New Owners

[Templar Saint]

42 minutes ago, Cagey said:

Looks like is associated with 13 companies , 4or 5 of them dissolved.

I am sure Livi will have done their due diligence. Not one of the American investors they were talking about earlier.

This looks a bit iffy.

Plus 1 that was almost struck off - late accounts that are not great.

The others are all relatively new and set up with capital £1 each.

Wonder if the governing body has approved this guy as fit and proper?

 

[Havana Saint]

4 hours ago, Templar Saint said:

Check out new owners on Company House..............good luck with that Livi!!

The next Sevco. Might keep us up.

[pezza70]

Any updates on any potential suitors?

[Melbourne Saint]

One thing for sure is it won't be a Russian oligarch. Due diligence takes months, and a strategy going forward longer. I'd be surprised if any change takes place before season's end. American investors seem most likely, football is on the rise in the US, billionaires are bored of cosy basketball and baseball franchises. We're exotic (!!!) Love to see whomever attend a cup game at Stenny

[Cagey]

Geoff in the paper saying he has had some interest from America but nothing formal.

He said he will just carry on but if he does sell it the profits will go to the community as he has no one !!!.

Someone with more skills than me can maybe paste it. Think it was in the Record.

[Aitchy]

Article is here - https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/sport/football/st-johnstone/4836924/exclusive-st-johnstone-owner-geoff-brown-no-sale-close/

All a bit depressing. Seems very unlikely that any new owner will take over anytime soon due to the cost of the assets that the club has. Geoff is well within his right to not just accept any offer, but I cant see any perspective new owners anytime soon. Geoff is still as sharp as ever, but age is against him and he admits in the article that he does not have the energy anymore, so it now seems like we are in a position whereby the club will just plod along in a state of uncertainty.

He talks about Scottish football relaxing dual ownership rules as being a positive, as it will allow more money to come into the game, but would anyone be overly happy to see us being used as feeder team for a club in England?

[blueheaven]

I find it incredibly frustrating that this is the first time any sort of public update has been provided in months, and it's given exclusively to a newspaper that can't be accessed without getting past a paywall. I've no issue at all with The Courier's need to make a profit but why can't the club provide the fans with occasional updates on this situation through its own channels?

Similarly frustrating to see one of the Browns yet again grumbling about home attendances, whilst seemingly doing nothing to try to improve those attendances. If people aren't coming to home games against the OF, why not investigate why that is and try to actually do something differently? What exactly is the club's strategy for growing attendances, beyond moaning about them?

[Cagey]

Its partly the problem that the site is circa worth £20 million and you have to worry about asset strippers .

In Geoff we trust but how long will he have the energy for it.

[Melbourne Saint]

I have a horrible felling mcdiairmid could be sold....

[Shaggy Jenkins]

I feel it's one of these things where he is so attached no offer / group / person will ever be good enough 

[Melbourne Saint]

1 hour ago, Shaggy Jenkins said:

I feel it's one of these things where he is so attached no offer / group / person will ever be good enough 

Tbh I don't give a shite about Exeter 

[Strawman]

It was asked at a supporters meeting and Roddy Grant dismissed it as nobody would do that …………

2 questions

Would season ticket holders pay an extra say £75 upfront for Rangers/Celtic to be restricted to only the normal north part of Main Stand and North Stand.

and if first question happened would that make the folk that don’t go to these games go ?

So as a season ticket holder myself , I would happily pay that bit extra , the second part doesn’t matter cos I go anyway.

Why doesn’t the club explore ideas like this though, instead of blindly expecting everyone to turn up.

 

 

[blueheaven]

15 hours ago, Strawman said:

It was asked at a supporters meeting and Roddy Grant dismissed it as nobody would do that …………

2 questions

Would season ticket holders pay an extra say £75 upfront for Rangers/Celtic to be restricted to only the normal north part of Main Stand and North Stand.

and if first question happened would that make the folk that don’t go to these games go ?

So as a season ticket holder myself , I would happily pay that bit extra , the second part doesn’t matter cos I go anyway.

Why doesn’t the club explore ideas like this though, instead of blindly expecting everyone to turn up.

 

 

I often get the impression Saints' response to every idea is to either dismiss it as "we tried that before" or "that wouldn't work". But what alternative suggestions are they generating in-house?

Among the people running Saints, who has actual experience of growing a sports/football club and its fanbase in the digital/social media era? Who among our board understands these things and has experience of them? Where do they get fresh ideas from, and how do they implement them? What happened to all the ideas Kirsten Robertson spoke about implementing when she arrived?

Kilmarnock published a document this summer where they explained what their attendance targets were year on year and what they'd done to hit those targets. Do Saints have attendance targets, and if so what do they do to hit them?

I'm so bored of the Browns using every single public interview as an opportunity to whine about attendances. We've come through over a decade of unprecedented success and our board did barely anything in that period to harness public interest and grow the support. They slept in the run-up to the 2014 Cup final, they slept after it, and then they did the same when we won the Double (although I'll accept that allowances need to be made for that happening during Covid). They allowed our best ever manager to walk away for nothing because they couldn't be bothered to do whatever they had to do to keep him happy. And yet when it's going badly it's never their fault. It's always Perth's fault for not blindly dispatching 10,000 people along to the ground every fortnight to watch a team that for most of the last two/three years has been plummeting rapidly downhill and playing the worst football of the McDiarmid era.

Fair City Unity have done more in a year or two to bring in new fans and keep them coming along than the club itself have managed in several decades. Does that not tell them anything?

 

 

[rik2304]

1 hour ago, blueheaven said:

I often get the impression Saints' response to every idea is to either dismiss it as "we tried that before" or "that wouldn't work". But what alternative suggestions are they generating in-house?

Among the people running Saints, who has actual experience of growing a sports/football club and its fanbase in the digital/social media era? Who among our board understands these things and has experience of them? Where do they get fresh ideas from, and how do they implement them? What happened to all the ideas Kirsten Robertson spoke about implementing when she arrived?

Kilmarnock published a document this summer where they explained what their attendance targets were year on year and what they'd done to hit those targets. Do Saints have attendance targets, and if so what do they do to hit them?

I'm so bored of the Browns using every single public interview as an opportunity to whine about attendances. We've come through over a decade of unprecedented success and our board did barely anything in that period to harness public interest and grow the support. They slept in the run-up to the 2014 Cup final, they slept after it, and then they did the same when we won the Double (although I'll accept that allowances need to be made for that happening during Covid). They allowed our best ever manager to walk away for nothing because they couldn't be bothered to do whatever they had to do to keep him happy. And yet when it's going badly it's never their fault. It's always Perth's fault for not blindly dispatching 10,000 people along to the ground every fortnight to watch a team that for most of the last two/three years has been plummeting rapidly downhill and playing the worst football of the McDiarmid era.

Fair City Unity have done more in a year or two to bring in new fans and keep them coming along than the club itself have managed in several decades. Does that not tell them anything?

 

 

The crew in charge didn't even understand what St Mirren and Killie were doing in regards to giving the OF one stand. They laughed because they had made a loss. Despite the figures they believed were not the current ones.

[blueheaven]

I mentioned Kirsten Robertson's ideas in my post above. Here's what she speaks about in this interview from January 2020. Obviously Covid will have got in the way and Robertson's no longer with the club, but all of this feels pretty basic, entry-level stuff that someone else could have taken on and kept the ball rolling with. But four years on from this interview, how much of it has actually been done successfully and consistently?

“One of the things we’re having to do, because the spend has increased and the core support hasn’t, is make sure we can use as many methods as we can to ensure good 
supporter engagement.

“It sounds so obvious but what I need to do at St 
Johnstone is what I have previously done at Kilmarnock.

“We must make sure we’re out in the schools, engaging everyone, getting more complimentary tickets out to more community groups, making the pre-match and half-time more of an experience than just drinking a Bovril and looking at your phone.

“It should be far more interactive and engaging. We want people to enjoy match day because a club can be so much more than the sum of its parts. It’s an emotive subject and it should be, it has reach.”

[south inch]

Don't disagree with the need to do more pre match and at half time though I might have difficulty fitting in any more excitement at half time especially after I've been to the toilet and then equipped myself with a bovril and a pie, oh and checked that she who must be obeyed does not wish me to pick up anything on my way home.

[Scott1884]

13 hours ago, blueheaven said:

I often get the impression Saints' response to every idea is to either dismiss it as "we tried that before" or "that wouldn't work". But what alternative suggestions are they generating in-house?

Among the people running Saints, who has actual experience of growing a sports/football club and its fanbase in the digital/social media era? Who among our board understands these things and has experience of them? Where do they get fresh ideas from, and how do they implement them? What happened to all the ideas Kirsten Robertson spoke about implementing when she arrived?

Kilmarnock published a document this summer where they explained what their attendance targets were year on year and what they'd done to hit those targets. Do Saints have attendance targets, and if so what do they do to hit them?

I'm so bored of the Browns using every single public interview as an opportunity to whine about attendances. We've come through over a decade of unprecedented success and our board did barely anything in that period to harness public interest and grow the support. They slept in the run-up to the 2014 Cup final, they slept after it, and then they did the same when we won the Double (although I'll accept that allowances need to be made for that happening during Covid). They allowed our best ever manager to walk away for nothing because they couldn't be bothered to do whatever they had to do to keep him happy. And yet when it's going badly it's never their fault. It's always Perth's fault for not blindly dispatching 10,000 people along to the ground every fortnight to watch a team that for most of the last two/three years has been plummeting rapidly downhill and playing the worst football of the McDiarmid era.

Fair City Unity have done more in a year or two to bring in new fans and keep them coming along than the club itself have managed in several decades. Does that not tell them anything?

 

 

After managiing to stay up last season the player budget was reportedly slashed by  about £1m forr this season & so other clubs around our size were able to outbid us for certain players. Even Mitov said he didn't come here for the money. Therefore when clubs like Killie & Dundee were signing their targets we were running around looking for cheaper opttions & it showed in our poor performances in the early part of the season. If Saints were playing dynamic footballl more fans would turn up at games. In the early years at McDiarmid Saints were regularly getting crowds of 7 to 8000 at ordinary matches not just when the matches were against the Old Firm

[GMac]

On 12/13/2023 at 10:03 AM, blueheaven said:

I often get the impression Saints' response to every idea is to either dismiss it as "we tried that before" or "that wouldn't work". But what alternative suggestions are they generating in-house?

Among the people running Saints, who has actual experience of growing a sports/football club and its fanbase in the digital/social media era? Who among our board understands these things and has experience of them? Where do they get fresh ideas from, and how do they implement them? What happened to all the ideas Kirsten Robertson spoke about implementing when she arrived?

Kilmarnock published a document this summer where they explained what their attendance targets were year on year and what they'd done to hit those targets. Do Saints have attendance targets, and if so what do they do to hit them?

I'm so bored of the Browns using every single public interview as an opportunity to whine about attendances. We've come through over a decade of unprecedented success and our board did barely anything in that period to harness public interest and grow the support. They slept in the run-up to the 2014 Cup final, they slept after it, and then they did the same when we won the Double (although I'll accept that allowances need to be made for that happening during Covid). They allowed our best ever manager to walk away for nothing because they couldn't be bothered to do whatever they had to do to keep him happy. And yet when it's going badly it's never their fault. It's always Perth's fault for not blindly dispatching 10,000 people along to the ground every fortnight to watch a team that for most of the last two/three years has been plummeting rapidly downhill and playing the worst football of the McDiarmid era.

Fair City Unity have done more in a year or two to bring in new fans and keep them coming along than the club itself have managed in several decades. Does that not tell them anything

 

Best post on this subject, well said.    Keep the faith comrades

[Cagey]

23 hours ago, blueheaven said:

I mentioned Kirsten Robertson's ideas in my post above. Here's what she speaks about in this interview from January 2020. Obviously Covid will have got in the way and Robertson's no longer with the club, but all of this feels pretty basic, entry-level stuff that someone else could have taken on and kept the ball rolling with. But four years on from this interview, how much of it has actually been done successfully and consistently?

“One of the things we’re having to do, because the spend has increased and the core support hasn’t, is make sure we can use as many methods as we can to ensure good 
supporter engagement.

“It sounds so obvious but what I need to do at St 
Johnstone is what I have previously done at Kilmarnock.

“We must make sure we’re out in the schools, engaging everyone, getting more complimentary tickets out to more community groups, making the pre-match and half-time more of an experience than just drinking a Bovril and looking at your phone.

“It should be far more interactive and engaging. We want people to enjoy match day because a club can be so much more than the sum of its parts. It’s an emotive subject and it should be, it has reach.”

There in lies some of the problems. Tommy did not agree with Kirsten Robertson . She didn't last long and there was a revolving door of MDs or whatever they are called until Flaherty. Steve Brown did a lot for Saints but latterly his disinterest has harmed the club and there have been lost opportunities since our first cup win which 10th anniversary will soon be on us. I wonder if the club will celebrate it.

[garydavidson]

2 hours ago, Cagey said:

our first cup win which 10th anniversary will soon be on us. I wonder if the club will celebrate it.

They said they would...

[sleepless]

1 hour ago, garydavidson said:

They said they would...

They were looking for a suitable venue weren't they? I seem to recall Crieff Hydro being mooted. 

[Cagey]

33 minutes ago, sleepless said:

They were looking for a suitable venue weren't they? I seem to recall Crieff Hydro being mooted. 

Would hope it would be in the town so I can stagger home.

Not sure what they will come up with if anything. 

 

[Smarmy Arab]

Aberdeen, Dundee and Utd now American owned....Saints as well?  
Loss making money pits, attracting US owners?  Wtf is going on here?????

[Melbourne Saint]

35 minutes ago, Smarmy Arab said:

Aberdeen, Dundee and Utd now American owned....Saints as well?  
Loss making money pits, attracting US owners?  Wtf is going on here?????

Probably land and a few other benefits.... Then bugger off within 3 years...

[blueheaven]

I have no idea if this is a thing in Scotland, but in England it's possible to have covenants put in place to protect land for sporting use. Is that not something our board should be looking into to protect McDiarmid Park under future owners?

Hypothetically, what happens if a buyer is never found? Who will ownership of the club pass to?