StirlingDosser

Been talking about this today. There is a general spineless feeling which I dont think has been at the club since back in the Malpas era.

Okay at least this rules Frail out of getting the gig full time.

I'm starting to wonder about this guy. The club in general just feels flat. I know Burrows had his critics but under him you could see the club moving. The media effort was top notch, the club was appearing more professional, and absolute media meltdowns like this were avoided. Given Caldwell's handling of this I dont think he will have a great deal of currency in the bank if he screws up the recruitment over the next few weeks.

I think the accusations of abuse are being taken out of context. It isn't nice I get that but I think its just the next phase in the wee tantrum hes been having over the last few weeks. If his family were attending games then they would have been in earshot of the wide ranging feedback he was receiving from the paying customers. Rightly or wrongly no manager is immune to stick from the stands, and from our main stand in particular. The reality is if I was a manager I don't think I'd have my close family in the stand but that's just my outlook. The abuse isn't any more than any other manager in a rough patch has recieved. Take Stevie Robinson who was being labelled an imposter at the end (he was anything but). I've never disliked Kettlewell, I wish him the best, but he was never the man to take the club forward in my view. Time to dust down and move on. Stephen Frail is not the one to do that.

100% we seen that early on, we got a grip of it in the first half as we saw. Low possession but controlling things to an extent but the second half is just so disheartening. Sadly a story we have all read before I guess. Not sitting here raging, more thinking about what could've been had we been a bit more adventurous in the second half. Whatever the gaffer has said at half time hadn't produced the goods.

Second half was shocking. When Sevco scored it was one of the most woeful performances I've seen. Just seemed there was absolutely no get up and go to try and wrestle it. With six minutes added time I hoped that would've recharged but absolutely nothing.

Whilst by no means a bad thing, I am not really sure it is an overly significant milestone to be honest.

After a positive opening spell we just folded. Defensively poor throughout. Feel for Miller, on another day he would've scored those.

Absolutely terrific goal followed up by utterly incompetent defending.

Okay let's park the bus issue to one side (no pun intended) but the reality is there is absolutely f*** all in Ravenscraig at the moment to run a bus to. There is no commercial value in transport links at the moment. However if selecting a site out of what is the largest single brownfield site in Scotland, I doubt one right slap in the middle would be the choice (like where the council dropped the sports centre). If I'm not mistaken there are plans for the road by Dalzell or suchlike to serve as another route into the craig. I think the idea that the place is far away is based on the idea we would all need to March down and under the railway bridge. But if the new road is put in place (which it will be I believe) it is pretty much just an extension of that part of the town. Now having never lived in Motherwell personally may impact my view but I feel like Ravenscraig is very much Motherwell and part of the towns, albeit historical, identity. I'm sure some genuine locals will disagree with me though. The area next to the college once opened up by the new road is going to make very little difference in terms of is proximity to where anyone has a few jars pre match, or add any more than a few minutes to that post match job down to Airbles station. Once I win euro millions ill build us a new stadium and training campus in return for a space on the board 👌 😂. Elsewhere the Dundee model is being discussed and as much as I don't particularly have any love for them I think if that happens it looks massively positive for the future of the game with the whole masterplan.

Thanks, I can only take credit for the hunter and odonnell stands in the mockup. I have made a few others over the years. I think if the footprint was correct it could potentially fit. As it is anyway I am sure MFC own the houses which are in the way of a full length stand.

Putting an economics and business hat on a move is a no brainer. That said I'd rather a medium term programme of replacing the POD stand and Hunter stand with something similar to the Cooper, which would make Fir Park a very tight, enclosed and tidy wee ground. In relation to the Phil Odonnell stand, that is probably something both achievable and pretty necessary in the short term. The Hunter stand less important but still a well designed structure would give the club more space to play with for covered player/corporate facilities. Here is a mock up I done a few years back...

This is all a bit tinpot in my view. In the balance of things I have questioned the influence/presence of the Dickie family on the board (which has been a feature of MFC as long as I can remember) and also been really critical of the Well Society at times. But, this is just airing dirty laundry in public. The club should remove the statement (mind you it's done now, it's in cyberspace) as that is needless. All that should have been posted was a notice that he had resigned and moved on...like any other director of any organisation. That said, there is a sense of entitlement throughout that statement (maybe it's a family thing, his father seemed to stand at the tunnel every home game when he was alive...no idea why). And the Well Society "pack" business around board placements...board appointments are a matter for an AGM/EGM to my understanding. The ripples of the last years events are still moving through the club I think.

Been a while since I was actually "StirlingDosser" so I suppose this is a call to arms really...are there many fellow Well fans working out in Abu Dhabi/Dubai? It would be good to get a few gatherings in to watch some of our games and a few jars in if there is even a small group of us out here.

Well I have to question why we are dishing them out a new contract right now. Surely it would have been more sensible to get past the winter break to see if they are going to deliver or not? I don't have anything against Kettlewell however I think to award a new deal on the back of a couple of wins this early on on the season is a bit premature.

It is a good point. And the reality of us on this forum will have no experience of boardroom politics or how boardroom affairs are conducted. It may be that this is a learning curve for the society on how to structure and conduct its business. Perhaps some sort of constitution amendment which obliged the WS exec board members to act on the instruction on whatever the consensus is of the WS board. In relation to Dickie, I have asked the question before, why is it he is always on or around the board, like his father before he passed? If they have done something significant for the club I'd accept that but I'm not seeing what. Was he elected by the Well Society?

Not all Society members were against the proposal so to force society board members out would be wrong and sums up what was wrong with this entire debate within our support. If anything the Society board absolutely needs a range of views given how horrifically this was all managed.

If I'm not mistaken the cantilever design of the Davie Cooper and South Stands could be considered when building a new main stand. The floodlight pylons for Fir Park actually are the main roof supports for those stands so I suspect they could be used to support a new main stand similar in design to the Davie Cooper...and to be honest we should have done that in the 90s during the upgrade to comply with the Taylor report. Thar said any further work on Fir Park is not cost effective. The footprint of the site isn't overly workable for one and the proceeds from sale of the land (I'd assume with a value of around 7 million when you consider the astro and stadium area) would need to be used to fund any new ground. I personally would hope for something which replicates Falkirk Stadium but fully complete with filled in corners. Falkirk's main stand has great hospitality and player facilities alongside with other usable space. The stand behind the goals has a supporters bar and the stands are of a good angle. Given the Ravenscraig new town clearly ain't happening, the council (or whoever owns the land) would be best transferring the land to the club for both stadium development and an adjacent training facility. This would bring all club operations together on a single campus and allow the club to move forward without the continuous patch up jobs we need to do every year on infrastructure.

I understand the apprehension but the reality of the Well Society is summed up here. Today's details have not come out the blur yet here they are once again asking the fans to trust them to come up with an alternative AFTER they vote against the only offer on the table. For me it's all a tale of too little too late from the WS...the organisation have done absolutely nothing of note since taking the majority shareholding and are now all talk when that position is put up for debate. I would back this if I had a vote for the simple reason it diversifies the ownership and this is more income than the club is likely to get from the society. The clubs assets aren't touchable which will therefore of impacted the value whilst also giving some security. It may not be the big money but certainly it's bringing in some investment and some expertise.

I don't think finishing 9th is satisfactory however it reflects the ongoing slump we are in as a club which has been underway for a few seasons. We are loosing our competitiveness in the league I feel. As for Kettlewell, he seems like a genuine guy and a good coach. I'm not in the bin him camp however I don't believe we should renew his contract beyond next season right enough as I can't see us making progress with him at the helm beyond what we are currently achieving. I don't think the product on the park has been great for much of his tenure either. The ethos at the minute that the clubs aim every season is purely to avoid relegation is unacceptable. That isn't being unrealistic, it's a game and a competition. The whole point is to compete and aim up the way. To publicly have the mindset that all we have to do every year is avoid relegation cannot be good for mindsets and sets a bar of mediocrity. If the clubs core aim every year is simply to avoid relegation what's the point?

Can't wait for this season to be over so we can look forward to more of the exact same next season.

You're absolutely correct if we are aiming for the investment to be for the playing squad, but we have to modernise. If we were taking in say 300k a year investment (which is on the low side), that could allow us to gradually invest in modernisation of infrastructure over the coming years without impacting our current player budget. At present, any major 'patch up job' which needs done (of which in the future there will be a few big ones given the age of the Phil O'Donnell Stand for example), will likely lead to cuts to the recruitment budget.

I didn't blame the Well Society for a lack of investment in facilities. I pointed out that it has happened and needs addressed, and that is unlikely to happen under our current funding model. I'll just skip past the insult.

Okay here goes an essay... As this progresses I find the society even more amateur and backpeddling from its failure. If the Well Society wasn't a failure this discussion wouldn't even be happening. The society are a group who have done very little in my view in recent years until the prospect of some external involvement knocking them off their perch. Saturday's Well Society day didn't convince me otherwise. The additional attention and focus they received on Saturday was considerably greater than our average match day sponsor (so I hope they stumped up an additional payment to the club for advertising, like we would ask of any sponsor). It can't be attractive to any investor I have to say when the organs of the club were promoting the alternative to investment throughout the day. I was at Fir Park for the first time in a couple of years due to working abroad with a group of mates who support other provincial clubs and discussed all the politics of this probably in more depth than the match. When you are away for a while and come back it shows how we are falling behind the pack very quickly in terms of our facilities, budget and resilience. Before anyone gives us the "well rollercoaster" or "punching above out weight" lecture, let's look at three other clubs similar in size to us. Dunfermline - relegated and not come back. Falkirk - just spent 8 years in league 1, lucky to still be on the go until their recent turn in fortunes - with the help of a blend of external investment and fan support Dundee United - the yo-yo club of the decade. If Motherwell were in the situation of any of these clubs we would struggle to maintain ourselves without a shadow of doubt. All three of these clubs have different models and I accept that. But our budget and working capital differs to these three clubs as a result of top division TV money and away ticket revenue only. Our overall home ticket and commercial income is likey on a par. The additional investment is necessary or we will join that club, or likely be in even more of a right rope year on year financially than these guys as no fall guy would be there to cover the losses. The Club needs to build a pathway towardsa substantial modernisation of our facilities and corporate operations. Our main training facilities are rented, our players are bussed between two sits for their training and we have a stadium which is in dire need of replacement once sentiments are put aside. We are simply no longer attractive to companies for corporate days or hospitality as we have such dated infrastructure. Once we have modernised infrastructure the club can start to widen its income and stability. The external investment at Dundee is being laughed at but I think long term as their project takes shape they will be the ones laughing. Unlike Aberdeen's new stadiums which have been proposed about 40 times, this genuinely seems to be making traction. We need to watch this as a "what could be" rather than looking at what is going wrong/has gone wrong elsewhere.

I actually can't believe we've put that out. We would be absolutely rinsing any other club serving that up. Absolute red neck. I certainly hope we haven't paid "Scotland's leading advertising agency" for this, hopefully it was a charitable gift.