Leaderboard

So what happens if we move, will it attract any more fans than we currently have? Probably not. Most likely won’t have the same feeling about it on match days either. Fir Park is an identity to the Motherwell town centre. A place like ravenscraig built on contaminated land and a lot harder to get to for rail links etc. And other surroundings was the reason that plan was thrown out the last time. Stay at Fir Park, redevelop the main stand line Hearts have done with their stand.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear that we had paid off Les Hutchison and John Boyle in full. As of the last set of accounts to May 2018 we owed them a collective total of £994,000. Now since then we sold Cedric to Wigan for £750K (paying off £300,000) and we've since had minor fees for Stuart McKinstry and Reece MacAlear totalling say £300,000 paying £120,000. Even allowing for Les's double your money offer I still thought we'd be owing some £300,000 or thereabouts. Its great though that the monies have been repaid within the agreed 3 year period (where monies came from 40% of transfers fees) without having to agree loan repayment terms. So, we're now debt free apart from £80K to 5 supporters. Sportsound yesterday included some very odd interviews. As I understand it, Alan Burrows said that this was great news and would allow the club to move forward. More still needed to be done as it was only the end of the beginning. So far so good. Richard Gordon then announced that Les would be coming onto the show later with a different, not so rosy, view. As far as I understand that, he said that he had saved us from administration, by some 2 weeks (which most of us knew already) and that fans would still need to contribute financially to keep the financial model viable, which is exactly what Jim McMahon said 2 or 3 years ago. In other words the end of the beginning. So, ignoring Richard Gordon's confused summary, Les and Alan Burrows said pretty much the same thing. A very factual account of Rangers' £11.3 m loss was then given by Jonathan Sutherland but that wasn't deemed to be bad news. The bottom line is that, apart from £80K we are now debt free and that from now on the club retains transfer fees in full.

Aeslund's stadium cost 160 million Norwegian Krone to build in 2005. According my brief search on the internet, that's about £13.5 million in 2005 money and nearly £20 million in 2019 money after you take inflation into account.

Unleash the Sloth

For us even to consider such a project we would need a huge helping hand financially. That would have to be part of a bigger re-development project that would probably offer other retail or community type services / options. A brand new stadium done well would cost £15m+ some of that would have to come from Motherwell FC. I am in favour of staying at Fir Park and re-developing Main stand and East stand and fill in corners etc. But that would also cost many millions and no public body is likely to do that just to upgrade a football stadium. In fact they simply would not. Maybe if we were to continue to rake in £m for player sales inc Turnbull etc then it may be possible but would again be likely to be £5m+ So most likely option is to sell the ground for whatever value for housing or retail and to use the proceeds to help go towards funding a new stadium alongside Govt / Council support. And yes probably as part of continuing efforts to re-develop ravenscraig.

My fat human refuses to go to the Tattiedome these days. The fact it is on the Sabbath with the accompanying public-travel hassles of that day to these distant parts means it is probably a dodgy stream for us. Really disappointed to miss the pre-match poppies, Last-Post, and minute's silence.

Absolutely, it does seem strange. Hearts and Hibs are far bigger clubs financially and staying at their current grounds were second best options. Land prices in and around Edinburgh are astronomical. Interestingly on Sportsound yesterday it was announced, without comment (really???) that Aberdeen have progressed their plans to advanced stage but the only outstanding problem is paying for the new stadium - a £50m shortfall. As far as we are concerned, I'm 100% behind a move away from Fir Park providing that a new stadium was developed properly. It would have to be a good stadium that met our needs. I get the sentimentality for Fir Park, I've been going there for over 60 years and its my second home but its had its day. The East Stand and POD Stand are way past their sell by dates and the South Stand is now showing its age. Redevelopment would be an issue. Its all very well harping on about the old lady but a new generation of fans need a safer stadium; they need better access; they need better seating; they need better toilets; they need better catering facilities and the club needs lower maintenace costs. These could not be provided without demolition of and rebuilding Fir Park.

As ever thing will come down to perspective and whether you want to emphasise a positive or negative. You can justifiably make the point that we've been two terrific late saves away from going four without a win. You could also argue that we've played three top six teams in a week, and despite often being remarked to be much physically weaker, too open in midfield and shaky defensively we've beaten two of them and only lost one goal in open play. I had been concerned in midweek that we might suffer from the exertions of Ibrox last Sunday but it never quite materialised on Wednesday. I felt there was a noticeable flatness and a definite lack of zip about us yesterday. It really did look like one of those games where at best we were going to draw 0-0 and at worst they'd sneak it with one of their rare, but fairly dangerous, forays upfield. The goal when it came was a bit of a gift but I guess it's the old saying, don't buy a ticket and you won't win the raffle. The conditions warranted such efforts and pleased that both our strikers and slowly but surely adding to their tallies. Livi's penalty looked a stone waller from my vantage point. A daft challenge and even dafter response by turning around and looking as guilty as one can be. But credit to the team and management for getting the win. The arrival of Seedorf brought an injection of pace at the right time and another piece of good fortune that Allan Campbell was in the right place at the right time to grab the winner. Enjoying being third for the moment but regardless of placings just now it is significant he gap being established between ourselves and the teams below us. Getting the win enabled us to move nine clear of Livingston is seventh. We often hear how the league position and prize money can determine the pace of contract negotiations so our good start may enable us to turn attentions to that earlier than might have been the case.

How very... parochial. We’ve moved before and done alright.

Toss up between Donnelly and Grimshaw for me but went for Donnelly in the end. As mentioned before, he protected the defense superbly and his ability to draw the foul really took the pressure off at times. The hysteria that would have ensued had Grimmy's solo effort landed in the top bin?!

Yip a shitfest of a football match Our midfield had about the worst game they’ve had all season Young Campbell getting caught on the ball to often for my liking over last few games and for all his energy and drive passing is not one of his attributes Donnelly was so far of the pace of the game and contributed zilch to the proceedings Polworth kept on plugging away but nothing seemed to work for him today Still midfield not at the races and we still come up with 3 points not to be sneezed at AND your right Hylton should be taken aside and told in no uncertain manner to get that out of his game once you get a reputation for diving it’s hard to shake off and could come back to haunt us later in the season

I'm not sure I really buy into the whole maintenance cost angle at least in the long term. If you go to Fir Park or travel around the country you'll see that the Taylor report era stands that were built in the 1990s are not in the greatest nick. That suggests you have maybe a new stadium life time of about 25-30 years before you get back to square one. And it's not like new stadiums don't have any maintenance costs either, even if they are reduced you have to factor in the redevelopment costs along with rising maintenance costs over two or three decades and then what do you do in 2050? Build another stadium? Redevelop the existing one? It's a repeating cycle and I think it's even debatable if we would have paid off the debt of building a stadium over the sort of time period. However my main objection is that Fir Park is Motherwell FC's spiritual home and if you take that away, for me anyway, you don't have the spirit any more.

I would still be looking for the Society to be building up a fund that the club can borrow from in the lean times rather than it just all being passed into general spending