Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Busta Nut]

I mind a Celtic fan in the East stand Getting mouthy, standing up and saying something as he tried to walk out. He was about 8 rows behind me and people were letting him walk right past them. I tried to climb back thinking I was gonna lamp him. Thankfully someone else did it after I got over about 3 rows cos the guy woulda kicked ma kunt in. 

[ropy]

I was in the Cooper stand, I jumped up at the second goal, when I landed I was on my own, they had all left.

[CoF]

1 hour ago, superwell87 said:

Some people are STILL crying and always will be. Yes Alan Thompson I'm taking to you.

The above is selected quotes from December 2021.

That is absolutely glorious. 

[superwell87]

3 minutes ago, CoF said:

That is absolutely glorious. 

Yup. I look forward to his meltdown/ heads gone moment in May next year.

[Al B]

Celtic fans in our stand and crying is one thing, Gerry Britton was in our team and crying!

[Vietnam91]

How did they leave the seats in the South that dya? Or is "aftermath of elephant charge" a more recent phenomenon? 

[AnderooMFC]

[Gianfranco]

I’ve enjoyed the old firm tears chat much more than potential takeover chat.

[eliphas]

What a day that was. I sit in the tranquil main stand and ended up about 4 rows in front of me when we scored the winking goal. Embracing a guy I'd hated for about 5 years due to his horrible takes and shouts. 

One of the big lads they focussed on in the south stand who was crying after full time was in my team at work as well. Delighted

Early 20s I was then. Take me back. Take me back. 

[Swello]

8 hours ago, Vietnam91 said:

How did they leave the seats in the South that day? Or is "aftermath of elephant charge" a more recent phenomenon? 

They were still in Denial at that point so it was fine. It was a bit mental outside the ground afterwards though once they turned to Anger..

(and it's great to see that Alan Thompson hasn't made it to Acceptance all these years later)

Edited March 4 by Swello

[standupforthemotherwell]

I was raging that I missed that game through having to work my weekend job.

I was very much party to similar scenes in the playoff Vs Rangers more recently. There were more Motherwell fans that day as a playoff final is a bigger draw than an end of season league game and also most of the infiltrators didn't make it as far as half time but it was hilarious watching more of them being outed as each goal went in 

[MurrayWell]

What a great weekend of fitba. 

f**k it, firing the highlights on again! 

[Richie]

Pretty arrogant and entitled of Thompson to expect us not to celebrate. Hilarity was always going to ensue.

I couldn't make the game, but ended up watching it in (I think) the bar at Rugby Park with a mate who was a Rangers fan and a mate who was a Celtic fan.

Obvious scenes when we scored the late goals and my (Celtic supporting) mate looked like he was either going burst out crying or swing a punch at me

[StAndrew7]

10 hours ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

Also why weren't Motherwell in their home kit?

The conspiracy theorists would have you believe it's because the front of that strip has a diagonal stripe that looks remarkably like a piece of attire worn in July.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

From memory, the kit was actually for the following season (2005/06) but had just been released in the club shop, so we wore it in the final game of the season, presumably to punt it.

It was more claret and amber than the monstrosity of a home kit we had at the time.

[Kempes]

Good to see that big Jon Obika’s return has made such a difference to the Well’s recent results.

[redstarcvedza]

33 minutes ago, standupforthemotherwell said:

I was raging that I missed that game through having to work my weekend job.

I was very much party to similar scenes in the playoff Vs Rangers more recently. There were more Motherwell fans that day as a playoff final is a bigger draw than an end of season league game and also most of the infiltrators didn't make it as far as half time but it was hilarious watching more of them being outed as each goal went in 

I was very popular that week getting ticket requests a plenty from Rangers fans. Took great pleasure in giving them all the same answer....

[SteelyDosser]

Did anyone quietly celebrated Bairs goal thinking the worst was going to happen or just me?  

[Handsome_Devil]

12 minutes ago, SteelyDosser said:

Did anyone quietly celebrated Bairs goal thinking the worst was going to happen or just me?  

My stream froze as the ball left his foot so there was no celebration from me...but even when I saw them celebrating my first instinct was to wait for the VAR check on Vale.

[JayMFC]

On 02/03/2024 at 08:01, eliphas said:

Next home game is two weeks away - I'd hope to see the WS out in force in the stands, the Cooper, the hospitality suites letting people know what they are doing and what they are building. Bold WS banners up to make it clear who they are. @JayMFC could the WS use the advertising space around the stadium for example that's out of date?  I mean there's adverts in the main stand men's bogs that have out of date Joe Efford kit sponsorship on them.

So in the good few years I've been involved with the Society now, I have come close to tearing my hair out on a number of occasions in relation to this kind of thing. I remember spending months repeatedly highlighting how the array of wee frames for advertising in the East Stand toilets were lying empty, and I was constantly told they were going to be used by the club's commercial department. I don't think they ever actually were until maybe nearly a year later.

Pre-pandemic, I felt like we were making genuinely slow but reasonable progress in terms of visibility and general communications. We had wee stalls up the back of stands on the concourse at a number of home games, attempted to do Society versions of "MP surgeries" at Fir Park, and had a website that - although pretty mundane - was hosting information on the Society, including allowing us to issue statements on genuinely important matters that gave the Society its own voice. However, it feels like that progress wasn't just halted in the last couple of years, but was rolled back to some extent. I think that's why there's a genuine positivity now - now having a board with a majority who understand what's needed to improve, both drastically and quickly, and are actually prepared to put in the time and energy required to make it happen.

So in short, absolutely - I totally agree with your comments about visibility and presence, and we'll definitely be looking at the ways in which we can maximise that going forward. I do know that Speedie has already begun identifying a possible location for a constant Society presence going forward, so hopefully that's something that can come to fruition soon.

Just while I'm here (I took a bit of a break from the forums for a wee while there as the Society & investor stuff is currently all-consuming), I thought it might be worth just picking up on one or two other things.

In hindsight, the consultation question very possibly was a bit vague. I think the reason for that is simply that there was a huge effort to try and make both the content and the question itself as "non-leading" as possible. As a Society member, I've always voted for folk to join the board who I think will progress & protect fan-ownership, not folk who I think will still down and have conversations about investment with third parties who want to end fan-ownership. There was a real concern that we simply didn't have a mandate to do that. That's what the consultation was about - either getting that mandate from members so that we know we're not acting out of line by talking to investors who want majority control, or getting confirmation from members that we're wasting everyone's time by doing so.

On a purely personal level, I'd have probably preferred a different outcome in the vote, purely because my preference was for the club to appoint a CEO as soon as possible & get on with recruiting for the Executive Board in order to get the club out of the limbo it's currently in, while continuing to seek external investment that doesn't impact on fan-ownership. However, I completely understand why any Well Society member would vote to keep the options open, and that's absolutely fine - as I say, the consultation was just about setting out the parameters we are approaching discussions with, rather than anything else, and we can now do that. There was a deliberate approach to try and keep it as neutral a question as possible - which is probably why it perhaps spilled over from neutral into vague territory. 

In the meantime, I am genuinely positive about what we're now doing as a collective with a common purpose, fresh ideas, and a majority willing to put in the graft required. The workstreams in place are going to see some real, tangible improvements going forward. Even just very obvious things like scrapping the frankly ridiculous decision to incorporate the Society's website into a couple of pages hidden on the club's official website and returning to our own standalone website that provides all the information, including things like minutes and policies, will go a long way to solving issues around communications and transparency. It's been a bugbear of mine for a few years now that the Society was convinced by folk inside the club to go down that route and we've paid for it since, so I am delighted we're now at a point of being able to re-join pretty much every fan-ownership group on the planet in having our own website. I mean, when you actually write that out it is just mind-blowing that anyone thought it was a good idea to get rid of a Well Society website in the first place.

The approach we are taking to the Well Society's strategy will, in my opinion, allow the Society to put itself forward as the best option, rather than just the default one. That's the aim and I think we're now very confident we can do that. Fan-ownership hasn't failed and it isn't not working. But the Well Society can be so much more than it currently is and, after having a great deal of my enthusiasm sapped over the last year or two (to the extent that a couple of my fellow board members had to persuade me to stand again in October, which I'm relieved I agreed to), I feel very positive again that we're going to get there.

Edited March 4 by JayMFC