Toby

Yeah, that’s exactly what’s happening, here. Silly me.

Think it’s just one oddball tbh. Of the three Championship teams going to the play-offs I find Airdrie the most palatable. Maybe a case of absence making the heart grow fonder after we had quite a bitter rivalry in 2003-04, or humiliating Falkirk last season, but I’ll certainly be wanting them to beat Partick and Raith. Not sure I want them up to give us a crap visit to St. Johnstone or a third and fourth trip to the Highlands though.

Of all the sticks the Airdrie fans have to beat us with at the moment, this is definitely the most pointless.

But it is tit-for-tat when you say that. I agree Morton have probably (I’d argue undoubtedly) the worst facilities for away fans in this division, and started a thread on our forum looking at every club’s away experience in our division after our trip to Arbroath at Christmas time. I didn’t go down the route of ranking every club, but going by my comments, Ayr were probably second behind Dunfermline, while I heavily criticised Morton. I note that Ayr have said we’ll be in the seated area, rather than including the terraced enclosure at the front of that, which isn’t great either. Given that the stand cuts off around the 18 yard line, are we looking at a lot of restricted view seats? Morton are in no position to complain about this, but as paying customers, the fans should have every right to have a grumble. This isn’t exclusive to Morton and Ayr- despite our limited facilities. In Arbroath we were told to sit in a small section of the stand (which I assume would have had sight lines obscured) or stand in the pissing rain before they relented. At Tannadice, they cramp fans into as little space as possible and ban the young teams from having their drums etc while encouraging home fans to improve the atmosphere. At Firhill the bigger away supports are fired into a horrible old stand despite plenty alternatives elsewhere. Mathie’s talk of trying to make Somerset the best awayday in the country is great, but he’s not practicing this. I don’t (and can’t as a Morton fan) expect every team in the division to provide equal facilities for visiting fans, but until such times as the clubs get round the table and agree on a strategy to make awaydays as enjoyable experience as possible, nothing will improve. At the moment, away fans are being treated as an inconvenience or afterthought at best and trouble at worst. And the result is that we get a bit of “ah your lot are worse than ours” and the clubs going out their ways to out-shite each other. While we suffer at Somerset you’ll suffer at Cappielow. Is that the solution?

Close, but no cigar.

Rather than something that I should be credited for, I don’t think it’s something others should be criticised for not doing. I’ve discussed it before on here- possibly around the time a Peterhead fan abused one of the Tapping brothers when he was a kid at East Stirling, but self-policing is easier said than done, and my incident was when Marvin Andrews was abused at a game against Raith in 2006. It was of course different times in 2006, but “grassing” back then was often seen as being as bad as racism, and I was hassled for being a grass for about 18 months I’d say. I don’t agree I “grassed”, incidentally. I confronted the guys and the stewards and police had to respond to the confrontation. Self-policing is a fantastic theory, but in practice it’s crap. I wouldn’t want that hassle again, and don’t blame anyone else for not wanting to get involved. As I said on our forum, I hope he’s had a wee look online and is shiting himself.

Yep, utterly shameful. I see my post has been screenshotted on here mind you. I was very critical last week of Raith’s handling of the bottle throwing incident- I’ll be very interested to see how Morton handle this. On a terrible day for Morton, that was by far the most mortifying part of the day.

It’s a bit of a shite prospect but we can’t exactly ask Morton to fight on our behalf to get us onto the terrace when Morton put Ayr fans in the corner of our stand. Hopefully we sell enough to be out on the terrace, but announcing that we’ll likely be stuck in the stand with the prospect of getting behind the goal if enough of us go is hardly a great sales strategy for Ayr. Similar to Arbroath telling us to sit in a tiny section of their stand or stand in the pissing rain at Christmas time, Scottish football clubs don’t really help themselves at times.

Yes, that’s absolutely what’s happening, here. No lawyer on the planet would draw a correlation between their client being banned from following Raith Rovers for an incident that they’re in court for, and Raith Rovers pre-judging the case, whether they named them or not. Give your head a wobble. Sometimes, even though they’re your favourite football team, it’s possible that Raith can do wrong from time to time. I’d have thought you lot, above all others in this division would understand that.

I’m not sure they will be at all. Raith might prove me wrong, and fair play to them if they do, but going by their statement, it looks to me like they’ve taken the decision to ban the fan and leave it at that, rather than hand their details onto Police Scotland. If they were to seek criminal charges, as they absolutely should, the correct course of action would be to suspend the fan pending a police investigation, so as not to prejudice any potential court case, before banning them for life on the conclusion of the case. Instead they look to have taken the easy way out, banning the fan and moving swiftly on. If the fan faces criminal charges, any lawyer worth their salt would surely point to Raith’s decision to impose a ban on them as prejudicing the case- basically deciding on their guilt before the court process has taken place. I suspect Raith have done this clown a favour by merely banning them instead of handing their details over to the authorities. I’d like to be proven wrong.

Just out of interest, what does “recent history” constitute with this fixture, given that it’s now 62 years since Queen’s Park last beat Morton in a league match?

Jesus wept. You’re really throwing everything at this now in the hope that something, anything, will stick. Let’s take this season’s Championship as an example- with seven match days remaining, and even in spite of Dunfermline’s problems with their pitch this season, we have two matches outstanding. Those being Arbroath v Airdrie, rearranged from 3rd of February because of Airdrie’s Challenge Cup commitments, and Ayr v Morton, rearranged from 9th March due to Morton’s Scottish Cup commitments. Excluding this midweek, in which there are no fixtures scheduled, we have six midweeks in order to fit in those two games, neither of which were postponed because of the weather anyway. For a country with a lot of rain, we have very little difficulty completing fixtures, regardless of how you try to paint things to suit your agenda. When you’re in a hole, stop digging.

That’s not your argument though. You said that grass pitches won’t work in this country if we operate a winter season, despite overwhelming evidence to contradict you. Whether you prefer the Stark’s Park pitch to the Cappielow one is neither here nor there- it doesn’t support your desperately flawed argument in any way, shape or form.

And I’m entitled to call it out as complete nonsense, based on the evidence that we get seasons completed on time, year on year, having played through the winter, mostly on grass parks- with 10/12 in the Premiership and 8/10 in our division. Your opinion, whether you’re entitled to it or not, doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny, and should be ridiculed. There’s a massive difference between them “not working” and “not suiting the preferences of Raith Rovers or their fans”.

What nonsense.