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Piracy - the tale of one incomplete mind

56 days until the new season starts, the length of our current unbeaten run.

Well it’s a year to the day since I started this thread and I don’t think anyone could have foreseen then where we are at today, the pace of change has been incredible. Two old Junior clubs played a final today and it was the last kick either will have in Junior football. I got it wrong with regards to trickle although it looked that way right upto March, but in the end it turned into a flood in the East, we’ve been washed away with clubs keen to make the jump to the EoS/Pyramid and the Junior game is effectively finished in the traditional East Region area. The EoS clung to life when it looked very bleak a few seasons back, the Pyramid concept was looking like a busted flush with clubs leaving to join the Juniors, I called it as such in 2015. How wrong I was and credit to the EoS for sticking with it and continuing to promote the benefits of joining the Pyramid and SFA Licencing. The message began to hit home as the inept leadership of the SJFA and its Regions continued and Kelty said they had had enough. As predicted, the SJFA stuck it’s head in the sand at last years AGM and it is still in there as the East disintegrates with the West certain to follow suit in 2019/20 (or maybe before?), there was no honest and open discussion with members just a fairly ham-fisted survey which hardly inspired confidence and in reality was done through gritted teeth. Their Pyramid meeting (in the East at least) turned into another slag fest towards the EoS, cue more clubs leaving, including those of the ERJFA President and former President. The mismanagement of the game since the LL was first mooted has eventually come home to roost. So I ask again, what is the future of the Junior game? It’s as bleak as that of the EoSFL in 2015, however this time the SJFA have nothing to offer to turn it round. It’s finished as the major semi-pro non-league body in Scotland. Tom Johnston should do the right thing and stand down. It needs to react now to the inevitable and come up with a strategy to look after those members who want to remain where they are, perhaps even look at some form of merger with the SAFA and run the game at lower – more local – levels. There is still very much a place in the game for these clubs and maybe eventually a link to the Pyramid at tier 8 or 9 level, many clubs at the lower Junior level who are effectively amateur anyway. Do away with a full time Secretary, dispose of its office at Hampden, and put up the SJFA funds into improving the facilities of remaining members so that one day they may be able to become Licenced themselves. In these fast changing times, the next 12 months is a long long way away, but the wind of change has blown away the cobwebs.

An interesting statistic: Hartley's average points per game, for 2018, is about 1.73. The same as Livingston for the entire season and that's with a half a team, hastily thrown together before/during the transfer window. Trying to keep my feet on the ground but any improvement on this will win the league.

I've got a hunch it's because he collects match balls.

ANNOUNCE BERBATOV

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/sport/football/scottish-league-1/667451/fiercely-ambitious-dick-campbell-insists-he-will-still-be-in-the-dug-out-for-years-to-come/ very good interview with Dick from the courier. Described his pitch invasion at Ayr as a “natural enthusiasm for the game of football”

By popular demand (although it should probably be on a 2019-20 thread!), and based on no particular template other than the five stripes on the front of the classic old shirt, hopefully these could be put to Errea, or whoever deals with the shirt design side of things, for early consideration as an anniversary top... or three

This is one of those rare occasions Bennett, when you do actually need to put in a letter 'h'.

Perhaps thats because thats hyperbole from a youtube documentary posted on a football forum by a bigoted fuckwit whos sole reason for being involved in tbis thread is his genuine belief that women should be subjugated by men?

Exactly the same as Sevco fans tbf.

You could be right with the two centrehalfs the pars have signed. Bottom half is definitely a possibility if thats the standard of player your after.

Drifter is already my favourite Cowdenbeath fan. Let’s all get behind the movement for a striped top.

Darian Mackinnon has physically stabbed someone but has been more than capable at playing at this level. He done his time, paid his price and has learned to get his anger out on the pitch where he'll have something to show for it. Was our best player in the 2016/2017 season. Second chances... yes they should exist.

Batman and the Penguin fucking hate each other, if that's any help. Although Batman and Robin seem to get on ok.

Let's get quizzical. Despite much forelock tugging (© @Beyemystic c. 2010), Tynieness has managed to cling on to the top position in the Premiership. He may not be well liked, but dang it, he knows his onions. The DA scoops 2nd on QD so well done to him. A well-rounded well-liked member of the forum - a likely candidate to usurp Tynieness in the upcoming Mod Elections. Aidan's brainfart on the last day sees him relegated along with Alang1993. AFJ is in the play-offs, again on QD. Salvo's guessathon at the 11th hour sees him achieve his first ever silver medal and promotion to the top shop, much to the chagrin of DublinMagyar. The_Kincardine is in the play-offs. At the arse end, ArmadaleKillie well and truly shat the bed. I'm tempted to rescind one of his bronze medals for that performance. Jesus. (just kidding AK, we all have our off weeks). Ross and his wanky full stop is down ... and Blackislekillie is in the play-offs, thanks to a barnstorming performance from M. Richelieu and his intricate knowledge of Australian attorneys general. And in the Beazer league ... gkneil has 3 bronze medals to tell his wife and girlfriend about. Germanjag narrowly misses out on his first ever gong, but he can take solace in promotion to the middle league. DYL's fine nine on Thursday gets him into the play-off. So it's over to the quiz thread's Archie MacPherson, aka @SlipperyP .. who will sort the men out from the boys.

The big cans always remind me of one of my favourite summers in 1993. Going to the shop and getting a big can of Irn Bru (33% Extra!) and a few packets of WWF Summerslam 93 trading cards with the bubblegum. Dug shite for goal posts and the only paedophiles you had to worry about were killer clowns. It was a better time.

After posting this a couple of months ago, sadly Poppy took ill and was put to sleep today. My sister got her at 7 weeks old while at Teesside uni, and my mum has been looking after her since she graduated and moved away. This is the first pic taken of her. Will be sadly missed

Cole Starrs is definitely a fictitious PES Master League player.

To be fair daleboy is quite right in my opinion about the delegates. How can the man at the top table in the juniors peddling all sorts of promises/lies etc be allowed to jump ship to the eos without getting an absolute hounding. That is only the Broxburn guy. He is the worst as in the highest position. Clearly other delegates of the region and sjfa should also be never allowed near a blazer again. Footnote i am massively for the eos. Just in politics if you make a massive foopa or dodgy statements etc you are fired to the back benches. Sent from my SM-G950F using Pie and Bovril mobile app

The bus has arrived for our 1st team squad Sent from my SM-G920F using Pie and Bovril mobile app

Fortunately, not that many live in it.

@Cardinal Richelieu....

This really doesn’t help, a fan of a club up the pecking order calling a club further down that pecking order ‘dross’ smacks of the billy big time attitude Old Firm fans are accused of displaying - and are rightly castigated for - when being condescending to those clubs below them that they invariably also consider ‘dross’, while they themselves are considered ‘dross’ by the European powers. Morton, or whoever it may be that you support, will - wrongly - be considered dross by so many in the Scottish game, and I’ll bet it’s something you will not take kindly to.....so why should a fan of any other team accept such an insult from you? You’ve made so many good and valid points in this thread that are being tainted by insulting language that is entirely unnecessary. Can we not just argue the merits of what is evolving in the game without trying to aggrandise our own teams - or our own opinions - by belittling others perceived by our own prejudices to be less worthy? Probably not I guess, but it is, nonetheless, how we should try and progress the argument.

Congratulations on managing to talk utter pish in each and every one of your paragraphs.

Soaking up the rays at Costa Del Carnoustie.

I don't know what other clubs do but we spend a lot more time engaging with primary schools and a lot less with secondary schools. It's a key age in capturing fans and I think theres a danger that many of those we get to come along as primary kids stop coming later on. I thought you'd react like that [emoji23] the phrase does conjure up ideas of cheerleaders and loud music over the tannoy but it's moved on a lot. There are a lot of articles about the importance of the fans experience and examples of clubs doing some interesting things - Google Man city's glass tunnel or Sunderlands kids clubs - even closer to home St Mirren did quite a few, fairly small, things last season, as did Dumbarton. That's what it's about, starting small and growing things. In terms of specifics, again there's too many things to list them all, but I think there's an opportunity to get players more involved in hospitality and with the Saturday club - something which is desperately under promoted. Man City also have one of coaches go up to hospitality before the game and go through the team lineup, tactics etc. Its not a game changer but it's something different and something people will remember and talk about and hopefully encourage others to come along. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting there's one magic bullet or one big change that's going to have a massive impact but there are lots of little things that must be worth trying. Sent from my S8 using Pie and Bovril mobile app

It's staggering how many people with so little clue are in 1. positions of power or profile and 2. are happy to share their absolute ignorance with a wider audience.

I noticed a comment on East Ayrshire and its clubs. There's an excellent book written by Dipple (pre Sunday Sesh) about the struggle to play football in South and East Ayrshire called the South Ayrshire League 1920-32. It shows that East Ayrshire clubs were survivors as they were cast aside from the more lucrative Ayrshire leagues and refused entry into the Western League. Apart from Muirkirk Juniors who were not formed at that particular time, every club in East Ayrshire including Kello are still to the fore. No matter what happens in non-league football these clubs have the survival instincts to do the right thing whether to stay Junior or join the pyramid. I wait with baited breath.

Akin to the standard family in Paisley, I think.

If you're following these lads on Instagram or Twitter, and don't know them personally, you should be on a list. They all look about 12.

Without knowing what we do or don’t do I agree that we should be looking to attract more Secondary School age supporters. If you look around Palmerston on match day I see a lot of young kids, a lot of middle aged people and a lot of pensioners. People in the 16 - 30 bracket are in short supply. Although I’m fully behind the thinking of targeting Primary Schools in the hope we’ll brainwash the kids into being hooked, I’m not sure if that’s how it works in reality. The Junior Blue ticket is fantastic and makes attending with young children very affordable. Going to games with my Dad as a Junior Blue is how my love affair with the club started. Speaking from personal experience here, as a stereotypical teenager the prospect of spending time with my uncool Dad, and having to pay full price for the privilege led to me going from attending every home game to grudgingly going to a handful each season. I didn’t support the club any less, I just had better things I wanted to do with my Saturday afternoons. It was around the time we won the Second Division under John Connolly so in my case even a successful team wasn’t enough to spark my interest. It’s a bit of a thankless task trying to generate interest to a demographic that typically aren’t interested in anything! There are even more distractions and alternative activities for teenagers nowadays, making it even harder. I suppose this is where the “matchday experience” comes into it. The football on show probably isn’t enough of a draw, so we have to make other aspects appealing. I don’t know if a singing section is the answer but it’s worth a try. I personally find the modern trend for everyone wanting to be an “Ultra” pretty cringeworthy. It looks great when 90,000 Dortmund fans do it, less so when it’s a handful of Doonhamers. If it gets people to the game and enjoying themselves though then I’m all for it. It’s a vast improvement on the pensioners who attend purely to moan for 90 minutes, and abuse everyone in sight.

Put the old cùnts in a home then.

408 days since Falkirk last beat us in the league.

The point, though, is to find things that don't require a lot of effort, rather than simply doing nothing. The SLOs have found things to try but they can't do it all. You're right that the main value is in the doing but, again with little effort, these things can be promoted. If that promotion leads to more people spending money at the club, even on a small sale at first then it has to be worth it. There's the community aspect, too, improving the clubs image locally, making fans feel more involved and promoting the club as part of the community. We can all see crowds are declining and we all know the fans who are there are ageing. The population of the region is getting older as a whole, it just seems like the right thing to try as much as possible to attract new and younger fans to the club. We also know that we don't have money to spend on massive pr or advertising campaigns, or on staff to carry them out. We don't have money to spend on the facilities at the ground either. These small changes to engage fans and improve their experience of coming to the game are really all we have, other than saying "why bother" and doing nothing. Sent from my S8 using Pie and Bovril mobile app

I like the two different spellings of Barcelona.

Was that the big blocks of red soap they stuck on the sink in the bogs in school? Between that and the razor sharp tracing paper toilet roll you were expected to wipe your arse with, the kids of today don't know how good they've got it with their soap dispensers and their 2-ply velvet bog roll.

On the subject of San Miguel, when abroad, should one drink the local lager? I would say a it's a definite yes. You don't want to be that guy who's paying €4 for a poorly poured pint of Tennents in a pub called the Highlander when there's a pint of local beer for €1. I see it as a cultural exchange, I'll try the local beer for a week (Dorada being a personal favourite) the same way I'd expect our European friends to indulge in the glorious T whilst visiting our shores rather than paying £4 for a pint of San Miguel or the likes.

Particularly when Ali dodged f**k all, he walked into the recruiting office and said he wasn't going.

There are no Senior teams on the streets of Baghdad. Only Juniors. It is all lies by Al-Burnie Man. The report of Hibee Jibee driving a tank across the Tay Bridge to set up a NoSFL is entirely false. Hill of Beath Kurdistan have been told to give 12 months notice before seceding with all the oil. Long live Ayrshire!

Maybe they have to give 12 months' notice!

Considering the East of Scotland League has trebled their membership overnight I think they have done the best they can for next season with the 3 conferences as well as the much expanded cups. That Tele article is a bit of a bomb scare really after next season the leagues will settle down with clubs more or less in their right pecking order, as for the it could take all the junior clubs 25 years to get promoted whose to say that its going to be limited to one promotion spot for ever more. I have to admit as someone who likes watching other games when my own side isn't playing i'm looking forward to watching some of the ex junior sides under their devils lanterns which some clubs have had for years but very rarely been able to use. Some decent games in the cup draws will hopefully be able to watch the Haws v Spartans game if its on in a midweek things like that tie are what its all about for me teams who could have been playing each other years ago but stopped by an artificial barrier.

Buchanan won more promotions to the Premiership last season than Morton have managed in the last 30 [emoji39]. Should be a decent signing. Was nowhere near first choice when MacKenzie and Davies were fit but him and Baird had us top of the league as a defensive pairing for the first couple of months. We were leaking goals left right and centre in that period though, as you lot know fine well. Sent from my SM-G950F using Pie and Bovril mobile app

Beached whale spotted on the North Fife Riviera.

I absolutely love doing what I am told by the Don. If Pressley or May or Hughes had have tried that id would have been down there with a burning pitchfork dipped in cat shite. Houston may have got a second chance. But if wee Hartley tells me to pipe down, then down I shall pipe. An absolute leader with charisma dripping out of him.

I can see why you would post a shite list to wind up St. Johnstone fans, but this is just fucking moronic.

Today we said goodbye to this old lady. Aged 24 (at least) and too many things wrong with her to risk any more medication. Originally my ex-wife's cat, she later had to stay with me. Both of us and the kids were there at the end (which was peacefully quick). Here she is in slightly better days. Sleep well.