GLF 57:Malcolm reviews the current relationship between fan and club and more.
Interesting Times
It has been nothing if not interesting times for Motherwell fans since the last GLF went on sale, with the last game of the season against the champions-elect Celtic getting the ball rolling in explosive fashion.On the field Celtic's bottle crashed and Scott McDonald's glorious double snatched three points for us and wrenched the SPL trophy out of Celtic's grasping hands.Just a shame it wasn't into our own welcoming embrace but those thoughts sadly only lead us to the realms of complete fantasy.
Events off the field cast a shadow on an otherwise wonderful day to be a Motherwell fan.As we all know, the Davie Cooper Stand issue had got many Well fans all hot and bothered, with the club hoping to make a bit of a financial killing by moving season ticket holders from the D.C. and give it over to Celtic fans clamouring for a ticket to their title party (no sniggering please I'm sure it was a terrible disappointment for them ).
Anyway the board had the decency to ask the fans' opinion and said they would stick by their decision.In my opinion there was a lot of people overreacting to the whole affair and I think voted the wrong way.I felt the club then took umbrage at it's own support and shafted them by having no ticket restrictions in place for the home end, allowing large amounts of Celtic fans to infiltrate our end.Every cloud has a silver lining however and we stuffed them royally and got to mercilessly gloat as they left with their tails between their legs.
Still there was more fallout to come from the whole affair, a new clause was inserted into the D.C. Stand season ticket books that stated the club had the right to move you to an alternative stand at their discretion.A move that was a touch insensitive already was made all the worse by its immediate implication for the season opener against who else but Celtic.A stunningly bad idea given that Celtic were never going to sell out their allocation and the sight of empty seats in the Celtic support only further aggravated those against any sort of movement of 'Well fans from their normal seats.
Now, it is often mentioned that Celtic may have paid for those seats upfront and therefore the club still got the money.Even if that is true,at some point Celtic will catch on and not take all those seats in the future.The club should be careful of alienating the only fans that matter to them,their own.Even if there had been some compromise where Celtic got the D.C. and we got an extra section of the Main stand it wouldn't have been so bad.The club gets to give some extra tickets to Celtic fans but doesn't reduce the home allocation quite so much,a solution that would still have its detractors I'm aware but it would have been better than what we got.
The club has almightily pissed off some of it's core support by trying to generate money for our own benefit,it doesn't help the clubs argument when so much of the money seems to go on expenditure not obvious to the eye. We did get Skippy on a new long term deal but with Partridge away we seem short at the back and seemingly unable to afford a replacement despite making a profit last season.Fingers crossed that by the deadline we will see a new face or two arrive but it's looking unlikely.
Getting back to events on the field we managed to get some points on the board in our first two games of the season for a change,unfortunately that's been the only points we've gotten so far.Should have beaten Celtic but did well from being 3-1 down at half - time.A good result ground out over the Pars before losing three on the bounce. I didn't see the Killie game but it looked like an awful capitulation,the defending at the United game was unreal and ruined an otherwise very good performance that should still have yielded a point if it wasn't for an absolutely criminal penalty decision. A decent performance at Tynecastle was also unfortunate not to earn a point.
At least we kept the bragging rights over the Accies,possibly the start of another cup run as an away tie at St.Mirren should see us into the next round ( fingers crossed ). Injuries have been the bane of our season already and we'd all like to see a replacement for Partridge come in,even moreso as the Kaiser will be out for the better part of another two months I think.New loan signing McCormack has made an instant impression and although he too is already out injured at least it wasn't as bad as we feared.We should see the lad back fairly soon and hopefully if he keeps it up we can make him a permanent signing.Indeed there has been a distinct lack of permanent signings, only really goalie Graeme Smith who on the evidence of the recent Hearts game might well be the long term number 1 when Marshall retires,if not sooner if he really stamps his authority before the Marsh is fit again.
Hopefully the injuries will clear soon and the boys will be raring to get the league campaign back in gear after this international break. 4 points from 5 games seems disappointing now and it looks like a difficult job to get in the Top Six this year but we still have a squad capable of it and while ICT away doesn't look to likely to yield points I'm sure we'll soon cuff Falkirk and Hibs at home after that and all will be well with the world again.
Malcolm Boyd
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