KFCSA Meeting

DAVIE Mackinnon was the star attraction at the Supporters' Association meeting last Thursday night in the Park Suite. Chairwoman Ann Reid opened the meeting and handed straight over to Davie who ran through all the latest developments at the club.

To open he conveyed his thanks to those whom had made the effort to attend the cup match against Rangers. He said: "It's a big thing that the attendances are down and a lot of that may be due to the recent run of bad results. Jim Jefferies was extremely pleased at the vocal backing the team got during the Rangers game and he's asked me to pass that on to you tonight. Those sentiments are echoed by everyone at the club from the board down. Support like that can make all the difference

to the players and we are hoping for more of the same on Saturday. If we beat Partick Thistle then we could go on to win the next three or four matches and be right back up there."

Davie then made reference to the Chairman's current statement about the clubs financial situation. He said: "We have a sound plan in place and met with the bank the other week to share it with them. They were happy with that and we secured our overdraft facility until January 2005. You don't need to worry too much, we are not in the same situation as Dundee or Livingston or teams like that."

The Park Hotel has oft been cited as the club's saving grace and Mr Mackinnon was encouraging in his analysis of it's performance of late. He stated: "There have been a few performance issues but we have addressed these with the management company and hope that they are in hand. The hotel performed exceptionally well in December, with over 5,000 meals served, and made a reasonable profit."

The number of people using the hotel facilities as a public bar has an adverse effect on room available for people wishing to sit down for food. The club have taken steps to alleviate this problem, and address the under usage of the Killie Club at the same time. Davie Mac said: "We have been in talks with a design company about refurbishing the Killie Club and converting it into a state of the art seven day a week sports bar. The transition will be done in two phases, the second of which will involve moving the Killie Shop, possibly into a new structure beneath the Moffat Stand. It may seem a bit ambitious but it won't cost the club a penny as the brewers will cover the initial costs and re-coup their outlay over time."

Speaking of cash flow, Davie turned to the re-launch of The Big Match initiative. He said: "We actually did not too bad from The Big Match, taking in over £100,000 to date, but on hindsight like I thought at the time, the offers were not quite strong enough. We are having a meeting with representatives from various fan's organisations next week (B&H will be there) to discuss where we take things from here. We feel that input from fan's is the way to go and intend to pass any plans we have past the fans to gauge reactions before going ahead with anything."

Davie mentioned that the club are thinking about taking on board our idea of a 'full-house' day and trying to break the attendance record at Rugby Park for a non old firm game. They are planning on attempting this at the Aberdeen game but we hope that they hold off until after the break and try it in conjunction with the day we plan to bring all the kids to Rugby Park...surely that would make sense?

The tabloids ran stories this week that the club were in negotiations with the Klin Investments Group about shirt sponsorship for next season when the McLelland Cheese deal runs out. While this may well have been the case it does not look as if anything came of the talks but DM is confident that Killie won't be sponsor-less next season. He said: "We have three companies interested in sponsoring the shirts next season and in fact two of them have already made offers and we are waiting to hear what the third bid will involve. The board will decide which company it will be more beneficial for the club to tie in with and any deal should be signed and sealed by mid March, so we can still get the new replica strips out before the holidays."

All thoughts of a youth academy were put on the back burner last year when SportScotand moved the goal posts regarding funding but apparently there is cause for hope yet. DM explained: "Paul McDonald has been doing a lot of ground work and now has several courses up and running. The club, the SFA and the council are all very happy with his work so far. A big problem of course has been training facilities, or rather the lack of them. We, along with the local council, have now identified a potential site and this could go some way towards resurrecting our bid for a youth academy. It looks like SportScotland have had to have a re-think when no one could come up with the £8M they were looking for previously."

We reported a few weeks ago on the tests that were being run on the sub-air system and it's more good news on that front. The new 'baffles' that have been fitted have reduced the noise levels so much that the club can now re-apply to the council to lift the operating restrictions. When the system is running at 95% capacity it now only makes the same noise as it did before at 30% capacity. The club ran the system overnight before a recent game and the neighbours never knew that it was on. If we can sort out the problem whereby the sub-air's electrics shorts out the floodlights (remember the Celtic game?) then effectively it's all systems go!

Davie touched on the club's plans for the next pre-season preparations. Whereas the squad flew out to Il Ciocco last year, it has been deemed a tad on the expensive side and they won't be back there this year. We have been given the chance of one of the two places in the Intertoto Cup (assuming no UEFA), and with the other clubs in contention facing or indeed in administration, there is a good possibility that we would get in as top seed and not have to play a round in June. Opinions on the merits of this competition are wide and varied but the final decision will be made by Jim Jefferies. The alternative looks like a training camp in Sweden because the club can get cheap flights etc...not much use for the fans though with Scandinavian beer prices!

DM finished off with a question and answer session, most of which revolved around the problems with the recent cup game. The reasons behind the poor attendance were many and varied each factor compounding the problem. At Rangers insistence the prices were too high, the match was moved to Sunday, it was broadcast on council TV, it was against one of the old firm and some folk just won't go to matches involving them...need we go on? The general consensus was that the club should look after it's own customer's, the Killie fans, first and foremost and that we should do more to fill the stands with our own fans. The General Manager agreed that we already give old firm fans more seats than anyone else in the division and we don't want to continue down that road by giving them a larger allocation. However, he did say that: "We can't turn away paying customers" and "In exceptional circumstances the club should reserve the right to a re-think". We think that means that if they can't sell enough tickets for higher profile games to Killie fans then they might sell them to the opposition.

Apologies if we've missed anything but to be fair the KFCSA meetings are open to all Killie fans, so if you want to hear everything first hand then why not go along to the next one, 25 March, and catch what's going down yourself.

Fat Boys Slim Latest

We've been amazed at the generosity of both individuals and local businesses to our "lose three chins in 10 weeks" plan. During the last two games at Rugby Park several people have came up to us and handed over cash for our sponsored slim. Big thanks to Guy Scott, Davie Davidson, John Spiers & Betty Sinclair; you've made us realise that our plan to try and fill the Moffat Stand with kids may just be achievable after all. The response form the business community has been very encouraging with our main sponsor Klin Homes helping us raise a huge amount of money for the club. We'd also like to give a big thanks to Ritchie (UK) Ltd who were happy to sponsor us even before they knew what they would get in return.

Kilmarnock Football Club is a great focus for many in the town and the thousands of people visiting the Theatre of Pies provide a huge boost to many businesses in the town. Perhaps now is the time for many of those business people to give just a little back by sponsoring us to the tune of £100. Each week we will be giving a special mention to the companies who sponsor us and we'll arrange to come down and have a photo taken that will also appear in the Kilmarnock Standard. It all sounds like a cracking PR opportunity so why not contact us on one of the numbers below and we'll get things arranged.

Weigh-In

All those lovely slim folk tell us the first seven days of the diet will be the worst - well if that's the case these ten weeks will be the longest of our lives. Last Sunday saw the salad dodgers head for the Howard Arms for the inaugural weigh-in. The groans we heard as we entered the pub were coming from the scales as they realised it was that time again. After watching the scales zoom around it was good news all round as we have all made an incredible start. Baz lost 10lbs whilst Hippo lost 1st 3lbs although some wags reckon he's just chopped a leg off (god bless the Atkins diet says Hippo). The other three warriors have made equally impressive starts with Oboab losing 13lbs, bluehand losing 11lbs and Swannie losing 9lbs, great work troops.

Come on folks we'd urge each and every one of you to help in any way possible so get in touch with us. Contact Baz on 0771 055 3693 or call Sandy on 0774 771 8754. A huge thanks also goes to the following companies who are the first to put their moolah where their mouth is; Klin Homes, J.R.D. Partnership (Accountants), Fortress Security, Goldsmiths, Millennium Beauty, The Cut Above, Duncan McLean Solicitors, Ritchie (UK) Ltd. and Fitness First.

Cheap Prices at Motherwell?

You may remember earlier in the season we told all season ticket holders they would get cheap entrance prices at East End Park but of course we never! Now we don't like blaming others but it wasn't our fault mister, honest. The Pars were to blame on that occasion (they said they forgot) and this week's trip to Fir Park gives us another discount opportunity. Let's hope we save a few quid this time - the deal was done with Motherwell, Dunfermline and Aberdeen so our advice is always take your season tickets to these venues. The vocal support against the Jags was tremendous so let's get a big crowd to Motherwell for more of the same.

Read the B&H column in the Kilmarnock Standard every week