++Ammo - Airdrie++

I'm no 100% but I thought they could only recall them in the windows? As I said though, might be talking p*sh

Or a pic of him in Dubai in Hibs gear

Me and the daughter heading through to Dunfermline for the second time this season (its confirmed as her 2nd favourite away stadium, so wear that badge of honour Pars!) hoping for a better result this time obviously. Dunfermlines injury worries concern me, we've seen it loads of times over the years, teams rock up, half crocked and conjure up a result that eases a bit of pressure on recent results. Fingers crossed anyway and as long as its dry. I'll be parking on Garvock Hill if anyone fancies 'aving it.

Bonnyrigg Rose 0-1 Dumbarton East Fife 1-1 Clyde Forfar Athletic 1-1 Elgin City Stranraer 1- 1 Peterhead The Spartans 1-2 Stenhousemuir

Oh dear oh dear. I'd like to thank our friends at Camden brewery for the free tipple though.

I don't want to be too bias, but its generally decent. Commentator isn't as much of a walloper as some others (hi @AndyDD) and the visual quality is pretty good also.

Hello Kirkcaldy folk What a f*ckin season you boys are having eh! Sadly this will be one of the rarer games I won't be attending as it's Mrs A's birthday so a day out beckons! Should be a good game, confidence higher in both camps, actually I'll be very surprised if this is dull at all. I'd take a point here tbh and I won't be greedy, Dundee Utd to drop points aswell and we can all move on?

Did someone say Paul Harvey and Raith in the same sentence What a day.

I "think" the ref signalled the ball had went out and blew for a bye kick .... But it hadn't so ye knew he'd made an arse of it by stopping play. He restarted with a drop ball but in the middle of that, Airdrie signalled to make a sub, so because play was stopped, he allowed the sub. I think. The ref actually acknowledged this and put his hand up and pointed to himself.

We won on the 30th there?

Exactly that. The peters he received and then dished back out after scoring, then when getting subbed. A wee laugh if you will. Said that to my mate aswell, linesman was the only person that saw anything in that. Officials were horrendous today all round.

Clyde 2 - 1 Bonnyrigg Rose Dumbarton 1 - 0 East Fife Elgin City 1 - 1 Stranraer Peterhead 0-1 The Spartans Stenhousemuir 2-0 Forfar Athletic

100% It's a speculate to accumulate season, there's not a lot between the sides in the league at all as other results prove.

Apologies if it's been mentioned. Anyone know how long Aitken is actually out for? Also happy new year ya warmers

No parking restrictions at Lidl (and a Starbucks there now to!) If yer struggling there's plenty parking straight across from the stadium, it's the parking for the 3 grass football pitches across the road, entrance can be accessed from HOLLY STREET, literally straight across from the stadium.

As I said in ma first post match post, I'd need to see if there was contact, which there wasn't, but still 100% a penalty, daftness from Rae, Shock horror.

Am gonnae admit. I missed Mason's goal, because I was still turning round calling todorov a donkey . I really canny believe that miss, imagine coming away from that game if he'd missed that and we'd took nothing!

Ooft, man's woke up this morning and chose violence. Liked and followed

The manager showed his hand early, sent a sub around the park with 36 mins played on the clock to tell every ball boy to slow it down, QP were on top that first half, the desperation to cling onto that 1 goal lead has absolutely cost you. First half was rotten as was the first 5 of the 2nd, really really poor stuff. The penalty is a penalty, while contact might have been minimal (if at all, I'll see it again) you can't fly out on a surface as slick as that and be second, no complaints there. We were far more urgent in that second half, and after Todorovs miss(es) recently, it was the least he could do. How he's missed an open goal today is frightening.

Fin.

Bonnyrigg 1-1 Spartans Clyde 1-2 Stenhousemuir Elgin 1-3 Peterhead Forfar 1-1 East Fife Stranraer 0-1 Dumbarton

I absolutely agree. You know as well as I do the next "knee jerk reaction" shout is only ever 90 mins away! Morton's form is exactly the reason I'm bricking it, and probably the reason there might be a bit of nagging doubt, in the back of a few 'Ton supporting minds, it will end at some point. Anyway, we'll find out soon.

Like a few others, I feel Morton owe us one here, and we're not in a good place results wise at the moment. No doubt injuries haven't/aren't helping us, players off the boil, out of favour, it's just a bit of a really testing time at the moment. If we can limp to January and even 1 or 2 quick loan deals in or identified transfers could maybe get the wee head start we need. I'm just not confident going into this on Saturday at all, Morton have improved, without doubt and still struggling a bit with injury/suspension themselves. Airdrie 0-1 Morton, in the worst game of football you've seen for a while.

Apologies about the layout. See below. What a view? There's plenty on here (including myself) who follow vast amounts of Scottish football at all levels, and have an interest in the pyramid and developments in the game. Not wanting other fans to comment on a decision your club's made because you KNOW it's deemed unfashionable by the greater majority of league clubs. Personally, I've been pretty quiet on the whole affair, I have my thoughts but it's only that, thoughts. I think for transparency and for anyone having an interest in this, clubs should have the courage of their convictions and at least not be trying to hide behind secret emails to only members. Just imo though. A sensible outlook. Firstly – a Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all from the Cowdenbeath FC Board. We are sure you will agree that the team’s performances this season have been vastly improved from those of the last couple of seasons. We write primarily to give you a Lowland League update – including the vote by member clubs on B Teams which took place on Monday evening (18th Dec). This as ever proved somewhat contentious albeit social media debate on the matter is pretty one-dimensional. Our policy is always to be completely transparent in such matters with our fans. The Lowland League essentially held a vote whether to allow B Teams to continue to participate for another 2 seasons and this was carried by a majority vote by the member clubs. The Cowdenbeath FC Board carefully considered the matter in the round and on this further occasion on balance decided to allow the status quo to persist. It was not an easy decision. To recap, we have never supported B teams coming into the pyramid. We declined to support their admission to the SPFL on more than one occasion and opposed them continuing in the Lowland League when we first joined its ranks at the start of last season. The majority of clubs though voted for them to continue in membership. Thus, the genie had been well and truly let out the bottle by the original admission to the Lowland League in 2021/22. At the tail end of last season, we firmly opposed the Conference League proposal which CFC believed was a deeply flawed project but elected to agree to let B teams continue in membership for 2023/24 for the reasons we outlined at the time to our supporters. Following that end of season scenario, CFC were then prominently involved in the Lowland League Board putting forward a proposal to remove the membership cap of 16 clubs that applies to the LL. A league with 18/20 member clubs in CFC’s view would then readily allow for more promotion from the Tier 6 leagues and kick-start ventilation by bringing in some strong clubs straight away. It also would maintain what we believe would constitute a suitable League match programme for a full season. The SFA though advised it was unwilling to allow the Lowland League to have any more than 16 member clubs and the LL’s rule change was vetoed. From a CFC perspective, without additional teams being promoted into the League to swell its numbers and in the absence of B teams, we would only have a guaranteed 33 competitive matches next season compared to 42 in our SPFL days – that was not an appetising prospect – we played more games than that in the truncated Covid season which ended in early March. More cup competitions cannot suitably fill the void – indeed, this season we have a Lowland League Cup draw which ensures we will receive no gate money at all even if we get through all the rounds and make the final whilst in the South Region Challenge Cup, because we are VAT registered, at our home games the visiting club gets a better share of the gate than we do! A suitable regular league match programme laid out at the start of the season is the bread and butter of professional football. B teams to us are sub-optimal (and no offence to the personnel at the clubs involved who have been a pleasure to deal with) but are not some sort of footballing Armageddon as some seem keen to portray. Touching on the subject of ventilation, we raised the matter re opening up promotion to the Lowland League when we joined but were advised the member clubs’ overall view was that this was contingent on automatic promotion being granted by the SPFL. We believed this to be flawed reasoning and also knew that the SPFL would not agree to this in any event. There is no constituency among the SPFL members, as far as we are aware, which actively desires to see automatic relegation from SPFL 2 introduced – and we can’t see why that would 2 / 3 change. We wouldn’t have supported that when we were in the SPFL after already having conceded a play-off route to promotion which did not previously exist. Why would they accept auto-relegation when nothing is offered in return? As regards ventilation from Tier 6, this is a subject we are happy to consider further with our fellow member clubs. There are though many pressing issues for the Lowland League. The Lowland League is a recent creation, it has not built-up sizeable reserves through a long existence. It meets a number of costs incurred on behalf of its member clubs and provides a range of services to them. It would greatly benefit by building a stronger financial base for the future. It should also be fully understood that the SPFL recently changed its rules. Any club going into the Pyramid play-off games from the Highland and Lowland Leagues will need to have an SFA bronze license. That applies at the end of this season. The only way a Highland or Lowland League club can compete in the end of season play offs in May 2024 is for it to be Bronze licensed. Just one team out of the 34 clubs in the Lowland and Highland Leagues currently has a Bronze licence (Cumbernauld Colts). The Lowland League board is now looking to see how best it can raise standards in this area over time so that LL clubs can look to meet the higher level of requirements. This will likely include looking for engagement to seek assistance from the SFA for its members – the SFA recently made clear to us that rather than general additional cash distributions at end of year to all its licensed clubs the focus would henceforth be on directing funds to improve infrastructure of clubs in Scottish football. The SFA is working again on devising a development system for the elite 18 – 21 age group. We believe the ultimate answer to this issue lies outwith the pyramid system but accept that it will take time to come up with a solution. The raison d’etre of B teams is markedly different to that of the other clubs in the pyramid structure. They each have a very separate place in the game. Playing in the Lowland League does aid these young players to develop, the question as to whether it succeeds in producing much increased numbers of regular 1st team and even international quality players for those clubs can only be answered in time – we doubt it but await the evidence in due course having allowed ample time for a proper conclusion to be drawn as the B teams head towards their exit. The Club previously assisted the SFA in participating in Project Brave in terms of youth development which ultimately left the participating Clubs including Cowdenbeath high and dry and abandoned - it is vital that this whole issue is now properly addressed on a robust basis. We believe too that the restriction on the Lowland League member club numbers should also be revisited in the period ahead. Finally, the Board of the Lowland League has a voting membership of six drawn from its member clubs. There were only two club reps prepared to serve when we joined the LL in 2022. We along with East Kilbride then volunteered to put forward a club rep to be on the Board – a very active role that requires much time, commitment and a great deal of work. In the current season the Board still does not have a full complement. CFC finds this most disappointing. The LL Board has faced a myriad of challenges whilst operating without a full complement of members – e.g. dealing with major matters involving powerful organisations such as the SPFL and SFA who have large resources at their disposal, tackling the future of the Development League, discussions are now being facilitated with SPFL 2 clubs to seek a better mutual understanding and common ground – building relationships needs constructive dialogue, now introducing Financial Fair Play rules to the League in line with those that 3 / 3 apply in Tiers 1 to 4 of the Scottish game, and potentially the possible issue re a Regulator for Scottish football as being implemented in England and mooted by the Scottish Parliament, as well as meeting the running costs of the League. B team funding in the absence of any other major income stream in the short term does help bolster the League’s resources to potentially help it evolve and strengthen its standing (e.g. to focus further on areas such as sponsorship, media, strategy, membership standards, prize money, building alliances, etc). Tier 5 is part of the professional side of Scottish football as members of the Professional Game Board, and we believe a progressive upwards focus is needed to further enhance the Lowland League brand and standing. If the LL is to be a vibrant, successful league it needs the full range of its membership to be involved in driving it forward. We note just this week various statements by Clubs on the B Team issue which shows that they have strong views, so it is surely incumbent upon them to play a full part in taking the League forward in a progressive manner and work to improve the pyramid.

Gary Twigg (remember him!) Done not too bad in the LOI with a couple of clubs.