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4 hours ago, MCT Team said:

I’ve checked in with the club on this. They’re required to give out a certain amount of comp tickets for every match, they mainly go to the families of players from both teams. There hadn’t been any feedback given internally on that specific example you mentioned unfortunately so I can’t give any more than that general point around comps. 

Two young children were throwing bottles at Thistle fans, were asked to stop, didn’t and were removed from the Cowshed and taken to the safety office. Their parents were called and they arrived to collect them. 

Hope that helps! Thanks for flagging.  

I know is said fair enough, but just to re-visit this…

Firstly, I do think it’s worth reviewing the procedures so as folk aren’t pissed about so much by petty little rules about segregation between the stand and terrace, particularly when capacity isn’t an issue.

And secondly, the kids were asked to stop throwing bottles but they continued? Bottles are prohibited from the ground- I can understand them getting one in, but how many did they actually have if they continued to throw them? I could imagine being told not to throw coins and eventually a steward getting pissed off, but bottles seems a bit far fetched, given the size and difficulty to smuggle more than a couple of them into the ground, especially for an 11 year old.

Sounds to me like there were absolutely no second chances afforded by the stewards because of the sheer logistics of a wean carrying multiple bottles, yet they’ve gone with a story anyway, regardless of how improbable it sounds.

I get that stewarding is a relatively low paid job, and probably not a particularly enjoyable one for the hassle involved in it, but our lot carry a bit of a reputation as being some of the more difficult ones in the league, I’d suggest. Of course their actual employers should be the ones responsible for their training, but they work in customer service, and I’d argue that they’re more antagonistic than customer focussed more often than not. The initial point about sending folk away instead of using common sense would back this theory up. I’d argue the club aren’t getting what they should be expecting from the security company they employ.

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Why weren't the Partick supporters in the Wee Dublin End?  Why are we persisting on allowing away fans in the Cowshed?  In an era where we are all supposed to be social distancing, sticking to bubbles etc. Surely it would make more sense having a large group of people from outwith the area all standing separately in a large open air environment and leave the cowshed for Morton supporters.

Also, regarding chucking bottles about, surely the offence of throwing a bottle once would merit being forced to leave the ground, even possible police action.  

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17 hours ago, MCT Team said:

 Two young children were throwing bottles at Thistle fans, were asked to stop, didn’t  

That seems very far fetched. Throwing bottles at people if a fairly serious criminal act, as if they landed on someone's napper it could cause serious injury. If they were genuinely throwing bottles at folk, the default response is surely not to 'ask them to stop'? I smell shite. 

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1 hour ago, Cet Homme Charmant said:

That seems very far fetched. Throwing bottles at people if a fairly serious criminal act, as if they landed on someone's napper it could cause serious injury. If they were genuinely throwing bottles at folk, the default response is surely not to 'ask them to stop'? I smell shite. 

Almost certain to be empty plastic bottles if anything.

Edited by Jamie_M
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Perhaps I'm being cynical but that was utterly underwhelming and a bit depressing. 

Seems a case of 'we'll do that later'. I could be wrong but haven't the club been carrying out the day-to-day running of the club since June? It's now nearing November and they're still pedalling the line of 'We absolutely need to improve this'.  Take the question around social media output for example: that's not something that you need months and months of preparation to implement. I remember when Jonathan Mitchell came in and straightaway the interviews were much more in-depth compared to the measly 1 minute interviews we're getting now, the other content he produced was pretty instant when he arrived. I remember game advertising like when we played Dundee United in the cup and there were promos all around social media/the town of 'Gunning for Glory'. There's nothing like that now. Haven't we got a dedicated social media guy now? What's he actually doing? We've had ample time to get the marketing/social media side of things in place and improved so I'm not buying this 'we're looking into it' rhetoric. 

And that's before getting on to the depressing guff about McPherson. We wanted stability but give him a 2 year deal. Stability, if that's what they wanted, could happen with a 1 year deal. Then Nick Robinson's answer basically suggesting we don't have the money to sack McPherson.  Makes the 2 year deal even more absurd.  

I have not been impressed in the slightest with MCT so far. 

 

 

Edited by DumfriesTon
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Fair play for getting that together, and it’s nice to have faces to questions, but it’s hard to come out of that feeling anything but worried. Not expecting miracles overnight and for us to suddenly start behaving like a completely competent football club, but the basics in stuff like hospitality, marketing, social media, web content, advertising etc I thought we’d have  nailed down early doors (and really needed to) we just don’t. A couple of those are made more difficult by the team’s performance of course, but I’m struggling to see any kind of progress and we’re about to hit November.

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Pretty uninspiring and a lot of buzzwords but good to hear the board members speak. Seems to be a lot of talking about things and not much being done. I'm sure that's not the case for everything so would like to hear more about what they see as success stories. 

Would be interesting to hear who the conduit between Gus and the board is too. And what exactly Gordon Ritchie does. He seems to like the anonymity but from what I gather, and others have experienced the same, he's more involved than the other board members. 

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I'm somewhat bemused by this Q&A 

Suppose at least they say that there is contingency funds.

Barr really does need to get the community side of things off the ground.

It's all well and good saying we let kids in for free but apart from your regulars there clearly no incentive on their own. Get the finger out!! Were into the second quarter of the season! Get back into the inverclyde schools and go back to giving these free tickets out to the kids and get these Full time players to do something more proactive for the club other than just at kick-off on match day!!

Theres no clear strategy to build a future fan base. It died a death after the McGraw years and the club itself has to stop relying on Mortons community and use the tools they have at there disposal much more proactively and productively imho.

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Kids have been getting in for free/for very little at dozens of clubs up and down the country for decades now. It's practically expected at this point. The community stuff matters far more when it comes to building a lasting relationship.

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6 minutes ago, TRVMP said:

Kids have been getting in for free/for very little at dozens of clubs up and down the country for decades now. It's practically expected at this point. The community stuff matters far more when it comes to building a lasting relationship.

The community trust is really well run and has loads of inroads in the local community with schools, businesses, etc as well as doing well to get external funding.

Their remit isn't really to increase crowds, etc though (although it would be a by product) but it shouldn't be too difficult to bridge the gap between club and community since the groundwork has been done by a related organisation. I'd really hope the club are trying to take advantage of this - maybe a shared resource between the two would help. 

I agree that free tickets isn't really the answer. 

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Good to see the board putting their heads above the parapet a bit. I don't think anyone reasonably expects slick production or carefully coached answers to questions - those things take a lot of time and money. I'm sure everyone involved is putting in a lot of voluntary effort behind the scenes as well. 

 

That said, it would be good to see some examples of what we're trying to do and when we're trying to do it. The fanbase can't expect to see detailed budgets and cashflow reports but I think we should expect a bit of detail on the club's proposals. 

 

There's clearly a budget shortfall to be made up with increased commercial income before we get to break-even, with the government grant providing a cushion. How are we planning to close that gap? The football on show and Gus' contract are valid points for discussion but this shortfall is the thing that will sink our chances of Championship football long-term.

 

 

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As inspiring as the football currently on offer. Fair play to the individuals/fans for putting their head above the parapet but no matter how many buzzwords and promises to do better changes the impression we are a club in danger of drifting down the leagues. As for the notion stability would be achieved by rewarding a manager, who failed the previous season and most fans never wanted, with a new two-year deal! 

It really is not that difficult, stuff the management waffle and start to win matches with the odd bit of entertainment thrown in if you want to increase revenue on all fronts. 

 

Edited by HamCam
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I definitely appreciate the board answering the questions but the proof will be in their actions rather than their words. It was hardly the most inspiring piece of content but I'm not at the alarm bells ringing stage or anything. If they can do what they're planning on better than they can say it on camera then that's fine by me.

I would have liked more specifics in terms of future plans as its been months of the same business jargon with little substance to what they're actually doing to obtain their goals, but again if in 12 months time we are still in the championship with improved attendances, social media and commercial activity then that's what I'll judge them on. 

The only answer that rubbed me the wrong way was Nick's refusal to comment on if we have the finances to fire a manager on a multi year deal. Every experience I've ever had with Nick over the years has been pleasant so it's certainly nothing personal and I can appreciate its a bit of an awkward situation to answer the question publically, but as it was a pertinent financial question regarding the level of funding the club has rather than a footballing decision question I feel MCT members were more than entitled enough to know the answer to that question. 

On a purely footballing side of the debate a lot of the video was regarding increased attendances and commercial income, but there is a 0% chance of that happening while the team is playing such a poor level of football and are barely even scoring goals. I just don't see a world where we can have Gus McPherson in charge for the remainder of his contract and at the same time the board reach the goals they laid out in this video. 

 

 

 

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Good people will do good things, bad people will do bad things, but only with religion do good people do bad things!

 

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2 hours ago, irnbru said:

The community trust is really well run and has loads of inroads in the local community with schools, businesses, etc as well as doing well to get external funding.

Their remit isn't really to increase crowds, etc though (although it would be a by product) but it shouldn't be too difficult to bridge the gap between club and community since the groundwork has been done by a related organisation. I'd really hope the club are trying to take advantage of this - maybe a shared resource between the two would help. 

I agree that free tickets isn't really the answer. 

Yes, to be clear it's not their job, but it's a nice side effect. With both free tickets and community stuff - a lot of kids will take it up, then drift away as they get older, either coz watching football doesn't appeal, or they would rather watch the superstar clubs, or because they just find other things more interesting. But if they have some kind of weekly, active connection to Morton as something bigger than just showing up occasionally to throw bottles at Thistle fans, the chance of hooking them increases. 

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