dunning1874

John S Thomson was a nutter owner who decided to appoint himself as manager. He led us to our worst league finish ever in 1960/61, finishing bottom of the entire SFL (19th in the Second Division, 37th overall). If we lose again next Saturday with him still in charge, then Murray will have a worse league record than Thomson.

If the reason Murray hasn't been sacked is that we can't afford to pay him off (though we can apparently afford to throw thousands of pounds down the drain on signing players who haven't played in 2 years due to injury and then shockingly get injured after one appearance) then he has to be placed on gardening leave immediately. He can never be allowed in the dugout again. That was by a mile the worst performance of the season so far, and it'll get worse if the worst manager in the club's history is allowed to remain in his post.

This is tragic. It's not so much East Fife valiantly trying against Celtic as it is Andorra against England or Germany, it just looks like a group of players who have absolutely no business being on the park with their opponents. Once again a goal conceded which has everything to do with Murray's setup despite the atrocious standard of player.

I agree with your views on this deal being a total heap of shite, but the legal position on the Estrella deal was only shared at the point they were sharing an actual investment agreement, not an outline of the proposal. They didn't have a legal position stated when they were sharing an overview of Estrella's deal either. If we ever get to the same point with this consortium I'd expect details of any concerns in the legal advice to be shared again, but hopefully it's binned long before we reach that point anyway.

If they were planning to invest more then they could explicitly commit to doing so. The most likely explanation for why they haven't is that they have no intention of doing so.

For what it's worth, list of specific questions addressing points in the PDF I sent to MCT below, but I'm not even sure how worthwhile it is to go through this in detail because it's so many millions of miles away from being close to an acceptable proposal. "£12,500 per month (£150,000 per annum) This funding represents a long-term commitment and would continue indefinitely, provided MCT maintains its agreed monthly contribution to the club" Does this mean the consortium providing funding (at a lower annual amount than MCT) is contingent on MCT itself also maintaining funding at that current level? What happens to the funding from the consortium if MCT contributions do drop, considering that many members will undoubtedly stop paying when they are now funding a minority stake in the club rather than majority ownership? If it is expected that MCT payments must continue in order for investment from the consortium to continue, what is the minimum level of MCT funding before payments from the consortium stop? If it's anywhere over £12,500 a month, then this would mean MCT members are literally paying to dilute their own shareholding. Why should MCT members maintain payments at an equal or higher level than a consortium purchasing shares from them? In the event that the MCT membership collectively decided that they did want to maintain their contributions, but instead of having that annual contribution supplementing the first team budget wanted it ringfenced for another area, for example capital expenditure, can the MCT membership expect this to be respected? Or will holding a minority stake in GMFC mean the MCT membership have no say in how their funding is spent? "The consortium would be prepared to advance the first year's investment as an upfront lump-sum payment of £150,000" So the initial £150K payment is not an extra £150K over and above the monthly contribution, but would mean for the following 12 months there would no monthly payment? "The level of ownership reflects the consortium's assumption of primary responsibility for future funding commitments" If the consortium's funding is dependent on MCT maintaining funding then the consortium will not have assumed primary responsibility for future funding commitments, and so this logic to support the consortium taking 60% ownership does not make sense. "The consortium fully understands concern surrounding stadium ownership and is willing to agree to significant protections." If these concerns are understood, why is it necessary for the consortium to take ownership of the stadium whatsoever? The surest way to safeguard Cappielow and ensure no private owner can ever make Morton homeless is for it to remain in the hands of MCT. If the genuine intention of the consortium is to work alongside MCT for the benefit of Morton, then there is no risk to GMFC in MCT maintaining ownership of the stadium. However there is obviously a huge deal of risk to GMFC in separating the stadium from MCT. Considering the background of several of the consortium members as landlords and property investors, this is all the more reason to question the consortium's intentions. Ownership of Cappielow is a red line for me, regardless of who anyone looking to invest in Morton is and even if we were talking about a takeover that left MCT with 0 shares in GMFC. That concern is only further heightened with the background of this consortium. Regarding the identity of the consortium, four members wishing to remain anonymous until the deal is agreed is completely unacceptable. If they want to be involved in ownership of the club and have fans trust them with a sale of the club, they have to declare their identities before that sale happens, not after. We cannot give control of the club to people while having no idea who they are and it is frankly insulting of the consortium to try. Wondering what every anonymous individual has to hide is only natural.

Not as desperate as we'll be when we're turfed out of Cappielow. This is a completely unacceptable proposal and should be laughed out the room. I am worried people are going to panic that we just need money and so vote for any old shite to make it through the season even though it's just going to kill us in a couple of years time, which is why it's long past time the club state what their projected shortfall in the budget to the end of the season is rather than simply what the shortfall from Dalrada is so we know what we're dealing with and can make decisions in full possession of the facts.

At least he did for once actually make a tactical switch during the game, but it was unbelievable that it took Murray 25-30 minutes of Dunfermline's full backs having the freedom of the pitch to change his instructions for all three of O'Halloran, Brophy and Robinson to stay up the park when Dunfermline had the ball rather than getting behind it or tracking a runner. Thinking he could get away with that was absolute madness, even when he's reduced the number of wingers on the park he's still finding a way to have a stupidly attacking set up.

That we're finally in a place where Murray is actually willing to use all five subs rather than only making three for no apparent reason, we have Cochrane injured and Carse still can't even get a sub appearance really tells us there was a lot of logic to adding a millionth central midfielder to the wage bill.

Murray has the exact same league record as Allan Evans after the same number of games. All of Evans' games were during administration, a far worse position to be managing in than Murray has. An irredeemable charlatan, there's not even a debate to be had about him being the club's worst manager in my lifetime.

A due diligence process on a six-figure sum, as envisaged by an actual lawyer.

“Our focus remains on managing the club’s finances responsibly, reducing costs where possible and ensuring we have the strongest possible position as we look beyond those months." It evidently isn't, because reducing costs where possible would have meant letting Moore & McLuckie go and not replacing them with another cost. That was a possible reduced cost which has now not happened. If Robinson is on a wage as tiny as £300 a week, that's £4.8K up to the start of January. If he's on £500 a week, that's £8K. There is a four figure sum being spent that did not need to be spent, meaning we are not going to be in the strongest possible position because we're going to be at least close to £5K worse off than we would have been without paying a wage to Robinson.

The Herald article is considerably worse than the letter. So by Gordon Ritchie's own telling of events, he's demanded a mass resignation of both boards in July, on the basis that a donation in the region of around £150K will be made upon their resignation. The response from the boards is to ask who and where the money is coming from. He said no, I'm not telling, the donors have to remain anonymous. They say okay, can you provide us proof of funds then so we know the £150K will actually be delivered? He says no, are you taking the piss? These people, whose identities I'm refusing to disclose, are multi-millionaires! How can you possibly dare to ask for proof of funds from these people despite not knowing who they are because I won't tell you? Why can't you take the word of me, Gordon Ritchie, who single-handedly turned the club around and kept it running during Covid, who is now openly admitting to being the MCT member taking legal action against MCT and openly states a personal vendetta against both current boards? You should take me at my word with no further evidence! So he takes the huff and takes the offer off the table as both boards haven't resigned en masse immediately because Gordon Ritchie said so, but then the board get back in touch with him again themselves with a further offer by three directors to resign; he again says no, then says those directors who made an offer to him to resign which he refused have "put their own interests above the club" because they won't "step aside and give up their free pies and sandwiches in the boardroom". The Tele letter and Herald article appearing on the same day really are an amazing juxtaposition. The Herald article ends with "I was recently willing to put £75k of my own money into the club. If anyone else wants to put that money in then they can criticise me and accuse me of not having the best interests of Morton at heart. Until someone else does that they can shut up." Unless you have £75K to put in yourself you can fuck off and shut up seems an odd position to take for someone who claims to passionately believe in fan ownership and talks in his letter about "the principles of openness and honesty with members".

"My involvement at Cappielow came to an end in circumstances that are now the subject of legal proceedings." Did Gordon Ritchie just admit that he's the member suing MCT? Wasting time and money on petty bullshit that could instead be put towards the club?

Yes. It's not Murray's call to make and even without McLuckie he already had a massive squad to choose from, especially in McLuckie's position. If he's unhappy with that then tough. We're supposed to be making every saving we can to reduce the shortfall, if you have the opportunity to move bit-part players on and claw a saving back you do it. Adding other players back onto the wage bill when we've already got a shortfall is completely wild. That's before considering that this will likely end up costing the club far more than any McLuckie v Robinson wage saving by completely destroying the credibility of the fighting fund. No one is donating to it to fund signings, and by making signings that increase the wage bill and increase the shortfall that's ultimately what the fighting fund ends up being used for.