1. Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!

TOMA: Careful what you wish for ....

Discussion in 'Leeds United' started by Whitejock, Aug 14, 2019.

  1. Whitejock

    Whitejock Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2011
    Messages:
    20,640
    Likes Received:
    19,002
    As many of you will be aware, I also support Partick Thistle (mostly famous for the Billy Connolly comment "You may know them better as Partick Thistle nil"). Well, we've just been taken over. Again. This time it's by foreigners & all is not good. I wouldn't for a moment expect you to be interested in the club, but this article might just give you an insight into what might happen to us, if, as was rumoured, we end up being a feeder club for the likes of PSG.

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/spor...ftcHfsEA14PlYAX5KpdlE7zZehLKkhG_ZOKV1FoHJcmE0

    Partick Thistle's uncertain future is looking bleaker by the day

    WHEN you’re a Partick Thistle supporter, it isn’t exactly difficult to have your expectations of the club met. If the Jags are in the top flight then simply fending off relegation should be the primary concern most of the time. If they’re in the Championship, then all that most fans ask is that Thistle have a go at gaining promotion. If we manage it, great. If not, that’s fine. At least we tried.

    I can only speak for myself here, but this season I’d be fairly content with a top-half finish. The last two seasons have made for painful viewing. Firstly, watching the team slide out of the Premiership just a year after securing a top-six finish for the first time since 1980. Then, the disastrous campaign last year, where a second successive relegation was only avoided on the final day of the season.

    And yet, I can’t help but shake the feeling that things are about to get worse. The amount of bad news that Jags fans have received in the last week or so has been truly staggering. For those that haven’t been keeping up with all the latest developments, here’s a quick reminder.

    A club insider spoke to my colleague Graeme McGarry recently and lifted the lid on the litany of issues plaguing the club. Gary Caldwell still had £200,000 left in his agreed transfer budget, and now won’t get a single penny of that cash, they say. Transfer targets that have been identified by the management team have been ignored. Instead, we’ll be getting fringe players on loan from Barnsley (more on that later). Promotion is not a priority for the new board, according to this source.

    Plans for a new training ground, the first in the club’s history, have been put on hold after issues gaining planning permission. Colin Weir, the Euromillions-winning benefactor who has provided over £8 million to wipe out the club’s debt, fund the new training ground and finance Thistle’s youth academy, will provide no more financial support after becoming disillusioned with the new board. Oh, and we don’t even have a team bus any more.

    Graeme’s source branded Thistle as a ‘shambles’ and on this evidence, that appears to be putting it lightly. Just about everything that could go wrong has done so in the last week, and yet there’s a sneaking feeling that things will only get worse.

    When fans first heard the news of a prospective takeover from a billionaire consortium - which also own French club Nice and English side Barnsley - some were excited. I was a little worried at first, I must admit. After all, we’re not a particularly big club, so why on earth would they be interested in us? What is it about Thistle that made them an attractive proposition for so wealthy a group?

    The most obvious reason appears to be that as a mid-tier Scottish Championship side, we’re probably at just the right level to take youngsters on loan from Barnsley and develop them. Good enough that they’ll actually get a chance to play and improve, but not a level so high that they’re out of their depth.

    The problem with this, though, is what happens if Thistle push for a play-off spot or, god forbid, get promoted? All of a sudden, this business plan doesn’t work anymore. The canny investors have realised this by the looks of it and came up with an elegant, albeit thoroughly depressing, solution: don’t get promoted.

    The lack of ambition the new board are showing is jaw-dropping, if Graeme’s insider is to be believed. The long-term plan isn’t to try and seal a return to the Premiership; staying put precisely where we are suits them down to a tee. It shouldn’t cost too much to keep Thistle from falling into League One, and that way they don’t have to worry too much about, you know, actually running a football club.

    Like I said, Thistle fans don’t have particularly high standards. We don’t expect titles and trophies season after season. All we ask is that the team have a go at improving, and don’t settle for merely standing still. It’s the most basic form of ambition that any football club should harbour. Because if there is no genuine appetite to improve, then seriously: what is the point?
     
    #1
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2019
    ristac, FORZA LEEDS, Doc and 2 others like this.
  2. Doc

    Doc Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 1, 2011
    Messages:
    19,751
    Likes Received:
    27,237
    What a joke and what a rip off shambles. Only going to comment on the lottery winner who is football fan like all of us. He pays off the club debts and sorts out a few things which costs him £8m. In fact costs his own family £8m.

    The shyster new owners buy a debt free money laundering machine and have no intention of servicing the hopes of fans who have bought into the club for generations. I believe that lottery guy should have been offered protection by the SFA, by which his donation, help etc is registered and a contract written up protecting his investment to ensure carpetbaggers cannot come in and steal his money, because thats exactly what they've done. The SFA like the EFL and Premier League are bandits and should have to sign up to a code of conduct
     
    #2
  3. 2 pennth

    2 pennth Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 22, 2016
    Messages:
    10,791
    Likes Received:
    12,775
    There is a saying that a fool and his money are easily parted
     
    #3
  4. Whitejock

    Whitejock Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2011
    Messages:
    20,640
    Likes Received:
    19,002
    That could be levied at any football fan buying a ticket for a club that has no chance of winning. And probably applies to me, as most of the season tickets I've bought over the last quarter century have been squandered on a no-hoper team.

    But it'll never stop me!
     
    #4
    Irishshako likes this.
  5. Eireleeds1

    Eireleeds1 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 14, 2011
    Messages:
    29,225
    Likes Received:
    27,472
    You think you’re dedicated? Think of the 78 mil wall season ticket holders. That’s real dedication
     
    #5
    southernwhite, Gessa and davy like this.
  6. 2 pennth

    2 pennth Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 22, 2016
    Messages:
    10,791
    Likes Received:
    12,775
    Take things out of context if you like but for your season ticket money tell me did you not get anything back
    More to the point if you won over 100 mil would you give Radz 8mil without any form of guarantee.
     
    #6
  7. lifecheshirewhite

    Joined:
    Feb 5, 2011
    Messages:
    30,849
    Likes Received:
    20,713
    Fair point 120 years of being **** for millwall.
     
    #7
    Eireleeds1 likes this.
  8. Whitejock

    Whitejock Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 13, 2011
    Messages:
    20,640
    Likes Received:
    19,002
    <laugh><laugh><laugh>

    Believe me, it's even worse being a Thistle fan! :steam:<yikes><wah>
     
    #8
  9. davy

    davy Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2011
    Messages:
    6,108
    Likes Received:
    7,314
    Fixed it for you. :emoticon-0103-cool:
     
    #9
    lifecheshirewhite and Eireleeds1 like this.
  10. Eireleeds1

    Eireleeds1 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 14, 2011
    Messages:
    29,225
    Likes Received:
    27,472
    I’d imagine 78 thistle season ticket holders might be stretching it a tad
     
    #10
    Whitejock likes this.

Share This Page