TheLip69

I really dont think it's anything to do with the strength of his views, it's the way he puts them across. He's a bully, plain and simple, it's his way or the highway only he doesn't put it quite that politely. You think he should be kept on even at the expense of disgruntled players, why? Dont you think that would show in their performances on the pitch? Gannon's forte, no matter where he's been, has been to upset players and staff. Unless Gannon changes his approach a little I dont think we'll ever find out how good he could be and that's no-ones fault but his. My opinion on Gannon? He's a fool to himself, from what I hear he knows the game well enough and there is definitely a fairly decent manager in there struggling to get out. He just needs to learn that not everyone responds to a bully. I think it takes more balls to kick the bully out than it does to let him damage your club.

If the BBC are filming it, doesn't that mean there might be a link somewhere?

I'd argue the point about Stockport he alienated quite a few of the players including grabbing one of them by the throat at half-time. Stories about his bullying tactics at Stockport were rife down here.

As ras as I can recollect one paper, I think it ws The Times, did suggest that the bookies can link the person who opened the account with the player. I would expect that the bookies will be considering their next step, as that alone will not convict Jennings.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Motherwell sold 38,000 plus tickets for the '91 final.

I yeild to no-one in my dislike of McLeish but the fact is Motherwell acheived their highest league position (2nd) since Sailor Hunter was manager. Granted the wheels came off the barrow the following season when he broke up McLeans side and started to rebuild, but he was headhunted by Hibs not sacked. There were still some people at Fir Park who believed he could turn it round.

I dont have much time for people who plaster themselves all over this board shouting the odds about sponsorship deals making us the envy of supporters all over Scotland, then when the deal falls through disappears and fails to give any explanations. I said the minute we signed with Canterbury that I wopuldn't have touched them with a barge pole and that the product, from experience, was shit. Within days there were complaints about the jerseys and within months they'd went under. If I remember correctly McCall took over Bradford just before they got relegated to Division two. he spent two seasons with them in Division two and they finished in mid table in both of his seasons there. Bradford are, arguably, the biggest club in that division, they get two or three times the crowd of most of the other clubs, there is scope there but McCall didn't make a difference. He never stamped his mark on the side, he never had them play in any certain way, he never improved the side either by his tactics or his signings. HE DIDN'T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE. So why, for the love of God, does anyone think he will with us? I dont go along with this Powerpoint presentation pish about ticking all the boxes, give me somebody with a track record for galvanising players and revitalising a team over a box ticker any day.

I'm not quite sure what you are trying to do here, at first I thought you were offering some support for McCall but by the end I wasn't certain that was the case. McCall's record may not be as favourable as the ones you used in comparison but he has had much less to work with than either McGhee or the other twats. Can you please stop from classing him in with Davies and McLeish who got their first starts in management at Fir Park, this is not McCall's first foray into management, he has a track record and it's abysmal.

Maybe so, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but in my last two positions I was head hunted, my credentials and qualifications for my profession are beyond reproach. I'm now self employed but work in an advisory capacity for some of my ex-employers, so I couldn't have been that shite eh?

This is what you actually said; Seriously though, I have no doubts that Stuart McCall was the best candidate from what was available. You say you cant be so sure yet in your first post you "have no doubts" it's a bit difficult to debate a point if you keep changing your opinion post by post. I'll be over the moon of those fears dont come to fruition, but with his track record that's hardly likely. Just to set the record straight I didn't hit the emergency button a few weeks after he took the job, I hit it the day he got the job, and I've had my thumb pressing down on it ever since. The fact is for the first time I can remember, I reckon we've chosen a name rather than a manager. Stuart McCall got the job because of who he is, not what he's done.

It's like the old joke, isn't it. "My mother in law wanted the wife to marry somebody else" "Who" "Nobody in particular, just somebody else" Seriously, I dont know how you can possibly be so sure he was the best candidate from those available because if he was we must have had the poorest applications in the history of football. As for the comment about having a "contracted manager in place MASSIVELY outweighing any fears" about having him in charge. Are you joking? Suupose all those fears come to fruition and we slide down the league ending up relegated or only narrowly avoiding it with McCall having lost his nerve and the dressing room, then we're stuck with him or a massive pay off aren't we? If anything it makes it fucking worse. I'm all for a contracted manager, but not if it's someone who's been out of work for almost a year and wasn't much good in his last post either. Well at least you're content that we've got a stable full time contracted gaffer, even although he's shit. You're very easily pleased.

What he said.

.....or we could look at his track record and see how he moulded a team with infinitely more resources.

I would never have appointed Stuart McCall, NEVER. For Derek Weir to say he was our first choice astonishes me, his track record is only slightly better than abysmal, he has never managed in the SPL, and he had been out of work for almost a year when we appointed him. I dont care how bad our situation is financially, surely we should be aiming higher than that. I'll be absolutely delighted if I'm proved wrong and we go on a run and start climbing the table, but nothing about Stuart McCall inspires any sort of confidence in his ability. I would even have taken Nijholt before this clown.

Casagolda for Murphy

Any chance you could just hold your water a wee minute, ffs we had guys on here debating who we were going to get in the Europa group draw after the first leg in Odense. Have you not learnt your lesson, I'll be happy IF and when we beat Rangers. Then you can debate all you want.

I think that's worse than having to take him because he was the last loaf in the shop.

I think I'm right in saying that this was something Walter Smith mentioned some time back, whether that was part of the proposal then I don't know. However, if two leagues of 10 is a way of building up the finances of, and giving some stability to, the clubs below the SPL, to prepare them for the step up to a 16 or 18 team league then I think that is definitely something we can accept. However, as you say, we would need that firm commitment that, say 5 years down the road, we bring the SPL up to the required strength. It would need to be a hard and fast limit though and not "5 years down the road we'll take a wee look and see how things are if some of the clubs arent quite ready we'll give them another couple of years"

You'll learn.

It wont be, because this has nothing whatsoever to do with football. It's about money. No-one at these meetings has any interest in the game, least of all Neil Doncaster, this is all about bank balances. If it was about the game at all we'd have an 18 team League tomorrow. This is about conning the public into believing they are delivering a new and exciting product when it's just the same old pish in a different wrapper.

They cant and they wont, it would have been a done deal by now if they hadn't realised the depth of ill feeling amongst the fans. So the clubs are all away back to soft soap the fans, their pet scribes will be writing up the 2 x 10 and spinning tales of doom and destruction for the 14, 16, and 18. Trusts across the country will be setting up forums and in the end we'll have a 2 x 10. My ideal 2 leagues would be 16 each, 30 games, 2 up, 2 down, third bottom in SPL1 goes into play off with 3rd, 4th, and 5th in SpL2. That way we still have room for our bigger clubs to expand and develop. Want a couple more home games to bring in the dough, make the League Cup home and away and play it on the spare Saturdays. That will never happen, we're getting 2 x 10 and it's already been decided.

It wasn't that bad, it was a great league, we had teams going for it every week, relegation didn't matter that much because there wasn't the kind of TV money around that there is now. Most clubs survived onm their home gates, this was before all seater stadiums when Fir Park could cram 20,000 in for an OF match. The league died a death as soon as Sky TV began paying exorbitant amounts for television rights. Getting relegated meant losing your share of the TV money, so teams started playing with fear. That is what is killing the game, I firmly believe that had SKY's money came in at a time when we had an 18 team league we would be in a far better position than we are at present. Our league has no safety zone, there is no encouragement for clubs to try new things, to bring in youths, to build, and shape a team. There is no money outside the SPL. SPL2 will only work if the SPL can ensure it is incorporated in any TV deal, just paying a club a parachute payment will ensure that club starts the next season at an advantage and make it all the more difficult for anyone other than the relegated club to come up out of SPL2 thereby making it even more of a closed shop.

I'm getting slightly pissed with people implying that those of us with a negative view of the management team are not "behind the club". I will always be 100% behind the club, always, but I reserve the right to an opinion on the people appointed to take MY club forward. I used to turn up every week scarf on, hope in my heart and a spring in my step. Sometimes though, the mid eighties, the malpas era, it was with dread in my heart and lead in my boots, but I was still there and always will be. It just so happens that currently this is a dread and lead scenario as opposed to hope and spring.

Logic? This has nothing to do with logic, it's about money. That's what rules in Scottish Football. In the end they will do what Sky TV demand, you and I dont count. A total and complete waste of time.

This takes the biscuit as if the appointment of McCall wasn't bad enough. Black may be a lovely guy, although I have heard different, but this is really scraping the barrel. The man is nowhere near the standard we require he should be coaching at Bellshill Athletic at best or maybe even Stranraer, but he should never be anywhere near the SPL.