steelboy

the interesting game in the next five for me is the hibs one. their three league games before they play us are united (a), hearts (h) and rangers (a) so by the time we go there they could be even deeper in crisis and we'd be in a with a great chance of the 3 points.

league cup games already have lower crowds than than for their equivalent spl games. add in that some of the games would be dead rubbers and that gate money would have to be split and it makes even less sense.

humphrey covers a massive amount of ground over the course of a game, sprinting that fast is going to take it out you. i think he also has a problem with leg cramps as he walks with a limp quite a lot and i've him cutting about in compression tights quite a few times. i was quite frustrated with gow, his first touch was outstanding but he squandered possesion quite a lot. he needs to be told to look after the ball more. it was a superb result and performance, we just need to make it a double on tuesday now as having a semi final to look forward to will give everyone a boost. as quite a few folk have pointed out the next couple of months are massive opportunity for us to make this a special season.

i do actually like the way scottish football is at the moment is at the moment, that's why i go to games. i can obviously see that things could be better but i don't agree that league reconstruction is going to solve any of the problems. as madwullie and casgagolda have pointed out in this thread and onthefringes discusses in some detail in osb expansion is likely to knacker things more than they already are. as for solutions i'll say what i say every time this topic comes up. the only thing that is likely to improve scottish football is large amounts of investment in facilities and qualified coaches at grassroots level. that's what made the spanish the best team in the world, that's why germany have got the best group of youngsters emerging and that's why iceland have an u21 squad filled with talented players with full caps.

ross forbes wraps himself in it to keep warm on cold days on the subs bench.

plus he jumped about ten feet in the air to win a header that sutton volleyed up the park then..... we had an incredible end to the season and everything worked out for the best (eg. would we have got a draw in norway in our first competitive match), i wouldn't swap it for anything.

i think the fact that's he's bounced about alloa, morton, east stirling and airdrie means his problem was lack of ability rather than bottling it. i agree moving abroad would be beneficial for some scottish players. stephen hughes and ross mccormack are both players that would have been better off going to a more technical league than the championship but they took the easy option and now you have two of the most naturally talented scottish players stagnating as footballers when they should be kicking on. serie a would an interesting move for reynolds. they'd definitely drum the fair play out of him.

so we want summer football and a pyramid structure but are staying vague on league reconstruction. if leeann is on here could she tell us what dates she see this summer season running between?

if we vote for this we're off our heads. ending up 7th by a point or two after 26 games would be a hammerblow to the club. hopefully the well show a bit of savvy vote against this.

this could be a bit of a dilemma for us. if january comes and we're still in the fight for third and in a semi would we want to sell? i'd say no but at the same time you wouldn't want to stand in the way of mark getting this type of move. i don't think we'd have gotten a draw away to aalesund with hutch/page/saunders playing in place of reynolds so keeping him rather than selling him has already benefited us a bit.

it was quite funny though, there was a fair bit of mumbling around the bad bits. i don't understand why they didn't just rewrite without the bigotry, they used to make some noise when the full south stand was booming out the "hello, hello" bit. i don't think our players handled the atmosphere every well when the 3 goals flew in, it was noisy as fuck for about 5 minutes and we seemed rattled by it. the hu.ns are a bunch of front running cretins though, they don't make a peep for most of the match then when they get a few goals they jump about like spazzies.

by the looks of it a hu.n sarcastically refers to them as bus parkers then one of his less educated pals misreads it and starts throwing it at us. typical illiterate scum.

we clearly didn't come out in the second half thinking we could win the game. two of the hu.n goals looked maybe offside but we bottled it. the serious business starts next week. if we can take 5 points from the next 3 league games and get through in the cup then we'll be on course for a cracking season. today was probably the least important game of the season, hopefully the positives add a bit of confidence and the bad parts are forgotten. it was a good support and good atmosphere in the well end today. the polis and stewards seemed to have the right attitude, a million times better than at parkheid and probably better than we get at fir park.

if it was only the first half then it's blackman but over the 90 murphy.

and in may. hoipefully we can keep it tight today and hit them on the break. if we get to half time at nothing each they'll start panicking. hopefully we can use our pace against davie weir and get in about edu in midfield who is a bit of a weak link. anthing from this match is a bonus, after the that the really important games start. we've got quite favourable fixtures from next saturday until we start a c**t of a run in december. it's a massive opportunity to consolidate third and into a semi.

i think the fullbacks were under instruction to stay narrow and basically cede the wide areas to the spanish fullbacks, not really bardsley's fault.

if i had known there would be a buffet i'd definitely have shelled out the extra 500 quid to travel with the club to iceland and denmark!

we don't have another game for five months, i'm sure they'll be fit at some point. if the humph really wants to play for scotland he can get started by ripping the hu.ns a new one on saturday.

murphy in norway. murphy at home against aalesund. blackman at killie. blackman at hearts sutton at hearts. he's had a great start to the season but guys like maloney, mccormack and commons are well ahead of him. i'd much rather see bannan, murphy or maguire get a chance as well.

we won 3 nil. goals from watt, pollock and howarth. 3 good goals. i thought watt and carswell looked good as did pollock even although he appeared to playing within himself for a lot of the game. howarth and halsman were impressive when they came on as well.

if we start playing in green and grey.

i don't understand why the wee clubs always get the blame. the likes of east stirling and albion rovers aren't hurting anyone and the people involved obviously get some pleasure out it, if those clubs were scrapped their officials and fans would likely just restart somewhere else or wrap it. can someone explain to me how getting rid of some part time teams would improve the spl? the only thing that will improve scottish football is more money for facilities and qualified coaches. iceland seem to have a cracking u21 team just now and after seeing the facilities in and around reyjavik i'm not suprised. obviously that was all paid for by their dodgy banking practices but it shows what investment can achieve.

you'd need 21 teams in the first two seasons. you probably need more than that to keep it fresh. do you honestly think scotland can support 23 or 24 teams capable of playing in the top division?

why bother?

i'm not 100% sure but i think that kind of thing would be illegal. players have to be paid through the club and everything has to be declared in the accounts. the audited accounts say that we've earned £120k more than we've spent over the past 5 years reported and i tend to believe that rather than vague statements about JB keeping us above water. as we don't have a bank overdraft i'd imagine boyle would be acting as that for us very preferentially, if he is stepping away that's something that the rbs guy could hopefully sort out.