The Partick Thistle thread

[The Kebab Pie]

Had to take a social media sabbatical over the weekend after Saturday. Not so much due to the performance but more the roasters on social media and that wild facebook group.

Big Ricco taking a bit of a beating but it was an absolutely thankless task what he was having to do. At times there wasn't another Thistle player within 20m of him and that ridiculously soft yellow he received meant he was walking a tight rope (with Stanway already away by that point). A lot of fight and grit from the team I think we can take that as a positive. Falkirk were really wasteful with the ball at times that may have let us off. As much as Ablade did well with his goal think him and Casper had a bit of a culture shock with the pace of the game up here, think it could take a bit for these lads to acclimatise. 

Felt last season that win against QP really kicked our season off and running. Got to hope its same again this time round

[Sting777]

Mmm positive in bits but with a lot warning lights flashing in the background
 

https://ptfc.co.uk/ptfc-news/partick-thistle-fc-finance-update-for-supporters/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3n1lvLXLX4DiI3s8-LfAp4yx2LfiXDeApUjiGM2VjWQYkLGfXt2Saf9ms_aem_NyR8e0JGMq2zzemA-pZoaw

Edited August 26 by Sting777

[0neTeamInGlasgow]

5 minutes ago, Sting777 said:

Mmm positive in bits but with a lot warning lights flashing in the background
 

https://ptfc.co.uk/ptfc-news/partick-thistle-fc-finance-update-for-supporters/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3n1lvLXLX4DiI3s8-LfAp4yx2LfiXDeApUjiGM2VjWQYkLGfXt2Saf9ms_aem_NyR8e0JGMq2zzemA-pZoaw

Make savings by cutting the Academy down a bit and ditch the woman's team. We need to concentrate on the bread and butter of the first team before any nice to have's. Got a bad feeling the second 500k, some of that will be used to pay Dools off in a few months time.

[Pie Of The Month]

I'm not really sure what's positive about it, it's really just setting the scene for the emotional blackmail of voting in favour of further investment after the foundation last time decided to take the money without actually consulting its members.

[Sting777]

5 minutes ago, 0neTeamInGlasgow said:

Make savings by cutting the Academy down a bit and ditch the woman's team. We need to concentrate on the bread and butter of the first team before any nice to have's. Got a bad feeling the second 500k, some of that will be used to pay Dools off in a few months time.

Been made clear that promotion is the only way ahead for the club (and/or favourable cup draws) so you could well be right. Long way to go but at the moment we are miles away from getting promoted!

Edited August 26 by Sting777

[Highlandmagar]

Not great reading. Unless we get promotion( which I don't believe we will) , we are in real trouble.

[JagsCG]

It’s only positive if we somehow get promoted in the near future. Not saying that won’t happen but could be bleak if it doesn’t. Can’t imagine living off donations is particularly great long-term. Good to get some communication from the club at least (I see the Hollywood cameras are going to be at the Q&A tomorrow night). 

[oneteaminglasgow]

I would hazard a guess that there’s a fair few clubs at our level in very similar predicaments, we’ve just made it public. As Pie of the month says, I imagine it’s all about setting the scene to get the outcome the board want in any future investment votes.

And, FWIW, it’s been stated on here previously at least once that the woman’s team are self sufficient, financially. And cutting it is likely to alienate at least some of our support and community relationships, so would be an utterly moronic thing to do. 

[Dunning1874]

Yes, every club has done it including mine, but club boards continuing to say things like this is silly.

Quote

However, the realities of competing in the second tier of Scottish football mean that, until promotion is achieved, maintaining a position of break even or better is usually only possible in one of a few ways:

lucrative cup runs (mainly through playing Celtic or Rangers, which we last did in February 2023)
player trading
increased revenues from commercial partners and supporter groups

They do at least acknowledge later in the statement that cutting first team expenditure is a possibility to avert financial trouble, unlike the previous board members of certain Highland based League One clubs we could name, but this claim is just untrue due to the omission of that entirely realistic route to breaking even or making a profit.

On that note:

Quote

Without investment from somewhere, we would need to consider a significant reduction in costs – the easiest and most effective way of delivering savings being in the playing budget – which will ultimately risk setting the club on a cycle we have seen many teams unable to escape from in recent years. Lower investment creates a weaker squad earning less prize money, resulting in even lower investment and a diminishing return year-on-year.

The average attendance at Firhill last season was 3,517. Is it really impossible to build a competitive Championship squad on a break-even budget with crowds of 3.5K?

Your board have made their choice to maintain first team expenditure at a higher level than break even in the belief that second tranche of investment is coming and there are plenty of reasons to argue that's a good idea, particularly this season with no Dundee United type in the division, but it's fundamentally dishonest to claim it's a necessity to avoid entering a deflationary spiral that'll stop you ever being a competitive Championship side again.

[Pie Of The Month]

 

On the plus side if we're the best in the league the other 9 clubs must be close to liquidation.

[Highlandmagar]

42 minutes ago, Pie Of The Month said:

 

On the plus side if we're the best in the league the other 9 clubs must be close to liquidation.

53.8% on an audit is risible. If I got that in my job, I would at least be demoted.

[Ad Lib]

4 hours ago, 0neTeamInGlasgow said:

Make savings by cutting the Academy down a bit and ditch the woman's team. We need to concentrate on the bread and butter of the first team before any nice to have's.

If, last season, the Club had spent zero pounds and zero pence on the Academy and Women's team, the losses would still have been six figures.

Neither of them are why the Club is still losing money. If anything because of how things were structured in previous seasons, the Club's financial picture looked better than it really was because the Academy was paying the apprentice's salaries, which in reality should have been on the Club's own books.

[Acastus]

What height is Brian Graham ? My brother bumped into him doing deliveries in Maryhill and said he was smaller than him and my bro is 6ft1....I said f**k off he's 6ft 2 at least...

[ShaggerG]

4 minutes ago, Acastus said:

What height is Brian Graham ? My brother bumped into him doing deliveries in Maryhill and said he was smaller than him and my bro is 6ft1....I said f**k off he's 6ft 2 at least...

Brian Graham must be worth a fortune. Thistle first team, coaches the wummin and now he's doing deliveries too! Jeez

[Ad Lib]

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

Yes, every club has done it including mine, but club boards continuing to say things like this is silly.

They do at least acknowledge later in the statement that cutting first team expenditure is a possibility to avert financial trouble, unlike the previous board members of certain Highland based League One clubs we could name, but this claim is just untrue due to the omission of that entirely realistic route to breaking even or making a profit.

I would just note on this that, but for Old Firm game revenue, Morton's financial picture as regards profitability looked broadly the same as Thistle's in 2023-24.

Any cut in player budget comes with a commensurate risk of a significant drop in prize-money. So, for example, going from a £1.1 million player budget (which is ballpark for what the modal team in the Championship had last year) to, say, an £800k player budget, sees any savings totally wiped out if you finish (say) 6th instead of 3rd.

So yes, it's an option to cut the player budget. But it doesn't necessarily get you any closer to being sustainably break-even without cup runs, player sales or a much strengthened commercial operation.

Thistle have been hobbled, in part, by some frankly undersold key commercial opportunities from the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, which were multi-year and therefore could not in the short term be improved upon. I remember watching back the Morton finance update earlier in the year and they emphasised the impact of the Dalrada and Hungry Squirrel sponsorships, which almost single-handedly transformed your finances from being apocalyptic to respectable.

We do occupy a league where key income sources are volatile and where the baseline is unsympathetic to sustainable full-time football.

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

On that note:

The average attendance at Firhill last season was 3,517. Is it really impossible to build a competitive Championship squad on a break-even budget with crowds of 3.5K?

When a significant proportion of those are concessionary and youth season ticket holders, it's very difficult.

There are zero teams in the current Scottish Championship who broke-even or made a profit in recent seasons without (a) a lucrative cup run (b) some form of underwriting by their owners or (c) being in the Premiership when they did it.

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

Your board have made their choice to maintain first team expenditure at a higher level than break even in the belief that second tranche of investment is coming and there are plenty of reasons to argue that's a good idea, particularly this season with no Dundee United type in the division, but it's fundamentally dishonest to claim it's a necessity to avoid entering a deflationary spiral that'll stop you ever being a competitive Championship side again.

They haven't said that, in fairness. They've said it presents a risk. A season that sees Thistle relegated to the third tier of Scottish Football, with its cashflow position as it is, would threaten its survival even if we went part-time.

[Claudia Gentile]

I noted that McLymont put £200k into the playing fund and an unnamed backer put in £100k.

Quite a generous pair of donations. I hope it works out.

Edited August 27 by Claudia Gentile

[colliedug]

After reading a lot of these posts IMHO I would prefer the openess of these finances rather than behind the scenes skullduggery & finding out how bad it is when the s##t hits the fan. On the plus side we have investment from McLymont & Co which is good albeit we can't solely rely on this, let's try to be positive as we're probably in a better position than we've been for years with investment, sponsorship and the commercial side of things

[BPM]

Fair play to Partick for coming clean that the issues on Saturday were not just of Falkirk’s making. Refreshing to hear a football club doing that. We need to do better however in case this happens again. 

[itzdrk]

12 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

There are zero teams in the current Scottish Championship who broke-even or made a profit in recent seasons without (a) a lucrative cup run (b) some form of underwriting by their owners or (c) being in the Premiership when they did it.

We made a small profit in 2022/23 without any of these 3 things or player trading.  

[NavyBlueArmy1876]

13 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

There are zero teams in the current Scottish Championship who broke-even or made a profit in recent seasons without (a) a lucrative cup run (b) some form of underwriting by their owners or (c) being in the Premiership when they did it.

 

Falkirk are projecting a break-even financial performance this season, based on the prize money of a 5th place finish. 

This obviously excluded the cash from drawing Celtic in the cup which will allow us to increase the playing budget and still make a small profit 

The FSS does provide around £150k annually which is important, along with an extra £40k in general fan donations to the playing budget 

However our ST and PATG prices are the cheapest in the Championship, which would raise roughly £200k more a year if these were increased to the league average

So in summary it is absolutely possible to run a full-time club in this league in a sustainable manner

Edited August 27 by NavyBlueArmy1876