TheLip69

For my money they build an atmosphere and that's, surely, what we want at the football. The singing, the banners, that big feckin drum, should all be a focal point of the match. They should be front and centre encouraging others to get their hands out their pockets and give their tonsils an airing. I dont think they can influence or affect the game or the crowd from that wee corner as much as they could with a more prominent position. Just my opinion of course.

Get them away from that wee corner in the East Stand, and either stick them in the middle of the East or behind the goals in the Cooper. Make them a focal point of the matchday. It might encourage others to come along and join in the festivities.

Lets face a few facts here, this was our fifth outing in Europe in the past 6 seasons. In the last three outings we have lost our final home game by two goals to nil. This was Kubans first match in Europe, ever. The looked as if they had played in Europe all their lives, we looked like amateurs. They played the perfect European away game. Suckered us in and hit us on the break. We do all the hard work getting there and then treat it like an exotic friendly. In the last six years we have learnt fuck all, and that's disgraceful.

The guy had been knocked back by Accies, the only way from there was down. We took him on gave him his chance and he even played and scored in Europe. Then walks away because he's a free agent and hopes his dad can wangle him a wee job at Ibrox. Fuck off, Motherwell did him a good turn, not the other way around.

No, if McCall is going to be ashamed of anything it will be allowing so many contracts to run out at one time. To lose a couple of first team players at the end of the season is more or less expected, to lose six, more than half the team, is nothing short of ridiculous. Something that seems to have been forgotten in the rush to congratulate him on his signings.

I am fairly happy with the Puma gear, I've always liked their stuff. Not too enamoured of this seasons strips though, the neck of the home strip is just a mess, and I detest black football strips. White has always been my preference for an away strip, black is just awful. I have never bought a black strip, training tops, yes, strips no.

I have always thought that International caps can improve a certain type of player and I believe that if Hammell had been in more squads it would have boosted his confidence and lifted his game. If you get into a few squads you'd work harder at your game to try to get into the team. Hammell's a far better player than Danny Fox and for him to be overlooked while Fox gets plucked from obscurity just because he signs for Celtic is disgraceful. When Joe Wark was the best left back in Scotland he was kept out of the Scotland team by one of the best right backs in the World, Danny McGrain, who was capped at left back to accommodate Sandy Jardine at right bank. I voted Wark, because I am old enough to have seen both of them at their peak. I like Hammell, I think he's a better player than he gets credit for and well worth a cap or two, but he ain't Joe.

I thought the atmosphere was terrific I was behind the goals and it's the first time I've been in amongst that kind of crowd since they built the East Stand. Certainly brought back a few memories, fair play to the lads involved but they certainly worked hard at building the atmosphere. What with the drum, the flares, the big fucking popper, the bloke with the blow up guitar, and the guy with the horses head, it was carnival stuff right enough.

Got a Transpennine train on Saturday from Manchester to Lancaster, it's destination was Edinburgh. It was absolutely mobbed, crowded all through the train and not helped by two people with bikes, neither of which folded down, taking up half the bloody carriage. As we left Piccadilly the train manager advised is that there was a problem further south and trains were delayed through Crewe so everyone had taken this train which was already fully booked. I had booked a seat but couldn't even get on the carriage where my seat was and ended up standing all the way to Lancaster. After the game on the train back from Lancaster to Preston we were informed that the air con wasn't working so I sweated all the way to Preston. At Preston the train for Manchester arrived and I jumped on and sat down, 5 minutes later a staff member hopped on board and said we had to get off and go to the front of the train as these three carriages were not going any further. Needless to say all those carriages were full and the one carriage I managed to squeeze onto was First Class and again I stood all the way to Manchester. I was bloody shattered by the time I got home. What with the walk to and from the ground and standing on trains all day I was fecked by the time I reached home.

Definitely a cracking day down at Morecambe, the police outside the Kings Arms were okay. According to what I heard in the pub they came in response to a driver who called about the flare set off outside the Kings Arms. The lads were boisterous and kept the singing going but there was no real trouble. Hell of a bloody trek to the ground from there though, thankfully there was a smashing wee pub just at the stadium. A good pint of Cumberland Ale soon recharged the batteries. I've seen worse pre-season matches but as I never expected a classic I wasn't going to be disappointed anyway. It was about the experience and the 'Well fans certainly made it a good one. For me ZFA, and the No.11 stuck out for Motherwell. Didn't rate the No. 7 in the first half and felt the No. 14 while putting in a lot of work seemed like a headless chicken most fo the time. Still I bet that head security man was glad to see the back of us.

It ios the route and always has been as far as I am aware. I've been down here 17 years and always managed to get a direct train from Manchester to either Motherwell or Glasgow. I'm getting an earlier train arriving at 13.35 for a 14.00 kick off is cutting it too fine in my book as the ground is a wee bit away from the station and I fancy a beer or two before kick-off.

Anyone heading for Morecambe next saturday, managed to book train tickets from Manchester.

For this season I'm still haunted by the defeat from Hibs after Hamme;lls 'goal' was disallowed. For my money, this season was all about 2nd to 8th, the battes going on in that area are what really made this league season come alive for me. To be honest I never really paid much attention to celtic and when I did see them they didn't impress me. In my opinion, Celtic treated the SPL with contempt, they expected to win it without any great effort so they didnt put any effort into it. How can they hold their heads up when they have won the title with the lowes points tally since the SPL's inception and dropped more points than any previous winner of the SPL, and all this in a season without their biggest rivals. Contemptible scum.

I dont like black strips, never have. Refs should be in black and no-one else. We have a whole spectrum of colours to chose from for our strips why go with black? This years alternate the jade/electric blue thingy with the claret and amber hoops was different and, although I wasnt impressed at first, it did grow on me and I finally decided i liked it enough to buy one. I think that's the kind of line we should take, pick a colour you hardly ever see on a football jersey and splash a bit of claret and amber here and there and away ye go. Lets steer away from the dullsville blacks and greys. I've never bought a black football top in my life and never will. Training tops? Aye. Fitba tops? No.

Too much claret in the top for me, collar, cuffs, and band is fine everything else in the top should be amber, and the wee inshot in the neck is just a mess. I like us in white shorts but will look forward to us playing Hibs or celtic where we have to change shorts would quite like to see that top with claret shorts. Socks are epic, the neck thing puts me right off the top though.

I am finished with the SPL. It's that simple, I'll still turn up for Cup matches and European ties but I will not pay good money for any further league matches if this nonsense is voted through. The biggest problem with the SPL is it's predictability, it's dull, boring, and stale. With only one promotion place, and that dependent on the state of your ground, the SPL never seems to change significantly. It's the same old faces time after time and this new proposal does nothing to alter that, in fact it goes even further to cement the status quo. There is NO automatic promotion and relegation, the bottom club is given a second bite at the cherry by playing four clubs worse, in a league places sense, than them. There is a distinct possibility that the First division winners, after 22 games, will get a wee trophy and could end up not getting promoted. There is also the possibilty that they could end up not getting promoted but a team that finished below them might very well go up. I hear a lot of talk about meaningless games, but a meaningless title??? Come on, get fucking real.

If you really believe being a member of the Well Society is going to allow you to influence any decisions, I've got some magic beans here you might like to purchase.

Who's to say it wouldn't be more than 12? When you aren't facing one of the OF every five or six weeks you might actually build up a wee run of good results, and a wee run can build confidence. We might see ourselves going into a game against the OF thinking we can do something instead of rolling over and getting our belly tickled like a week old pup.

Basic maths tells you that if you are playing the OF 8 times a season as opposed to 4 times, then you are going to lose a lot more points to them and slip even further behind. The new system, 2 x 12 becoming 3 x 8, actually takes away automatic promotion and relegation, it gives the bottom 4 a second chance at avoiding relegation against, arguably, weaker clubs. Clubs made weaker by the SPL ringfencing all the TV cash and leaving the rest of Senior Scottish Football to rot. In improving our game the SPL has failed miserably. Any league that does not have automatic promotion and relegation isn't a league in it's truest sense. It's a lottery, and one I wont be buying a ticket for.

Clubs like Motherwell were always going to lap this up, it's a no brainer. The current top 6, becomes a top 8 giving a better chance of staying with the big boys. Instead of relegation for finishing last, you go into a repecharge with 4 teams from a division below you. This stuff is manna from heaven for the likes of Motherwell, St Mirren, Kilmarnock et al. It's entirely possible that we may have a season in which no-one is promoted from SPL2 and no-one is relegated from SPL1. How can that be right? How can that be football?

They would probably be fucking raging, but the truth is the Top 10 in 1975 was a great idea. The ganme had been seen as becoming stale the previous 9 years had belonged to Celtic, not only had they won 9 in a row but they had also appeared in 17 of the 18 domestic Cup Finals in that same period, not forgetting two European Cup Finals. In short, the league was ripe for change and I remember a frisson of excitement about the new venture and truth be told it worked extremely well in its first decade or so, so much so that there were stories that the English league, beset by vandalism, European bans etc, were looking to bring in something similar. Then in the mid 80's we started to fuck about with it, increasing it to 12 for a couple of seasons, then back to 10, and back up to 12 again. The real killer for our game was TV money and the increase in financial reqwards for teh Champions league. The SPL was swiftly formed and a closed shop established. TV money was split between those in the SPL only and very little funds went any further than the bottom team in the SPL. There was no parachute payments. Relegation was almost seen as a death sentence for some clubs, the rest in the SPL were spending outwith their means just to remain in situ. As the OF's stranglehold on the Champions League money tightened they got richer while the rest of us got poorer. Clubs below the SPL didn't have the wherewithal to mount challenges for the SPL and we had the ludicrous situation of a new club, Gretna, mounting a sustained challenge and arriving in the SPL on the back of money it didn't have. People talking of fairy stories and a breath of fresh air, until the castles in the air fell to ground. The TOP 10 as originally envisaged in 1975 worked, it worked too well if truth be told, Dundee Utd and Aberdeen are testimony to that. The SPL, a league formed out of greed and to the benefit of only two clubs, is where we failed. We need radical change to get the money in the game to as many clubs as possible to strengtthen our game. Watching as one of our bigger clubs, Aberdeen, lose a promising young player to a club like Bournemouth is painful, but it's where we are. Once we realise that the SPL is not only killing our smaller clubs but is having an equally devastating effect on everyone outside Celtic, we'll maybe start addressing the realities of our game. I wont hold my breath, we'll get what the TV companies want and say nothing. If this ludicrous proposal goes through, I'll have watched my last league match in Scotland.

Firstly, I'm neither blind nor do I hate the current custodians of the club, I dont hold them in much regard granted, but it's not hate that's too strong an emotion, indifference is nearer the mark. Secondly, no-one voted Rangers out they got liquidated they needed votes to get back in. I was going to add a "thirdly" but I cant be arsed. I will say this though. I read the club's statement and I gave my opinion, which is still a legitimate excercise on these boards I am led to believe. The club have said they have given their backing to the proposals and will outline why it's best for the club to the Well Society. The club aren't going to put the proposals on the table in front of the Society and ask them what they think of them. No, the club are going to sell this to the Society. That's what that statement says. No more, no less. Good luck with your letters to Santa by the way.

There was no formal vote today however as a club, we indicated our support to the SPL Executive to progress discussions with the SFL. It is now our .intention to share what we heard today with our supporters so we can have the same discussion and outline why it is our view this is the best option for the game at this time This is what the club statement said. From that I take it the club have given their backing to the proposals and will tell the Well Society why. It's done and dusted if anyone on here thinks the Well Society is going to make any difference to how the club will vote they're probably still writing letters to Santa.

I didn't know whether to put 8 (Fir Park) or 14 (Ibrox) and fecked up. apologies.

The fact that we haven't beaten Rangers in 18 years is not a problem, what is the problem is that the club seem to have settled for that position. when was the last time we actually played as if we thought we could get something. All we do is turn up and wait for the slaughtermans bolt. It was embarrassing enough sucking their boaby when they were in the SPL, but the necrophilia we're indulging in now is beyond the pale. The day before the game the club releases a statement of such breathtaking inanity, a statement cobbled together and changed so many times that it doesn't make any sense. Then we march over to Ibrox and play the sacrificial lamb. It looks more and more like Motherwell are just Rangers Fuck Toy. McCall is a complete and utter ****