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Worst summer in the clubs history


ictchris

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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.

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3 minutes ago, ictchris said:

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.

:laugh:

Couple of things missing - letting players find out via Twitter (Meekings) or the papers (McNaughton) that they weren't getting new contracts and some laughable attempts at covering up our mistakes over the summer. I'm sure Duncan Shearer will have been delighted to have an U12 tournament named after him as he signed on.

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

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.

 

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4 minutes ago, ictchris said:

 

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

 

I think you are right about this but there is a lot to sort out after last season before it is likely to happen.

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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.

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11 minutes ago, ictchris said:

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

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.

 

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

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Totally agree, the board leadership since the appointment of RF has been an embarrassment. It's a complete rebuilding job, but it is what it is, a new beginning, the squad which won the SC is almost completely gone. We could be years in this division or lower unless some inspirational leaders appear on and off the park.

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There isn't  an area of the club that isn't cheap (except the prices of everything the club sells) Not one thing is done well with quality or pride. It's just make do in the cheapest way. Supporters treated with contempt as they'll just pay up regardless. I wouldn't accept this from any other buisness. Why do I do it here? No wonder crowds are down and will drop further.

i can accept there isn't much money in Scottish football but we have been run dreadfully. We all know this club can be so much more. But It's a constant stream of negativity and cost cutting. It's been like this since long before the cup final. Success papered over the ever increasing cracks. But at the moment it's Impossible to see how we can move forward in a positive fashion. It's utterly depressing. 

 

Edited by Sir C the 3rd
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I echo all of the above. The Club is a train wreck from top to bottom and all after the biggest result in our history.

Where to from here? Without a huge shake-up, I reckon we'll be part-time in 3 years and unable to attract 1000: That's if administration (or worse) doesn't get us first. Sad times.

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Sir C don't be depressed, as I said on another topic I could have never imagined seeing ICT lift the SC. I'm happy to have experienced that even if we never get back to the PL. The club has punched well above its weight for many years and we need to get that grit back that we had in the early years. A seriously bad management decision has led to all of this. A period of rebuilding now needs to take place and I suspect it will take years. Players were happy to sign up when we were a PL team, not anymore, we need management who can find unpolished diamonds that the rest are unaware of to make any impression on this league.

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I was at least optimistic about this season, although everything ICT Chris says rings true. However, the sale of Draper to County is the last straw for me. I really do have to consider now giving my support to this dysfunctional board and therefore the club. Already paid for my season ticket but increasingly feeling conned by the board. Simply don't know if I can be bothered attending games now as the club appears to not value their support at all ( which is nothing new)

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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.

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I said it before, that we are disappearing into oblivion as a football club. When you think of the good work that people like Dougie Mcgillivray and Alan Savage had done previously this past season has been absolutely shocking. It took time but we built ourselves into a superb football club. Now we are run by a bunch of amateurs who know nothing about running a football club. I will be criticised by Scotty and IHE for my comments again. PLEASE will somebody put up the FOR SALE notice.

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6 minutes ago, ictchris said:

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.

I think maybe they do realise now but are not capable or motivated to do anything about it 

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2 minutes ago, wynthank15 said:

Sir C don't be depressed, as I said on another topic I could have never imagined seeing ICT lift the SC. I'm happy to have experienced that even if we never get back to the PL. The club has punched well above its weight for many years and we need to get that grit back that we had in the early years. A seriously bad management decision has led to all of this. A period of rebuilding now needs to take place and I suspect it will take years. Players were happy to sign up when we were a PL team, not anymore, we need management who can find unpolished diamonds that the rest are unaware of to make any impression on this league.

I genuinely don't think it has punched above its weight at all. We are a lower premier league/top  championship sized club. We had 2-3 great years in which we did actually punch above our weight at the top of the premier league but that's all. We had more than enough to minimum just remain in the premier league. But Penny after penny pinched away, the absolute inability to attract any substantial investment into the club which is /was based in 'the fastest growing town in Europe' and woeful judgements on how and when to let players/managers leave have led to this. 

 

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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.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again, one of the main reasons crowds have fallen and people have drifted away is that they just didn't feel wanted.  Look how often the club plug hospitality and look at the state of the shop, the state of the toilets, the state of the tannoy, the state of the bar, the state of North Stand and it's facilities.  The club believe that appalling bad facilities is what we deserve.  We are the little people and all we are are walking chequebooks for the old boys club in the boardroom.

People don't come at all or have drifted away because they didn't feel wanted and they didn't feel welcome.  The chickens have come home to roost.

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3 minutes ago, ictchris said:

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.

There seems to be a couple of posters who'd try and paint administration or being relegated every season until we finished bottom of the Highland League below Fort William and Strathspey Thistle as some kind of positive.  Perhaps this kind of intellect should be expected though from people who's username seems to have been coined by their hand slapping the keyboard...

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29 minutes ago, ictchris said:

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.

No, it was a very poor management decision that led to where we are now. Yes we are a small club, our attendance is not even the best in the championship. I would argue that Dundee Utd, St Mirren, Dunfermline, Falkirk all have potentially larger supports than us assuming they were PL teams.

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