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A hare dryer would've done the trick there.

I bet AJ is relieved that he is not facing a half yearly appraisal from some on this site. Inherited a shambles from his predecessor, had only one signed player, had 4 play off games to negotiate before he could even start thinking about recruitment, and then had to try and entice Championship standard FT players whilst offering them wages that are only marginally better than PT terms. I would say that to get players like McCrorie, Pybus,Kilday, El Baik, Holt (although suspect this deal was done pre AJ) was a very respectable effort in the circumstances. Squad players like Oliver, Hamilton, Kidd and Paton could have contributed more but it is not as though they are incapable of delivering at this level and it is tough for the two strikers with Dobbie an automatic starter. Lyon and Osman are solid additions. McCarthy was disappointing. I think if I was looking for examples of shocking summer windows I would look no further than Falkirk and Partick - both clubs paying the majority of their key players £700 - £900 per week and getting a very modest return. If AJ had carried their financial muscle then criticism would have been justified but with the hand he has had to play I think not.

Academy apart its not heavy investment we desperately need its making the right decisions to maximise what we have got. At the moment we are in a league where we have probably 3 times the budget of the next biggest side and yet we have already lost 3 times and are at present only in second place. We had the second biggest budget in the championship two seasons ago and yet nearly went down. You can fling all the cash you want at this but if you continue making ridiculous decisions then it wont make any difference. We badly need to buy out the clowns on the msg which isnt really silly cash is it?

I think you're exaggerating the money being spent on travel. Take Albion Rovers for example. If the 4th tier got regionalised the only really far journey they'd lose is Elgin, Cove already isn't that far and could end up being replaced by a club like Berwick who aren't much closer. These 2 away games against Elgin each season really won't make that much of a difference. And if you take Elgin themselves, yes, they'd lose a long trip to Annan, but they'd probably gain one to Wick and will end up in a much less attractive league. Some people are trying to run before we can properly walk. Let's first finally get tier 6 and below sorted so the existing tier 5 leagues can become stronger. Any other ideas that are being floated around like automatic SPFL relegation, regionalisation at tier 4, splitting the LL and so on will only ever have a chance of happening when tier 6 and below are properly in place on a nationwide level so the better clubs will find their way up and tier 5 gets strengthened. For example, regionalising tier 4 is something that has absolutely no chance of happening at present. If tier 5 gets much stronger (like with the strong west teams getting there), clubs in SPFL2 might start feeling threatened and might push for tier 4 to be expanded. Time will tell what will happen, but tier 6 needs to be the focus now, anything else will only be a long term thing.

One time my sisters pet rabbit died in an explosion of its own shite and my dad wanted to preserve its corpse a little bit for when she wanted to see the remains so he washed it down in the river and hung it up on the washing line by its ears.

I have a question.

There’ll be dancing in the flooded streets of Alloa tonight. Maybe even some pumping.

Longridge signs until end of season.

Twat.

Remember when these were all the rage in the 80s... I was bloody hopeless with them.

We're checking if there are any injuries first before we turn the weather control machine to flood.

Most of my Subbuteo players suffered double leg breaks, some of them multiple times. Fortunately, Airfix glue worked better than any modern physio treatment. One of my Scotland players just had a big blob of glue instead of legs and was notably shorter than the rest. I decided he was Billy Bremner and played him in midfield. The boy could curve around the opposition players like a dream.

I don’t but giving the fact of that the people of Maybole are ahead of the times we get the Ayrshire Post delivered a day early.

A fairly shocking summer window in which we signed the best ‘keeper we’ve had in years, re-signed one of the best LB’s in the league, upgraded on Jacobs, who’d been a mainstay in the team for 3/4 years, with Pybus, signed the most exciting winger on the ball probably since Carmichael’s first spell and upgraded on Fordyce/Maguire in Kilday. Semple, in the long-term, I fully believe will be a terrific signing too. Then we’ve got Lyon who’s improving game on game, Hamilton who is a decent striker, and Osman who 90% of fans were delighted when it came out he’s staying until May. The only players I’ve been disappointed with are Kidd, Oliver (who even then still has grabbed some important goals) and McCarthy who is now away. AJ had a massive rebuilding job and he’s done a fairly good job. A fairly shocking summer window is a massive overreaction.

David Dishon on February 9th.

The board are old and tired and make old and tired decisions repeatedly. For want of any forward planning or effective leadership they have sure sucked any pleasure out of following the club. Tbh if it weren't for FFC I wouldn't be particularly bothered about football, and due to work and location I've only averaged 2 or 3 home games a season a while now. The season ticket being more of an emotional investment than anything else. I'd buy into a fan-based bid a la BtB certainly, but I understand why such groups would be reluctant to bother dealing with the current incumbents. The way they buried the last scheme with the MC 'bid' was a bit depressing quite frankly. What they probably thought a piece of deliciously artful chicanery was pretty much immediately seen through as bullshit with a bored housewifey edge. I'm still not certain what binds the msg together or what the intention behind it is, given the lack of progress made under them. Comes across a bit lodge-y tbqh. On a more positive note, hopefully they all die off as a species fairly soon and we get rocking again. In the meantime, shit or get off the pot cuntos

I would caution that those who are all but promoting Option Z as this years “done deal” – those promoting it by default on here with what they believe is their forensic examination of some rather dubious ‘facts’ and those who, apparently, are promoting it in meetings and elsewhere as having the backing of both the SFA and the LL – might end up helping put at risk once again the WRSJFA in its entirety walking through the open door of Tier 6/7/8/9 entry. Those holding open that door, the LL and the EoSFL, could just as easily take what would appear to be the continuing antipathy of the SJFA as a final provocation and decide that it’s time to simply let it swing shut and open another one, perhaps by doing what has previously been mooted and proposing to set-up up a WoSFL and inviting applicants? This, ultimately, would offer a much simpler and clearer way forward with those WRSJFA clubs who wish access to the Pyramid and to the wider Scottish game applying and those who wish to remain in Junior football doing just that. As has always been the case, this would continue to leave ERSJFA clubs south of the Tay with an open route into the Pyramid via application to the EoSFL. North of Tay ERSJFA clubs merging with the NRSJFA clubs and providing a Tier 6 feeder to the HL seems an eminently sensible solution to me, particularly as these clubs already compete against each other in a district cup competition without [any?] issues.

I was surprised nobody had discussed the possibility earlier in the thread. Well done for bringing it up.

To try and play the arbitration role here, I think it's worth pointing out that there seems to be a large degree of misunderstanding around the current position and the purpose of the options paper. - There is a paper in existence that contains 4 options - All league's represented at the PWG had been asked to provide feedback on all 4 options and any additional ideas to move the issue forward. There's no expectation that league's pick 1 and come back saying "that's our choice", like seems to be what was discussed at the WRSJFA meeting. It was supposed to collect views on all available options, of which a WoSFL, though not in paper used to spark debate, is certainly a viable option to bring to the table. If during discussion it seems that option is the path of least resistance, what's wrong with that. I don't think it's the case that proposal is a "threat", rather it hasn't been explained properly to delegates at the West meeting what the purpose of the paper was. It wasn't a vote. To give perspective, we were asked to (and have) give feedback on all 4 options in the paper and general thoughts on structure. We weren't asked to just pick one.

FWIW I just feel sorry for AJ just now. He's lost two of his best players in this window and had no say in either. It's up to the board to support him now to get the required players in.

Hot Shot Hamish was the man. I think he played for Princes Park. I got a letter published, helpfully pointing out that the crowds in the background were excessive for a Scottish lower league side, which won me a tenner

The old school Boys annuals:

I think the barely worth a web article is a bit unfair. Even with nothing concrete to report there would be those equally critical of the manager if he didn’t give an update.

Mutch Doyle Buchanan Hall Dixon Miller Gomis Todd Longridge Connolly McManus

Ffs can we not put this to bed and move on.Been discussed to death

If Scott fancied starting to bite opposition players, celebrating goals before they'd went in and bullying Accies defenders it would alleviate a lot of my concerns tbh.

Feel like pure shit. Just want Nadir back.

Johnny will be one of a very small band of managers who has shown the commitment, over that length of time, to one club and also brought significant success. He will definitely be remembered as Beith’s most successful ever manager. He will no doubt have his own reasons for standing down and that should be respected. Thinking about it personally it must be really hard to maintain enthusiasm and commitment over that time to what is a second job and also dictate time to your family. It is also worth remembering that he was a top player so he has given much to the game over his career.

Not for a minute do I think we could attract him, unless we could give him a good six month contract, but Danny Mullen absolutely would.

Heights. I once took my daughters to the Ratho Climbing Centre for a go on the aerial obstacle course. It starts off with a zip slide and then you start walking across logs and the likes about 200 feet up. I managed the zip slide, got two or three steps on to the first log, looked down and that was that. I gingerly took a couple of steps back to solid ground and refused to go any further. Someone had to come and remove the harness from me and I made my way back to ground level. Meanwhile my daughters, age 11 and 8 completed the course and took great delight in my abject failure. Even now, 12 or 13 years later they take great pleasure in reminding me of this particular failure.

I was a wee shite too back then, you'd never get away with half the stuff nowadays. Edit, Blaize pitches were brutal, haven't seen one in years. I'm sure it was twist grips and the gear you were in was indicated by a colour, red, yellow and maybe blue.

Did not expect this to happen in an untradeable pack from season progress...

Huge difference. From the plastic packaging to the gunk left in the pan after cooking, supermarket stuff is rubbish. Unless they have an actual butchers counter it has to be your local butcher.

If we lose McDonald, I don't think we win promotion. He's absolutely critical to our play.

This is exactly what should be happening.

The Scotland captain was a product of that "wasted" League 2 money - who's to say that if Queen's Park weren't playing in a national league with so much exposure, he would have been picked up by Dundee United so quickly?

Mudguards on a Grifter? Disgusting.

Managing to rattle Brendan Rodgers enough on your first senior start that it literally drives him out of the country has Big Nadir Energy it has to be said.

His 50 Worst Posters thread on the General Nonsense forum spiralled into a horrific mess, with several posters including myself commenting that his 'Top 10 Reveal' was a shambles. He then suffered a massive Head's Gone, trawled through my posts from 3 years ago to prove that I am apparently a racist, then deleted the thread and asked the Mods to ban his account.

Sometimes you have to look ahead and put the plan in place for the next stage now though. If we did start the Academy, the conveyor belt isn’t just going to start producing instantly. We have to start the process of winning back the local kids to our club for whatever league we are in. That decision by the MSG was the poorest they have made in our club, it’s put us back decades. Even Dundee Utd have teams in our town ffs. Our team needs it’s roots back or we are continuously going to moan about whatever journeyman we bring to our club.

It’s a long process to get it back to what it was - trust, infrastructure, personnel etc. But the simple fact is it has to happen, so the longer we delay it, the longer we have to wait. Those in charge still believe we don’t need one

Scotland FIFA rankings september 2007 #14, October 2007 #13, November 2007 #14, December 2007 #14, January 2008 #14, February 2008 #14, March 2008 #14, April 2008 #15, May 2008 #15 If Scotland was within the Top 16 in the WORLD for so long, we clearly were one of the 16 best European countries and qualified for Euro 2008. Pointing to the professional league structure isn't the answer to the question, its looking at the youth structure. Training facilities, coaching, culture. By the way. Denmark actually has 50 clubs playing nationally unlike our 42. The 3rd Tier Second Division isn't regionalised. Its in Groups, a bit like the EoS Conferences. Otherwise 8 of the 24 clubs would be in the same Division while others are crossing more than half the country. As for doing better in Europe current standings has Scotland has a grand total difference in coeffiecients as 0.675. Scotland still has 2 clubs in Europe and Denmark only one. And for 2021 Scotland is currently ahead of Denmark when the 2015-16 season drops off. And while Copenhagen and FC Midtjylland don't have a ton of Danish internationals in their squads. They sure do pack their squads with foreigners from all over. Copenhagen: FC Midtjylland

BAWA is pretty much unreadable with the same petty, personal arguments brought up in every single thread.

Great point well made. He might be a good signing or he might not be a good signing. Found the grenade metaphor helpful too. 9/10.

Just a brief check to find out how the "Top Championship Midfielder" mentioned above is getting on?

I won't believe this until nodmaster posts about it in March.

The disclaimers in the American ads are fantastic. My two favourites were "if your erection lasts for more than 4 hours, please consult your doctor" and "side effects may include death". It's common for the potential side effects to be far more horrifying than the problem the medication is supposed to cure. “Side effects may include dry mouth, drowsiness, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, itching, restlessness, moodiness, blurred vision hallucinations, fast heartbeats, seizures, involuntary quivering, nightmares, ringing in the ears, violent mood swings, manic behavior and screaming”. Nah, I'll just stick with the athlete's foot, thanks.