Cruoninga

The Dutch amateur sides pay the professional teams to show up, and then hope to get the money out of it (and make a profit on top obviously) from ticket sales.

He has been away from the Glasgow area since 2014, though. Just found this article: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/dundee-united-star-james-keatings-12404502 Depression is a terrible disease. Hopefully he will manage to get back on track soon.

I am ill-informed: what is the situation with James Keatings, Fraser Fyvie, and Callum Booth not being part of the United squad? The only ex-Hibee on the pitch (or bench for that matter) is Sam Stanton.

If we would bent those rules a bit and recognize Aberdeen's result at Burnley as a draw (which I feel would make more sense), the Scottish teams are still unbeaten in this European campaign after a combined 14 matches played. Not too bad.

Hibs' win technically was not over DOS, but of a 'City of Utrecht all-star team' consisting of the best players of the city's three professional sides, which later merged to form the current FC Utrecht. Surely our trahsing of Faroe giants Runavik - already the second time we put six past foreign opposition this season - has to be listed now as well.

From wikipedia: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Falkirk_FC_League_Performance.svg Especially the period late 1980s-late 1990s were extremely yo yo-ish.

Will Hearts pay the sum for Zeefuik that Groningen demands, or will he return to the Netherlands this summer?

Zeefuik's 4-minute hattrick was raising some eyebrows in Holland, but the final score made that achievement somewhat less impressive I suppose. He apparently made a quick impact on the squad as he already is the first pick at penalties. Was he just subbed to let some others got a chance to get one in as well?

It should be kept in mind that since the last couple of decades there is a general shift in public interest going on; moving from the domestic competitions towards the Champions League and the two or three best leagues in the world. This is an international movement, as the clubs from Spain and England keep getting richer in comparison to the rest of the continent and the gap in quality keeps on widening. This process is not typical for Scotland; the fanbase of FC Barcelona, Real Madrid and the English top teams is increasing everywhere at the expense of the local teams. Top this with the economic recession and it was to be expected that the least popular of Scotland's three main domestic competitions was to first to get the hit. Ergo; the alleged unpopularity of the League Cup might not be a result of the tournament's set-up, and any changes to its format might do little to increase crowd figures.

This is now the third player from the Dutch league that Hearts bring in since last summer, after Öztürk and El Hassnaoui. They recently have based a scout over here?

I find that hard to say. He didn't have a 90 minute game with Groningen for months. He was seen as a talent at one point in the past, but so far has failed to live up to that promise at his different clubs. He got suspended at Groningen last season for being overweight. He has been struggling with his fitness throughout his career, but last season was a low in that respect. Perhaps a new challenge will provide the motivation to get his fitness back on track. Then again, he was - at times - a useful player at his first season at Groningen, although he never was a 'big' goal scorer. He got 7 goals from a total of 42 Groningen appearances. He mostly was of use as the target man in the passing game (hard to translate to English), which I think is a rather typical Dutch style of play and I wonder what he has to bring to table in that respect in Scotland. The Scottish game in general is more physical challenging than the Dutch (not sure if that also goes for the Championship though), and although it seems he has a lot of physique, I doubt it will be the right kind. Its interesting to see what's going to happen with him at Hearts.

You cannot measure it, but you can be sure that it is definitely not there when a entirely new entity is granted access straight into the nation's top flight because of the size of their fanbase. There can be no such preferential treatment. Why are Rangers fans trying to make this into some moral struggle where your lot is facing a mob of hate filled bigots? You know just as well as everyone else that their wouldn't even be a vote if it was anybody else than Rangers or Celtic that went bust. You should stop making such a big fuss and just accept the current situation that it probably is going to be SFL3 for you. Stop behaving like a spoiled teen girl that starts crying when she doesn't get her way.

"No-Newco does not re-enter the SPL" Newco was never in the SPL so that's a strange formulation. It is correctly put at the yes-option. It's just a small difference but it reflects the main idea behind the opposition against them entering the SPL. A new entity is provided access straight into the nation's top flight. Rangers Media is fuming because they believe that we want them to be kicked out. We don't though. Since the moment their club went into a process of liquidation there was nothing to kick out. We just oppose this particular entity getting preferential treatment because of the size of their following. You see this misconception at other places as well. For instance: http://www.bbc.co.uk...otball/18422397 Why should newco be punished? They have done nothing wrong. They're just not getting preferential treatment and thus - if they want to play in the football league - have to apply like any other club that isn't in the SPL/SFL has to do, and can start in the SFL3 if granted access. It's not like denying them this huge favour of a direct transfer in the top flight is a punishment.