EanieMeany

Aye, it’s not really convincing that it’s an entirely unviable endeavour now but I don’t believe for a minute that it was the case “a long time ago” (presuming this means pre-smart phone) even with free printing, and that nearly every other club in the country and beyond has been flinging money into a black hole from day dot. I think at some point over the last few decades, somebody somewhere might have raised the discussion if that was remotely true tbh, and even today it’s hard to imagine clubs like Broxburn are cheerfully chucking money away on programmes with gay abandon.

Potentially reasonable, I'd say, but like with everything else there's no real reasoning offered and the way its communicated doesn't really give you much faith in what's happening. All of these things happening together are painting a very bleak picture, and let's be honest here: had a new "private" owner taken over last summer and oversaw the last few months, the name Hugh Scott would have been getting floated around regularly and let's not pretend otherwise. I'm not suggesting there's any deliberate intent to harm the club, but that's not the only thing that can damage one and none of this sits right at all a: there's been alarm bells ringing for a while now and they're just getting louder. We've even had a director shouting about moving kick-off times to earlier in the afternoon to avoid using the floodlights, ffs*. I think if those who believe in the MCT project as a concept are serious about it, it'd be a good time to demonstrate it's accountability and potential for change. As for programmes, it's a bit of a shame to see "I don't buy them, so I don't care" getting wheeled out here tbh. Plenty of people do value programmes, there'll be folk who've collected them all their lives etc so whilst times do move on and it may be programmes will become a thing of the past in the near future, they should not simply be scrapped without bothering with some sort of fan engagement. It's part of the broader matchday "experience". Also, with advertising as well as sales its a source of income that shouldn't be getting discarded so easily; I find it hard to believe that matchday programmes are an inherently unviable product when far smaller clubs than Morton seem to be able to produce them without any problem. As I said before, this is precisely the kind of issue where involving the MCT membership would be really useful, and there's a number of different options that could be explored such as (as you said) a monthly publication or even changes to the current format to refresh the offering. If this was an isolated matter, it might be less remarkable, but it's not: it's the latest in a line of examples of an organisation which seems to have no answers other than to just swing the axe left, right and centre and then make noises about loans or ask for more money from its customers who are already paying way, way over the odds. In that context, it very much is significant. **Sam Robinson on LinkedIn.

Surely this is exactly the kind of thing that should have been put to the MCT membership over the summer to discuss how to proceed, to explore digital options or to see what features would encourage more sales etc? There’s loads of people that collect programmes and again, they’re a match-day staple at clubs of all levels. (Incidentally, they had sold out of the Cup centenary ones about 20 mins before kick-off, just as an aside. Hard to grumble if you can’t cope with a predictably higher demand when it comes along.) It’s just nonsense for some unknown and seemingly unaccountable figure to be deciding stuff like this on a whim and not even informing anybody about it until a couple of hours before kick-off. If the Raes had overseen this summer, everybody would be going mental about it - much of what’s happened is potentially justifiable but when it’s a whole stream of things, big and small, with no real explanation whatsoever, it just screams of a club in a seriously bad way and being ran into the ground.

Christ almighty. It may be that there’s good justification for this but ffs, programmes are a footballing institution and just so off-handedly saying you’re not bothering your arse is a really stinking look.

I don't think it's a bad thing as such, but not when you're just merging it with the first team and trying to pass it off as serious squad for Championship football. If the Development Team was going, then in all honesty, the likes of Garrity, McGrattan et al shouldn't have been given new contracts (those two were renewed in February, I think a couple of others were relatively recent too? ), they should have been released if the team they were part of was no longer there. This decision surely has surely been in the pipeline for some time and (hopefully) hasn't just been made on a whim. As I've said elsewhere, this isn't a criticism of those players, but look how little game time McGrattan got last season even when he showed he had something to offer, and even look at Saturday when he didn't get off the bench when we weren't managing to get a grip of the game against 10 men. There's little to suggest Imrie really wanted these players, so why keep them? Was Imrie asked if he wanted those players signed up? When was he told he was getting hit with a bunch of youth/reserve players as a huge chunk of his squad? Again, it's not necessarily a bad thing to look to utilise loans etc, but given this is partly being presented as a footballing strategy as much as a cost-cutting one, it'd also be interested to know if any input was sought from Derek Anderson and Imrie too? Whilst it's true that the financial situation may have left no room for manoeuvre on it, I'd like to think that this wasn't just done at the behest of the seemingly unaccountable board members without fully considering the full picture of how it affects the youth set-up. Also, once again, I just don't really accept this idea that the picture we're being painted is an inevitable one and I think MCT seriously need to provide a helluva lot more detail to explain why it is so. The money coming into the club is considerably higher than previous years, the MCT donations are significant, gate prices are up, season ticket sales are up so whilst acknowledging rising costs etc, it doesn't quite add up that we're in a position where we're reduced to such a threadbare operation and seemingly unable to have very many proper footballer players on the books.

There's a touch of Alex Williams' career about Griffiths in a way, but scaled up. Fairly similar players (I maintain Alex was a better finisher and would have been a better player, but that's another discussion), really exciting from pretty much day one with heaps of ability that marked them out from their peers...but equally as obviously not being the most focussed professional athletes, shall we say, and never quite giving the impression they had the temperament to really fulfil their potential. It wasn't really a surprise when Williams' career derailed so prematurely, ditto its not too surprising that Griffiths' has been going the same way for some time. Anyway, I wouldn't go near Griffiths at this stage. There's absolutely nothing to suggest that he's got it in him to turn his fortunes around after a fantastically successful (imo) spell at Falkirk, and we can't afford to take the punt on the tiniest chance that it could happen.

Simply replacing Blues with a competent Championship footballer would be the best way to stop goals like that, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a dedicated pivot.

As I've said before, I don't mind (or at least can see why, more accurately) Easdale playing in those cup games, I think it was justifiable in that there was nobody else to go there and it makes sense to want to leave everybody else in their real positions to get them bedded in....... However. If we start seeing Easdale starting league games for any reason other than every other attacking players' legs are falling off (and even at that, stick the sub keeper up front ffs), then it is simply not acceptable and nobody other than Imrie is responsible for it. Put Quitongo in the middle, put Kabia in, try McGregor there, or Garrity, or god knows what else, but there's just no justification at all for Easdale being there. Even for his own sake, it'd be the best thing.

I wasn't, but if it was them then just imagine how that discussion would go and the kind of stuff that would get flung about either with or without basis in truth. Is that really something you're going to want to kick off? When there's already plenty of talk about you as it is, why on earth would you invite people to shine that spotlight on your affairs just to put even more money into the club than you already, what good can it possibly do you? And when you're already putting so much money in, why would you agree to it if you're money is good enough the rest of the time? Say what you will for them, but you're not going to make the money they have by being that stupid. I doubt very many people at all with enough spare cash to inject it into a floundering football club with no real prospect of a return on it are likely to volunteer for that carry on, to be honest. If the Easdales are interested in potentially owning the club future, then it'd be even more reason to not get dragged in to a whole stooshy over a relatively minor investment.

Aye, I was just meaning as a general point, not directed at you personally. Apologies for any confusion there. I don't disagree with the rest either, it's a bit of an usual scenario with one side of the transaction being hundreds of people, and both perspectives are equally valid: one side wants to know who they're opening the door to, the other wants to chuck money in but not have themselves dragged through all manner of public speculation and what not, especially when they're not really going to get anything out of it. That's entirely fair even if it is unfortunate, but it's probably not the first or last time a similar thing has happened with fan-owned clubs. I guess there's always going to be wee curios like that, so it's what it is really.

I think having no confidence in fan ownership at this stage is pretty reasonable, to be honest. Whilst I think it's too soon to go straight to the "sell up immediately" option, whether we eventually reach that stage or not is entirely dependant on whether MCT are willing to accept that they've not made a particularly great job of it and be open to totally reforming itself. I posted along these lines recently, below: If they're not willing to fully engage and to potentially embark on a rapid and radical change of tack that goes beyond the current lack of any real accountability or ingenuity, and they've nothing better to say than asking for loans, then there absolutely has to be a willingness to look for new ownership. As a general point, I think it's really quite absurd, frankly, for people to be looking down their noses at "private" ownership. Everybody else seems to be doing not awfully and every single other full-time club has managed to perform far better than us over the past few decades or at least achieve one major thing (cup finals, European football, top-flight football etc), so why exactly Morton should think its above the same ownership models as them when we've achieved precisely fuck all isn't really clear. I mean, let's be honest: at no point under the Raes outwith the post-administration period, even in the last few years under Crawford, did we find ourselves with a squad as shambolic as the one we do now. There were certainly some rotten ones, but that was down to managers making an arse of it rather than trying to pass off development/reserve players as a huge chunk of the squad. That's not to say the Rae era was a halcyon one, but let's not try to pretend it ever reached the stage we're at now. Just because that was bad too doesn't mitigate what we have now. I'm not too sure about this, tbh. I don't think it's all that unreasonable to be going to a football club to invest a lot of money for not much in return and no real power at the club and not be too keen on having a bunch of pearl-clutchers on a message-board debating your character. If it was to actually buy the club then yeah, maybe, but to have a bunch of strangers, the majority of whom wouldn't even look at you if you were in the same room never mind pass comment, thinking their entitled to publicly debate your character so you can whack money into a football team doesn't seem an overtly sinister thing to want to avoid. ETA: That's not to say I'd be overly keen on the whole process taking place anonymously, but I don't think somebody withdrawing because of it is proof that there's anything sinister going on. There's simply loads of places where you can put your money, probably a good few where you'll get far more out of it, without getting your reputation taken to bits in public. I'm not sure there's any real way to get round that, but nonetheless I don't think it's unreasonable for people to not want to put themselves in that situation. It doesn't necessarily mean they were hatching some nefarious plan.

A couple of starts at centre-forward.

Aye, that does seem quite wild. As an idle thought, I wonder if solar panels on the stand and Cowshed roofs could be a viable option to try to bring costs down? Anyway, I'm not sure this really answers many questions. As has been said before, the amount of money coming into the club over the last year is significantly greater than it was in the previous years on many fronts partly due to the end of COVID restrictions, the MCT money is a huge additional source of income, and season ticket sales are up (and we have the most expensive tickets in the league). Surely that has got to go some way to off-setting the increase in costs, bearing in mind that every single other club's costs will also be going up and yet nobody seems to be pleading poverty quite like Morton are? Is there particular reasons why Morton appear to be singularly incapable of having football players? If so, what are they and what is being done about it? What's the alternatives? Why aren't we talking about part-time football? Why was there an EGM for directors to talk shite about friendlies in England and a cobbled together on the back of a fag packet scheme and not to talk seriously about the way forward? Calling this a squad of 20 players, whilst technically true, doesn't quite cut it either imo. I mentioned this in the squad thread, but who was responsible for the new contracts offered to the likes of McGrattan and Garrity? Two players who weren't getting near the team, one of whom is 21 and not exactly a young boy. Now don't get me wrong, I think the former in particular looks really promising, but nonetheless, I'm not sure doling out two year contracts to somebody who isn't getting a game makes a great deal of sense. My suspicion is that these decisions didn't come from the manager, but that's just a guess, and even if it was club decisions then Imrie has made bad ones too and isn't blameless. It just seems like a random selection of wee guys flung in alongside, as I said elsewhere, a mere 10 senior players with as much as a season's worth of meaningful football under their belts (and I mean no disrespect to the youngsters, but come on, they shouldn't be making up such a significant chunk of the actual, proper squad). Even with tightening the purse strings, this just seems like a total mess rather than a natural consequence of the circumstances or the product of any kind of planning. 20 players it may be, but...well, it just sort of isn't a seriously assembled squad for a Championship football team, is it? Also, the share scheme falling apart isn't too surprising as it never seemed a hugely appealing proposition tbh, if I was loaded it didn't seem like something a thing I'd have been too attracted to, and nor did it do a great deal to project confidence in the project to be almost immediately wanting to offload a significant chunk of shares and wanting other parties to bail them out whilst keeping the MCT name on the front door. That just seemed a non-starter from the off, and not really a great situation for any party. I think it's curious, also, that a number of things seem to have fallen through; maybe it's just how it went, but maybe there's a reason why it's happening. Vague statements about "not what we wanted" etc don't really cut it. On what grounds? Decided by who? Maybe the person deciding these things is wrong? I think it'd be very helpful for MCT to provide a much more detailed explanation of what exactly has happened with all of these things as it's not impossible that individuals within the club or MCT have made a mess of it. We shouldn't forget that the MCT hierarchy thought the absolute nonsense regarding GC keeping the stadium was acceptable, which in itself should ensure their judgement on negotiations should be treated with some scepticism. To be perfectly honest, I don't trust MCT at all to run this club well. It was botched in its conception ("look at me Crawford! Let me help you!"), it's been botched in its inception (its money for nothing to put shadowy, unaccountable figures in the boardoom) and I simply do not trust it and its representatives (if there even are any) on the board to not make a total fuckin cunt of it. I've tried to reserve too much judgement on it, I was even tempted to sign up towards the end of last season, but the last few months are just proving it to be a bit of a shambles, in all honesty. Either there's a serious proposal put forward from MCT about how they're going to turn things around, or they accept they're not up to it and invite offers.

Aye, fair enough on that. As I said, its more just the scenario in general that I find odd with how things are, and when we need players in the first team so desperately the Lowland League just doesn't quite seem a place that's really going to tell us too much about their chances of coming back and doing a job for us. I do have reservations about a team that has a whopper like Paul Slane on their books proving to be a serious proposition, right enough, and I find the idea of Ferry as a hotshot coach a bit overblown to the point of bizarre, but hey ho. Anyway, there he is and here we are. All the best to Gemmill, it's a chance for him to show everybody what he's about however you look at it. I do wonder who is deciding upon the contracts to the younger players though. We've seen a few extensions etc dished out over the year or so, and I wonder if Imrie would have been so keen on a two-year deal for a 21-year old McGrattan (who I rate highly), for example, if he was already aware of the budget constraints he would be working with in the summer given that he barely used him as last season went on. That's no slight on Lewis (quite the opposite, I'd have liked to have saw more of him) but nonetheless, a 2 year deal for somebody who isn't that young as such and who isn't really getting used isn't necessarily a smart move (if you're not giving him chances).

Gary Fraser. Christ, there's a name. Anyway...I've ended up writing far more about this than I would really ever care to, tbh. Haha, it's not something I'm really fussed or concerned about at all beyond a passing observation, other than just finding it all a bit odd given the overall situation we find ourselves in, but we'll see how it goes. God knows we need to uncover a striker from somewhere, so assuming that mob are paying his wages then there's nothing to lose by taking a punt on the boy.

Yeah, maybe. I guess my point is probably more that if we're going so heavily on youth and pleading poverty so much, a player worthy of a contract would maybe be considered worthy of getting sent somewhere better than the team that finished near the bottom of the Lowland League last season, but I guess we'll see what happens and there's not really much point lingering too much on any of this, so good luck to him and hopefully we'll have ourselves a decent option come January.

It's not the level they play at to be fair, more the fact that it just seems a total joke of a club that won't be the best environment for whipping someone we presumably have to be hoping can do a job in the near future (why bother otherwise?) into shape, but who knows. Agree entirely on the last bit too, a marginal improvement on what we have isn't really much of a benchmark but at the same time it appears to be where we are - to stress again, I am not having a go at the player, this is nothing to do with him, it's just the circumstances which seem a bit curious given the position we're in.

As a genuine question: it says Gemmell becomes a senior player, was that previously the situation with boys coming from the Academy when we had a development squad? It rings a bell that you used to read about players signing development contracts, but I could be making that up! Again, this is just curiosity, I'm not trying to suggest there's anything untoward about the situation or the like.

My point exactly. In all seriousness though, a one year deal then packing him off to an entirely unserious non-club managed by some guy from a podcast for a laugh doesn't really seem like the thing you'd do with a boy you have genuinely high hopes for...especially when we literally only have Easdale as a (nominal...) striker and other youngsters are getting flung in. It's not exactly the first place it'd occur to you to send a young boy to learn this trade, is it? Nothing against the lad, it'd be great if he turns out to be the new Ronaldo Nazario, just as good if he can fulfil the basic functions of a centre-forward in an even passable manner given the lack of other options available to us, but this seems...a bit odd, on the face of it.

If a player is good enough to merit a contract, he shouldn’t be getting sent to that rabble.

Indeed. If every single person thinks a tweet means what it says (in quite a specific way, then I think it tells you that that is indeed what they meant. I can’t really see why you would write something that means one thing if it’s not actually what you mean - it’d be a pretty unusual example of “poor wording” if it didn’t mean what it was unanimously accepted as meaning Anyway, whilst keeping the gates shut isn’t necessarily a big deal, I always quite liked the idea that you could maybe pop in for the last 5/10 mins. It’s one of the peculiar wee quirks of Cappielow although it’s not something you’d really lose any sleep over either. Why exactly a “security partner” has any real business having a say on something of a absolutely no consequence isn’t clear either, especially when it’s the same clowns that insist the Sinclair Street end is full when pretty much the entire crowd could fit in with room to spare.

Not really a commercial matter as such, but this a nice wee story and also highlights the value of the streams in bringing people closer to clubs. It really is a shame that they're not allowed any more. https://twitter.com/UtahMortReport/status/1550923225122717697?s=20&t=-4LzpIes2Yx6KKal8wISOw

Indeed, nor were Dumbarton chucking buckets of cash at Pignatiello . I can't really see either of the three being on particularly significant wages either way, it's not like we're talking somebody who's widely tipped to be a first-teamer at Celtic or Rangers in a year or two and we need to push the boat out a bit to get them - meaning no disrespect to any of the players, it's wee guys from Livingston who've spend the last year in the lower divisions. Either way though, the fact remains that we have only 10 contracted players who've had even one season as professional senior footballer players in any significant way*, two of whom haven't been near the Championship in a good few years. It would be interesting to know what exactly Dougie was told about all of this, it just seems unlikely that it would have been a pitch that would have been encouraging to a prospective manager but who knows. Anyway, my main point was that Imrie stating that we have a squad of 20 seems to me to be an indicator that nothing else is likely to happen with signings - it wasn't entirely clear if the likes of Garrity, McGregor and Easdale were supposed to be being counted as proper first-teamers, and that quite from Dougie seems to confirm that they are. 10 relatively-established players, 3 young loanees and 7 others of varying standard...it's not great. Perhaps we'll see 1 or 2 more players coming in (a centre-forward is essential, there's not really a choice in the matter), but I can't see the 3/4 (at least) signings that I think everyone agrees are needed materialising. *On Hynes, I keep forgetting he's actually relatively old, I keep thinking of him as a youngster since he kinda fills the role of one, which is what I mean by "in a significant way" - he's sort of just...there, for the most part, rather than being a major component. It's hard to see why he's still knocking about tbh (being under contract, obviously...), he does a passable job as cover but he rarely plays despite been here for some time now, why exactly he got that last extension is unclear. I'm not really knocking him as such, but we could most likely use the money he's earned more wisely.

Dougie is quoted in today's Tele saying "we have a squad of 20 players", which gets to the heart of the matter. He's entirely entitled to be pissed off at getting hit with a squad made of of players who simply should be not considered part of the first team squad, frankly. The wage budget has got to be absolutely tiny, given that the likes of King, McGregor et al surely can't be getting paid whatever an average senior first team player gets paid. We've only got 10 contracted players who are even remotely established: Lithgow, O'Connor, Strapp, Baird, Blues, Gillespie, Jacobs, Lyon, Quitongo and Muirhead. That's a stinking state of affairs.

I think the bit in bold is it, really. I don't know how an alternative model would look and I'm not sure I really fancy the concept but given the position we're in, I think it's maybe a prudent time for an open conversation/consultation to take place about what the future holds with everything and anything on the table to be discussed. It could well be MCT revealing some development or other which is the catalyst for the club to push on as is, it could be the planning and development of some innovative hybrid structure,it could be a realisation that full-time football simply isn't viable and whether or not that can be resolved by anything, or it could just be a damp squib. Who knows? There's nothing to be scared of by listening to the people who care most about the club, and fans en-masse can be a helluva lot more imaginative than a bunch of lawyers in suits cozied up in a boardroom. As it stands, there's no real sense that the club is on the verge of transforming into a genuine contender for promotion and prolonged top-flight status, and as I said in an earlier tweet there's could be a lot of turbulence if things are going badly heading into winter and people are feeling the pinch - it should be remembered that Greenock isn't the most affluent of towns and circumstances could soften up a chunk of the hardcore. If things just keep trundling along, there will be less and less to really keep the wallets open on all fronts if things get tough at home, so if nothing else setting the question of "how does this club win" and engaging the fans would (imo) help energise the MCT project, as would developing a socio-type scheme etc. Which is another issue, really. MCT is a new and relatively untested project, it shouldn't be written off but nor should it be allowed to just pick up where the Raes left off in many regards and just trundle along with little in the way of accountability or "pressure" (for want of a better word) to drive things forward. I don't necessarily envisage any kind of impending disaster any time soon, but what I can see on the horizon is the possibility that the only real hope we had (that we knew of with any certainty...) of ending the Rae's stagnation turning out to do nothing more than embed it beyond fixing. The early days of fan ownership should be a time for bold new ideas and discussions and exploring ways to move the club forward: fan ownership might not mean fan-run but it certainly should mean fan-propelled (pun entirely unintended) and utilising the knowledge, skills and passion of the support.