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I'll do my best to do this justice.

Interview with John Nelms in the Times: John Nelms, the 45-year-old managing director of Dundee, admits that people were uneasy when he showed up as the new co-owner at Dens Park in 2013. The plain fact is, Dundee FC had seen enough dubious cowboys and dream merchants to last a lifetime, some of whom had endangered the very existence of the club. So who was this latest character? The likeable, plainspoken Nelms recalls his early days at Dens. “Everyone was kind of nervous when I came in,” he says. “And I understood why. When I arrived I got some of the ‘we know where your family lives, we know where your kids go to school’ stuff. Thankfully, that is no more. “There was a load of cynicism to overcome. But I appreciated what the fans were going through. They didn’t know me personally: who was this guy, what was he going to do? “That is why we made no big promises. But we said we are going to put a shift in for this club and try to build it up. I am here every day, trying to make it better. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get 100 per cent buy-in from people, but if we keep doing what we are doing, I think they will see we have the best interests of this club at heart.” Nelms might just be winning people round. Together with fellow-American, Tim Keyes, the pair own around 62 per cent of Dundee, via Keyes Capital Investment, and have seen the club grow and thrive in the top flight in Scottish football since their arrival. John Nelms, the 45-year-old managing director of Dundee, admits that people were uneasy when he showed up as the new co-owner at Dens Park in 2013. The plain fact is, Dundee FC had seen enough dubious cowboys and dream merchants to last a lifetime, some of whom had endangered the very existence of the club. So who was this latest character? The likeable, plainspoken Nelms recalls his early days at Dens. “Everyone was kind of nervous when I came in,” he says. “And I understood why. When I arrived I got some of the ‘we know where your family lives, we know where your kids go to school’ stuff. Thankfully, that is no more. “There was a load of cynicism to overcome. But I appreciated what the fans were going through. They didn’t know me personally: who was this guy, what was he going to do? “That is why we made no big promises. But we said we are going to put a shift in for this club and try to build it up. I am here every day, trying to make it better. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get 100 per cent buy-in from people, but if we keep doing what we are doing, I think they will see we have the best interests of this club at heart.” Nelms might just be winning people round. Together with fellow-American, Tim Keyes, the pair own around 62 per cent of Dundee, via Keyes Capital Investment, and have seen the club grow and thrive in the top flight in Scottish football since their arrival. The intriguing question remains: why are Nelms and Keyes at Dens Park? What possible sane reason can there be for American businessmen throwing their money at Scottish football, let alone at the basket case that was recently Dundee FC? “It is a bit of everything: the lifestyle, a bit of love, plus the challenge of taking a struggling club and trying to put business acumen into it and building it up,” says Nelms. “For me, it’s not just the love of football, but a love of this country as well. “When I was young, after being born and raised in the USA, my father got a job fixing missiles to nuclear submarines at Faslane. He worked originally in Missouri, where he was a jet-propulsion engineer, but then headed a team over to Scotland when I was seven years old. We lived in Rhu and I went to school in Helensburgh. “My father died when I was 14, but I’d been back and forth to Scotland a few times since on holiday. I always felt like I’d come back here eventually. And then the opportunity at Dundee came up. “Back in 2013 we had a family meeting with my kids — then aged 13 and 11 — before we embarked on this. It was, ‘right, guys, dad is thinking of doing this … is this something you’d want to do?’ And the answer was, ‘yes, absolutely.’ They were fully into it. So here I am.” Nelms’ sworn ambition is to do right by Dundee, build the club up, make it a success and a proud part of the Tayside community. He emits such warmth and feeling and determination for the club that you are left thinking, ‘if this guy is another chancer, he is a damn fine actor.’ The growing feeling in Jute City, after early doubts, is that Nelms is the real deal. “I think having a good work ethic is important,” he says. “I always say to my kids, ‘you can’t have million-pound dreams with a minimum-wage work ethic.’ So I am working all the time on Dundee. “The club has no debt. We promised the fans that we wouldn’t take debt with us. The club is self-sufficient and we run to a strict budget. In fact only yesterday a guy said to me, ‘you’re the tightest man in Scotland with an American accent’. I took it as a compliment. I was trying to conclude an absolutely tight deal for the club. “If we are going to do something that is outwith our budget, then we’ll put the money in first. The money comes from our own pockets — from Keyes Capital. Everything is well thought out. If something is going to cost X, and if we think it is a good investment, and will help us achieve what we are trying to achieve at Dundee, then we make a decision to put the money in.” But surely, I asked Nelms, you’re not just throwing money into the club? Nelms and his investors cannot possibly be in this to be down on the deal. Can Keyes Capital reclaim the money, which they occasionally pump into the club, down the line? “No … or at least not until we sold the business,” Nelms replied. “It is a long, patient process. This is a business and we want to grow the business. Put it this way — and these are not real numbers, by the way — but if what we took over was a one million pound business, then we think that what we took over is worth a lot more now. And we believe, as we build it, it will be worth a lot more again. At the end of the day, someone might not want to take it off us, and we might never want to sell it. So it could be for generations that we hang on to this club, I don’t know. “We don’t have an exit strategy. We might sell it in ten years’ time, I don’t know. Or they might plant me in the ground when I’m still here, who knows?” There has been recent consternation at the thought of Nelms and Keyes demolishing Dens Park and moving Dundee to a new site near Camperdown on the west side of the city. He happily explains the furore. “Tim and I are deepening our roots in Scotland. We want to develop and do more things here on the business side. Are we looking at a new stadium? Yes, we are looking to see if building a new stadium might be right and sustainable for this club. “This piece of land came up for sale, and it is a good piece of land, so we purchased it [for a reputed £1.2 million]. The club didn’t purchase it —Tim and I purchased it. It is one of those where, we want to do what’s best for the club, and if putting a stadium there is best for the club, then we’ll try to do that. “Look, I love it here at Dens Park — absolutely. We would love to upgrade Dens, but I don’t know that we can; it would be almost impossible. “We are behind the times in this stadium, so we have to keep looking forward. The club has been here for 100 years. Now we have to think of the next 100 years.” Nelms spent much of yesterday concluding the deal to sell striker Greg Stewart to Birmingham City. Today at lunchtime Rangers arrive at Dens Park. He is an engaging character, now utterly immersed in the saga of Dundee. “When we came here, we had plans, and we are well ahead of where we thought we’d be,” he says. “But the real answer is, we’ll never be satisfied. We’ll always be looking ahead to what is next, to what we can do to make Dundee that bit better.”

I'd like to speculate that Stevie Aitken has found the dressing room again.

If that pish appears on my timeline I'm replying with this

Really good team performance today. Thomson grafted like a Trojan up front and undoubtedly gave the United defenders a very difficult afternoon. Stevenson was far better further forward, Smith did a power of work and even Grant Gallagher played well - give him the job in front of the defence where he can close people down and either play, or be available for, simpler passes instead of expecting him to influence a game offensively and if he can perform like that then he'll be a very useful player this season. Sparky in an unfamiliar position at the back was very composed. The difference between today and our performances over the past few weeks was night and day. Really pleasing stuff on show from us today.

Karma, sweet karma #karma

Quick get on the twitter to brown's missus

Canned Heat : Going Up The Country

I have a good feeling about today. A convincing 2-0 win and an earth-shaking Derry Rumba to start the first home game of the season. Also, McGowan to lose his shit and sprint full-pelt towards the away fans, through Bains net before dragging the goalposts and Joey Barton into the Shankly with him.

Animals are fucking delicious. If I can eat the insides, I can sure as f**k wear the outsides.

If Pie and Bovril were a Billy Joel song: Cheesy Wotsits, ruined trainers, Paedophile pool, Ruel Street, crispy pets, 8Mile flinging stool. Pie review, verge of tears, Griffiths is a thumb, Mumsnet, scheme goblin, Philpy does the worm. Windows down, heating up, cock-teasing bitch, T-bone stag, BarraJag, artificial pitch. Lowing chipmunk, Charles Green, seething alias, Heads gone, kicking pie, swing and a miss.

The ballad of blubber man Bill Granny Danger To kebabs - no stranger The Cheaper Insurance ground Old Dangers scales show a large pound The world famous humbled Beneath the rock they crumbled A long season of nothingness How long though they've deserved this.

He gets a lad in for that.

Hope Ross fisher enjoys the juniors

Mark Brown tonight...

Good weekend.

Mark Brown... more like Mark Clown. Feel free to use that one.

To the untrained eye, that seems to be someone taking pictures of a school girl from a car.

Well that's bollocks for a start. Why wouldn't you count Northern Premier League etc (level 7) where there are 72 clubs. They're not pub league amateurs. If you expand that to level 8, you're adding another 136 clubs. For reference, Lancaster City play at level 8. They've got a decent little 3,500 capacity stadium and Lancaster, as a town is larger than Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline, Greenock, Dumfries, Dumbarton, Falkirk and Ayr. In terms of the kinds of towns represented by each league level, Level 8 towns in England probably have a substantially higher average population than level 4 in Scotland. So in reality, we're comparing 42 with around 224 at least. Beyond that you don't really seem to be making any kind of point at all. Let's take an extreme example and say we disbanded all but the 'top' 22 clubs in Scotland. Does anyone think that the 'life force' of the dead clubs would pass on to the remaining 22 like fucking Highlander and Scottish football would be brilliant because 5.3 million divided by 22 is a really big number? No. The remaining 22 would be just as shit and have just as many fans as they do now. And, as can be proved by the simplest of comparisons, Scottish clubs actually do very, very well in attracting fans.

Brilliant Falcon roar - that's made my day!

Theseus's Ship is the new Trigger's Broom

Herbie Mann ft Cissy Houston - Cajun Moon

Reminds me of this picture... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2541440/When-red-light-shows-wait-Moment-law-abiding-PEDESTRIAN-stops-waits-roadworks-sign-intended-traffic.html

I voted you down for use of the phrase 'rug munchin' Please learn from this.

I don't get the fascination with budge she's just a female version of Doncaster and regan, all of whom know nothing about running professional football and have no background in football either. I know we all joke about clubs merging like the 4 Angus club (Monbroathfarchin) but in all seriousness these clubs serve a purpose in their own community's. They give kids and fans something to aspire to plus It's the diddy teams that pick up the players that aren't deemed good enough for the premier league and give them a platform to rebuild their career again. The clowns at the top haven't got a clue how to run our game and it saddens me everything is being done to benefit the two bigot brothers.

SlipperyP could be a 'Lee' away from getting them banned. Don't give them leeway SlipperyP; give them a break from P&B.

There once was a poster named Grady Who's electrics were noticeably shady He burned all his pets No point in the vets But I bet they'd taste lovely with gravy

Phew...going by this my seal pup rugs appear to be ok then?

G'bo had a little cat its fur was white as snow but after Grimmy's house burnt down the cat turned into coal. where once the feline purred an meowed and licked it's white coat whispy oor grimbo fancied a Russian cruise so turned the poor c**t crispy

The idea that cutting out 20 clubs would improve Scottish football in any way is stupidity. If regionalisation was so great for L1 and 2 clubs why do none of the clubs and none of the fans want it? And why is there no decent argument for it been put forward yet. The wake of tired old zany schemes that if only we were forward-thinking enough to implement would transform Scotland into a world football power house is getting really boring now. Football is a sport. Any decision taken which goes against the sporting, competitive nature of football is going to be damaging, whether it's in the short or long term. Regionalising the bottom 2 leagues would result in a 'North' League of Peterhead, Elgin, Arbroath, Montrose, Forfar, Brechin, East Fife, Cowdenbeath and Stirling, which would result in far more travelling for the 3 'southern' clubs in that group. I'm not against League reconstruction at all, even if that meant cutting the number of places in the 'national' level leagues. But it has to be done with the goal of improving Scottish football as a sport, not just of the back of random moronic musings from people like Ann Budge.

Funnily enough there are 54 clubs in the Maltese Football League - some 12 more than in Scotland. Spread across 4 divisions (the same as in Scotland). Maybe we should add more.

More clubs, more people playing football, more coaches with different ideas, more chances for people to develop. Budge coming out with the "the rest of Scottish football is letting us down" patter while stuffing a team full of foreign players is reminiscent of the dark days of the SPL formation/Old Firm whining

Watching him just now playing for Forest, he's lightening quick and is superb at carrying the ball up the park - if similarities where to be drawn he looks like a faster Bale. No doubt's he'll be a star for us in years to come, his pace on the break is frightening.

Thanks. I thought I was aurally deficient for a bit there.

Spongebob however, is humble and loveable.

The cold ruthless eyes of the hunter........

Can't imagine how it came up in conversation. P & B Poster: What do you do in your spare time? Burd A: I like flower arranging and the cinema, you? P & B Poster: I am a very prominent poster on Pie and Bovril.

Gunther has no recognisable merits He's been compared to some bigoted zealots Now everyone knows He sprayed some boys with a hose Just so he could perv on their helmets

Peter Dow.

8Mile is not bothered by StandFree03. Not. At. All.

Aye, great tune. Didn't realise it was all on Youtube now!

Stan should bring Nizzy along to the birth. He'd be useful. Keep pushing.

Going camping at Loch Insh for the weekend with a group of people I went to school with. There's varying levels of fitness and hillwalking interest in the group and its mainly a pissed up reunion however I'm planning on bagging Sgor Goaith and hopefully everyone else will be up for it too. The Monadhliath range looks quite long and tedious so leaving that for another time when I'm not with people who haven't done much hillwalking. It'll take me up to number 10 though so excited to get that. Here's a picture of Corrie Fee looking stunning from walking Mayar and Driesh about a month ago. Pretty amazing what is out there less than an hour drive from Dundee.

I'm heading down to LonDECE at the end of the month for the annual #LADZ trip to SW4. Getting on it with E. Prydz at the Saturday after party, and keepin' it #oldskool with the Chems on the Sunday. Standard. Got a stagger in Ljubljana this weekend as well. As per, this DECE boi is expanding horizons, breaking new ground, and treading a path of DECE for the betas to follow. You're welcome. Two big weekends like that in the space of a couple of weeks sounds expensive though, right? Come on, I'm J_Stewart, and you know the rest.

Small packages? You'd need to post her in a shipping container. Why did you match with that absolute horror?

Sadly no, but thankfully they all pay at the pump.

My first is nine months and we`ve just found out that my partner is eleven weeks pregnant. We did want them close together so we are fairly happy. Only downside is that we`ve had to move our wedding back a year. (Dec - Dec)

I'm just back from a week on Skye. We had planned for a guide to take us up In Pinn a while back. That was the Tuesday, couldn't have asked for better weather! On the Thursday we headed up Blá Bheinn and got lucky as the weather cleared just as we were approaching the summit.