Food for thought

[Eaglesham saint]

5 hours ago, Stuart Dickson said:

Yep, particularly the sacking of Alex Smith. 

Just think about this for a minute. St Mirren have just won the Scottish Cup and you receive a bid for your winning goalscorer which would see a World Cup winner (Ossie Ardiles) and an international star (Nico Claesen) plus around £750,000 cash come to Paisley. The player wants to leave, you as manager want to complete the deal, but your board of directors think you've lost your marbles and start telling directors at other clubs that the Scottish Cup win was the worst thing that could have ever happened to the club because now your management team want to sign up washed up foreigners. The Spurs bid gets knocked back, some of the board members sound out Fitzpatrick and McGarvey over the possibility of them replacing Smith and Bone, and you're handed a transfer budget so small that you are left raiding the bottom tier of Scottish Football to land Bobby Dawson, Mark McWalter and Keith Walker. Then sure enough in Tromso Fitzpatrick reportedly has a bust up with Smith over his non selection, and a few weeks later Jimmy Bone and Frank McGarvey have a set to in the tunnel after Alex Smith substitutes McGarvey. And against this backdrop Abercrombie and Hamilton's alcoholic abuse has escalated to levels that have really affected their performances. 

What chance did Smith have and to rub salt into the wounds Fitzpatrick would go on to sign a washed up Stevie Archibald and Victor Munoz.  

Stuart you sound like a fascinating character,I'm amazed you've never been offered a job, you are very knowledgable about the game.

You always have the answer, my goodness do St Mirren know what talent they have on the doorstep

Btw. Stuart. How's your face ,it must be raw by the number of scabs you pick off on this forum 

Edited November 4, 2016 by Eaglesham saint
Added comment

[shull]

15 minutes ago, Eaglesham saint said:

Stuart you sound like a fascinating character,I'm amazed you've never been offered a job, you are very knowledgable about the game.

You always have the answer, my goodness do St Mirren know what talent they have on the doorstep

Btw. Stuart. How's your face ,it must be raw by the number of scabs you pick off on this forum 

What a heap of sarcastic shite. 

I thought Stuart's post was excellent. 

 

[windae cleaner]

5 hours ago, Stuart Dickson said:

Yep, particularly the sacking of Alex Smith. 

Just think about this for a minute. St Mirren have just won the Scottish Cup and you receive a bid for your winning goalscorer which would see a World Cup winner (Ossie Ardiles) and an international star (Nico Claesen) plus around £750,000 cash come to Paisley. The player wants to leave, you as manager want to complete the deal, but your board of directors think you've lost your marbles and start telling directors at other clubs that the Scottish Cup win was the worst thing that could have ever happened to the club because now your management team want to sign up washed up foreigners. The Spurs bid gets knocked back, some of the board members sound out Fitzpatrick and McGarvey over the possibility of them replacing Smith and Bone, and you're handed a transfer budget so small that you are left raiding the bottom tier of Scottish Football to land Bobby Dawson, Mark McWalter and Keith Walker. Then sure enough in Tromso Fitzpatrick reportedly has a bust up with Smith over his non selection, and a few weeks later Jimmy Bone and Frank McGarvey have a set to in the tunnel after Alex Smith substitutes McGarvey. And against this backdrop Abercrombie and Hamilton's alcoholic abuse has escalated to levels that have really affected their performances. 

What chance did Smith have and to rub salt into the wounds Fitzpatrick would go on to sign a washed up Stevie Archibald and Victor Munoz.  

Just one thing Stuart

The manager AND the board would have loved for the Spurs deal to go through

One thing though Ferguson only wanted to go to the blue bigots once he heard they were interested and he more or less downed tools until he got his way

Smith did have a lot to attend with outside the pitch right enough

[St.Ricky]

1 hour ago, shull said:

What a heap of sarcastic shite. 

I thought Stuart's post was excellent. 

 

Play nice guys. Please

[Stuart Dickson]

1 hour ago, Eaglesham saint said:

Stuart you sound like a fascinating character,I'm amazed you've never been offered a job, you are very knowledgable about the game.

You always have the answer, my goodness do St Mirren know what talent they have on the doorstep

Btw. Stuart. How's your face ,it must be raw by the number of scabs you pick off on this forum 

Oh I am definitely knowledgeable about the game but St Mirren could never afford me.  

[Isle Of Bute Saint]

Oh I am definitely knowledgeable about the game but St Mirren could never afford me.  

Tell us how you could move St Mirren forward I'm all ears ?

[Stuart Dickson]

13 minutes ago, Isle Of Bute Saint said:

Tell us how you could move St Mirren forward I'm all ears ?

Why would I do that for free? And why would I do that for you?

[Ayrshire Saints]

5 hours ago, windae cleaner said:

Just one thing Stuart

The manager AND the board would have loved for the Spurs deal to go through

One thing though Ferguson only wanted to go to the blue bigots once he heard they were interested and he more or less downed tools until he got his way

Smith did have a lot to attend with outside the pitch right enough

Bone is the only person who was connected to SMFC at that time who I have ever heard mention the Ardiles / Claesen deal publicly (in an interview a few years ago which Stu D has clearly plaguerised). I would suggest that had such an offer been actually made we would have snapped their hands off as both players were top drawer and it would have been huge news. It's up there with the Ronaldinho capper ! Bar the Scottish Cup win, Smith and Bone did very little. League results were poor and the football was pretty uninspiring although compared to where we are now it was a different universe.

[ScotstounSaint]

43 minutes ago, Ayrshire Saints said:

Bone is the only person who was connected to SMFC at that time who I have ever heard mention the Ardiles / Claesen deal publicly (in an interview a few years ago which Stu D has clearly plaguerised). I would suggest that had such an offer been actually made we would have snapped their hands off as both players were top drawer and it would have been huge news. It's up there with the Ronaldinho capper ! Bar the Scottish Cup win, Smith and Bone did very little. League results were poor and the football was pretty uninspiring although compared to where we are now it was a different universe.

I'd give my left plum for a Bobby Dawson at right back today!

[Stuart Dickson]

Bone is the only person who was connected to SMFC at that time who I have ever heard mention the Ardiles / Claesen deal publicly (in an interview a few years ago which Stu D has clearly plaguerised). I would suggest that had such an offer been actually made we would have snapped their hands off as both players were top drawer and it would have been huge news. It's up there with the Ronaldinho capper ! Bar the Scottish Cup win, Smith and Bone did very little. League results were poor and the football was pretty uninspiring although compared to where we are now it was a different universe.

Alex Smith told me about Ardiles when I met him and bought him a drink. It was the night before one of Aberdeen Cup Finals. They were staying the night in that hotel next to the airport where they always used to stay the night before a Cup Final. Smith also has been quoted talking about trying to sign Ardiles in several interviews since.

Jimmy Bone was quoted in The Scotsman relaying the story prior to the League Cup Final. The article is still available online.

You are right. In just under 2 years, with only one completed season, they did very little, apart from win the Scottish Cup, qualify for the European Cup Winners Cup - the highest level of competition St Mirren have ever played at — win the Singapore Cup and keep St Mirren in the top flight despite also raising just short of £1.3m in transfer fees and being given less than 100k of that to spend. They gave Paul Lambert and Norrie McWhirter their first team breakthrough and developed the likes of Brian Hamilton, David Winnie and Ian Cameron who went on to raise just short of another £1m in transfer fees. And they did all this despite contending with two raging alcoholics and another two senior players who were angling for their jobs.

Yeah Smith and Bone did very little. I hope Jack Ross can aspire to more.

[pod]

Mention of food and your right on it.

[Ayrshire Saints]

9 hours ago, ScotstounSaint said:

I'd give my left plum for a Bobby Dawson at right back today!

So would I JC and a big Sky Walker in midfield. Says it all really about our current predicament.

[Stuart Dickson]

48 minutes ago, pod said:

Mention of food and your right on it.

Not for a banana or plums.  

[antrin]

47 minutes ago, Stuart Dickson said:

Not for a banana or plums.  

I'm on plums...  

[beyond our ken]

the club is in the shitter, in more ways than one.  Future improvement heavily depends on staying in this division, but we could well go down, reducing interest, footfall and spend at the club.  it really could be 5 or 6 years before any sort of happy accident leads to a recovery, but that could be the scenario if we go down this year.

 

It's true, moaning achieves nothing and supporting the team is the only positive option.  It is hard, though.  A generation of younger fans have known little but good times and an older generation remember the great times, you can understand their dissatisfaction.

[pod]

1 hour ago, beyond our ken said:

the club is in the shitter, in more ways than one.  Future improvement heavily depends on staying in this division, but we could well go down, reducing interest, footfall and spend at the club.  it really could be 5 or 6 years before any sort of happy accident leads to a recovery, but that could be the scenario if we go down this year.

 

It's true, moaning achieves nothing and supporting the team is the only positive option.  It is hard, though.  A generation of younger fans have known little but good times and an older generation remember the great times, you can understand their dissatisfaction.

I'll still be there, at a reduced price. 

Edited November 5, 2016 by pod

[Buddy Marvellous]

Bear with me on this - but see posts like this, it's like a scab on a face. You know you shouldn't pick at it. You don't want to pick at it. But everytime you touch your face you can feel it and somehow the urge to pull the scab off becomes irresistible. 

I'm sure you are a lovely person, well meaning and with great sentiments. I honestly don't want to pick apart your post. But I honestly can't help it. There's just too much in there to ignore. 

Look first off, the idea of the club and fans forgetting what went wrong and then starting again making all the same mistakes that were forgotten before is just plain silly. The club should be studying it's mistakes, learning from them, fixing them and making sure no-one ever gets to make the same mistakes again. On the pitch there a need to analyse why the club loses so many cheap goals from set pieces? Why can't players stick with their markers in the box? Why do St Mirren players seem to think that playing football the right way is when already losing to pass the ball around the back four, ensuring everyone gets a touch of the ball without pressure on them from the opposition, before passing it 30 - 40 yards back to a goalkeeper who is only going to punt the ball 50 yards forward aimlessly and often to an opponent? And why do St Mirren seem incapable of getting more than 5 shots on target in any match? Off the pitch the club has to learn from the mistakes it's made in managerial appointments. It needs to run a full analysis of what is going wrong at the academy finding out why it's producing players who appear heartless, gutless and talentless. It needs to listen to it's customers, particularly the ones complaining, to find out why customers aren't happy, and it needs to find ways to boost and grow the clubs revenue making decisions that the last board seemed paralysed with fear to make. 

Then there's the assertion that ICT or Ross County were "scrimping" around lower leagues to find Ian Vigurs (ex Aberdeen and Celtic) who ICT signed after he was freed from Motherwell, Ross Draper, who came from Macclesfield Town where the wages were roughly double what St Mirren currently pay. And Andrew Shinnie who was signed initially from Rangers having spent two years out on loan with Dundee. 

And finally you make a case for players morale being given a boost by fans not criticising them. Do you not think that has to work the other way? The players themselves will know if they have played well or not. They'll know by the result whether the team is doing well or not. A silent crowd, like the one on Tuesday night, won't boost the players morale if those players are still under achieving. Instead of blaming the customers for the players performance, how about the players take a bit of responsibility for the shite fest they are putting on, that they put some work into their fitness and training and that they start showing the determination and will to succeed that might turn the clubs results around. 

To say the academy players appear heartless, gutless and talentless shows how much of a numpty you are. You can label a lot of our established players as that but the performances of the likes of McAllister, Magennis and Morgan have been our only (slight) positive in a terrible season. Posting nonsense like this about players barely out of school is ridiculous.

I stopped reading after that part cos you obviously don't know what your talking about.