Morton Club Together Updates

[helensburghton]

32 minutes ago, Jamie_M said:

There was always going to be one that came on with that comment...

 

 

 

...Well it is!   if you are going to make a fake top, at least put the badge on the right side!

 

[StuartTon]

The picture is taken in a mirror…

[Guest capitanus]

On 8/27/2021 at 12:37 PM, StuartTon said:

The picture is taken in a mirror…

Which means it's a reflection of something that looks shoddy as fuck then?

[RealTonKid]

The badge looks squinty af on the home shirt here.

 

[Guest capitanus]

2 hours ago, RealTonKid said:

The badge looks squinty af on the home shirt here.

 

Maybe the badge was trying to escape the anaglypta wallpaper.

[Jamie_M]

15 hours ago, RealTonKid said:

The badge looks squinty af on the home shirt here.

 

The badge has looked squinty to varying degrees on pretty much all fan photos I have seen on twitter.

The fact we have a line of text under the badge on a hooped shirt makes it very noticeable if it's not straight.

[Cappiecat 1.2]

Dear Members,

Updates following defeats aren’t easy. Saturday’s result at Firhill was a tough one to take.

We’d like to apologise for the slight delay in this weekly update, and will aim to have another one to you at the tail end of this week.

Takeover Update

Again, thank you for your patience around the finalised takeover. There’s some progress to update on this week. There’s been discussions between both sides legal teams and it's positive to report that all points in the agreement are settled which means the final draft documents are now being prepared. 

This is a big step forward on our march towards community ownership. 

Squad Building

One of the biggest areas of fan discussion at the moment is around the squad and how it’s shaped up heading into the new season. 

We have previously highlighted our desire for the club to be run in a sustainable way, moving from a club that regularly accrues annual losses to one that breaks even, or indeed, makes a profit. As such, we cannot adopt a cavalier approach to squad building and financial management. The future of the squad is largely seen as one that is smaller than previous seasons, consisting of a strong first team backed up by a competitive contingent of young players. 

A budget was produced and a squad structure was agreed upon with the management team. Members of the incoming club board and the management team are in regular communication, processes that weren’t previously there at the club are now in place and discussions are constantly happening to add to the squad. 

We feel the disappointment of fans, we’re fans too. Signing new players is the most exciting thing that happens outwith being at a match. Gavin Reilly has joined the club on a season-long loan deal from Livingston, and Gus has highlighted that we’re in the market for signings and work continues on making those moves happen. While the transfer window does traditionally close, Scottish Championship clubs are able to sign free agents and domestic loans 

MCT Director Vote

We were in touch earlier this week with information on the prospective new MCT directors, and the details on how to vote ahead of our AGM on the 13th of September. Please check back on that email and consider voting if you haven’t yet done so. It remains open until Thursday 9th September.

Thanks,

MCT Comms Team
 

[port-ton]

Appreciate the update from them but I'm more concerned why Dean decided to leave the leadership team over concerns about the direction MCT is going in. 

Guy travels home and away, runs the forum and hosts a Morton podcast so if he's unhappy with things he's seeing behind the scenes then that's a real red flag for me. 

[Jamie_M]

36 minutes ago, port-ton said:

Appreciate the update from them but I'm more concerned why Dean decided to leave the leadership team over concerns about the direction MCT is going in. 

Guy travels home and away, runs the forum and hosts a Morton podcast so if he's unhappy with things he's seeing behind the scenes then that's a real red flag for me. 

He's not the first of the leadership team to leave citing those sort of reasons either.

[irnbru]

48 minutes ago, port-ton said:

Appreciate the update from them but I'm more concerned why Dean decided to leave the leadership team over concerns about the direction MCT is going in. 

Guy travels home and away, runs the forum and hosts a Morton podcast so if he's unhappy with things he's seeing behind the scenes then that's a real red flag for me. 

Aye, a lot of channels that keep the support up to date, etc that could have been made use of. 

Anyother worry is one of the candidates to be a director has put down communications about tickets, etc as a reason to vote him. Not sure anyone has been happy with that so not a good sign if they think that's been well communicated. 

[port-ton]

22 minutes ago, irnbru said:

Aye, a lot of channels that keep the support up to date, etc that could have been made use of. 

Anyother worry is one of the candidates to be a director has put down communications about tickets, etc as a reason to vote him. Not sure anyone has been happy with that so not a good sign if they think that's been well communicated. 

Yeah he's the one person I decided to not vote for either way for exactly that reason. Nothing against the guy and if he's voted on to the board then I won't have an issue with it but I couldn't in good conscience vote yes for someone who's supposed credentials were the thing I've had the biggest issue with so far with regards to MCT. 

[TRVMP]

Totally understand why they can't go into detail but I'm curious as to why there are still points of agreement that need to be legally settled before continuing. I thought all that was done and dusted, and the sticking points were HMRC and then the shepherd's hut. Given that MCT would be getting all of the ground-related assets, and then farming them out to the third-party company, I'm not sure what could have arisen that required a new set of points needing agreement. Have the goalposts shifted again?

And a nit-pick, because why not: given that this is apparently the work of a comms 'team', could one of them consider proofreading it or running it through Grammarly? It's tinpot as fuck, really badly written and with wee mistakes throughout.

[ChampTon]

I think it's also suggesting we may not see new signings before the window closes. I know this has always been the norm but it's pretty irritating given the current state of the team.

I genuinely wouldn't be surprised that the answer to this would be to save as much money as possible. If we sign these remaining players in June we are owing say 3/4 players an extra two months wages. Let's just say that's £16k over those two months. The club may feel that this is a good area to save money.

[Jamie_M]

11 minutes ago, ChampTon said:

I think it's also suggesting we may not see new signings before the window closes. I know this has always been the norm but it's pretty irritating given the current state of the team.

Aye, Morton fans seeing an update referencing transfers and expecting to read 'we hope to get a few deals over the line before the window closes'. Instead we get 'don't forget, the bins are still accessible even with the window closed'.

[champagnebrianmac]

3 hours ago, port-ton said:

Appreciate the update from them but I'm more concerned why Dean decided to leave the leadership team over concerns about the direction MCT is going in. 

Guy travels home and away, runs the forum and hosts a Morton podcast so if he's unhappy with things he's seeing behind the scenes then that's a real red flag for me. 

Intregue got the better of me today and I decided to have a snoop about at Dean McKinnon's experience and background today. He's been working in football for a decade as well as running the messageboard. I can't see anyone else the MCT Leadership Team with working football knowledge apart from a couple of players from yesteryear. Even if Dean had stayed on board that is an obvious weakness of MCT. Having accountants and lawyers making football decisions is the beginning of the death kneel for the club.

If a guy who works in the industry and spends his spare time running the club messageboard is concerned about the direction of MCT then I think it's time we all started asking some serious questions about the people running our club.

Edited August 30, 2021 by champagnebrianmac

[irnbru]

42 minutes ago, champagnebrianmac said:

Intregue got the better of me today and I decided to have a snoop about at Dean McKinnon's experience and background today. He's been working in football for a decade as well as running the messageboard. I can't see anyone else the MCT Leadership Team with working football knowledge apart from a couple of players from yesteryear. Even if Dean had stayed on board that is an obvious weakness of MCT. Having accountants and lawyers making football decisions is the beginning of the death kneel for the club.

If a guy who works in the industry and spends his spare time running the club messageboard is concerned about the direction of MCT then I think it's time we all started asking some serious questions about the people running our club.

I don't think that's a huge problem in itself as long as you hire the right staff with the right skill set to run the club.

My worry though is that the general manager role seems to be to carry out what the board ask. With the set up we have now, getting an experienced CEO in would probably pay for itself within the season. 

[Madton]

Wonder if MCT regret the decision to buy the club? Directors stepping down, leadership team members moving on, many members pissed off, uncertainty and lengthy delays around the takeover, inexperienced candidates to replace outgoing board members, a general manager who has never worked anywhere near this level before, a good few board/leadership members with marketing experience yet our communications in the main has been feckin awful, too skint to have even a 16 man first team squad by the end of August.

It's been some start lads.

MCT are out of their depth. I hope to feck they can turn it around but I fear the worst.

[Toby]

3 hours ago, Madton said:

Wonder if MCT regret the decision to buy the club? Directors stepping down, leadership team members moving on, many members pissed off, uncertainty and lengthy delays around the takeover, inexperienced candidates to replace outgoing board members, a general manager who has never worked anywhere near this level before, a good few board/leadership members with marketing experience yet our communications in the main has been feckin awful, too skint to have even a 16 man first team squad by the end of August.

It's been some start lads.

MCT are out of their depth. I hope to feck they can turn it around but I fear the worst.

I think Gordon Ritchie in particular, who is the main organ grinder, is too arrogant to regret or even open his eyes to any of his/their failings. Knowing Dean, and knowing how he would go out his way to ask difficult questions, which needed asked, I’d imagine this development is seen by Ritchie as a positive step, as it’ll give them a bit of peace and quiet for a while.

I’m sure most of us know Dean’s not the first to chuck it- Gerry McGeehan was another sad loss, but I don’t suspect he’ll be the last.

You reap what you sow, and Ritchie’s in the process of doing just that.

[Guest capitanus]

3 hours ago, irnbru said:

I don't think that's a huge problem in itself as long as you hire the right staff with the right skill set to run the club.

My worry though is that the general manager role seems to be to carry out what the board ask. With the set up we have now, getting an experienced CEO in would probably pay for itself within the season. 

We had an 'experienced' CEO until recently, remind us how that worked out?

[irnbru]

11 hours ago, Toby said:

I think Gordon Ritchie in particular, who is the main organ grinder, is too arrogant to regret or even open his eyes to any of his/their failings. Knowing Dean, and knowing how he would go out his way to ask difficult questions, which needed asked, I’d imagine this development is seen by Ritchie as a positive step, as it’ll give them a bit of peace and quiet for a while.

I’m sure most of us know Dean’s not the first to chuck it- Gerry McGeehan was another sad loss, but I don’t suspect he’ll be the last.

You reap what you sow, and Ritchie’s in the process of doing just that.

I said it before but I think one of the biggest failings is that they haven't actually structured it to be fan run and it's a bit of a closed shop. Since the start the message could have been closer to "its our club" or something and a real push on the message of how to be actively involved or change things if you didn't like it rather than simply being a member.

It would have helped the organisation too and taken some heat off but, without really knowing the individuals, arrogance was a word I used on a group chat the other day too. 

9 hours ago, capitanus said:

We had an 'experienced' CEO until recently, remind us how that worked out?

Suppose the caveat there should be a good one! My worry is that it's really the blind leading the blind and no one at the club has any idea of how to run a football club. 

Maybe even a consultant would help but their football advisors listed haven't been involved in the game for years or the running of clubs and seem to be figureheads more than anything. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by irnbru