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Isn't the whole point of the "trialist" thing to keep them unnamed?

For any football geeks (like me) who want to read about this, I can highly recommend Jonathan Wilson's book - "Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics"

That instantly qualifies you for an Accies season ticket. Enjoy.

If we go the lone striker path again, we'll either need to find a midfielder who can replace Turnbull's 15 goals or find a striker that can score.

I'm hoping we're a winger short because we are still working on an Ariyibi deal, but that could well be wishful thinking on my part.

His bank based in Lithuania, so no British authority was going to bother investigating. They have enough trouble dealing with UK bank fraud. (And UK football administration with their "fit and proper" rules are quite happy to let crooked money and owners into the game). He was one of those businessmen who was close to the old USSR regime and allowed to buy state business when they were sold off post-dissoultion. So no Russian authorities were going to investigate him. If you believe the stories, the Lithuanian authorities ran an investigation, but I can't imagine they have a high rate of successful prosecutions.

I don't see myself, but I always enjoyed the days when men wore a collar and tie to the match. Brings back some good memories.

It's hard to find rich club owners that haven't hurt their club in the long term. That's where the scaremongering comes from.

Did he not have his biggest successes with Killie in our top league?

The team we played on Tuesday?

I think the reason for the arty stuff is that there isn't any official footage at these games. Just a phone and maybe a go-pro behind the goals. I expect (and hope) once the season kicks off in earnest we'll get back to the better quality vids.

In two words: Mike Ashley.

If you look at our young national squads success at qualifying for tournaments in the last 20 years, it's almost as unimpressive as the senior team. For as long as I've been watching football, there has been good young players in their teens, but we are terrible at developing them as much as other European countries seem able to do. There have been a few more good youngsters come through recently - often as a side effect of teams like ourselves, Hearts, Hibs, Dundee Utd etc. having financial contstraints - but if our history is anything to go by, most of them will have good, but not great careers. The last really successful young Scottish team I remember was the 1982 Andy Roxburgh side that won the U18 Euros back in the early 80s (John Philliben scored in that final, along with Pat Nevin and Gary Mackay). When was the last time Stirling Albion produced a youth international like Philliben? Or Clyde produce a Nevin? This isn't really news though. We all know the Scottish game needs an overhaul from top to bottom. We also know that nobody in power will ever do that while the short term interests of the OF and others are the prevailing mentality. As I said, I don't blame any youngster taking a particular career path. I just see it as a symptom of the underlying issues of our game - not as the cause. It won't stop me watching and enjoying my football across all the SPFL divisions - I just don't hold out much hope of seeing the improvements being made that could raise the overall quality.

I made a 6000 mile round trip to watch that game.

Not only were a number of his signings an improvement, but after waiting for McGhee's "German Contacts" to ever produce anything (big centre half anyone?) Gannon had the habit of saying "we're bringing in a midfielder" on Monday and the midfielder being produced on Wednesday. He seems have a wealth of knowledge of players across all the leagues and a great eye for spotting talent. It's just a shame it all falls apart when you put him in charge of managing any of it.

That's one way of looking at it. I see it as not enough Scottish talent making the grade and their slots being filled by lower league English players looking to progress their careers. Used to be Scottish teams would bring in Scottish First Divison, Second Division and Junior League players into their squads, but that happens much less too. I know Bosman changed the landscape of football to some extent, but that only partially explains the comparitve dearth of domestic talent these days. The litmus test for all this is the quality and performances of the national team.

I can see my point is still being missed, but I'll take the blame for not explaining it very well. Turnbull is one of many Scottish players over the last decade or two who have either turned down moves to England (or abroad) *at any age*, or who have spent one season and come running back home. It's a trend that, in my opinion, is part of the deeper issues in the Scottish game. It wasn't that long ago, Scottish players - some from the lower divisions - were making moves down south to further their career e.g. Steve Nichol from Ayr Utd to Liverpool when he was 19, Andy Gray from Dundee Utd to Aston Villa when he was 19, Pat Nevin from Clyde to Chelsea when he was 19, Alan Hansen from Partick Thistle to Liverpool when he was 22, Gary McAllister from Motherwell to Leicester City when he was 20, Steve Clarke from St Mirren to Chelsea when he was 24. None of them feeling the need to keep their commute to a short drive to Glasgow. All of them prospered after their moves. Even our own McKinstry took the leap to join Leeds at the ripe old age of 16. It's not a criticsm of any player. Everyone is free to make their living however they see fit. It's just very noticable that there has been a lot of traffic heading North up the M74 and A1 in recent years, but much less heading south and I think that is a major factor in the overall poor health of our national game.

There have been some brief interviews on Twitter, including one from Robinson a few days ago.

Hylton, Johnson, Tait, Johnson again, Maguire, Trialist EDIT: and Johnson hits his third to make it 7 - 0

6 now, thanks to an acrobatic trialist.

Danny Johnson loves a goalkeeping error. 4 - 0 up now.

Agree with this. While there are exceptions, millionaire buyers seem to end up as either fan-boys that are incapable of running a club, or walk away after a few years leaving the debts behind them. The worst example is a club like Blackpool, but closer to home, Dundee Utd (and Dundee) have had pretty bad experiences on that front too.

Mark Reynolds made his debut in the 2nd last game of the season, when our league status had been long since secured, and the result was meaningless. Not even close to being chucked into a disaster of a team with a disaster of a defence, struggling to find 11 fit players and fighting to avoid play-offs. Again - I'm not saying he was good, I'm just saying he had little chance of success.

He might not have been very good. But he was still thrown into a defence with 2 fit players, in a terrible team that had more leaks than Donald Trump's White House. (Plus it's a lot easier and lot more forgiving when you screw things up playing wide right).

Then you are completely missing the point in either an intentional way, or an obtuse way - unless McGinn turned down an EPL offer to play for Hibs.