Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[joewarkfanclub]

Like others, I have mixed feelings over this news.

Change was definitely needed but it remains to be seen if that is going to be for the better or otherwise.

I used to cringe when the current incumbents were described as amateurs, and whilst technically speaking they may have been carrying out their duties for no remuneration, I always felt that it was a bit disrespectful, as without them we would have no one with any business acumen whatsover running the club.

I think both Jim and Derek should be commended for the service they have given the club over the years with little thanks, and we need to hope that the plan they leave in place will stand us in good sted going forward.

We need to scrutinise what comes next and make sure it is the right thing for the club, and the Well Society need to be seen to be front and centre of it.

 

[rowsdower]

I have every respect for people who find ways to volunteer their time, never mind for the thankless task that is running a football club. That's a pretty significant list of achievements under McMahon's tenure, as well as Weirs. Both have played their part in us maintaining our place as a top level club, and I'm glad that they will be assisting with the transition (joining aberdeen).

Someone is going to find out it's not that easy now.

[capt_oats]

To add, there have been plenty of posts recently from folk complaining about general comms from the club and what not.

Here we’ve an example of the club putting out an announcement that pretty much details exactly what’s going on, why and what the steps are in the future and it’s met in the comments with varying degrees of hand-wringing and pearl clutching or responses that suggest they either haven’t understood what they’ve read or simply haven’t read beyond the tweet itself.

Neither of these developments are particularly surprising - Weir is and always has been in the current role on an interim basis - by definition it’s temporary. McMahon is in his 70s and will have been chair for eight years by the time he eventually steps down.

People have been calling for changes or for the WS board to have more of a say - we’ve announced that’s happening and c***s are now raging about it.

A fair amount of our support are fucking hard work like.

[Handsome_Devil]

9 hours ago, wellboy1991 said:

That’s how I am reading it. 

I am sure McMahon was a blocker to some substantial funding coming into the club from a well off fan. Maybe we are taking the money now which means he’s not happy and wants out the door.  That’s just conjecture mind you but sure I had heard that previously.

I appreciate the club statement uses the term 'investment' but unless we've stumbled across a model undiscovered at our level of football, we really mean donation or, at best, generous sponsorship.

The only club in Scotland which makes sustained profit - certainly to the extent there's an obvious return to investment - is Celtic.

Dundee United have had significant investment, got relegated anyway, and now have a bloke who will likely - one day - ask for his X million back.

Hibs (and Falkirk?) also have external investment and while I've not followed them closely, I don't get the impression dividends are flowing.

Waaaaay back in the days of Well Worth Saving the first acceptance was the most important thing was not the level we played at but that we played at all. The second acceptance was, after the lessons of Boyle - who was, if not successful, then at least relatively benign compared to other investors gone sour - that risking the long-term existence of the club for a few years of 'success' was not worth it.

It is understandable that those lessons are largely forgotten by those who were there or not known at all to those who weren't.

So I'm definitely interested in the potential investment we're getting but I'm much more interested in what we're offering in exchange.

Should the worst happen and we go down there is, of course, the chance we follow Dunfermline, Falkirk etc into oblivion. But generally speaking, the clubs who really sink like stones are doing so paying off the failed investment of the past...I don't want us to go down but if we go down basically debt free, we will almost certainly become a yo-yo team with good spells and bad.

And if it comes to that, I can certainly live with it. To me, that is a much better option than accepting X cash from the outside and thinking we will be the first ones to nail this... history, ours included, suggests that's just not going to happen.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Handsome_Devil
Fixing autocorrects

[Swello]

It's totally normal for senior people in a company to announce their resignations/retirements some months in advance - last minute surprises at AGM's aren't really a thing (unless they get canned by shareholders, which is also likely known about in advance) - so I don't think the timing is particularly surprising if they intend to stand down in the first quarter of 2024.

The fundraising initiative is something that's been discussed at the last 2 AGMs as we basically have access to less funding than most top flight clubs - so either it's been successful or something completely new has been cooked up (or the words "almost complete" are doing some heavy lifting). Now, as then I wonder about how big injections of cash can be squared with fan ownership. Hearts basically get a bung from a supporter with few strings attached but in most cases, people or companies are looking for something for their money and it wouldn't take much to actually buy us outright rather than keep the current arrangement.

I don't know Jim McMahon other than listening to him at AGMs, etc but he's put some proper service in over the years and has been part of probably the most successful period financially in the club's recent history, so deserves credit IMO. 

[Rod]

It's time for The Thread^TM to run the club. We've spoken about it enough, time to make it a reality.

First on the agenda, bring back Lionel.

Lionel aside, is this requirement for "significant investment" some kind of call to the likes of Bournemouth who were linked with making Hibs their feeder club or something? Because that idea can get in the bin. However, who else would invest in a club like ourselves? Any more super-rich fans out there?

[eliphas]

If I was a betting man, I'd bet any sort of funding injection, or whatever the idea is, here isn't going to be a universally popular one. No one is giving us money for free. 

I'm kind of ok with a club link up to a team elsewhere I think. I'm also actually ok with a stadium move. What I wouldn't want is a mad foreign owner coming in really.

Unless it's just a bucket collection.

Edited December 19, 2023 by eliphas

[Handsome_Devil]

11 minutes ago, eliphas said:

If I was a betting man, I'd bet any sort of funding injection, or whatever the idea is, here isn't going to be a universally popular one. No one is giving us money for free. 

I'm kind of ok with a club link up to a team elsewhere I think. I'm also actually ok with a stadium move. What I wouldn't want is a mad foreign owner coming in really.

Unless it's just a bucket collection.

There's a well-known phrase about the chronic lack of revenue neutral meridiem sustenance options available which applies here.

I'm not against paying in principle but you're totally right that someone will be pissed with whatever we've agreed as everyone will have their personal red lines.

I'm totally fine selling a minority stake in the club, I'm totally against selling a majority stake or getting into any shenanigans regarding ownership of the ground. 

Feeder club, don't like it (and don't see it either tbf).

 

[thisGRAEME]

11 hours ago, wellboy1991 said:

I am sure McMahon was a blocker to some substantial funding coming into the club from a well off fan. 

A Motherwell billionaire you say? Wealth off the radar?

 

[MurrayWell]

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

People have been calling for changes or for the WS board to have more of a say - we’ve announced that’s happening and c***s are now raging about it.

A fair amount of our support are fucking hard work like.

 

Your post is spot on, think folk don't read full stories now and also a number of folk just love to piss and moan about everything. 

"Let's make more changes, has to happen."

"NO, NOT LIKE THAT!!!" 

Edited December 19, 2023 by MurrayWell

[wellboy1991]

30 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

A Motherwell billionaire you say? Wealth off the radar?

 

I think Michelle Mone is looking to get rid of some money! I’m sure she would be welcomed with open arms…..!

 

[Handsome_Devil]

8 minutes ago, wellboy1991 said:

I think Michelle Mone is looking to get rid of some money! I’m sure she would be welcomed with open arms…..!

 

There's a joke here about her being a famous supporter of diddies which I believe we're obliged to reference but not make.

[Shuggie_Murray7]

Not to be antagonistic, but you guys have the whiff of a club in need of a total re-set in the Championship.

It happened to us 10 years ago and, in all honesty, was much needed.

Edited December 19, 2023 by Shuggie_Murray7

[well fan for life]

3 minutes ago, Shuggie_Murray7 said:

Not to be antagonistic, but you guys have the whiff of a club in need of a total re-set in the Championship.

It happened to use 10 years ago and, in all honesty, was much needed.

See if we were going to go down for 1-2 seasons and then bounce back up, fine. But I have a terrible feeling that if we go down that'll be us for a long, long time with the current state of the club. 

[Shuggie_Murray7]

3 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

See if we were going to go down for 1-2 seasons and then bounce back up, fine. But I have a terrible feeling that if we go down that'll be us for a long, long time with the current state of the club. 

We were relegated in the 2014/15 season, finished 6th and 7th in the Championship the next two seasons before coming up the following year. It was some pretty dark days in amongst all of that - being on the brink of relegation to L1 and suffering some absolutely horrendous results. We also had to endure Ian Murray and Alex Rae as manager.

Dropping down was, in hindsight, what we needed to get all the right people in position behind the scene and back on track, but I take on board your point about not bouncing back in short order. I really don't know where we'd be today had we slipped to L1.

That said, the march to the title, when it finally did happen, was fucking magnificent and some of my favourite days supporting the club.

[Allroy for Prez]

If we had 6/7 more points this wouldn’t seem like such a big story.

My worry is if/when we go down, we’re down for years, it’s very difficult to get out that league even with money. There may be a day in the horizon soon where we’ll yearn for players of the calibre of Craig Clay and Joe Chalmers etc…. 

I also refuse to accept that a club being relegated ever benefits in anyway or is “reset” as a result. 

[welldaft]

1 hour ago, Handsome_Devil said:

There's a well-known phrase about the chronic lack of revenue neutral meridiem sustenance options available which applies here.

I'm not against paying in principle but you're totally right that someone will be pissed with whatever we've agreed as everyone will have their personal red lines.

I'm totally fine selling a minority stake in the club, I'm totally against selling a majority stake or getting into any shenanigans regarding ownership of the ground. 

Feeder club, don't like it (and don't see it either tbf).

 

Anyone individual or business looking to invest heavily in Motherwell FC would rightly question the need for fan ownership / involvement ?

If I was investing a serious amount of money I would want to be the majority owner. Not the Well Society. Which was set up because of the lack of any viable alternatives. 

If someone responsible was to come along and say the Well Society is no longer required or to be watered down in exchange for our future then I would be open to that as would most fans I suspect.

I worry like above if as part of this cash injection we sell the stadium and lease it back etc. We already have the Gov loan which if I recall we took up the most amount of any club. No doubt to help with pitch and stadium improvements etc. But that needs paid back at circa £150k per annum. 

I would loved to be proved wrong, but I suspect any serious injection of cash ( if that is even going to happen) will indeed come with terms that are unpalatable to many. Time will tell…..

[Handsome_Devil]

4 minutes ago, welldaft said:

Anyone individual or business looking to invest heavily in Motherwell FC would rightly question the need for fan ownership / involvement ?

If I was investing a serious amount of money I would want to be the majority owner. Not the Well Society. Which was set up because of the lack of any viable alternatives. 

If someone responsible was to come along and say the Well Society is no longer required or to be watered down in exchange for our future then I would be open to that as would most fans I suspect.

Watered down to 51% absolutely, 49% absolutely not - you might have a better next year or even decade, and what happens when that person is bored and wants their money back?

The lack of viable alternatives was a reason for sure but so was long-term - decades and decades - of not being at the whim of one person or group. It would take a lot of convincing for me to think that's worth sacrificing and a few more bob to help avoid short-term suffering on the pitch does not come close to cutting it.

[MurrayWell]

Don't really get the reactions of "doom", folk are making a few leaps based on top line information. 

We've been repeating the same groundhog season for years, where we have to spend in January to stay in the division, which is absolutely not sustainable. We have a board at the moment that folk have said have halted progression, new ideas and expansion, which has led to fans calling for changes. 

Two people, supporters of the club, have recognised the need for external investment, going by the website story, and will announce this in the new year before stepping away from their roles. Part of this also includes expanding the board, meaning new ideas can be heard. 

I don't see much in yesterday's statement that's worrying to be honest, given that we have no further information at this time. 

So folk want change but also everything to stay as it is? And folk also want us to compete and have money to spend, but don't want external investment? And round and round we go... 

Edited December 19, 2023 by MurrayWell

[Swello]

35 minutes ago, Allroy for Prez said:

I also refuse to accept that a club being relegated ever benefits in anyway or is “reset” as a result. 

I agree with this - we've had multiple "resets" (not all good ones obviously) all while being in the top flight and I'm fine with that - the risk of relegation is too high.