Amen

Here, here! Armageddon? No, I don't think so. We still have a long way to go when you look at Dutch/German footy, but we should be rightly proud of our club.

arabugsy wrote:

TEK wrote:

Robbo goes and that is the debt (which stood at 8 million at one point remember) all but gone.

We have never and never will go into Admin,and will NEVER shaft any poor business or individual out of money in the pursuit of glory.

We paid our way,paid EVERY penny back that was agreed.

We have a club to be very very proud of.

Season ticket money/gate receipts/tv money/sponsorship will hopefully ALWAYS see us break even each season (at worst) from hence forth.

MEANING any future player we do sell (and there will be many more) will see that money re-invested in ...
The Youth Academy (the best in Scotland,alongside Celtic,who's budget/infrastructure is 10X ours).
Stadium Upgrades
New Signings
Playing Budgets
Increased wage structure (allowing us to perhaps attract better players/take on more staff)
Freeze season ticket/PATG prices

We are THE model for how to run a Fitba club in this country these days.

The turnaround in 10 short years from the shambles we were,the day Ian McCall departed,makes me feel VERY satisfied and proud that we have as a club,collectively,licked our wounds and moved forward...fae Boardroom to the man on the street (buying the season ticket/or going to the game he can ill afford).

We really do follow a club to proud of,and that are by and large,respected across the UK and Central Europe.

Great post.
 

Here Here. (Would love to elaborate further on this but my ZX81 power pack is overheating) see 80's thread

It really is amazing what DUFC have achieved financially and also whilst competing well at the right end of the league , cup runs and a cup win.

Superb and proud of my club, well done to ST oor chairman, it's no been easy for him.

I found myself getting a bit greedy recently, hoping that we would get another 1M Robertson for instance, even getting a little angry that we'd let these lads go,  but on reflection the Club has 'netted' over 8M in the last 3-4 years if you include Goodie, JR and Allan.

TEK wrote:

Robbo goes and that is the debt (which stood at 8 million at one point remember) all but gone.

We have never and never will go into Admin,and will NEVER shaft any poor business or individual out of money in the pursuit of glory.

We paid our way,paid EVERY penny back that was agreed.

We have a club to be very very proud of.

Season ticket money/gate receipts/tv money/sponsorship will hopefully ALWAYS see us break even each season (at worst) from hence forth.

MEANING any future player we do sell (and there will be many more) will see that money re-invested in ...
The Youth Academy (the best in Scotland,alongside Celtic,who's budget/infrastructure is 10X ours).
Stadium Upgrades
New Signings
Playing Budgets
Increased wage structure (allowing us to perhaps attract better players/take on more staff)
Freeze season ticket/PATG prices

We are THE model for how to run a Fitba club in this country these days.

The turnaround in 10 short years from the shambles we were,the day Ian McCall departed,makes me feel VERY satisfied and proud that we have as a club,collectively,licked our wounds and moved forward...fae Boardroom to the man on the street (buying the season ticket/or going to the game he can ill afford).

We really do follow a club to proud of,and that are by and large,respected across the UK and Central Europe.

 After looking back this is a post that deserves to see the light of day again 

Club  now in perfect position for ST to sell the club and fuck off to Oz

Kevin Ferrie Senior Sports Writer - Friday 30 January 2015

It was a year in which Mikhail Gorbachev would begin to change the world by taking charge of the Soviet Union's Politburo and introducing Perestroika and Glasnost while in the politically not dissimilar city of Dundee the foundations were also being laid for regime change.Admittedly Jim McLean's reign of Terrors would take rather longer to dismantle, but with New Firm rivalry at its peak a local businessman let heart rule head as he invested in his team. Eddie Thompson's VG brand was the first sponsors' name ever to adorn the tangerine shirt and his involvement in the club would grow gradually until he finally bought wee Jim out.

This was 1985, also a year of futuristic thinking which began with Ernie Wise, one half of the era's best known same-sex couple, making Britain's first ever mobile 'phone call. However given all that has happened since Thompson's son and heir could be forgiven for wishing its other mind-boggling scientific idea, as portrayed in one of the year's box office smash hits, had become as readily available.He drives a Merc, but if Stephen Thompson had access to a DeLorean and could, as Michael J Fox did in "Back to the Future", travel 30 years back in time to involve himself in his parents' lives, would he tell his father not to invest a small fortune in a football club?"I certainly think you need your sanity looked at to be involved in this way," is his semi light-hearted response."My father put in just over £5 million and I've put in around another £750,000 since, so it's cost my family about £6 million which is money we will never see again."Given the level of gratitude chairmen and football directors can expect from supporters it is hard to see how it could ever be worth that and Thompson admits there have been times when he, too, has wondered.

Thompson senior bought his predecessor's shares in September 2002, a season in which the club - with a then turnover of £4 million - was to lose £2.8 million and as his son has said previously, he made plenty of mistakes of his own. However that, in part at least, might be attributable to the illness which befell him soon after he took control of the club."Latterly I don't know, but I think he maybe just wanted success," said Thompson."About a year after we took over the club he had cancer and the treatment didn't work, so he had cancer for the last five years."He maybe just wanted to buy some success, but what I can certainly say is that nobody would have been happier than my dad at the way things are going now."

Thompson absorbed the lessons, however and believes the organisation is now on a much sounder footing."Managers can be very persuasive people and the first couple of years we were on a steep learning curve," he said."I try to run the club as a business and run it as well as possible."There's still a lot of hard work to be done. He probably should never have touched it."It's been a bumpy road, but we've now got no bank debt and some soft loans which are getting repaid."Scottish football's had a hard 10 years, but I love my club and I've always done the best for it."

Wherein lies the rub, because no-one can be described as having his football club in his blood more, since he is both a Thompson and, unlike his father, "Dundee born-and-bred.""I was four when I went to my first game," he explains."He was a Motherwell fan as a kid. He moved to Dundee in 1964 and Dundee was much the bigger team then so I think, because he came from Glasgow and didn't support Celtic or Rangers, he decided to support the smaller team in the city and then, of course, your passion takes over."I think it was for the 1985 Scottish Cup final that he first sponsored them. I was a kid then."

It was never an easy ride, United's near misses heavily out-numbering their trophy wins, even in the glory days of the eighties."There have been a lot of sore ones at Hampden but we've won cup finals there as well," he said."I think that must be the same for most supporters of most clubs. That's what makes it interesting."The rivalry with today's opponents has meanwhile, since the term New Firm was coined, carried additional significance."Looking back it feels like we used to play umpteen replays against Aberdeen, replay after replay," Thompson observes."However the meeting that really sticks out is the first trophy. I was 13 when we won that replay over at Dens. That's the one that sticks out for me."That 1979 League Cup win was a key moment given the way the balance of power was to change for the next five years and those who would prefer to see a more competitive Scottish top flight are hoping that this latest New Firm battle is the precursor to something similar."It is a very different environment now, but it is great that both clubs are back challenging for trophies," Thompson notes."It's good for the game in Scotland and this is such a big game for both clubs."

Win it or lose it, however, he draws satisfaction from having been a supporter who was in a position to put his club on a secure footing, noting that the modern, youth-oriented Dundee United is just an evolved version of the club that sold on the likes of Andy Gray, Raymie Stewart, Kevin Gallacher and Duncan Ferguson - "an unbelievable deal" - through the seventies, eighties and nineties."It is just about two years to the day since we interviewed Jackie and what was important was that he had to buy into what we were trying to do. Not all managers will play young players, but I think he knew we had a lot of good ones and he's developed them further," said Thompson.

There is pride, too, in the part the club has played most recently in the careers of the likes of Andrew Robertson and Ryan Gauld."We've done well with developing young players through our youth system, but also picking up players from elsewhere in Scotland," he said."There are a lot of good players in the lower leagues. You see the likes of Blair Spittal now starting to make regular appearances and, of course, someone said to me at the weekend that bringing in Charlie Telfer might be the best £200,000 I've ever spent."

Thompson is hoping, of course, to receive further evidence of that this afternoon, but whether or not it is provided you sense that he will not be looking to trade in the Merc for a DeLorean any time soon.

Last edited by TEK (30/1/2015 5:07 pm)