steelboy

not my first game but i remember it clearly, probably becuase it's the only time i've had to watch a game from the south stand. i was raging i didn't get in the east. shivute ran riot in the second half. i can even rememeber watching micheal owen scoring a hat trick for liverpool against newcastle on sky before heading up to fir park. think it was ruud gullit's first game in charge. nae idea what my first ever game was, probably when i was 4 or 5.

fair enough. they'd both be great results. i predict us to win every game two nil no matter what. so 2-0 murphy and juke.

what caused the change of heart?

honestly? both matches were poorly attended and were major let downs last season. we were on a dire run for the first and even although we won the second match easy they got what they need to stay up . could be a belter this time though. if we get decent results in the next two games we'll probably sell out our end.

maybe it is just a rumour but i don't see fitzy featuring in gannon's plans, he's not comfortable enough on the ball. marc archdeacon seemed to be moving about ok at the race night on saturday, he might be back in contention soon. i'd quite like to see page, archdeacon and darren smith get a run out in the first team this season. it's a strange situation to be in where we have a dozen or so young players from youth system who look like they could be capable of contributing to the first team.

i heard a rumour that fitzy went to gannon to ask why he's out the picture and it didn't go to well. apparently lasley and mcgarry have kept the head down and worked hard as did craigan and hammell when they looked out of favour but fitzpatrick went looking for answers. gannon saw him playing against rhyll on his first day up here and he was unbelievably bad. that probably made his mind up about him there and then.

forgot about that. sorry but out ye go, mchugh and hutch. i quite like to see jennings get a start sometime soon. but i've got my heart set on 4-4-2 and forbes is worth his place in centre midfield on saturday's showing and hateley is the manager's pet by the looks of things and looked very good with a wee bit more freedom to get forward in the second half on saturday. he's been great as the screen in front of the back 4 but i think he showed he's capable of much more than that. it could be a 120 minute effort anyway so those two plus giles and jenno could have all part to play.

looking forward to the game even though it's my third trip to this wasteland in three weeks. hopefully we'll follow on from our performance in the last 20 minutes on saturday and have a right go at st mirren from the start as we were too passive on saturday and spent far too much time fannying about with ball within 30 yards of our own goal. there defence cracked under the pressure on saturday and we've got to make sure we put them under from the first kick tommorow. for me gannon has two major issues to address. 1. 4-4-2 vs 4-5-1? we were miles better in the second half on saturday playing a 4-4-2, hateley and forbes were more involved in the game, jamie murphy got the ball in dangerous areas rather than the halfway line and big lukas could concentrate on playing through the middle rather than dropping short or wide all the time. gannon obviously puts a lot of faith in the 4-5-1 but everytime we've played 4-4-2 with jamie murphy through the middle we've scored at least two goals so i think we've got to go for that. 2. Higdon. the big haddy loves playing against us and set up one and almost another on saturday. i expect higdon will start on tomorrow so gannon will have to choose who's best equipped to deal with him craigan, saunders or hutchison. hopefully hammell will be back in at left back and reynolds can go back to cb. my team. ruddy yassin saunders reynolds hammell humphrey hateley forbes o'brien murphy lukas subs: coke, sutton, jennings, craigan, hutchison, mchugh, seb

i'm sure whatever happens we'll be fine but we're a work in progress at the moment and it'd be a bit frustrating to have to start from near enough scratch again. we're doing really well just now but if we can keep the squad we've got together for two or three years we could do something special.

i think the only players contracted for next year are murphy, craigan, hutchison, forbes, sutton, mchugh, reynolds, fraser and humphrey. slightly worrying.

i take it the votes for forbes and coke were steamers trying to vote for lukas clicking the wrong bit.

the highlight of my night was the failure of my "consortium" to get a horse in the auction. crags money went up with our steaming bidding, my wallet stayed closed. ideal.

great night.

we looked much better in the second half when we were playing 4-4-2. hopefully we'll start that way on tuesday and attempt to put st mirren under pressure. we were a joke in the first half continually trying to pass the ball out the back and getting nowhere, st mirren clearly had us sussed out. the last 15 minutes showed how if you put teams in this league under pressure the chances will come, it's time to start our playing our football in the final third. anybody else think big giles got the hook for diving when he gave the ball away in the lead up to their first goal? he did the exact same against hibs for their second.

is his paedo father in law banned from fir park?

in his interview on the official site he talks about how we're doing well in ball retention and defending but things haven't really come to together yet for us in forward areas. he's done a great job so far to mould a team that are as composed on the ball and as organised and solid defensively but i think it'll take a lot of work to make us a side that can use the possession we've having in most games to punish teams. if we're going to be playing 4-5-1 long term (the next two or three years) i think we're going to have to invest in a quality centre forward and find a midfielder who is comfortable getting up to support the lone centre forward. the next five games are winnable but difficult. hopefully things will come together in the final third and we'll start making chances and scoring.

the final last time was such a let down i think if we were to make it again i'd be so wary of getting pumped again i wouldn't really be able to enjoy it. a lot of my caution relating to the well can probably be tracked back to that game, we had a month of unbridled optimism shattered inside five minutes.

that was a 44 game season but i think we'll end up at least equalling it. i can't see anyone in our squad getting into double figures in league goals.

anybody know what our record for 0-0s is in a single season?

i don't think anyone really hates broadfoot. most people are actually delighted to hear his name read out when we're playing against the h**s.

i'm going through to both of them so if we win one and score a few goals from open play i'll be happy.

everybody thinks they've got the worst fans in the country at home and a great support away. you see killie, st mirren, aberdeen and especially falkirk saying it all the time on pie and bovril. rangers and celtic both got booed off in their last home games as well. the truth is we're not that different from anyone else and that there are a lot of stupid, angry and loud fans in every ground in scotland.

what about the tri state area?

there's not really the same cast of villianous characters kicking about the spl anymore is there? if you look back to the early/mid nineties every team seemed to have two or three guys that made your blood boil just to look at them. who have you got now? jamie hammill, novo, brown, tokely, lee miller, micheal stewart. pretty pish in comparison to arseholes like darren jackson, ian ferguson and dave mcpherson.

the best thing about that night was there were a load of bayern munich fans at the game who went on the pitch after the game got abandoned and led some mad bouncy style chants. nevin's winner in the rearranged game was a belter.