A View From The Terrace.

[gannonball]

8 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

In the Second Division they had multiple players on £2k+ a week with their manager, Rowan Alexander, on £100k a year.

Thats more than some top flight sides are even spending now, and its highly likely the same as they were paying in the Third Division.

I suppose that comes down to the subjectivity in of 'financial doping'. Personally I don't see an owner putting his in his pocket to pay for players rather than rely on an other income as many clubs in clubs would accused of that in Scotland at some point albeit Gretnas scale was unheard of compared to the level they were at. I more see it as racking up debt and paying players through other non-approved avenues. Obviously the landscape is changing now now with FFP, sports washing etc which should trickle down tighter regulations to the lower leagues eventually.

Edited March 25, 2023 by gannonball

[RandomGuy.]

6 minutes ago, gannonball said:

I suppose that comes down to the subjectivity in of 'financial doping'. Personally I don't see an owner putting his in his pocket to pay for players rather than rely on an other income as many clubs in clubs would accused of that in Scotland at some point albeit Gretnas scale was unheard of compared to the level they were at. I more see it as racking up debt and not paying players through other non-approved avenues. 

He literally paid for everything out his own pocket. Fairly sure he sold other businesses to help keep funding it and he was declared bankrupt, with his family losing their home etc., less than a year after his death.

The debts the club accrued came after he fell ill and his finances were taken out his control. His family refused to give anymore to the club. The club still had to pay contracts, and rent to Motherwell, and had literally nothing coming in, so debts racked up and it was obvious they couldnt survive. 

Its financial doping to me as it was obvious the club couldnt afford what they were spending and so their league was position was being hugely inflated.

Edited March 25, 2023 by RandomGuy.

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

i know i took delight seeing Falkirk drop down to the 3rd tier and struggle, after their fans gave Livi a lot of stick, and their crowdwank billy big baws attitudes, that's just what football fans do.

There will always be an arsehole minority but I don't think that's the natural inclination of most football fans. I think the structural inequality of Scottish football has created this "rats fighting over scraps" attitude. Full time second tier clubs are deliberately kept on the breadline so as to minimise the threat they can pose to top tier clubs upon promotion. No club has suffered more from that than Falkirk. Even being denied promotion when winning the second tier. That's how much power our top tier, establishment clubs were exerting at one point. They had their own shitty breakaway Super League, the SPL. Feasting on all that Old Firm cash while starving the likes of Falkirk by allowing none of it to filter down into the second tier. Little wonder Falkirk fans grew angry from all the years of that. That some later misdirected that anger at clubs below them in the pecking order like Livi (at the time) is because folk often don't understand how systems work.

Edited March 25, 2023 by FreedomFarter

[Miguel Sanchez]

This thread has a good history of Gretna: 

There's a documentary mentioned in there which I think is this:

 

[DA Baracus]

6 minutes ago, FreedomFarter said:

There will always be an arsehole minority but I don't think that's the natural inclination of most football fans. I think the structural inequality of Scottish football has created this "rats fighting over scraps" attitude. Full time second tier clubs are deliberately kept on the breadline so as to minimise the threat they can pose to top tier clubs upon promotion. No club has suffered more from that than Falkirk. Even being denied promotion when winning the second tier. That's how much power our top tier, establishment clubs were exerting at one point. They had their own shitty breakaway Super League, the SPL. Feasting on all that Old Firm cash while starving the likes of Falkirk by allowing none of it to filter down into the second tier. Little wonder Falkirk fans grew angry from all the years of that. That some later misdirected that anger at clubs below them in the pecking order like Livi (at the time) is because folk often don't understand how systems work.

Falkirk were hard done by, but no more so than any other club. My own club had to build a shite all seater stadium to comply with the SPL bollocks. Dundee and Airdrie did it too. Falkirk could have but chose not to.

The rules around seats were total bullshit, even when they dropped it to 6k. Glad those rules are gone now.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Falkirk were hard done by, but no more so than any other club. My own club had to build a shite all seater stadium to comply with the SPL bollocks. Dundee and Airdrie did it too. Falkirk could have but chose not to.

The rules around seats were total bullshit, even when they dropped it to 6k. Glad those rules are gone now.

Sure, Dunfermline were very much screwed over during the SPL days too.

At least returning to a common body in the SPFL has given us some improvement since then. Prize money allocated to the second tier is significantly up on what it used to be, for example.

[johnnydun]

So I take it you will all be supporting Dundee in this seasons Championship, in order to stop the Glasgow Gretna that is Queens Park?

[Molotov]

8 minutes ago, johnnydun said:

So I take it you will all be supporting Dundee in this seasons Championship, in order to stop the Glasgow Gretna that is Queens Park?

Are you not the Dundee Gretna though? 

[johnnydun]

Just now, Molotov said:

Are you not the Dundee Gretna though? 

No, have you not seen the state of our neighbours.

We were already in the top league when we started burning money.

[gannonball]

Back on to the episode of last night was howling at the country cuisine dishes thingy, also fair play to Kevin McNaughton for telling his story don't think it was that long ago either 

[Crawford Bridge]

Lucozade & fags. 

[Monkey Tennis]

The problem with what Gretna did concerned the hubris and dishonesty attached to it.

As pointed out, other clubs have spent beyond their means.  This was very different in a few ways though.  Firstly, it was about scale.  This was a team from a village, with no history in the Scottish game, that had just arrived in the national structure.  Its ground remained small and ramshackle throughout.  

What was really hard to stomach though, were the claims that there was anything impressive about their rise in a footballing sense.  Remember that Alexander had already been an ordinary manager at Queens, but we were now meant to consider him a genius as he took full time players from SPL clubs to the lower tiers.  It was simply untrue to say they paid out next to no transfer fees - they bought several players.  The financial thing obviously came in with wages though, and they were ludicrous in the context they played in.

Talk from the likes of Alexander, Irons, Mileson and media fools about jealousy was enraging and fucking insulting.  

It did carry momentum, sweeping along decent sorts like Graeme Muir, who seemed to believe it all too.  

Alexander is not always the easiest guy to like, but the whole thing was, I think, very personally destructive for him.  

The uncritical media definitely fueled it.  I even remember a When Saturday Comes piece which cited it all as uncomplicated philanthropy.  For the Chic Young school, it was just too easy to forge a witless connection to romance, given the Gretna wedding thing.

Loathing of them was obviously especially pronounced down here.  Many of the protagonists lived in Dumfries itself and the outreach of publicity and recruitment certainly came here.  

Ironically, we benefited when it went tits up, inheriting some players ahead of reaching our own Cup final in the aftermath.

 

The whole thing should be seen now as entirely cautionary though.  Even if Mileson's wealth had been vast enough for it to be more sustainable, it would still have been a ridiculous act of vanity.  

I was pleased it went so wrong, but it had casualties who, while maybe guilty of naivety and even fleeting arrogance, probably didn't deserve the damage.

Edited March 26, 2023 by Monkey Tennis

[Otis Blue]

19 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Falkirk were hard done by, but no more so than any other club. My own club had to build a shite all seater stadium to comply with the SPL bollocks. Dundee and Airdrie did it too. Falkirk could have but chose not to.

The rules around seats were total bullshit, even when they dropped it to 6k. Glad those rules are gone now.

God aye, those 10k seater stadium rules were totally mental and outwith the financial capabilities of most clubs. Somebody should have been slapped for that. Crazy.

[craigkillie]

On 25/03/2023 at 13:54, DA Baracus said:

The rules around seats were total bullshit, even when they dropped it to 6k. Glad those rules are gone now.

I agree, however we do need to see some sort of standards still enforced to stop grounds like the new Lesser Hampden being considered appropriate for the top flight, or the Meadowbank Stadium being considered suitable for any level of the SPFL.

Edited March 26, 2023 by craigkillie

[DA Baracus]

52 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

I agree, however we do need to see some sort of standards still enforced to stop grounds like the new Lesser Hampden being considered appropriate for the top flight, or the Meadowbank Stadium being considered suitable for any level of the SPFL/

Agreed.

[Moorie]

16 hours ago, gannonball said:

Back on to the episode of last night was howling at the country cuisine dishes thingy, also fair play to Kevin McNaughton for telling his story don't think it was that long ago either 

Think was only 2 years ago? Fortunate to play against him and spend some time with him after a community trust game. Great guy definitely a character. Glad to see he doing well again. Someone I can see maybe taking steps further in management 

[Dons_1988]

The super Kev piece was great. I remember those tweets going out vividly. Don’t know him personally but it was pretty awful thinking of what might have been. Fantastic to hear him speak now. 

[gannonball]

4 minutes ago, Moorie said:

Think was only 2 years ago? Fortunate to play against him and spend some time with him after a community trust game. Great guy definitely a character. Glad to see he doing well again. Someone I can see maybe taking steps further in management 

Tbh I thought it was shorter than that but lockdown seems to have messed up my gauge of time in that period. My Brother in law knows him and did wonder how he was getting on but didn’t want seem nosey by asking.

[Moorie]

1 minute ago, gannonball said:

Tbh I thought it was shorter than that but lockdown seems to have messed up my gauge of time in that period. My Brother in law knows him and did wonder how he was getting on but didn’t want seem nosey by asking.

Could have been last year? As you say lockdown has just seemed to make time pass faster these days. 
 

[Monkey Tennis]

2 hours ago, Otis Blue said:

God aye, those 10k seater stadium rules were totally mental and outwith the financial capabilities of most clubs. Somebody should have been slapped for that. Crazy.

They were designed to be out of reach.

The regulations were introduced as an act of drawbridge hoisting.