The Original 59er

I'd like to see a change to the visual form that is behind the goals! That sounds a strange statement...... I know, but I have a this little sneaky thought that keeps entering my head every time I'm at SMP that it's actually quite visually messy behind the goals and as a result it's possibly (and believe me I say possibly) more difficult for the players to see the goals also! At Love Street the goals were quite a distance from the terracing and even once the new stand was built at the Caledonia St end, it seemed a better visual experience than at the new SMP. So I would try and make the backdrop to the goals much less cluttered. There fantasy over!

"Rudderless" is a pretty accurate description of our plight. You can't help feeling that the performances on the field, which occasionally show willing and effort, are then punctuated by rudderless, inefficient displays that leave us all frustrated at the direction the team and club are heading......... i.e. downwards! I too have sympathy for Stuart Gilmour as he and the Board are basically in a catch 22 position. They have invested time and considerable effort to pull the club out of the pre-Tesco financial mire and at the other end of that dichotomy is a desire to extract what they believe is financial recompense for their investment. They get worded plaudits for the first part and no financial suitor for the latter part. To use yet another metaphor, the club is floundering in the big open sea at present with the safety of land some distance away. They can see land and possible safety, but are struggling to make any headway towards a safe haven. Meanwhile the Captain and fellow officers of the good ship seem to have lost the will to invest in the said vessel to allow it to reach a safe port, never mind a dry dock to allow the vessel to have a new rudder attached! Time for the BoD's, if they ultimately have any sense, to jump ship and cut their losses and allow a new and suitable crew aboard who will make a concerted effort to drive the boat for another few years. I've posted in the past that it won't be easy for a fan based ownership to do any better, and that the tough decisions would have to be made by someone in charge, but I'm pretty sure anything would be better and more optimistic than the present malaise.

Mr O, either a non-subtle name you have there, or your don't do irony that well! Despite the availability of this medium and others where you can vent your spleen, at the end of the day, (I think) we are all St Mirren supporters, but sometimes I have to pinch myself to actually believe that. This is not the direst team, nor the worst performing Saint's side I've seen, and believe me I've seen many. The team need our support, maybe not the directors, but the team does. What do you think that aspiring young players (of which we have a few), will think if they go to Dundee Utd, Aberdeen or Celtic, see crowds and get encouragement from the fact that people are prepared to come out and see them perform, meanwhile at St Mirren Park people are staying away because they don't like the tactics of the BoD's!..................... I know what I would think if I had aspirations to improve my lot!

Technically incorrect. To be precise 0.3326388 way through the day. However I like your thinking......................

Much maligned and totally misunderstood man. He likes women (a number of them) he argued with his wife (frequently) and he has the yips. What is there not to like about him?

I'm sure I would have fully appreciated the said Miss Nicol ! You say she was a belter..............................................

......................... it could of course be genetic, as it was with Big Yards I agree with an Soctty that Yards had an ability to turn and score goals, he obviously would have been fantastic and probably out of our league if he had been genetically 'smaller boned' and lithe, but he wasn't and we got the benefit of that. He had a very good footballing brain and knew where to be and how to react, even given his size and weight.

I'm delighted to see the thread has degenerated into a love in!............................................

If the article is accurate, I can only wish our new recruit the best of luck. May his tenacity, enthusiasm and desire to succeed, rub off on those around him.

It would be a very interesting handbag moment if we packed all the 'angry' contributors to this website into a room together and let them loose for 60 minutes. Would they all eventually stop moaning and realise they are actually all St Mirren supporters together, or would they continue arguing with their own shadow until the cows came home...............................

My point is merely that we are not unique in being a small club in the shadow of the two Glasgow big clubs - made in response to a post from someone who seemed to be suggesting that we should somehow accept our lot as a wee club because of the OF proximity. I assume you refer to my post Poz, or maybe one that followed. I actually wasn't inferring that we have to accept our lot, it is the way that things have happened over the years. I actually recall attending Love St when we regularly got crowds of 8 to 10,000 outwith OF games. However over a long period we have managed (and please note I use that word carefully) to screw it up internally. Other than maybe the Ferguson era when he personally went round the Paisley housing areas and stirred up interest and cajoled the punters to come and see this wee exciting team perform, we have year on year let fans dwindle away. The OF reference was one that has rankled with me for many years. These were people who wanted to go and watch football, but for whatever reason, be it attracted to a success related team, or some misguided religious reasoning, they left Paisley en mass (pun unintentional) every Saturday and meanwhile the local team had less and less finance coming through the door and we took on a small team boardroom mentality. That hasn't changed. I am on record as saying that it is time for the BoD's to go, and the sooner the better. Whether we get anyone else in that will have any semblance of enthusiasm or drive is another matter, I'm getting to the stage of believing that almost anything else would be preferable! One thing that is obvious, if we did get a team that performed better and challenged for the top 4 I bet we would see our crowds grow to around the 6,000 mark

You are absolutely correct, and if I recall we also pushed the boat out for Dougie Somner....................... these were the days when football had bigger crowds, old firm visiting at least twice a year and a biscuit tin mentality. The current BoD's have rightly (after the mess that we were in pre-Tesco deal) run the ship very tightly and have consistently said they will run it on a break even basis. Scottish football is financially fu**ed at present and there is much less finance flowing round the financial corridors of all Scottish football clubs just now, and for the foreseeable future. Just enlighten me (and believe me I'd like to be enlightened), why would the current BoD's go into debt to buy a player and put the club into debt, or for them to personally guarantee a loan to the club to buy a player who may or may not perform for the club?

Generally I agree with TT.................................... the lack of appreciation of our leaky defensive capabilities baffles me to the extent that I now reluctantly have to agree with the long-held belief that a certain MM has an unhealthy amount of support from on high. Yes we had a blank sheet against us on Friday............... hip, hip, hooray............ but it won't last long. We have a suspect ship in that department and I really for the life of me can't understand why we don't have a good shoe in if there is either an injury / suspension / loss of form that behaves like a good old fashioned Centre Half and clears his lines (and commands the penalty box at corners). More mid-fielders and wingers are fine and dandy if you have solidity at the back..................... something we don't have and won't have with the personnel currently available to the Manager.

As mentioned before the club has frequently sold their best player to another club and quite often a Scottish one at that. It's the nature of the beast. We are a small parochial team over-shadowed by the two big beasts in Glasgow which historically have drained Paisley of prospective supporters every Saturday as they drove down Glasgow Road / Paisley Road West and London Road in pursuit of something that I've never quite understood. Saints as a team must sell their best players when they can otherwise their contract runs out and they can move eventually free of cost. It's simple logic and mathematics. As for my fist sentence: George McLean Tottie Beck Frank McGarvey Jim Clunie Gerry Baker Tommy Bryceland Denis Connaghan Archie Knox Paul Lambert Barry Lavety Frank McAvennie Gordon McQueen Frank McDougall Iain Munro Willie Telfer .................. Kenny McLean Need I add to this list? The Club will survive, the club will move on and the club will develop new talent. Yes it's a great pity we've lost him at this stage in the season, but if he signed a new 2 year deal with the Saints and managed to get an escape clause written into the deal, then that's to his and his agent's credit for achieving that, and also perhaps credit the club with the fact that without that clause he may not have signed a contract and we may have got diddly squat for the player when he eventually moved.

Not really a subject to get your knickers in a twist over. When you mess with the media, they have the wonderful gift of having the last word............ even if they are obviously wrong! If the TV companies want to stir it up, they will, it creates controversy. If they want to bring in ill-informed ex-players (who often use verbs in the wrong tense!....... pet hate), they will, inevitably some are biased and some are downright awful. Just be thankful that occasionally ST gets some airtime.

Due to family connections, I actually attended the semi-final by sitting in the 'family' section of the Celtic end!!!! When we scored first I stood up and shouted (naturally), then suddenly realised my reaction and let's just suggest, my precarious position. When they equalised I clapped as an appreciation of a good goal, but at the same time I groaned as I'd seen many false dawns against the old firm throughout the years. Samson's penalty save was right in front of me and all I could say was: "I don't believe what I'm seeing"!! However my hands were tightly clasped and there was no automatic jump for joy. However.................... as we then went 2-1 up then 3-1, I was beyond worry. I even had the Ceptic supporters all around saying they thought we had played brilliantly and they didn't expect this type of performance. Their final goal really meant nothing other than a little bit of respectability. I've been to many games against both of the well supported Glasgow teams, and there are some memorable moments......... the outstanding one is the 3-1 win over Celtic at Ibrox in 1962 in the Scottish Cup semi-final, even taking into account the 'invasion', however as with most Buddie related events, we then couldn't repeat the act against Rangers at Hampden. That was one example of playing OF opposition and having them on toast for the whole 90 minutes. The League Cup semi against Celtic goes down as one of the great memories, but is of course overtaken by the win against Hearts.

The Herald article is reasonably well researched. At least they went through the channels to get a balanced view from someone in Chile (albeit a supporter of the said Rangers) as to the Argentinian ownership period. For those unaware of what was written here is the article: Q&A: What can St Mirren fans expect from South American owners? Graeme Macpherson Sports Writer Wednesday 14 January 2015 AFTER five and half years on the market, a takeover of St Mirren is thought to be finally nearing completion. AFTER five and half years on the market, a takeover of St Mirren is thought to be finally nearing completion. The buyers are a South American consortium led by Ricardo Pini, an Argentinian lawyer. Pini's last involvement was with the Chilean club CSD Rangers, he and his brother Sebastian taking ownership of the club, based in the city of Talca, in 2010 following an auction to take them out of bankruptcy. On their watch the club won promotion into the top division in 2011, before being relegated again last year at which point Pini relinquished his control of the club. It was a tumultuous four-year stint, full of highs and lows as well as a few moments of controversy. Herald Sport spoke to Pablo Sepulveda, a former football commentator on Chilean TV and a lifelong Rangers fan, for the lowdown on Pini and on what the St Mirren fans can expect should the takeover be completed. Q. What are your main memories of Ricardo Pini from his time at Rangers? A. I remember there was high expectation in Talca when he took over. Rangers had been in bankruptcy so the fans were hoping for a bright future - both in an economic and sporting sense - with all the problems left in the past. Over time, however, we learned that Mr Pini was focused just on the business side of things, and the social and football aspects were not important to him. The fans did not matter to him and the traditions of the club were forgotten. Rangers has been going for more than 100 years without ever being champions so their fans are renowned for being very faithful. That loyalty was trampled over. Q. What did he achieve during that period in charge? A. Supposedly he wanted to consolidate Rangers in the top division. But gradually we saw that his primary interest was economics. Traditions are important to the fans and soon they started to walk away from their club. Mr Pini's occasional comments in the media didn't help either, with him often dismissing the fans' complaints. Q. What was Pini's relationship like with the fans and the Chilean media in general? A. The relationship with the fans was uncertain at first. He had the chance to win the affection and support of the people but chose not to engage with them. Rangers is a club with roots in a traditional area of Chile - Rangers and Talca go hand in hand. Mr Pini, though, did not appreciate that and, therefore, failed at the club. As time went on, the situation got worse with supporters demanding he left and the club returned to more understanding hands. His relationship with the media was also not great because he rarely spoke and ran the club from afar. Q. What do you know or remember about Pini's takeover at Rangers? (When his group paid around £500,000 to take the club out of bankruptcy, after two previous attempts had failed. The purchase was originally ruled void by the courts due to an alleged fault with the process, before the appeals court overturned that decision to allow the deal to go ahead). A. It was all very strange. Several bids were made because Rangers was in bankruptcy. The Pinis were not known in the city, arrived unexpectedly, made an offer and got the club at a low price. At first their deal encountered unexpected legal problems before finally the club was in possession of foreigners (Argentines). The first auction bid failed only on a technicality, the second because the company involved did not have enough money. At the third auction attempt, Mr Pini won ahead of two other bids. Q. And what do you know or remember about Pini's exit from Rangers? A. His departure came after relegation amid a lot of pressure from supporters had become very upset with Mr Pini and his work. They were annoyed by the matter of "triangulation" (where a player will leave Club A to sign for Club B but go via Club C - who the player will never or very rarely turn out for - for in a bid to reduce costs and tax liability). A lot of players were signed for Rangers but then immediately loaned out and never played for the team. This was done for economic reasons only. That was seen as disrespectful by the fans. What they viewed as a football institution with a lot of history had become just a vehicle for business. That was painful for the supporters. Q. What can you tell me about the Carlos Sanchez deal? (Sanchez, now with Aston Villa, was signed by Rangers from Valenciennes then immediately loaned back to the French club for five years before signing shortly after for Elche in Spain. The transfer was one, among many, investigated by Cash Investigation, the French equivalent of Panorama, who, upon interviewing Sanchez, discovered that he had never set foot in Talca. A Buenos Aires magistrate included Rangers on a "black list" of clubs they considered "tax havens") A. Regarding Sanchez, I can only know what I read in the press. He was a player who went on the books of Rangers but never went through Talca. I saw an article in the French media where he was asked about Rangers, the city and the fans. He admitted he didn't know anything about any of it. Q. What was the highlight of Pini's time at Rangers? A. The highlight was winning promotion to the top division in 2011 courtesy of a dramatic 3-3 draw with Everton that will remain long in the memory. There was also a good first campaign in 2012 when the team reached the semi-finals of the cup and was in the running to become champions for the first time in the club's history. Q. And the low point? A. In sporting terms the lowest point was the decline in 2013 with a team lacking in quality and players not playing for the jersey. There was also the contempt shown to the fans when twice, for games against O'Higgins and Católica, most of the stadium was given over to the away support, including the traditional home Rangers end. That was the last straw for many fans. Q. It looks like Pini will soon buy St Mirren. Do you think this will be a positive development for that club or not? What can the St Mirren fans expect? A. I don't think that is good news for them. From experience it will be a deal done for economic purposes rather because of any real interest in what happens on the field. I have nothing personal against Mr Pini but from analysing his time at Rangers there was little there designed to bring joy to the supporters. If there is a way to prevent him buying their club, I would urge the St Mirren fans to do all they can. Nobody can assume a love for a club overnight and ultimately that's what matters. As said previously if I was a supporter of a smallish, but solvent football club in Buenos Aires and along came some business conglomerate from Scotland, saying that they wanted to buy the club, I think I might be a little suspicious!!!! I now firmly want the BoD's to go. I have admired their tenure and their enthusiasm (especially as supporters) to get the club back on an even financial footing, but as in all business matters, there is a time to exit, and that time is now. Having said the above, I could see why they would grasp at straws (which I think the Argentinian approach is), and I would go as far as to venture the opinion that they might well jump into this type of relationship just to finally get out of their current commitments, but as previously said, many foreign dabblings in Scottish football has only ended in tears................ as I think this one would too. My word of advice to the BoD's (if they care to at least listen to it) ......don't do this deal, for the sake of the supporters, the club as a whole and the risk that they do use the club for nefarious 'business' dealings and leave us in a worse state than we are at present.

So it seems that circa 2,250 seems to be the tipping point! Ok could everyone just please remember what you wish for............................ those who called for DL's head (and I had eventually come round to the notion that his time was up) finished up with TC and even prior to DL there was vociferous vitriol for GMcP's head, so whoever the Board pick, please give them a chance and don't just look at the immediacy of the results that flow from St Mirren Park. It will take a minor miracle for a new man to vastly improve results and also to keep us up this year.................... whoever it is, the team will get my support.

I see we have reached the dizzy heights of 113 pages, at an average page rate of 20 posts that makes 2,240 posts on this subject (ignoring numerous other TC must / should/ has to/ bu**er o** as soon as possible threads)! Can the Mods please tell us how many pages DL or GMcP generated on the same subject............. it might be important to know this as the BoD's may wait for a certain threshold to be broken to actually act!

The bidding seems (after 4 bids) to have stalled at £47k, (and free pies) which in a theoretical reverse ebay world isn't a lot of interest from a starting point of £50k! It seems that maybe the Buddies out there realise it might be a harder gig than they think.......................................

I believe the crowd numbers at the ICT cup game said a lot. Normally a cup game engenders enthusiasm, a hint of hope and excitement.............. the fact that we got less than 2000 folk there says it all. The vast majority of fans seem to have decided that there is "something rotten in the State of Paisley"........... and I'll leave you to consider what that may be!

As a generality I don't disagree, but any speculative development, be it offices, retail or residential will only be carried out if a strong feasibility study (and the Banks) can support it. In an ideal world we would have a pre-let, otherwise in this market you will only find that support for such a venture is thin on the ground, either that or the BoD's have bottomless pockets (ahem)............................ then if you borrow to build, then in theory (and practice) you have a larger debt to service / get reimbursed in any sale, unless of course that the income from said development is sufficiently long-term to cover the interest charges on the original development cost........................ simple mathematics! Rents in Paisley for offices aren't that good. Historically they lag well behind Glasgow and on top of that it takes a certain type of organisation to trade out of the offices stuck into the corner of a football ground........................ not that I know much about it of course.

I have nothing but full support for 10000 Hours, but any business plan needs to have all of the following: 1. A leader, 2. A vision, 3. A robust business case and 4. A strategy 'B' policy that it can fall back if the 1st idea doesn't work If you can then convince Banks, Local Authority and the cynics within the community, then maybe, just maybe, you can make it work. I can't subscribe to the excuse that the 10000 Hours proposal simply failed because it refused to accept that the money they were putting up was going into the hands of the Directors and not into the club. Only when the Club is going either into administration or bankruptcy and the opportunity arises to buy into the ownership with the 'Community' model could you then be assured the money wasn't going to the people who own the shares, otherwise any different owner is going to have to deal with the share owners (or the administrator or liquidator), and pay them an amount that they accept as a way out. I do see that the community buy out model can work........................................ but, and it is a large but, perhaps it requires a very robust business plan behind it and from what I understand that wasn't fully part of the proposal, but then again maybe I'm wrong.

Let's just assume for a moment that the majority of fans want a 'Community' owned club, which in today's market is one of the favoured options as to where it could finish up. To achieve that, it it would appear the only way that might come to fruition is to pay the directors what they want to sell their shares. Now in any negotiation, they might ask for their perfect 'get me out of here' figure in the hope of getting something near that, but at some point they are going to sell. So, if we are to become a 'Community' owned club we will have to put our money where it hurts, into the hands of the shareholders. Either that, or the shareholders will keep holding on until some mythical party comes along that is attracted to the idea of 'owning' a relatively low key mid-ranking Scottish football club.............................. they best not hold their collective breaths! Whatever happens, no matter who owns the club, or ultimately runs it, Saints are going to have to continue to survive on the breadline: 1. There is no money at present (or in the foreseeable future) in Scottish football to support quality players, or a profitable football business (unless you have a large fan base). 2. Under a community owned set up we would have to run the club as a non-loss making venture. 3. The only way we can make any sizeable amounts of money is to keep developing a youth set-up and hope that it turns out at least one player every two to three years that can be sold. I fear that the state of limbo we are in suits no-one. The BoD's, the fans, the players and the management are all disillusioned. My main fear for a community based model, is who with the right business sense is going to run, lead and manage this organisation and take the difficult decisions such as sacking the manager or weighing up the financial downsides of not sacking the manager. Yes we all believe we, as fans, have a collective knowledge of how things could be done better, but in the cold light of day it's not as easy as some would like to think. In saying the above, I'm certainly not supporting the Manager, nor am I trying to be sympathetic to the Board, all I'm saying is that the state of nothingness that exists at present is permeating all the way down the club and is reflected on the field as much as it is off the field. What's the answer....................... some fan needs to win the Euro millions jackpot, otherwise, we're stuck!

I think you'll find that the real fans have all the self respect necessary...............................