Kmcalpin

On the back of a Cup Final appearance there was a tidal wave of interest in season tickets at Tynecastle, as you'd expect. Tickets were put on sale being advertised as being very cheap and season ticket holders were given 2 weeks to obtain their "seat" - no early bird discount. Within a couple of days several thousand had been shifted. At that point buyers found the prices had been hiked by up to £40 compared to last season. Shortly afterwards they rose by £80. The fans were raging, not because of the price increase, which many felt to be entirely reasonable but because they'd been misled. As one said to me "I was happy to pay an extra £80, as quite a few of us were.... its not a lot of cash, but we should have been told". Complaints were then taken to the Ombudsman (I don't know which one) and he found in the fans favour but couldn't do anything about it. As a result eventual ST ticket sales are down by about 3,000 on last season. The Rangers saga was not an issue for most Hearts fans. They were more than happy with Vlad's stance of saying nothing and then voting to deny SEVCO entry to the SPL. The ones I spoke to were also against decreasing prices as demand rose as that was seen to be unfair and denying the club of much needed cash. Thats what I've been told.

I've very strong reservations after what happened at Tynecastle. To say that it received a mostly negative response in the Capital is being very euphemistic. As most folk on here know, it damned near resulted in a riot in Gorgie. That may be down to the way in which it was implemented but I'd be very wary.

Its on the 24th. Its remit is to elect a Board of 4 members (4 to be co-opted at a later date). Nominations by today to Alison Wallace. The board itself will elect a Chair and appoint a company secretary.

Yes a covering letter about the meeting, elections, and notice of the meeting and duties of the Board.

This simply wouldn't work and would damage the club's finances to boot eg through reduced season tickets sales and revenues. Doubtful if you could accommodate all those who currently sit in 3 stands and want to continue sitting in the Cooper Stand alone. There are many like myself who don't like sitting at an end. Standing isn't really an option just now anyway. You can't really get away from the 2 options of redeveloping Fir Park and moving and the former isn't feasible. The clock is ticking and the club must take a clear decision.

Apologies, I didn't express myself very well. I meant retaining the Cooper and South Stands AND demolishing the POD & East Stands and rebuilding them. We'd still have 4 stands. My point is that such a scheme wouldn't be an option.

Moving to a new ground is the only long term option. A brownfield site like Ravenscraig would seem to fit the bill and I'm sure the authorities and developers would welcome us there. In time a new station is also proposed for the site. Patching up Fir Park is not an option as we would face significant costs of demolishing and rebuilding the east and POD Stands, without the benefit of income derived from a land sale. Demolishing and rebuilding with 2 stands accommodating say 6,000 fans would set us back in the region of £6-7m. The Fir Park site itself is far from ideal. Fir Park will always be special but we have to be practical. As for Ravenscraig itself - if Motherwell is to survive and grow then it has to expand, change and develop. We can't fossilise it at a point in time. Scotland is riddled with old villages and towns that couldn't adapt or change and they are now derelict, deserted and largely forgotten about. Just think villages like Jerviston and Flemington were once self contained settlements but they grew and amalgamated. In Wishaw areas like Coltness, Gowkthrapple and Pather were all new extensions at one time or other. Ravenscraig will be the same. The club has to move and the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned. Fir Park is a part of Motherwell FC; Motherwell FC is not part of Fir Park.

Should probably add that there's nothing inherently wrong with the articles I've mentioned, its just that they've maybe run their course and its time to introduce some new features to freshen things up. Happy to write an article for the next edition.

At £1 I'd say its value for money. Detailed comments: * it should 100% concentrate on Well related articles * Would like to see some new features maybe moving away from James Brainier, Dossers Glossary etc. * What about some guest contributors - dependent on volunteers of course (that said I've never written an article). * Long term maybe move towards an electronic format as that is the way things are going.

I'll be most surprised if there aren't exclusion clauses in the supply contract. They have apologised for "any inconvenience caused" and I reckon thats as much as disadvantaged customers can expect and probably more than they are legally entitled to.

We certainly can't blame the club for the power failure. However, we learnt of the cancellation by means of a text message from someone in Dundee. United fans were told by their players the game had been called off but we had to wait for an announcement. Voucher distribution was a bit shambolic with some season ticket holders being given multiple ones and some like me none. Overall the club is blameless but the handling of the admittedly difficult situation could have been a bit slicker.

Yes, Received mine this morning. Encouragingly I've heard of two nominations for Directors so far.

A good question. Like Stuart Elliott before him he's difficult to pigeonhole. He's not an out and out striker as you rightly point out. He has bags of natural talent - but how do we use it? I see him more as an attacking winger who revels in open games or when we're leading and the opposition have to have a go at us. He's not suited to prising open packed defences. Ideally he needs to move on to a club down south who can add a bit of beef to him, and with a manager and coaches who can take him to the next stage. At the moment he should be selected on a "horses for courses basis" ie sometime starting and sometimes coming off the bench. His talents are wasted when he plays deep. At his best when we are counterattacking, the opposition are retreating in disarray and the ball is fed up and out to him. As you'll know as well as I, Mark McGhee always said that he needed to put on muscle and learn to defend better but that wasn't his natural instinct.

I've never been Keith Lasley's biggest fan but he had a good season last year although he struggled a bit towards the end and must take ashare of the credit for our 2nd placed finish. Although he's never been the fastest of players, nor a leader, his commitment has never ever been in doubt. There was an outcry on this Board when we were slow to offer him a new deal on reduced wages. It was right to re-sign him but he is 32 and starting to show his years. He did rely a lot on Jennings and now that the latter has departed Las has struggled a bit. Did feel sorry for him yesterday though - he was asked to play a more attacking role (as opposed to Ramsden's more defensive role) and was obviously uncomfortable in that. My point though is that with Las getting on in years and Jenno refusing to commit to 2 years deals we should have foreseen and planned for this very situation. It may be of course that Stuart Carswell was expected to make the step up by now - who knows? Steve Hetherington, although promising in his own right, is not the kind of player that we're missing.

He's repeatedly done it when playing with Stevie Hammell as well. I don't blame the player. He's being asked to play in a role for which he is unsuited.

Thats my main gripe too. I was listening to BBC radio on the way home tonight and heard Stuart McCall being interviewed. Probably about 80% of what he said was praise for Celtic, how well they'd played, how they'd played good football etc. We get enough of that from the so called unbiased commentators without our own manager banging on about it without prompting. After listening to that gloom and doom I came to the conclusion that there was no hope we'd ever beat Celtic again. Players are no fools, and irrespective of what he tells them in the dressing room, they'll hear and read his public comments. As I wrote elsewhere I'd no problem with SM saying Celtic deserved to win. However, I'd far rather hear his views on how he though we'd played and what went wrong. The impression I was left with was that its a waste of time playing Celtic at all. That defeatist attitude will translate itself onto the pitch.

In my view he's no worse than Stevie Hammell, is faster and is a slightly better defender - it would be very harsh to drop him.

Another poor performance today. Celtic could have won 8/9 -0 and we had not a single effort on target. It summed it all up for me when a Celtic fan said afterwards that they will play better and get beat. In fairness Darren Randolph and ZFA had decent games and Michael Higdon can't be faulted given his total lack of support. I thought that playing Ramsden in midfield would have been a good move but he sat so deep that he was, in effect, part of a back 5. Keith Lasley was pushed far too far forward and looked uncomfortable given his lack of pace. Jamie Murphy again look totally ill at ease in his left sided role and sat far too deep to do anything of note. We were surprised that he wasn't hooked before half time in favour of Henrik Ojamaa. Disappointingly we defended far too deep with both 10 and 11 men. Many other posters have summed up our weaknesses pretty accurately. In short our formation and tactics were confusing even for the players, let alone the fans. It was unbelievable wasn't it that Celtic caught us out about 8 times with the long ball up the left hand side. Very few positives to be taken out of today's game.

I assumed that Steve Hammell had been dropped. Thought ZFA did enough to deserve another chance next week.

Murphy should have been hooked in the first half. He was playing far too deep to make much of an impression and is clearly like a fish out of water with this role. At times he was playing left back, which is not his position. Felt very sorry for Michael Higdon today - played in an isolated role with no support whatsoever until Henrik came on.

I was a bit disappointed in Stuart's post match interview on BBC Radio tonight. No problem with him saying that Celtic were the better team and deserved to win, but did he have to go on and on about how good Celtic were? He hardly mentioned his own team. Surely he's paid to manage Motherwell FC and improve us. I dread to think what his team talk will be prior to our next visit to Parkhead. "We've no chance/Celtic are a great team etc etc". That'll motivate the players ...not.

That midfield, and SM may well select it, is very lightweight and would get bulldozed, Gav. We'd be playing much of the game in or around our penalty box.

Good post Alan. In the main we're just too lightweight and soft, especially in the midfield and defence, critical areas of the pitch. In recent years we've implored the team to get in the OF faces; hassle and harry them. That has not happened. Instead the OF players get in our lads' faces and bully them. We've had some months now to strengthen the team in critical areas and have not done so. I'm not referring to multi million pound players here - just robust solid, and reliable players who can show a bit of aggression and steel. Watching Levante and Panathanaikos was a real eye opener for me. Both typical European sides if there is such a thing. I was expecting to see players around 5-8 or 5-9 in height and in need of a good square meal. Not a bit of it - they had pretty big lads in all areas well capable of holding their own physically; more capable than us. Oh for a McVie, Millar or MacLaren right now.

A fair question Haggis. All I would say is that neither lad is the "Jenno" type of player. What we need right now is a Billy Bremner, Dave Mackay, Colin O'Neil or Stewart MacLaren sort. A guy who is going to advance, on his own if needs be, against a wave of attackers and get stuck in. I believe that Ian Davidson of Dundee is earning rave reviews right now. A big lad he apparently dominated the midfield physically against us and only when he retired injured did we begin to turn the screw. He didn't come from Barcelona or Inter Milan but from Raith Rovers.

I can't add much about the performance to whats been said already. All I will say is that our central midfield is the root cause of a lot of our problems. Steve Jennings has not been replaced and thats left a huge hole. Keith Lasley is struggling at 32. We have no ready made replacement to step in. The nearest we can come to that is Simon Ramsden who hasn't yet been played in midfield. There's far more to it than that of course, but this critical issue should have been addressed months ago. The players and management have a lot of making up to do on Saturday.