Steve Brown - doing a good job?


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Lucky enough to have been in the Royal tonight, plenty of saintees  there that I have known for years and all  totally disoriented with Brown's leadership (or in reality lack of leadership).

Fan ownership is so far away and more chance of a Tayside Derby on the moon than Brown finding a investor or buyer. 

Bless Tommy Wright what a leader, as for Brown, I would probably be banned from the forum if I posted how bad I feel about his Chairmanship. 

It hurts to be in this situation and the only person that can fix it does not communicate with the support. 

Mr Brown, PR is not difficult you must improve dramatically or our fan base will continue to diminish until you get this right or walk away.

There is still some goodwill there with some fans but you have lost respect from many and it is getting worse and worse. 

There are many of us who have given a lifetime of dedication support and love for SJFC, get if sorted and become a leader. 

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1 hour ago, Dave H said:

Just cos you dont get a season ticket doesnt mean you have to stop going. Gave up my season a few years back but go to all home games I can. Will support the club no matter chairman, manager, goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, forward.  

Im no expert on running a football club.  Is our chairman doing a good job, no idea, whats his job description say?  If the board vote to oust Brown from top seat then I'd support that.  Do chairmen get votes of no confidence?  However I dont think we are anywhere near that.

All we need is good performances on the pitch and wins.  Then all the rumours and nonsense being circulated will disappear till the next run of bad results.  

I don’t think there is a voting board as such at Saints. The club is 99% owned by the Broons is it not? The only real restraint on Stevie is his need to maintain the value of the club so he can get shot of it. 

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7 hours ago, Abernethy Saint said:

I don’t think there is a voting board as such at Saints. The club is 99% owned by the Broons is it not? The only real restraint on Stevie is his need to maintain the value of the club so he can get shot of it. 

Not sure Steve even owns any shares unless Geoff gave him some? Geoff is still the majority shareholder.

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3 hours ago, garydavidson said:

Not sure Steve even owns any shares unless Geoff gave him some? Geoff is still the majority shareholder.

Yes Steve does have shares, it used to be at one time the board had first refusal to take back any shares that were offered up from an existing shareholder or a shareholder that had died, makes you wonder where some of the past directors got their shares from.

Given the demographic of alot of our shareholders if the board/owner so wanted they could grab most of the shares back in the next 10-20 years or less

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I haven't voted,  I think its a bit more complex than a yes or no answer. Is he perfect-No, is he running the club prudently-yes and there's lots of questions and answers in between, I wish there could have been a middle of the road option as really that's probably where anyone should be running the club.

 

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49 minutes ago, perthandproud said:

I haven't voted,  I think its a bit more complex than a yes or no answer. Is he perfect-No, is he running the club prudently-yes and there's lots of questions and answers in between, I wish there could have been a middle of the road option as really that's probably where anyone should be running the club.

 

I think it depends what you mean by 'prudently'. Clearly, we're not bankrupt. 

But in all honestly not going bust is a fairly basic objective when you have an operating model where the main cost base is headcount. The fixed cost base is low, variable costs high. That's not quite the same as, oh I don't knew, a construction business. 

To me the attitude to risk is an issue (too prudent), the capital structure is an issue (full ownership of the asset by one individual), and the overall strategy is an issue (you can't cut your way into growth, as has been proved countless times, and there seems to be no investment in innovation or product marketing). 

I think as someone said here or elsewhere he's doing an OK job of running 'the business', but you'd have to be almost wilfully incompetent not to be and like so many small business owners I've come across I suspect he mistakes cost control for good management. However on the question of if he's doing a good job of running the football club I've voted no on the basis that for me, that question is about growth. 

It's got the feel of a managed decline, baseline investment with a view to protecting the asset for sale.

Edited by Valentino Bolognese
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Yep. Saints have been for sale for 20 years; I think the Broons are getting serious about it now and tidying the accounts. This is hugely speculative, but in some ways the club actually might be more attractive to a buyer as a solvent Championship side looking towards a promotion than a struggling top tier side spending the reserve to stave off relegation. I doubt they will find one. Which is why a quite possible scenario is that, in a year or two, we will all be part-owners of Saints. That might be fun.

”Wur gonna need a bigger Boardroom”.

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3 minutes ago, Linky said:

How much are they likely to accept if someone were looking to buy the club?

If we assume they want to realise the full value of the club, it would be the net assets of the club, including their large cash reserve. Might be enough in the accounts to figure out what that is. My uneducated guess would be in the region of 3 - 4 million.

If we assume they just want out without actually losing cash, then as we don’t really owe any money, it could be zero. That doesn’t necessarily make it that much easier to get rid.

Since we are on this subject, another scenario occurs. McD, when it was built, was a muddy field in the middle of nowhere. Now it’s a muddy field in the middle of a rapidly developing area of Perth, and as prime development land, would be worth a fortune. All you’d need is, say, a large building company to take the job on. Now where would they find one of those.........?

 

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10 minutes ago, Linky said:

How much are they likely to accept if someone were looking to buy the club?

Big question. Normally you'd look at a revenue multiple, EBITDA multiple, potential for future earnings ... loads of stuff. 

I get the impression that football is different though, as there's a lot of emotion and other factors. It's not like buying other businesses. 

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Like a lot of Saints Fans I am feeling a bit down at the moment but I am dismayed at some of the comments being made regarding The Brown Family. I supported Saints prior to the Brown involvement and will be forever thankful to Geoff Brown for taking over an almost bankrupt club and then giving me 30+ years of enjoyment.  Saints  have punched well above their weight for the vast majority of The Browns Ownership and I am sure fans of clubs a similar size to Saints ( Falkirk/Dunfermline/Partick/Ayr )  would have loved to all our Euro Trips/Semi Finals/Cup Final  as memories. If our Purple Patch is over then so be it but I am far from convinced that new ownership is the answer.  

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4 minutes ago, callander saint said:

Like a lot of Saints Fans I am feeling a bit down at the moment but I am dismayed at some of the comments being made regarding The Brown Family. I supported Saints prior to the Brown involvement and will be forever thankful to Geoff Brown for taking over an almost bankrupt club and then giving me 30+ years of enjoyment.  Saints  have punched well above their weight for the vast majority of The Browns Ownership and I am sure fans of clubs a similar size to Saints ( Falkirk/Dunfermline/Partick/Ayr )  would have loved to all our Euro Trips/Semi Finals/Cup Final  as memories. If our Purple Patch is over then so be it but I am far from convinced that new ownership is the answer.  

wahey ,reality .

 

I agree,well said chief.

 

 

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13 minutes ago, callander saint said:

Like a lot of Saints Fans I am feeling a bit down at the moment but I am dismayed at some of the comments being made regarding The Brown Family. I supported Saints prior to the Brown involvement and will be forever thankful to Geoff Brown for taking over an almost bankrupt club and then giving me 30+ years of enjoyment.  Saints  have punched well above their weight for the vast majority of The Browns Ownership and I am sure fans of clubs a similar size to Saints ( Falkirk/Dunfermline/Partick/Ayr )  would have loved to all our Euro Trips/Semi Finals/Cup Final  as memories. If our Purple Patch is over then so be it but I am far from convinced that new ownership is the answer.  

Why not?

Seriously? By all accounts the current chairman isn't interested and only works at best part time. Or being generous has another business to run so can't commit the time. It's fairly clear that after a long good spell the best we can hope for is to parachute rather than freefall down the divisions. I don't think that saying that's not what the fans want is being disloyal, or saying that the family haven't been good for the club. 

Selling would be a great way for the Browns to bow out, with the eternal gratitude of the support, and they would be able to exit without losing money or going through the stress of dwindling attendances and sullying their legacy. 

If I were them I'd absolutely be looking sell if I'm not minded to (or as I suspect don't have pockets deep enough) push to maintain or improve where the club is now. Let some rich investors come in that want the kudos and fun of owning a club. 

The Man City / Leicester model.  

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Just now, Valentino Bolognese said:
4 minutes ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

 

 Let some rich investors come in that want the kudos and fun of owning a club. 

The Man City / Leicester model.  

 

you had me going until you came out with this old nugget above.

 

detached from reality and chasing unicorns more like.

 

rich investors spaffing there hard earned money on stjohnstone for the hell of it.

ha ha .wake up and give yersel a shake.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

If I were them I'd absolutely be looking sell if I'm not minded to (or as I suspect don't have pockets deep enough) push to maintain or improve where the club is now. Let some rich investors come in that want the kudos and fun of owning a club. 

The Man City / Leicester model.  

Genuine question, are you taking the piss or being serious? 

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14 minutes ago, garydavidson said:

Genuine question, are you taking the piss or being serious? 

Semi serious. Clearly it's not a City situation, not suggesting that for one second. That would indeed be taking the piss.

But it is how the model can work.

So my question is, what's the point of the Brown family just hanging in there? If they don't or can't invest to keep the club at the very least solidly mid table (and possibly even if they do) all that will happen is that the fans will turn against them. They don't deserve that and it would be a shame. 

That's what my previous post was about - if you're not growing, you're going backwards. 

Let's face it we're on TV a lot, we're in the top tier of the country, the business is solvent and has a good asset base. With the right investment in players and marketing I could easily see an investor doing a 'Fergus McCann'.

So yes, I'm serious that I would be happy enough for the family to sell if it brought investment to the club and protected their legacy. 

Edited by Valentino Bolognese
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17 minutes ago, slf said:

you had me going until you came out with this old nugget above.

 

detached from reality and chasing unicorns more like.

 

rich investors spaffing there hard earned money on stjohnstone for the hell of it.

ha ha .wake up and give yersel a shake.

 

 

FFS. Do you folk seriously not understand the concept of scale? It's a model. Not an aspiration. 

Anyway you're right. We know our place. No need for any ambition. 

A local builder rescued the club so let's let them float it back into obscurity again. We've had our day in the sun. We can all sit in the empty main stand (because that's the only one that's open) and enjoy an easy draw against some semi-professionals. That's not a future I want. 

It's not as if any wealthy investors have ever put money into a relatively small football club. Nope. Never, ever happened. 

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3 minutes ago, callander saint said:

The problem that any new investor would have is that over the years Saints attendance figures are very stable and even when we  are enjoying great success the Home Crowds rarely rise by much more than a few hundred. Making money out of a club like Saints is almost  impossible .   

Thank you -that's a serious point and definitely the main obstacle. 

If I was selling it, my pitch on that would be that it's been under-marketed and that the catchment area is actually pretty big, and that there are plenty of other revenue streams that could be opened up. 

And there's also the value of the kudos of club ownership. 

 

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24 minutes ago, slf said:

rangers

motherwell

dundee

Airdrie /Clydebank

hearts

Livingston

all went bust .wheres there fuqing rich investor spunking wads for fun and kudos.

 

fuq I would rather have a club and be part time than be a fan of these clubs. 

And every single one of them are playing this Saturday.

Of that list I would only say that Rangers lost their identity. FFS Motherwell's model is even better than a rich benefactor, from a fan perspective.  You'd rather be part time than be owned by the fans?

I genuinely don't see what your argument is here. It's not question of going bust vs not going bust, nobody mentioned that -  it's about where the club should go when the Brown's aren't there any more. And that day will come. It's about whether or not we have any ambition at all, and if the Browns are the right people to keep us up or more us on. They're probably not. 

I'm saying that it's better for them to get out while they're ahead and sell the club at a good price as a going concern, not when we're in the 3rd season in the Championship.

Edited by Valentino Bolognese
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15 minutes ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

And every single one of them are playing this Saturday.

Of that list I would only say that Rangers lost their identity. FFS Motherwell's model is even better than a rich benefactor, from a fan perspective.  You'd rather be part time than be owned by the fans?

I genuinely don't see what your argument is here. It's not question of going bust vs not going bust, nobody mentioned that -  it's about where the club should go when the Brown's aren't there any more. And that day will come. It's about whether or not we have any ambition at all, and if the Browns are the right people to keep us up or more us on. They're probably not. 

I'm saying that it's better for them to get out while they're ahead and sell the club at a good price as a going concern, not when we're in the 3rd season in the Championship.

I forgot about third Lanark,

they aren't playing on Saturday  or are they ?

 

all those clubs put there fans through hell.

 

no ones  arguing with you.am laughing at your idea of some white knight coming along spunking   wads of cash  and all will be braw.

 

I never mentioned fan ownership . 

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