vikingTON

The terms of the deal are good enough and setting up the DD was surprisingly a piece of piss as well (makes you wonder why the club is using tinpot providers for its ticketing and online content instead).

That’s just nonsense. The Raes have disclosed that they’ve rejected interested parties in the past, while there are prominent local businessmen who are quite clearly in the frame to buy the club. Whether those offers were or would be in the best interests of the club is a separate discussion - the idea that GMFC is some terrible millstone that Golden Casket and no-one else would want to run is false though.

The knot of snakes in Grangemouth lose 2-1 to Ayr, to ensure that they’ll be getting papped out of the Betfred Cup at the first hurdle. What a terrible, wee shame. Connor McManus and Jordan Allan both score in Stranraer’s 6-0 demolition of rubbish, soon to be East of Scotland League outfit ‘Berwick Rangers!.

Between this great wasted talent and 'Baresi' McGeever on the books as well, Dumbarton must now be considered shoo-ins for the title*. *

Kerr Waddell has signed for Montrose.

Good to see Sir Richard putting the little people back in their box.

Wimbledon’s demise was to a large degree a situation of their own making as well, but that hasn’t stopped AFC’s walloper fanbase getting all high and mighty about the injustice done to them. Professional football is rightly a pretty cutthroat business all round; it’s the hypocrisy that makes them cunts.

Sean Crighton scores an own goal to give Partick the breakthrough against Airdrie.

Barry Smith starts as player-manager for Brechin City at the age of 45 today due to 'injuries' and not signing players in time. Get that ridiculous, jumped up little village outfit launched into the Highland League where they belong.

Aye I'm sure Rawburt, Sevconian white van man from Broxburn and Torcuill, arts student at the University of Glasgow will find rare common ground over the plight of some two-bob diddy outfit that they've never heard of.

First you claimed ‘luvvies’ would object, now it’s gammons. At least make up your mind as to which totally opposite demographic you wrongly think will give a toss and stick with it.

Nobody cares about that irrelevant outfit, so no.

No there wouldn’t.

Another financial swing and a miss for our ‘youth-based sustainability model’ (total transfer revenue generated to date: £0*). * plus a 20% sell-on clause for Scott Tiffoney** ** so £0 then

This is my concern as well and is why I think MCT needs to set out a far more assertive vision of its purpose and the future of the club. There needs of course to be a courteous working relationship with GC to get things off the ground but that company's interests are no longer aligned with the club's, not even one bit. The point of MCT then should be to start levering these disinterested and incompetent club stewards out of the door - which given they want out anyway should not be prove a great conflict - but on our terms and not theirs. It should be to build up a credible organisation that secures the trust and goodwill of the fanbase and local interest groups so that it is well positioned to deal with the real crisis that seems coming down the chute in the very near future. An organisation that exists largely to prop up the existing regime for as long as possible will not do that, and given the previous failure of GMST for similar reasons I reckon it would be very, very difficult to put together a third umbrella group to support the club's future when it is most badly needed.

Paul Hartley has finally been confirmed as Cove Rangers' new manager.

They seem to be putting together a far better squad right now than the ringers, mediocrities and back-from-retirement desperation picks that we seem to be going for at the moment.

Well hooray to our GC overlords for deigning to gift shares in a football club that they've steered straight into a wall with £2 million of self-inflicted debt, now that they want someone else to take responsibility for it, in return for their annual IOUs no longer being required. I really don't see why MCT insist on adopting such a frankly craven position on this: the shareholding should be the very least that an investment group should be demanding in exchange for financial investment in the club right now. It's not a gift from the grace of Crawford Rae and every time you say this the less likely I am to convert a pledge into a regular contribution. Well hold on that's just not true at all: the entire premise of those schemes are to control the eventual ownership of the club. People back them not just to throw some good money after bad at the club but rather to change how it is run and to hold (at very least) a valuable stake that any future investor would have to account for. None of them to my knowledge have run on the basis of being merely 'gifted' shares from the current regime in exchange for subsidising the near-term running costs of the business. There are some merits to that particular idea compared to the status quo, but to put yourselves in the same bracket as Foundation of Hearts is laughable without greater ambition and leadership coming to the fore.

It’s more useful to the Raes and getting ‘Hoppy’ a fourth centre back, sure. But a pledge begins the task of prising the club out of the hands of those incompetent sweety merchants, which is actually the real challenge that the support has to bring about. A season ticket can change absolutely nothing at the club. Obviously a ST is going to be the priority for an ever-present at games, but if you only make half the home games then a pledgers and paying at the gate is IMO a far better choice than just chucking £300 at the club for a season ticket. Similarly, expats who can’t go to games but might want to financially support the future of the club have a far more credible way to do so now than essentially handing over a cheque to Crawford for literally nothing in return. Of course, if the club had set out a credible price policy that took account of the MCT scheme then few people would be having this discussion right now. By wanting to have their cake and eat it, the club is now going to suppress both revenue streams - GMFC’s unerring ability to fuck things up is truly remarkable.

Amazed that holding MCT events in egg-chasing and golf clubs respectively didn’t get the desired level of engagement tbh.

Proper scrumpy cider is absolutely fucking glorious in the vast majority of its varieties. Cider itself should not be dismissed just because a few carbonated, shite products like Strongbow have dominated the mass market.

The Elbow Room is obviously not much of a bin pub, but it does a superb cheeseburger and chips for £5.50 and the last time I was in they had Munich Red lager on tap as well. A pub lunch fit for the gods right there.

It quite clearly is, as otherwise you'd be traipsing to a fucking Brewers' Fayre for the nearest pint to the ground. Which is the mark of tinpot Legoland grounds like Broadwood and Forthbank.

Peter MacDonald and Willie Dyer are two of the latest to join East Stirling, who have got a two-bob version of Brooks Mileson throwing money around to try and get them back into the leagues. To think that in just two years' time they could become the big team in Grangemouth.

MCT has done far more in a couple of months to secure the future of this club than the Community Trust has since its creation, because for all the faults you can pick in its pitch, the website etc. it is actually focused on the urgent priority facing the club in years to come. Which makes you wonder where we might be right now had all the resources of the fanbase been pushing in a similar direction ever since the Supporters Trust failed.