Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[rowsdower]

100% agree that the implementation of the u14 rule has been terrible. I know we had the whole investment thing over the summer, but that shouldn't have prevented proper communication of this.

[capt_oats]

33 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I got a real bee in my bonnet about the admission age thing and ended up sending Brian Caldwell a lengthy e-mail on it, I'm not sure if he will reply, but I got it off my chest.

I don't personally agree with us all of a sudden turning away kids who previously would have got in, but I can see the reasoning and logic behind his explanations.

The bit which I can't fathom though, is that our chief executive is explaining this in a press release, after we've had FIVE competitive games since the rule was implemented.

I heard of one scenario where a kid went into renew and was aggressively told that he couldn't in the ticket office. For families on tight budgets, it's not just as simple as "alright, I'll go with him then if I have to" when £50 on football then becomes north of £400 on football. That child should never have had to learn this in the ticket office. There should have been letters, e-mails and phone calls. It should have been in a press release in April, not the end of August. It should have been plastered on our season ticket comms. Perhaps, in some cases, a family could have budgeted for the extra spend with advance notice. 

Was there no way that parents of existing season ticket holders could sign a disclaimer? Was there no community trust initiatives which could have been setup to try and keep these kids engaged with Motherwell?

To sum up:

The rule itself - I don't agree with, but can bring myself to understand why.

The way the rule has been implemented - Unprofessional, careless, incompetent and insensitive.

The way the rule was communicated - Utterly pathetic.

A+ post. No notes.

[ClaretAmberb]

1 hour ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

I got a real bee in my bonnet about the admission age thing and ended up sending Brian Caldwell a lengthy e-mail on it, I'm not sure if he will reply, but I got it off my chest.

I don't personally agree with us all of a sudden turning away kids who previously would have got in, but I can see the reasoning and logic behind his explanations.

The bit which I can't fathom though, is that our chief executive is explaining this in a press release, after we've had FIVE competitive games since the rule was implemented.

I heard of one scenario where a kid went into renew and was aggressively told that he couldn't in the ticket office. For families on tight budgets, it's not just as simple as "alright, I'll go with him then if I have to" when £50 on football then becomes north of £400 on football. That child should never have had to learn this in the ticket office. There should have been letters, e-mails and phone calls. It should have been in a press release in April, not the end of August. It should have been plastered on our season ticket comms. Perhaps, in some cases, a family could have budgeted for the extra spend with advance notice. 

Was there no way that parents of existing season ticket holders could sign a disclaimer? Was there no community trust initiatives which could have been setup to try and keep these kids engaged with Motherwell?

To sum up:

The rule itself - I don't agree with, but can bring myself to underwithwithy.

The way the rule has been implemented - Unprofessional, careless, incompetent and insensitive.

 

 

The way the rule was communicated - Utterly pathetic.

It is on our season ticket comms on the website. It talks about the change and the fact that a 13 year and under ticket needs to be purchased with an adult ticket. That was on the website in April. 

It also states the reason for the change. 

Edited August 29 by ClaretAmberb

[Neil86]

In other news it looks like Slattery has got the boots back on.

Kettlewell also mentioned in his presser that no one is close to being back, stupa was pictured training so I wonder if he’s had a set back.

[capt_oats]

8 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

In other news it looks like Slattery has got the boots back on.

Kettlewell also mentioned in his presser that no one is close to being back, stupa was pictured training so I wonder if he’s had a set back.

Tbf, Stuparević was listed as a doubt in the wee graphic that was put out the other day.

There's presumably a chance that it's simply the case that he's just not ready for consideration yet.

[Swello]

On the 12 & 13 year old thing (because that's what we're really talking about here) - these are high school age kids and that's where the cut off could/should be. High school kids understand fire drills and other safety stuff if that is the actual concern (rather than ground hopping paedophiles*) and by necessity, will already have a degree of autonomy that Primary school kids don't. It would seem a pretty fair "graduation" that when you go to high school, you can go to the fitba with your mates (it's also a great age to get them hooked on the actual games).

If you really had to be hard line about it, you could restrict unaccompanied S1-S3 to the Cooper stand, where it is a calmer environment and even give them a small section of their own with a couple of extra stewards. In other words, actively encourage boys and girls at that age rather than put barriers up. 

 

*I would ban ground hoppers just in case, maybe a hard drive check too.

[well fan for life]

1 hour ago, thisGRAEME said:

On the U14 thing? Honestly I've no idea. If you have to draw a line somewhere, I don't envy someone picking what that is.

This is probably it. You can't really have hundreds of unaccompanied weans around the place in the event something happens and there's no responsible adult for them. What age that should be, f**k knows.

In this instance, it's another one to add to the greatest hits of the comms department.

[Jastons6]

15 hours ago, camer0n_mcd said:

Looking forward to spending 150k on the McLean stand just for Celtic fans to immediately destroy it at the first opportunity they get.

I was under the impression, perhaps wrongly, that away clubs pay for damages caused by their fans ?

[capt_oats]

7 minutes ago, Jastons6 said:

I was under the impression, perhaps wrongly, that away clubs pay for damages caused by their fans ?

I'd imagine this is what happens but in a round about sort of way.

We pay it and recharge the cost of an agreed amount - whatever that is.

It's semantics but I'd guess we're still paying it rather than telling the contractor to invoice Hibs (as it was them who damaged the seats the last time) or whoever.

Edited August 29 by capt_oats

[Handsome_Devil]

9 minutes ago, Swello said:

On the 12 & 13 year old thing (because that's what we're really talking about here) - these are high school age kids and that's where the cut off could/should be. High school kids understand fire drills and other safety stuff if that is the actual concern (rather than ground hopping paedophiles*) and by necessity, will already have a degree of autonomy that Primary school kids don't. It would seem a pretty fair "graduation" that when you go to high school, you can go to the fitba with your mates (it's also a great age to get them hooked on the actual games).

Aye, I've got a degree of sympathy for the club trying to operate in the environment society has created where it thinks high school kids can't sit in half empty stadium by themselves or families can't decide if their kids are trusted to do that etc...it's mental.

That said, when the club chooses to err on the harsher side of things, I find it hard to retain that sympathy.

While I'm going full on old man shakes fist at cloud mode, the problem from a distance seems less that we have a limit but more how zealously we're enforcing it...in the old days we'd have announced 14 but everyone 11 up would have been waved in regardless. There's a nod to whatever bollocks we have to legally meet while no one is annoyed or put off supporting the club, everyone's a winner. 

Different times!

 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

1 hour ago, ClaretAmberb said:

It is on our season ticket comms on the website. It talks about the change and the fact that a 13 year and under ticket needs to be purchased with an adult ticket. That was on the website in April. 

It also states the reason for the change. 

Hence my use of the word "plastered" - a change so big needs to be made obvious. I shouldn't have been able to buy my adult season ticket (even when the rules about accompanying children don't affect me), without the season ticket area spelling that out in big writing. I shouldn't have been able to see any graphic, or watch any video on social media without learning this new rule. There would even have been an opportunity for a gimmicky video about child safety and what the club were doing. 

I think anyone would have to concede that when a reactive press release takes place about a new rule that's been implemented, when there wasn't a proactive one, highlights a failure in comms.

[KirkySuperSub]

14 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

While I'm going full on old man shakes fist at cloud mode, the problem from a distance seems less that we have a limit but more how zealously we're enforcing it...in the old days we'd have announced 14 but everyone 11 up would have been waved in regardless. There's a nod to whatever bollocks we have to legally meet while no one is annoyed or put off supporting the club, everyone's a winner. 

Different times!

I was going to make a flippant comment here about today's litigious society in general, caused in no small part by the likes of Digby Brown, Dallas McMillan et al.

Ironically, briefly forgot we are sponsored by G4 Claims.

[Rod]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

Tbf, Stuparević was listed as a doubt in the wee graphic that was put out the other day.

There's presumably a chance that it's simply the case that he's just not ready for consideration yet.

[ropy]

58 minutes ago, Swello said:

On the 12 & 13 year old thing (because that's what we're really talking about here) - these are high school age kids and that's where the cut off could/should be. High school kids understand fire drills and other safety stuff if that is the actual concern (rather than ground hopping paedophiles*) and by necessity, will already have a degree of autonomy that Primary school kids don't. It would seem a pretty fair "graduation" that when you go to high school, you can go to the fitba with your mates (it's also a great age to get them hooked on the actual games).

If you really had to be hard line about it, you could restrict unaccompanied S1-S3 to the Cooper stand, where it is a calmer environment and even give them a small section of their own with a couple of extra stewards. In other words, actively encourage boys and girls at that age rather than put barriers up. 

 

*I would ban ground hoppers just in case, maybe a hard drive check too.

This is where I landed eventually, primary children need accompanied and high school kids should have the right to attend on their own (or with pals). 

[Swello]

3 minutes ago, ropy said:

This is where I landed eventually, primary children need accompanied and high school kids should have the right to attend on their own (or with pals). 

You could take it a step further and actively target younger high school kids via the schools themselves (in line with the WS strategy about targeting different parts of Lanarkshire) - make a positive out of the whole thing as we, like all clubs have an aging support and need to get younger folk into going..

[Vietnam91]

Interesting to see what Las does at St Mirren as a fair chunk of their growth of late has been fuelled by kids with a big push for half season tickets in December.

Not that we should be following, as Joe said as fan owned and therefore fan centric, we should have been setting our own precent here.

Derek alluded that the decision was made in advance of speaking to the WS board. That does feel like it was something that deserved a "what do you think folks" in the groupchat.

I think to my childhood, I turned 12 two and a half months after starting 1st year at high school, the youngest was late February. That seems reasonable when kids are given a house key, allowed to be home alone for a bit before the parents arrive, can get a limited bank account and as discussed given a Young Scot card with free bus travel.

I do think to reverse 14 now opens us up to criticism from the permanently outraged on X, Facebook and activist groups.

We have to be careful however, I don't think how kindly all the young team would take to suggestions from guys in their mid 40's and up on a forum. Apologies if you're younger.

[camer0n_mcd]

 

Jack is back!

 

Edit: That Blackburn kit is absolutely lovely by the way.

Edited August 29 by camer0n_mcd

[camer0n_mcd]

I've got no beef whatsoever with Jack Vale in fact I actually quite liked him last season but to me the signing feels quite unnecessary to me.

[rowsdower]

I liked him, and it's good to see that strikers are the new right back.

[McGlovin']

15 minutes ago, camer0n_mcd said:

I've got no beef whatsoever with Jack Vale in fact I actually quite liked him last season but to me the signing feels quite unnecessary to me.

Yes, hard to see where he'll fit in and who will make way. But suddenly feels like a lot of options when everyone fit (maybe that caveat is why Vale is back I suppose).