Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[CoF]

This is the point where Alan Burrows would normally be replying to the maniacs on twitter with a patient, detailed and entirely reasonable account of why the prices had to go up. A welcome side-effect is that it would keep the rest of us informed. 

I suppose there's probably not much to say. We've had a shite few years with some expensive mistakes and everything costs more just now. 

I'll end up renewing, not through some massive enthusiasm about the football (as much as I have enjoyed the last 3 months), nor because it makes financial sense as opposed to patg, but because of that feeling I want to contribute to the security of the club. Watching that wee video certainly didn't do that feeling any harm. 

 

 

[capt_oats]

17 minutes ago, Handsome John said:

A factor in the “video” is likely the big fucking hole in the media team to be fair. AFAIK, the only real media person we have was employed as a media assistant in 2021 and found himself as the main man within less than a year. 

it’s probably not surprising that a young lad like that has fallen backwards to a familiar theme. There’s a real lack of oversight to it. 

Aye. 

For avoidance of doubt, absolutely zero shade from me towards Scott's work here btw.

[ropy]

18 hours ago, ropy said:

I have had a free junior ticket with mine for the last 8 years or so, I have never managed to renew both of them together, a phone call every year.

Just renewed and both tickets were laid on a plate for me, very simple (something to do with networks).  Just waiting for my visa bill to come in now.

[Ceiling Granny]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

As one of the admittedly pretty niche demographic who has on occasion listened to a Scottish Fitba Marketing podcast…

Thanks for this, I’ll try and catch up on those podcasts at some point.   
 

Just to be clear, I’m not having a go at the ‘media team’ or anything, I do realise there’s not much to go on after this season. It was just a bit tonally off for me. 

[CoF]

Instead of all the steelworks stuff, I'd like to have seen a montage (with dramatic and scary music) with all the reasons for the price hike - 

Nigel Farage, A bat, Vladimir Putin, Liz Truss, Graham Alexander. 

[ropy]

3 hours ago, CoF said:

Instead of all the steelworks stuff, I'd like to have seen a montage (with dramatic and scary music) with all the reasons for the price hike - 

Nigel Farage, A bat, Vladimir Putin, Liz Truss, Graham Alexander. 

An acceptance that we are all poorer? 

[CoF]

1 minute ago, ropy said:

An acceptance that we are all poorer? 

Exactly. And a reminder at the end not to ask for a pay rise. 

[santheman]

TBH Everything on the planet has gone up by 10% so it's hardly surprising that football club season tickets have done the same. C'est la vie and all that.

 

[real-name-hidden]

Is there a list of prices released for the corp season tickets? 

[Antiochas III]

12 hours ago, santheman said:

TBH Everything on the planet has gone up by 10% so it's hardly surprising that football club season tickets have done the same. C'est la vie and all that.

 

* except peoples income...

[capt_oats]

18 hours ago, CoF said:

Instead of all the steelworks stuff, I'd like to have seen a montage (with dramatic and scary music) with all the reasons for the price hike - 

Nigel Farage, A bat, Vladimir Putin, Liz Truss, Graham Alexander. 

…and Steven Hammell.

[Casagolda]

I mean I don’t necessarily object to paying a bit more money, especially if we were well run and simply being crippled by external factors.

However we’re a business and let’s face it, one that’s been run poorly for well over a year now. I don’t think asking the fans to cover for that by paying over the odds is necessarily fair or right- especially in these time while pulling on the heartstrings with the whole we’re tough people from a tough town pish.

However if I do part with my money, what exactly is my near 14% increase going towards next season? 

To pay off a few more managers. To cover the fact our current two best youth prospects who’ve been key in our recent revival are about to walk away for buttons this summer. To help fund another 18 signings and build another 30 man squad with our throw enough shit at the wall and some of its bound to stick recruitment policy. 

What is the plan going forward? As a club it feels like we’ve been a rudderless ship drifting towards relegation for nearly 18 months now. If not for a miraculous turnaround under Kettlewell, the Championship was exactly where we were heading. 

I know, let’s ask our new Chief Exec. Oh that’s right, the person supposed to in place before Burrows left still hasn’t been appointed 2 months after he departed for Pittodrie, over 3 months since he officially handed his notice in. 

So aye, it’d be nice to have some sort of clarity and assurances going forward before I start chucking more money at the club to help cover 18 months of poor decisions and a general lack of leadership/direction.  

Edited April 30, 2023 by Casagolda

[CoF]

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

…and Steven Hammell.

My coping strategy is to pretend it never happened. 

[AnderooMFC]

On 28/04/2023 at 22:49, Blink182 said:

Is it?

"Any Adult or Over 65 Concession ticket can claim one free Junior ticket in the Davie Cooper Stand.
For a full paying Adult or Over 65 in the John Hunter and Phil O’Donnell stands, a Junior ticket can be purchased at the reduced price of £15."

Not free anymore, but not full price either thank feck.

 

I'll renew at one point. Price increases are what credit cards are for anyway! ST and the tops are becoming a tradition and part of the lure to get quality child time out the house. Might even try and get her off her phone too... But I'm not a member of the Well Society and this helps me feel I'm contributing to the club. As well as getting me out the house and away from the doomscrolling. My main worry is if the price of the program goes up. And if kiosk prices increase too then some serious conversations will have to be had.

[welldaft]

Not read back all the comments and I get why people are upset at the increase in season ticket prices. Perhaps if they had been going up at a steady rate there would be less commotion but the fact the club has (where and when possible) held prices I feel they are damned whenever any increase comes into play. 

No one apart for those inside the club knows why this is necessary. Sure paying off two Managers won’t have come cheap but at the same time there is evidence all around at costs going up. Food and drink inflation is not far off 20%. Energy prices are up between 60 and 100%. My bills for Sky, BT, EDF and Council tax etc are up a similar level. 

In short I don’t like it but I am happier to accept that Motherwell FC need to increase season ticket prices to meet increased costs. I am also happier to give Motherwell FC an increase over many other expenses that are listed above and more besides. And no I don’t work for the club .
 

[rowsdower]

Is the rising cost of electricity not a big part of this? The club did say that matches are more expensive to put on now, so that would make sense, along with us being generous in previous seasons.

I don't think the cost of sacking the managers have anything to do with the ticket price increases.

[capt_oats]

I mean, I've not done any sort of extensive deep dive into the club's mentions but for the most part on here and SO I don't think I've seen any sort of upset at the price hike. The majority of folk I've read seem to be completely understanding of the factors involved.

It's more been a statement of fact in so much as it's a fair lift in price - which it is. It's fair comment.

Our last price increase was £15 on an adult early bird for the JH...this is a £45 bump in the cheap seats.

It's the sort of increase that could legitimately make current ST holders re-evaluate and ask whether it's better value for them just to PATG. Is it worth just paying that £2-£3 extra at the gate for games you're actually going to make it to rather than shelling out a lump sum whether it's on a card or not?

I don't necessarily think the expense of the sackings is being passed on to the fans or anything. Going by the accounts we have enough money in the bank to cover that but it's still the case that it's cost the club money and closing out a season on our 3rd manager should absolutely raise questions regardless of how awkward or inconvenient they may be for the people who actually made those choices.

To that point, I'm broadly in agreement with @Casagolda's post on the previous page - since fan-ownership happened we've been "well run": we've a fair cash balance in the bank, we've seen 2x record turnover and 2x record profit, taken in a record transfer and posted increased ST numbers. We were seen to "do the right thing" when it came to the Pandemic. We've had a couple of Top 6 finishes. We've a nice new pitch (that all things told will apparently save us money long term).

Which is all great.

The transition has worked better than I imagine a lot of folk thought it would and, right now, we're in a pretty stable place (assuming we stay up) but it's a legitimate question to ask where we go from here. What's the plan?

Over the past 18 months or so it's felt like there's been a lack of direction and post-Burrows there's an increasingly obvious void around the place and the lack of comms is notable. When it's come to the CEO discussion we've had what? A single sentence tucked away at the bottom of a Well Society mailshot saying it's "ongoing"?

If we've got someone filling the role on an interim basis then...maybe communicate that lads? Without wanting to get into "the silence is deafening" territory - Burrows standing down was officially announced in January....we're about to go into May.

I've said this before, it may well be the case that there's a "now is not the time" attitude while the season is still ongoing it'd still be nice if there was some sort of accountability as to what the f**k has actually been going on over the past year as it's been absolutely littered with poor/naïve choices.

Edited April 30, 2023 by capt_oats

[ropy]

I see Grimmy got player of the season at Morton whereas Turnbull sat on the bench at Hampden.

[thisGRAEME]

11 hours ago, Casagolda said:

I mean I don’t necessarily object to paying a bit more money, especially if we were well run and simply being crippled by external factors.

However we’re a business and let’s face it, one that’s been run poorly for well over a year now. I don’t think asking the fans to cover for that by paying over the odds is necessarily fair or right- especially in these time while pulling on the heartstrings with the whole we’re tough people from a tough town pish.

However if I do part with my money, what exactly is my near 14% increase going towards next season? 

To pay off a few more managers. To cover the fact our current two best youth prospects who’ve been key in our recent revival are about to walk away for buttons this summer. To help fund another 18 signings and build another 30 man squad with our throw enough shit at the wall and some of its bound to stick recruitment policy. 

What is the plan going forward? As a club it feels like we’ve been a rudderless ship drifting towards relegation for nearly 18 months now. If not for a miraculous turnaround under Kettlewell, the Championship was exactly where we were heading. 

I know, let’s ask our new Chief Exec. Oh that’s right, the person supposed to in place before Burrows left still hasn’t been appointed 2 months after he departed for Pittodrie, over 3 months since he officially handed his notice in. 

So aye, it’d be nice to have some sort of clarity and assurances going forward before I start chucking more money at the club to help cover 18 months of poor decisions and a general lack of leadership/direction.  

Absolutely nails it on the head for me. I'm understanding that everything, for some reason, costs more now.

As mentioned, I don't entirely appreciate the Ravenscraig patter on top of asking for more money while the reason we've lost a bunch of money and will continue to is because of... Not the fans actions, but I guess that's part and parcel of it.

You also missed the chief exec we'd, by all accounts, essentially appointed then latterly have not appointed, the head of Comms role still to be filled, and various other bits of daftness like spending a month jumping through hoops for a player that probably isn't good enough in a position where we already have a couple of guys who also can't cut it, as the manager who sought to bring him in was in an absolute tailspin, but there we are! 

[Kapowzer]

I'd echo a lot of the above. By and large we are well run. We've not walked a fine line with financial fair play such as Ross County. Not overextended ourselves like Dundee United (and reportedly at St Mirren). Not unrealistic to the potential revenues in our game like Aberdeen and Hibs. Finally, not dropping into the bear pit of the Championship as we've seen the Edinburgh 2, Killie, both Dundee clubs, Partick and Accies in the last decade.

This season, a lot of heat has to be focused on the board primarily for not acting decisely and quickly enough when it was paramount. Plenty of ITK'ers on here conveyed they knew GA was a wrong 'un but we concerned both with the perception of punting him in the football community and the hope that someone would make an approach which would be our ideal solution. If the reported funds were withheld then we were hobbled but the majority of the names on the target lists wouldn't change overnight with Hammy's appointment.

Looking back when the window closed we recruited poorly with too many options in some areas of the park and zero improvement and cover in others plus permacrocks. It was definitely panicky one which we had allegedly given up on as a thing. So off we trott into September not too bad table position but the shitshow of season 2022-23 from 4th place down was not to be repeated. We had a bigger than expected squad with too many showing up for physio as their only contribution.

We were in the unique place of a midseason break and came back worse and were facing the easier teams in the league in 6 out of 7 fixtures. I've mentioned before if it wasn't for burst pipes we would have played St Mirren there was nothing to believe it would be anything other than a loss. You add in those crazy 5 minutes against Killie, would Hammy have made it to early February?

But he did and the window was a mixed bag of measured signings in Blaney and Danzaki vs the seemingly panicky Casey, Butcher and Obika. But I've seen enough windows not to focus too much on when people arrive as the whole time of year is like a house buying chain. However, it can't be overlooked as we currently sit with a squad of 28 before you factor in the academy players who have featured such as Miller and January loans out for Maguire and Shields.

Out of our 4.8k season tickets I'd suggest 2,500 are full paying adults, 1,500 are concessions of some sort (over 65's and juveniles) and lets say 800 free kids, this increase is raising revenue around £150k or one Josh Morris who must be at the upper end of our pay scale and not a peep as to how he's not been a thing since 2022. Even if you fudge those totals used a bit you're not going to top £180k.

It does make you wonder .... we have released more funds than expected to maintain our top league status. If we recruited more astutely and with better focus in both windows, if we got to Ibrox in the Cup and sailed past Sligo since we were the seeded team playing at a higher level then there would be more cash in the bank. In theory that could be used absorb things and mitigate the 14% rise. If we're doubled our efforts to source this angel/business willing to goodwill us £750k a season that's been left floundering. A lot of these issues that can point back to an under resourced corporate side of the club and hand ringing in the boardroom will be undoubtedly absorbed by the punter.

One thing about having Flao at the helm is he was commensurate in age with a number of posters on here and also touched base with a number, therefore got a general feeling for things before they became a groundswell.

I fear the pricing can only result in a drop in season ticket numbers and much more of a swing to PatG which affects the clubs budgeting adversely.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Kapowzer