Fan Groups Meeting Tonight

[Digs]

I've been a bit quet on here lately as I haven't been on a laptop much during the day for the last few months, but I am still around and tonight I (we - East End Bounce) were invited to attend the latest fan group meeting that has been opend up to as many groups as possible. I also attended representing our bus.

I can't say what other groups were there as we didn;t go round the room like normal, but I did recognise a few people, from buses, supporters groups, volunteers and other websites.

In attendance from the club was Thomas Meggle (TM) and Drew Main facilitated. It was a Q&A with Thomas, and then we covered some points to do with how the club take the fan group initiative forward. 

As usual, I've done my best to get most of the important stuff down, as much as I can decipher my dug pishing in snow handwriting from my notes, but it's not every single thing that was said, as some of it was conversational and quite tangencial (if that's a word?)

Drew kicked off started off discussing club communications. There was some points rasied at the last meeting (which I forgot was on, my bad) and the recent club update statements and the video last week from David Cook were the out put of that. They will carry these forward and do more of these through out the season.

There will be one next week or possibly this week to announce two new directors. 

There were questions asked previously about KDM's role in the club, and what the likes of Alistair is tasked with and that will be answered in due course. ALthough Drew did sy that if anyone was at the Euro fanzones, then they will see the sort of thing he has been driving forward as it was nothing short of exceptional in terms of the job he did, and made the club a decent amount of revenue. 

It was then onto the Q&A with Thomas, I asked the first question, which was to clarify what exactly did James McPake mean when he said we couldn;t compete with the likes of Ayr. Apparently this was asked and answered at the last meeting I wasn't at, but TM said that it was a misconstrued quote by the journo. He asked JM about Ayr offering Ashcroft £1700pw and JM said we weren't going to compete with that, meaning we have a wage structure (more on that later). He then took that as we COULDN'T compete with Ayr, and misrepresented what was said. Basically JM was saying we wouldn't break our wage structure for anyone. It categorically does not mean we CAN'T compete with other teams.

TM was asked are we bringing in players (as contingency) to cover potential injuries? - The answer was basically no. We have a near enough full squad, and its the same approach as last year with players who can cover multiple positions, with a couple of posiitons still to fill, (TM later confirmed that we obviously need a GK and we will be looking at loans with the latter not likely to happen until nearer the end of the window).

Kane was our top target this year and they were keen to get him in early so they made him a priority. Apparently Wotherspoon told him to sign for us and not make the same mistake he did..

They see Kane as being key in helping us develop the likes of McCann and Sutherland and now bringing in Wotherspoon, to help develop Matty Todd and Andrew Tod.

TM said they will always be selective in who they sign, they have to fit the wage structure but it's also about being the right kind of person. They also need to consider in terms of the size of the squad, keeping players happy. They don't want too many players not getting game time as it causes disharmony in the dressing room. He also wants local lads to feature as much as possible just like he did at St Pauli. He did acnowledge later that it is more difficult in Scotland with the league set up being only ten teams meaning a couple of poor results can see you tumble down the league, so it's more difficult to be as care free about putting in young guys and allowing them to make mistakes. He reiterated JM is keen to develop young players as that is something he enjoys and is good at, but we need to find the right balance. but the ultimate aim is to have as many young locals lads coming through as possible.

It was then asked whether we are any closer to bringing in any players from abroad, the rumour of the young guy from St Pauli was mentioned. TM said we had tried to bring someone across previously but Brexit has made it really difficult for teams at our level to make it happen and it couldn't work out. We are still looking at potential other markets though. 

The £1m loss was mentioned and it was asked if this is going to be a year on year issue. TM gave an explanation that we have heard before, about when we broke even previously, we had transfers fees incoming and we had two big cup games, which brought in much needed revenue. They made a strategic decision to invest in the club with the appointment of the CEO, Commercial Manager, and other full time staff, which we didnlt have before, but costs have risen significantly too, energy in particular. It wasn't said here but I was told recently by someone in the club that our energy costs alone are over £20k per month!

A follow up question was asked about whether we are still budgeting for cup runs and the answer was no, so anything we make will be a bonus now and they are keen for us to get a wee run in one of them and they are hopeful we can get out of the group for the league cup this year and maybe get a favourable draw. It hasn;t been accounted for though. 

Drew also made the point that the Challenge Cup money is now much greater than it was with £100k for the winner this season, so it was intimated that there may be a bit more of a focus on that than there may have been previously.

It was asked what the clubs ambitions are for this year? It was mooted that with no 'big' club in the league this year, this should maybe be an oppourtunity (although the person asking the question themselves didn't hold out much hope) - TM put it back to him - What is a big club to you? - He said fan base, history, should be aiming as high as we can etc (he said more so apologies to him as I couldn't write quick enough here) 

TM effectively said, they don;t have annual or two year targets. He reiterated what they have said in the past that they work in small goals, and decide on the next step once they hit milestones and adjust as they go, that way they can be more agile in making the goals. He mentioned Falkirk as an example - The year we won League 1, they banged all year about being this and that, and blah blah but they kept their counsel, and quietly worked away on their goals in the background. Who won the league?

He said we need to keep our best players on the park, that's the first thing. They then have a target of 44 points, they want the team to get to 50 goals, and keep goals scored to 30 or below. They then break that down into where the goals come from - Kane capable of 15, the likes of Matty 12-15  if possible, defenders 3-4 from set peices, then 7-10 through the rest of the team. I want to stress I got the impression this is more TM's thoughts than solid targets for these players but the 50 goals is a team target.

The response was he (the person asking the question) couldn't see why that would be possible based on last year. So TM asked him what he thinks we should do, what position did he think we should be in? How should they do it? He responded to say we need players in, so again TM asked him who he had in mind, but he said I'd need to see who was available to answer that properly. He did say that he thought we wanted young players and that 34 yr old Wotherspoon isn;t that. I and another guy said they can;t all be young players, we need a mix of the likes of Bene etc to help bring young players on. TM agreed and said again that they want Kane to assist with the development of Lewis McCann. He said McCann was unlucky last year as he didn't really have that, and also due to injuries was playing in more than one posiiton so it affected his form as a result from how he was at the start of the season.  I stress TM wasn't being combative or defensive here, I think he was genuinely interested in his opinions and was trying to guage what fans think.

It was asked in the 4 years he's been in what has surprised you, what have they done well and what could they have done better in his opinion? - TM reiterated the comms absolutely could be better and they are working on that. They've got the structure right in terms of what they are doing investing in the personnel (CEO etc). He said for him it's been a big learning curve learning the player market in Scotland, learning how it works as it's different to Germany and he has said he has worked well with JM and DM on this. 

Next year they want to win more games, simple as that. He reiterated the small bite size targets, that's one of them. Getting the club on a much more stable finincial footing which they expect once the high expenditure on infrastructure reduces. They could easilyu throw money at the first team paying £1700-2000 per week but that's not the strategy. They are hard and fast on making it sustainable rahter than boom or bust (my words not his). 

It was followed up with 'what does that look like? paying bonuses on top like goal bonuses etc? TM said he has never paid a goal bonus in his career, as it creates a selfish environment (and I agree with this - it used to bug me even at kids football when parents would give their kids money for goals it ruined everything you were trying to coach them all week). That goes agains tthe culture they are trying to create which is a tight knit group of players, which we have. 

The wage structure is done on a hieracrchy basis, for want of a better word: Senior Players/Leaders > Players who are likely to be starters week in week out > Youngsters > Apprentices and it is run as any normal company with salary bandings for each wage bracket/level. They will not break this, instead they will try and sell the club on other things like facilities, playing on grass every week, our own dedicated trianing ground, playing in front of bigger crowds, if you're a youngster, getting development. He cited two examples, Chris Hamilton and Ewan Otoo who both turned down higher money to come here for some or all of those reasons. 

The question was asked was Edwards a good sale for us? The short answer was "it was OK". Basically because we were flirting with relegation we couldn;t start the contract talks when we would have liked to get him extended further so then the release clause was triggered which wasn't particularly attractive for us, so we either had to accept the bid, or keep him and let him go for nothing. TM doesn't beleive in release clauses and we don;t have them in our contracts now because they have to be attractive to us as well. Their preferred strategy is to monitor th squad as closely as possible and identify who they want to keep and have the conversations as early as possible with particular focus on the guys who are 18-21 to get them on multi year deals based on how we think they will develop. 

TM likes longer term deals rather than changing the entire squad every year as it puts too much pressure on us to get players in as we need more of them. He said it is diffuclt for us as if we are offered the same player by an agent as say Airdrie, they will be offered him for £200 a week less then us. It is expected that we will pay more.  They are trying to change this and won't be forced to cave on this. On the flip side, they don;t want players who are only coming for an extra £200 a week. Of course money should drive them but it shouldn't be their only motivation, they have to want to come here so if that extra £200 is important to them, good luck to them. We won't break our wage structure to accomodate.

The next phase was very conversational, so I didn't write all of this down based on similar lines to the above (I already had three pages, and it would easily have doubled and I;d be here all night typing it up!) 

TM and Drew did mention about the culture of the club. Drew brought up another item mentioned at the last meeting, which was (and this is a working title and will likely be changed) a club Code of Conduct.

Getting into discussion about it, it sounds more like a charter or a constitution to me. They were both very keen to point out, it's not a list of rules. Its about who we want to be as a club collectively, the directors, the players, the fans, the staff, everyone. There is going to be a side group set up to work on this, but they want as much input as possible.

It was pointed out that the young team are critical to this as they are not represented at these meetings (although I know Ben Crawford had attended in the past as a rep for 'young fans'). I pointed out that it's clear that Section NW are often in the 12-15 age brackets. You have the young Pars for younger fans, Eddie Martin does his thing on a monday for 16-25 year olds, but that 12-15 group  has nothing. A lot of good ideas were discussed on how we could get these guys engaged within the club, using the facilites of the club and getting to them to buy into it fully, ie so they stop chucking stuff and breaking seats etc.  

That took things off on a bit of a tangent but both Drew and TM were writing stuff down during this discussion so ideas are being considered. I'd recommed speaking to Drew or contacting him here (he is Kaiser) through DM if you have any ideas on that front. 

There were a couple of questions from Pie and Bovril, one about would Stephens still be the caterer, Drew put that one to me as my Mrs runs it, and the answer is yes. Drew wasn't sure of the nature of the agreement in terms of time, and neither do i, but I would say that if there any specific issues please contact them direct and they will follow it up. My Wife does say though that she follows up with all complaints (and there are much fewer than you'd think for all the moaning) but often people don;t even get back to her after emailing in? 

The other was one I asked was about the seagull situation, which is getting beyond a joke. They are going to take that away and see what could be done. 

Finally, it was asked if the boards outside for the next match can be kept up to date and it was committed that they would. 

That was it. There was some other stuff discussed as I said but it wasn't really updates on anything just people offering opinions on stuff, like online toxicity etc. 

If you have any questions, as usual, I'll do my best to answer them.

Digs

[the saline hill puma]

Cheers for the detailed summary Digs.

[Legend85]

I was at the meeting tonight and your post covers everything.

It was myself who asked about the ambition for the coming season and unsure about our transfer policy.

To be fair Meggle was quite good in answering the question and did not take any offence with the question, Also liked the fact he turned the question around to me  that's the way a conversation should be.

I thought Meggle was a better person to listen to as well his answer didn't feel like they had been rehearsed unfortunately I found the Cook interview like it was rehearsed about 5 or 6 times tonight sounded natural if that makes sense

[Digs]

12 minutes ago, Legend85 said:

I was at the meeting tonight and your post covers everything.

It was myself who asked about the ambition for the coming season and unsure about our transfer policy.

To be fair Meggle was quite good in answering the question and did not take any offence with the question, Also liked the fact he turned the question around to me  that's the way a conversation should be.

I thought Meggle was a better person to listen to as well his answer didn't feel like they had been rehearsed unfortunately I found the Cook interview like it was rehearsed about 5 or 6 times tonight sounded natural if that makes sense

Aye, he came across well I thought, very conversational, and I got the impression that he’s fully invested, as it wasn’t all sound bites, it was very honest in the the way he offered his opinions on stuff. Like you, I liked how he turned things round and asked questions back. 

[Piracy]

Top drawer mate. Good work.

Thanks.

[Piracy]

The other was one I asked was about the seagull situation, which is getting beyond a joke. They are going to take that away and see what could be done. 

Under the previous regime this was brought up. I offered to speak to a guy who runs a pest control company we employed in the Dockyard when I was maintenance manager. The chap was more than interested in helping out but the club never contacted him. Mind you Seagulls aren't easy to get rid of.

[kelty_par]

Thanks digs for the update! Worries me that we won’t be adding to the squad soon apart from a back up GK. we currently have 2 full backs at the club and can’t afford to have Otoo or Hamilton in defence to cover. I get not wanting to break the bank and not even sure I’d want Ashcroft here on that kind of money either. Just hope the approach doesn’t come back to bite us. Thanks again digs 

[Raymie]

Much appreciated, Digs 

[Eastendtales]

Cheers for that, much appreciated.

Ashcroft being touted for 1.7k a week? World has gone mad. I'd only want us paying that at this level for a guaranteed baller of a striker and even then. 

[Digs]

7 hours ago, kelty_par said:

Thanks digs for the update! Worries me that we won’t be adding to the squad soon apart from a back up GK. we currently have 2 full backs at the club and can’t afford to have Otoo or Hamilton in defence to cover. I get not wanting to break the bank and not even sure I’d want Ashcroft here on that kind of money either. Just hope the approach doesn’t come back to bite us. Thanks again digs 

I will add, it was quite a conversational answer so it may not have been conclusive, ie, it’s goalkeepers and loans and that’s it. It won’t be much more than that though I don’t think.

[Tartan Army Par]

22 minutes ago, Eastendtales said:

Cheers for that, much appreciated.

Ashcroft being touted for 1.7k a week? World has gone mad. I'd only want us paying that at this level for a guaranteed baller of a striker and even then. 

This is the beauty of honest communication. Think the vast majority agree that we shouldn't be entertaining deals like that. When folk are kept in the dark though, they tend to fill in the blanks themselves and make things up. Normally negative stuff towards the club.

Also interesting that certain players are being offered to us a couple hundred quid a week more than smaller clubs like Airdrie. Sound like an absolute nightmare dealing in the transfer market.

[Grant]

In fairness the couple of hundred could also be dependent on location? If I was a player from Glasgow I'd probably want a couple of hundred more to make up for the fuel and time. It works the other way of course, I heard a figure for what Partick offered Byrne which is more than what Raith offered, but he realistically would be better off in Kirkcaldy. 

[livipar2]

Great update - thanks Digs.

I still have reservations in terms of squad size particularly at centre half.  Playing 3 centre backs surely requires 2 as cover? Surely we aren’t relying on Otoo and Hamilton to cover again this season as that ruined our midfield last year.

[Yorkiepar]

Very interesting and informative account, Digs. Thank you. Not altogether surprising that the BOD do not intend to increase the squad size significantly but good to have this confirmed: whether you agree with this approach or not we know at least where we stand. This and the stated “small bite” approach dovetails exactly with the previously touted long term development plan. Much as I’d like to see us improve on our performances within a season or two I don’t think it’s going to happen. You just have to hope that the support doesn’t lose faith in the meantime.

[Eddie's Pars]

Digs, thanks for taking the time to write another excellent summary and report. It is greatly appreciated