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I've been going to Fir Park for 52 years, Ive seen many moments of high passion and excitement and not once have I felt compelled to enter the field of play. What the fuck is wrong with these arseholes? Whether folk think some rules are petty or not how fuckin hard is it to go to football watch your team enjoy the excitement or suffer the despair and go home or the pub without getting involved with Police, Stewards or causing fines for the club. I seriously hate these cunts.

Agree with this 100%. The silence from the Society as well as the Club on a variety of issues shows little respect for fans that have raised concerns. There appears to be a unified approach in ignoring such matters and trusting them to disappear. I have no doubt the points you mention will have been discussed by both Boards, separately and jointly, but more with the intention of playing matters down rather than addressing valid concerns. As for who runs the Club. I don't think anyone is suggesting the Society is in a position to/or should resolve all the issues under discussion. But the Society should at the very least be highlighting concerns and pushing the Club Board to come up with reasonable proposals. And to also present regular updates regarding infrastructure matters. It all comes across as very cosy and secretive. In fact much like the situation before the Barmack repercussions. Sad to say.

As to the question of why the club have been taken a softly softly approach to this…could one of the top men involved in one of these groups holding a very high position within the Well Society have something to do with it?

Selfish, entitled arseholes who prioritise themselves and their own image ahead of that of the club.

Controversial post, on here the wee angels in block E can do no wrong in the eyes of some posters. As i said in an earlier post the club know who is responsible for 99.99% of any recorded incidents, and before anyone jumps in with" it might only be certain individuals" they gather as a group collectively so they must be prepared to accept the blame colletively for any wrong doing. The club needs to toughen its stance before it ends up spending all its spare cash on fines.

Well then they are not fit for purpose if they are failing to properly address and deal with people who are continually harming the club financially.

Being on the WS board is a big commitment and totally appreciate the work that gets done. Does sometimes feel like happy to take any praise and enjoy the overseas trips but any issues that need addressed they don't want to get involved. Just my view

As you know Dave im not a WS member and never will be, as ive always maintained that the club is too small for true fan ownership, so i get the impression that the WS reps are quite happy to take the recognition of a seat on the board etc, but on a sit quietly and say nothing basis. For me they are only informed about. What the club board wants them to know and the wont raise their heads above the parapet to raise the real issues, ie fan conduct, inadequate seating, ridiculous kick off times etc. The fans are contributing significant amounts of cash into what is effectively a rainy day fund for the board but get no significant information or consultation on any major desicion affecting the club in return. True fan ownership would see the WS memers as individual shareholders in their own right and collectively the major shareholder, so change is required.

I get that 100% Grizzly and I know a few others have become a bit disillusioned with the Society, as have I. The issue of the POD seats annoyed me. Of late, communication has been an issue for me. We are frequently kept informed of minor matters(nothing wrong with that per se), but not of major strategic matters such as the training complex or the feasibility report. As for the latter, I'm not expecting a detailed blow by blow account but simply an update on progress. In contrast, some members have encountered difficulties in getting their feedback taken on board or even considered. Not good enough for a fan led organisation. I have wondered of late just how much actual power the Society holds on the MFC board, despite being the proxy owner. Sorry for the off topic rant, but its been coming for a while, and Grizzly's post was the catalyst.

I emailed club and well society 4 weeks ago about concerns regarding the fines we have been paying. Not had a single reply so that's the well society membership being cancelled, quite sure they wont be in least bit bothered but hey ho.

It’s definitely not Block E. https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc0zI7XiH6G/?stkn=MWxsYjAxbDM5ZDc1ag==

Unfortunately, that's exactly why we couldn't afford him. Happy to see his continued success, and yet another example we can't point to in our recruitment process.

Watching Welsh push-up the left hand side gave a reminder of what we're missing, he provided a fair amount of support likes of Longelo - perhaps one of the reason Longelo hasn't looked the same player. Delighted to see Welsh get his first cap and appreciated the nod to 'Well for helping him get there.

On this occasion its some Motherwell fans but everyone is being punished, the ones doing it wont give a feck because if we can't afford a certain player, that doesnt matter to them...theyre just in it for the theatre.

Would the mass pyro displays at the start of the Freiburg away game and various other matches this season so far fall into that category? The club officials can see who is responsible and so far seem to have taken no action, the fines so far add up to a serious chunk of change, for me sterner direct action is required as nice please dont statements from the club dont seem to be cutting it.

What an absolute waste of the clubs money due to a minority of morons!!!!

We lost ten million pounds of talent in just Slattery watt Welsh etc We have spent some of that about 1 million as we needed to. We wouldn’t have had a team if we didn’t. These players are finding their feet but probably have the potential to be another 8-10 million They will take time to develop under AJ who needs time to get his ideas over. I think honestly this season is about developing these players and really they should be judged next season. don’t get too high at the wins or low at the defeats.

Yep, football was Saturday 3pm or Wednesday 7.30pm and they finished at 4.40 or 9.10

Hibs away (2nd goal), first half hour v St.Mirren. Helsinki home. Definitely been encouraging signs but we badly need SOD and Mcginn in team and priestman back. I think Fadinger was our oldest player on Saturday....26

As some of you may know I'm one of the biggest pessimists on the planet when it comes to Motherwell. I've had 55 years of primarily bone crushing disappoint and yes there are some issues. However all but for two absolutely honking goalkeeping errors, which no manager can legislate for , not even Pep Guardiola , we'd have had a point at Ibrox and Dundee. So as much as our form has dipped Id argue had we got a point from both those games, which goalkeeping howlers apart, we'd have got and were sitting 4th on 10 points everyone would be a lot calmer. We are in danger of over analyzing everything and seeing or creating stories that have ZERO basis of fact. For fuck sake everyone take a deep breath and calm down. Having watched us for 55 years I know when to start panicking and 7 games in isn't it.

Like clockwork, the “pant wetter” chat comes out as soon as anyone dares to fairly criticise what they’re seeing.

"Our next win" why do people think that 7 games into the season after 3 defeats that our season is over ffs. This is Motherwell, we are not going to win every game, a few bad results and its "has AJ lost the dressing room", hes "never played football" so he cant manage BS. Folk need to dry their pants and calm down, yes the team has issues that need addressed but im sure the management team will sort it out znd find the right balance for the team. With all the injuries we've had AJ has neer had the luxury of a full squad to pick from, so going forward that should ease.

What's this? The bowling committee style approach to running a football club might not work after all...who'd have thought it?

Cheers bud, not trying to be a martyr but just so disappointed with lack of reply yet happy to let board members post photos of the displays that have cost us another €21,000. Not even in mood for telling a joke so heyyyyyy....every cloud 🤪

And I'm sure the older sweetie paper rustlers of the day were looking down their noses at you back then! 👀

Something up with guys camera as some of the faces aren't in focus! 🤪, plus is that a train carriage that was spray painted? If freiburg fans done that to a bus replacement service here there would have been outrage

Thought Welsh played well yesterday. Well, second half at least. Most of the team were honking first half. The second half had a fair whiff of nostalgia about it. The utter domination of the ball and the opposition was like watching a Jens team. The failure to convert so many good chances only added to the allure!

A season late for Welsh to be starting for Scotland, but still funny that Celtic have no competent central defenders in their squad.

Yes of course it matters...because surely the one person could be easily identified. Maybe my memories playing tricks on me, but im almost sure it was one lad

10/11 is not bad! I think SOD looked lack of fitness in his last game, it's not the ideal choice and I think if SOD had 30 min runouts last few games I would agree. I think it's too tough an ask.

Further to what was said above, I think some people are too quick to view "the bois" as an organised, cohesive group that is singularly responsible for all of these infractions. The truth is that it's likely more complicated than that. It's like a media report saying that "Motherwell fans" chanted X, Y, or Z during a game. Which Motherwell fans? All Motherwell fans? Some Motherwell fans? And the classic insinuation that somehow there's a way that fans should be self-policing or something. Bottom line is, if individuals break the rules, they should be dealt with. But dealt with as individuals. Unless there's a planned, coordinated incident, such as an offensive tifo that was put together by a single group or something along those lines, I wouldn't be too quick to condemn a certain group in particular.

It wasnt block e though, just some dudes that stand in that vicinity, folks get touchy bout that. Bit like life of Brian and Judean People's Front...bottom line is , its cost club a shitload of money.

There's also the issue of older and younger fans who, for a variety of reasons, may not be able to or want to attend evening games. That was fine when it was the odd midweek fixture, but it's increasingly becoming the norm, with more and more games that were originally scheduled for 3pm on a Saturday being moved to Friday or Saturday evenings. These changes are largely dictated by TV companies, while the footballing authorities seem to have little or no regard for the impact on supporters. If this becomes the norm, buying a season ticket may simply no longer be worthwhile for some fans, and nobody seems willing to do anything about it.

You are 4.9% out with your calculation.

Its almost like folk fae Viewpark want to pretend that it doesn't exist 🤣

Having read the feedback above, I think there is quite a lot to be positive about in the direction of travel. Moving away from the idea that the Society exists purely to accumulate an ever-larger rainy-day fund makes sense to me, provided the investment side is properly governed. Loans for specific projects are also clearly preferable to simply transferring money into the club to support annual operating costs. Where I'd probably still like a little more clarity, if it were me, is around the governance framework sitting underneath all of this. For me, the key question isn't really whether Active Investment is a good idea in principle. I think it probably is. The question is what controls are in place to make sure that a sensible idea remains sensible when we're dealing with significant sums of members' money over a number of years. One thing I would distinguish quite carefully is between the Society's cash reserve and money it has lent to the club. If the Society has £1.3m in cash and lends £300k to MFC, it hasn't necessarily "lost" £300k. It now has a loan receivable instead. But from a risk point of view, those two things are not equivalent. The whole purpose of a reserve is that it is available when something goes badly wrong. Unfortunately, the point at which Motherwell FC might most urgently need Society support is also likely to be the point at which the club is least able to repay loans already advanced to it. So I wouldn't personally count £1 of loan to MFC as equivalent to £1 sitting in an accessible Society reserve. That is why I'd probably look for the reserve policy to be expressed in terms of a minimum level of liquid, readily available funds rather than simply total Society assets. I'm also wouldn't be particularly persuaded by the argument that £1.5m will be reached within two years at current subscription levels. That's useful for forecasting, but projected future subscriptions aren't reserves today. I'd much rather see the Society establish what level of liquid protection it believes is genuinely necessary based on the risks facing the club, stress test that periodically, and then invest above that level. That might still produce £1.5m as the right answer, by the way. But it might produce another number. The important thing is that the figure is based on present-day risk rather than simply being inherited from when the Society was created. The second area I'd be interested in is the actual loan framework. Saying money will only be advanced as loans is reassuring, but "loan" covers an enormous range of arrangements. For material sums, I'd expect there to be clarity around purpose, repayment, security, what happens if a project goes over budget, what happens if it is abandoned, whether further drawdowns can be stopped, how performance is reported back to the Society and what happens if the club's financial position deteriorates. None of that needs to be made public in commercially sensitive detail, of course, but it might be worth knowing that there is a consistent framework being applied rather than each project effectively being negotiated from scratch. There is also a slightly awkward governance issue that comes with the Society being both majority shareholder and potentially a significant lender to the club. Normally the interests of the Society and MFC should be closely aligned, but they aren't necessarily identical in a financing transaction. The club will understandably want capital on the most favourable terms possible. The Society Board, on the other hand, has a duty to protect the Society's own assets and make sure members' money is being used prudently. Where individuals have roles or influence on both sides of that relationship, I'd expect there to be a very clear conflicts process. That might mean declarations, recusals in certain circumstances, separate advice, or simply making sure decisions are independently minuted and justified. And don't get me wrong, that isn't about distrusting anyone involved. It's just good governance when related organisations are transacting with one another. The other thing that caught my attention is the language around what the money can be used for. The previous funding consultation talked about investment in specific revenue-generating projects where there was a clear business case and benefit to the club and Society. What is being discussed now, from what I can tell, seems slightly broader and refers to infrastructure projects generally. That may be entirely intentional and perfectly reasonable. There are infrastructure projects which might not directly generate revenue but could still create substantial long-term value for the club. But if the investment mandate is being widened, it might be worth looking for that to be explicit rather than something which happens gradually through interpretation. I also think project selection needs a proper appraisal process. Inviting supporters to suggest projects is a good idea and probably helps make fan ownership feel more tangible. But ultimately projects should be assessed against the same criteria rather than popularity. I'd expect things such as total cost, club contribution, useful life, financial return or savings, sporting benefit, ownership of the resulting asset, downside risk, legal protections and alternative uses of the money all to be considered. One question I'd particularly include is whether Society funding is genuinely additional. For example, if the club was already going to spend £250k of its own money on something and the Society simply substitutes its £250k instead, the Society money may technically be ring-fenced to the project, but economically it has freed £250k of club cash for another purpose. That isn't automatically wrong, but it is something the Society will hopefully understand when it says its money won't be used to support day-to-day operations. The possible conversion of loans into additional shares also makes sense in principle, but I think that needs more structure before significant sums build up. There would need to be an agreed process for valuing the club, deciding how many shares the debt converts into, protecting existing shareholders and handling any conflicts around the transaction. "We'll find a fair way to do it later" becomes much harder once there is £1m or £2m sitting on the table. Overall, it seems the report of the meeting is more positive about Active Investment than negative. I certainly don't think the Society should simply accumulate money indefinitely while the club has sensible opportunities to improve its infrastructure and financial position. But I do think this is the point where the Society starts moving from being primarily a membership and supporter organisation into something that is also acting as a serious capital provider. That requires a slightly different level of discipline. For me, the ideal outcome would be a written Active Investment framework setting out the minimum liquid reserve, what kinds of projects qualify, maximum exposure, approval thresholds, loan/security requirements, conflicts procedures, reporting obligations and how any future debt-to-equity conversion would work. If that structure exists and is robust, members shouldn't need to vote on every individual project. They can instead hold the Board accountable for making decisions within a framework everyone understands. To me, that's probably the more mature version of fan ownership anyway, not members micromanaging every expenditure, but members knowing the rules under which significant decisions are being made and being able to judge afterwards whether those rules were followed.

Attended the online meeting tonight re the Active Investment proposals. Came away feeling re-assured that the proposals have been well thought through and form part of the Society's longer term strategy for fan ownership. Highlights...... As part of the "growing the Well Society" project there has been feedback from some potential members to suggest they may join if they could see tangible benefits to the club rather than just being a "rainy day fund". Hence the "why now". The reserve fund currently sits at £1.3m so even if changes are voted through, the reserve of £1.5m will be reached within the next 2 years at current subscription levels. Plan is that monies will only be given towards specific infrastucture projects in the form of loans. It is envisaged that at some point these might be realised in the form of greater shareholding, but there would have to be a process in place to ensure fairness to existing shareholders. Monies loaned WILL NOT just disappear into the day to day running of the club. The club must balance its books and any Society monies will only be used to improve the clubs finances by investment in specific projects. As part of the consultation process, fans are invited to put forward suggestions for projects to be considered by the club. Re the feasibility study. Work has been ongoing re this for several months with multiple options being explored and further questions asked. It is anticipated this work will continue for some time with any decision on where the club plays its football being a longer term issue. The Society Board were pretty open during the meeting and there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes in terms of the various workstreams that maybe cant be shared right now, but left me feeling that things are heading in the right direction.

It's not specific to you, if I'm honest. I hear fans doing that all the time. We're nowhere near the English Premiership. Virtually no league on the planet is. The Premier League isn't just England's domestic football league commercially. It's one of the world's biggest sports media properties. It regularly has something like 1.45 billion live viewers in a season, is broadcast in 190 odd countries and has 2 billion+ followers worldwide. I'm not saying our TV deal is great value, by the way. Scottish football clearly punches miles above its weight. But stadium popularity and global broadcast value are two different things. If you want to argue the SPFL undersells Scottish football, compare our deal with Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Austria or Ireland and look at what broadcasters pay per game and per potential viewer. But anyone comparing a highly successful national football competition with one of the biggest global entertainment products on the planet is mental. And just because they're located down the road doesn't make any difference to that.

I was only giving an opinion

We finished off that nasty, bitter shit stirring prick when he was there first time around in May 2005 and it would be poetic and justified if we did it again especially after the events of their last visit here in May. But it looks like he is seriously considering his future right now and even aside that I just don’t see us having what it takes to trouble them. But then again I thought the same ahead of 22/05/05…

Most of my jokes are classed as Horse S**t!! 🤣🤣

Hogh was the new Larsson according to some sellik fans after his hat trick v killie. I dont think he has scored since so a certainty to score against us 🤪🤪

Really, I just want to see us play well each week. Winning a cup or getting into Europe would be great but I want to enjoy watching us play and as has been said many times, you can’t control the score, only your performance.

I think we were just spoiled last year. I've no issue with Alfred at the moment really, but a bit of a buzz-kill and frustration just now. Dundee Utd game I thought we were getting back to our old selves. We definitley miss Slattery and Just on the half-turn and also for the innumerable fouls they used to win, which kept us on the ball. We don't play the pass when we should, lack a bit of movement and zip and start getting into horseshoe territory. I'd like to see Kanga pushed up a bit in a 10/just off striker and not dropping wide. He has the skill to beat opponets, play a pass and have a dig in the space in final third and the edge of the box. Priestman is quite a big miss.

Agree pal, I just meant benching the ones that haven't been performing. Really want williams back in line up, he looked good before injury and could link up well with longelo

I learned to keep schtum after shouting at Spittal to move away from a free kick after he had put in about 4 poor corners. He curled it into top corner, I have never looked so sheepish then apologised to everyone around me 🤣🤣🤣

That was an important game for sure and a turning point. Celtic will prove to be a far sterner test and I won't judge AJ and his team too harshly if we don't win. I am looking for a good performance from us though and one which demonstrates progress over what we've seen so far. Probably the Kilmarnock game will be a better yardstick. The following Hearts game will also be a good indicator.

This isn't me picking on you MFC but just really for the forum. Check the date we played this fixture last season where defeat would have taken us to bottom of table. Season didnt turn out too bad. At this moment I doubt we will finish 4th but absolutely no reason we cant turn it round after 2 bad defeats. Players still settling in.

The attendances will ultimately drop off at some point, if some folk dont want the tough times, thats their call. They were always fairweather fans, we aren't always going to be successful , they're will always be a core support and hopefully have maybe got another 1000 added onto it.

You have very eloquently expanded on some of the thoughts I was having and put flesh on the bones of what I was trying to get across. Very well done! 🧡❤️🧡