All Activity

Scottish clubs and the national team need to start winning Euro tropies again, getting to the latter stages of every competition on a regular basis, winning more games etc, etc to increase the country and club coefficients. Unless this happens the Scottish club sides will always be starting their Euro adventures in June and July when all the teams from the good leagues are still on the beach sunning themselves. So for me playing winter or summer will make no difference if our teams are continually shite and failing to progress beyond the diddy team rounds.

I think the new home jersey looks great as part of the entire kit on the actual players in the football environment, while not so much on a regular person wearing it with shorts or jeans. The away shirt looks like it'll be a better "fans" shirt if that makes sense.

Mon the well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Claret away kit it is then. And not one of our better efforts either on first viewing.

100% this. We need to be aggressively trying to win this by a fair margin.

We’re going to win the summer cup ! 😀

For me that would be a bonus, as losing Slattery, Watt and Just has ripped the creative heart of the team out. This will be a big season for Fadinger, Priestman and possibly Williams to try to pick up the pieces.

I don't think anyone would pretend there are no difficulties with it. Pitch renovation, preseason timing, supporter holidays, cup scheduling and the transition from the current calendar would all require proper planning. It also wouldn't necessarily mean a ten-month season. You could run from late March or early April until October or early November, which is broadly what several comparable countries already do from what I can see. The attendance question is fair too, although I don't think any of us can confidently say what most supporters would do without actually asking them or putting it to the test. Some would miss games through holidays, while others might attend more often because the weather and travelling conditions were better. There would be less call-offs due to weather, and it would certainly be interesting to see if we did see a more sustained higher attendance in better weather. My main point is that our present arrangement has a significant competitive cost in relation to Europe. Clubs like us regularly enter financially important European qualifiers while rebuilding their squads, bedding in new signings and trying to become match fit. At the same time, opponents from summer leagues can be halfway through their domestic seasons. That doesn't guarantee those clubs success of course, but being competitively ready when European qualification begins is still an advantage, particularly for clubs operating on fine margins. The question in my mind then is not whether summer football would be perfect. It wouldn't be. I'm sure fans in Norway, Sweden, Finland etc will readily tell you there's pros and cons. The question is whether Scottish football should seriously examine a calendar that might improve European performance, reduce weather-related disruption and create additional income for clubs outside the Old Firm? And then compare those benefits honestly against the operational and supporter concerns. At the moment, we tend to dismiss the idea before doing that work. We do things the way we've always done them and so on. Also, a summer calendar would give Scottish football a far more valuable place in the football broadcasting calendar. But that topic absolutely is for another thread.

Burton fans saying Williams is a player and his best performances have been in midfield. Maybe he is replacement for Watt and not Longelo.

There's all sorts of challenges that would need to be overcome in Scotland with a 10+ month season. From pitch repair and remediation in months where the grass doesn't grow to preseason in mid-winter. That, however, is for a different thread.

Summer football sucks , to use an Americanism. Lots of punters wouldn't go.As there are too many other things to take up your interest in the summer months. Not to mention family two week summer holidays. I wouldn't renew my season ticket for that and i suspect most others wouldn't. Miss 2 or 3 games and it costs you money on your season . I would pick n choose my games when i had a free weekend. Its Scotland better things to do in good weather at the weekend than watch football. For me football brightens up a long winter. It may sound all warm n cozy but its a no from me. Bring on the snow.

I'm on board in theory with the new stadium idea, I'd really want to see the numbers, though. I like the idea of having office space, conference and event facilities etc. for rent, but we'd need to approach the finances of that pretty conservatively so we don't end up with, to mix my metaphors, a money pit of a white elephant.

Right in their faces from the first whistle, move the ball quickly and press high when not in possesion, and try to get the tie done at Fir Park, its knockout football no time for cautious play and holding back.

I'm OK if we even just keep it close at home, because I think we'll be much improved for the 2nd leg. Depending on the exact fitness of some of our squad, I think we should be good.

Yes, I think so. Get a win at home, then see what happens.

So, the European football we fought so hard for last season has finally arrived. We're maybe not in the best shape for the game, but surely we still have enough about us to sneak through?

The glaring answer for a club our size is to employ the same advantage that other clubs of similar or smaller standing use in countries like Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Faroe Islands, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan and others. Summer football. Start our league between late February and early April, then finish between late September and early November. It's actually pretty interesting when you look at the teams from those summer leagues who have essentially turned that advantage they have into part of their business model. There's about 3 million Euros to be made by qualifying for the group stage of the competition we're in just now, I believe. Add on TV rights, higher attendances and prize money for performances, and you're talking about a decent chunk of change. The much-discussed Bodø/Glimt have gotten it down to a fine art. Even before they were well-known as the club they are now, they were able to regularly make a decent fist of it in Europe because in qualifiers they would catch the August/September to May teams cold. Those wins resulted in financial windfalls that they then used intelligently, of course. Rinse and repeat. It's why we see teams like them, Molde, Malmö, Djurgårdens, and even the likes of Shamrock Rovers do reasonably well in Europe. Clubs our size are never ready for these games, and we have to try to find a way through with a patched together team that involves players who might be eyeballing a move away from the club, who've just signed for the club, and a bunch of kids. Throw in the new manager effect and it can go wrong really quickly. But we'll never go down that route. Because it makes too much sense.

Or a squad player at a club like ours. Not every player in our squad can be first-team regular quality, we'd end up with players not being happy that they're not playing. There's absolutely a role for a fairly versatile home grown player like him if he's happy to accept that he's not going to be a regular starter. It takes a squad, after all.

Maintenance costs on a new build could be very expensive as well . Anyone who thinks all the modern building methods and sustainable energy sources and systems are flawless are kidding themselves on and may not even last any length of time without problems. I would quote the new hospitals , office buildings and colleges throughout the land which need money thrown at them after only 10 odd years. But that would be the balancing act between choosing new build or old.

Roof and lower tier seats in McLean probably a more pressing issue but your point is on the money … literally.

I think there is a good player in there. I’ve always thought he had good foot skills on the ball and I didnt realise how young he was. He might surprise a few people if he adopts the right attitude amd applies himself to get as physically fit as he can.

Out of interest what would the maintenance costs over 30 years be, if we remain at Fir Park? We'll start with demolition and replacement of the POD then the Hunter Stand.

I thought Ewan had a decent start with us a couple of seasons ago but then had a few errors and regressed which I put down to his age. Hopefully he can get back to the form he showed to start with.

Is it the most cost effective though? The ongoing maintenance costs on a ageing stadium only ever go up. The POD is creaking at present and will ultimately be followed by the other stands in the near future. The current site also limits drastically our ability to monetise the stadium on a daily basis and grow our business in a way that would remove any annual shortfall without selling players. Its not as simple as just not putting the club into debt. We could play it safe and it would probably see us good in the medium term (beyond my lifetime for sure) but it would be nice to aspire to something more. Regardless, isnt it a great debate to be having?

One did who lived a street away from those who were contacted as they backed onto the road that takes people into the complex (and importantly) into the hotel. Ultimate NIMBY with pretty wild claims and tenuous links. I think supermarket chains buying up ground for town centre access was a very 90's phenomenon. In reality the cost to demolish and dispose of the FP site, I'm not sure there would be multiple millions left in the pot, looking at the housing estate(s) on the old college site, you're looking at 70 to 100 homes if following the same density. I also think the astro would have to be gifted to Knowetop to grease the council wheels. Certainly would get massive majority of local support from current residents. Anything we do at Fir Park would be bound up in the weeds for years with planning and residents groups. Remember they kicked off about a 5G add on to the floodlights. Let's not overlook the proposed training facility in Muirhouse was shelved because some residents Trojan Horsed the Bullfrog pub team as a reason not to build two pitches and a academy base. Talk about not getting it would raise up the neighbourhood. In the 90's Chapman and Dickie rightly exploited the OF, by doing so they gave us a lopsided stadium. I've seen people advocating that the top tier should be removed to bring it in line with the rest of FP without realising that in the 30 years we've had the South/McLean that 2nd tier has earned the club well in excess of an extra £8m over a single tier (2,400) stand even when adjusted for inflation and VAT taken off. For me the best solution to to continue to exploit the green and blue pound and get their glory hunters to unwittingly finance any new stadium. Take a current OF game as the datum. Match it and we go along with same income as we already achieve. Everything above it is for want of a better word, 'gravy'. All final values in brackets are a conservative amount we could realise over th 20 year lifespan of a mortgage: £5m down from player sales in summer 2025 and summer 2026. A rule of thumb is 1,000 seats x 3.5 games a season x 20 years x £24 (£30 average seat price for cat A - 20% VAT) = £1.7m. It's safe to say a £33 adult ticket in 2026 will be closer to £50 in 2046 so over the borrowing lifespan it's £2m. So 10,000 away capacity (£10m) Assume we maintain our standard 5.5k home fans and look to grow that by 2k (some of that is already happening due to Jens bounce) there's £2-4m from home fans alone but I'd argue beyond 5.5k we're a more fickle bunch and anti-football like Alexander would greatly affect our home gate. (£3m) Hearts certainly for the next few years look as if they will exceed the current 4,800 of the South/McLean allocation and of course early round cup ties against any of those three. (£3m) Increased uptake of matchday and hospitality spaces, more hires during weekdays could see easily £500k to £1m a year, multiply up x20, it's £8-16m (with VAT taken off). (£10m) Ensure the building takes advantage of what it needs for matchdays and sweat those assets the other 340 days a year such as the main restaurant, coffee shop, kitchens. (£3m) Co-locate with the proposed training facility, £2-3m put funds into the wider stadium project/pitches we own. (£2m) Naming rights, reduction in maintenance costs, renting stadium to SPFL/SFA for cup ties, womens and U21/U18 games all add up over 20 years. £250k per year seem fair? (£4m) There would be servicing the debt of £35m of course. And any relegation upsets the apple cart for hopefully a season. Ambitious but all achievable, all that has things at £40m before you consider dropping in a million or two into the pot over the next 20 years when we make hay during a period of lucrative player sales as we are currently experiencing. Then you start looking at the costs for other things and see if you can justify them at the initial design phase, everything should be on the table, not limited by fears until the numbers are ran. All these are multi-million pound investments and considerations but if you can make a business case for it and project that the income generated exceeds the cost, then you introduce it to the design phase. Roof - Depends on material and complexity, acoustic baffling, mounted grow lights, maintenance costs of pitch. Roof benefits - no games postponed, 24-7/365 space, banquets, concerts, exhibitions, other sports, ceremonies, beer festivals, novelty/uniqueness. Removable Pitch - Either full or broken down and moved outside. Bring in a astroturf pitch, exhibition hall carpet