El Grew

On yesterday's showing 3 Beanos and a packet of wine gums!

Jeez and I thought the corner that never was, was bad! How the f*ck did he get away with that! I assume UEFA will be looking at this! Grade 1 referee my arse.

The farce that resulted in a corner was down to the linesman who had a crystal clear view of it and he should be taken immediately for an eye test at the SFA's referee sponsors. That said the defending at both Aberdeen goals was schoolboy. The second was probably the worst. When the Aberdeen player skied the ball into the box it was so long in the air and yet none of our defenders bothered to mark Fallon who was under absolutely no pressure at all and all all the time in the world to see the ball and set himself for it right in the middle of our penalty box. Great goal my arse. When anyone gets as much time as that in your penalty box to do something like that then the defenders should get bull-fucked! On the whole I think the game was probably won and lost in the first half and Aberdeen certainly deserved to be ahead at that time although if Higdon scores with the penalty it may well have turned the game around right there and then. One thing that puzzles me is why McCall is starting Jamie Murphy in games. He is quite honestly a shadow of last season and was utter pish today until he got hooked. Maybe he's thinking too much about which club he wants to move to. Well on current evidence its the bench at best at FP for him. Felt sorry for Ojama and Higdon today as they both worked tirelessly without getting a lot of support. I thought Jennings had a really poor game and he and Lasley struggled from the outset and were pushed back onto our back four too often and too easily - in this respect McCall needs to start sharpening up on his tactics and learn to react far quicker when his midfield is getting overrun through being outnumbered as they were today as Aberdeen were able to have runners coming onto our back four almost at will. Another TV game and another sub-standard performance - need to keep live game TV coverage away from FP.

I am sure I read somewhere that the club finishing 2nd in the SPL gets £1.5 million while the club finishing 3rd gets £900K so 2nd spot is well worth aiming at. Everyone's assuming Rangers will win their remaining fixtures but as was evident on Saturday against Hearts and a fortnight ago against Kilmarnock that is by no means a given and we play them at FP shortly. I we could win that one..... Also if we finished 2nd we would be in line for a fair bit of cash from the Champions League excluding any gate monies etc. from games. And even if we fell at the first hurdle of the Champions League we would still go into the Europa League final qualifier for the group stages as a seeded team so more monies to be made that way too - remember if we'd beaten BK Odense we'd have gone into the group stages of the Europa League and been guaranteed a minimum of £2M for that. Anyway you cut it, if we do manage to get second in the SPL then the club stands to get a significant amount of money.

Agreed. Colleague at work is a Hibee and has been very impressed by the way Motherwell have managed this one. He was at the first game with his son and contacted the club to find out what to do about the re-played game. Club took his details and told him not to worry that they would arrange to send him vouchers nearer the time of the re-arranged game. They duly arrived last week and he is mightily impressed wit oue club - said if this had been Hibs it would have been a shambles. He has droppped an email to them thanking them. We are always quick to have a go at the club so its nice to be able to praise them too.

Personally I hope that Jamie stays with us. We have a really good squad of players at present with loads of options in the forward department which IMO is no bad thing as long as we can afford to keep them all especially with a good prospect of European football ahead. Oh and if Huddersfield Town of the English 1st Division (the old 3rd Division) are prepared to pay £300K for Murray Wallace (a defender mark you) from Falkirk then surely to goodness if Motherwell are in a selling mood with Jamie Murphy and Sean Hutchison then this has to be the level of the bids considered?

I would be dismayed to see any of our younger players being poached away for lowly transfer fees, for the obvious reason that the club gains little financial reward but more for the players themselves because as experience has shown those young players who left us in the past for so-called better things (money and playing at a higher level) have not found it plain sailing and most if not all have been or are being hawked around as loan players - David Clarkson, Mark Reynolds, Paul Quinn - to name but three. Also, look at Stephen Pearson, now 30 years of age and at that high spot of football Bristol City. Others that come to mind are Graham Smith, Brian Kerr, Stephen Hughes, Jim O'Brien and Jim Paterson who although not in the young players category also thought the road out of FP only led up the way and yet... This has to be balanced by the fact that like it or not we are a selling club and players do have to be sold to keep the club solvent - we simply do not take in enough revenue from other sources to do otherwise . Added to that we don't have a chairman and board and IMO this also hinders us because I'm sorry to say that I don't think the Membership Scheme that the club are championing is working and therefore as there may be an urgent need to raise cash the club will be forced to sell players and not be too choosy about haggling over their transfer values.

Folk need to take a reality check here. Our wee team are (and have been for most of the season) in 3rd spot in the SPL and have a right good chance of bringing us European football to FP again. A club in our position deserves to be pulling in more fans than we are at present - geez if Aberdeen, Hearts or Hibs were where are and have been for a number of seasons now they'd probably be filling their grounds. IMO the club has the solid makings of a right good squad of players at present - a right good base of solid dependable players plus some with no little skill and flair that can win games for us. I just hope we can manage to hold onto all of them and maybe add a few more in the close season. I've always believed that the time to strengthen is when you are in a strong position and that you need to speculate to accumulate. I believe we have now become a really settled SPL football club which now (righlty) sees itself as a top six club as opposed to a bottom six club and this is a magnet to attract good players together with the fact that FP seems to be a place where players are happy - every new player that has come to the club speaks highly of the great atmosphere at the club and in the dressing room. Also young players coming to the club do get their chance at the first team unlike at bigger clubs and that too is a good draw for them coming to FP. Having said all of that I appreciate that we have and probably will continue to suffer from a serious lack of funding and that it won't be easy for us to repeatedly do what we are doing season after season but as others have said, take a deep breath, suck it in and enjoy what we have at present.

One of the best all round team performances I've seen from us in a long time - the Craigan sending off seemed to galvanise us. Hope this kick-starts us again. The referee (again and I know he's an easy target) but he was very poor and his competence to be officiating at Grade 1 level must be questioned. Overall his decision making and handling was bad and in the worst of these he booked 3 Motherwell players needlessly in my view; allowed his main stand linesman to incorrectly rule Ojaama offside when he scored; and missed a blatant penalty for Dunfermline when Hutchison shoved one of their forwards to the ground in the penalty area. The accusation levellled against referees by fans week in, week out, is that the majority of them are simply not competent and when some of their major decisions get reviewed, they apologise for making an error (e.g. the ICT sending off against Celtic earlier in the season) but no action is taken.

If we can finish 3rd or 4th then maybe the prospect of European football could be a carrot for him + it might also bring the club some much needed extra funds.

Oh I don't know about that - what about John Gardner?

The attitude of some on this post towards Mark Reynolds is ridiculous! The guy was one of the best young players to come through at FP and he was, due to circumstances, asked to play in the wrong position as he was a left-back when he made his first team debut and not a centre-back and IMO had to play alongside one of the poorest centre-backs ever at FP. But he never complained once and always gave his all in a C&A shirt. I think he had to play far too many games too early in his career and he should have been introduced more gradually. That said, he matured into a right good pro and who can blame him for wanting to try playing at a higher level at Sheffield Wednesday who are IMO at best a Premiership club and at worst at Championship club. It wasn't his fault that the manager that signed him got sacked and the new manager does not fancy him - that's sometimes how it goes when new managers go to clubs. Personally I wish Mark all the very best for his future career and I think he will make a terrific difference to a mediocre defence at Aberdeen and will get his chance to play at a higher level again as age is on his side. Obvioulsy I hope that when we play Aberdeen he ends up on the losing side.

They will certainly be no pushovers but hey we got a home draw so we should be up for it and take full advantage. I'd have been more concerned if we had to trek down to Greenock.

Really sad news. He was a frequent visitor to my place of work and always took the time to pass the time of day and have a quick chat about the 'Well. He was one of the last remaining links at FP to my childhood days going to FP in the early '70s. A true gentleman in every sense of the word and a stalwart and diehard for MFC. His presence at the club will be well missed. Bill will be sadly missed by all who knew him (inside and outside FP) and my sincere condolences go to his family.

I've seen all the left-backs from Joe Wark onwards and IMO Joe was head and shoulders above everyone else. However the great Ben Ellis certainly must get a mention.

Allan Wyllie Keith MacRae Stewart Rennie Charlie Aitken Joe Wark Vic Davidson Bobby Roberts Pat Delaney

The second Celtic goal was offside. Hooper ran into an offside position on the 6-yard box, right in front of Randolph, before McCourt made the pass to Stokes and was still there when the pass was made to Stokes. He should have been flagged offside at that point. Hooper was still in that offside position and no Motherwell player ever got behind him when Stokes squared the ball to him to score. Even under the 'revised' offside rules he was offiside in both phases of the play. Yes, Clancy certainly deserved to walk. However, why did the referee or his linesman fail to take any action against Hooper for pushing his hand into Clancy's face as the ball was played forward to Hooper. This led to Clancy kicking out at Hooper. I'm not condoning Clancy's action but surely Hooper should have at least been spoken to/booked? When I saw that the referee was Charlie Richmond I must admit my heart sank because he has continously shown dreadfully high levels of incompetence in the past and here he was doing so again. We don't want to depend on referees for our results but only a fair and competent refereering performance.

FFS Give the guy a break. He's only just arrived at the club and he's being lambasted already. He's only played 9 SPL games and has managed to score 4 goals. Give him some time to settle in and get to know the team's style of play and how best he can fit in.

If anyone seriously thinks that Scotland's so-called enforcers of the law are going to do anything about sectarianism with regard to either half of the OF then they are sadly deluded. All the great and the good signing peace douments, dictats and concordats with each other earlier this year was absolutely laughable and just the latest example of politicians feeling they have to jump up onto the moral high ground to assuage public opinion on every such issue that arises. Yesterday's removal of a fan was just to demonstrate to their political masters that they are actually enforcing this particular dictat. It must however be said that it was far easier to go into that particular area of the east stand and take a young lad out that doesn't look as though he's had his first shave yet than to wade into the massed ranks in the south stand. Brave lads are Strathclyde's finest!

So we now have 3,500 season ticket holders do we? I believe the official gate at the ICT match was given as 4,100. So if both of these reports are correct then it looks like we only had 600 pay cash at the gate punters including ICT supporters. Gates have been steadily falling at FP (and at other clubs) for years now and regularly the gates at FP last season were around the 4,000 mark so it is really very worrying that the club can now only manage to attract around 500 or so 'floating voters'. I have not renewed my season ticket for the second consecutive year and last season I never went near FP after the home game against Aberdeen in September. I did however go to the opener this season against ICT and sat in the Cooper Stand with my mate (2 x £22!!!!) and we were astounded at the number of seats that had "Reserved for Season Ticket Holder" stickers on them in the area of the stand I went to when I arrived at around 2.45pm. We were even more astounded that the vast majority of these seats remained empty thereafter. I know its been said before but if football clubs don't look at dropping their admission prices and soon then the haemorrhaging of supporters will continue unabated. I went to Hamilton Park races on Saturday evening where the admission price was £14 and there were 6 races over 3 hours or so and the place was hoaching. IMO much better VFM. Scottish football needs to take heed and wise up and SPL clubs will really need to start drastically reducing players wages, players who are failing to put bums in seats and who quite frankly are amongst the worst in Europe.

I have never been a great fan of Stephen Craigan but I really do think he deserves a far better testimonial than Partick Thistle on a Wednesday night in July. No harm to Partick Thistle but hardly box office draw material plus a a lot of people will be on holiday etc. As for all these friendlies IMO all clubs should be throwing their gates open for these on a foc basis or as a bare minimum setting the price at say £2. But I forgot its like everthing to do with footlball nowadays (not just Motherwell) - fleece the usual loyal fans as quick and as often as you like/ can.

Glad to see that someone's paying attention to exactly what's being proposed. Without wishing to dampen enthusiasm for what in principal and on paper seems like a good idea, I personally don't believe that in the current financial climate or any financial climate come to that, that there are 2,000+ Dossers out there who have got £300 to write-off.

Here we go again, every fucking season we get this same shite.

I think with the earlier than normal start to the new season its time McCall got the finger out with regard to new signings. Personally, I doubt that we will see many if any new arrivals despite the cash garnered as a result of to good cup runs + tv revenue from these. We may well be bank-debt free, which is fine but we are clearly strapped for money and clearly there is no intention to change that. There is nothing wrong with carrying a debt provided you can comfortably service it. The club expect people to fork out hard-earned cash on season tickets so lets see some plans for the playing side. I really fear that we are going to struggle next season and over the coming seasons and that we may find ourselves in a lower league.

I have never ever doubted Stephen Craigan's commitment to the C&A but time catches up with us all eventually and his time has come. As for coaching the younger defenders Iwould have no problem with that only not on the park during games. If that's the view then get him onto the coaching staff. Our defence is shocking at times. The back four seem incapable of keeping a line and if you watch them during games they are all over the place. As we are not going to be able to sign world beating forwards we need to address the defence and make ourselves hard to score against. Sorry but Stephen Craigan is not the answer but part of the problem.