Adamski

Week 1: Falkirk

Actually Tampere is the other city in Finland that I have strong connections with. My dad (who is Scottish) lives there and I’m over about once a year. Scotland Women playing Finland there in a few days, and also a Ilves, TPV, and TamU if you’re looking for a football fix (I’ve seen them all at various times). Hope you enjoy the rest of your trip!

What took you to Kuopio? I've got lots of family in the area. My mother grew up in Maaninka, just a bit north of there. KuPS are my Finnish team (everyone has one, right?!) My family spent a few months there towards the end of my time at primary school, and ended up playing for the KuPS youth team. Still even got the tracksuit many years down the line. As a kid I was somewhere between crap and average in terms of football ability in Scottish terms, but the standard in Kuopio in the late 80s wasn't great, and I must admit that it was a bit of a buzz to play over there and look half decent.

Well I certainly didn’t expect that. What a relief though.

As if the Queens board are going to pass up an opportunity to tug on some Rangers forelocks. “Highly respected forward thinker” David Rae will probably be wheeled out to have his say on it in the coming days. #passthesickbag #neverforget https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/qos-chief-david-rae-problems-1166670?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

I'm on the lookout for some Dundonian local knowledge. I'm taking my nine year old to the Radio 1 Big Weekend in Camperdown Park tomorrow, and coming by car. What would be a good area to aim for to get parked? I know that there are shuttle buses, but the prospect of big queues and buses full folk who have been boozing all day doesn't sound that tempting as a way to round off the evening! Any suggestions very much appreciated.

It's going back a few years, but in the early 2000s there was a Stranraer fan who had the words 'I hate Dumfries' tattooed on his torso.

I usually have a bet on the Eurovision. After a few years of not winning anything I decided not to bother this time around…

Given that Finland were drawn in the first half that's about as good a running order as it was going to get. They'll win the public vote, Sweden will win the jury vote, but Sweden will do considerably better in the public vote than Finland will in the juries. I don't think Israel will catch the top two, but that's a decent place allocation for them and I could see them finishing third, although it's hard to guess how much of a sympathy vote Ukraine will get this time around (I don't think the song is up to much). Croatia will have a night a bit like Moldova last year - hardly a sniff from the juries and a big public vote. Overall prediction: 1. Sweden; 2. Finland; 3. Israel. And Albania to finish last.

The bit about the supporters team is definitely correct - I was the other half of a deadly (not that deadly) striking partnership with him in one game. Stevie Mallan played for them at least once as well.

He posted on here as qos111. I actually found out that he had passed away via a post you put on here. I'd got to know him fairly well over the previous couple of years through working on the Queens Trust together, and was quite a shock - I'd just been speaking to him over beers a couple of nights previously. He was a lovely guy - pretty sure it was March/April-ish 2005.

I’m going to Cape Town next month. It’s a work trip - 6 days at a conference, so I’ll not have loads of spare time, and will have to rely on public transport. But I want to see and do something while I’m there, and sneaking out of the conference for an afternoon or two should be quite doable. Any suggestions? Looking at Table Mountain, penguins, Robben Island, etc. What should I not miss? Also any recommendations for restaurants, bars, areas to go eating and drinking in etc much appreciated.

Adamski Junior version 3.0 arrived on 20th December! We’re so delighted. It’s been a long road: eight miscarriages since the beginning of 2020 and we’d pretty much resigned ourselves to it not working out. And dread all the way through pregnancy that something was about to go wrong. But he’s here! A wee brother for our daughter and son aged 8 and 6, who I’ve never seen so excited. We’ve all been enjoying getting to know him over Christmas. Also meant watching Argentina become world champions from the maternity ward of the QEUH. A World Cup final that we’ll never forget.

Not been on P&B much over the past couple of weeks and just spotted this thread. Can only add to what others have said. I didn’t know Jimi but had various interactions with him on this and other threads. He came over as a really nice guy and it’s really sad to read that he has passed away. Condolences to his loved ones.

I’ve been on here since 4th March 2003, and if I remember right I’m member number 103. I’ve not read this whole thread, but I guess there can’t be many still going from that early on. Can’t claim to be a prolific poster, but my profile tells me I won the day once, back in 2012 when Queens shamefully backed Sevco to skip having to play their way back up the leagues. I’m more of a lurker, but I can fairly lurk. I don’t miss much on here, and it has been one of the first sites I check whenever I’m online for nearly half of my life.

Ian Blackford stands down as SNP leader in Westminster.

Just giving this a bump on the off chance that someone fancies a last minute night out tonight. Would sell for substantially less than face value.

I played for a Queens supporters team in the early noughties, at the time when Airdrieonians went bust and the league had a vacancy. We put in application for league membership. Total nonsense, obviously, but it got in a couple of the papers and the SFL sent the team a few footballs and a letter by way of ‘now stop it and go away’. A bit of publicity for the team though. I’d imagine that this is along the same lines.

Would anyone be interested in two tickets to Sigur Ross at the SECC next Monday (14th November)? Worth £62.50 each, will consider reasonable offers.

I'm guessing that not much Malawian football has featured on this thread! Young Rangers v Monga Youth Club Kamphenda v KK Rangers Bowe v Betere …all around Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve, Malawi Bata Sasani v Young Stars Young Challengers v Ngala Stars Mthirah v Red Rangers …all around Nkhotakota Wildlife Reserve, Malawi A wee bit of background… As I’ve mentioned a couple of times on here, I’m a scientist working on infectious diseases in Africa. We recently got funding to work in communities affected by sleeping sickness in Malawi: essentially a roadshow visiting affected villages including theatre, dance, music, sport, etc, and using that as a way to start conversations with people living in those communities about the research we do, the impact that the disease has had on their lives, the importance of getting tested and treated, and any barriers or fears preventing testing/treatment. As in much of sub-Saharan Africa, football is by far the most popular sport in these areas. Our Malawian collaborators told us that one of the best ways to draw a crowd for our work was to organise it around a football match, with local villages playing against each other. They also told us how resources for sports equipment were scarce in these areas, and that donations of football kit would be a great way to encourage teams to take part and to forge links with the communities that we visited. Thanks to donations from various teams in Scotland (Glasgow University, Bo’ness United Community, and loads of Dumfries Sunday amateur teams) we headed out there in October with plenty of kit to deliver. Overall, it’s fair to say it’s a long long way from a Tuesday night at Broadwood: pitches made primarily of dust and sand, goalposts fashioned from particularly straight tree trunks, often massive slopes, ruts, vegetation, other hazards, and usually featuring a commentator who will describe every inch of the game at 1000 miles an hour via a PA system turned up to 11. The crowds were decent too – usually over 1000 people watching, and many of them very watchable themselves with plenty of singing, dancing, drinking, and general fun going on. Your average Scottish steward would have been in bits. (You’ll note the frequency of the word ‘Rangers’ in the team names. No big teams found, and nothing staunch afoot – just that the games were in places near wildlife reserves, and several of the teams were originally formed by rangers working in those parks!) It wasn’t all plain sailing: the Young Rangers vs Monga match didn’t ever actually start: a third team turned up claiming it was their pitch, asking why they didn’t get invited to play and get a set of strips, and threatened to cause trouble if the game went ahead. Also the Bowe vs Betere match featured two really nasty injuries in the space of a couple of minutes, and we had to organise getting the players to the nearest hospital (at least 90 minutes away). Thankfully neither injury was as bad as it initially looked. Also due to the distances that these places were from where we were actually staying and the quality of roads in between, we often had to leave at half time to avoid driving in darkness, and I’m not actually sure of the final score for any of the games! But what an experience overall – fun, interesting, hopefully worthwhile, and the reactions that we got from handing out the strips was extremely humbling. We’ve done a bit of publicity about all of this on social media which has spread to actual news outlets, and as a result I’ve had people getting in touch offering strips that we could send out. And the Dumfries Sunday Amateur League teams seem to have got a particular kick out of it: two of the games featured face offs between teams in strips from that league, and pictures of the likes of Hole In The Wa FC vs Dumfries Athletic on a pitch in Malawi seems to have caught the eye of a few Dumfries pubs! I’ll be returning to Malawi in the coming months, and I’m keen to keep a channel open for getting kits to teams like these, so if you’re involved in a football team that has spare kit and would like to see it go to a new home where it will be very much appreciated, please do send me a message.

PM sent!

Current tory party rules have it that she can't face a leadership challenge for a year. So unless the rules change (and there was talk of it to punt Johnson) the only way she would go this year is by resigning. And this government don't do resignations.

I might have added it up wrong, but looks like if the games stay as they are in group B2 there's (probably) no way of Scotland finishing as the best runner up for seeding purposes. Would need Armenia to beat Ireland to have a chance.

There's really no upside to this. The mandated mourning is over, anyone who wanted to commemorate it has had ample opportunity to do so, it's divisive in a game that Scotland could really do with some decent backing, we're playing against a country that has lost immeasurably more than one 96 year old woman, and I can't imagine that any significant section of the support was calling for this. I think I'll just sit down and stay silent, but plenty will boo and chant, and the media will use it as a stick to beat the Scotland supporters where convenient.

Pollok 6-0 Huntly Cracking evening for it. A bit like the previous round, Pollok were comfortable enough but the scoreline was a bit flattering. A sell-out crowd of 900, and plenty of noise from Pollok’s young team throughout. They even had the flares out at one point, albeit shit ones that didn’t seem to light properly. Oh, and a wee scuffle in the crowd when someone lobbed a bottle of 20/20 on the pitch at one point. Orange Jubilee, if I’m not mistaken. Third 6-0 in a row in my visits to Newlandsfield! Here’s the aftermath of goal #2 as the sky did pretty things.