3 Stands for Old Firm

[mainstand]

39 minutes ago, THE LARK SAINT said:

We have a new CEO?? Since when? Who? 

Kirsten Robertson is the ceo. Formerly CEO at Kilmarnock. Article in the Sunday mail about her today and how she is taking on the running of the club from Steve brown and making changes in the way it's running. 

She originally came in to help at the club then took on the football operations side from Paul when he left. Paul is now back and working on the lotto I believe.

[Ginger Bakers rebel army]

Club statement on this blames the new road, that's bollocks, it's purely about the money. 

 

[Ginger Bakers rebel army]

Probably the most important transfer window for a long time as next year's prize money is going to be much higher. 

If we can make top 6, we will get another game at home against one of them which would be a further 200k revenue. 

We need to see proof from brown of further investment in the team through this window. 

[Ginger Bakers rebel army]

Would be much better if old firm fans were held back 15 minutes after the end of the game to allow the good people of Perth to leave peacefully and not subject to some of the disgusting behaviour of the old firm. 

[TheYellowBox]

15 minutes ago, mainstand said:

Kirsten Robertson is the ceo. Formerly CEO at Kilmarnock. Article in the Sunday mail about her today and how she is taking on the running of the club from Steve brown and making changes in the way it's running. 

She originally came in to help at the club then took on the football operations side from Paul when he left. Paul is now back and working on the lotto I believe.

Why does the club not make the fans aware of this kind of thing though?

The debate over moving fans is missing the wider point we are all aware of, the shrinking of match attending saints fans at ALL games. I don't think our overall support is getting smaller, if anything, I think we have more now than ever, but folk rarely go to games now, rather follow from afar.

Lots of well discussed reasons for that, but the club are suffering from years of not doing enough to make the whole matchday better for fans. Yes there are great initiatives now, but too little too late.

Club cannot realistically do more on the pitch than have done in the last decade, but overall it is all a bit meh with the club. I don't think there are many amongst us that thinks the club is being innovatevely run. Not to say it is being poorly run, but rightly it wrongly, the vibe from the top is one of 'if it ain't broke.....'.

I know there are traditionalist that say, you pay your money and see a winning team etc, but the whole experience of going to McD is just crap. So much scope for club to do a lot with the space we have around the ground, but dinosaurs at club cannot and will not break the model. Ask yourself, what has changed going to a saints game at McD since 1989 away from the pitch? 

We are loosing fans at a greater rate that our peer clubs and its clearly not the on pitch performance that causes it. 

 

[Cagey]

1 hour ago, Ginger Bakers rebel army said:

Club statement on this blames the new road, that's bollocks, it's purely about the money. 

 

How the **** is the new road having an effect on Saints crowds.

It's the Wright anti football that's losing support.

[Cagey]

41 minutes ago, TheYellowBox said:

Why does the club not make the fans aware of this kind of thing though?

The debate over moving fans is missing the wider point we are all aware of, the shrinking of match attending saints fans at ALL games. I don't think our overall support is getting smaller, if anything, I think we have more now than ever, but folk rarely go to games now, rather follow from afar.

Lots of well discussed reasons for that, but the club are suffering from years of not doing enough to make the whole matchday better for fans. Yes there are great initiatives now, but too little too late.

Club cannot realistically do more on the pitch than have done in the last decade, but overall it is all a bit meh with the club. I don't think there are many amongst us that thinks the club is being innovatevely run. Not to say it is being poorly run, but rightly it wrongly, the vibe from the top is one of 'if it ain't broke.....'.

I know there are traditionalist that say, you pay your money and see a winning team etc, but the whole experience of going to McD is just crap. So much scope for club to do a lot with the space we have around the ground, but dinosaurs at club cannot and will not break the model. Ask yourself, what has changed going to a saints game at McD since 1989 away from the pitch? 

We are loosing fans at a greater rate that our peer clubs and its clearly not the on pitch performance that causes it. 

 

A major change at the club such as an appointment of a CEO SHOULD be communicated to the fans. It might even have got a column in the press.

[RandomGuy]

7 minutes ago, Cagey said:

How the **** is the new road having an effect on Saints crowds.

Its affected us financially. I'm sure one of the accounts in the past few years claimed it cost the club around £400k in "commercial activities" while the construction was ongoing.

That's a huge amount of money, and when you're getting less than 1500 home fans, and spreading them across two stands which can both hold over 3000, it makes very little sense to continue that.

[dunblanemike]

17 minutes ago, Cagey said:

A major change at the club such as an appointment of a CEO SHOULD be communicated to the fans. It might even have got a column in the press.

The new CEO is not included on the club website board and staff pages yet, nor made it as a news item.

[TheYellowBox]

26 minutes ago, Cagey said:

A major change at the club such as an appointment of a CEO SHOULD be communicated to the fans. It might even have got a column in the press.

Yes, via either the local press or the clubs own communications. Not via a paper which a) does not have the article online and b) really has zero interest in Saints and I suspect a fraction of saints fans read. 

[RandomGuy]

26 minutes ago, dunblanemike said:

The new CEO is not included on the club website board and staff pages yet, nor made it as a news item.

Shes listed on the "contact us" part of the site.

[mainstand]

1 hour ago, TheYellowBox said:

Why does the club not make the fans aware of this kind of thing though?

The debate over moving fans is missing the wider point we are all aware of, the shrinking of match attending saints fans at ALL games. I don't think our overall support is getting smaller, if anything, I think we have more now than ever, but folk rarely go to games now, rather follow from afar.

Lots of well discussed reasons for that, but the club are suffering from years of not doing enough to make the whole matchday better for fans. Yes there are great initiatives now, but too little too late.

Club cannot realistically do more on the pitch than have done in the last decade, but overall it is all a bit meh with the club. I don't think there are many amongst us that thinks the club is being innovatevely run. Not to say it is being poorly run, but rightly it wrongly, the vibe from the top is one of 'if it ain't broke.....'.

I know there are traditionalist that say, you pay your money and see a winning team etc, but the whole experience of going to McD is just crap. So much scope for club to do a lot with the space we have around the ground, but dinosaurs at club cannot and will not break the model. Ask yourself, what has changed going to a saints game at McD since 1989 away from the pitch? 

We are loosing fans at a greater rate that our peer clubs and its clearly not the on pitch performance that causes it. 

 

Exactly what Kirsten says in her interview. Or needs to be better they need to tell folk the good things they are doing and they need to improve the fans experience especially on match days. 

Having spoken to her she seems really innovative in what she is wanting to do. 

[mainstand]

1 hour ago, Cagey said:

How the **** is the new road having an effect on Saints crowds.

It's the Wright anti football that's losing support.

The letter does not say it is affecting saints crowds it merely states that it has an impact on the safety of fans when leaving the stadium. 

[Wendy Saints]

1 hour ago, Cagey said:

A major change at the club such as an appointment of a CEO SHOULD be communicated to the fans. It might even have got a column in the press.

Most definitely... I don’t understand why you would want to keep it quiet! As an aside ..I recently had to contact the club on a Saturday match day.... called the numbers listed on the club website.. tried between 9:30 & 12:30 and no answer & no answer machine or message facility. Eventually arrived at the ground and told that the ticket office are too busy to answer! Really! Not impressed...not the way a club should be run ..

[Ginger Bakers rebel army]

1 hour ago, mainstand said:

The letter does not say it is affecting saints crowds it merely states that it has an impact on the safety of fans when leaving the stadium. 

Wish they had explained what they mean, and wish someone had put their name to the article, statements without an author looks like no one wants to be upfront about this. 

[THE LARK SAINT]

Double page spread in Sunday Mail about Kirsten Robertson 

[mainstand]

1 hour ago, Ginger Bakers rebel army said:

Wish they had explained what they mean, and wish someone had put their name to the article, statements without an author looks like no one wants to be upfront about this. 

It was a club statement. Why did you need a name on it?? If it was a letter from the chairman then his name would have been on it. 

[Ginger Bakers rebel army]

13 minutes ago, mainstand said:

It was a club statement. Why did you need a name on it?? If it was a letter from the chairman then his name would have been on it. 

Communion still in the dark ages, we only have 3 directors, surely one of them could have used this to put there name to the statement making it more personal. 

I am in favour of giving them the east stand for financial reasons to help keep us in the top flight but this could have been handled better. 

 

[TheYellowBox]

3 hours ago, mainstand said:

Exactly what Kirsten says in her interview. Or needs to be better they need to tell folk the good things they are doing and they need to improve the fans experience especially on match days. 

Having spoken to her she seems really innovative in what she is wanting to do. 

Thus proving the point. The first communication that she is even here is in a paper only article that most saints fans won't read.

If she is running things, why have we never heard from her or even tommy mentioned her?

I really hope you are right and she can drive things forward, but so far, everything is typical saints. 

[HOODLUM65]

15 hours ago, Ginger Bakers rebel army said:

Club statement on this blames the new road, that's bollocks, it's purely about the money. 

 

"Implementation of the amended traffic management " because of the new road.

How can Saints implement this to ensure the safety of the fans and how does it impact on the club allocating 3 stands to Away support?

P.S. I am a S/T holder in favour of being moved to the West Stand .

[SaintJet]

I'm late to this debate but have read all the input from everyone and it covers pretty much every point of view.

I've been banging on about housing the Saints fans in the main stand for ages - it makes total commercial sense especially this year when there is a genuine battle for the league title and in turn demand for tickets.

I honestly don't see a downside to this apart from some inconvenience to those who sit in the East stand. Having the Saints faithful sitting in one stand is bound to improve the support for the players on the pitch; we might have a small support but at away game we generate a decent amount of noise and gives the players a focal point with where to share their allegiance.

[Abernethy Saint]

I see I have been promoted to thread-starter. No greater honour out there. I’d like to thank my parents, my agent, Mr Wibberly my Primary 5 Teacher, and of course my fellow Saints fans, who share this honour, and without whom none of this would have been possible.

[blueheaven]

I was a season ticket holder when the club used to do this in the late 90s and to be honest I was fine with it - what I wasn't fine with was that the segregation was a mess and there were often OF fans in the home section. It's incredible that 20 years later we still don't have the proper online membership system that would solve this.

Still, I think reverting to OF-fans-in-the-East-Stand approach, at least as a trial to see how it goes, makes sense and has probably been on the cards for a while. The club have tried to find other ways of increasing the home support for these games but the fact is that a lot of Saints fans just don't want to enter that environment, and would probably only go in numbers if it was a big, important game for ourselves. What might be nice would be if clubs (not just Saints) actually addressed the big elephant in the room: i.e. why people don't like to go to matches involving the OF.

As an aside to this, the ticketing and seating at matches in general is a mess at the moment. I paid at the gate at the Ross County match, and had to move seats because someone came in late who had booked the seat I was in online. Either everyone going to the match should be given a seat number, or no one should: that situation is going to cause a real headache if there happens to be a game with a big crowd further down the line.

 

[supersaintee]

17 minutes ago, blueheaven said:

I was a season ticket holder when the club used to do this in the late 90s and to be honest I was fine with it - what I wasn't fine with was that the segregation was a mess and there were often OF fans in the home section. It's incredible that 20 years later we still don't have the proper online membership system that would solve this.

Still, I think reverting to OF-fans-in-the-East-Stand approach, at least as a trial to see how it goes, makes sense and has probably been on the cards for a while. The club have tried to find other ways of increasing the home support for these games but the fact is that a lot of Saints fans just don't want to enter that environment, and would probably only go in numbers if it was a big, important game for ourselves. What might be nice would be if clubs (not just Saints) actually addressed the big elephant in the room: i.e. why people don't like to go to matches involving the OF.

As an aside to this, the ticketing and seating at matches in general is a mess at the moment. I paid at the gate at the Ross County match, and had to move seats because someone came in late who had booked the seat I was in online. Either everyone going to the match should be given a seat number, or no one should: that situation is going to cause a real headache if there happens to be a game with a big crowd further down the line.

 

I didn't realise that people could book a seat online. It's never bothered me as a season ticket holder in the East Stand. However, it does pose the question about who gets to sit where when we all get shunted into "unallocated" seating in the West Stand. I assume some people will still buy tickets online so will they get to reserve a seat and move me if I happen to be sitting in the seat they reserved? When East Stand season ticket holders were move to the Main Stand in the 90's we at least got to choose the seat at the start of the season for "Grade A" matches - I worry that East Stand season ticket holders could be treated unfairly compared to occasional fans if this is the case. 

[garydavidson]

2 hours ago, supersaintee said:

I didn't realise that people could book a seat online. It's never bothered me as a season ticket holder in the East Stand. However, it does pose the question about who gets to sit where when we all get shunted into "unallocated" seating in the West Stand. I assume some people will still buy tickets online so will they get to reserve a seat and move me if I happen to be sitting in the seat they reserved? When East Stand season ticket holders were move to the Main Stand in the 90's we at least got to choose the seat at the start of the season for "Grade A" matches - I worry that East Stand season ticket holders could be treated unfairly compared to occasional fans if this is the case. 

I don't think many, if any, people are buying tickets for those matches though, the argument is that even the season ticket holders who have paid for it are not turning up.  Do agree though that those being moved should at least be allocated a seat.