless, to focus on anything further ahead right now.

[Skyline Drifter]

39 minutes ago, stuartk12 said:

https://mortonclubtogether.com/2020/12/11/morton-club-together-statement/
 

Worrying. Very worrying.

Indeed. Looks like Morton have major problems if we didn't already know that. It's a positive I guess that these have been identified now rather than later and at least something is being done about it. Good luck.

[Scosha]

Douglas Rae saved Morton, then mismanaged the club for years leaving us in millions of debt to GC, and Crawford appears to be ready to finish us off. He's so lucky crowds aren't allowed right now as there would've been an almighty hounding incoming at the next home game.

[Rudolph Hucker]

  Hasn't it crossed your mind that the lack of paying customers is what's taken us to this point so quickly?

Aye. He's a lucky guy, right enough.  With luck like that........

[parsforlife]

11 hours ago, Dunning1874 said:

Aye. It's entirely believable they've had a conversation about reducing expenditure and the outcome of the conversation has been Hopkin resigning due to finances, but it's ended with an "if you want to cut the budget you can stick your job up your arse then" resignation rather than "I will nobly fall on my sword to protect the wages of everyone else at the club" resignation.

If it was actually as amicable as the latter you'd think they'd have some comments from Hopkin in the statement, he wouldn't just be fucking off 48 hours before a game and it wouldn't have taken over six hours after the story broke for the statement to be released - it's far more likely that it took that time because Rae was trying to get his story straight.

It does seem more like the first.   2 days wages can’t be that significant for the club but would at least mean you go into a match with a settled management team and allow the incoming team to have time to properly prepare for their first match.  

On the takeover situation,  once it happens and the club no longer own Cappielow are you going to be paying rent? If so any idea how much?  The terms of that lease agreement are crucial.  

When pars united took over they wrote up a very good agreement between the club and stadium owners that made it near impossible for the club to be fucked over,  rent can’t be increased significantly,  stadium can’t be sold without another suitable ground being build beforehand etc,   The community interest part of it(that until the Germans came in owned the club) also own 25% of the shares in the stadium,  making it difficult for the stadium company to do anything that would be harmful to the club.

[Rudolph Hucker]

Aye, it doesn't look as if it's been as amicable a parting of the ways as that statement would want us to believe. It's probably significant that Hopkin hasn't been quoted anywhere giving his side of things.......    yet.

 

As for the stadium, I can't be arsed at the moment going back through it all but there were guarantees that Morton would always have access to Cappielow for as long as the club continued to exist. * The rent, as I remember, was said to not be a "significant" amount and there were limits on any possible increases. So, not a "peppercorn" amount but apparently not a lot more than that.

 

* -  a term that seems far more significant now than it did then.

Edited December 11, 2020 by Rudolph Hucker

[#Gary]

17 minutes ago, Rudolph Hucker said:

  Hasn't it crossed your mind that the lack of paying customers is what's taken us to this point so quickly?

Aye. He's a lucky guy, right enough.  With luck like that........

How have others clubs in this league managed better without the additional funding from an outside fans group? 

 

A question that's impossible to answer without being critical of the entire Rae family tenure and years of mismanagement and their only attempt at generating income being "bring a friend" whilst doing absolutely f**k all themselves.

 

Had a look on the Morton forum to see what's being said and it's nice to see Crawford signed up overnight and put the blame firmly at the door of us big bad fans as per fucking usual. This clown is going to be held in the same regard as Hugh fucking Scott by the time he is completely disassociated with Morton. 

[vikingTON]

Hugh Scott was arguably less dangerous because he was just one man who eventually lost interest in the fight and pissed off again. The brood of Raes pose a generational threat to the club so long as any part of the stadium land remains in their grubby mitts.

They have long exhausted the tolerance of the fanbase to let that scenario continue. At best it was a ceasefire to get them out the door but the absolutely shambolic nature of their exit rips that agreement up as well. They now need to leave with absolutely f**k all and if that means fans withdrawing support and letting them twist in the wind until the summer then so be it. 

Edited December 11, 2020 by vikingTON

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, Rudolph Hucker said:

Yes, very worrying. Much more important than the personal bitchiness that has gone before on this thread and elsewhere. 
Let’s all hope that we can get through to the end of the season and maintain Championship status. Really quite difficult, almost pointless, to focus on anything further ahead right now.

Erm yes - why should the fans worry their silly little heads about something as inconsequential as ownership of the only  asset in the club's books, when there's a six-pointer against Alloa to focus on instead.

You are the living representation of the term 'useful idiot', with the emphasis most definitely on the latter part.

[Rudolph Hucker]

17 minutes ago, virginton said:

Hugh Scott was arguably less dangerous because he was just one man who eventually lost interest in the fight and pissed off again. The brood of Raes pose a generational threat to the club so long as any part of the stadium land remains in their grubby mitts.

They have long exhausted the tolerance of the fanbase to let that scenario continue. At best it was a ceasefire to get them out the door but the absolutely shambolic nature of their exit rips that agreement up as well. They now need to leave with absolutely f**k all and if that means fans withdrawing support and letting them twist in the wind until the summer then so be it. 

They want shot of the club, and we want shot of them. So far, so good.

Re that last sentence though, Einstein - what if that means that the club dies in the interim? What's your fallback plan for that? Precisely what part of "THERE'S NAE MAIR MUNNY" AREN'T YOU GETTING??

[Frank conner]

1 minute ago, virginton said:

Erm yes - why should the fans worry their silly little heads about something as inconsequential as ownership of the only  asset in the club's books, when there's a six-pointer against Alloa to focus on instead.

You are the living representation of the term 'useful idiot', with the emphasis most definitely on the latter part.

A far cry from the good old days when the sweetie man used to bank roll your mob.

[vikingTON]

8 minutes ago, Rudolph Hucker said:

They want shot of the club, and we want shot of them. So far, so good.,

Not while they are looting ownership of the club's assets as payment for all their hard work - f**k all - over the years it isn't. Try again.

Quote

Einstein - what if that means that the club dies in the interim? What's your fallback plan for that?

The onus is on the current owners and directors of the club to account for the shortfall in their own ridiculously stupid 'business model' for the season, not for the fans to give them a bailout until they decide when it's time to go. If they want to walk away from that responsibility tomorrow minus the ground then that offer should be accepted and MCT take on that burden instead.

The Raes want to have it both ways and only a truly gullible fanbase would be conned into letting them away with it. At least they've got one on their side.

Edited December 11, 2020 by vikingTON