The St Mirren Football Club Ltd. (Company Number: SC5773)

Notice is hereby given to Shareholders that the Annual General Meeting of the Members of the St Mirren Football Club Ltd will be held at the Paisley 2021 Stadium, Greenhill Road, Paisley PA3 1RU on Thursday 14 December 2017 at 7:15pm.

By Order of the Board
C Stewart (Secretary)

A Member entitled to attend the vote is entitled to appoint a proxy to attend and vote in his/her place. A proxy need not be a Member of the Company. Shareholders will be contacted directly.

We note the newspaper article yesterday that revealed the eight clubs chosen to spearhead the Scottish Football Association’s elite level of Project Brave.

Some supporters have been in touch, disappointed with the decision not to include St Mirren as one of the club’s involved at the elite level of the programme. However, we can confirm that we did not apply for elite level status at this time.

Going forward we will be a part of the ‘Performance Progressive’ category. Having done our research on this we believe that with our current, sustainable business model this category will give us a best possible platform to work towards attaining elite level over the next three years.

To achieve elite level we will have to employ five additional members of staff on a full time basis (U18s Coach, Sports Scientist, Head Of Recruitment, Performance Analyst, Head of Children’s Programme). Over the next three years we will actively strive to recruit these positions as fits in with our business model and the timeframe given to achieve elite level status.

We are proud of the hard work we have done at the academy in recent years which can be seen with the likes of academy graduates Kenny McLean, John McGinn, Lewis Morgan, Kyle Magennis and Stephen Mallan all in the full and U21 Scotland squads in the last week, while Ethan Erhahon and Ben Cameron have been regulars in the U17 and U16 squads over the last year.

That hard work will continue as we look to keep producing players for the first team who can go on to play at the highest level.

Statement from Gordon Scott on SMiSA £2 quarterly spend. 

"I have been placed in a very awkward position by the inclusion in the latest SMiSA £2 spend of the following:

Glenvale FC £1820.

This local Ferguslie Park based group is in its 50th Anniversary year, and have youth teams at every age group through to adult amateur level. Unfortunately they have a shortfall in their funding for this season due to receiving less than expected from other sources. They have asked SMiSA if we could help them with this which would enable them to offer free coaching to local four and five year olds. This would be consistent with SMiSA desires to get more local children involved with footballing activity, and to bring the Club and the community closer together. Sessions are held both at the St Mirren Dome (which brings some income into the Club) and at Ferguslie Sports Centre.

I explained to SMiSA that the club already provide these programmes through our Street Stuff and community programmes so they would effectively be funding a project that would impact on our existing classes. I also explained that if they put this option in then I would be forced to post this article and that in itself could jeopardise our relationship with Glenvale. Despite this they have decided to include it in the £2 spend anyway.

I have spoken with someone from Glenvale this morning and they fully understand the club's position. We have managed to build up a very good relationship with them over the last year which resulted in them playing their 50th anniversary game at our stadium and we want to continue to evolve that relationship.

I need to support the staff at this football club who I am constantly pushing to increase numbers at our community classes. I could easily sit back and rely on the SMiSA voting system to carry on as normal as I don’t think many St Mirren fans want their money spent on items that are not beneficial to our football club. However, I feel that I would not be giving our staff the support they deserve if I was to not make the clubs position clear on this.

As always it will be down to you as individuals to make your decision on how the money is spent but I felt I had to give you the clubs perspective on this occasion."

It is with great regret that we have learned that former club admin worker Kathleen Steel passed away earlier this week.

Kathleen was a well-know face at both the stadiums on Love Street and Greenhill Road through her time working at the club through the 1990s and 2000s up to her retirement five years ago.

Kathleen's funeral will take place on Wednesday (25th October) at 2pm at the Woodside Crematorium in Paisley.

Our thoughts and condolences are with Kathleen's family at this time.

Please note that the Stadium, Ticket Office and Club Shop will close this Friday (13th October) at 2pm. 

We are aware that some people are having issues accessing the online ticket system.

If you use an iPad, iPhone or MacBook you will be unable to use the system. This is out-with our hands as it is due to a dispute between Apple and Adobe. We are currently trying  to resolve the issue, but it involves writing a programme for each of the 8,000 seats within the stadium.

If you are using a PC or laptop we would suggest that you use Mozilla Firefox as your  browser and download the latest version of Adobe Flash Player, this will allow the seating template to load.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

As a Club we are of the opinion that every fan deserves the right to enjoy their football without listening to constant torrents of abuse being hurled at the players, officials and other supporters.

We appreciate that we all have our moments and our intention is not to punish every misdemeanour. However, there are people who spend the entire match shouting abuse and spoiling the enjoyment of those around them. 

The atmosphere created by our fans around the stadium on match days just now is exceptional and we want to continue and encourage that trend. 

We have made a decision to clamp down on people who behave in this unacceptable manner and over the next few matches we will be warning and, if necessary, removing the culprits. 

Your assistance in making this a redundant task would be much appreciated. 

The SPFL guidelines are as follows:

Under SPFL rules in respect of Ground Safety, Behaviour at Matches and Damage to Stadia, each club must ensure that its players, officials, supporters and any other persons connected with the club do not engage in unacceptable conduct at a stadium on the occasion of an official match.

Unacceptable conduct covers conduct that is violent and/or disorderly. This includes, but is not limited to: actual, attempted or threatened physical violence against a person or persons, intentional damage to property, using threatening, abusive or insulting words or conduct, displaying writing or any other things which is deemed threatening, abusive or insulting. 

The Club have a duty fulfil these rules or face sanctions from the SPFL such as a fine or points deduction. 

St Mirren F.C. accepts its responsibility under these rules and will not tolerate any form of unacceptable conduct as detailed above. Any supporter who engages in such activity will be liable for sanctions imposed by the Club which may include withdrawal of season tickets, exclusion from future matches involving the Club or, in the event of persistent offending, an application being made towards a football banning order. 

Please note that the Stadium, Ticket Office and Club Shop will all be closed this coming Monday (25th September). 

Anyone wishing to purchase season tickets will still be able to do so online. 

The Stadium, Ticket Office and Club Shop will all be open as usual on Tuesday.

On The Pitch

What a difference a year makes!

Top of the league and playing a brand of football that we can all enjoy. I said when we took over that I wanted to see us play attractive football and to entertain our fans and I think Jack's team is delivering on that vision. Whilst it’s still early days it’s great to see us at the right end of the table where we belong.

It’s great to see our supporters buying into what Jack & James have brought to the club as they continue to build on the momentum gained from the excellent end to last season.

We have sold 2,823 season tickets this year compared to 2,453 last year and that support has allowed us to assemble a squad that is well equipped to challenge for the Championship title.

The excellent uptake in season tickets has also allowed us to fulfil our commitment to house all away fans in the North stand for every league game in Paisley this season, leaving the West stand as a Saints only area.

Lewis Morgan

One of the highlights of this year has been the continued development of Lewis Morgan into a player who is not only starting for the Scotland under 21s, but excelling with them and putting in man of the match performances.

It’s no secret that we received a substantial offer for him from an English Championship club in the summer and with his contract running out at the end of this season the prudent decision would have been to take the money.

As a board we were however united in our decision to refuse any offers.

We felt that his potential contribution to our league challenge and to the way the team plays far outweighed the financial benefit the club would have received.

It’s a joy to watch Lewis Morgan play football and we hope to see him grace the stripes for as long as possible.

Lewis is a very sensible and grounded individual who will undoubtedly go on to play at the very highest level for both club and country.

We would like to think that we can help him along that path and have not given up hope that we can yet convince him to sign a new contract.

Kit Update

The decision to take the sale of the strips in house is proving to be a big success. We have sold nearly 1500 to date and, along with the Skyview Capital sponsorship, we have already  eclipsed the revenue generated by our previous deal. Campbell Kennedy asked us to put our faith in him with this project and together with the club shop they have delivered on that faith. 

As you may be aware we have had a few teething problems with the new strips. These were mainly down to the English contractor who was responsible for adhering the badges to the strip. To Joma's credit they have acted swiftly and have already contracted with a different company based in Scotland for next year's kit.

For this Saturday's top of the table clash we will be wearing a new, specially embroidered, third kit to celebrate the club's 140th Anniversary which will go on sale in the club shop in early October.

The only hint for Saturday is that we will not be the team in black and white stripes!

The Stadium

The atmosphere created on match days is as good as I have ever witnessed since moving to the new stadium.

The ground has been criticised at times for being rather soul-less but when this team starts playing and the drum starts beating the stadium starts rocking!

Paisley 2021

We are in the process of organising a musical event at the stadium before the Brechin City game on September 30th to coincide with the final submission of the Paisley 2021 bid. Full details of this will be revealed shortly!

SMiSA

I’m sure you’ll agree that the SMiSA wall which was constructed during the summer has been a great addition to the stadium. It’s tremendous to see generations of fans gather there on matchdays to have their photograph taken next to their name.

On that note SMiSA are running a short survey for supporters to complete, whether you are currently a member or not. Please take a couple of minutes to complete this. It’s important that we continue to collectively learn what we can do better and hopefully encourage others to join.

You can take the survey by clicking here.

Also don’t miss your chance to attend the meet the manager night this Thursday at the stadium (14th Sept from 18:30).

You can register to attend here.

Thank you once again for your backing both on a match day and financially. We ask a lot of supporters be it through Season Tickets, Away Day travel, SMiSA subscriptions, 1877 Club Membership and Club Replica Kit & Merchandise.

This all goes towards creating a team we can hopefully all be proud of and rest assured none of it is ever taken for granted.

See you all at East End Park!

St Mirren have this afternoon signed midfielder Ian McShane from Ladbrokes Premiership side Ross County.

The 24-year-old has signed a deal with The Buddies until the summer of 2019.

A youth player with Queen of the South, Ian broke through to The Doonhamers first team squad going on to make 95 appearances for the Dumfries side before heading north to Dingwall in July 2015 where he made 39 appearances for The Staggies.