Leaderboard

The overwhelming concensus so far re the "seat upgrades" in the POD seems to be that it has been a shambles and resulted in the pod now having the worst seats in the stadium. For me i hope the club are taking note and acknowloging an error has been made. The only decent response would be to admit the error and try to resolve the issue asap, if that means ripping the new seats out and replacing them with a proper fit for purpose seat then so be it. I know the ST prices were partially standardised over the 3 home stands,but now those fans in the pod are paying a premium price for the worst seats in the stadium, which is a disgrace.

I wish I was confident enough to be able to plaice a sizeable bet on us being able to seal our progression after the first leg. But I cant be the only sole harbouring doubts. Hopefully our new keeper can catch a few. Cod only knows how we will get on in the away leg if he cant keep it out the net! Hopefully, it goes ok as Im sure our recruitment team are continuing to trawl other leagues for new players!

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.

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.

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?

I think that's just about right why we should stay ,improve and not lumber the club with massive costs for a new site and stadium. We own the stadium ,a new stadium would be rented ,mortgaged or some daft lease back scheme where we would never actually own it. We would probably hve to call it, sponsors name,stadium as well .Putting us in a vurnable position in bad times. Stay and upgrade for me. The most cost effective and keep the legacy going.

Far too much pessimism on here re this game, we will pump them, a repeat of the last time we played them for me, a comfortable aggregate win.

Due to injuries and lack of signings, this tie will be harder than it would otherwise have been. HB are also mid season but have had a few weeks break. However, its possible, maybe even probable, that they'll be without 2 of their better players due to visa problems. After all is said and done however, the Faroese league is a very small pond, albeit they are a large fish in it. I can't see us floundering on Thursday and can see a 2 or 3 goal win.

It's being broadcast by SolidSport apparently. Not familiar with which countries they operate in, or if that means it might also be on MotherwellTV, but it might help locate a stream. https://solidsport.com/motherwellfc/games/g/b3deb2au EDIT: I just created an account on there, and it says I can purchase the game for 12 quid. But no hint to any geo-restrictions.

After Stjarnan and Sligo in particular, I will never take us to be strong favourites in a Euro tie ever again. I think because they are match fit and because we have a fairly makeshift starting 11 at the moment this is a 50/50 game.

Yes, happy memories of Willie Hunter, Pat Delaney etc wearing the reverse strip after lifting the Summer Cup in the mid-sixties.

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

We’re going to win the summer cup ! 😀

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.

Im hoping that even if we have to play one or two of the academy boys, then there should still be enough experience within the squad to see us over the line. Its not like we havent had an entire season on Jensball to fall back on and the academy boys have now had en entire pre-season including games against 3 pretty tough opponents to bed them in. I dont think it will be easy. Hanvar will be well organised and they are half way through their season, so likely to have more match sharpness, but we shouldnt be using any of that as an excuse. Big home crowd for the first real game of the season. Lets make sure we help the boys get it over the line.

Think that was a brand new stadium in Camperdown?

No Garrion Bridges

Naw mate, he's at Swansea no.😂

If we put down a £10m deposit we only need to borrow £10m. Sell Maswanhise and we are in the ballpark.

Lack of involvement in what? 90% of any player's professional life is training. Even more than that pre-season. If he'd picked up an injury while scoring his second goal in a competitive match, I'd be much more surprised.

The kit is a winner. Much better than the home effort. Would happily watch us wearing that in every game this season!