Gaag

Well done to everyone that was elected and here’s to a prosperous future for the ‘Well Society!

Can we just stop putting away fans in the upper tier now? It’s annoying me.

What’s this all about?

Any questions you might have for me - fire away! 😁

Will try to join in the AGM via zoom tonight - as I’m on holiday in Turkey with the family. I’m not convinced with network strength, but hopefully all works ok, but if any questions or you’d like to know my thoughts on anything - please feel free to ask!

The tactic has to be shoot on sight from the midfielders for this one. Creating opportunities and converting them appears to be a real problem area for us - Robinson and Moses best opportunities are probably rebounds

I think the point is that we shouldn’t discriminate against disabled, ASN supporters etc and we make allowances for them - despite it being a small proportion of our fan base. doesn’t affect me certainly, but can see the point for those that either can’t or don’t want to use other forms of payment. Last I checked cash was still a valid method of payment. I don’t know for certain, but it’ll surely just be for simplicity reasons - although some banks may charge a fee for cash handling transactions these days (and the club probably requires additional staffing / security to deal with it).

Some interesting points raised - and whilst the first two will most certainly have been considered previously - it’s worth a more formalised review into it for sure. The third is and should be an absolute key priority for the club, if it’s not already - that future will make or break a club like ours. i definitely agree that not everyone being “yes” folk is critical. Different points of view are healthy and to be encouraged - but I would say the main common denominator amongst them must be a rock solid belief in an effective and successful fan ownership model - whatever shape that takes in the future.

It feels very much like we’re caught between a rock and a hard place on this. Personally I’d prefer to see us invest in modernising fir park as any move to a new stadium… we’d be lucky to get four stands, never mind a good design given the current environment and costs of construction. Whatever happened to the jumbotron in the corner that Alan Burrows had in his grand plan?

For my war face - here’s a list of things (good and bad) I think we should be working on (in line with strategy): the good: 1. Comms has been MUCH improved in recent years and think this is on a greatly improved trajectory - and now attention should turn to the technical side (maximising usage of CRM, effective segmentation of fans, personalised / localised campaigns and new club / society integrations. 2. Solid membership base - much more active amongst core. Invigorated focus on increasing contribution where feasible and spending time / effort bringing in those around the periphery is key. Further afield and international membership growth and membership benefits giving an incentive for locking in etc. The good opportunity (but needs work) areas: 1. Granularity of fan engagement and getting it right. An example being the recent fan survey. Done with the best of intentions - but in all honesty, the way it was administered means it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. rewritten and relaunched survey, including regular focus groups / workshop ideation sessions (I’m a certified member of the Market Research Society so this is a strong area of mine). 2. Commercial strategy & partnerships - we can’t go down the route of “anything and everything” - if we do this we encourage investment from the wrong places - or we don’t get the right value for money / strategic priority areas focussed on. Researching and due diligence is key here (alongside networking and knowing the right people). For example - the types of organisation we want to work with would be different for gym / infrastructure / training improvements compared with community / fan focussed partnerships. We’re not after a few quid for the sake of it - let’s be honest, there’s not a huge queue of people looking to chuck money at us - so being able to clearly explain the benefits to the potential partners will be critical to ensuring they want to get on board. 2. Fan ownership hive thinking - let’s look to create a pan-European/ even global “think tank” - where we can look to learn, get involved and even potentially create multi club partnership models. This would have the benefit of both improving the wider aims of fan ownership as an ideology - but also have benefits and economies of scale that can come from multi market sources. I’m a big fan of the “think strategically, act tactically” mantra - and feel this would serve us well. The bad: the current synergy and influence (and comms) of club and society. At times it feels like club vs. Society and that’s not great. As the majority shareholder in the club, we should have more influence - gained by both thought leadership and drive / determination. As we see from the people standing for election, we have so much talent and experience in so many areas - we need to be driving with our best foot forward. Ultimately the society should have been more involved (at least publically) than they were in recent negotiations. As a society, we should not just be having an opinion on things - we should be actively bringing things to the table. There’s a bunch of other things - but that’s what springs to mind immediately from my sunbed on holiday in Turkey 😆

Stamatelopoulos to score a Louis Moult-esque last minute screamer of a winner past Liam Kelly who gets the nod after Jack Butland trips coming off the team bus and injures himself. That’s how my dream went last night anyway. seriously though, if we are to beat rangers back to back in the league - an away game for both teams is probably the best time to do it.

Sadly I won’t be able to make the AGM on the 12th as I’ll be on holiday with my family - but I’ll be at the Killie game the following weekend. I’ve spent hours going back through a bunch of old posts from when I restarted this place again about 16yrs ago - after taking over from ‘Flow. Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same! But just shout if anyone wants to ask any Q’s ☺️

Oofty. It’s dreamland stuff but I’m salivating at the prospect 😆

Aye - easily north of £100 for an adult and two kids to go to Hampden for the game and get a half time snack in the game is hard to swallow. I’ve never managed to get my daughter into the Well but I sympathise with all those that do.

Proper Dick Turpin pricing that. Really poor show - nowt but greed (and basically getting us to cover the costs of renting Hampden no doubt).

Are there any ready made replacements for Blair Spittal that are reasonable to expect we could go for? That feels like the biggest priority for me (assuming Stamatelopoulos can live up to the billing)

Would Stirling count as local?! 🤪 I am standing for election. Not a frequent poster here for a long time - used to spend many a day on here. Happy to answer any questions or take any slagging coming my way 😂 a great set of candidates to be fair, lots of great experiences in there. Very pleased to see that, regardless of whether I’m elected or not!

I think I read somewhere that the club are just checking out the quality and availability of the camera feeds tomorrow am before they open it up for sale in case it’s a dud.

Reminiscing about Panathanaikos game in Athens a few years back and i think it'll be similar conditions. Game kicked off at like 10pm local time or something like that, and it was 28/29c even at that time. Team did alright and held their own just about in the first half, but fell apart in the second due to the heat. Difference being that Panathanaikos were clearly several steps above us in terms of squad, performance and experience - Hapoel are maybe only 1 step up on that one. I think if we put in a decent team performance, it'll all come down to how we adjust to the heat. I would certainly argue that our team is fitter than they were back then.

Aye. Apparently he's got a new contract under his nose now - ball is in his court.

Wonder what the clubs travel arrangements will look like. Presumably flying out tomorrow - but the situation with Israel lockdown at the minute probably makes an overnight unpalatable (not to mention expensive) - but I guess it’s too far to travel out and back in the day, players would be fucked. straight home after the match I’d think though.

We haven't played anywhere near as many as them though - so the record could well be broken at some point. Of all the Scottish teams outwith OF - our ten year coefficient is better than all bar Aberdeen. That's respectable if you ask me. I suspect this may well be the end of the line - but I'd be feeling significantly more confident had it been a home tie, rather than necessarily the opposition themselves.

MFC TV it is!

I've also just seen the highlights from their last round. Looks like our mutual loathing of the defensive game is clear to see! Embdy's game! haha!

Fuck it - go out there and give it our best shot. We're a fit team with decent legs, no denying that. They aren't world beaters, but are a good outfit nonetheless - and not playing in their own ground will remove some small element of advantage? Can we dae it? Aye. Do we need the rub of the green? Yup. Will we? Unlikely - but I have everything crossed!