After getting so royally pumped on Saturday, and the life in your title charge only having two breaths left, do East Fife fans think that Baikie will be given a size ten up the backside any time soon?

1 point from the last twelve, admittedly three of those games were against the top three, in anyone's terms isn't good enough.

I would imagine that the chairman won't be too happy about not being closer, and also 1 point against the rovers won't please him, as it is well documented about his wishes for 12 against the rovers.

I know you have injuries and I know that football can quickly change and I also know that you are still very much in the hunt for a play off place, but the signs aren't good. Drawing against QP, beaten by Stranraer...no disrespect meant to these sides, but from the money spent, EF should really be beating these teams, and beating them well.

I suppose what it comes down to is the chairman's expectations for the season, but I would imagine he would have expected the team to be further up the ladder.

Rumours of losing the dressing room, can't help his case either.

So how long do you think he has to improve the situation. Brechin and Raith aside the teams you play in the next couple of months, on paper should see you raking in the points until Peterhead at the end of January. Do you think he will be given the chance, and I should probably ask, do you want him to be give the chance?

Will they have to go for an ex-Raith manager too? If so, Fat Wullie's neebur Anelka is available. He'll make East Fife the 3rd Force in Fife. Oh, wait a minute, they are already the 3rd force in Fife.

Haw Haw, what he said.

I doubt that the fat controller (mr.chairman) will be hanging around for much longer either.

Willie's probably not going to be at Bayview next year, so staying up and consolidating is probably the best option. That said, with the money spent this season I believe the intention of many at the club was to win the league, that won't happen now obviously though.

I don't get to many games, so its a debate i've kept out of, but certainly results and reports of our awful performances have been cause for concern. Dave's had a few years in the job and we've had a fantastic season and a great cup run in that time, but the same budget isn't going to be there forever so if we're starting to struggle now then I can't see it getting better, even when the injuries clear up (and every side has injuries, not just us).

Personally, i'd give Tweed or Craword the option of management at least until the end of the season, we've seen examples of a the impact a new boss can have on a struggling side at many other clubs, and with their hardly being a wealth of available (and good) managers out there a gamble on one, or both of these experienced and respected players would maybe be worthwhile.

I think Baikie should plod on , get all the injured players back and maybe a couple of signings at new year and hopefully get us into a play off position, so I would stick with Baikie it's not as if we are bottom of the league we will pick up points

Rumours abound that he won`t be at Bayview in 3 weeks


Baikie must stay

does any ef supporters know who the guy
wearing a kilt who was on the team bus on saturday was

Feel a wee bit sorry for the guy to be honest. Can't make pleasant reading all the shit thats going on. Problem we have is Greys imminent departure in the next 12-18 months and i think giving Baikie any more money to spend on players would be a risk. A big risk!
If things done improve by January then i fear the worst both for him and for our league position.
If rumours are true that he has lost the dressing room then he should go now. No way back from that kind of situation.

Older guy with a beard?

You sound like a modern day Hilda Ogden ya fackin fish wife.

I dunno, the same sort of rumours were circulating about McGlashan a few weeks back. However, he took action, and looks to have saved his job (and possibly our season). To be honest, under Baikie, East Fife will not be relegated. If the pressure of "SUCCESS NOW!" is off him, then he might actually flourish.

At Arbroath, he really ploughed a lot of time into initialising our youth setup. Sure, it took Brownlie to give the young guys their chance properly, but the basics were laid down by Baikie, and we had a number of successful youngsters coming through. If he isn't required to spend big and deliver instantly, he could well be the man to firstly stabilise you in the second, and then challenge for the first when he is good and ready.

It depends what is happening at christmas. If you continue to try and be the next Gretna by ploughing in vast sums of money and demanding a league challenge, then Baikie is not the man for the job. If you settle down and work for long term growth on a reasonable outlay (i.e. on a par with the rest of the league), then I reckon you will get the best out of him, not to mention it being better for your club in the long term.

I hear ya, problem is we don't have much of a youth set up. Baike seems hell bent on ignoring what decent young uns we have had at Bayview. You could say this is down to using experience to get there quick. That aside, i don't think we will be in the relegation mix come next year.
A lot of the frustration of recent comes from the style of football we`re playing. We have some good experienced players yet we continue to play one up front and punt the ball towards neptune. Not much of a return for money invested.
The dressing room unrest is another matter and mixed reports on the reason for this. Either way not good and if things don't improve then the board may have no alternative but to bring in someone who can restore confidence and get the best out of these players.

Is the truth hurting?


Pot and kettle ya sausage jockey

Oh aye,Baikie must stay

As I said in my post, we never really had one at Arbroath till Baikie got it off the ground! As you said, he is using experience to "get there quick", but that is probably because of what the supporters and your chairman demand! I think he will always prefer to use experienced players, but he did give youth a chance for us...probably because he wasn't under as much pressure to spend money and win the league.

Maketh thy mind up.

I'm not sure, many supporters wanted to see Stephan Fortune, one of the really promising youngsters at Bayview in the last couple of years, given a chance in the side but he wasn't, and a lot of fans hoped to see at least a couple of our (now defunct) under 18s league cup winning side being given the odd chance on the bench in first team games but that didn't happen.

Our youth set up is temporarily on hold as far as I know, hopefully we'll get it back on the go sooner rather than later though.

What the fack you on about ya imbecilic fud? You come on here pretending you know whats going on at another clubs board level when you probably don't know todays date.
Away and play with yer tamagotchi.

I'd be inclined to suspect that being more down to the chairman than the manager to be honest (although as I said, even with us, Baikie did like his pensioners). I'm very surprised it is on hold though, if our club had money to burn, I would prefer a significant amount to go into long term spending (upgrading the facilities, youths etc.).

See, I can discuss football without causing trouble!

Where is he going?

Why is he not around for longer? Seems a bit strange to pump a load of money into a team for a year or three then disappear. We were left in the sh!t when Barr did it to us.

Who's gonna pay the massive wage bill when Fat Wull fucks off, then?

You are right, we should never have signed these players on life-time contracts. Many of the players contracts will be up at the end of this season or next anyway.

Posted about Baikie in the game thread, so not writing it out again, but as far as youth goes, Baikie is not interested. We could have given the young guys a chance at the end of last season but Baikie ignored them which just shows he isn't bothered about giving the youth a chance.

Defeat on Saturday would be a disaster.

Hit a nerve?

See you at the AGM.

How come Willie's leaving?!

He'll leave because even if he manages to win the final 2 games against the Rovers, he'll have made a right tit of himself by signing aged players like Stanic and Crawford paying massive wages and still failing to beat the majority of teams in this division. More importantly, he's been forced to eat humble pie ,so far, by our "static" team which has "amateurs" involved which shows our "lack of ambition". Nice one Willie . BBC should replace Russell Brand and Johnathan Ross with him...far better entertainment!

Great retort, that will be stolen by myself and used many times.

You missed out a team with no ambition who look to sign amateur and junior players




Its about as old as you

Never thought I'd ever say this to you, but good honest post.

Where is Wullie off to? Cowdenbeath or Dunfermline next?

That's interesting, as they weren't invented until 1996 by Aki Maita, when I was 17.

Willie never claimed he'd be at Bayview forever. Last season he committed at least until the end of this season, now it seems that is when he will step down. There's rumours it will happen sooner, at the AGM, but i've heard nothing like that from anyone at the club.

Personally i'll always be grateful to him for playing a big role in getting Brown out and pulling the club out of the 3rd division in style last season. I'm sure most, if not all East Fife fans will feel the same.

Hell yeah, i'd go along with that.
Fingers crossed he's around for a while yet.

Baikie must stay!

Hello, I come in peace.

I mentioned it before but I'm gonna say it again to see if there's any more responses.

The problem is not just that Baikie has built himself a massively unbalanced squad and persists in playing players out of position (although due to the inbalance in the squad he's not got too many options there).

Part of the problem is that the players he has signed are just not that good anymore. Both he and a fair few EF fans seem to have a slightly unrealistic belief in the quality of the squad. Man for man your first 11 are not any better than those at Ayr, Brechin or ours and I would only take 2 for our squad (Linn & Shields).

IMO Fotheringham, Templeman and Crawford should never have been signed and the rest are average at this level.

Surely Paul Stewart would be far better than Silvestro? Would you not take Dougie Cameron either?

Silvestro can`t be classed in Rovers first 11.He has not featured in Raiths first 11 since 27th September.

As mentioned by Robbo, Silvestro isn't playing at the moment so can't be included in a first 11.

As for Cameron? No ta, decent player but we have Ellis and Cook who can play left back and although I prefer Ellis at CB I can't help but feel we'd be replacing like for like. We'd also be losing someone who has for some unknown reason developed a styrong commitment to our cause.

Further forward we have Sloan playing on the left who provides us with a shocking amount of goals when you consider I'm probably faster than him.

Edit - I'm not just being facetious about Silvestro. He's not in the team at the moment because we are playing Alan Walker in there who is frankly excellent at this level.

You said squad not first 11, even if Silvestro is a seldom used bit part player he's still taking a place on the bench. If you got to hand pick players from East Fife you'd be better with Paul Stewart, or even Sean Fagan.

Apologies, we appear to have got our wires crossed.

As for squad players, I still wouldn't take Cameron. As for Silvestro I concede I'd definitely take a different squad player but whether it would be Stewart or Fagan I'm not sure.

Izreid,no your wires are not crossed.Your previous post which I responded to said "Man for man your first 11 are not any better than those at Ayr, Brechin or ours"