ictchris

Assuming we are going to bring people on after this, who will we target? Back in for Kevin Fraser?

We have been in the top flight 13 of the last 15 seasons and the other two we won the First Division - being in the top flight is NOT punching above our weight. It's that sort of small-time,defeatist thinking that's lead to where we are now.

Yeah, I thought about buying a seat this season even though I live in Edinburgh and wouldn't make that many games. Why would I bother now though, paying more money for what's bound to be utter crap.

The club don't seem to realise that it's give and take in football - they have to give the fans something, at least some hope. Usually this is a great time of year, you can be optimistic and look forward to the season but our entire organisation is on a downer. That is going to have a massive impact on the club, they need to realise this.

1 minute ago, old caley girl said:

Ummmmm are Muirfield Mills not running the present show??? 

Aye, thinking about it a few of the new board members seem to have a similar background to those guys.

1 minute ago, DALNEIGHCALEY said:

What experience does Danny Macdonald have of running a club ?

 

He has experience of working in football in a variety of different roles - player, assistant manager, coach, head of development.

Ah yeah, I'm looking forward to the Duncan Shearer Under 12s Memorial Tournament. Should be good

The best hope is that someone like Alan Savage or one of the Muirfield Mills guys has some investment planned and will gut the place. Considering we've appointed two former Orion employees to important roles you'd think that Savage might be interested again but you never know.

It's also worth noting, as someone did on my Twitter, that the club have a shocklkng reputation within Scottish football at the moment. We've had Highland League players turning us down, the media are contemptuous of us mirroring the way that they've been treated, and if we don't change this we'll find it hard to attract players and rebuild.

Tonight's sale of Draper to Ross County has (hopefully) concluded the worst summer of the clubs entire 23 year existence.

starting with relegation, we've seen the following.

- We sack Richie Foran after the end of the season, which was the right decision but taken so late that the rightness or wrongness of it becomes secondary. Why persevere with someone for so long when he obviously wasn't good enough, suffer the consequences and then take action when it's too late? The fact someone with his history at the club was despatched with a two line statement was also a joke.

- The club then reshuffles the boardroom, with a load of Inverniessian estate agents, solicitors and whatnot leaving and joining. No-one really has any idea who any of these people are, none of them have any experience at running a football club whatsoever. The only chink of light is appointing Danny MacDonald, who does know about this, as COO last week.

- Following relegation we don't reduce season ticket prices and issue unbelievably arrogant press release about getting promoted as champions. The tin eared idiocy of this is made more apparent by subsequent events - we ask fans to stump up money to ensure we can cover costs but then release and sell our high earners? Surely someone must've realised how this would go over? The 'apology' afterwards is nothing either, don't get into situations where you have to apologise.

- The club  then embarks on the most nonsensical summer of PR idiocy its possible to imagine. The only way it could be worse is if Finlayson invited a few Japanese trawler boats to dock outside the stadium and slaughter some of the dolphins. First we get rid of stalwarts like Duncan Shearer by text message, then we adopt radio silence from our social media team, then when we get someone to man the Twitter account, they accidentally like filth and our club outs out the stupidest statement in our history about it. It's been said that lots of this stuff was done by volunteer but you could employ a 16 year old media student and they'd do a better job. 

- In between this we praise the candidates who applied for our job and were interviewed and then... appoint someone who didn't apply, hasn't worked as a manager in five years, hasn't been particularly successful at this level in 13 years and was shocked to get in.  I hope he does a good job and he's at least a positive person but looking at things logically the odds are stacked against him. He's also working with people he hasn't brought in, no doubt due to cost, and will be under pressure very soon if we don't go on a run. The fact that he's already started slating the team and players doesn't bode well.

- In terms of playing we've lost some stalwarts, as you'd expect, and replaced them with jobbers. Being absolutely honest about it we've signed raw youth players doing the trialist rounds, jobbers who've been released for being no good or guys who've most likely come from agents. We don't have a solid defender and we don't have someone to score double figures in this league. We also someone got into a war of words with an ex player managing a HL club that we have loads of links with over us trying to sign their best player and captain for no money. An utter embarrassment.

i don't really mind about us selling players or who they go to, all players leave evenuslky and it's better to clear out players too soon than too late. Our squad was stale and under performing. It's the fact we are certain to sign utter useless jobbers to replace the players who've left that is really concerning.

I don't think I've missed anything. I don't know if the board or the manager or the Chief Operating Officer wants to give us an update on what the plan is with all this but it's difficult to see where it's going. We don't have an identity as a team, we don't have a structure to ensure that we succeed as much as possible. We have made investment available but no-one is going to invest, apparently. Is this it for the foreseeable? As fans we need something to look forward to, more than a win against Forfar, although that's probably going to be as good as it gets these days, I just hope that at least somebody in charge at the club realises what a state we are in because it needs to change. We are more likely to leave this division down the way than up at the moment and if the people in charge don't get that then we are in for a hard few years until they do.

I think Conor Pepper has retired after a serious injury.

On 05/08/2017 at 11:29 PM, The Long Man said:

I'm surprised that nobody has raised the comments from Robbo about the ridiculous demands of the top clubs about loanees. That was quite astonishing, and good for Robbo to call it out.

. 

What did he say?

Lochee Utd play in the juniors, East Region.

there is a North region, don't think it's of the same standard as the East or West.

Is Scott MacDonald definitely suspended for this?

Danny MacDonald has worked for the Orion Group as a Business Development Manager among other roles so he does have experience outside working as a coach. 

'Colts' side in the Highland League is interesting - I can't really see the HFL going for it. I think back in the days when The Highland League had an odd number of clubs we used to play the inactive team every week. A few teams are starting to look at moving to a 'B' team as opposed to a development team. Brentford in the Championship and Rangers up here to name two.

We couldn't agree a fee with Buckie for Kevin Fraser after his trial so he is staying with them and has signed a new contract. 

What a farce of a situation.

8 minutes ago, CELTIC1CALEY3 said:

..would it be that Richie Foran will be re-signed as a player (on a pay per penalty scored basis) so be brought back specifically to occupy a place on the bench each game and be brought on when we get a penalty? Each time he scores he gets a big bonus and then gets withdrawn and another substitute sent on?

I don't think that will happen. 

For all the criticism the media team got on other threads, at least they remembered to use their personal accounts for filth purposes.

Just now, Caman said:

I saw a tweet from a former player, but did not see the tweet.

What did it say/show?

The official account 'liked' a tweet by a porn account.  Clearly someone with access to the account has forgotten which account he (or she) has been logged into and accidentally liked the tweet.  it happens.

There's absolutely no need for such a puffed up statement.  Just say nothing and it'll be forgotten about.  Now the entire 'episode' is compounded by that utter embarrassment of a statement, referring to an 'investigation' and the 'appropriate authorities' being informed.  What authorities?  Is our board going to phone up the police and tell them that there's pornography on the internet!  Hold the front page!

Looking forward to the season starting so we can be pissed about the sub-standard football rather than the shambles of an administration.

"There's been a porno!"

Is it possible that we could release a single communication that isn't an utter embarrassment?

"We have notified the appropriate authorities... a formal investigation is underway"

He looks thrilled.

Maybe we'll offer to name a youth tournament after Buckie as payment.

Robertson quoted in the P&J today saying that we aren't in the position to pay a fee for Kevin Fraser and that he's disappointed in Buckie for saying they'd need one.

Odd situation as we'd discussed the deal when taking him on trial, so surely we'd have known what they were looking for.  Also, if you google Kevin Fraser Buckie Thistle one of the first results is him signing a new contract.

We aren't really in the position to pay fees for anyone I suppose.  Disappointing all round really.

What's the team tonight?

People have been knicker wetting about County's amazing hospitality and revolutionary shop for as long as I can remember.  I can literally remember people saying this stuff 20 years ago.

Billy Mckay signing for County has no impact on us.  If he'd had an offer from a club that finished higher than County or an English club he'd have gone there.  That's it.

Of far more relevance to us is Dundee Utd signing Scott McDonald, an absolute brilliant signing for this level.

14 minutes ago, forresjags said:

This question has probably been asked many times before but Aaron Doran is he still at the club under contract. Do we know if has been given a Squad number and is part of JR plans.

We constantly here speculation about senior players being offloaded but he's never been mentioned as either going or staying. Appreciate he has been out injured since the last winter break, but is there a forecast on his return to fitness ?

Anybody know ? 

He last played in February against Hearts.  He's under contract until May 2018.  I'd suggest no-one is going to come in for him because he's injured and has missed most of the last two seasons with various injuries.

It's a shame as from 2012-2015 he was a superb player for us.  I just wonder if he's ever going to get back to that level again, with the injuries he's suffered.

Fraser did well against Dunfermline in the cup last season

He's number 7