steelboy

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.

a 16 team league will never happen. there's no way to make the fixtures work out even with a split. there's also zero chance of a 30 game season as it'd mean season ticket prices would have to be reduced as would the media contracts as the amount of high value games would be reduced. add in that the reduced money would have to be split between 4 more teams and it'd be financial ruin for the clubs. also from a fans perspective why would we want 8 less games? what i think they'll propose is a 14 team league with a split after 26 games (the start of february) with a top 6 playing 38 games and the bottom 8 playing 40. if this is what they propose we should definitely vote against it as it's highly likely there would be seasons where we ended up with 14 meaningless games to end the season which would be a disaster for us. league cup sections are the daftest idea of all. the crowds in the cis are diabolical right now for straight knockout games and would be lower for group games and non existent for dead rubbers. also the fact that the gates are split means an even worse return.

this doesn't appear in the accounts though, the last accounts show us paying him £142k on a loan that he gave us years ago. he might be helping us out with cash flow from time to time but the accounts don't show that he's supporting the club from his own pocket.

are we not self sufficient already considering we've made a cumulative profit in the years since we left admin?

relegating coyle made it a great day. it's a shame that being a perrenial top six team we're unlikely to relegate anyone again for a good while, sending killie or st mirren down would be magic. i also remember boyle was out on the pitch at the end doing a wee walk round the fans at the end of that game

both his goals were belters in classic games but away from fir park. as a player he was a bit like forbes in that he had one great foot but was slower than gary glitter walking by a playground. relegating owen colye! our only spl away win in the admin season

good stuff. 'flow - what happened with jamie pollock and the scotland u19 squad?

same guy that designed celtic park then.

a stadium design with a pitch that appears to be in a hole dug 30 feet into the ground is definitely the daftest idea so far! good luck digging snow out of that

are there any other clubs in the uk with this kind of trust set up?

the pitch was sodden and it was treacherous. i don't see that as criticism of the club it's just a statement of facts due to the conditions. players slipping had a unusually big impact on the outcome of the game, it's not suprising the reports focus on that.

the first 3 goals were all at least partly cause by players losing their footing. that doesn't happen very often and i think it's fair to say that the pitch was treacherous due to the conditions.

that's not what i took from the reports. what bits do you think are out of order? i don't see anything slating the pitch.

that makes it sound like we won't be owned by one invidual anymore and a trust will be set up with a board of trustees to oversee the club. that would let boyle leave without the need for a buyer and if run well it sounds like a decent idea. i'd worry about how it would effect our ability to raise capital if need be and what kind of accountability the trustees would have.

1. mcghee played good football because he inherited mccormack and boyle shelled out for hughes and porter. 2. what is easily forgotten is that in 07/08.... we had jammy wins against gretna and ict at the start. we had a nightmare in the monday night home game game to hearts then got beat by a craigan og in galeforce wind in the 2nd home game. we took 1 point out of 9 in 3 miserable games against falkirk. we lost two horrible games at tannadice. we missed a pen and ended up drawing at pittodrie when it was minus 5. we got beat on a wednesday night at easter road where we never made a chance in the entire game. if you look back through that season we put in 8 or 9 great performances out of 38. pretty similar to what we're doing the now. exactly. if you're not happy with our best start to a season in 15 years then you probably need to find a new team.

we've got our thinnest squad since we came out of admin but we should be competing with the old firm and beating every other team? it's our best start through seven games since tommy mclean's last season. i'm heading to the pub shortly so i cannae be arsed checking but it's probably our 2nd best start in 30+ years. we've got the 2nd best defensive record in the league and scored the 3rd most goals. i've seen plenty of positive stuff on the park this season that proves this team can play good football, if anything we overplayed today instead of constantly putting their shitty defence under pressure. we cut our squad back for the 2nd summer in a row yet we've got a team that can play some good stuff and look serious contender's for third and a fourth european season in a row. if any motherwell fans aren't delighted with how things are going they need to get some perspective.

"it's not a crime to support your team" the players looked very inspired by these wise words.

not the best performance but winning when you're playing poorly is a good sign. after the first goal we seemed to think that was it over and if we played nice fitba we'd get a few more goals no problem. we played about 35 minutes of good football without scoring then they came back into and after they break they took heart and came back at us. the game reminded of the home scottish cup tie against dundee when they knocked us out a couple of years ago. if it was up to me i'd have mixed it up a bit more and occaisionally been a bit more direct when we had the ball. all three of of our goals came from long balls that put their defenders under pressure, in games like this you need to create one on ones rather than beating a full team. if it's a debate about good fitba then i'd say that we've put plenty of cracking performances in since broon took over. killie (a) 3-0, sheep (a) 3-0, hearts (h) 3-1, hearts (a) 2-0 x 2, hibs (h) 6-6, rangers (a) 3-3. in the league he's got a record of played 27, won 13, drawn 7, lost 7 (btw these are facts not stats ). we've cut our cloth again during the summer and we've still got a team that looks able to challenge for third. to the doubters.... 1 who in the league would you swap places with? 2. when have we had it better in the past ten years?

utter nonsense.

is this the guy with the daft uniform?

hammell back in for saunders if he is available. st mirren aren't just rubbish they seem to be in full crisis mode already, if score early we should score a few. in season 07/08 when we finished third we took 29 of our 60 points of the bottom 4 teams. if we are to have a really good season this year we have to rack up the wins against midden, ict, accies, st j and killie.

my first ever trip to tynecastle was the last day of the season in 94/95 when we had 2nd sown up and the chance to relegate them and tommy mclean who had done the dirty on us the summer before. i remember the lane, the brewery smell, the seats but no roof and the third world toilets. unfortunately we got beat (i remember colqhoun diving for a pen) and they stayed up. i was quite young at the time so i can't really remember but was the well support right up for relegating mclean or were we sympathetic to him due to the cup win and the previous season?