Robo

If you just get back the amount you pay in , we'd be as well just creating our own Fund. Wish the money that had been pledged by fans for the 10000 hours project could be gathered by some other fans' investment vehicle - could be used, as you suggest, as a kind of insurance policy, or to invest in the club.

I don't know a huge amount about Supporters Direct to be honest. What's the issue with them?

Unfortunately, he doesn't want to continue. And what happens next, if not fan ownership? Fingers crossed we don't get a Massone or a Mileson.

Indeed, fans seem to be at the heart of football in Germany. Not the case here. Maybe things will change as more clubs become fan owned, which seems unlikely at St Mirren, and most of the clubs who are going down that route have suffered severe financial difficulty first.

Good grief Stuart, I'll let others make up their minds which scenario is more likely to happen in real life.

Perhaps not as straight forward as that. Probably more like: Proposal to ask BoD to carry out work investigating cost and benefit of introducing safe standing section. BoD report back with findings. Vote by members based on findings, to either go ahead or not (laughing optional). Situation now is that current BoD would never carry out a project such as this, regardless of what the benefits might be, because they would be crazy to shell out their own money when they are trying to sell up.

Had it not been for the debt that was to be serviced, this is exactly the type of project the fans, through 10000 hours, could have proposed, organised and funded as owners if the club. Waiting for a wealthy benefactor to come up with the funds will not move the club forward. Our current board, for all the praise they deserve in getting us where we are, would be crazy to plow in any more of their own cash while trying to sell up. It's almost preventing any investment going into the club, aside from charitable donations.

Fair enough if the stand can't be converted.Interested that you would be so against fans investing in their club. Would your view be different if I qualified that by saying any investment should be recognised by the issue of shares? I realise that the consortium won't do anything to dilute their shareholding, but if they were to match fans investment proportionately, perhaps. Probably demonstrates the need for fan ownership of the club.

You mentioned the concrete being unsuitable before - I know nothing about concrete, but hard to believe that it can support a standard seat but not a rail seat. Do you know what the problem is with it?As for the cost, the question is, is it worth taking the risk of spending with the hope that it will encourage more fans to come along? If so, and if there was enough support for the idea, perhaps the fans could help to fund it.

Maybe in a packed, noisy South Terrace?Anyway, the drummer is not really the point I'm trying to make. What I'm saying is, make going to games cheaper, and fun regardless of what's happening on the park, and I reckon a safe standing area would go a long way to achieving that.

Haha, typing a sweary is definitely less bad than saying one!I agree with you about the Livvy drummer, but part of the problem was they had no support to sing along, so it was just a guy drumming on his own. I watch the Bundesliga on ESPN and it looks amazing. Granted they have huge crowds, but if we could replicate that in even a small way it would be fantastic. Don't see anything wrong with trying to emulate foreign teams if they are doing something well.

Pricks, wankers and cnuts. Bloody hell, just as well I'm fairly quiet at games.

If someone wanted to do that, and it helped create a decent noise, all for it.

What's wrong with pies and bovril? Nothing, but hardly add to the atmosphere. Singing songs? The point being made is that this is in short supply at SMP. Cheering when your team scores, booing the opposition? Great, but hardly exclusively Scottish - I bet they daft foreigners do that too. Going for a pint post-match? Ok, but you're buying ;)

Sensitive ears, Poz?

I hope the club do have a plan to increase attendances and, if they do, I hope it's more than just hoping that perfomances improve enough to attract more fans through the gates. While it's true, to a degree, that good perfomances will create a better atmosphere and attract more fans, it is equally true, to a degree, that bad performances will turn fans away and see the atmosphere deteriorate. St Mirren, will have more than their fair share of bad performances. The other two variables that in my opinion would by likely to make any difference to attendances, are ticket price and the quality of fan experience (and by that I mean everything not including the performance of the team on the park). I reckon most would agree that the standard adult ticket price is too high, especially compared with what you might expect to pay in Germany and France for example. I'm not sure what the answer is there, but clearly with increased attendances you can afford to reduce ticket prices. So how then to improve the fan experience. The obvious point, as has already been made, is that the place is like a morgue most of the time. I know it was a pre-season friendly, but the Newcastle game was so quiet it was almost embarrassing - and it lead to chants of "shit club shit fans" from the group of Geordies who were singing (all standing up I noticed). I was at the league opener at Firhill with a Jags-supporting mate and while the attendance was no doubt inflated by the return of McNamara and it being their first game back in the top division, the atmosphere was fantasic. We sat in the stand behind the goal and there was a large group of people standing, singing pretty much for the whole match. They had unallocated seating which helped, and the stand was for over-16s only. The point is though that the noise was coming for those who were standing, and I honestly believe that a standing area creates more noise than a seated area. I would love to see our South Stand changed from a family stand to a safe standing area, with the family section moved to the Main Stand. Reduce the price for a standing ticket, and try to get people in there to make a noise. Let folk in with air horns, drums, whatever. Try to build a reputation for having a noisy, raucous support. I reckon creating that type of atmosphere is more likey to attract people than murmerings of attractive football in match reports that a lot of people who don't go to the games won't read anyway. I also think we would see improved home results if the place was jumping every other week. The cost of introducing rail seats would obviously be an issue, but I think it would be worth exploring further if there was a genuine interest from fans. If we continue with the status quo, I don't think there's any way our fortunes will improve significantly over the long term, new back-up striker or not.

Well that certainly cheered me up.

I agree, and we have Brady as well. The worst thing we could do is sign some over-the-hill journeyman who is going to score 3 or 4 goals a season, and would keep the youngsters out of the team. That said I do hope we can bring in a couple of quality players before the end of the transfer window. I'm not to worried if we don't have anyone in before the next league game - I reckon two of our most important signings over the last decade were Charlie Adam and John Sutton, both of whom were signed days before, if not on the final day of the window.

I think we notice the decline in Football and Rugby because of their relative popularity compared to the likes of Tennis and Cycling. If you're a Scottish Tennis fan, then you were hardly spoiled for choice before the Murrays came along. But I take your point that there are top Scottish sportsmen and women out there, but I think they are the exceptions rather than the rule.

I think this is an important point also. I've felt for a long time that Scotland has a national inferiority complex - an 'everythings shite', 'we've no hope' kind of attitude (could easily stray into another arguement here, but I won't...). We are comfortable with the plucky underdog tag and I wonder if that is part of what prevents our sportsmen and women from becoming international or world class. I also think that from a football perspective, the ambition of too many young players is to play for one of the old firm - once they've done that, they've made it. Far too few Scottish players try to make it on the continent - Lambert and Collins are examples of the improvement that can be achieved in doing so.

That's a fair point, and ultimately the one that would decide whether this type of investment would be feasible - i.e. would £100k per annum be 5% or 50% of the total budget. No idea what the answer to that is. Of course, the money invested needn't be limited to the monthly subscriptions. If all fundraising by fans were to be included (saints aid, etc) then the figure could be more substantial. This obviously would need buy-in from those involved in fundraising, and I accept many may prefer the idea of just donating money to the club. Sent from my HTC One V using Black & White Army mobile app

This touches on something I had been thinking about a while back with regards to how fans (whether it be 10000 Hours, SMISA, or some other organisation) could invest in the club now, and still work towards a longer term goal of fan ownership. I sent an idea on to REA a few months back but would be interested to see what others thought. The jist was that the pledges that had been made to fund the 10000 hours bid would instead be used to invest in the youth development program, with perhaps a small amount set aside each month to build up a cash reserve. Some agreement would be reached with the club whereby a portion of the proceeds from the sale of any players who came through the youth system would be allocated to fans investment vehicle - this would be dependant on how much of the youth development program's budget would be funded by the fans. This would allow the fans group to accumulate funds with a view to buying shares in the club, admittedly over a longer period of time. There would be no debt taken on, and the worst case scenario is that there are no qualifying transfers of players that would bring any return on the investment, but even so, the fan's money would still have been invested directly in the club. I have the utmost respect for the folks trying to raise money for the club but, at the end of the day, St Mirren is not a charity (as is borne out by the fact that the majority shareholders are looking to sell up for a considerable sum of money). So if the fans are investing money in the youth development program, should they not be entitled to a return on that investment? Edited to add, that I am no businessman, and I have no idea what the youth development budget is, so feel free to pick holes in this!

The draft articles state that the rules for calling a members meeting would be as per the Companies Act 2006, which states that 5% of members would be required to force a meeting. So assuming we will have around 1000 members, you'd need to garner support of around 50 or so. I think the same percentage is required for a resolution to be circulated for an AGM. I would imagine if its an issue that the members are genuinely concerned about, it shouldn't be too difficult to get 50 members together.

Yeah, I'm not sure exactly how it would work in practice, but there would have to be some mechanism for members to have proposals added to the agenda of an AGM. As the draft articles stand at the moment, a general meeting can be called if requested by 5% of members. So for example, you would just need to get 50 or so members to request an EGM to discuss a proposal to, say, instruct the SMFC board to reject any application of entry to the SPL by a Newco. That would then be voted on, and action taken as a result. Presumably the 5% rule is to prevent meetings being called every other week, because someone thinks the pies are too expensive, or we should sack DL because he subbed Carey instead of Teale etc.

I think that depends on what your expectations were to begin with. There are degrees of influence that you could exert, but I don't think it's fair to say that members of the CIC would have no influence at all over the running of SMFC. My opinion is that it would be unrealistic, and perhaps inappropriate, for members to have influence over the day to day running of the club but, to use your example about the SPL vote, members could call a general meeting to vote on the issue and influence could be exerted on the SMFC board via the 10000 hours board (correct me if I'm wrong, but more than 50% of the SMFC board would be made up 10000 board members?).