Kmcalpin

Mark McGhee went on about plastic pitches and rightly so in my view; they are installed for financial reasons. He also said that he'd have to achieve a balance between testing players out to get to know them and getting a result. Its helpful that he's clarified that and it makes perfect sense to me now. Given that, I'd expect he will want to see what both Leitch and Taylor can do. Neither fits the bill, in my view, for different reasons, but he may be able to improve the game(s) of one or both. The exception to that approach would be if he has seen/learnt enough off the park to discount one or both lads. We have to remember that its not our views which count here - he hasn't seen either player in competitive action so far, and there are more in that category.

The plastic pitch will be a big influence on team selection and it wouldn't surprise me to see Johnson sit this one out for example. The teams seem evenly matched but the pitch might just give Killie that edge over us.

Just as I thought - the proportion of culprits from Rangers and Celtic are a lot less than you might expect given the relative size of their crowds. As a few observers said on here a year or two back the Police will home in on easy targets. Its a lot easier and safer to collar 10 fans from a crowd of 500 than it is to collar say 200 from a crowd of 5,000. Police / crime statistics are notoriously unreliable.

A poor article. Does anyone have statistics on the number of fans arrested / found guilty / given banning orders broken down by individual club? That might prove interesting.

Pretty much agree with that. Craig Brown said at an AGM that when he first burst onto the scene he was a relative unknown to opposition managers (didn't say much for them did it?) and they weren't quite sure how to play him. However after the first round of fixtures they got his measure and worked out how to snuff him out.

Congratulations to our Ladies team who won their league title yesterday. Don't think they lost a single league game!

Never a foul in my view. Clangers comes out, hesitates and stops and has to jump from a standing start. At that point big John Jumps for it and yes makes contact with Langfield's body. Clangers knows he's made a mess of it and falls to the deck holding his face, despite being hit on the shoulder.

Yes, very much a grey area. I'd say though that if a player is in an offside position on the opposite side of the field to where play is taking place then he would clearly not be active. However if its within a few metres of the ball or where play is taking place or the goalkeeper, then he should be deemed to be active. On this occasion, as in many previous ones against us the Dons got the rub of the green.

So is a player only deemed to be "inactive" in relation to the ball? What if his sole intention is to deliberately distract the goalkeeper or interfere with his sight of the ball?

No problem personally, I'm happy to change the acronym I use. Does everyone else agree?

Happy with a draw at a potentially difficult venue. Whether Aberdeen played well or not is of no consequence whatsoever; historically they've won more than their fair share of games against us despite being played off the park. Maybe we're starting to see some progress now.

John Gray,Ramsay Bryson, Bobby Russell, Craig Baillie, John Murray, Junior Burns, Bernie Grant...better stop there.

The same could be said for Ainsworth and Lasley. Officially, all three were rested or dropped (delete as appropriate) as Mark McGhee said that he knew what they could do and he wanted to observe players about whom he knew little. He did not single out any one of the three.

I doubt even if the Society had done more to promote the event that the attendance would have been much more. Its own events have also been poorly attended. What I would say is that the event was first advertised fairly late in the day. Such evenings should ideally be promoted say 2/3 months in advance to give folk time to put it in their diaries. Its very difficult to get folk out of their houses or out of their normal activities midweek. Many folk will have had more important things to do (in their eyes) like 5 a sides, the pub, watching TV or whatever. For yet others they won't go to a pub because they can't drink and drive. Thats the reality of it. For my part it would have involved a 3 hour round trip, otherwise I would certainly have gone. Still good luck to the guys for promoting the event and I'd say give it another go post Christmas but advertise it well beforehand. Even then cold weather will keep folk indoors, irrespective of what its like on the night.

Absolutely. Suts was a one dimensional player. If we were on top in a game and could get the ball into the box then he'd do the business. However if we had to play counter attacking football or he had to play up front on his own then he didn't offer much. Latterly he just didn't suit our style of play.

Unfortunately religious sectarianism runs much deeper than that in Scotland. I'm not defending Police Scotland here but if they took action serious questions would be asked at Holyrood and pressure brought to bear on it by by politicians. In the great scheme of things Police Scotland is simply a pawn in a much larger game here. For various reasons sectarianism is just too hot a topic for our establishment to deal with. In this regard Scotland is still living in the Jurassic age.

What really got to me was the accusations afterwards by embittered United fans that Ally Maxwell was trying to con the ref and match officials in an attempt to blacken the name of John Clark and gain an unfair and unsporting advantage.

A strong looking side defensively, but Moult would be kind of isolated up front and we might find it difficult to put Aberdeen under pressure.

Ah I'd forgotten about that. Vic Davidson was quite a player in his day.

Not something I'd have done but the original poster is quite entitled to have done so. I can understand his/her reason for doing so.

Probably a toss up between Bobby Russell's 5 goals against Falkirk in 1962 or Bobby Campbell's 5 goals at Love Street against St Mirren in 1966.

Of course, a degree of negativity is warranted and perfectly understandable although I don't agree with all of your individual points but thats a matter for another place and time. A secondary issue however. My point was that Frazzie criticised Prideoflanarkshire & Weeyin for firstly starting a thread and secondly posting on the issue of "happy clappy" fans which as I understand it implied that there was an over-representation of negativity on the site. He / she then went on to say that there was also an overemphasis on self gratification and self promotion. There is some yes, but not that much. There are other more common and more important posting trends which they could have highlighted instead - trolling (not in the way that some posters think) and cyberbullying. In my view reasonable and informed discussion is to be welcomed and encouraged. Anything should be up for discussion but personal abuse should not be tolerated. Personally I enjoy reading views which are different to my own as it makes me think. Sometimes I'm right and sometimes I'm wrong but hey thats life. I'd like to see the site win back the many posters who have left or been driven out or indeed the many lurkers. Apologies for going a bit off topic.

This forum is also full of negativity; awash with it in fact. If you don't agree with a topic or thread being raised then just ignore it as others may wish to contribute. Not every member has to contribute to every thread. Live and let live.

I raised it Andy as it seemed to me to be a question that had been left unanswered from months ago. At the time he left there was a great debate on here about whether it was a crime to let him go or whether he'd simply had his day. I think its interesting to discuss, to a limited extent ie not going on and on indefinitely how such players have fared, not out of continuing interest in a former player per se but to reflect in hindsight was our decision right or not.

I still have nightmares Big Weegie about the 2005 Scottish League Cup Final when the former Rangers kept pumping high balls over Stevie's head and caught us out time and again.