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CONFESSION TIME...


WIGHT and BLUE

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Thing about threads like these is we know nothing about the circumstances of individuals. Easier to turn up and watch crap if you live in East, South or North Ayrshire with no other commitments more difficult if you live further away or have other commitments. 

Would I drive 100 miles plus to watch Killie over the last 4/5 years? Forget it. Under previous managers I'd have sacrificed time and money to watch a team giving their all for a common cause. This doesn't exist now. 

Do not under estimate the effect of the MJ years in causing a disconnect between the club and fans, potential fans. What took 10 years to destroy will take at least 10 years to rebuild. 

Killie can only survive and thrive as a community club. Easy statement to make but more difficult to implement. The club needs vision, inspiration and a plan from boardroom down to management on the pitch and there is no evidence of This at any level. 

The club is a shell of what it was and what it could be. We need a board and manager  to engage with the fans, enthuse and inspire the canvass. 

The product isn't worth the time or effort and those that turn up do so simply out of habit or loyalty to the cause rather than for excitement, entertainment, expectation or value for money.

 

Edited by MarkyMark
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I agree with MM! O.o

Back in the 1990s/ 2000s, I had a season ticket despite living hundreds of miles away. I got to around seven or eight home matches and a few away ones each season. 

Times change and I no longer have family in the area to visit and stay with. A visit would be purely to watch the football and would cost a couple of hundred quid and take a couple of days. Clearly, I no longer have a season ticket.

There is no likelihood that I will be back while they have the shrunken plastic pitch, although a manager having the team playing exciting, winning football would be an inducement.  

I still support the club but nothing about it excites me.

While there are Killie fans living in Kilmarnock and environs who can't be arsed to go to home matches, I don't apologise for my position.

 

 

 

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Hand on heart when was the last time Killie delivered a product that provided value for money and excitement for the entry price? I don't look live in East Ayrshire anymore so there is an added cost of time, effort and commitments which makes it even more difficult to make the effort to watch a poor product, with no common purpose. Killie aren't attempting to thrive they are aiming to survive in a zombie state. The club needs vision, inspiration and leadership which is lacking at all levels. 

Sad thing is there were warnings that this is how MJ's tenure would eventually pan out but ignored them. 

Major rebuilding needed but I don't see anyone up to the task at present. Time for a vision to build a community club but it has to come from the owners as TIK despite being commendable is playing at the edges. We have a diminishing number of people who care about the club. What we need is to create a larger number that care.

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I also agree with MM and all he posted.

Under Burns, Williamson, Totten, Mixu, KS and most years under JJ it didn't matter who or where we were playing on a Sat I was there almost every week.

Now after a number of bad managers and many years of MJ twisting my melon man it's....meh.

I'm not happy about that at all but that's the way it is, especially right now where it seems we have a manager making an absolute c**t of things on the park and a club captain making an absolute c**t of our club off it.

We've had a couple of false dawns with BB entering the scene and doing next to f**k all apart from injecting a bit of cash and MJ ''leaving''.

MJ & BB imo are still doing OK out the club through the hotel and that still rankles.

Sadly I don't see much changing until we get another Bobby Fleeting type as chairman and another Tommy Burns/Kenny Shiels type as manager.

My lassie occasionally asks me to take her to a game which is great and makes me happy but the fitba on display and the experience now is not great and that makes me sad. (

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10 hours ago, Hawkeye the Gnu said:

While I fully intend to continue attending RP as I have for the past 50 years  it's now more out of habit, and being able to avoid going round the shops with Mrs Gnu, I fully understand why people are stopping going.

Zero entertainment, zero atmosphere and zero indication that anythings going to change anytime soon.

I wonder just how many new fans we have attracted over the past few years.

Why do I do it? F*ck knows,apart from simply being died in the wool Killie.

Sh....I think the men in white coats are coming...................

 

Completely agree and I'm sure there are loads of us out there. Especially your zero,zero,zero sentence. I was even stupid enough a couple of years ago to start taking my son to the games. Now he's hooked as well. Not on the football as it's garbage. Probably more that he goes with his Papa and I,and we go while the women go shopping etc. He's now Killie daft and waits for autographs just like I did all these years ago. Personally I've thought for a while that someone should report me to the social work for taking him to the games.

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Every home game I drive a 150 mile round trip. Love the journey to the game, the anticipation of maybe finally this week we'll see a great win. 95% of the time the journey back is full of "why do I bother" comments. 

Everyone's circumstances are different, money, travel, work commitments. What the last 5 years have shown is that people will not go out of their way to find a way to make it to the game. You can't blame anyone for that given the displays.

Only the club can rectify this through better results and a better culture around the place.

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Agree I would rather watch Killie than some average sides that I don't care about, however it is pretty painful at times. Been away a few years and despite warnings didn't expect it to be as bad as it, still continue to go though. Unlike a certain 'KTID' boy who used to go on our bus at times and drank in sports bar every week, pictured last week in a Tim pub in Gallowgate wearing a Republic of Ireland top surrounded by the mhanky mob for old firm game. Strange behaviour. 

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I understand people being disillusioned with Scottish football, however, going to see championship football is part of the problem. English football 'product' has been shoved down our throats often enough that the apparent 'best league' or 'most competitive league' myth becomes a mantra. 'Scottish football is p!sh', also becomes a mantra.

There are just 2 things I'd say in retort;

Firstly, Scottish football isn't brilliant, but equally it's not the horror show it's made out to be. It will only get better if we don't abandon it to pursue the better packaged, shiny products down the road.

Second, English Championship football isn't great either. It's a competitive league but that doesn't mean that it's a good league. It has the backing of television and media telling the world how terrific it is and people buy into the hype - just watch some of it, it really isn't good football.

I'm not an uber fan and sometimes the football is a chore but those wonderful days I've had as a Killie fan were far sweeter because of the guff ones.

 

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Im probably going to put my nephew off for life by taking him to his first game tomorrow. But seeing as he is showing an active interest despite going to a school where you're expected to be a Celtic fan I canne say no really. 

I doubt he will be back after Saturday tho. 

Edited by cammy_boy
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14 minutes ago, cammy_boy said:

Im probably going to put my nephew off for life by taking him to his first game tomorrow. But seeing as he is showing an active interest despite going to a school where you're expected to be a Celtic fan I canne say no really. 

I doubt he will be back after Saturday tho. 

What school's that?

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I still travel to most home games, possibly a 100 mile round trip and will be there again on Saturday but people are right a combo of terrible leadership (MJ) , coupled with some of the worst home form in our history has made the place like a morgue.

If I don't go to the match I listen to Open all mics on the radio, no way you'd catch me taking in another teams game as to be quite honest, football unless you support a team, is pretty boring as a spectator sport.

To state the obvious anything less than a win Saturday and I can't see a way back for Lee, hopefully our board have the balls to make a big call.

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9 minutes ago, Dan1el said:

I still travel to most home games, possibly a 100 mile round trip and will be there again on Saturday but people are right a combo of terrible leadership (MJ) , coupled with some of the worst home form in our history has made the place like a morgue.

If I don't go to the match I listen to Open all mics on the radio, no way you'd catch me taking in another teams game as to be quite honest, football unless you support a team, is pretty boring as a spectator sport.

To state the obvious anything less than a win Saturday and I can't see a way back for Lee, hopefully our board have the balls to make a big call.

Who is going to make the call though ? Bowie,Kiltie, anonymous new guy ? They could ask the chairman or just toss a coin, the coin toss it is then.

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Just now, Dan1el said:

If I don't go to the match I listen to Open all mics on the radio, no way you'd catch me taking in another teams game as to be quite honest, football unless you support a team, is pretty boring as a spectator sport.

Very much an each to their own thing though?

I go to non Killie games with a few people I met down here and with some of the Mrs' family. Even been to a few away games( Travelling as far as Portsmouth at the end of the month) I enjoy watching football, I missed going for a few pints pre-match, going to the football and having a laugh with some mates. I that such a crime? You'd think by the reaction to it it would be a crime!

Funny how when the Kaiserlauten lot come over they are all praised and hailed but are they not doing the same?

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I think there are two different points being twisted together here - 

Exiles who follow killie, go to games when back home, but go to local games to get a football fix whether that is a junior team up north, Bradford city, PNE, Melbourne City is fine and is the exiles decision if they have an affinity with local team or just like going to football games.

People going on a trip to Manchester/Liverpool/London/Germany to take in a one off game at the expense of killie is also ok.

People who pass up the chance to go to a Killie game to go to another teams game is what I think is being called out, considering the original post was a confession that he had changed travel plans to now miss Killie and will attend PNE game instead. 

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Just now, Van Tornhout's Header said:

I think there are two different points being twisted together here - 

Exiles who follow killie, go to games when back home, but go to local games to get a football fix whether that is a junior team up north, Bradford city, PNE, Melbourne City is fine and is the exiles decision if they have an affinity with local team or just like going to football games.

People going on a trip to Manchester/Liverpool/London/Germany to take in a one off game at the expense of killie is also ok.

People who pass up the chance to go to a Killie game to go to another teams game is what I think is being called out, considering the original post was a confession that he had changed travel plans to now miss Killie and will attend PNE game instead. 

Again a very each to their own thing though, some people just don't feel the same as others about things. Personally wouldn't do it myself but if the OP decides to do that it doesn't make him less of a fan (albeit he's come to the wrong place to rub against the grain). Not as if he's turned round and said "I'm no going to the game anymore, hope we get pumped, hope Partick win and hope we get relegated".

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As I said before, I live on the IOW now but get back to my hometown of Neilston about 3 times a year. These trips are built round taking in two Killie games. So, six games each season? I must apologise for not attending our games week in week out, but I doubt if any of you 'Killie or nowt' punters would travel 1000 miles and 300 odd quid plus, to watch the deteriorating dross on offer.

I regularly attend games at Pompey, Brighton and London grounds - if tickets are available? ANY of those games involves 2 train journeys and a ferry trip, so please spare me the 'you're not a fan widdle '.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Championship encounter in Preston but, I'll be keeping an eye on our basement match!

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1 minute ago, KillieBantam said:

Again a very each to their own thing though, some people just don't feel the same as others about things. Personally wouldn't do it myself but if the OP decides to do that it doesn't make him less of a fan (albeit he's come to the wrong place to rub against the grain). Not as if he's turned round and said "I'm no going to the game anymore, hope we get pumped, hope Partick win and hope we get relegated".

Agree it is very much an individuals choice what they do with their time and money. The fact the guy makes the effort to attend a few games a season should be commended. 

As you say he has probably posted about it in the wrong place, I suppose it has generated a discussion.

I think maybe what has generated a lot of the comments is the fact he has came home with a plan to see two games and decided to cut it short. 

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I lived in Wales for three and a half years. Watching Cardiff (local team) at the time was excruciating. They were shooting for, and got, promotion. However the standard of the English Championship was grim, but marketed very well. I got home as much as possible to see a Killie team who would have passed Cardiff off the pitch, but would also have been bowled over as the Championship is all about strength and power. Thing is, I've come to realise that I'm not a football fan, I'm solely a Killie fan. f**k watching any other teams.

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3 hours ago, Dan1el said:

If I don't go to the match I listen to Open all mics on the radio, no way you'd catch me taking in another teams game as to be quite honest, football unless you support a team, is pretty boring as a spectator sport.

At various times, l've "supported" three English league clubs and taken a casual interest in a couple of non-league.

Even when they have had success - promotions, FA Cup finals, play-off finals etc - the feeling isn't the same as with Killie. It still is enjoyable though and I will always be interested in football generally.

At the moment though, I'd rather listen to Sportsound on a Saturday, for all its flaws.

 

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