HibeeJibee

Work has begun clearing the ruin - £ for rebuild isn't yet in place? Dublin promised upto £43m, and GAA say can't go much past £15m.... that leaves £165m+ wanting, mostly from Westminster. GAA says £15m contribution to Casement Park is near its limit - BBC News The GAA has said it is at the £15m limit of what it can contribute towards the redevelopment of Casement Park. On Tuesday the Irish Government said it was providing €50m (£42.8m). It has been suggested by Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP Jim Shannon that the overall cost could be £220m. Westminster sources have indicated that the cost could now be as much as £300m. The original price, calculated a decade ago, was £77.5m. The current allocation of public funding approved by the Executive in 2011 is £62.5m. Brian McAvoy, Ulster GAA chief executive, said the UK government and Stormont Executive should now clarify their position on future funding. He said the GAA was an amateur organisation without "the comforts of Fifa or Uefa or World Rugby or anything like that". "There is a limit to what we can do and that's why we've gone to the Irish government - we would have little scope for moving beyond that [£15m contribution] but I think we did well here," he told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster Programme. "We'll see what comes of the overall terms of the overall funding rounds because obviously the ball is very much in the court of the UK government and the executive, that's really where the ball lies now." The redevelopment has been hit by a series of delays, beginning when planning permission for the project was overturned after objections to the stadium's size from local residents. Mr McAvoy was speaking after the BBC revealed that the Casement Park redevelopment would not be completed in time for the 2027 Ulster Gaelic football final. The Gaelic Athletic Association says the stadium should be ready by summer 2027, but it will be too late for the Ulster final that May. Casement Park is also due to host international soccer games in the Euro 2028 tournament.

also Denmark, Greece, Israel, Kosovo, Montenegro... ... plus Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria*, Faroe Islands, Finland, Gibraltar, Hungary, Iceland, Macedonia play 3-times. *middle split in Bulgaria actually play 4 times

Kev is talking mince anyway... Hearts, Hibs, Aberdeen already drop more points v 'the rest' than OF do; accordingly more games v 'the rest' wouldn't close gap. Arguably playing 4 times should give more opportunities to compensate for this deficiency. Financially there is also no chance clubs here will replace 2 tight levels of 12+10 with 1 big division of 18/similar anyway. Plus that would again hurt challengers more than OF as they rely more on domestic gate receipts. There are only 2 solutions: (1) radically rebalance the financial position (2) cap the league competition with a title playoff so that winning the league effectively becomes a brief knockout cup where a one-off result can spear OF All across Europe more top divisions than ever are playing 3 or 4 times and/or adopting splits: so in a way they are. Slovakia play 4 times like ourselves: they just split after 2 rounds for total of 32-games.

Bo'ness Athletic only actual won on April 14th with 7 games (19%) left. Superb. What's the earliest anybody's completed all their games?

e.g. 1975-76: Kilmarnock / Dumbarton

e.g. 1902-03: Hibs / Dundee Rangers / Hearts

e.g. 1898-99: Rangers / Hearts Celtic / Hibs

Titles were sometimes won before Christmas in early days IIRC, indeed possibly even in autumn... before WWI the Scottish League generally ran Aug-Dec, and supplementary leagues Jan-Apr. @craigkillie ?

Earlier this year, BBC Scotland director Steve Carson was questioned by MSPs about newspaper reports suggesting that one episode of The Nine was watched by 1,700 people and that The Seven had attracted an audience of 200 viewers on one day in January. Mr Carson said that quoting figures in isolation did not represent the actual performance of the programmes. He said The Nine reached more than 100,000 viewers every week (3% of the Scottish adult population) and The Seven reached more than 20,000 (0.6%).

Do they not also run relegation on an average of last 3 years to stop 'big' clubs having 1 bad season from going down? (Gordon Strachan wet dream basically). They're no crazy horse Belgians tbh.

That's due to Rosyth's demise... East of Scotland Football Association & League (eosfl.com) Third Round Armadale v West Calder Camelon v Pumpherston/Newburgh Heriot-Watt Uni v Lochore Leith/Thornton v Arniston Newtongrange v Fauldhouse Ormiston/Vale of Leithen v St Andrews Whitehill v Burntisland/Stoneyburn bye – Kirkcaldy & Dysart/Bo’ness Athletic Fourth Round Heriot-Watt Uni/Lochore v Armadale/West Calder Kirkcaldy & Dysart/Bo’ness Athletic v Leith/Thornton/Arniston Ormiston/Vale of Leithen/St Andrews v Newtongrange/Fauldhouse Whitehill/Burntisland/Stoneyburn v Camelon/Pumpherston/Newburgh

Sunday 18th February 2024 Final: Heriot-Watt University 1-2 Bo'ness Athletic Bo'ness edged an evenly-balanced if relatively action-free showpiece on a bright yet blustery day in West Lothian. It was more 'war of nerves' than 'gung ho'. Decent crowd of about 300 given neither carries much of a support. Students were more composed on the ball but Athletic were more dangerous in attack. HW had an early penalty shout denied and will rue conceding to free headers at the back post late in each half. BA gave away a penalty on hour which levelled it. Heriot-Watt leave with plenty credit as many neutrals seemed to expect them to go down by a few especially after falling behind. Bo'ness Athletic - who won the Third Division and EOS League Cup last season - now meet Drumchapel United and either Lochar Thistle or Nithsdale Wanderers in the Cup-Winners' Shield this spring for a place in next season's Scottish Cup.

Of course the Portuguese already had a Primeira Divisao, and the Austrians already had a 10 team top division playing each other 4 times, but ignoring them we were indeed the true pioneers. (I recall the inspiration to cap the downsized levels with a Premier Division - soothing the egos and hence smoothing the votes of clubs thus officially not 'relegated' - came from England whose Southern League formed such in 1959 and Northern Premier League was set-up in 1968... btw there was briefly a Premier Division in the Ayrshire Amateur League in late 1940s/early 1950s).

Drearily pathetic: SWPL: Rangers cancel Celtic Old Firm ticket allocation over security risk concerns - BBC Sport

Lovely graphic they've done... but who are the 'Pro A teams' playing week-to-week? who are 'National A team' opponents? There are 1 or 2 club internationals annually and the inter-district championship lasts a fortnight.

Including brief warm-up these bloated tournaments take 7-8 weeks (next WCs last 39 and 44 days!). I'd be surprised if club football stopped for 2 months every 1 or 2 seasons... plus it's expanding too (e.g. playing 36, 38 or even 40 league games is now common in Europe and new CL/EL format with 10 groupstage dates starts next season).

FIFA adding this Club Cup; coupled with CAF + CONCACAF playing tournaments so frequently - and CONCACAF + CONMEBOL inviting each other to theirs; means many players will play for 2yrs straight or more.

Who could possibly have foreseen this outcome, eh? How many millions has Dodson wasted on his folly? You've now got a couple of hundred part-time players and support staff, potentially out of work in just a few months, plus 6 clubs whose financial models are torched. Their regular XVs are scattered down the levels (just 2 are in top tier and Boroughmuir as far down as tier 4); plus the system is supposed to be amateur. My guess is they put the other 4 in next season's Premiership temporarily expanded with a split, plus allow some form of pay again... and all hell will break loose.

Now being suggested next year's tournament will run late July to late August to avoid clash. That'll go down a treat with clubs playing European qualifiers.

Compared to many our football media has been meek and compliant for ages, but they're all for anyway: it extends play - then VAR chat fills airtime, generates clicks and produces controversy, for minimal effort.

I actually read this twice, as felt sure I'd missed some key aspect. Force somebody to take glimepiride, douse them in caustic fluid, leave them dead for days, they end-up a vegetable... sentences 7 years 9 months... 18 months suspended... 6 months suspended. WTAF? Huddersfield: Family members jailed after abusing son's wife - BBC News Huddersfield: a man and his parents have been jailed after a court heard his wife was forced to take medication and doused with a corrosive substance. Ambreen Fatima Sheikh suffered life-limiting injuries due to their abuse. The court heard Ms Sheikh was "tricked or forced" into taking the anti-diabetes drug glimepiride, which induced catastrophic brain injury, in 2015 after she was brought to the UK from Pakistan following a 2014 arranged marriage. She was also doused in a caustic substance, thought to be a cleaning fluid, at the family's home in Clara Steet, Huddersfield, in the days prior to her hospital admission in August 2015. There was a two to three-day delay between Ms Sheikh falling unconscious and the family calling an ambulance. It was initially thought she would die but she began to breathe for herself when her ventilator was turned off in hospital. Prosecutors said she only survives by being fed through a tube and will eventually die as a consequence of what happened to her. Now 39, her injuries have left her in a persistent vegetative state from which she will never recover, the court heard. "It is difficult to imagine a more serious injury short of death," Mrs Justice Lambert remarked. Ms Sheikh was said to be in good health before her collapse and there is evidence she was a teacher in Pakistan. One witness said she was "intelligent, bright, ambitious and happy-go-lucky" before she moved to the UK. The trial heard that soon after Ms Sheikh arrived in the UK the family became unhappy with her housework and chores. None of the family gave evidence in court and the judge said she could not say for sure when the abuse began. Asgar Sheikh, 31, was jailed for seven years and nine months at Leeds Crown Court along with his father, Khalid, 55, and mother, Shabnam, 52. Asgar, Shabnam and Shagufa were also found guilty of doing an act intending to pervert the course of justice. Asgar, Khalid, Shabnam, Shagufa and Asgar's brother Sakalayne Sheikh were found guilty of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Sakalayne, 25, was given a six-month sentence, suspended for two years, and his sister, Shagufa, 29, was given an 18-month sentence, also suspended for two years.

Simultaneously cringeworthy and hilarious given every existing line is geographic - or named for a female monarch? Most likely the committee wanted to name all 6 for social / political causes... hence Windrush, Suffragettes, Mildmay (the hospital Princess Diana visited) and Lionesses... but suffered a crisis of overconfidence so swerved for Weavers - which makes a kind of sense - and biscuit taking Liberty "to reference the historical independence of the people of the borough of Havering". So fiercely separatist are the citizens of a borough nobody's ever heard of (seemingly Romford is the principal town) they abandoned for Essex their status as a liberty way back in 1888-1892; while the noble borough itself originates millennia ago centuries ago from 1965. Perhaps: Telephone Line in honour of Edinburgh-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell Fault Line in honour of Hutton's Unconformity in Holyrood Park Ben Line in honour of the Leith shipping company Thin Red Line in honour of the redcoats of Edinburgh Castle Forward Line in honour of the Famous Five Washing Line in honour of the working women of the drying greens Coke Line in honour of the film Trainspotting Toe the Line in honour of politicians in the City Chambers and Scottish Parliament Stay in Line in honour of the queues for the buses

Wednesday 14th February R4: Uni of Stirling 5-3 Musselburgh (aet, FT 2-2) After thrashing Edinburgh Uni 6-2 at Gannochy in Queens Park Shield R1 earlier the students had <3hrs respite* before going again at Forthbank; but after an epic they edge out the 10 men of 'Burgh... went 0-1 1-1 / 1-2 2-2 // 2-3 3-3 / 4-3 5-3. *in practice I'm pretty sure their 2nds will have helped fulfil QPS tie this afternoon but on paper both were first-team commitments

Brora 0-4 Buckie at HT tonight in a game which ultimately wasn't switched to Golspie. Psychologically if not mathematically this could well knock Brora out of the title race.

Aberdeenshire Cup Final was - maybe still is? - down for April 20th (it was you who posted it on FN btw!). So unless Buckie were potentially going to play 2 games at same time or there not be a simultaneous finish, it presumably was April 13th on paper.