steelboy

A joint protest with the Green Brigade. They should be banned for wrecking our ground but any attention is obviously welcome.

That's mental.

That's the sort of team that would make me stay in the house if it was pay at the gate.

They both lived in Glasgow at the same time and McDonald was around the club after Phil's death. McDonald played under his best mate at two clubs and possibly spoke to McGhee about Millwall. I don't think it's a great mystery.

I would argue that the benefit of bringing in Valakari or Van Der Gaag is getting someone who has experience in several different countries at a decent level during their career but also have some knowledge of dealing with Scottish players, living here and despite being here a while ago will have an idea of the circumstances at Fir Park.

I didn't realise that our funds were used as a guarantee against his loan. Absolutely disgusted by that.

The SFA won't register a third party contract so it can't be that. Dundee United were loaned money against potential future transfer income. It's possible that Hutchinson has a claim on any fees brought in (good luck with that btw). Is it definitely true that the Well Society has to pay him back if the club don't?

The club is run by Hutchinson at the moment. The situation is essentially no different to when Boyle or Chapman were in charge. The Society is a different matter and the members should have much more of a say in the direction it is heading in. For me it should be all about fan ownership but it seems a long way away from that now. With hindsight I think any attempt at fan ownership which is to be succesful has to come initially from the fans themselves and that the Society being set up by the club with the terms and conditions set by them has hamstrung us from the beginning. Fan ownership requires more fans to invest and members to invest. Repeatedly parroting 'we need your money' isn't going to work, the society has to demonstrate what differences the new ownership model entails and the benefits that will bring the members. At the moment I would say that transparency and communication from Fir Park and the Society is very poor and people are unlikely to invest further. I personally am not going to put money in to pay for a fitness coach when the club is running a 25 man first team squad (and there is no communication of how much the society is paying or how Boles was chosen for this role) and I also don't think the people who paid £130,000 for 5% of the club look particularly competent to attain fan ownership when the majority shareholding was later sold for £1 (this makes the Royal Mail sell off look like a great deal). However the Society still holds a lot of money contributed by the support and it would be better if the membership is kept informed of what is happening with the funds.

Just had a look at the society web page for the first time. It looks like they have changed the primary objective on the fly, i don't recall anything about financial protection or repaying loans being in there originally.

It must be a new addition to the primary objective of the society... Gain fan ownership and fund some guy from Bellshills PhD.

The well society will fund it so no need to worry.

I'm fairly content with him coming in. The other options weren't great and i can see him getting the best out of the older heads in the squad. I'm just a bit annoyed that we are supposed to swallow a nonsense story that either he and/or Burrows dreamed up as a PR exercise. He left to go to Aberdeen, they are a bigger club, he has a connection with them, it was more money. Thats' fair enough. We don't need to be told it was a heroic act of self sacrifice and we should all laud him for it though. I don't doubt that he improved Clarkson, Quinn and others but the issue here is a claim that he personally brokered the sales and was responsible for the fees coming in. It's PR bullshit and it's insulting that the club are still trying to manipulate the fans in this way whilst wanting more money for the society.

Just had a look on pie and bovril and the story seems to be that Mcghee was tasked with getting himself off the wage bill to cut costs and sell £1m of players which he heroically managed. Unfortunately this fable ignores that Mcghee stopped working as Motherwell manager a month before Clarkson and Quinn were sold and that we actually increased the budget under Gannon rather than cutting it.

Other than Mcghee saying it what evidence is there? How much was he getting paid that it was going to cause us an issue in June 2009? The club will tell you we're skint as a way to get the fans onside with anything. I sat a meeting where two directors told fans over and over a 12 team league with a play off a relegation spot was impossible due to the financial side, 12 months later it was agreed. I've been told that Boyle's shares could not be sold for less than £1.5m then they were sold for £1. We were told we were on the verge of admin then we signed 18 players this year. Mark McGhee can't help but talk pish and our board are good at finding versions of the truth that suit them.

The contract becoming a challenge thing is total bullshit. When he left we had about 10 first team players so a very small wage bill then not long after that we started throwing cash about at the likes of Ruddy, Jutkiewicz and Yassin.

The people that made the Barraclough appointment tried to be clever and got burnt by it, this time they have played it safe and went with a completely known quantity. It's not the most inspiring appointment but it is an upgrade. We're miles away from being good at the moment and the aim for the season has to be 10th, if McGhee can deliver that then he'll have been a success. We have been a shambles on the playing side since summer 2013 and it's going to take a long time to sort out.

To be fair the police gave up trying to wade in at Ibrox and just settled for grabbing people after the game. Someone a few rows in front of me got away with booting a copper who was on the deck.

A true man of the people.

He obviously had a difficult final few years and 67 isn't old these days but considering his playing career, standing in the community and the regard his family is held in I'd say it's a life very well lived and one which should be celebrated.

Silence for tragedies, applause as a tribute.

Aye. McGhee surely knows that chance is long gone. 'Having one eye on the Celtic job' isn't a factor in his application.

Sad to hear about club legend passing away. No doubt he'll get a big vocal tribute away to Dundee and home to Celtic.

Our next manager will be the 8th in 9 years. Despite that 6 of them stayed too long and most people felt we had to get rid of the Brown at the end of that season anyway. Supporters need to stop looking at managers as sacred cows or imagining that the new guy will be here as long as Tommy McLean. It's about what the manager can do for the club, if the new guy has to go in January he has to go. If he does well and leaves we start again. There's no shortage of candidates.

You must be confused about who Barraclough played for or have a very low opinion of our club.

It's certainly a confusing thing....