vikingTON

Is this a Dull Men's Club parody thread now?

I asked you roughly 24 hours ago what factual point you were disputing with your 'aye keep telling yourself that retort'. Your subsequent Catherine wheel of fail brings us no closer to an actual fucking answer. The idea that you're in any position to lower standards is laughable, your abysmal contributions speak to that. The only question is how long it will take you to join Dr. Zhivago and Ed de Ball in the dustbin of forum history.

If you're not a complete moron and understand that all managers make errors in judgment, of course it is. The only test is whether the manager's collective decisions amount to a net positive or a net negative - and only a complete moron (you, again) would actually dispute that this has been the case. I couldn't care less if one or two deserving players fall by the wayside in the name of collective progress, because I'm not hanging out of any of their arses. GMFC is a professional football club and not a social club. The problem for those who were braying endlessly about 'releasing' a former POTY (in what nick of a team, btw?) is that the market has fully vindicated that decision, what with it being the last week of September tomorrow and Strapp being without a club. The widespread tears and snotters about signing Waters instead look utterly foolish now. That was entirely the correct decision - though we are still badly lacking a backup option.

Telling myself... what exactly? What is the factual issue you'd like to dispute? Be extremely specific.

Was he not training with the burners a couple of months ago? No harm to Strapp at all, but Imrie got a huge amount of pelters for making his decision in the spring and he stated (IIRC - at one of the fan events) that we would see where Strapp ends up by the end of the summer. Well here we are, and that judgment looks vindicated. A club would sign a player with an already known injury, if they viewed it as a key addition to the squad. Perhaps a call that Imrie deserves subsequent credit for, that we can trade for the Broadfoot weird yin.

While a straightforward comparison of the scorelines today shows the stupidity of the view that a youth player, pretty capable though he is, can single-handedly change the fortunes of a team.

Having someone 'useful' around the squad now (which King undeniably is) has to be traded against the benefit of playing regular, competitive, 90 minute football. I'd expect us to be down an experienced central midfielder or two in 12 months' time - preparation now is needed to help King to step up reliably instead of just the occasional cameo.

He's scored 2 goals in 36 appearances at this level, which is not bad at all but makes your claim unrealistic. The reality is that unless the middle of the squad gets completely hollowed out by absences, King wouldn't get too much game time here this season but can get it elsewhere. I'd prefer not to have signed Wilson and prioritised support elsewhere, but that cover needed for injuries and until French signed has now left us overloaded in central midfield. I doubt we'd have seen King play more than 180 minutes between now and Christmas other than the Kelty game tbh.

I could swear blind that Duffy added Stefan McCluskey to his usual coterie of ringers this summer - apparently he's inexplicably* ended up at Kelty instead. * only explicable in a coaching/doing the kit man job capacity - at League 1 level.

He's a central midfielder in a squad that has got about 17 of them now. There's no actual evidence to support the roles you're shunting him into, Jim McInally style. And presumably the club wouldn't be letting King go out on loan of Crawford is injured for an extended period of time. That's information that they have at their disposal.

He could certainly get competitive game time at a higher standard than an absolute nick of an outfit like Clyde. Presumably their clear effort to run as our tribute act (McLean, McCluskey, Millar - Duffy until a few weeks ago) explains the choice. I'd rather we used our Annan link even if they're well up against it in League One this season.

The first one was attributed to something called 'Regan Mimnaugh' AFAIK

What is the added value of this 'productive relationship', if the club can just produce content* and the paper will print it anyway because it has literally nothing else of value to fill its garbage publication? It therefore doesn't matter whether the club has a friendly relationship with the Tele in terms of engaging with the community through a single, crap local media source. Any key information will be published regardless. Which takes us to an issue that your point of view has to address: what behaviour would sanction a break in cooperation with the newspaper? Are the Tele allowed to publish anything it wants about the club in perpetuity, on the grounds that they're Valued Local Media? As owners of the football club, I see no reason why we should welcome a rag that is undermining the precarious foundations of successful fan ownership model through false reporting. That very real cost has to be recognised alongside this increasingly intangible sum for how the Tele relationship benefits the club. And even if they only balance each other out, there's still value in punitive action. * not that there's too much of that to reproduce so far this season

What content would they be using to maintain their current level of coverage? They would have their own vacuous thoughts and fan letters. It's notable that your argument has now warped so much that it's flipped completely on its head. First you were hand-wringing that the Tele needs to be kept on board for the club to engage with its vast and important readership; now you're saying that GMFC denying access would not substantially change the level of coverage. It can't be both things at once. But if we were to take your new argument at face value, then the principal losers from a removal of privileged club content would only be the very journalists and editorial team who have damagingly misrepresented the club for their own interests. Making them Scrabble around to fill their pages is itself an appropriate punishment.

Well no, because Morton content produced by interviews with players and management is their entire halfway credible pack section of the newspaper, Saturday and Tuesday-Friday. Other than expanding the Gisbey Gazette, that's 4 editions out of 6 for which there can be no content (based on existing types) without voluntary engagement by the club. They should get absolutely none and be forced to pretend that 'the joon-yurs', cricket and other such utter nonsense are legitimate items of interest. There'd be only one loser in that contest and it wouldn't be GMFC.

Would the Tele change its editorial line if it found itself shut out of any content it couldn't generate on its own? Quite possibly. In any case, the only organisation burning bridges is the one peddling utter shite in its rag. The demographics of Tele buyers makes their circulation figures completely redundant. Senga (74) from Braeside is not the marginal customer at Cappielow. The football fans of Inverclyde are not waiting every day for the Tele as their sole source of information because it's not 1997.

They don't write the headlines but the content of the articles this week - on Imrie's interview and the club statement - is misleading too. Even if there's an editorial line to spin hysterical nonsense then that's something that a journalist has to own and take their share of responsibility for.

We really aren't reliant on the Tele to do that. The club has social media, it has a website, it also has MCT and it has community work as well. The Tele's back-up plan involves running wall-to-wall coverage of 4th tier Junior jobbers or full page epistles from Gisbey. They need the club more than the club needs them. I understand your points but I can't agree with them at all. If this week's parade of fabricated shite isn't enough to take action, then what exactly is? Does the Tele get free rein to publish whatever it wants regardless of the facts or the negative consequences for a club that we own?

The BBC is a public funded broadcaster with a global following; the Tele is merely one irrelevant unit of a crap media conglomerate across the UK, that publishes court cases and funeral announcements. The power balance is different. The Tele's editorial line (not necessarily the writers themselves - but they ultimately carry the can too) has been consistent in exchanging facts for sensationalism, including the misuse of the manager's interviews and club statements. So what is the point in the club investing its limited time and energy on a patronising 'reaching out' exercise? The pattern of behaviour has already been set - the only response that the Tele can listen to is to have their access to the club curtailed. Tit for tat is exactly how you should respond to any repeated abuse of trust.

The Tele have had more than enough chances to act like an honest broker - this is only the most recent of several such fake news stories this year alone. Until the club responds with punitive action then it'll only continue to get taken for mugs.

The Tele should be shown the door for its fake news agenda and its reporters forced to try and fill their rag with news of 'thu joonyurs' massive clashes with 'Ardeer' and 'Finnart'. Enough is enough.

The update is fully informative and professional in nature. On the other hand, we need to be moving on from this radio silence, then enormous, one-off update as soon as enough folk complain dynamic. More regular and reliable communication would have defused at least some of this in advance. If we're putting some of the money into a fund then that could have been stated shortly after the Rangers game was played: we don't need the exact revenue figure to signal that intent. It's possible that a board meeting was required first, but that only underlines the need for a serious GM to have responsibility for keeping things ticking over.

Imrie was discussing adding one or two players about a fortnight ago. Since then, literally nothing has changed. This is just the standard way of folk turning their understandable frustration about not getting players added (although what credible targets exactly? People have already been halfway clamouring for a return of Doyle FFS) into the usual, back of an Inverclyde Taxi nonsense about there being No Money At All. If that were the case, we'd very much know about it given Imrie's media strategy just six weeks ago in that situation.