total class even with 4 players out.

Very interesting how QP when about their business today...

From the kick-off the mid-field and the rest of the team looked lively, however this gave way to sloppiness throughout the whole team which let Shire score the 1st goal. Shire could have stolen a 2nd just before half time but didn't. 2nd half from QP didn't happen and Shire grew more confident and then................

Yip... the 2nd worst every GK error which lead to QP going 1-1. I for one expected the heads to go down and QP to raise their game and attack. Neither happen.


Then a funny thing transpired. Shire took the game by the scruff and finished it off.

Shire fans then partied !! Life can be good even to Shire fans

Well done the Shire.

What odds would you have got for the Shire getting into double figures (points-wise) by the end of September/1st quarter?

Hope you finish at least 9th and, in deed, much higher up the leagues. Team of the year if you do with that ersehole Mackin running your club!

Thanks for the kind words. Although Mackin is the Chairman he is absent living in Spain largely. Credit should be heaped on the non-playing staff who manage to hold it together with the constraints imposed by Mr M. Sometimes its on a par like 'turning water into wine' The fans and the main sponsors SX Records are also doing a hell of a lot to help out and days like yesterday are a small return for the hard work by everyone, players included of course!

Yes its good to see Shire showing resistance but remember they are on a more level playing field now with paying better wages.

We're only fou points above the Shire?

Congratulations lads. This is becoming a habit

Are the £10 days gone? If so, what's the average weekly payment?

My own team are apparently all on £30 - £40 per week. I'd be interested to see how the new Shire regime compares with that.

I heard they were still on the £10 max!

No - the wages are still £10 a week! However we do have a very supportive sponsor who sometimes pays the players a good win bonus and that does help. What has changed is that possibly for the first time in 5 years we have a manager that has brought in some good players, blended them into an effective team and actually translated that into league points. I`m not saying we are going to win the league or even make the playoffs - but just being able to compete in the division seems such a luxury to me now.
We have 10 points at the end of September - when you consider thats 2 more than we got in the entire 2003/04 season it shows you the massive progress we have made since (or how disgracefully bad we were then, depending how you look at it!).

Shire are indeed still on £10 a week and , importantly, a maximum £18 a week expenses. However, the new sponsor is helping with bonuses. The club has relented and allowed win bonuses per match, which they refused to allow Littlewoods Pools to pay. It was rumoured, although can't be confirmed, that they were each on £60 a man to beat Stenhousemuir.
By the way, where have all the Queen's Park fans gone ? Following their last victory over Shire they couldn't wait to get on this forum to suggest we should be thrown out the league for being rubbish. They're rather quiet now, dont you trhink ?

Can't remember this, enlighten us all please?

Anyway, about the game, we were rubbish but maybe deserved a draw for our efforts, but we can only have ourselves to blame. We created some good chances but didn't take them, we tried to pass the ball into the net and on Shire's surface that's quite difficult really. When we did decide to have a pop from outside the box, that's when we came closest, when we did shoot from range Tiropolous struggled. We should have learned from that but we didn't, not even after Paul Ronald's harmless shot squirmed in for the equaliser.

Shire are much improved from past seasons, and will beat a lot of teams on their own patch, Gordon Wylde's done a good job there but on big parks with nice short grass, I think they will struggle.

Is it that much worse than when Stennie lost there (and the Stennie lads all admitted the grass was fine)?

In a word that statement is complete and utter BOLL$%KS, the Shire played most of the ball on the ground on Saturday, unlike the Spiders who seemed to like the long ball up the middle as their prefered option. we also used the flanks much more effectively than yourselves.

I could understand your statement if the Spiders had tried to pass on the ground, tried to play silky football, and tried to use the flanks, but be honest that just didn't happen, that was the domane of the Shire on Saturday.

Too many teams in the 3rd still think the long ball up the middle to the big forwards is the answer, and I've heard too many people blaming the state of a pitch when it doesn't work out. You're not fooling anyone mate..... Both teams played on the same pitch, are you trying to suggest our players have memorised the undulations of the pitch.....

To quote Gordon Wylde, "If football was supposed to be played in the air all the time the big yin would have gave us wings"

I for one am glad we don't have the big target man up front, it's made our football much more enjoyable to watch, and we've surprised a few teams this season because of the way we play.

An absolute nightmare but we have no one to blame but ourselves. We had stacks of play, yet we want to walk the ball into the net. The goal we got was a gift (the keeper is still trying to get down to it as we speak), but couldn't shake ourselves up enough to sneak a draw. Good luck to the Shire; some of their players are still pure mince, but they never gave up and dug in for a good three points.

The pitch? No one can defend this. It is the worst in the Division by a mile. Are they planning to cut it this year? But no excuses from me on this - it's the same for both teams.

The referee? Remember the name - Graeme Charleston. A new ref from the juniors and this guy has the potential to be the worst ever. In what was an easy game, he managed to make an erse of decision after decision. But again, he wasn't the reason for our defeat - we were. He and his linesman, however, missed the easiest penalty decision ever when a Shire player managed to dive and save the ball in the box with both hands. Quite incredible how both of them missed it. Even people who weren't at the game and blind people at the other end of the earth saw it quite clearly. No way is this sour grapes as far as he is concerned, honest!. I predict a brief future for this guy - he was out of his depth in what was a dead easy peasy game.

Rant over.

the refs names not graeme and hes a f****K fan with a complete hatred for the shire (he openly admits this). In the past when hes been a linesman at games, hes been a complete joke but this season, his step up to the man in the middle has made him fairer. He's one of the better ones we've had this season.
As for the pitch. If we DID play you on a flat, bowling green surface, we would have thrashed you as our footballing style is more suited to that than you long high balls.

Have you started drinking already today?

If only we HAD reverted to a long ball game then we might have been the ones stealing the 3 points

You're going to have 2 games at Hampden to back up that statement wellibob so we'll see, but to suggest that we don't try to play good passing football at home is total tripe. Unfortunately though it seems that most weeks the end product is "we couldnae score in a barrel of fannies"

Well done to the Shire for winning because let's be honest, both teams were rotten on the day and the fairest result would have been for the ref to stick a knife in the ball and tell everyone to head off to the pub and get blootered earler than we did.

The ref was abysmal for both teams. You could see that whenever he blew up for something both sets of players had no idea what way he was going to give it. Most dissent I've seen from players for a while.

The free-kick you got for the first goal was a joke but I'm honest enough to admit the one he gave in our favour in a similar position for high feet when it was clearly the QP player who had his head down was just as bad.

Och well maybe Scotland will cheer me up before our next trip to sunny Arbroath.

It was terrible when we played there.

We tried to pass the ball on your pitch, but it was too bad to try it. We struggle badly when we play long ball and the passing game suits the whole team better, and at the end of the day, it's better to watch than the ball just up in the air constantly. We did try to pass it, but the players were sloppy. As Hampden Diehard said, we try to walk the ball into the net and should shoot from range, and to be honest our problem is and has been for years is that we don't take enough chances.

On a bigger pitch with short grass, i reckon the 'shire will struggle, the pitch is to their advantage as they train on it.

the only reason that we have the big guy up front is that so we have someone to attack the chances created by Weatherston, and generally we haven't played a high ball to him, but passed it to him and kept it on the deck. We had to move him on saturday to have any decent threat.

rant over

Wellibob - come on, defend the state of the pitch if you can. It's terrible and it's now at its best. Come February, what is is going to be like?

As for the ref, how did you see his performance, and be honest? The guy was a joke and seemed to make the rules up as he went along. We'll hear more of him as the season goes on, whatever his first name is.

I went out of my way to say that neither was to blame for our defeat, so please don't take my comments out of context.

Queen's Park fans should be thankful their team has to play at Firs Park just twice a season. Our boys have to try and practice what Gordon preaches twice a month there, and believe me, they hate it. The state of the pitch is Shire players' number one gripe, they moan less about only getting paid a tenner !
If you thought it was bad on Saturday, it was an improvement on the last home game. The real reason for the mess is, as with everything at the Shire, a lack of cash. They can't afford to re-turf it and the equipment they have to tend it is falling to bits. Honestly, the reason for the length of the grass is that's the shortest the current mower can cut it to.

I thought it was allowed to grow long to allow the Archie MacPherson comb-over effect to cover the baldy bits.