STFU

Hoping the news is good from Charlie Reilly's scan on his hamstring.

Come on. I've raised some disagreements with how the supporters trust have done things but criticising them for holding a meeting at a place where anyone having a refreshment will be contributing to the club is taking it a bit far whether that's their intention or not. I agree with what you say about getting some answers and discussion around the questions submitted though. Chances are we'll be admin by then and some idea of the plan for that will also be known.

Twice. Once on the way down and again when you throw it up 🤮

Legally he can't be working/employed for free. He may not be taking a wage at present but it's more likely this is him deferring payment and it will have to be paid at some point. Only charities and not for profit organisations can have volunteer staff. The club may be a long way from making any profit but they are still a for profit organisation.

You don't have to be a financial expert to look at a set of accounts and know that 7 figure negative numbers are a bad thing.

Without sorting out the off field problems then there is no club going forward at any level. Administration is the only realistic means of achieving that. We all need to get thoughts of returns to the championship in x number of years out of our heads for now. Whilst we initially climbed through the leagues without reckless spending there was still sizeable financial contributions being made each season by a few different people over the years. None moreso than Sutherland/Tullochs who saved us from a very similar position previously. Although the circumstances causing that were a bit different. Most of these people are done with providing financial windfalls and we're fortunate to have someone willing to make one laat contribution to dig us out of the whole. The club must be rebuilt on a self sustaining basis. Even with the potential for investors coming in they cannot be allowed to run up debt to anyone including themselves. Invest in infrastructure and improving income and not on unsustainable player wages etc.

I've just watched the video and found it very disappointing. It was a total poor me show from the remaining directors who spoke more like they felt they were victims when they are in fact the enablers who allowed this to happen. The audacity of Gordy Fyfe to stand up and wax lyrical and take credit for the community trust whilst totally ignoring his responsibility as a director of the football club is other level. I still can't understand how they can claim ignorance to what was happening when so many fans on the outside could see it. As I've said before where do they think all the loans they were giving were going? They prattled on about puma deals and losing money on young players who moved on but that's only accounts for a fraction of the money the club has lost in the last 5 years. They avoided questions they didn't want to answer by saying they wanted to look forward but spent most if the time themselves talking about how they'd been duped in the past. Grassa even tried to defend Ross Morrison at one point which was unbelievable. Scott Young is the only one I'd make any allowance for and the other two should hang their head in shame at having pushed him to the front the way they have. Now more than ever I want administration. Not only to try and fix the clubs financial position but because the last of that board (Scott aside) also need to be gone.

Feels like the meeting was little more than an exercise to gauge fan feeling on administration while trying to get/keep people on side by rallying everyone behind anger towards Gardiner. There's nothing in reports that we didn't already know or suspect and no detail on what we're spending £260k a month on. That should have been the first question answered.

This quote from Alan Savage in the courier. "The key is we can’t look back, the only solution is looking forward. That is what the meeting wants to be about. It is no good hanging this board, as they weren’t the people who have had any part in what has happened." https://archive.ph/CsCsw Also mention of international interest in investing but we've been hearing that for a while now. We don't need tyre kickers.

It may not be your area if expertise but that doesn't mean you're not clever/smart. Fans shouldn't have to be versed in the business and legal aspects if running a football club but they should be able to trust that those doing so are. Most fans just want to go along to games and be entertained. They want to see the team battling and being successful. The fact fans are having to focus more on what's happening off the pitch than on it and having to consider piling in crazy amounts of money to try and save the club is not what being a fan should be about.

Good observation as there are two things going on here with a need to clear debts and one to reduce spending. Even if debt was cleared tomorrow we'd still have unsustainable costs.

I didn't criticise anyone but you have to admit that it's a bit mad that we've gone through all this in the last couple of months only to end up right back where we were in the approach to saving the club. We were hoping for a hail mary then and we're pursuing the same hail mary now.

To summarise. Ross Morrison and Scot Gardiner got us into this position by gambling the clubs existence on grand schemes including the battery farm and Seventy7 ventures while begging and borrowing from everywhere. Alan Savage came in and has been highly critical of these things but now seems to be asking fans to give money to buy some time in the hope that something comes to the rescue from the battery farm or Seventy7 ventures? If it wasn't my club it would be laughable.

Here's hoping they do and are prepared to do so every month until the end of the season.

Another way to look at it is that if you remove the £20k and work out the average donation it is just over £30. With £135k still to raise that requires around 4500 further donations at the same level as we've seen so far.

Alan Savage has intimated that clearing debt owed to suppliers was prioritised and it has not been mentioned as still outstanding in the last couple of statements. From that I take it that the only outstanding debts are what is owed in director loans and maybe Puma. HMRC will have been cleared as SFA/SPFL will penalise for that regardless of admin or not. If we were to choose the administration route then it would be those who have provided the loans to decide our future as they would need to agree terms on a CVA for write off or repayment terms. If agreement can't be reached then we would be liquidated. That would mean assets handed over in settlement or selling to the highest bidder. That could remove any potential claim in battery farm proceeds and put carparks further out of reach. Either way it places the clubs future in the hands if past directors. Can they be trusted or are they financially able to ensure the club isn't liquidated? I still edge towards admin being the way to go. As is we are slowly sliding towards oblivion. Admin just means that decision is taken now instead of it dragging on and hoping for a miracle. It's doing that which got us here now.

Went on twitter to see what the pre match craic was and it's full of idiot ict fans arguing with idiot rangers fans. Boring.

It says to meet cash requirements so the assumption will be wages bills services supplies etc. It should not include paying any directors loans or such but the wording is sufficiently vague that it might. Either way once a donation is made the money is gone into the black hole. Savage seems to have directed the money he's supplied to clearing historic bills and I'd like to think that would limit the financial loss to local suppliers. The impression given is that the current debts are predominantly director loans so they'd be the ones taking the hit and is probably why they are resisting the admin route.

He's back...

Nah he'll just walk it off.

Maybe they can add in the money that was raised for the west stand roof.

Saving the house involves dealing with the fire and/or the damage it has caused. In this instance it is the board members who are the fire and they're asking us to pay to effect repairs whilst the fire continues to burn. Giving £200k isn't going to extinguish the fire it will just feed it for another month. Dealing with the fire involves dealing with the board. Everything else is just throwing good money after bad and chasing the folly that somehow we can keep the club going in it's current form. There will be (more) casualties but fans are not responsible for that and the board cannot be allowed to shift accountability to fans for that which is precisely what is happening here. "Fans fail to support scheme to save club" is the headline they are looking for so they can walk away saying they tried. I will reiterate what I said before about thinking the statement from the trust is a solid one. It's only this idea that we should set aside past actions or inactions of the board and support them going forward that I don't like. In reality the questions are going to be asked by someone. It just doesn't sit well with me that the trust position themselves in disagreement with that happening.

The statement is a good one but this idea again shows the trust are doing a bad job of reading the room. Fans are not going to entertain the idea of putting financial support behind those who continue to shun accountability or refuse to explain how they failed to prevent us getting into this position and that involves a lot of backward looking. They need to be questioned thoroughly on that at the meeting if there's to be any chance of looking forward.

I think you both might be right. What we have seen playing out recently is Savage get a foot in the door thanks to the massive incompetence of the board previous chairman and CEO. He has tried to use this situation to persuade/force those owed money to write it off and walk away for the good of the club and to cough up even more cash on the way out so that he can run things until such time as financial contracts and commitments can be run down to a more manageable level. Given that the board appear to have been clueless even if he did have someone feeding him information before taking up his consultant position he would have had no idea just how bad the ongoing financial commitments were. Having been unable to convince all those owed money to write it off and walk away whilst also funding things further until it gets to the point where contracts and financial commitments can be run down to a manageable level he has resorted to the previous rumoured plan of administration and taking full control via that route. One thing that has not been made clear is whether or not the £350k provided by Savage is a true donation to the cause or if it is loans or share purchase.