The trouble with Steve

The trouble with Steve Brown is quite simple, it’s his mixed messages.

Brand, trust, transparency and consumer confidence are buzz words in the retail industry but it appears Chairman Brown isn’t at the consumer coalface.

Football clubs still fall outside the norm of society but they’re quickly being brought to heel. Saints were never going to lead or embrace such change but the attitude the club has recently displayed towards customers is nothing short of bewildering.

To contextualise, Saints are a diddy club, a club that don’t win prizes of the meaningful sort. All that changed last May sometime round about 1635 BST. Steven MacLean, a previously maligned Steve Lomas signing, scored a goal which was a cameo of his career; dogged, determined, dramatic.  The ensuing scenes will live long with fans and casual observers alike.

Sadly, the euphoria was left at Celtic Park.

During the four week build-up to the big event, you’d be forgiven for thinking the club were intent to cap the fanbase at 1600 season ticket holders. We won the final berth in mid-April, when at almost any other club season ticket prices for the upcoming season would be set in stone. Not one purchaser of a Cup Final ticket was offered an application form to purchase a Season Ticket, nor could our office staff allow customers an insight as to how much the game after the final would cost a "new" fan. 12,000 opportunities missed.

There is no excuse. We had a buzz around our club which we let fart away like air from a wet balloon.

15,000 people went to Celtic Park on 17 May in hope of blue win. Some thought it was written in the stars, whilst others believed it was inscribed on shirts sold by Campus Sports and printed by Sprinterz.co.uk. Both were sort of right, May 17 was dominated by the bustling centre forward but only because by then it was clear he was effectively finished at Saints.

 And this is the biggest mistake of all. It’s not to the benefit of the club to share financial information, but it’s equally easy to see that May would have signed a deal with the right amalgam of persuasion and “cut”. We needed to make the transfer value of some significance to Stevie. Then he’d have re-signed. Instead, like Derek McInnes, we failed to recognise the worth of Stevie May and he went for a fraction of the fee seen 22 miles East. We'd have been smarter to sell him on 18 May and start a bidding war early, plan early.

Throughout the negotiations, the club fell silent. Rightly so. It’s not our business to get constant updates like a wife waiting on a husband to come out of intensive care. When he went, the club defended the deal on offer, but couldn’t justify why those discussions came so late in the day. Almost like the manager hadn’t realised how good May was, despite castigating Steve Lomas for the same.

Given Tommy’s approach to youth development (Kane loaned to a part time team and everyone else making do with development league drubbings) we should all be grateful that Lomas understood what development means and ensured Stevie was allowed to grow in a good place. A lesson that seems long forgotten.

So, we knew that May wasn’t intent on re-signing and that would hurt us in football sense. The obvious things were; capitalise on his sale and ensure we replace him as far as fiscally prudent. Finding a goal scorer was never going to be easy, harder still with Rangers just a few games from being back in the top flight.

 Other areas were much easier to fill. For reasons only known to Tommy Wright and Steve Brown, Liam Craig was never replaced, meaning that every opposition right back has had a very easy time against us. Liam Craig, a former fan favourite, was clearly on the market when Hibs rightly punted Terry Butcher. I’m led to believe that an offer was never formalised despite the player’s determination to play in the SPFL.

The Manager brought in striker, a person who seemed dogged by trouble and a stupid name, yet whose talent has been evident for some time. The player was training under the nose of our Manager yet no contract was offered. The Manager stated that he couldn’t as he didn’t know his budget. Perhaps semantics based on May signing improved terms, perhaps reckless incompetence on the part of the chairman, perhaps neither. Either way, season ticket cashflow arrived late because the application packs were likewise ill-timed. If cashflow was a problem, so was our disorganisation.

All those things are pretty grim failings by any club but the utter failure to capitalise, in any tangible way, from May 17 is astonishing. A fable of grasping defeat from the jaws of victory.

St Johnstone, under Brown leadership, were never going to flash the cash. I wouldn’t want them to. But what followed was inept beyond adjective. Rather than celebrate our victory, Chairman Brown would have you believe it saved our club from extinction.

Infrastructure, may never trend on Twitter but it seems to be Chairman Brown’s new bestie word. Like a scene from a BBC sitcom, we celebrated the win by repairing a car park! Now, bearing in mind that St Johnstone “supporters” had written letters of complaint about the car park surface it was always going to need replacing at some point and this is as good a time as any. Similarly, the artificial training pitch has been in a sorry state for a few years so its replacement is more than acceptable, particularly after a windfall.

What rankles, irritates and grates is the manner in which the money has been spent. The car park has been an issue for 4 years that I’m aware of; the astro, at least 3years. None of these outlays comes as a shock, except they do. See, at no point in the build-up did our club set the expectation that the windfall would go towards essential maintenance. The club have no responsibility or obligation to do so, but had they chosen that route it would have been accepted in good faith.

The problem is that we won the cup then it seemed we found things on which to spend money. Rather than keep a feel good momentum travelling forward, we kicked the thing off course until it was driving to downtown apathy.

When the new season kicked off in Luzern, we were short of players, missing a great physio and sports scientist but comforted by the prospect of new asphalt and astro.

When the SPFL season hit mid season, crowds were back down to pre-May 17 levels. To further infuriate and confuse the fans we lost another General Manager and there seemed to be a clear statement that the GM role didn’t fit our set-up. A young female now holds the role of General Manager. It seems unlikely that she is fully salaried presumably not enhanced by a percentage of directly attributed/new turnover. Seems odd, but what do I know?

We also formalised the position of Ross Cunningham. His Twitter bio says he is Marketing and Communications Officer for St Johnstone FC. Odd then, that he hasn’t communicated how one would get an invite to the Q&A session with Chairman Brown which is scheduled for 30 October if rumours are true. Actually, maybe it’s not that odd, since he took up the post, he’s stopped communicating with fans on the unofficial forum. Were it a script, it would be funny.

 Which is kinda where we started.

I’ve argued long and hard that our club should be dictator driven. It’s the best form of management and chairmanship. The trouble is, Chairman Brown is sending mixed messages in all directions. He needs to get his head down, there’s rot setting in under his watch.

The club is losing credibility. Whether it’s Twitter outbursts, unfathomable statements about staff, Roddy’s quote to the BBC (which remains without caveat, denial or retraction) or the scarcely believable situation where our Manager claimed not to know his budget during pre-season.

I said last season that results were papering over cracks in the club. Those cracks are now on show like a slapper’s thong.

The man needs to get his head down and fix the wounds. Only then can the footballing matters be seen to. Great results won’t occur this season so a charm offensive is crucial.

A scripted interview with detailed explanations would fix many of the problems. Then he’ll need to demonstrate incisive leadership and foresight. No point telling the fans we’ll get Macaroni pies then serving us chips and beans. We may like both equally, but we’ll feel let down if we get something far different from what was promised.

We expected a tough season, but we expected to see our youngsters given game time…. Confidence, transparency, trust – simple words, simple concepts, crucial impacts.

For what it’s worth, I don’t rate Chairman Brown but I’m cautious about crucifying him in the current climate. Nobody else wants the hassle.

Also, however easy it would be to drown the club in letters, emails, tweets and comments; I don’t condone such action. It will fall on a select few and those folks are mostly innocent.

Above all else, we simply cannot allow dissatisfaction to create a spot on the board for a fans representative. We all know he’s causing trouble for the club and working like a Trojan to wangle “inside”. Let’s close the shutters, re-group and fight those at rival clubs.

Chairman – you’ve made a hash of things. Learn, move forward and gain respect through actions. Don’t make it easy for us season ticket holders to reduce our outlay. Please.