Double Winning St Johnstone FC Thread

[perthsaint1977]

That result for rangers will cause utter chaos trying to get this rearranged game with them sorted out. Hopefully they just award us the win....

[nelsjfc]

That result for rangers will cause utter chaos trying to get this rearranged game with them sorted out. Hopefully they just award us the win....

Could become farcical if replays are required from this weekend's quarters. Imagine the SPFL are just hoping our top six challenge fizzles out.

[HoBNob]

5 hours ago, jamamafegan said:

 

Just because he’s says it wouldn’t work doesn’t mean it’s gospel. He’s said they tried all sorts to get people through the gates following the cup success but we all know that’s a load of bollocks.

 

Not trying to be funny, but they got you cup success, the highest point in your clubs history that most likely won't be bettered in the near future. 

Not getting season tickets out is a pretty minor point tbh. 

[RandomGuy.]

4 minutes ago, Grant228 said:

Not getting season tickets out is a pretty minor point tbh. 

It's not really. Literally all that holds St Johnstone back is a lack of fans. They had 15,000 people buy tickets from the club for the Cup win, then thousands at the event the next day, and didnt gain a single season ticket sale directly from that. They didnt store any details of fans who bought tickets, nor hand out a single season ticket packet the next day.

Even 1000 more fans at home games would make a substantial difference to the club. Instead they allowed that huge opportunity to pass them by, and we'll inevitably slip back to being a yo-yo side as the change to really progress was gone.

[Radford]

4 minutes ago, nelsjfc said:

54 minutes ago, perthsaint1977 said:

Hopefully they just award us the win....

Imagine the SPFL are just hoping our top six challenge fizzles out.

But the longer they leave it, the more trouble they are brewing for themselves if it doesn't. They need to decide on a date for this to ensure they game can be played before matchday 34.

[The Marly]

Not trying to be funny, but they got you cup success, the highest point in your clubs history that most likely won't be bettered in the near future. 
Not getting season tickets out is a pretty minor point tbh. 

Correct. Unfortunately there's a fair few zoomers in our support who believe that they know how to run the club better than the Browns.

[The Marly]

It's not really. Literally all that holds St Johnstone back is a lack of fans. They had 15,000 people buy tickets from the club for the Cup win, then thousands at the event the next day, and didnt gain a single season ticket sale directly from that. They didnt store any details of fans who bought tickets, nor hand out a single season ticket packet the next day.
Even 1000 more fans at home games would make a substantial difference to the club. Instead they allowed that huge opportunity to pass them by, and we'll inevitably slip back to being a yo-yo side as the change to really progress was gone.

As I was saying.....

[jamamafegan]

Correct. Unfortunately there's a fair few zoomers in our support who believe that they know how to run the club better than the Browns.

I haven’t at any point said I know how to run a football club. All I’ve said is I like the concept of fan ownership.

Furthermore, it’s almost universally agreed that the Browns fucked up after the cup win and failed to take advantage of it. They deserve criticism for that - and I think it’s a joke how they are trying to make out in news articles that they did their best.

[RandomGuy.]

34 minutes ago, The Marly said:

1 hour ago, Grant228 said:

Not trying to be funny, but they got you cup success, the highest point in your clubs history that most likely won't be bettered in the near future. 
Not getting season tickets out is a pretty minor point tbh. 

Correct. Unfortunately there's a fair few zoomers in our support who believe that they know how to run the club better than the Browns.

 

33 minutes ago, The Marly said:

As I was saying.....

I've always said, and continue to say, we're all massively indebted to the Browns and how theyve run the club. I believe they're still the best people to be in charge.

I dont think its contradictory to say they massively fucked up that Summer and missed a decent chance to trap some more fans into buying season tickets.

[Fife Saint]

Not trying to be funny, but they got you cup success, the highest point in your clubs history that most likely won't be bettered in the near future. 
Not getting season tickets out is a pretty minor point tbh. 

It was Brown who brought it up tbf.

[Honest Saints Fan]

If Sevco can't fulfill their fixtures in time it should be an automatic 3 points to Saints. 

[Mr Heliums]

11 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

I dont think its contradictory to say they massively fucked up that Summer and missed a decent chance to trap some more fans into buying season tickets.

I have to challenge this view that the 'f**k-up' was some sort of turning point in our history. First, many fans DID buy new season tickets on the back of the club's appeal that summer – I bought three. I don't remember hurdles being put up. Even after May 18, there were plenty of opportunities for the people of Perth to buy them. None better than before or after that win v Luzern on a lovely July evening with 8,500 fans in the ground. Was there much take-up? I doubt it. It's one thing the Perth public turning up to a cup parade or a big game; quite another to turn that into season ticket revenue.

But let's pretend we had application forms ready promptly and say 5,000 fans signed up. Those 5,000 would have then followed Saints though a season at McDiarmid that lacked all glamour. Punchless defeats to Dundee and Kilmarnock stick in the mind, as do a series of 0-0 draws in bitter conditions. Even the wins were flawed: the pathetic sight of Brian Graham's dive to steal a game from Ross County and the game – I think against ICT – when it took us until into the second half to have a shot on target. The one home highlight I remember that season was Chris Millar's late winner against Dundee United, which ended Jackie MacNamara's managerial career. Thin pickings, though, in terms of entertainment.

And that's my point – on the back of that, how many of those 5,000 uncommitted fans would have renewed in 2015 – which wasn't much better – or the season after? We're now SIX years on. We have to let 'the 2014 summer f**k-up' go. It wouldn't have changed the world.

Besides, by focussing on one event, we're overlooking the broader problem, which isn't directly board-related. It's poor basic admin. Since I stopped my season ticket a couple of years back, the club has never been in touch to encourage me to reconsider, or to ask why I didn't renew. I've dropped off the database. So I'd only blame Steve Brown when says he's tried everything, because he's wrong. He doesn't know what he needs to try, because the club has never bothered to actually ask.

Edited February 27, 2020 by Mr Heliums

[capt_oats]

On 26/02/2020 at 08:50, RandomGuy. said:

Added context.

Struggling like f**k to understand quite what they're trying to achieve with all this.

Irrationally triggered by his Motherwell comment tbh - almost as much as reading the "if we were fan-owned we'd have sacked Tommy Wright earlier in the season" shouts from fans. It's not some reality TV pish...there's no fan vote at full time whether the manager should keep his job FFS.

Anyway "There's fan ownership at Motherwell and they have been fortunate in selling a number of players with sell-ons" - as a statement that's true, it may just be a turn of phrase but possibly misses the point that the player trading at Motherwell is by design - it's not luck or good fortune.

It's fag packet numbers but in roughly the same timeframe prior to Hutchison stepping in (and the subsequent fan ownership) we brought in roughly £800k in fees, since then we've generated £5m+ - again that's not luck or being fortunate - one big sale might be a case of stars aligning and bringing in a large fee, bringing in smaller but consistent fees...less so.

I've mentioned before but according to Hutchison there was a business review done at the club and along with stuff like being able to reduce player budget by utilising the academy and setting up a sports science/strength and conditioning department to prevent/reduce medical bills the view was that watching our best players walk out the door for nothing wasn't value - so the strategy and approach changed.

Ultimately the fact that Hutchison and Boyle's loans were being paid back via a slice of transfer revenue meant that everyone's interests were aligned so rather than being pressured to sell to keep the lights on, there was support to make sure we got value. Celtic's offer for Carson and Aberdeen's offer for Moult being examples of kb'ing bids - which in turn has meant we've got better fees further down the line as we haven't been rolling over.

Arguably with players like Kerr, Gordon, Hendry and especially McCann St Johnstone have as much potential in terms of sellable assets as Motherwell have over the past couple of seasons - so the woe is me, everything's ruined patter in these interviews is a weird read from the outside looking in. I get that there's a frustration about success not translating to bodies through the door though but when it comes down to it other clubs are actively out there looking at how they can maximise revenue and grow their fanbases - the culture of football in Scotland has changed massively since 2014 let alone 1986.

Again, not advocating fan-ownership for St Johnstone it may be that the numbers simply don't work but there's a lot in that interview that's interesting - "Do you know anybody who is looking to take over a football club?" is exactly the same position we were in with Boyle - he wanted out but couldn't get a buyer.

Edited February 27, 2020 by capt_oats

[deej]

23 minutes ago, Mr Heliums said:

I have to challenge this view that the 'f**k-up' was some sort of turning point in our history. First, many fans DID buy new season tickets on the back of the club's appeal that summer – I bought three. I don't remember hurdles being put up. Even after May 18, there were plenty of opportunities for the people of Perth to buy them. None better than before or after that win v Luzern on a lovely July evening with 8,500 fans in the ground. Was there much take-up? I doubt it. It's one thing the Perth public turning up to a cup parade or a big game; quite another to turn that into season ticket revenue.

But let's pretend we had application forms ready promptly and say 5,000 fans signed up. Those 5,000 would have then followed Saints though a season at McDiarmid that lacked all glamour. Punchless defeats to Dundee and Kilmarnock stick in the mind, as do a series of 0-0 draws in bitter conditions. Even the wins were flawed: the pathetic sight of Brian Graham's dive to steal a game from Ross County and the game – I think against ICT – when it took us until into the second half to have a shot on target. The one home highlight I remember that season was Chris Millar's late winner against Dundee United, which ended Jackie MacNamara's managerial career. Thin pickings, though, in terms of entertainment.

And that's my point – on the back of that, how many of those 5,000 uncommitted fans would have renewed in 2015 – which wasn't much better – or the season after? We're now SIX years on. We have to let 'the 2014 summer f**k-up' go. It wouldn't have changed the world.

Besides, by focussing on one event, we're overlooking the broader problem, which isn't directly board-related. It's poor basic admin. Since I stopped my season ticket a couple of years back, the club has never been in touch to encourage me to reconsider, or to ask why I didn't renew. I've dropped off the database. So I'd only blame Steve Brown when says he's tried everything, because he's wrong. He doesn't know what he needs to try, because the club has never bothered to actually ask.

Say we did get 5000 (or whatever) extra in that summer, followed up with decent admin/PR that's a lot of extra potential fans the club have missed out on though isn't it. 

 

Problem doesn't lie solely with the summer of 2014, however it can't just be cast aside as it was 6 years ago. 

[The Marly]

Say we did get 5000 (or whatever) extra in that summer, followed up with decent admin/PR that's a lot of extra potential fans the club have missed out on though isn't it. 
 
Problem doesn't lie solely with the summer of 2014, however it can't just be cast aside as it was 6 years ago. 

Haud on, the Browns missed the chance to have 5000 extra season ticket holders?

[deej]

3 minutes ago, The Marly said:

Haud on, the Browns missed the chance to have 5000 extra season ticket holders?

I'm assuming Mr Heliums just plucked that number out of nowhere and didn't actually think we could have got that many in

[Kyle]

The summer of 2014 was the one where the manager wasn't allowed to sign any additional players until after we sold Stevie May. An extra 5,000 (or even 1,000) season tickets probably means that we either extend May's contract quicker or we are able to sign players who are better than Brian Graham, Simon Lappin and Adam Morgan who were the best of what was left when we were actually able to enter the transfer market in mid-August. Still, we finished 4th that season even though it was a pretty awful watch for the vast majority of the time. I don't think we scored more than 2 goals in any single game and the most goals we had in any of our games was 3. The first game of the next season we lost 4-3 away at Hearts, so both those ducks were broken immediately the following season.  

It's all academic anyway - we'll never know how much of an affect the delay in season tickets being available that summer had on the final numbers sold. That was one of a number of things that was frustrating that summer though, David Goodwillie training with us for a couple of weeks whilst he waited on the chairman sanctioning his signing, only for Aberdeen to nab him away being another example.

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by Kyle

[Bose]

Of the 15000 who went to the cup final how many didn’t know that football clubs have season tickets? I believe that If anyone wanted to buy a season ticket they would have.

[jamamafegan]

Of the 15000 who went to the cup final how many didn’t know that football clubs have season tickets? I believe that If anyone wanted to buy a season ticket they would have.

I don’t think that’s the point. The point is the club didn’t move swiftly on getting season tickets sorted for the following season, they should have been selling tickets when spirits were at their peak i.e as soon as possible. As others have said they didn’t take advantage of having a database to log details and encourage people to sign up for next season.

We have seen the most glorious period in our history under the Browns and for that we will always be thankful. If there’s one thing I won’t miss though when they leave is the constant arsing about when it comes to season tickets, signings, etc.

[tree house tam]

If the club does/did everything it could to get fans in the gates, why is it you can wander around Perth on matchday and not even know there was a game on?

There is no Saints presence in the centre at all, that's where they should be shouting from the rooftops but aye "we've tried and did all we could". 

Absolute pish.