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This type of thing is always a disappointment to read, although I really should be inured to it by now as it seems it has always been difficult to obtain a degree of respect for Blackburn United’s off field achievements from many within and without the game. All too often these achievements are summarily dismissed in just such an offhand and dismissive way. I don’t wish to list on a public forum all that has gone into taking Blackburn United from a one team Junior side playing out of a dilapidated and unfit for purpose old ground to the multi-team, all-inclusive Club that it is today, playing in what I hope might be thought of as one of the best facilities in West Lothian and, perhaps, further afield too. What I will say is that it has taken a dozen plus years of a small core of peoples time to arrive at where we are today and there has been no little sweat spilled and there has been no little tears – tears of frustration and tears of sadness too. Fortunately there has been no blood spilled – as far as I’m aware! My username isn’t a pseudonym and I’m contactable directly through the club website so please do so, if you wish, and I would be happy to arrange to meet you at New Murrayfield Park to give you just a flavour of the efforts that small core of people have put in and what that small core have had to sacrifice to achieve what we have at our club. If it was as simple as “filling out forms” then I might just have had a much less stressful time over the years.

What a load of shite. What are you expecting the SPFL to honestly do here? Play the final game on a Sunday, or a Friday night, or a 12:30 on a Saturday even? Also, when should have last night’s game have been played? There’s a Champions league game on Wednesday night and Europa League on Thursday... Honestly, if you are that so desperate to watch the Champions League or the FA Cup over the rovers, feel free. I’d have watched last nights game over that Liverpool game every day of the week.

He was offered a new deal but couldn't hold a pen long enough to sign the contract.

You’ll get on with King Kebab.

Denying Bonnyrigg promotion is anti-football, plain and simple. It would be different if their facilities were in a mess and they had no plans in place to rectify their situation. But they fulfilled the licensing conditions put to them when they paid their application fee. And even although the rules were changed after their fee was accepted, they still will have floodlights in place by the time the new season begins. But derogation has been denied. This is one of the more shameful things which has happened in Scottish football for quite some time and the media should be making a lot more of it. Bonnyrigg are right to hint at legal action. I hope that does not prove necessary but I wish them every success in the event it does. For the pyramid as a whole, such systems are only as strong as their foundation which is why this regrettable situation matters so much. The SFA are just utterly incompetent. This affair is a big PR own goal as far as building the pyramid goes. Certain voices in the juniors have already latched onto Bonnyrigg's promotion denial as justification to stay outside. Who can blame them for taking that position? This situation ultimately benefits nobody. It's hard to see what is going through the SFA's heads. What purpose does this decision serve? All that is achieved is that it makes it easier for teams who also don't meet the new licensing criteria to stay in the Lowland league. The irony is massive. Ultimately there is no point in denying Bonnyrigg promotion. In ten years time the Lowland league will be mostly filled with ex-Juniors and relegated SFL2 sides anyway. The genie is out of the bottle, the pyramid is going to develop further one way or another. The spreading of misinformation from the juniors or the SFA moving the licensing goalposts may slow it down but it won't stop it.

Boys and girls ... just how good was that. What a read this thread will be in the morning ... night all x PS ... Mon the Reds

Kidd love in....defo Edi

You'd be as well resigning from the forum now, because this is the best post you will ever make.

If it wasn’t for Lyness, we’d have drawn that game. Absolute outstanding goalkeeping at the end of that game. Also the save from the free kick earlier in the first half as well was a great save as the ball was swerving in all directions. I’ve been very critical of Lyness since he’s came here as he is a shocking keeper but give credit where it’s due. If we do end up getting past Forfar then he’s certainly played his part in it.

"If you offered Falkirk fans the possibility of finishing 5th going into the last day in October, I'm sure they'd have taken it..." - Ray boi (May 2020)

He could be linked with major crimes for all I care. Bring him home. #announcelionel

Stayed up past my bed time for this one...

Edi bairn...... Just when things couldn't get worse

From my experience, due to knowing people who deal with such issues at Dundee City Council, I know that over here grants are only provided to any sports club based on specific projects. One such example is an initiative to get youth from a vulnerable background to play rugby where they usually wouldn't be able to afford that, with the added aim to keep certain people occupied in the hope this prevents criminality. The rugby club gets a grant for co-operating with the Council on this initiative. However, they are only allowed to use the money on costs relating to the project (for example, coaching, kits etc. for these youth players). They have to justify what they spend the money on and can't just spend it on improving their ground or investing in their first team. There are similar rules around projects/grants in other sports. Councils in Scotland are not exactly rich nowadays, they simply can't afford to just throw money around. Especially if for example the rugby club gets an unconditional grant, the local hockey & cricket clubs would expect the same. If then Lochee United (for example) also get money, Dundee North End, Broughty Athletic and so on would expect the same again. That's simply not possible, which is why any grants are tied to specific projects and nothing else. I know this is just Dundee I'm talking about and other councils could be different, but I highly doubt it's much different elsewhere in Scotland.

I don’t understand people being upset at the death of people they have never known personally. I get being a bit sad that you won’t hear/read/see their work again or anything new from them but the ones who cry as though they’ve lost their mothers are just weird.

We get it, we have 3 or 4 guys over 6 foot. Its sign of a good manager when he plays the tactics best suited to the players he has. And the sign of a bad one who has no plan B.....

We will probably hang around here a little longer seeing as it's getting on your tits.

Aye ‘cos Ajax had no track record of bringing through world class talent at all until they got a Colt team put into an absolutely shite division.

And it likely delays another team moving on. Bonnyrigg will be stronger than the team dropping from the LL and thus disadvantage other teams in the EoS premier next year. In terms of the pyramid it has to be said that it's amazing work to have destroyed any real faith in it and for the SFA to manage such ineptitude that they've largely taken a sledgehammer to the deserved positivity that the EoS has developed this year. Petrie, Maxwell etc., absolute arseholes, this would be the problems that we were largely led to believe wouldn't be an issue for teams moving in. No disrespect but movement into the EoS and pyramid has made it stronger in footballing terms what we don't need is an organisation run by utterly amateur cretins to halt progress by being completely unable to deliver an agreed set of conditions with enough flexibility to allow clubs to meet them. Arseholes, this in no way reflects my feelings for the EoS who, personally, I think have delivered brilliantly in terms of administration this season and is a great set-up for the clubs within it.

Anybody willing to keep “wee Kev” is aff their nut in my opinion. He wouldn’t look out of place at Camelon Juniors.

Great news, everyone.

His wife is on her death bed and turns with her last few breaths.. "Scouse, I was going to buy you that watch. I'm sorry. Enjoy you life"

Tbf to Davo was good to see him giving it back out to our fans in the 2nd half[emoji1303]was quite funny at the end when he misplaced a passed, turned to us and shouts ‘am fucked’

I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t hear anything at all from them. Only resignations and a players release list is my bets. Do we really expect Lang and Campbell to come out and apologise? They didn’t apologise for the dealing of the Dennon Lewis incident, they didn’t apologise regarding the absolute tinpot dealing regarding the copyright of the club badge. They haven’t apologised for the absolute c**t they made of signing McKinnon. They’ve been silent for the past 6 months, and by the looks of it, they’ll slither out without a peep, or try to pander to the fans in order to get season ticket sales up.

Well done the Toria, Championship place secured for next season.

It's like gammon bingo here.

I don't agree with that. This is his job and his young family have moved here on the basis of a lengthy and fairly well paid contract offered by United. The club needs to offer him a deal to leave, it is the fault of the previous regime for sanctioning the signing, not Loemba's.

you must talk some amount of shit

I've been making fun of your board all season for the amount of statements they've released which makes their silence now even more deafening. They'd released a statement condemning you all as racists before an investigation had been done, yet when it comes to their own discretions and failures they're nowhere to be seen. I almost feel sorry for you. Almost.

Well as a few folk know, I voted for the union last time. Now looking at it all it is clear that Westminster is no longer fit for purpose. At the next IndyRef I will vote for Independence. And then I can choose whatever party I can relate to in the first Independent Scotland elections.

Maybe berwick-the-beatable quietly took over the SPFL and merged Angus without telling any of us? (cracking result, all to play for down there, hope can see things through).

James Collins. Replacement for Leigh '28 goals' Griffiths. £210,000 bid accepted. Utter goal virgin. Contributes to our relegation. Goes back down south and starts scoring for fun again. Playing in the English Championship next season with Luton.

Took Skye on a hill walk on Sunday, she does take a cracking summit photo.

This McGrangles figure is gonna drop to a free transfer.

The worst part is Bonnyrigg not getting a derogation, since they have plans in place. Floodlights as part of the license is a good idea, but stopping this promotion in this way, with only floodlights missing, is wrong.

The poetry indicates it's Lorna Johnston from the pish on Facebook thread, come to exact her revenge on Boghead Ranter.

Fair play to some of the Stenny supporters elsewhere in this thread but I'd be very anxious about the second leg after this evening's performance. We were miles off it, with the wrong starting XI and the wrong tactics for the circumstances, against a good Annan Athletic side with one foot in the play-off final. They were better than us all over the park - Steven Swinglehurst and Ayrton Sonkur headed everything that came in their direction, Lewis Strapp had a great game at left-back, Tony Wallace and Chris Johnston played well on the flanks and Aidan Smith was a perpetual nuisance up top. There's a perception that Annan are little more than hammer-throwers but there's silk as well as steel in there. Not that we gave them anything to think about. Other than a chance that fell inside the box to David Marsh midway through the second half, I don't think we tested Alex Mitchell at all. It was just long ball after long ball up towards Mark McGuigan. Most of them were nowhere near him; the ones that were, the two big centre-backs were on top of him. Playing Marsh in the midfield of a narrow 4-4-2 might have worked on a ploughed field against a terrible Brechin City side but it was useless here and we had no-one prepared to put their foot on the ball and pass it forward. I have no idea what Russell Dingwall brings to the team and the more I see of Kieron Gibbons, the more I see someone who drifts through matches without influencing them (at least we've got him for another season!) It was crying out for the involvement of Mark Ferry or Thomas Halleran, so God only knows what Colin McMenamin was thinking when he removed Alan Cook for Connor Duthie first. I thought McMenamin got his substitutes bang on against Brechin but they were poor here and made no impact. We badly missed Greg Hurst's spark and pace up front. The two goals were poor. The first saw Andy Munro lose possession on his own byline, and the Annan player cut the ball back to Johnston for a clinical finish from 12 yards. The second saw Graeme Smith appear to misjudge a header and let it loop over him and just over the line. Someone tried to hack it away but it was too late. Two bad goals. Annan were dominant in the first half and kept us arm's length in the second, threatening to score at the death. I hope Hurst is back for the second leg on Saturday, and I imagine Conor McBrearty will be back from his suspension after his red card in Brechin. Two goals is hard to come back from but it is not insurmountable. One thing's for sure though - play like we did tonight and we're going down.

Some reflections on points about the "floodlight clause" and grace periods/flexibility/etc. Back in 2013 the criteria was altered with the addition of a "commitment clause" which in practice required clubs to join the pyramid in order to get licensed. This did not apply the Linlithgow or Banks o'Dee as it was altered while they were in the process. Indeed it never did... Linlithgow were still outside the pyramid 4 years later. Grace was given when an alteration was made but some clubs were already in the process. Back in 2015 all clubs in HL/LL were supposed to be licensed by June. Two clubs missed the deadline (Vale of Leithen and Cove). Indeed in the case of Cove it proved very long-term... they ultimately registered out at Inverurie on paper but played games at all manner of venues for the next 2 seasons, including BoD, often altering on a weekly basis. Grace was given when a circumstance was seen as exceptional or liable to be resolved imminently. Bonnyrigg are unable to go up as they don't have floodlights. This means Whitehill will not go down. It so happens Whitehill don't have lights - this is not to single them out as several LL clubs are in this position, together with a number of other SFA members. Those clubs have time to comply, but Bonnyrigg and others do not; even though they were equally compliant under the old criteria when floodlights weren't demanded, and are equally incompliant now they are. Indeed it sounds like some applicant clubs will have lights up imminently but some existing clubs won't. People unsurprisingly consider this illogical and unfair - before even considering broader questions of why, how and when the criteria altered.

Not going to the biggest game of the season for the team you claim to support because you’re watching a game on the tele. Tell your pal he’s a VL.

600 at a play off semi is simply embarrassing presuming clyde had a decent support there too. What is the actual point of Edinburgh city

How about a 2-10-10-10-10 set up. The top 2 can play each other 36 times a season with no relegation and the rest of us can ignore them and get on with it.

There's arseholes on bikes and there's arseholes in cars. Arseholes on bikes hold cars up for a few seconds whilst arseholes in cars kill people. Then there's arseholes on football forums that go trolling. Make your own mind up which arseholes are the worst.

You seem to be in the know (or are you just the latest incarnation of Edibairn)? so maybe you could give us a break down of the monies received from the academy sales and how you've worked out that we would get £2m from an £8m sale?

Think daddy might have to remove his rose-tinted specs, he's barely good enough for low championship.

A pretty accurate summary IMO..

I'd be sorry to see him activate it, he's been a great servant.