Leaderboard

What an arsehole and goodbye

She won silverware, which is more than can be said for Hibs.

So with Carey looking as if he may be with us, and the other 2 who were on trial being given squad numbers in the photo posted by the twitter account, I think we've seen the end of new players coming in.....at least until Jan transfer window anyway. This is how I imagine/would like County to line up assuming Derek keeps with the same type of formation from pre-season....which is of no guarantee going on previous history Reguero Fenlon Boyd Dressen Celcer (sp?) Brittain Balk De Leeuw Arquin Carey Boyce It's not a bad team by any stretch, certainly has it's strengths. Boyce looks like a poacher we've been crying out for since Barrowman in division 2. in the 2 games I saw Arquin had set Boyce up for at least 1 goal and a few other chances as well. Carey out on the left would be a better option than Cardle who continually cuts back onto his right all the time and I would rather we have De Leeuw in the centre than wasted out on the wing. Was debating for a while on whether to drop Rocco or Ritchie and I really wouldn't be surprised if Brittain makes way for Rocco in the centre. However it does have some issues and for me it'll comes down to our defence. Celcer (not sure if I spelt that right) has not been that great but then I've not seen much of anyone else in that role, so if he does sign then I imagine he'll start as LB. For a defender he does have a decent touch and pass though but wanders far too much. Dressen turns quicker than the Titanic but only just and he didn't seem that great in the air, not a lot of teams are going to be playing tippy tappy football but will resort to the lump the ball up, if Boydy gets an injury I fear we'll start shipping in goals through our centre pairing. However the brightest thing I see is the options that we'll have coming off the bench. Cardle/Maatsen/Jarvis/Ross can all come in and change our focus of attack while Frempah/Rocco/Latouchent and Ketts(if he gets fit and is offered a chance) can offer something to strengthen a tiring defence if and when we are leading with 10/15 mins to go. I don't know, maybe it's the inner child in me, maybe it's the blind optimism that every fan has, but I really think we can get 10th place......

Yes, but the thing that's prompting your fake lament is the form of clubs who had resources which did not compare to those of Rangers back then. Rangers are a frigging massive club - I thought you knew. Obviously, no Scottish club can compete with those from the big 5 financially any more, but Rangers were big news outside that elite and Celtic remain so, despite the marvellous other night. Of course removing Rangers from the equation would dent our clubs' chances of making an impact. Either OF side would not have done what Motherwell did last week for instance. Once more, expressing surprise over this is akin to being shocked at overall top flight gates dropping. Prior to Rangers' departure from the top table, we'd had plenty rotten European results from sides like Motherwell, Dunfermline, Dundee United and Aberdeen. That position has not really shifted. We now have one big club playing at that level rather than two, so we do less well, especially if that one big club, as looks likely this year, bombs. Fine. If you always disliked the OF anyway, there's no further harm done. The truth of this is that you wish Rangers were still playing in Europe. You also like to pursue this spurious line that relies on people having ever said the standard would soar in the absence of Rangers. The problem of course, as with gates, is that nobody suggested these areas would be better without them. They would be worse, but the alternative of treating Rangers as special, would be worse yet, as it would piss on the whole point. For someone who was contrite about Rangers' conduct and did actually accept the idea of a bottom tier re-start ahead of most, you really seem to struggle to cope with the reality of what that means.

I've accidentally walked into a job in the field of my uni course today without even having an interview so to speak. Happy days, now better hand in my notice at my current work. That's definitely not going to go down well, considering I'm starting a week on Monday.

Nick Knowles. Not sure why, but I just don't like him.

Hypocrite.

Despite the fact we have all heard it a billion times, some fannies still sing the dah-dah-dah bit of 500 Miles after the first verse.

Yes we are regressing, because effectively, we're not invited. The comparison you make is disingenuous though. It used to be that sides needed to survive only two or three ties, starting in September/October to reach Christmas and one of these might have been against a Maltese side at a time when such countries were very much weaker than is now the case.

Aye those Champions League nights and runs to European Finals still haunt me to this day....I would swap it all for a 4-1 hammering away to the mighty Legia Warsaw Aye the mighty Rosenborg who lost at home to the mighty Sligo Rovers. Just out of interest does anybody know how Legia Warsaw got on at home the last time they played an Irish team....well an Irish team other than celtic

The Power Station - Some Like It Hot

Medicine Head : One And One Is One

Nah...They are all out on their arses and the season hasn't even kicked off yet Booming i tell ye. BOOMING!!!!111!!!!

The IDF spokesman on AJ right now is English , funny how the MSM doesn't appear to have a problem with white Jewish UK citizens going of to fight with Israel?

Fleetwood Mac - Need Your Love So Bad

In other news, Hearts have announced that they have sold over 12,000 season tickets.

The game should still have an edge. Local derby and all that. Used to love matches against the Sons at Kilbowie back in the day. Friendly rivalry.

Fucking keyboard police. Fucking keyboard chairmen. Fucking keyboard secretarys. Fucking keyboard matchday operation specialists. That about covers my feelings on the subjects.

You know Tedi knows me. He knows that just wouldnt happen. These nutters get far more coverage than they deserve. They are representative of a tiny minority of the Rangers support. I havent read much about this as i am on my phone but it looks like the same tactics used to out known Republicans in the past. I ll state it clearly here for you...The Vanguardbears are arseholes to a man.

Hello, for my football blog I have been doing brief season previews for each side in Scotland and today finished the Raith and Rangers ones (they come in batches of two!) If anyone wants to have a read you can do here, and if anyone has any feedback, comments or criticisms then please fire them my way! Thanks in advance!

...and you sir, will look back on all of this - in less than 2x years time - with great shame, regardless of the outcome on the 18th. Call this a slur if you will but I rarely have false visions.

I haven't complained about being stereotyped.... And I really don't think anything is more moronic than the personal attacks on JK Rowling or the young lass from Glasgow for publicly supporting a side. There are plenty more examples of this kind of behaviour. If I went to a bank to get a business loan with a plan as vague and baseless as the white paper, i'd be shown the door, so why would I vote for it? Running a country requires many of the same fundamentals as running a business - first and foremost you must balance the books and given the information available today. there is no evidence to suggest that an independent nation could execute the policies/ideals without running a huge deficit. What you are actually saying is that this a vote of faith - vote on the basis of an idea (a concept)? It's reckless and irresponsible in this context at best - you risk the living standards and livelihoods of an entire country. If you've got nothing to lose - go for it. Most people however, have plenty to lose and have more important priorities in life. You talk about Westminster like there is no Scottish representation in there at all.... Scottish voters have a better than average representation in Westminster in terms of MPs to number of constituents, and is better represented overall than English voters. The problem you have is that decisions are made there for UK as a whole, but that's why you have devolution. But break your argument down further - an independent Scottish parliament will be central belt-centric - it has to be because that is where the bulk of the populous is, so how about folks from the highlands and Islands, do things change for them? Do they really want all decisions relating to them being made in Edinburgh? Are they getting the government they want - central belt needs are completely different to H&I's. The SNP have progressively centralised power at Holyrood, preventing local authorities from doing what they need to do for their communities. What you're actually championing here is Federalism, which is gathering growing support in Westminster. My point is that wherever the seat of Government is, there will always be communities who feel disengaged or left out - Independence will not solve this. Scotland does not need to provide free prescriptions to all, it does not need to give bus passes to over 60's still in full time employment, it doesn't need to provide free access to tertiary education as if it was some god given right, no tolls on bridges, free child care for all, Council Tax freeze for 7 years.... What Scotland needs to do is live within it's means and stop blaming WM for all of it's ills - which is why I single out the give-away politics of the SNP as not being comparable. We simply cannot afford all of this - certainly the rest of UK cannot either. The SNP/SG accounts for all the money spent, no issue, but it is frivolous in its spending policies to win cheap votes and to meet political ends - resulting in the referendum. Why did the SG not use its power to raise income tax to generate more revenue to pay for these policies - purely because it would be very unpopular and alternatively they could blame WM for not giving us enough money to deal with the current issues in Scotland instead of dealing with it within their powers. Perhaps money saved by not giving free University education could have been used to deal with some aspects of child/fuel poverty or similar? All this talk about inclusion and equality but they're more concerned with sending a limited amount of people to Uni for free rather than keeping families fed. Talk about Tory policies? On your NHS point - as long as that service remains devolved, the decision to keep it publicly owned rests with the incumbent SG. Don't spout nonsense about the future of industrialisation in a independent nation. One of our most traditional and famous industries will die as a result of a Yes vote. No matter what Salmond says, the MoD will not build complex warships out with UK borders, and the Faslane naval base will close. Thousands will lose their jobs as a result and entire communities will die. This might sound dramatic but it is the reality of the situation. You can bang on about renewable energy as much as you like but that industry is heavily subsidised, hence the amount of R&D in this country. Those subsidies will end soon, then what? As with most technology based industries, manufacturing will move to where it is cheaper as soon as the tech is mature.

0 x 7 = 0 5 x 1 = 5 Simples.

Definitely looks like Carey beside a Fenlon at the back

Your 'facts' are largely meaningless without context. By some measures, the UK has a greater proportion of people living in poverty than countries like Tunisia and Vietnam. I'd much rather be poor in Scotland than poor in either of those countries though. A lot of poverty measures are not good at incorporating benefits in-kind - which are higher in countries that have well developed welfare systems. As I've pointed out to you elsewhere, using wealth as a measure we are nowhere near the 4th most unequal country in the Western world. (Source: https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=1949208D-E59A-F2D9-6D0361266E44A2F8) I'm also not particularly bothered if the wealthiest 5 families have more wealth than the bottom 12m. I don't think setting an arbitrary 'acceptable' number would do little more than encourage the wealthy to move their wealth out of the country. Funnily enough, these people tend to be able to afford the best accountants. Where would you draw the line? How would you go about managing the line? Far better to focus on policies that can improve the lot of the 12m.

The No side is equally, if not more so blighted and plagued by moronic behaviour, the thing is you're the one getting upset about stereotypes and categorisation, when you've already said right there that 'let's not get upset about being stereotyped'. No paper so built on future prediction could ever be accurate, it's a framework, yes - but an achievable one. Beyond that, it could quite easily be overtaken by events (a yes vote in 2014, followed by a Labour victory in 2016 - for example). Ultimately we are not voting on the contents of the white paper, but rather on a more basic concept: Should all decisions apertaining to Scotland be made by the folk who live in Scotland. Beyond that, everything is dependent on who is chosen by the people of Scotland to govern. As to your 'flip' question, well you try to constrain it by eliminating 'give everything away for free' policies, which tries to paint certain things in a perjorative light, while being factually incorrect - Scotland has no choice but to balance it's budget, it can't run deficits independent of westminster so that every penny ScotGov spends from the bloc grant we are given is accounted for. Beyond that, I am a firm believer in maintaining the public ownership character of the NHS, and of maintaining as wide an access to tertiary education as possible. Devolution has further allowed a central Scottish body to promote investment and a long term strategy in things like renewable energies, striving to actually have an industrial strategy being entirely novel amongst the elected bodies in these islands since 1979. In the end, I believe that government at such a remove is simply bad for us. Culture is shaped by history, by geography. There are opportunities and challenges that face Scotland and the people living here that do not fit into Westminster's London centric viewpoint. Locality counts, as you can see from the 80s deindustrialisation (for example) - covered by an oil and financial boom, but still hurting a lot of people. You can further see it in the ignorance and absence of genuine poltiical competition at westminster level in Scotland. We can do better than that. This isn't about individual policies or parties, it's about systems and the cultures of those systems, and I can clearly see how having a seperate Scottish body since 1999 has given us a flexiblity that has helped us massively. I now want to extend that principle to all other domestic and foreign policy spheres.

Christopher Cross : Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)

People who put together Powerpoint presentations, and because the subject matter is rather boring, think they'll "liven it up" by adding pointless animations, slides appearing as if they were on a whirligig, spinning text etc. Do you think lawyers and doctors read textbooks with jazzy fonts and colours cos the subject matter is rather dry?

let Me Google That For You

How is your response over the top? Let's take a look at it shall we? "Nat in aggressive, threatening response to pro-no post shocker, How disappointingly predictable." Your one track mind, biased, blinkered view is endemic of the No campaign. You may not have said verbatim that the No campaign is whiter than white, but tha above quote certainly alludes to Yes supporters being the only big bad boys in town. Ah so you think that No is the correct vote because you're not the aggressive side? Forget the biggest wealth gap in Europe, record amounts of children and families in poverty, the fact that the richest 5 families in the UK have more combined wealth than the poorest 12 million, zero hours contracts, foodbanks, ATOS, the threat to our NHS, the victimisation and persecution of the poor and vulnerable of this country. As long as you're on the placid side of the fence. Here's a thought for you. Perhaps the reason why Yes voters come across as "angry" to a precious wee lamb like you is that we care. We give a shit about what happens to our country. We're fed up being dictated to by a Government we've only had a part in choosing on two occasions since World War 2. No voters I've found are perfectly happy in their wee bubble. They're voting No to protect THEIR job, THEIR pension, THEIR savings and the nasty Yes supporters are a threat to that. So rather than being angry, the fact you should be facing up to is we care about our country. Have a splendid day.

Richard And Linda Thompson : Down Where The Drunkards Roll

System Of A Down - Attack

Aaaaand, there we have it ladies and gents. See - the thing is, when there is a majority Yes vote, all Yes voters will be swinging from the chandeliers and partying until dawn in a celebration of hope and optimism. The 'naw' mob will be sat laughing and pointing at a screen. #brayingfeckinghyenas

Hearts fans and the 5-1 hand gestures. Ok well done you won ffs. Doing it at your wedding is fucking sad as f**k.

Good post and it explains more or less the 'heart' part of why I welcome such failure for the OF. Celtic have treated the Scottish game with scornful contempt for years. Why the Hell should we wish them well in such a context? There's also a big 'head' reason too though which I've been prattling on about already. Our game is hideously distorted in terms of resources. To welcome this situation being hugely exacerbated is simply bonkers.

You have to take into consideration that we are a small country with two disproportionally large clubs, who have, for a long time, held all the power, the titles, the massive amounts of supporters, the wealth, and the press interest. Between them, they acted as a cartel, rendering any challenge toothless. In other smallish European leagues there are usually three bigger clubs, who don't attract disproportionally large crowds from all areas of their country, in many instances based on religious upbringing. Holland has Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord. Portugal has Porto, Sporting, and Benfica..... etc, etc, etc. When it looked like Real Madrid and Barcelona were going to rule Spanish football forever, as they hoovered up all other club's best players, supporters at another club held up a banner saying 'Please no, not another Scottish league'. Fans of diddy teams have been shat on by the 'Old Firm' for year after year. When Hearts managed to qualify for the Champions League, far from wanting them to fail, a few Hibbies aside, I'm sure most of us wanted them to succeed and reach the group stages. Until Rangers implosion, 'Old Firm' fans enjoyed an almost un-interrupted diet of European Champions League football, shared 25 years of titles, won tons of cups, reached UEFA finals, and won probably 99% of all domestic games.... I'm fcuked if I'm rooting for either of them to win even more games. Anywhere, anytime, in any competition.

Spoke to Gordon Hsylop who was in charge along with Fred Smith when we started going. First year we went was 2004 and as the story on QoS Archive said it was because Tanzania dropped out last minute and we were asked if we wanted to replace them as we'd just won the Ayr Youth Tournament and were reasonably handy to fill in. The 04 side had the likes of Stuart McColm (who now plays for Clyde and had several seasons with Stranraer) and Jack Steele (ex Annan) in it. There is apparently a waiting list for the chance to go so once in we've generally chosen to continue in it. The 05 side which contained Aaron Muirhead and Danny Carmichael also had current Scotland international Grant Hanley in it, though he's listed a "D Hanley" in the photo on the previous page. Dan Orsi went a couple of times (07 and 08). Steven Degnan did too. Steven Black and Adam Dougan were in the 08 side along with the likes of Gavin Reilly, Kevin Holt, Russell Parker, present youth coach Ross Newlands, goalkeeper Nikola Rajovic (now with Clyde). That side finished 5th apparently, losing to Wolves. Scott Hooper, Dean Smith and Aidan Smith have all played in it in recent years. Pat Slattery didn't as he didn't join us until he was older than that having previously been with Annan, though his brother Dominic who is now with our u20's side did play at the Milk Cup. We didn't go in 2013 as we didn't have a 15's side at the time but have gone back to it this season.

Dude, are you like totally fricking kidding me right now?

All about the advert c***s for me.

There were many industries that discriminated against RCs and in the past...and sometimes the not too distant past they were the victims of religious intolerance. Of course there are a few examples where RCs have discriminated against Protestants but they are far fewer.

Sorry but the vote no, vote labour line isn't enough. Labour had more than enough time while in power to address these issues, they failed. They're an embarrassment who only really seem to care about the party above everything else, since they lost power in Holyrood back in 2007 they have been shown up as small minded and bitter. I'd rather not be in a situation where the only real choices at UK government level is between the Tories and Labour, It's almost unbelievable the amount of expenses fiddlers within Labour.

Minor inconvenience? I've just paid 235 quid for a season ticket, my understanding was that I paid for the use of my seat for the entire season. I should be able to choose whether I attend or not. If this is the case it should have been cascaded before tickets were purchased. I could be looking at working down south the odd week over the coming year so this is a big inconvenience for me. If tickets can be sent to your door via an emailed request then fair enough but still a bit of a pain. If the opening hours remain the same and no email request and posted ticket is available then it's a big inconvenience for anyone who works a bog standard 9-5 week. They are effectively re-selling a seat they have already received money for. It's only speculation at the minute but if it is indeed true then I can't say I'm impressed in the slightest.

The ticket thing is a load of drivel. If you buy a season ticket (which comes with an allocated seat) you are buying that seat for the season. It doesn't matter if you go to every game or not it's your right to choose as you've paid for it. If you can't make it the seat lies empty unless you give it to someone else. Making season ticket holders go and pick up tickets is a no no. I live in Aberdeen, if we had the same system as you I'd have to go and pick up a ticket before the game? No thanks. Not really sure the above point about proof of residency to avoid away fans in the home end. The police won't have any interest in this what's so ever. If there's tickets on sale for the home end it will be first come first served. No one will give a toss where they come from, if away fans manage to get there in time they will buy them. Happens all the time sadly.

Why do any of us need to think about that? For the last twenty-five years or so, only Celtic or their cosy cartel cousins across the city won the league. Us wee diddy team fans don't give a flying fcuk. I'm looking forward to seeing what St Mirren can (or cannot!) do. I'm looking forward to games at home to Killie and Thistle, and Aberdeen always bring a good support. Maybe we'll have a wee run in the cups, maybe make top 6! Celtic are going to win the league? Shockeroonie. Couldn't give a fcuk.

:lol:

LSD fiend Ben Fogle.