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Dundee Merger


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3 hours ago, davemclaren said:

I’m not against clubs merging but not convinced on this one. If they were to merge you could, in theory, create a club at the the sameish level as Hearts/Hibs/Aberdeen. Does that really benefit Scottish football?

 

Well it will when we’re finally shot of the gruesome twosome ?

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4 hours ago, Hearts Daft said:

Not sure if there has been a thread on this previously but saw the report below about a possible Dundee merger on the Scotsman website and was wondering what the views of the ordinary Hearts supporter were. Personally, I feel that Dundee is too small a city to have two first rate clubs and that at least on paper a merger would allow a club from Dundee more scope to challenge at the top. However I'm old enough to remember the great Dundee United side of the 70s and 80s and if I were a supporter of either club (which I'm not) I would be totally opposed to a merger. I think the danger is that a merger could lead to a lot of stalwarts for both clubs giving up watching football. I know I would if ever there were an Edinburgh merger.

 

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/dundee/merger-fear-as-dundee-owners-bid-to-up-their-stake-1-4854939

Dundee won the league early sixties and utd in the eighties. Always saw Dundee as the bigger club. Merging both clubs would be a disaster imo.........!!

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5 hours ago, Hearts Daft said:

Not sure if there has been a thread on this previously but saw the report below about a possible Dundee merger on the Scotsman website and was wondering what the views of the ordinary Hearts supporter were. Personally, I feel that Dundee is too small a city to have two first rate clubs and that at least on paper a merger would allow a club from Dundee more scope to challenge at the top. However I'm old enough to remember the great Dundee United side of the 70s and 80s and if I were a supporter of either club (which I'm not) I would be totally opposed to a merger. I think the danger is that a merger could lead to a lot of stalwarts for both clubs giving up watching football. I know I would if ever there were an Edinburgh merger.

 

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/teams/dundee/merger-fear-as-dundee-owners-bid-to-up-their-stake-1-4854939

Ideally Scotland could do with a whole bunch of mergers as 40 odd senior teams is too many. However, the catch 22 is that no combination of mergers will provide a challenger to the uglies, and also with the dominance of the uglies, local rivalries provide a focal point for fans of other clubs.

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It surely only matter of time that H1b5 will need to merge with either Edinburgh City or Spartans to try and compete with the mighty JTs.:gok:

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Can't blame younger fans in Dundee wanting a merger. Neither side have really much to be excited about whilst most cups are won in Glasgow. Having a single club might allow them to compete much more consistently with ourselves, Aberdeen & hibs as well as the huns and celtic. 

 

What are older fans that go every week going to do if they do merge? Refuse to go? That would leave a pretty massive gap in their weekend. 

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The kind of people who propose merging football clubs are the kind of people who see football as a business.

We all know it's more complex than that. If you merged Hearts and Hibs, business logic would tell you we should be playing at Murrayfield in front of 35k fans .

What's the chances of that ?

More likely the fans of both clubs would boycott and an Edinburgh Utd would be playing in front of Edinburgh City sized crowds.

Not a chance in hell our fans would accept a merger with Hibs and would unite in a campaign against it.

The fans of the Dundee clubs would join together to stop their clubs being merged as well.

These merger ideas would be an extremely long term venture as present day fans would just find other interests.

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7 minutes ago, OTT said:

Can't blame younger fans in Dundee wanting a merger. Neither side have really much to be excited about whilst most cups are won in Glasgow. Having a single club might allow them to compete much more consistently with ourselves, Aberdeen & hibs as well as the huns and celtic. 

 

What are older fans that go every week going to do if they do merge? Refuse to go? That would leave a pretty massive gap in their weekend. 

You have answered your own question.

Trouble is the business types that would bring about the merger would be the first to **** off and leave the city without a team at all WHEN it went tits up.

 

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7 minutes ago, luckydug said:

The kind of people who propose merging football clubs are the kind of people who see football as a business.

We all know it's more complex than that. If you merged Hearts and Hibs, business logic would tell you we should be playing at Murrayfield in front of 35k fans .

What's the chances of that ?

More likely the fans of both clubs would boycott and an Edinburgh Utd would be playing in front of Edinburgh City sized crowds.

Not a chance in hell our fans would accept a merger with Hibs and would unite in a campaign against it.

The fans of the Dundee clubs would join together to stop their clubs being merged as well.

These merger ideas would be an extremely long term venture as present day fans would just find other interests.

Mercer had the right idea. Do a takeover but dress it as a merger. Means you'l retain 90+% of one club's fans and might get about 30-50% of the other's immediately and more in time as the wounds heal, especially if successful..

 

What happened in Inverness was really just Mercer's plan in action.

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4 minutes ago, luckydug said:

You have answered your own question.

Trouble is the business types that would bring about the merger would be the first to **** off and leave the city without a team at all WHEN it went tits up.

 

 

I don't think older fans would refuse to go. I think there would be initial resistance and then when fans see investment and quality* players coming in they may well warm to it. There would be a determined few that would boycott it of course, but by and large I think most would accept it with time. 

 

Its not a nice situation for any clubs fans to be faced with but this would be a far more pragmatic approach than continuing to piss money up against a wall just trying to tread water. 

 

*by Scottish standards

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5 hours ago, Hearts Daft said:

The entire project reeks of rich Americans coming in who have got no understanding of the culture in Scotland and how for many their club is part of their identity. It's interesting that Inverness with a bigger population than Dingwall get smaller crowds than Ross County. Many of the Inverness Thistle and Inverness Caledonian supporters probably walked away after the creation of ICT.

Nonsense. Before the merger the Inverness clubs averaged 600 attendances. In the SPL they got 4000 (source Herald online article). The popularity of Ross County v Inverness is due to the train loads of gloryhunting bigots heading to Glasgow for their football. 

 

Give Wick a direct service to Glasgow and it might have the same issue.

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Bridge of Djoum
4 hours ago, davemclaren said:

Even a merged Hearts/Hibs would be half the size of the Old Firm. What we need is an East Coast United. ?

Reported for trolling.?

 

A merger will never be accepted, rightly so, IMO. Ground sharing seems logical, though. In Scottish terms they are both big clubs, solid history between them. 

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6 hours ago, Independence said:

The fans of the two famous clubs is no different to any other....... They love their club. They love their culture and history, just as we do and would never accept a merger with H1b5! Teams such as Arbroath, Forfar and Montrose could merge. It makes sense but their fans will protect their identity by staying as one team. I suppose we could all merge and have one team in Scotland...wait a moment!

You just have look at Inverness when Caley & Thistle merged. They only get 

2,000 - 3,000 home fans at league games. Clach never merged with them so 

the city is still devided.

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Can’t see a Dundee merger happening, but I do think Scottish football would benefit greatly from several smaller clubs merging all over the country. Football is spread way too thin in Scotland. There’s a lot of tradition though, and the history Scottish clubs have go against them in many ways. Too many clubs that have 100, 200, 500 spectators at most - but they’ll never merge with nearby rivals for to a century old club history. Which I do get, but I think there are some areas that could benefit by having a few amalgamations. Old boys would never back it, but the young team would maybe be more inclined to go down to a nearby stadium to watch a more competitive game from an invigorated new local team than stay home and watch Sky or BT and support one of the Glasgow teams instead.

 

After all, Paris FC and Stade Saint-Germain have done not badly since forming PSG in 1970.

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7 hours ago, Dallas Green said:

I don't ever get the "too small a city to have two first rate clubs" 

 

It sound football snobbish.

 

With the history these clubs have I could really never see a merger. Ground share is probably the most sensible option for them though but both sets of fans love their own ground.

It’s no different to Liverpool

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6 hours ago, Toggie88 said:

 

I don't disagree with you. A joint-stadium followed by a merger some years later would be one way of it happening, however we're a little way off that even being a reality. 

 

Is it luck however, or is it the size of the club? All the clubs you mentioned there are actually of a 'decent' size  by Scottish standards. The only one that wasn't is Gretna, who ultimately met their demise. Clydebank and Airdrie both also went belly-up, and all are smaller than the clubs that managed to pull through. The biggest of those 3, Airdrie, are also the only one that arguably carried on in a Sevco type fashion. All of that would suggest that the relative size of fan base does have an effect - that might be as simple as more fans equals more likelihood of a supporter with means to save the club when they need to. 

 

There are benefits to having only one team in the city. Businesses and local politicians will automatically gravitate towards providing sponsorship/support and will see the club doing well as positive for the city. When you have two clubs, businesses and politicians are very aware of alienating the opposing fan base - see the amount of FOI to Edinburgh Council from Hibs.net users as case and point. I remember being in Aberdeen City Centre a few years back and quite a few local pubs had Aberdeen flags - I remember thinking it was a shame we didn't have any pubs in Edinburgh city centre with Hearts flags constantly on display, but why would you bother alienating a bunch of Hibs fans. I also wouldn't visit a 'Hibs pub' in the city centre either...

 

The success of a Dundee City would be completely dependent on the supporter reaction. If the fans of both clubs embraced it, they would arguably have a shot at becoming the 'third force' in Scottish football but would likely still fall behind us and Aberdeen. If the fans were dead opposed, decided to start their own clubs and start at the bottom (EoS league maybe) then it could be difficult for a Dundee City to surpass what DUFC regularly achieve (excluding the last few years). In 30 years time, Dundee City would probably be a decent side in a Scottish context but there would be many who would refuse to support the club as they are 'Dundee/DUFC fans'. St Johnstone would maybe benefit in a similar fashion to Ross County after Inverness Caledonian and Thistle merged. 

 

You'd have as much chance as Hibs fans coming to support Hearts in 1990 as you would of having Dundee/Dundee United fans going to support St Johnstone.

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They’re casuals merged did they not..

not sure the city wouldn’t come around if they were playing in a nice new atmospheric stadium, safe standing etc

Dundee will grow population wise, along with the rest of Scotland 

6 big clubs would be better for the game here

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1 hour ago, BackOfTheNet said:

Can’t see a Dundee merger happening, but I do think Scottish football would benefit greatly from several smaller clubs merging all over the country. Football is spread way too thin in Scotland. There’s a lot of tradition though, and the history Scottish clubs have go against them in many ways. Too many clubs that have 100, 200, 500 spectators at most - but they’ll never merge with nearby rivals for to a century old club history. Which I do get, but I think there are some areas that could benefit by having a few amalgamations. Old boys would never back it, but the young team would maybe be more inclined to go down to a nearby stadium to watch a more competitive game from an invigorated new local team than stay home and watch Sky or BT and support one of the Glasgow teams instead.

 

After all, Paris FC and Stade Saint-Germain have done not badly since forming PSG in 1970.

Little point in two teams each with 300 supporters merging imo. 

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2 hours ago, BackOfTheNet said:

Can’t see a Dundee merger happening, but I do think Scottish football would benefit greatly from several smaller clubs merging all over the country. Football is spread way too thin in Scotland. There’s a lot of tradition though, and the history Scottish clubs have go against them in many ways. Too many clubs that have 100, 200, 500 spectators at most - but they’ll never merge with nearby rivals for to a century old club history. Which I do get, but I think there are some areas that could benefit by having a few amalgamations. Old boys would never back it, but the young team would maybe be more inclined to go down to a nearby stadium to watch a more competitive game from an invigorated new local team than stay home and watch Sky or BT and support one of the Glasgow teams instead.

 

After all, Paris FC and Stade Saint-Germain have done not badly since forming PSG in 1970.

 

Maybe a bad example, Paris FC are actually still active and been fairly shite since 1972!

From Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_FC

In an effort to re-launch professional football in the city of Paris, Paris Football Club was founded on 1 August 1969. The objective of the club was to be playing in the first division by 1970. An attempted merger with CS Sedan Ardennes was refused so Paris went looking in the second division and, subsequently, merged with Stade Saint-Germain to form Paris Saint-Germain, the professional club that plays in Ligue 1. The current incarnation of Paris FC came into being in 1972 when the club split from Paris Saint-Germain after coming under pressure from the capital city's mayor, who refused to support a non-Parisian club (the club had originally been situated in nearby Saint-Germain-en-Laye). As a result, a bitter split occurred and both Paris FC and Paris Saint-Germain remained as separate football club with the main agreement being that Paris FC had the right to keep the splitting entity's first division and professional status, as well as all the professional players. Paris Saint-Germain were, on the other hand, administratively relegated to the third division and given all the former entity's amateur players.

 

Fortunes changed pretty quickly, PSG took over the Parc de Princes and got to the top league while Paris FC went the other way and stayed there - the rest is history!

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11 hours ago, I.T.K said:

I dont think Dundee is big enough for one first rate club! (On a European level.)

 

However I think having 2 clubs in one city breeds competition and helps both clubs. Derby games will always bring in more money.

 

On a european level dundee united have reached the semi final of the european cup and the final of the uefa cup, dundee have also been in the european cup semi and a fairs cup!  so wtf are you on about???????

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46 minutes ago, davemclaren said:

Little point in two teams each with 300 supporters merging imo. 

 

Well yes and no. If you have two teams that combined would gather 600 supporters, after the stubborn refuse you maybe have 500 - would still be more than what each team had before. Also, they would be able to sell off one of the grounds and facilities, and in doing so either wipe out debts or at least be in a more sound financial position than separately. And they would have the pick of the players from each team which would give them more grounds to succeed than they had previously, and from there it can snowball into something more prosperous. However I was thinking merging more than two teams to be honest, like the Angus teams.

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19 minutes ago, Smithee said:

 

Maybe a bad example, Paris FC are actually still active and been fairly shite since 1972!

From Wikipedia

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_FC

In an effort to re-launch professional football in the city of Paris, Paris Football Club was founded on 1 August 1969. The objective of the club was to be playing in the first division by 1970. An attempted merger with CS Sedan Ardennes was refused so Paris went looking in the second division and, subsequently, merged with Stade Saint-Germain to form Paris Saint-Germain, the professional club that plays in Ligue 1. The current incarnation of Paris FC came into being in 1972 when the club split from Paris Saint-Germain after coming under pressure from the capital city's mayor, who refused to support a non-Parisian club (the club had originally been situated in nearby Saint-Germain-en-Laye). As a result, a bitter split occurred and both Paris FC and Paris Saint-Germain remained as separate football club with the main agreement being that Paris FC had the right to keep the splitting entity's first division and professional status, as well as all the professional players. Paris Saint-Germain were, on the other hand, administratively relegated to the third division and given all the former entity's amateur players.

 

Fortunes changed pretty quickly, PSG took over the Parc de Princes and got to the top league while Paris FC went the other way and stayed there - the rest is history!

 

Point well made, but should be noted my wee comment at the end was a tad tongue in cheek. ?

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2 minutes ago, BackOfTheNet said:

 

Point well made, but should be noted my wee comment at the end was a tad tongue in cheek. ?

Ah I know mate, I can't help myself, I'm a bugger for geek stuff

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13 hours ago, Independence said:

The fans of the two famous clubs is no different to any other....... They love their club. They love their culture and history, just as we do and would never accept a merger with H1b5! Teams such as Arbroath, Forfar and Montrose could merge. It makes sense but their fans will protect their identity by staying as one team. I suppose we could all merge and have one team in Scotland...wait a moment!

How would that make sense? Their fans are obviously content to support their home town team even if it's a small club that is never likely to get near the higher reaches of football. A merged club would, at best, be a home town team for only one of those sets of fans, depending on where the merged club had its home ground. What would be the incentive for anyone else to support it?

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3 hours ago, FarmerTweedy said:

How would that make sense? Their fans are obviously content to support their home town team even if it's a small club that is never likely to get near the higher reaches of football. A merged club would, at best, be a home town team for only one of those sets of fans, depending on where the merged club had its home ground. What would be the incentive for anyone else to support it?

 Thin you missed my point. I don’t think any team should merge. I think all clubs have their own fan base and will fight, rightly , to protect their own identity. I followed the line you have put in bold with ‘but’!!

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I always find these threads a little patronising.

 

The two Dundee clubs are among the biggest in Scotland. They might not have their troubles to seek but it is less than 10 years since United won a major trophy. Where does it end? Hearts and Hibs have only claimed one trophy each since then - should the Edinburgh clubs merge?

 

Also, just because their stadiums are on either side of Tannadice Street, why does that mean they should groundshare? Liverpool and Everton are only separated by a park. Should Arsenal and Spurs have saved some money and shared a stadium? Maybe they should merge and create a North London superclub? 

 

The history and traditions of football are quickly being eroded. The last thing I'd want to do is accelerate that.

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20 hours ago, XB52 said:

Share a new ground but not a merger. Obviously, if we were starting football from scratch, it would make perfect sense to have only one club in Dundee, but you can't just erase their histories.   

You don’t have to erase their history. Sevco and the rangers are 2 clubs and their fans are happy with their historical situation ??

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9 hours ago, BackOfTheNet said:

 

Well yes and no. If you have two teams that combined would gather 600 supporters, after the stubborn refuse you maybe have 500 - would still be more than what each team had before. Also, they would be able to sell off one of the grounds and facilities, and in doing so either wipe out debts or at least be in a more sound financial position than separately. And they would have the pick of the players from each team which would give them more grounds to succeed than they had previously, and from there it can snowball into something more prosperous. However I was thinking merging more than two teams to be honest, like the Angus teams.

Fair enough. 

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14 hours ago, mitch41 said:

You just have look at Inverness when Caley & Thistle merged. They only get 

2,000 - 3,000 home fans at league games. Clach never merged with them so 

the city is still devided.

Inverness has a population of less than 50,000 and the surrounding areas are far less densely populated than Glasgow and Edinburgh. 2-3k is proportionate. Still 5 times more than the gates pre-merger whilst in the Highland league.

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After The Watershed
2 minutes ago, Spellczech said:

Inverness has a population of less than 50,000 and the surrounding areas are far less densely populated than Glasgow and Edinburgh. 2-3k is proportionate. Still 5 times more than the gates pre-merger whilst in the Highland league.

Many ICT fans aren't based in Inverness. They come from as far away as Wick, some from Elgin and places in between. Majority of fans that went after the merger weren't the 1200 average you quote(although thistle crowds were lower than 600 for years and had huge debt). They were mainly Aberdeen, rangers and celtic fans and didn't bother with the highland league. Still would have got behind either side of the went alone. 

 

Didn't need to happen when you look how well Ross County did. 

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queensferryjambo
21 hours ago, I.T.K said:

However I think having 2 clubs in one city breeds competition and helps both clubs. Derby games will always bring in more money.

 

 

 

I don't think Dundee or Dundee Utd have competed with anyone at any level for years and certainly not each other.

 

As incredible as it sounds they have only been in the same league as each other 3 times in the last 13 seasons.

 

They have both been in the doldrums for ages with a very good chance they will both be lower division clubs next season.

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1 hour ago, Darren said:

I always find these threads a little patronising.

 

The two Dundee clubs are among the biggest in Scotland. They might not have their troubles to seek but it is less than 10 years since United won a major trophy. Where does it end? Hearts and Hibs have only claimed one trophy each since then - should the Edinburgh clubs merge?

 

Also, just because their stadiums are on either side of Tannadice Street, why does that mean they should groundshare? Liverpool and Everton are only separated by a park. Should Arsenal and Spurs have saved some money and shared a stadium? Maybe they should merge and create a North London superclub? 

 

The history and traditions of football are quickly being eroded. The last thing I'd want to do is accelerate that.

History holds clubs back to a large extent. To see a future for a football club you have to look forwards. If the option is 2 rubbish teams playing rubbish football in dilapidated stadia each with its own bills, or a new stadium with a better product on show?  The trick in a merger is to get success early so that customers forget about the loss of "history" as new history is being achieved. The Inverness teams managed this by getting into the league at the bottom level and winning the leagues. Personally I think all the clubs did Sevco a massive favour by putting them in the bottom league for this very reason. In 2012 they were in no shape to be taking on Celtic and it could've been relegation rather than winning their maiden season in the 3rd division...

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4 hours ago, Independence said:

 Thin you missed my point. I don’t think any team should merge. I think all clubs have their own fan base and will fight, rightly , to protect their own identity. I followed the line you have put in bold with ‘but’!!

Yeah, sorry, I thought you were arguing that they should merge, but that fans would block it. I get what you're saying now!

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24 minutes ago, The Crack Fox said:

Many ICT fans aren't based in Inverness. They come from as far away as Wick, some from Elgin and places in between. Majority of fans that went after the merger weren't the 1200 average you quote(although thistle crowds were lower than 600 for years and had huge debt). They were mainly Aberdeen, rangers and celtic fans and didn't bother with the highland league. Still would have got behind either side of the went alone. 

 

Didn't need to happen when you look how well Ross County did. 

 

So what was the option, let in Caledonian on their own? Why bother?  The Inverness merger was really a takeover. Thistle had no money and they were offered a "merger". The prospect of a merged club helped secure the spot for Inverness over Gala Fairydean. The "merger" was a sales tool. It just had a nice little bonus of removing a local competitor from existence.  I doubt the owners were too concerned about ensuring that all the previous clubs' fans stayed with them, they were more concerned that more people came in total, and winning leagues and entry to the SPL achieved this.

 

As for Thistle, their club did not die (as it probably would've) but got subsumed and thus its history lives on as does Caley's...Sevco is a fine example of how people are desperate that a chain of history does not end, whilst the rest of us enjoy telling them that they are not the same club and their 5 stars and talk of 55 is a nonsense.

 

As I said above the reason Ross County are doing well is because the people of Wick don't fancy the 8.5hr train journey to Glasgow  and 8.5hrs back, whereas for Invernessians 4hrs each way is do-able...

 

 

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After The Watershed
3 minutes ago, Spellczech said:

 

So what was the option, let in Caledonian on their own? Why bother?  The Inverness merger was really a takeover. Thistle had no money and they were offered a "merger". The prospect of a merged club helped secure the spot for Inverness over Gala Fairydean. The "merger" was a sales tool. It just had a nice little bonus of removing a local competitor from existence.  I doubt the owners were too concerned about ensuring that all the previous clubs' fans stayed with them, they were more concerned that more people came in total, and winning leagues and entry to the SPL achieved this.

 

As I said above the reason Ross County are doing well is because the people of Wick don't fancy the 8.5hr train journey to Glasgow  and 8.5hrs back, whereas for Invernessians 4hrs each way is do-able...

 

 

Yes let Caledonian go on there own. The people would have still come in and thistle would still be in the highland league. The myth sold was Gala would get in ahead of another team from the South but that wasn't the truth given, county, Peterhead and Elgin all got in. 

 

As for the owners, well as has been said it was done for nothing more than business interests. People not even involved before got involved as they sought to exploit the club for financial gain. Even the choice of location for a stadium . They sold it as ensuring people would visit the town when coming for football despite the fact you wouldn't have to given its just off the A9. The design of a main stand was nothing more than a vanity project rather than a practical stadium. Currently they are in a financial mess. Really struggling and lack a core support from the city. Those with the money can't even agree and won't invest because they don't get on which isn't helping them. 

 

On the point about travelling fans I think you're overestimating the amount of fans travelling to watch the old firm. Very few do it now. 

 

County have a really good local support from Dingwall, Inverness, Alness, Invergordon and small places around there. Not many from Wick. 

 

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30 minutes ago, The Crack Fox said:

Yes let Caledonian go on there own. The people would have still come in and thistle would still be in the highland league. The myth sold was Gala would get in ahead of another team from the South but that wasn't the truth given, county, Peterhead and Elgin all got in. 

 

As for the owners, well as has been said it was done for nothing more than business interests. People not even involved before got involved as they sought to exploit the club for financial gain. Even the choice of location for a stadium . They sold it as ensuring people would visit the town when coming for football despite the fact you wouldn't have to given its just off the A9. The design of a main stand was nothing more than a vanity project rather than a practical stadium. Currently they are in a financial mess. Really struggling and lack a core support from the city. Those with the money can't even agree and won't invest because they don't get on which isn't helping them. 

 

On the point about travelling fans I think you're overestimating the amount of fans travelling to watch the old firm. Very few do it now. 

 

County have a really good local support from Dingwall, Inverness, Alness, Invergordon and small places around there. Not many from Wick. 

 

Would Thistle have survived? I doubt it. The people running them were looking for a face-saving exit. A "merger" whereby the club did not die offered that.

 

So you are saying that few ICT fans come from Inverness AND few County fans come from Wick...You sure?

 

Given that their average attendances are 3000 and only 7000 people live in the town I think we can assume that half the town does not go to the football every fortnight, but what % of a town's population is a few? Even if only 500 are from Wick that is a 6th of the attendances not a few, but 7.5% of the town's population - more than the % of Edinburgh's population that head to Tynecastle (assume 10k of 300k is just over 3%...?)

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queensferryjambo
11 hours ago, lauriesrank said:

On a european level dundee united have reached the semi final of the european cup and the final of the uefa cup, dundee have also been in the european cup semi and a fairs cup!  so wtf are you on about???????

 

That was a very long time ago. Dundee haven't done a thing in Europe for 50+ seasons and Dundee Utd haven't for 30+ seasons.

 

All the guy said was Dundee isn't big enough for one first rate club! (On a European level.) and I would say he is 100% correct. 

 

Are you saying you think a Dundee side can compete in Europe? It doesn't look like they can compete in Scotland let alone Europe. 

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After The Watershed
1 hour ago, Spellczech said:

Would Thistle have survived? I doubt it. The people running them were looking for a face-saving exit. A "merger" whereby the club did not die offered that.

 

So you are saying that few ICT fans come from Inverness AND few County fans come from Wick...You sure?

 

Given that their average attendances are 3000 and only 7000 people live in the town I think we can assume that half the town does not go to the football every fortnight, but what % of a town's population is a few? Even if only 500 are from Wick that is a 6th of the attendances not a few, but 7.5% of the town's population - more than the % of Edinburgh's population that head to Tynecastle (assume 10k of 300k is just over 3%...?)

Sorry but 500 won't be travelling from Wick to Dingwall. No where near that. Its 2 hours minimum one one of the worst roads in Scotland. You been up the A9 to Wick? Awful journey. The highland league side up there has a decent support as well so very few will go to county games. County do get a lot of support from the other towns I've mentioned. 

 

I'm not saying few ict fans are from Inverness either but a few hundred won't be. 

 

As for thistle, they would have survived. Clach have and are currently in a better financial position than ict. No debt (granted they nearly went bust a couple of times?) but situated in the most deprived area of Inverness. Thistle were situated in a more affluent area. Again, the chairman at the time, Jock macdonald had Tomatin distillery and saw it as a business opportunity rather than face saving.

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Andrew Gilbert Wauchope
On 11/01/2019 at 13:23, Independence said:

The fans of the two famous clubs is no different to any other....... They love their club. They love their culture and history, just as we do and would never accept a merger with H1b5! Teams such as Arbroath, Forfar and Montrose could merge. It makes sense but their fans will protect their identity by staying as one team. I suppose we could all merge and have one team in Scotland...wait a moment!

 

There is only one team in Scotland.  :flagwave:

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