Wrong Planet

4501.... I'm out. Not related to this thread, though it's an appropriate place to post this. I'm going to throw the trolls a bone. Job done guys, congratulations, you win. I know we can put them on ignore (which I've tried), but it's like playing 'Whack A Mole'. It's a real shame actually as I've enjoyed B&WA for years, but it feels like the majority of threads are getting hijacked, with decent debates degenerating in to nonsense and name calling. What's worse is that we are all Saints fans. I know it's a forum, I know it's the nature of the beast, but the trolling is tedious in the extreme. Anyway, for what it's worth, I can't see any way to delete my account, hence why I thought it appropriate to post here given the comments re. 'Active' accounts. Here's hoping for a great season and a new dawn under IM. Cheers, over and out. WP.

Wholeheartedly agree Poz. Any commercial deal such as this is always going to court some controversy. I was absolutely behind the business decision to rent out the stadium, more so as it is sitting idle. I am entirely less comfortable with the contract clearly allowing a measure of 'rebranding'. A classic 'rough with the smooth'. Given my support for renting it out I'd accept cries of "Suck it up". However, and as Poz eludes, what is missing is competent management of the change, the three guiding principle being communication, communication, communication. It really is very straight forward. 'We have entered in to a short term commercial deal with Club x, this will be for period Y, the changes to the stadium for this period only will include....., we will use the monies earned to invest in.....' Leaving that to one side though, would it have been so hard to have engaged the brain before any agreement re. signage? For example, the sign could have been half in half.... St Mirren Football Club Shop (Black and white background) Celtic Merchandise Available within (Green and White background) OK, we can debate the wording that all day, but to permit a sign that actually states 'Celtic Football Club' when it's NOT Celtic Football Club, is clearly going to piss on some people's chips.

Sigh. Your Lordship, I'm guessing that you are failing to recognise Richard's genuine headshot as you are too busy scraping what's left of your brain off the wall. Blame drink, drugs, ask to play your joker even, but stop trying to defend the indefensible. You are now wandering out of laughable troll territory and venturing in to the eye watering embarrassment sector. Seriously, it's a 'look away now' moment. Still, on a plus side, a small reward for the few of us that have resisted putting you on ignore.

I'd like to be wrong ned. I genuinely think they have unearthed a diamond in Warburton. Only time will tell.

Save your money Porky. newRangers will coast the Championship next year. Pains me to say it, but Mark Warburton looks to be the real deal. I'm not about to do his PR for him, but if you can be bothered do the relevant searches. He's going to transform the Ibrox club, and sadly we are going to witness it first hand.

For what it's worth, have to say I've been getting pretty fed up with the forum of late due to the sheer volume of trolling and multiple aliases crippling any decent discussions. Was actually going to chuck it if I'm brutally honest, both viewing and contributing (I use the term loosely!). However this is a really decent thread on the whole. A lot of opinion backed up with informed and even emotive arguments. Minimal troll/multiple aliases adding shyte to the pot. Whether for or against, the Qatar WC in 2022 is probably worth keeping an eye on. If we end up having to monkey around with our domestic schedule then it could be that there is an almost enforced trial of sorts. For example, take the pain and switch to summer football in 2020, run the trial until 2024, with full reviews / critiques during and after. If it's p!sh chuck it, if it's good extend the trial. No question that the change is grief laden, but if Qatar forces it then it could be an opportunity to appease both sides of the argument. Anyway, I came in to it with the comment 'I appreciate the complexities and concerns with doing so. It's a non-trivial change for a multitude of reasons.' I'd say I'm even more of that opinion now, and have learned a lot from both sides. The forum doing what it does best!

Yip, fair comment Stu. Cuts both ways right enough, plenty on here in favor of change, or at least exploring it further. In terms of trial there is no question it is a tough ask. The Qatar World Cup in 2022 looked like it presented an opportunity due to it's timing, however aligning anything with that event, as things stand, would be madness for obvious reasons.

I think the problem here Foxbar (and indeed nos, TC etc) is that we are all largely in agreement on one thing. As I've stated previously, and as you have clearly underlined, switching to summer football is hard. Plain and simple. There are arguments for, there are arguments against. It seems worth repeating though... 'three-quarters of Scotland's top-flight clubs having told a BBC Scotland survey that they would consider a move to summer football'. If 75% of our clubs are open to exploring this then that would suggest that there is support for a trial, regardless of whether you or I think it's a good thing or a bad thing or an easy thing or a hard thing.

With respect though Foxbar_Bud, all you are doing there is listing the same collection of problems that have been listed and debated for years. That doesn't take the debate forward. This discussion came about as a result of 'three-quarters of Scotland's top-flight clubs having told a BBC Scotland survey that they would consider a move to summer football'. It's largely pointless those in favor listing the pros, same for those against change listing all the cons. The only sensible solution, given that three-quarters of our clubs see a case for considering the move, is to take the pain and organise a formal trial. It won't be easy, but you simply cannot take a divisive issue such as this forward without some form of trial. Listing reasons why a trial would be too hard is not in itself a winning argument for not trying. If three-quarters of our clubs were dead against change then this debate would have died on it's feet. But that is not the scenario we have here. For or against, a trial surely seems a reasonable middle ground?

I'm very biased on this as I've long argued for a switch to summer football. That said, I appreciate the complexities and concerns with doing so. It's a non-trivial change for a multitude of reasons. To those dead against I'd say this, if we currently played summer football, and had done so historically, and there was a proposal on the table to start playing in the winter months, you can only imagine the list of arguments against. In fact, on the face of it, you could almost see proponents of switching to a winter schedule being ridiculed. For me the likes of Pappas Cheese, Drew and Oaky have this spot on, the only way to explore this tangibly is to have a trial for a set period, together with agreed review criteria / club and fan involvement et cetera to measure it's success. It's not a do or die scenario, at the end of the trial a reasoned decision can be made on whether to continue or revert. Proposals such as this need strong leadership, ability and willingness within the various footballing bodies in Scotland. More than that, it requires visionaries, entrepreneurs and risk takers. I'm trying to think of reasons why we haven't had a trial so far

Just so that we are all clear on that statement, are you against our Board allowing any footballing side to use our stadium, or just Celtic Football Club?

The BoD have been criticised for not generating enough income from our various assets. e.g. more use of hospitality out with match days, increased use of Ralston, outsourcing the stadium car park (or a substantial part of it) for Airport Parking, and indeed more use of the stadium in general. I'm with others on here who see this as a great business opportunity. I think we would all be hopeful that at least a part of the money earned will be channeled through IM's hands in terms of helping him make signings. I would also be surprised if our Commercial department, in line with Celtic's, don't maximise the marketing revenue that generally follows this sort of pre-season event. Moreover, similar to the Scotland U21's use of St Mirren Park, isn't this all just good publicity and a ringing endorsement of at least decent facilities? Perhaps worth thinking about it another way Stevie, imagine news had broke that Celtic had offered £X to use our stadium for a few matches and the BoD had turned them down. I suspect the reaction would have been yet more criticism of the Board, particularly when Celtic then rocked up at, say, Motherwell's ground as an easy alternative. I had plenty of derogatory remarks concerning the avalanche of bad decisions emanating from our BoD last season, for me this is a tick in the positives column.

Agreed, it's the right answers imho. Under the correct set of circumstances anything can work, at least to an extent. I would hope though that it would be reasonable for anyone to concede there are significant challenges for Full Time Pro clubs contracting Part-Time players, and to be successful it needs a lot of factors to fall in to place. It concerns me that any fans would think there are no issues as appears to be the case on this thread. With our club still for sale, the BoD coming off a season of horrendous mistakes, and having just been relegated to an extremely competitive league, personally I'd be deeply concerned about St Mirren recruiting Part-Time footballers and what that means for our club going forward. As ever, all about opinions.

'What if.....', seriously LB, you honestly cannot see any issue with a full-time professional football club signing Part-Time players?

With respect, I'm really not sure where you are going with that. You asked the question 'if decent players wish to stay part time then why can't we sign them?' I responded. You haven't addressed any of the three questions that I've asked. If you don't want to have a reasoned debate then why ask a question in the first place? I'm sure everyone has an opinion on how many hours a week pro footballers actually work. But the facts remain, regardless of duration, at SMFC the Training et cetera happens during the day, when Part-Time players will, typically, be working at their 'normal' jobs. That was my answer to your question 'why can't we sign them?' What is your answers to my questions?