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I am well on the road to recovery but I am still fatigued much of the time. Had a nasal feeding tube in but had that removed last Wednesday, still on 3 supplement drinks each day as I am mainly eating soft foods due to the damage done to my throat, things are improving though and I can now eat a more varied diet; my taste is slowly improving too as this had gone completely. Treatment was horrible and I very nearly didn't make it to the end of the 30 radiotherapy sessions, had to take a break as I had been admitted to the Beatson after the 2nd chemo (4 weeks in) because I was so ill. After a couple of days though I was able to go down to the treatment room to finish the radiotherapy. I have to mention that the Beatson and it's staff were absolutely phenomenal. I was admitted twice and they worked hard to get me back on my feet and encouraged me to keep going with the treatment.

5 days until the new season starts - leopards can shag continuously for 5 days. Which is a good omen because we're going to shag this league senseless for 10 months.

"She put up a bit of a struggle but I pushed her head down like this and managed to get the car boot closed"

You've been absolutely bodied here.

We were in a fantastic position going into February and absolutely bottled it with some pathetic displays in games that needed just a bit of composure. The fact we were in the position we were in going into the game was unbelievable, and to bottle it yet again summed that side up. In my view, Smith should have went at the end of the season – but the board have stuck by him so we have to get on with it - but he is under absolutely enormous pressure. Whilst the League Cup is to some extent an extension of pre season, we should under no circumstances be finishing bottom of a group containing Cowdenbeath and Cove. That is absolute garbage. If Cove had won 4-0 on Saturday that would have been a fair reflection based on their chances, and then the conversation would have been different. The Hearts and ICT games offered some hope, but these were games where a defensive team, with defensive players playing defensive tactics could do something. Sit in, be hard to beat, defend well and hit on the break. Its highly concerning that the two games that actually require us to show some attacking intent have seen us absolutely battered over two games by lower opposition. Understand why the club have stayed full time but that cant come at the expense of actual quality of players. Full time football wont turn pish players good, so there is still absolute massive scrutiny on the quality of recruitment. On the face of it, I was happy enough, but seeing Nat Wedderburn for example absolutely bullied off the ball on Saturday time after time doesn’t really inspire confidence. You need to get quality over quantity if you stay full time, and having neither would be bad news indeed. Also massive pressure on the young players. There is no time at all for them to grow into the season, they have to hit the ground running. Watson and Valentine impressed against Hearts, but along with Stevenson looked lost on Saturday. They will have good games and bad games, but they have to contribute and I’d expect games against Highland League opposition to be the games they show what they can do. Harsh perhaps, but they have to make the step up quickly. The fact is that Smith and Cuthbert were absolutely raging on Saturday. Smith went from screaming at the players to spending the last 15 minutes silent with folded arms. Even Cuthbert was angry which was unusual – they certainly weren’t treating this competition as a joke. If these guys are tearing into the players on the sidelines then its not unreasonable to see fans a bit angry. Obviously there is a line, but when guys have travelled 100 miles in dreadful conditions to get treated with such a lacklustre performance then there is going to be some anger and frustration. Interestingly Bene/Murray were absolutely raging with pretty much everyone else in the team, lack of movement when they had the ball etc. Nat was playing pretty much as a Centre Back at times, so there was literally zero presence or options anywhere else. Inevitable that the ball will go long. If it was one game, then fair enough – but we saw this all against Cowdenbeath, the manager wanted a reaction, got it for two games, then we face a team of similar standard and it happens again. Out of 4 competitive games we have been outclassed twice by part time (and in one case non league) opposition. There certainly is precious little to be optimistic about so far. Hopefully Thomson isn’t too badly injured. Felt really sorry for the young lad in goal, but we cant be going into the season with him as goalkeeper. Injuries in general are already a farce. They seem to hit us every year, but this seems excessive already and they usually hit bigger and better squads than this hard. Again, there is zero room for any more – and we haven’t started the league yet. Pleased to see Sim saying this is being investigated as it absolutely has to be. Smith has no goodwill left in the tank, and failure to hit the ground running I imagine will see him lose his job. Sim seems pretty switched on, and he wont be sinking £700k into a new pitch with the intention of being part time in this league next season.

So after months of persistence the Mrs finally agreed to get a pup! We picked up Harris from Wales yesterday, 10 weeks old and settled in much better than we expected so far [emoji16]

I realise some SJ fans don’t know this but you do have your own thread to discuss your team. We couldn’t give a f**k about you c***s.

Stelios taking his cat for a walk has brightened up my day.

Elliott Frear canny win. The amount of rockets round me who wanted him to try "beat his man" every time he got the baw. Didn't matter where he was on the pitch. Beating your man when you are 30 yards from their goal and going to the byline (which he did very often) is where he should be doing it, not while he's 10 yards into his own half with no cover behind him cos some fat auld bloater in the stand is giving himself an aneurysm screaming about goin past yer man. I also thought Frear was probably our best player.

I’m a bit late to the party but how good were we on Saturday? Doohan looked really confident and came for a few difficult cross balls and commanded his area well. Also loved how as soon as he got the ball he looked to get it out as quick as he could. None of this fannying about nonsense. Daniel Harvie is a massive up great on Paddy Boyle. Reminds me of Nicky Devlin going forward and also looks like he can defend well. Rose will be a class act this season- twice the player Scott McKenna was with us. Jamie Adams was outstanding at the back on Saturday, Rumour has it that Kris Doolan is still begging to be let out his back pocket. Think Ferguson is our weak link. He done ok but got caught out a few times, against a better winger I feel he will be exposed. Hopefully Geggan is back for Saturday. Andy Murdoch is a class act. How Morton felt it was okay to get rid of him I’ll never know. Have Mark Kerr legs gone? Have they f**k, a very decent performance from him. On current form Docherty will struggle to get back in. Crawford will be a massive player for us this season. Forrest has bulked up massively during Pre-season and isn’t easily pushed off the ball. Keeping McDaid who I rate highly out the team so fair play to him for that. Moffat is probably the most intelligent player in our team, he brings the best out of Lawrence Shankland. Moffat and Shankland is without a doubt our best partnership as much as I rate Craig Moore highly. I am Absoulotely buzzing for the league stuff to kick off on Saturday.

Stipe isn't even off the plane yet and he's been written off by some as useless because he comes from a league that's "about the same standard as the Highland League", amazing optimism! People cry out for a goalscorer and we get linked with someone who's averaged more than a goal a game in a professional league, and Asian Champions League for the last 18 months, and he gets shot down before he even arrives. We're never going to sign a prolific striker from a well known league - because they tend to be in huge demand, and therefore command wages we can't get near. Seems on the face of it like he got a move to the Thai league, ranked by Fifa only behind the biggest spending Asian nations, but fell foul of a too many foreigners rule - ala Willo Flood. At least give him a chance to be shit before claiming he's shit!

In an attempt to qualify for a European competition.

So, just to summarise... Bell's a bombscare, Lennox is useless (after 45 minutes of play for Thistle), Elliott is so poor that no other professional team would sign him, McGinty is, also, a bombscare, Penrice won't be around for long 'cos Archibald hates young players (and he's not that good anyway), Slater's crap, Gordon's anonymous (despite scoring two goals on his debut), Spittal is, well, it's just a scandal that he still plays football after last season, Erskine is past it, so's Doolan, Storer is likely to be arrested for murder before the end of the season, Storey can only run in a straight line, and he's not very good at that, Keown is just stealing money from the club, as is Bannigan (although he's been doing it for longer), the manager is crap, he's always been crap and the board are a disgrace for not realising that over the past several years, although they're crap too because they hate Thistle fans and they're only in it for the money. Jeeso - no wonder I'm depressed.

It's because you're closer to the sun

Sounds like the introduction to a Maths problem

So the last time St Johnstone were in a European competition was 18 years ago, aye? That's what that link seems to suggest. All the rest were qualifiers for a European competition, which they failed to do. It seems common sense, If you fail to qualify for a competition, then you clearly haven't played in it. Thats like losing the championship play off final and claiming you've played in the Premiership.

I can't see how anyone could argue against a club in our financial position not offering a one year rolling contract, no money to pay out if we wan't to part company, if the manager does well and move's on so be it, he'll be leaving us in a stronger position, common sense I would have thought.

I’ve been steaming since the World Cup started.

Have you boys sold any?

Aye, goosebumps just thinking about it.

The worst thing about that Glen Minter post is: "I'm led to believe that "mental health issues" are the latest big thing." What a genuinely shitty, repulsive individual you must be to type that up, read it back, and then decide to post it.

Folk just wanted to get rid of foreign folk and stop othet foreign folk coming to the UK as they've been conditioned to blame them for all their woes by failed politicians and complicit media. Their tiny wee racist brains didn't realise that Brexit would involved anything else

Mate, no disrespect and i don't mean this in a bad way but I've got y-fronts with more history than your team.

39 pages of top quality discussion have brought us to this point tonight, where Jack's going to romp home to victory. It's been emotional lads. See you all next year.

Nothing between the 2 teams tonight first half but hurlford deserved their win second half easy the better team and their number 8 ran the show but another great turn out from the darvel fans and we won’t play teams like that every week in our league

That'll be why it said 79 on the LL website! http://slfl.co.uk/lowland-league-roundup-the-big-kick-off/

Decided to do something a little bit different. Instead of predicting what might happen I've written exactly what does happen. It initially started as a post on here, but it got far too big - so I've planted it on my website. I should point out that the first four sections were written before the weekend...so I think we've already lost our pre-season optimism. As always, if I've made any typos (however glaring) please publicly shame me. http://talesfromtherock.weebly.com/home/what-definitely-happens-in-scottish-league-one

This is rapidly becoming a thread lifted from the Partick Thistle fans' Facebook group.

Is there?

When they're not fighting with each other, these boys really do seem to love each other. Cream, the darker cat on the left gave us a good scare last night, sitting on the balcony with the missus, a bird flew into the closed balcony door (which I took as a huge compliment to my window cleaning skills) and seemed to hang in the air for a second slightly stunned, the bold wee Cream attempts to jump and get it, misses but takes out a plant box we have hanging on the balcony railings, just over waist height, he's a an idiot but he can jump some height

Dundee United were the team that got me interested in football. Had been along to a few pretty miserable Pars games as a 7 year old but getting frozen while some fat old blokes kicked a ball about didn't really grab me. Then your UEFA Cup run came along and I realised football could be exciting and full of colour. By the next season Pars were in the top league and started the season with some brilliant games and big crowds. We accept mediocrity too easily now. Guys like Andy Murray or Josh Taylor have shown there's nothing to stop Scots reaching world class levels. Jack Ross had shades of it last season, elevating a group of players to a level above the sum of their parts. Be great to see a club like Utd or Pars aim really high. Be bold with training and expectations of players. Instead we just accept that money buys success, instead of clubs making a plan to be the best and develop their own stars.

He's back to shite memes after having his arse handed on a plate when he attempted to make an argument.

America - A Horse With No Name

Alloa pitch has been made incredibly narrow, this season. We measured the distance from the old touchline to the new one, using one of our supporters. We made it 2 and a half Euans narrower on each side. That's 5 wee drunk guys, laid end to end, in total.

Freeeeeeee Gael Bigirimana

Černý's first dons match considered a success by Arbroath fans

What a fucking loser Superhans is

It does seem utterly bizarre that we are trolling round the Pacific rim leagues but in NM* we trust. * for about 3 games then he’s fucking getting dogs abuse.

I was exactly the same the first time. I thought it was like Yerda Selzavon or something until I Googled it.

I read this about 5 times trying to work out what the pun in the name was

Marc Bolan and T. Rex : Metal Guru

I suggest you read more carefully the posts before yours.

Hoodoo Gurus - Hayride To Hell

Neil Doncaster attempting to locate his specs there.

What age are you? You will never, ever, begin to understand women, it’s completely pointless even beginning to try. They’re fucking mental.