Spooky Spider Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 He mentioned in his interview that he was going to a game tonight. I assume that would have been the Falkirk v Cove game (or P'head v Dumbarton)? Anyone think he's scouting a new signing and who it might be? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Rendall Posted January 9 Share Posted January 9 8 minutes ago, Spooky Spider said: He mentioned in his interview that he was going to a game tonight. I assume that would have been the Falkirk v Cove game (or P'head v Dumbarton)? Anyone think he's scouting a new signing and who it might be? Young Qp had a game, would of been watching that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EaglesandSpiders Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 If you guys want the Saints fans to leave this thread, I'm happy to start another on the use of pejorative language on Internet forums. That should do the trick. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RandomGuy. Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 8 hours ago, Hampden Diehard said: You lads are all over this thread telling us our new manager is a fanny. How do you expect us to react? It started as people explaining how he was with us. Its pretty common for a managers previous set of fans to do that on this site, and explain where it went right/wrong. Generally fans of the new club either just ignore it, or move on from it, rather than argue that the fans of the old club are wrong to be criticial and shouldnt be complaining. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcjameos Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Am pleased with the appointment. He has some experience and played at a decent level. Those attributes alone make it a step up for us. The cyclical and short term nature of football management mean there is little point in looking too far ahead. Given our predicament success will initially see us staying in the division, beyond that ........ 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dunning1874 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 On 02/01/2024 at 11:12, Hampden Diehard said: Jeezy peeps, another post from you on the Morton route to financial success. You forgot: A club that was bankrolled by a wealthy benefactor for years, allowing it to live beyond its means. A club whose wealthy benefactor who recently wrote off a loan of £400k A club whose wealthy benefactor also wrote off its investment in the club and very kindly transferred shares to the fans rather than, as it could have, sold it off to the highest bidder. If your erstwhile wealthy benefactor hadn't been so good as he stepped back, clearing all that was owed by you and had been invested in you via shares, you'd be in the shitter so, please, no more back slapping posts about how well you are doing financially. Obviously the conversation has long since moved on from this already, but I was looking back to see if there'd been much comment on Davidson before the rumours got into full swing and landed on this. Much of this being accurate about Morton prior to 2021 (the Rae family operating out of the goodness of their hearts being very much up for debate, and I'm not sure what you're referring to with the £400K loan) doesn't address the underlying point about Queen's Park, or the fact that regardless of the 20 years from 2001-21, the statement you're taking issue with is an accurate summation of what Morton have been doing for the last 2 and a half years. This isn't a moral judgement obviously, every club in this division has at times lived outwith their means, with everyone in the division other than Airdrie, Arbroath and Morton doing so just now, and inevitably those three clubs will find themselves making losses again in future. As you point out Morton are only recently free from the rich benefactor model and failed to break even for all but one of the 20 seasons the Raes were in charge. Queen's Park are obviously not unique in having a wealthy owner launching money at them. Fan ownership and sustainability with it didn't just fall into the Morton's supports lap through the benevolence of a wealthy owner though, they had to work for it. Ownership was able to be passed onto the fans because they'd got themselves organised with a fan group being created which had started building a shareholding before the Raes decided to get out, it didn't happen overnight. During the course of the negotiations for ownership it also took the membership fighting for it to ensure the stadium remained in the club's hands rather than being asset stripped by the departing owners too. That organisation was only founded in 2019 so again, not a moral judgement that we're better than anyone else for this as we'd had 18 years of doing f**k all but watching the debt pile up, but nevertheless proof that fans can make a difference if they organise themselves to do so. Had that organisation not been ready and already built a relationship with the club at the point the Raes decided to go, maybe we would have just been asset stripped before being passed along to some Angelo Massone figure. I can't claim to know enough about Queen's Park's structure in terms of what the committee actually does and how the membership can influence it to say how much of an avenue for scrutiny that can be, but even if it's not functioning with any sort of transparency at all - it evidently hasn't for the last three years - hopefully you can find some way to start influencing the direction of the club through feedback to them. The departure of Dempster coming at the same time as the appointment of a new manager, so no on-field deflection to coaching staff needing to go as could have been the case if Veldman was still there, could be the impetus to start challenging the running of the club and get some answers about Haughey's long term intentions and/or where you're going to play for the rest of time. What I would add, bringing it back to the initial point VT made about Queen's Park, is that a huge factor behind the creation of MCT was an awareness that the club was unsustainable on the path it was on in terms of first team spending and that needed to stop, so burying your heads in the hand that spending can't be that high just because it's gone on some total shite isn't going to be helpful: again see the 20 years of Morton you're referring to for proof that making bad signings doesn't mean making affordable signings. Of course, getting a stupidly large sum of money for Callan McKenna may help smooth things over in any future path to sustainability. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anonymous Spider Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Still can't say I'm wowed by the Davidson appointment but I do think he'll take us up several notches, especially with the prospect of '2-3 players coming in'. One of the things that jumped out in the interview was CD being attracted by the 'structure'. Hopefully we'll get a bit more clarity tomorrow but I'm guessing this means that he'll largely be coaching (alongside Liam Craig, which oddly I'm probably more excited about) and the transfer / academy stuff will be handled elsewhere. That probably mitigates a bunch of the criticism on here from Saints fans but we'll see. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anonymous Spider Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Wild that we've been pish for so long and aren't massively adrift at the bottom of the league. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hampden Diehard Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Dunning 1974 - I didn't take issue with anything about the running of Morton recently. Good luck to you in what you are doing now. My point is that you find yourself where you are (ie in a great financial situation) through a wealthy benefactor writing off the investment. Virginton not for the first time in commenting on us, didn't acknowledge that when it's the most important contribution to your enviable situation. As for the £400k loan, have a look at the Golden Casket accounts. As I said, best of luck in what you're doing financially. Hope you crash and burn on the park though...... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williebraveheart Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Greg Stewart returning to Scotland. Worth a punt? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spider1975 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 43 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said: Obviously the conversation has long since moved on from this already, but I was looking back to see if there'd been much comment on Davidson before the rumours got into full swing and landed on this. Much of this being accurate about Morton prior to 2021 (the Rae family operating out of the goodness of their hearts being very much up for debate, and I'm not sure what you're referring to with the £400K loan) doesn't address the underlying point about Queen's Park, or the fact that regardless of the 20 years from 2001-21, the statement you're taking issue with is an accurate summation of what Morton have been doing for the last 2 and a half years. This isn't a moral judgement obviously, every club in this division has at times lived outwith their means, with everyone in the division other than Airdrie, Arbroath and Morton doing so just now, and inevitably those three clubs will find themselves making losses again in future. As you point out Morton are only recently free from the rich benefactor model and failed to break even for all but one of the 20 seasons the Raes were in charge. Queen's Park are obviously not unique in having a wealthy owner launching money at them. Fan ownership and sustainability with it didn't just fall into the Morton's supports lap through the benevolence of a wealthy owner though, they had to work for it. Ownership was able to be passed onto the fans because they'd got themselves organised with a fan group being created which had started building a shareholding before the Raes decided to get out, it didn't happen overnight. During the course of the negotiations for ownership it also took the membership fighting for it to ensure the stadium remained in the club's hands rather than being asset stripped by the departing owners too. That organisation was only founded in 2019 so again, not a moral judgement that we're better than anyone else for this as we'd had 18 years of doing f**k all but watching the debt pile up, but nevertheless proof that fans can make a difference if they organise themselves to do so. Had that organisation not been ready and already built a relationship with the club at the point the Raes decided to go, maybe we would have just been asset stripped before being passed along to some Angelo Massone figure. I can't claim to know enough about Queen's Park's structure in terms of what the committee actually does and how the membership can influence it to say how much of an avenue for scrutiny that can be, but even if it's not functioning with any sort of transparency at all - it evidently hasn't for the last three years - hopefully you can find some way to start influencing the direction of the club through feedback to them. The departure of Dempster coming at the same time as the appointment of a new manager, so no on-field deflection to coaching staff needing to go as could have been the case if Veldman was still there, could be the impetus to start challenging the running of the club and get some answers about Haughey's long term intentions and/or where you're going to play for the rest of time. What I would add, bringing it back to the initial point VT made about Queen's Park, is that a huge factor behind the creation of MCT was an awareness that the club was unsustainable on the path it was on in terms of first team spending and that needed to stop, so burying your heads in the hand that spending can't be that high just because it's gone on some total shite isn't going to be helpful: again see the 20 years of Morton you're referring to for proof that making bad signings doesn't mean making affordable signings. Of course, getting a stupidly large sum of money for Callan McKenna may help smooth things over in any future path to sustainability. Enjoyed reading that Going professional was never going to be easy and certainly there have been significant growing pains, given over a hundred years of being amateur and whilst the playing side, (up until March), seemed to be running on rails, there has and continues to be some angst about how professional the administration of the club has been, (see my post-Airdrie rant). You’re right that as supporters it seems from the outside very much like the club has/is being run if not by diktat from Mr Haughey, then certainly on the whim of an old boys club. For that to change will take significant supporter pressure which, given our numbers (in comparison to Mr Haughey’s spend) might be a while off, but the onus is on us to try to apply pressure to change that, if of course as a body of support we decide that the risks and uncertainties of the current set up outweigh the benefits. Nobody really knows a) exactly how much Lord Haughey has put in to the club, b) what his expected return is or c) what his future plans are out with the 10 year plan. The fact remains that other than ‘I know someone who met someone’s Aunt who told them that the tea lady said Dom Thomas was on x amount’ etc, nobody really knows what the playing budget is, or how much LH’s total outlay is. What there has been though is significant investment in the infrastructure of the club, (within the shambles of a ‘stadium’ we are led to believe there is first rate gym/player welfare facilities) and significant investment in the youth teams, (anyone that follows club photographer Ian Cairns on X will have seen his post with the youth team last week) What tends to grate with QP supporters is the constant Gretna comparison, which imho is just a little lazy given we evidently weren’t flush enough this time last year not to accept a minimal fee for Simon Murray and have recruited, almost exclusively, very young, very inexperienced playing staff over the summer……the polar opposite of Gretna. Purely on a supporters income vs team status we are likely to be loss making, however the plan was always for that youth investment to pay dividends; as you rightly say, a couple more finds like McKenna and we’ll be naming the VIP enclosure after Mr Beujker 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spider1975 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 As widely rumoured, Barry Hepburn returning to Munich 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anonymous Spider Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Yep - mutually consented back to Bavaria... frees up some wages if nothing else.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qpfc Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) What a huge disappointment that deal was. Unlike certain loans that were total duds like your Mcbride’s, longstaff’s and Euan Henderson’s, I do think Hepburn had some talent on the ball but he was far too lightweight for championship football. Started off okay but really fell away after the red card at Airdrie and was rarely seen afterwards. I don’t think I’ll ever get excited again signing a player from an elite club. Thought I’d learn that lesson from Longstaff but was tricked into thinking Hepburn would tear this league apart Edited January 10 by qpfc 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gall09 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Aye, Hepburn was a massive disappointment. As shite as QP have been this season, it doesn’t excuse some of Hepburn’s performances. Easily pushed off the ball and mostly looked like he didn’t fancy it. That red card at Airdrie summed his time up. I know I keep going on, but we desperately need experience. Proven guys over the age of 23. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zanetti Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 To be completely honest that red card at Airdrie put me off him, he hasn't shown anywhere near enough ability to tolerate that kind of petulant behaviour. His contract at Bayern still has a bit of time left on it so he may very well improve and I wish him all the best, but I think he's a prime candidate to show up at someone like East Kilbride or Cove in a couple of years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuntiethumper Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 (edited) 1 hour ago, Spider1975 said: As widely rumoured, Barry Hepburn returning to Munich Don't think we will miss him tbh. Light weight on the ball and was guilty of not tracking back. Edited January 10 by Stuntiethumper 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gall09 Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 12 hours ago, Spooky Spider said: He mentioned in his interview that he was going to a game tonight. I assume that would have been the Falkirk v Cove game (or P'head v Dumbarton)? Anyone think he's scouting a new signing and who it might be? Cove have got a striker named Scott Williamson I’ve heard good things about. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williebraveheart Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 9 minutes ago, Gall09 said: Cove have got a striker named Scott Williamson I’ve heard good things about. He's not first choice at Cove. Not what we need. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anonymous Spider Posted January 10 Share Posted January 10 Jack Thomson linked with Carlisle (the Record) - out of contract in the summer... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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