Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Busta Nut]

I'm fucking done with that website. It never fucking works for me.

[Handsome_Devil]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

Huge list...

 

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

Basically, add it all together and it's enough to make you go "Huh?"

Absolutely, I completely agree.

But the obvious question to fup is what would you do about it then? And I don't mean that to be sarcastic because I don't have a f'n clue.

There will always be a limit to how much of the football side we can control, that's just the nature of the business.

We could get a top notch CEO and comms guy that do brilliant work and set a long-term direction for the club and get relegated 12 months later because we're missing 200k from the playing budget. There'd be a riot.

Similarly, as much as the improving lives and massive community focus was eventually mocked, it was initially a perfect example of what we are looking for now - a clear focus and direction which transcends the annual scramble to reach 40 points.

We need people to step up in both the Society and club. The great thing about us is the barrier to entry is almost non-existent. The disastrous thing is there are precious few people who tick all the boxes required.

More will emerge in due course - they always do - but beyond waiting for the cycle to inevitably turn again - it nearly always does - I see very, very little to be done.

[welldaft]

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Without wanting to come across as negative or nit-picking I guess this (non-exhaustive) timeline of our last 15 months or so give an indication as to why some might have questions:

• the post #Grezza contract extension form meltdown
• "We don't need to replace Tony Watt - we have goals in the team". Narrator: we did not.
• Nathan McGinley contract extension (2 years)
• Ricki Lamie PCA & subsequent contract extension (2 years)
• Head of comms leaves (still not replaced)
• Lead producer leaves (position still vacant)
• Keith Lasley leaves (not replaced -despite Alexander indicating he intended to and Kettlewell admitting we're short staffed)
• GA/SOD fall out - captaincy removed/McGinn signs/SOD stays = Johnston loaned
• Alexander's budget restricted (GA confirmed this in an interview with Sky)
• Summer transfer inactivity - by the time our first competitive game came around we'd announced 3 players. One of whom was a 3rd right back.
• post-Austria we play 1 (ONE) friendly before playing a team halfway through their season in a competitive European qualifier.
• Josh Morris signs - we sack the manager who was the reason he signed a fortnight later. Morris vanishes into the ether after 10 games.
• Sligo x2
• Alexander/Lucketti exit
• Our *robust* interview process gives the job to a candidate who has literally never managed or coached at first team level let alone Premiership level. Ever.
• Brian Kerr
• Aarons/Moult signings
• Club fail to even acknowledge the Slattery unpleasantness
• The 2nd great form Meltdown of the year - Hammell edition. Impressively worse than Alexander's.
• Penney exits - we literally have no left back despite him having been explicit he was away and wasn't coming back.
• The January 9 - we sign 9 players including one seemingly on the basis that he scored a worldie of a FK to knock us out of Europe and spend months hoop jumping tying up an attacking mid when as above - we literally have no left back. Then are forced into sacking the manager who signed them all 2 games or whatever later because he had us in an obvious death spiral.
• Burrows announces he's stepping down - we imply that we've been pro-active in looking at replacements. An advertisement for the job appears online 2 days later.
• Aberdeen announce Burrows - takes us 24 hours to acknowledge this.
• Raith do us a favour
• Hammell/Kerr exit
• Burrows actually leaves (position still vacant)

And...I think that's us up to date?

Don't get me wrong in and of themselves a lot of that is small beer and none of it is terminal. Similarly a fair chunk would be classed as football related decisions but since, last I checked anyway, we are actually a functioning football club "football" decisions still reflect on us whether we like it or not.

Basically, add it all together and it's enough to make you go "Huh?"

Like, if you want a metaphor - It's probably best summed up by the fact that in the 21/22 summer window, when we were chucking out ringers in the LC against Queens Park and QotS Burrows was patiently explaining that we'd changed our approach to recruitment. We were aiming higher and looking at longer term deals because the turnover and churn wasn't sustainable.

By the end of the following season we're on our third manager and have signed 18 players (in a single season).

So...yeah.

There is a certainly a lot in that list that could and should have been handled better. However we do all have the benefit of hindsight and that makes quite the difference. 

Hammell took over as temporary Manager and immediately got positive results. He apparently spoke well of his plans for the 1st team and development / reserve teams. He was in the building and is a club legend. So you can see why they reached that decision. It all goes tits up and suddenly the focus is on his lack of previous managerial experience. Which again is actually a factor no doubt as to how things panned out. 

The club is being run by volunteers essentially. With the exception of the CEO (Flow) they probably only get expenses. So I am prepared to cut them some slack. If they were all getting paid then I certainly would take a harsher view of the list and timeline of mistakes. That is not to say that we should not be doing better in many areas. 

Then you look at how clubs like United and Hibs have been run recently. And you think you know what maybe we are not as badly run as other clubs and with more paid senior employees / resources. 

 

 

[capt_oats]

59 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Absolutely, I completely agree.

But the obvious question to fup is what would you do about it then? And I don't mean that to be sarcastic because I don't have a f'n clue.

There will always be a limit to how much of the football side we can control, that's just the nature of the business.

We could get a top notch CEO and comms guy that do brilliant work and set a long-term direction for the club and get relegated 12 months later because we're missing 200k from the playing budget. There'd be a riot.

Similarly, as much as the improving lives and massive community focus was eventually mocked, it was initially a perfect example of what we are looking for now - a clear focus and direction which transcends the annual scramble to reach 40 points.

We need people to step up in both the Society and club. The great thing about us is the barrier to entry is almost non-existent. The disastrous thing is there are precious few people who tick all the boxes required.

More will emerge in due course - they always do - but beyond waiting for the cycle to inevitably turn again - it nearly always does - I see very, very little to be done.

Oh, definitely.

To be clear, I'm not sat here looking for my pound of flesh or heads to roll. That's very much not me.

I suppose it's more a reminder that even for a club that has been very well run (and we have been) we're still only a few missteps from giving ourselves a problem and it feels like somewhere in the middle of all that nonsense we've kind of taken our eye off the ball a bit for whatever reason.

Tbh that huge fucking list started off as a couple of things off the top of my head that spilled out into more because...it turns out there's actually been quite a lot going on in a relatively short space of time.

[Kapowzer]

4 hours ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Similarly, as much as the improving lives and massive community focus was eventually mocked, it was initially a perfect example of what we are looking for now - a clear focus and direction which transcends the annual scramble to reach 40 points.

The club under Leeann and followed on by Flao permeated a story. I suppose it was two fold, the first for the fans and the local area (a community trust was established under her tenure and the various initiatives) and the second was to build a narrative the footballing side was a close family, our word is our bond, spit and handshake on it. The underlying thing was we did right by academy starlets, first team players, managers recognising we are a potential stepping stone for many and we wouldn't hold them back and extend contracts of long term crocks if they picked it up on our watch. Of course the working class roots, times were tough in the past, times are still tough ad nauseum thing underpins both.

For all those in the Chapman and boardroom dine out on it, what has it got us? Did we get a higher caliber of managerial applicants for our two process' this season? The reported guys in the building in August and February other than Hammy and Ketts hardly fill you with excitement or thinking it drew them to us because of any mystique, project or warm and fuzzy feeling.

There's a certain ruthlessness missing where nostalgia and personal relationships have trumped cold hard facts and we kinda mosey through seasons. As I touched above. Our club has a reported shortfall of £750k per year. That is the golden goose is being sought to address. If that's the case things like McGinley, Morris and our ability to source and sign permacrocks have to be addressed and not bury heads which is the current datum. We can't afford this shit and I'll reiterate their combined salaries equate to the season ticket hike. Would we miss them if they weren't on the payroll, absolutely not.

I remember speaking to a senior board member back when Accies were relegated in 2011. I suggested to them that our commercial department could target their sponsors and offer them an alternative entry back to top tier football. Not denying many of their sponsors have a connection to Accies aside but many would want to look at entertaining guests and clients (but let's not deny it, 3 OF games at FP). "Oh we can't do that" ..... I rest my case.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Kapowzer

[Handsome_Devil]

43 minutes ago, Kapowzer said:

For all those in the Chapman and boardroom dine out on it, what has it got us? Did we get a higher caliber of managerial applicants for our two process' this season? The reported guys in the building in August and February other than Hammy and Ketts hardly fill you with excitement or thinking it drew them to us because of any mystique, project or warm and fuzzy feeling.

They reckon it got us Paddy Power a couple of seasons ago. And they think (rightly or wrongly, who knows) the individual brand stuff gives us the best chance of punching above our weight in the transfer market.

But yes, clearly you're right in that it's very hard to quantify.

It's obviously fair to say screw the story, just give me more or better players but there's plenty of folk who look at modern football and want some kind of bigger picture too when we're not hoovering up trophies.

The nature of squads being completely rebuilt every two seasons (max - it's frequently more often) means fans will have much less connection to any Motherwell team than they used to - if you want to keep them coming back long-term, you need to build and maintain a connection to the club, which is unlikely to be created by a different wad of loan players and 12-month contracts fighting for ninth more often than not.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Handsome_Devil

[eliphas]

There is a lot of hand wringing and over analysis going on in here is my hot take. Looking forward to a game I have to say 

[RostokMcSpoons]

59 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

The nature of squads being completely rebuilt every two seasons (max - it's frequently more often) means fans will have much less connection to any Motherwell team than they used to - if you want to keep them coming back long-term, you need to build and maintain a connection to the club, which is unlikely to be created by a different wad of loan players and 12-month contracts fighting for ninth more often than not.

I get you,   I'm old enough to think back fondly to the good ol' days of the '91 team and the continuity that we seemed to have back then. 
I think the Bosman ruling changed a lot of that and accelerated player turnover, and the yawning gap between the wages offered by the OF and also the English lower leagues has only exacerbated it.
So now we're  "damned if you do, damned if you don't" when it comes to making a stable squad... we're always going likely to either offer a short term deal where the player turns out to be really good, and can then run off to a bigger club when his contract runs out - and we get zilch.    Or we offer long-term deals to a player whose form then falls of a cliff, or who becomes surplus due to a change in manager / tactics / formation etc, and we're lumbered with a wage going to an unused player.

Because we're running on a financial knife-edge, where we get it wrong it's always to be very visible, and painful.   And it's waaaaaay too easy to have 20/20 hindsight about it.

Occasionally we'll get it bang-on, and manage to tie someone in at a sensible wage, who then turns out to be a star, and we can cash in.   But that's a rarity for almost all clubs at our level, isn't it?  I don't think we're doing any better or worse than our peers, historically.   We might be about to have a bad year or two, but that's allowed for?

[Swello]

When I came on today and saw this many posts over a non-game weekend, I was worried

Not much to add on the debate except to say that the ST price might now be increased to where it really "needs" to be and they might simply be doing what businesses all over the country and beyond have been doing (to the point that Central Banks are worried about it) by using cost of living/inflation as an excuse to put their prices up beyond what people would normally accept.

The club obviously aren't profiteering/price gouging but are trying to stabilise the finances/pay for the Year of Bad Decisions and keep us competitive - but the principle is the same.

Edited May 1, 2023 by Swello

[capt_oats]

By the by, having just re-read the spiel on the ST news story I clocked that our final ST sales for this season came in at 4,807. We never actually announced this at the start of the season although I suppose there was a lot going on at that time what with Alexander having been emptied and everything.

Still given the 'record' number in 21/22 was kind of artificially inflated by various initiatives that 4,807 still comes in above our previous record from 19/20:

22/23 - 4,807
21/22 - 5,226+
20/21 - Covid season
19/20 - 4,488

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

I know the pandemic would've been a very difficult period for many and the free ticket that we got in 2021/22 would've been a godsend to many, but I do wonder if the club hadn't made that gesture, if we'd have seen a more modest, gradual increase in prices. I know the insurance money would've taken care of the bill - but other clubs used the money elsewhere. 

I understand the increase isn't the club's fault - everything is dearer now - but like others, I thought the video was tone deaf and patronising. I'd also actually question what grown adult has ever bought a season ticket on the back of being motivated by a YouTube video. So all the video has served to do is piss off existing customers. I also can't join the dots with the logic in it. It almost seems like "if you can survive the deindustrialisation of the area, you can survive a 12% hike in your season ticket".

I'm planning on getting a season ticket, but I am curious to hear about what is happening with the gate prices. The cost of an East Stand ticket is £21 currently and a non-early bird season ticket per game only saves you about 20p. I know the loyalty you have to your football team is unique and unlike any other business you contribute to but you really wouldn't buy anything else which wasn't incentivised. I wouldn't buy a year pass for the cinema, or anywhere else, if it wasn't economical. What actual incentive / reward is there for someone who misses 1 or 2 games to be a season ticket holder?

[joewarkfanclub]

I like our story and the whole "Made of Steel" thing. It gives us roots in the community and the football club is one of the few things left that still binds it together.

That said, there was nothing new or interesting in the season ticket ad that we havent already seen before to really get the juices flowing for next season.

I do wonder whether it was all a bit premature and could have waited a couple of weeks until we were mathematically safe. We could have maybe then leaned more heavily on our unbroken run in the top flight.

Re how the club has been run, I agree that with hindsight there have been a number of clear and obvious errors, but as others have said, much of it has been down to circumstance and done in good faith.

It certainly feels like we are in a transition period. The multiple vacancies require to he filled and the squad will again be re-structured in the summer.

I feel pretty positive about that going forward as it looks like we will be doing all this still as a top flight club and with a manager who seems to have a handle on things and is getting results playing in a reasonably entertaining fashion.

He certainly hasnt split opinion in the support like the last 2 did, so hopefully the trajectory continues to be upwards!

Edited May 1, 2023 by joewarkfanclub

[Kapowzer]

50 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I'm planning on getting a season ticket, but I am curious to hear about what is happening with the gate prices. The cost of an East Stand ticket is £21 currently and a non-early bird season ticket per game only saves you about 20p. I know the loyalty you have to your football team is unique and unlike any other business you contribute to but you really wouldn't buy anything else which wasn't incentivised. I wouldn't buy a year pass for the cinema, or anywhere else, if it wasn't economical. What actual incentive / reward is there for someone who misses 1 or 2 games to be a season ticket holder?

I suspect the club won't release the PatG prices until they have to publish them for the first league game of 2023/24 as a lot of people will have a calculator out and it may seriously affect ST uptake.

3 hours ago, eliphas said:

There is a lot of hand wringing and over analysis going on in here is my hot take. Looking forward to a game I have to say 

Board is getting a bit of heat and you wish to move the convo on ..... nothing to do with previously sharing you have a close acquaintance involved. Course not.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

39 minutes ago, Kapowzer said:

I suspect the club won't release the PatG prices until they have to publish them for the first league game of 2023/24 as a lot of people will have a calculator out and it may seriously affect ST uptake.

If the gate prices are going up, surely it would be worth their while announcing it? Say the east stand is going up to £24 next season, surely that'll make more people think a season ticket is more economical.

[eliphas]

2 hours ago, Kapowzer said:

I suspect the club won't release the PatG prices until they have to publish them for the first league game of 2023/24 as a lot of people will have a calculator out and it may seriously affect ST uptake.

Board is getting a bit of heat and you wish to move the convo on ..... nothing to do with previously sharing you have a close acquaintance involved. Course not

Haha, genuinely isn't. I'm 100% not that deep thinking this price increase I guess that's all. It seems fine to me in the world we live in right now unfortunately. 

My takes really from my few posts are I don't think the videos do much to shift numbers either way (same for the previous ones) and we live in an expensive time where putting on a game is more expensive. Something needs to give. Don't really think it's much more than that tbh.

Said many a time I had no skin in the game there with the board thing. Just a contact who was close to someone there who got a few bits of info at the time. That appears to have been tightened in recent times.

 

Edited May 1, 2023 by eliphas

[Ceiling Granny]

13 hours ago, joewarkfanclub said:

I do wonder whether it was all a bit premature and could have waited a couple of weeks until we were mathematically safe. We could have maybe then leaned more heavily on our unbroken run in the top flight.

If we had done this we’d 100% be on a 6 game losing streak come September . 
 

On the CEO appointment, while there’s undoubtedly a whiff of “shambles”, I wonder how much of it comes from how Alan Burrows left only a couple of months after the announcement. This might have been discussed before, but from my (little) experience of the corporate world I don’t think it’s unusual in such roles to do 6 months notice, some of which might be gardening leave. While I get that football is somewhat different, there’s a decent chance that if we’re bringing in someone from outside football, and want them in full time, this could be what we’re dealing with (or not dealing with and thereby reducing the candidate pool).  Had Alan Burrows had to do a similar notice period (and you can argue how ‘workable’ this would have been once it was known he was leaving), we could have been much further down the new CEO search by the time he was out the door. 

[well fan for life]

1 hour ago, Ceiling Granny said:

If we had done this we’d 100% be on a 6 game losing streak come September . 
 

On the CEO appointment, while there’s undoubtedly a whiff of “shambles”, I wonder how much of it comes from how Alan Burrows left only a couple of months after the announcement. This might have been discussed before, but from my (little) experience of the corporate world I don’t think it’s unusual in such roles to do 6 months notice, some of which might be gardening leave. While I get that football is somewhat different, there’s a decent chance that if we’re bringing in someone from outside football, and want them in full time, this could be what we’re dealing with (or not dealing with and thereby reducing the candidate pool).  Had Alan Burrows had to do a similar notice period (and you can argue how ‘workable’ this would have been once it was known he was leaving), we could have been much further down the new CEO search by the time he was out the door. 

By all accounts we had Mark McGhee (not that one) in the door and everything was all set to go then he bailed on us for whatever reason. 

Also that @capt_oats list is quite something. Thank goodness Ketts has turned the ship around because if we'd slapped being relegated on to it that would be the cherry on the cake. 

[joewarkfanclub]

3 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

By all accounts we had Mark McGhee (not that one) in the door and everything was all set to go then he bailed on us for whatever reason. 

Also that @capt_oats list is quite something. Thank goodness Ketts has turned the ship around because if we'd slapped being relegated on to it that would be the cherry on the cake. 

I guess we have to give the board some credit for getting that right. Albeit there werent many credible alternatives.....

[Pettigrew]

5 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

By all accounts we had Mark McGhee (not that one) in the door and everything was all set to go then he bailed on us for whatever reason. 

I heard they had 2 candidates, incl McGhee, and managed to invite them both to the same game which didn't land well with either.  

[well fan for life]

9 minutes ago, Pettigrew said:

I heard they had 2 candidates, incl McGhee, and managed to invite them both to the same game which didn't land well with either.  

 

So we were trying to pull that 90s American sitcom classic of going on two dates at the same time? 

What a club.