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  1. Irnbru your bitterness towards MCT knows no bounds. You had your day - move on. Just to add I am not a member of MCT. I responded to the shareholder AGM e-mail, was sent a link and had no problem joining the meeting. My two boys also got send the e-mail but were not able to participate. The issue with some stakeholders missing out however requires to be urgently addressed. Gordon Ritchie appears to be the point of contact and I would hound him to get it resolved. As for the AGM, I am sure when one of the volunteers has a moment they will provide a proper summary. In the meantime my take on it as follows: - The loss in 2021/22 was concerning/alarming but has to a great extent been addressed after MCT took over. The feeling was historically costs were not as closely monitored when people assumed there was always a sugar daddy down the line to bail the club out. - This years accounts, when they are published (after the year-end in May) will show a healthy profit largely due to the cup game with Celtic bringing in over £200k. Even without this 'windfall' the Board are confident the club would break even. - Recent sponsorship deals are crucial to the financial balancing act. If I picked it up correctly, the main sponsor Dalrada provided a 12 month package with the option for a further 5 years. Dalrada require the club to share in their ambition for GMFC to succeed and the Board are optimistic/positive Dalrada will take up the option to exercise the option to extend sponsorship at the end of this season. - The majority of the new sponsorship monies has all gone to the manager to improve the squad hence the additions, contract extensions and loanees in January. - All players contracts have been reviewed updating from a template someone found on the internet to a more bespoke arrangement reflecting the modern world of football. - The Board are aware with success other clubs could come in for the manager and players. The Board have tried their best to protect the Club but accept if the money is right they will not stand in the way of an individual looking to better themselves. It is a difficult balancing act protecting the 'assets' without handing out lengthy and onerous contracts to players who maybe do not ultimately fulfil their potential (my words not the Board). - For the first time I heard people explicitly stating the ambition is not just survival in the league but promotion. Realistically recent results have made a title win more difficult but we should be targeting a play-off place. - Average gates are slowly increasing. - The ongoing ticket and entry farce at Cappielow was fully acknowledged. No quick solution this season but the proposed arrangements in the future should hopefully resolve the issue. - Proposals in hand to improve the fan experience and tidy up Cappielow. The Board are looking at the options for the parcel of land they acquired to do something similar to what Ayr provide in their car park. I believe it is a mix of something for the fans on the ground floor and offices above. - Importantly the proposals to replaces the 'Articles' were passed with only one minor amendment requiring (not optional) the Board to hold an AGM. - The three Board members, in attendance, highlighted they would encourage any fan to come forward for election to the Board if they believe they have something to offer. The Club is now 'ours' and it is up to us to ensure it not just survives but moves forward. I am sure there are aspects of the AGM I have omitted but hopefully the above is an accurate recollection of the main points I recollect.
    20 points
  2. They send out monthly updates. I just pulled up the last one from the 16th. Here's a brief summary: Over 1,000 active members for the first time. Clear indication that they want to keep growing. Only a few cancellations even though we're in tough financial times. Statement of gratitude for all members old and new. Brian Bonar and Dalrada noted the large membership when deciding to come on board. Review of the last Volunteer Day with lewis McGrattan. Soliciting more volunteers for the future. Setting up an event for potential volunteers to learn more. Club has sold over 1,000 season tickets. Call to action to get an ST through Fanbase. Call to action for Viaplay Cup tickets and the upcoming hospitality offer for the Edinburgh game. This is the MCT newsletter, remember: MCT owns the club but does not formally direct or manage it, rather they (or rather we) nominate candidates who may then join the board of Greenock Morton FC Ltd. So what have Morton FC themselves been up to? Let's look at their latest communication - bear in mind this is weekly, rather than monthly: Ticket info for the game at County Ticket and hospitality info for the Edinburgh game Interview with Jack Bearne Call to action to get Fanbase to buy tickets Now, admittedly this is a bit thin, but again, it's weekly. Notice that one of the four items was an interview with a new signing, something the knicker-wetters think we'll never see again since we're apparently broke and the manager's chucked it. Meanwhile on the official site there's hospitality packages on sale for the league openers, a new announcement on subsidized season tickets for Morton in the Community (including an anonymous donation of over 3 grand - very nice, whoever did that). I'm not saying this is as good as it's ever going to be or there aren't little marginal improvements to be made, but people who think the club needs to stop the current plan and momentum to address a supposed recruitment crisis are hugely overreacting. We're in better financial shape than we've been in many a year, no debt hanging over us, we have almost a full squad in late July with at least one more reinforcement to come... what am I missing here? What's the lack of planning? What's the lack of updates? From what I can see both MCT and Morton are doing a good job of fulfilling their respective remits, and telling people about it.
    17 points
  3. I do. There’s a precedent being set here- Queen’s Park have serious ambitions about playing Premiership football and taking advantage of the rewards that entails, as do Morton. Morton have a capacity of around 11,500, which would probably be reduced to around 9,000 for a televised game, whilst Queen’s Park’s ground (if it is ever completed) will stand to have a capacity of around 2,000. By setting the precedent of allowing them to use a neighbouring ground that doesn’t belong to them, a whole new set of revenue streams is opening up to Queen’s Park that isn’t available to clubs such as Morton, Ayr United or Raith Rovers. We’re past the stage of blaming COVID for any delays in the opening of Lesser Hampden now- it’s been a shit show from start to finish and it’s down to Queen’s Park to deal with it, not for the SFA/SPFL to reward them with the opportunity to bring in massive crowds when clubs like ourselves are a restricted to what we’ve got. When Queen’s Park last played Rangers in league fixtures at Hampden, the attendances were 30,117 and 11,492 for Third Division games. That would be something like eleven times what they could bring in if they used the capacity they’d built for. This would be rewarding the folly of the Queen’s Park board for failing to get their house in order, and indirectly punishing their peers. Fuck them- they’ve made their bed, they should lie in it.
    17 points
  4. Since 2012, Rangers have put the names of every single person who put their hand in their pocket to save their club on every kit.
    17 points
  5. This is starting to get on my tits. Some fucking random make a stupid statement and all of a sudden it's fact. Fuck off. If Imrie leaves to go to Hamilton then so be it but until such times as he, or the club confirm it, can we please treat it as the pish it is. I see on Twitter the Morton fan's page demanding clarification on the rumours. Get fucked. If we're now insisting that every piece of shit rumour is addressed by the club we're going to need a full time shite shoveller. No rumours ever emerged that Gus McPherson was going to take over at Tinpot FC or Arse Biscuit United because he was a complete fucking charlatan. Dougie has done a good job but we finished below Hamilton so why on earth would they pay their manager 2 years compensation plus whatever Morton were entitled to?
    17 points
  6. The board really have to take a lot of credit. I can’t help but admire how they quietly get on with things behind the scenes when rumours are flying around to the contrary. There were a lot of folk convinced Grimshaw was away whilst they kept their counsel, and if we’re all being brutally honest, we’d have been delighted with just the one contract extension, never mind three. After all the rumours about Ambrose being suspended and seeing how well the club handled that, I had a suspicion they would be working away to get things sorted without reacting to press and social media gossip. There will be times that we lose out on guys who are out of contract, but it won’t be for the lack of trying to get them tied down and doing it without spending money they don’t have. It was only two years ago we made no signings in January, then brought in Justin Johnson, Kaziah Sterling and Jamie Butler after the window closed as we were battling relegation. The turnaround in the club in that time is absolutely wild.
    16 points
  7. The other spin off is that it allows the fans to identify a bit more with the players. The only positive impression I had about any of them was from a couple of pals that are also mates with Lewis Strapp. Other than that my impression a couple of months ago came from Lithgow and Muirhead cupping their ears to us. It’s not terribly important to a miserable old bastard like myself, but I think it can only be a good thing if it’s allowing younger fans to identify with their personalities and to see them having a laugh. I’ve never actually seen him name checked on the progress in terms of social media interaction, so it’s about time the lad Gareth got a well deserved pat on the back for his hard work. Also really pleasing to see Open Goal turning up at Cappielow today- again, not my favourites, but they’ve got a bloody big following, so a bit of nationwide exposure can only be a good thing.
    16 points
  8. I've tidied the thread up, with the main perpetrator now restricted to only posting in General Nonsense to avoid every match thread descending into the same bin fire.
    15 points
  9. It's a bit more difficult to put the finger on than with Falkirk- there are specific incidents and behaviours I can point to with that horrible lot, but with Partick it's not quite as obvious, although they really are an odious club. I hate to use current custodians of a club when describing my feelings towards that club as in most instances they're merely passing through, be it for 10 months or 10 years, but Ian McCall really is the prick's prick. Their behaviour after their completely justified relegation in 2020 was despicable, and he continued his snide underhand digs at Murdo McLennan and the SPFL when he appeared on Off the Ball the other week. I couldn't possibly have statistics to hand, but Partick seem to have their viewpoint represented in the media (particularly BBC Scotland) more than any other club out with the big five clubs. Had we been shite enough to be in tenth place when the season was called, I can't imagine for a second we'd have received anything like the sympathy they got. The whining about "only" getting a £150,000 grant when Championship teams got half a million was another belter. If they weren't crap, they wouldn't have gone down, deal with it. And banning the SPFL from attending their poxy little title presentation on a weekday morning last summer so they could have their own wee party and play the victim right to the end was Rangerseque behaviour if ever I'd seen it. Cunts. Speaking of Rangers, this is a club who, at a time they marketed themselves as the "One Team In Glasgow" complained that the SPFL "only" gave them one pre-split home game each against Rangers and Celtic in 2016-17. If they're the "One Team In Glasgow", why would an extra fixture against one of those two clubs be so important to them? The reality is, that the whole reason for their existence is not that they are Partick Thistle, it's that they're not Rangers or Celtic. They don't really represent a community, they're merely there for weird eccentrics, and to oppose everything Rangers and Celtic stand for. What a shite reason for being. Which brings me nicely onto my next point. The one thing they're there to do, they do it dreadfully. "Hullo, Hullo; how do you do? We hate the boys in royal blue; We hate the boys in white and green; So fuck the pope and fuck the queen." We've been over this many times in the past on here, but I've made my opinion on this little ditty perfectly clear every time. Hypocrisy at it's finest, and passed off as humour by a fanbase that get's away with it as they brand themselves as "Glasgow's Great Alternative". Nah, they're fucking scum, just like the other two. I absolute despise their fanbase with a passion, and a few of the Twitter freaks in particular. That lad trying to compare them to the "Arbroath fairytale" last season stank of a toddler crying for the attention of a parent who's trying to deal with the newborn baby brother or sister. Grow up. That guy from Greenock that always seems to try to engage with Morton fans on Twitter is another tosser, and I can think of two others who I won't dignify by alluding to their nonsense. Remember partickthistlelad on here a few years ago that used to come on and try to be pals and preach respect at us? Do one. Stupid gimmicks like that with the strip, and that Kingsley character obviously work well for them and I suppose and you can't begrudge a club doing something that maximises their revenue, but it really is grating. There was a time about 10-12 years ago I was quite annoyed with a lot of Morton fans for taking up their hospitality off for a Friday night game between the clubs (we took a 0-5 doing that night), with Partick coining in a good few quid from our fans when they could've quite easily gone to Morton's hospitality on another day. A few folk weren't happy with my pointing that out, but I'd like to think most of our fans see through their minging lot nowadays, or at least the ones who I speak to. They get my gate money and that's it. No pies, not programmes, nothing. Bare minimum, and I'd urge everyone else to do the same. The only two clubs I apply that rule for are them and Falkirk. Firhill- First of all, it's an absolute shitehole, We know Cappielow, and particularly the stand, isn't great, and away fans often complain about it. But every club provides away fans with some form of seating. They get no worse than our home fans get in the stand, but with 8,000ish seats between the Jackie Husband and the stand behind the goal, deliberately choose to put all away fans in the shitiest part of the ground, in spite of the available alternatives. And let's talk about that stand- is it possible to even take a shite in there? What happens if there's a fire? How on Earth do you get onto the pitch? The place is bogging, and even worse than our main stand in my opinion. How it gets a safety certificate is beyond me. And that bloody pitch. They managed to use that as an excuse for not lasting the pace in the title race last season, having coined in money from Queen's Park, and having had their fingers burnt by letting it out to Glasgow Warriors a decade previous. And why did Morton and Hamilton Accies, for example, two teams who managed to HOUND them on that bog in the second half of last season, cope with that tattie field? Was it perhaps that Partick weren't actually very good, rather than the pitch taking them down to their opponents' level? There have of course been other thoroughly odious individuals associated with their rotten club- most recently Richard Foster got on my tits, but guys such as Derek Johnstone, Bertie Auld, Adam Strachan, Chic Charnley and Gerry Collins spring immediately to mind. Arseholes to a man. Did anyone find McCall's "dugmeat" comment funny last season? If Billy Brown or Gary Naismith said something like that, there's no way they'd get that sort of reaction from the media. It wasn't funny at all. I saw a Dundee United fan on P&B today describing them as try hards- nail firmly on the head. They're a bogging wee club, get them in the bin.
    15 points
  10. An utterly appalling afternoon in just about every way. I'm sick of being told how great Alan Power is when he's giving away soft goals like that first one and Brian Graham's at Firhill the other week. Same applies to Broadfoot- we've really got to look at lowering the average age of the squad in the summer- relying on guys who simply don't have any pace has been our Achilles heel all season. The downgrade that Waters is on Strapp has also been stark. He's like a 12 year old playing in an under 18's game. Three touches to control the ball and by that point the best pressing team in the division are all over him like a rash. I'll not even start on French on the other side. Ross's post above says more than any diatribe from me could. Quitongo was good- but we're too far down the road now to be giving him a new contract so he can sit on the treatment table all next season, that ship's sailed. Even the shite nature of our goal summed up how crap an afternoon it was. And last, but most certainly not least- absolutely disgusting to hear some racist fuckwit screaming not once, but twice, when Todorov was announced as man of the match over the tannoy that he was a "fucking refugee". I suppose I'm at fault like everyone else for not challenging him at the time, but having done that all the way back in 2006 when some wanker gave Marvin Andrews some of the same and having my ankles clipped walking out of grounds for a year or two afterwards I vowed I never would again, and don't blame anyone else for not wanting the hassle. But it can't go without comment. Hope the insufferable prick is proud of himself- or more to the point, I hope he's absolutely shiting himself if the club take a look at this forum and investigate. Dickhead.
    14 points
  11. That was absolutely immense. Dunfermline were abysmal and McPake is an appalling manager, but so much of how poor they were was down to us making them look bad. The pressing killed them with Wilson, Crawford and Oakley utterly dominating the game, but every single player in a Morton shirt was excellent today. The second half in particular was just ridiculously good, Blues had a spell where he turned into Iniesta and created a tremendous chance every single time he touched the ball. If that had been 7 or 8 it would have been a fair reflection of the game. We are firmly in the driving seat for the playoffs now. We will inevitably lose a game at some point and we'll see how the team respond when it happens, but the way they're playing there's really no reason to doubt their ability to respond to a setback. I will be stunned if I ever see a better Morton manager than Dougie Imrie. The job he's doing is fucking ridiculous.
    14 points
  12. Previous, gutless, loser managers - see Gus 'slaphead' McPherson, James Grady, Jonatan Johansson or Raymond 'Ray' McKinnon - would be looking for a lap of honour and an end of the ground named after them for achieving such a margin of result with pishy wee Morton in second tier Scottish football. In stark contrast, an ambitious and highly competent manager calls out performance levels, when he knows that the underlying confidence level in the squad is strong enough to respond effectively. While on the longest unbeaten streak at this level since the 1980s. The contrast between a real fucking manager with goals and standards to the parade of imposters we have had previously couldn't be more stark right now. Long may it continue. That said, the club needs to take note of the key attributes that took Imrie over the top in the selection process, for when the inevitable happens and Sir Douglas moves to a (potentially much) higher level. If he had the player CV of 'Scott Brown, football manager - 'ambitious' club' then he'd already be the Hibs or Aberdeen manager.
    13 points
  13. Where to begin with that utter horseshite? The most obvious fail: 1) The Celtic game. This was already accounted for in last season's budget - including the addition of new players at that time, and the club recording a profit for the second time this century. You don't get to count that revenue again this season - that's not how finance works. Ditto the Dalrada investment - only ongoing funding and sponsorship contribute to this season's budget. 2) You point to improvements on the revenue side without even once considering the other side of the coin: an inflationary environment where costs have risen by 10% across the board - and likely much higher for utilities. Simply retaining existing squad players increases costs for the club: they will quite rightly want an increase in their wages based on performance as well as their own bills to pay. The club's balance of income to outgoings is a constantly moving target - the costs do not magically stay the same from one season to the next, least of all right now. 3) 'Back the manager or lose him'. Utter nonsense - the reality is that the club will lose the manager regardless because he is a young, ambitious and clearly effective coach. Imrie is under contract for the foreseeable future though and signed up under conditions that were far more difficult than right now. While Imrie has every right to fight for the needs of the first team squad, we need to ensure that there will be a club years and decades after the current or any other manager has gone - that's the primary goal that GMFC has to ensure, every single year. Which leads us to the logical black hole in your foot-stomping tantrum: what is your causal explanation for the current budget stand-off? Do you believe that the GMFC board are squirrelling money away in illicit offshore accounts? Are they asset strippers looking to run the club into the ground? Why else are they withholding funds that you and others insist are definitely just sitting around waiting to be used on wunderkinds like 'Frankie Deane'?
    13 points
  14. Great, isn’t it? I couldn’t have imagined when walking out of the ground that glorious day in April 2019 just how things would have gone from bad to so much worse for them to the extent that they’re realistically looking at a fourth year in that division, with another monied club coming up from League Two and ready to storm past them towards next year’s title. Even when you consider how much of a shit show we’ve been for most of those intervening years, the Falkirk soap opera’s been fantastic viewing to soften the blow. There’s always someone worse off than yourself, and I for one couldn’t have cherry picked a bigger shower of bastards for that fate to befall. Get it up them.
    13 points
  15. Kafka's head would be spinning at this. You're arguing that these proposals are designed to 'shield the stadium from creditors' when they consist of either the stadium being used as security for a debt to a creditor, or just directly giving the stadium to a creditor. Why are you utterly convinced that Golden Casket only have good intentions towards the club and can be viewed as a neutral or even benevolent third party protecting us from malicious ones? They are the creditor that the stadium needs to be shielded from.
    13 points
  16. Tedious dirge, but fair play to Dunning for not being bored into submission.
    12 points
  17. In case you missed it, Hearts are third in the Premiership, beat the champions last weekend, have in their possession the country's top goalscorer (whom we managed very well), and while we did indeed have a positive spell at the start of the second period, that was game management on their part, knowing they had reinforcements for the closing stages when we would - without any bench options - inevitably tire. Their goal was a counterattack and if you go all-out after that there's only going to be one ending: they throw people forward to catch the out-balls and you're screwed. It's just nasty to say Imrie doesn't trust the guys he's signed or whom he chooses to put on the bench. Again, this is the third-best team in the country. He's set our guys - who are a mix of good Championship players, former top flight players at the end of their careers, and youths - out with a plan, and throwing warm bodies at a plan for the sake of doing so is bad for all concerned. With no forwards on the bench, whom would you have put on with five minutes to go to hold the ball up against Sibbick and whoever the other one was at center-back? Was it: Jack Bearne, a winger Lewis McGrattan, a winger and midfielder Michael Garrity, a midfielder (and a diminutive one at that) or Sam Murdoch, a goalkeeper? Remember, everyone was saying Broadfoot was done since he was playing at LL level, and Imrie has - with some admitted road bumps along the way - got both him and Power playing well. Shankland was left in no doubt whom he was up against tonight and said as much in his post-match interview. Will Broadfoot get any recognition for that - again, Shankland is the best striker in the country right now, and will probably go to the Euros? Or will he just get slated for not scoring a last-minute equalizer? In a game where we'd been on the back foot for the majority, except early in the second half, Broadfoot did an admirable job keeping them to relatively few open chances. He deserves credit for this - and so does Imrie for signing and playing him! Long story short: if Imrie didn't trust Bearne he wouldn't be here, and if he didn't trust McGrattan and Garrity they wouldn't be getting minutes at all. Instead Bearne was signed and the latter two have played plenty, considering their ages. McGrattan has appeared in the vast majority of games this season, and Garrity (two years younger) is being carefully bedded in. They're getting an appropriate amount of football for the time in their careers and this is particularly true when you're up against, again, the third-best team in the country and a legendary Scottish goalkeeper who despite his age deserves to go to the Euros this summer. Leaving aside certain attention-seeking fuds (I do not count you as one of these) there really does seem to be this idea that Imrie's somehow throwing away wins by refusing to "trust" young players. It's absolutely idiotic. What Imrie knows, as a guy who came relatively late to the senior game, is that sometimes experience is what's needed. Just look at Queen's Park: they thought they could play a bunch of youngsters and have them play it out from the back, and that ended up with relegation form. Now they have a couple of old heads and they look fine, and the young players they have will be better for the experience. It's just not the case that you can go up against Hearts and throw the kids at them and come away with a better outcome than we had tonight, and people need to stop acting as though Imrie's sandbagging us by refusing to make Logan O'Boy captain. tl;dr: Scottish fans' fetish for putting the kids on is stupid. It's not borne out by the stats or simply by facing the right way at games. Imrie did nothing wrong. We held out own against a team that will send at the very least two players to the Euros in summer and will play in Europe next year, and we did it without our most vital player. There is absolutely zero scope to criticize Imrie for this game and everyone who does so should be hanged in real life.
    12 points
  18. It’s such a tiny thing but was really pleased to see this pop up on my phone when I got home from Kelty - we really have got our act together now. Working with Fanbase has been a great decision from the club and has made it much easier to get tickets home and away.
    12 points
  19. Imrie having a go at Lyon in the tele for his comments about leaving through the back door last week. Says although the information wasn't released, Lyon actually left the club in January and got a good payoff to pursue another career and went to Annan again because he could only play for us or them this season. Also says multiple managers gave him a chance and if he looks himself in the mirror and asks himself if he did enough to play for Greenock Morton then deep down he will know the answer. You come at the king then you better not miss
    12 points
  20. Never thought I'd be saying this but as soon as I clear some personal debts I'll be signing up. I had little faith in the fan ownership model but MCT are proving me wrong after an indifferent start. Well done to all involved.
    12 points
  21. Not too hard to spot the subtext of "Billy Dodds is a bellend" there.
    12 points
  22. 12 points
  23. Their capitulation as a club is nothing short of magnificent. Truly magnificent. Horrible, horrible bastards.
    12 points
  24. I’m surprised to see no mention of the decision not to appoint a chairman to the board, but to take turns in who has the deciding vote at boardroom level- what an absolute farce. I’ve made it clear in the last few months that I’m concerned about the lack of accountability in the running of the club, and this policy goes no way in easing those concerns. A display of leadership and a preparation to be held individually accountable when things go to shit would go some way to easing those concerns, but am I surprised by the musical chairs policy? Nope, not in the slightest. This strikes me as the board operating a protection racket to look after themselves. The younger guys have something nice for a CV and the old guard can tell their acquaintances up the golf club/bowling club/lodge that they’re the director of a football club to impress them, whilst not actually having to face up to the rank and file- unless of course the questions are collated and vetted by the SLO, and the tricky ones filed away in the nearest bin. It is of course no surprise that the person I believe to be the main organ grinder; Mr. Ritchie, was nowhere to be seen on the video- the cynic in me would suggest a Warren Hawke-style holiday or sickie from him when the club’s AGM comes around. We’re more likely to see Lord Lucan crossing into the box for Maddie McCann to head in the winner at Hampden in May than we are to get answers off of him. There’s been a lot of hilarity about the farcical events at Falkirk’s Q&A the other week, but let’s not kid ourselves, Morton’s current board simply would not put themselves in the position to be lambasted by their support the way the Falkirk lot did. Yes, they came out of it looking foolish, but at the moment, our own board are coming across as self-serving cowards who aren’t prepared to take the rough with the smooth. I’m not sure what’s worse.
    12 points
  25. To answer Piehutt’s point about my labelling of Gordon Ritchie as arrogant, I’m not going to kid on I’m not privy to the odd wee titbit of information from mates, but it’s up to them to share it with the wider public if they feel the need to. That said, I’ve already alluded on this thread to what I believe to be his quite appalling treatment of Christopher Dodds at Montrose in May, when he apparently threatened to withdraw all his media privileges as a result of Christopher’s criticisms of Captain Calamity Sean McGinty the previous week. On a number of levels, this is just wrong. There’s been a big story about Rangers charging the media £25,000 a season for access and how this is their way of controlling negative output. I fail to see a difference here, other than scale. Do we really want to see the Tele being forced into avoiding criticism for fear of being banned? I’m sorry, but unlike the Rangers support, who seem to see criticism as a personal slight, rather than necessary on occasion, I want to see my club taken to task when things go wrong. It also begs the question as to whether Roger Graham or Jonathan Mitchell, two experienced journalists who had built up a bit of currency in their roles would have been treated in such a way. If not, I’d suggest this behaviour is tantamount to the bullying of a young boy at the early stages of his career, and is quite frankly shameful. I didn’t like a lot of things that the Raes did in their twenty years at the helm, and made my opinions known at the time. But ultimately, it was their club and if I wasn’t happy, nobody was forcing me to support the club. A fan owned club though, should in my opinion hold itself to higher standards as they are responsible to every one of their members and supporters- the people whose money has put them in the position they occupy. I was a bit late to the party when joining MCT as I initially had my misgivings, but I certainly don’t recall being asked to vote for Gordon Ritchie. Others may have been, before I joined up, but in the spirit of democracy, I’d urge everyone to ensure he’s not given another spell in office at either MCT or Morton themselves.
    12 points
  26. Cadden scores hat-trick for Forest Green but best of all Bombscare McGintys' og fucks up Hopkins weekend.
    12 points
  27. Before getting into the lengthy wrongs and wrongs of this on GC's part, on a simple matter of fact, why are they talking about £2M being the figure of debt? As I understood it the debt was £2.5M when MCT first entered into the agreement for a 15% stake, we've since had £1M of debt written off, and each time a further £100K is delivered a further £500K will be written off? Either £1M of debt was never written off, in which case we were lied to, or it was but the club has somehow been run at such a colossal loss (with GC covering the shortfall) over the time since MCT first made the debt cancellation agreement that the debt has stood still. In essence, we're being asked to believe the club has made a loss of half of million pounds since June 2019. Having also been handed that same sum in taxpayer's money for free in the last two months, in practical terms that's saying we've been operating at a one million pound loss in a little over 18 months. Unless Hopkin actually had the biggest budget since McInally was in charge or something, how the fuck could that have happened? We've all been over the very few pros and very many cons of Option 1 before. Once the stadium is out of the hands of the club then, unless it was some sort of legally watertight let to buy arrangement where after X number of years and/or Y number of pounds the stadium passes to the club, we're never getting it back. With Option 2, at least the stadium is remaining in the club's hands rather than directly disappearing with the asset strippers. They could dig their heels in and refuse to give the stadium back forever no matter how much money is dangled in front of them, they can’t do that if we ever managed to raise the money to pay off the debt. The problem is that the debt is a realistically unpayable amount and hangs over us anyway just as having no assets would hang over us, while without any expertise I imagine it's a hell of a lot more difficult to get some kind of agreement that binds GC to never fucking GMFC over when it comes to a debt than it is with a lease agreement. You could feasibly lock in 99 years or something of a peppercorn rent, can you do that with no one calling a debt in? With a security over Cappielow guaranteeing that debt, we ultimately find ourselves at risk of the stadium ending up back in their hands anyway. They are effectively valuing the stadium alone at £2 million. We're eating the same shit sandwich of having no real security whatsoever while being at the mercy of people who've never shown any sign of having the club's best interests at heart. They are actively trying to hand the club over in a worse position than it was in on day one of their ownership 20 years ago. Which brings us to the faith Golden Casket are negotiating in here. While it's not ideal and they'd be seriously pushing their luck with it, if it came to it I could just about bring myself to tolerate a deal that sees them take the car park. I want that to stay with the club as well and think they have no right to waltz off with any assets, but if they're determined to play hardball then grudgingly allowing them that one asset is a trade off that could be worth making in return for a debt free club with full ownership of the stadium itself. Their idea of a compromise over Cappielow though? Okay, have the stadium but in return you still owe us the full amount of debt, which is somehow still over £2M despite us having supposedly cancelled £1M. Oh and we're still doing a runner with this other asset as well. That's absolutely outrageous and there's no doubt they know it. They are utterly shameless, you couldn't mark their necks with a blowtorch. They'll be extremely relieved that fans aren't allowed just now, this is well past the point where they'd be met with a smattering of discontented sack the board chants from the Cowshed. Their own reprehensible conduct has taken things well past that point and they know it. They should be hounded out of this club with nothing.
    12 points
  28. Well this statement is not ageing particularly well, given that in spite of receiving a £500k taxpayer's grant for literally fuck-all, the current custodians of GMFC have in the following six weeks: - not replaced the manager - not replaced the overall coaching staff like for like - not replaced the goalkeeper coach - not signed a backup goalkeeper - not signed any cunt else - now have a vacant chief executive post All in all, GMFC have now achieved the six staff cuts that they were looking for in January. So what specifically makes this 'run a stupid wee barebones outfit until we strip the assets' exercise incomparable to Hugh Scott's tenure?
    12 points
  29. He hasn’t, he’s moved to Dundee.
    12 points
  30. 0-5. One more goal from us and they'll be able to count them on one hand
    11 points
  31. I’ve just pulled five examples from this thread that contradict what you’re saying, and haven’t looked across any other social media platforms, where I’m pretty sure I’d find a few more. At which point are you going to accept that your interpretation of what happened yesterday appears fanciful at best? Your point about fans being realistic and turning up so close to kick off doesn’t cut it when we’re talking about fans turning up a full 15-20 minutes before the game starts. At £22 a skull, or as part of a £300-odd season ticket which about a third of that crowd committed to months ago, and with the third-lowest average crowds in the division, Morton aren’t in the position to be telling folk to take an extra half hour out of their leisure time to make things easier for the club, and they’re certainly not in the position to come onto social media after the match and blame the folk who so generously put their hands in their pockets to support them. I entered the ground at 2.30 yesterday- quite deliberately as I anticipated a shit show at the turnstiles and it still took me five minutes to get in, but with so many accounts from different folk differing from yours, the only conclusion that an objective observer can come to is that you’re talking shite. I don’t understand whether you see this as playing devil’s advocate, or are sticking up for your old pal Hawke (who doesn’t, and never did give a shiny shite about anything you had to say at any point in the past, never mind now), but given that this has happened every time we’ve had a relatively big game since 2017, there has to be a point that even you will concede that drastic action needs to be taken, here. For a club that is so dependant on folk turning up at the gates, this simply can’t go on, and your stance on this isn’t just unhelpful, it is in fact damaging to the club to take onboard such stances if they wish to find a resolution to this.
    11 points
  32. You really need to dry your eyes on this. Retro shirts are rarely, if ever, exact replicas of the originals. Mine haven’t arrived yet, but having seen Dean’s on Saturday, if you’re going to complain about the poor printed quality, the badge is the same quality as the one I had in the nineties. What do you want? Quality or accuracy? You can’t have both. Maybe you feel you’ve got neither but the quality is definitely consistent with the shirts of the time. Stamping your feet and demanding a refund over tiny little inaccuracies is pathetic.
    11 points
  33. It's still crazy to me that we're a couple of years into fan ownership, the club has proved itself sustainable (via not making an annual loss) for just the second or third time post-Hugh Scott, we had a good run in the league with a small squad, the club owners have got the fans back onside and have secured vital sponsorship at a time when a lot of firms are tightening their belts... and it's once again panic stations in July. edit: and they took a gamble on Imrie, which paid off due to Imrie's hard work and demands for excellence, and each repaid their faith in the other with a contract extension that keeps an excellent young coach with us for the forseeable future! But apparently We Need A Statement because Imrie, well-known for being such a shrinking violet who wouldn't harm a fly to get his point across, is itching to improve the squad.
    11 points
  34. They’re fucking insufferable anyway.
    11 points
  35. I'd like to petition the moderators to add this as an emoji:
    11 points
  36. I know MCT have spoken about their links with other fan organisations before and how the sharing of expertise can be beneficial, FOH being one of them. I don't doubt that building and maintaining relationships like these can be useful, especially so when MCT were first starting out and advice from organisations who'd already successfully handled a fan takeover would have been invaluable, but I hope that generally they're discerning about who they should build links with and remember that ultimately these organisations are also running competitors to the club. I note that Falkirk have also got a fan subscription scheme up and running, Falkirk Supporters' Society, planning to build up to a 26% stake, and have had over 200 fans sign up. I also noted that in an online discussion around increasing membership one of their appointed spokesmen stated that "fucking Morton" have managed to have over 850 members. I'd hope that, even aside from the obvious that it's Falkirk, that kind of condescension would ensure MCT wouldn't give such an organisation the steam off their pish if they were to come looking for a working relationship.
    11 points
  37. Will MCT be tolerating discussion of a club employee whose clownshoes decision-making will get us relegated the season anytime soon? I'd like full disclosure on how the decision to offer a two year deal was arrived at, so that I know who to blacklist for all future MCT elections to the board. And we should also turn our attention to those on the GMFC board, whose track record in decision-making that affects the first team has been utterly disastrous. If fan ownership is to mean anything, it means accountability for the decisions made by representatives.
    11 points
  38. I don't think this really addresses the problems most people have (which the update seems to partially attempt to do). MCT is the conduit to the club for its members. The people running things at the club need to be visible and accountable to these members as they wouldn't be there without them. It doesn't really matter if they are on both boards or not so I don't think there's any confusion as the update suggests. The fact there is a crossover actually makes it a bit worse for me though. Most members haven't heard a word from the people who've been on both boards (apart from a few snippets from Graham Barr) so there should 100% be more transparency here as there is (or was) a direct link from MCT member to these MCT board members through the MCT channels. The obvious example is that Gordon seems to be the main decision maker and is running things at the club (which is a privilege he only has because of the members) but has been totally anonymous and the impression most have (rightly or wrongly) is he doesn't take on any accountability. This is a direct result of a lack of transparency and might not actually be the case. Like it or not, the main thing for members is how the club is run and not how MCT itself is. The relationship between the two separate bodies and how fans get involved and updated needs to be the focus, not who's on the MCT board doing marketing, etc. Even if over time it is the case that the club is more at arms length from MCT, when the mood amongst the fans isn't good there's no excuse for MCT not being proactive in addressing concerns with the club and relaying these back to fans asap. There's clearly some unrest now with significant concerns being raised over a few months (using here and Twitter as a guage). An SLO led Q&A wouldn't have been needed as much if MCT were proactively updating on what's happening at the club and there was more transparency across the board. As it stands, the impression most people have is that the board members have free reign with no accountability and there's no acknowledgement that they're in that position because of the MCT membership. Edit to add - the updates are appreciated and the last paragraph might be a frustration the MCT board share so are essentially caught in the crossfire and taking the flak (I obviously wouldn't expect an answer on that from an individual!).
    11 points
  39. Ordered an Uber today and my driver was none other than Andy McLaren. Good to see him looking happy and healthy.
    11 points
  40. Germany vs Scotland | Cappielow Kickoff - Greenock Morton FC (gmfc.net) Absolutely brilliant work from the club here. Great value for money with the £20 including your first beer of the night, a glass & some grub. Great to see the club working to generate some revenue by making use of facilities during the close season while taking advantage of the buzz around the Euros. I am very much looking forward to watching this match in the company of fellow ton fans!
    10 points
  41. No, not the one where he sworded Celtic in their own midden, the other one where he made his triumphant return to Cappielow to help make Gus McFuckingPherson a distant memory. It's been some 2 years. Wild that he's the 8th longest serving manager in the SPFL at present. No bad for your first gig. Things haven't gone as smoothly this year but we seem to have turned the corner and can hopefully kick on. Here's to the next 2.
    10 points
  42. The absolute thundercunt that is Brian Graham scores an own goal to put hearts 1 up against the student bastards lol
    10 points
  43. Thankfully, as well as announcing the signing for us, Hamilton have also been getting him up to speed by letting him train there for months and playing him in bounce games, to no reward of their own. The biggest example of a Nigerian taking advantage of Hamilton since the one that phoned them and emptied their bank account.
    10 points
  44. Proof if needed why fan owned isn't fan run. If you want Morton to make money off their facilties then you can't have a caveat that it's only fine as long as it's not people you don't like. The club aren't going to run a survey before every booking. People are actively generating bad publicity for the club to pursue personal agendas.
    10 points
  45. 10th (TENTH) league defeat for the hapless 'Bairns' today - turned over effortlessly by crack outfit 'Montrose'. 22 (TWENTY TWO) points off top spot after the same number of games played. Bottom half of the table beneath 'Clyde', with a negative goal difference. The gift that just keeps on giving.
    10 points
  46. Noticed that earlier, it's not even on the fixture page. Nor, for that matter, is the result of the original fixture from six days ago in Inverness. Is there one guy at all at the club, just one, who actually knows what Morton is? A professional football club, which plays football matches that people like to watch because they like football and the Morton football team that plays it?
    10 points
  47. The Easdales who are our major sponsors and the former chairman who allowed the transfer to fan ownership being guests at a game really shouldn't be major news. If the board start having to publically comment on nonsense like that then we might as well shut the club down. So many more pressing matters of concern than that.
    10 points
  48. I see CFB has chucked in his 'heartfelt' eulogy on Twitter, quoting Ewan's tweet. The very person who paved the way for his departure from the club by scabbing his role during the lockdown. Utterly shameless, narcissistic and vile behaviour from Callum. But we knew all of that already.
    10 points
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