ginge123

Used the create-a-club mode and edited a team into the East of Scotland league. Fucking hell it's good fun. Blindly signed 30 Scottish 16-17 year olds and ended up with some tremendous players. All of them are regens, all of them are of varying quality, one of them had 40 goals by January before he got signed by Dundee United.

Can only agree with the stuff said about Isbell. Had went thinking I'd probably give his next couple of Scottish dates a miss after seeing him something like 5 times in a row. By Decoration Day, if he'd have been selling tickets for his next hundred gigs, I'd have bought them. There probably isn't a band out there with two better guitarists.

I reckon that now the WC Qualifiers are over, it'll go even further down hill. Some of the most interesting stuff they've spoken about is Argentina and what's been happening with them. Soon we'll be going back to "[south American player] has signed for Hull, what's he like?" Only for Tim Vickery to either, not know who he is because he's an absolute no mark or to just say that he's a decent player but that he's unsure he'll fit the style of football in England. That's not an issue with Vickery, it's an issue with morons that phone in.

If it's the one I'm thinking of, she phoned in twice in the last 2 weeks the first time she was talking about how her team was Aldershot and how pleased she was that Man Utd had come to play them in a League Cup tie etc whilst in the same breath began talking about her team being Arsenal and some bollocks about the League Cup. I don't remember why she phoned in the second time. Some boy from Texas has started phoning in every week, with fairly boring questions but nothing too offensive. Adebayo forgets he's phoned in the previous week and keeps asking him if his family safe from the hurricane. Bizzare.

If they replaced Adebayo and reduced the amount of people phoning in who can hardly string a sentence together, it's easily be the best football show about. Unfortunately, Adebayo isn't going anywhere anytime soon I'd imagine.

The way EA and, in fairness a lot of other companies, have managed to convince people they need this stuff, is nothing short of astounding. Whoever came up with FUT and the various cash grabs that go with it should have their name above the EA door.

I've only just started listening to it again after 4 or 5 years because of how annoying Dotun Adebayo is. His schtick hasn't remotely changed since I last listened. The callers are weirdos of the highest order as well, which induces just as many cringeworthy moments as Adebayo. Which all in all is a shame because the pundits are generally class and it's a bit different from listening to people talking about the PL for 45 minutes.

Still playing my Galway game, won the league on GD last season which was great but the same thing that always happens after winning the league happened, I won the league by about 20 points. It always seems to become too easy after you win the league once.

Called up to the under-21s today. I didn't realise that it would be his first under-21s cap if he plays.

I think I read the tactical thing on STV's gossip column link, so it could of course be absolute bollocks.

Crystal Palace is where he's being linked with. The Champions League thing is actually quite a good point. Why get rid of him when you're likely going to need him during the group stages? Their arguement is that he isn't adapting tactically, but what's the point of bringing someone new in to replace him when you risk the exact same thing happening? For someone that they apparently don't think is good enough, he played 25 times last year, admittedly most of them from the bench, and hasn't he featured fairly regularly during pre-season?

It seems incredibly hasty to get rid of him permanently just now.

This is something I've been wanting to get into for a wee while and after scoping about the internet, I'm probably more lost than I was to begin with. What are the realistic costs for a beginner? I'd initially be looking at landscape shots. I'm happy for the kit to be secondhand as well so eBay etc. is an option. How much did you benefit from classes you took it is there a lot you can learn via YouTube? I'll probably have more questions but for now I'm not sure.

Gave it a listen on the way to work this morning. Good God Damn is probably the only passable song on it. If it wasn't for the fact that Android Auto messes up the track order when you use the touchscreen to select an album, I'd have turned it off within the first few tracks. 5.6/10 is generous.

I've had a couple of good saves with national teams, Canada and Wales spring to mind, but they're always pre-cursors to club football saves. That said, those saves were on old FM's where national team management was a bit smoother. Managed to get my Galway Utd save back on track to an extent. I've gone from the relegation places to within a few points of 3rd. Although I've now lost Rhys Murphy, formerly of Arsenal 'fame', until the end of the season. Had one of those ultimate FM European games where we lost the first leg of our Europa League qualifier quite heavily and then managed to get ourselves ahead in the second leg only to lose a last minute goal in injury time. Absolutely gutting, but something that happens every year with FM.

Same thing has happened to me in my Galway United save (no idea why I chose them, I think it was something to do with the fact Scottish haddies can rip it up on the League of Ireland). Finished comfortably mid-table season 1 (which was actually quite disappointing because we'd been flying high during the middle part of the season), runners up to a very good Dundalk team season 2 and have subsequently shat the bed in season 3. Last year's season meant I was able to bring in the 2 or 3 players I needed to strengthen my squad and have tweaked the tactics minorly to keep things fresh but I am getting horses off absolute nobodies.

My current work isn't that bad. Everyone is on temp contracts and they've all started at various points over the last 6 months, so the office is pretty quiet. I've only been there 3 weeks so maybe it'll get a bit more lively as the weeks go on. My last job, I worked from home which was class as I could go weeks without speaking to colleagues unless it was about a project. Before that my office had literally every stereotypical office nutjob you can imagine and a couple of gid c***s I still keep in contact with, and consider to be pretty close friends. Reading this thread, I count myself lucky.

Heading to Arab Strap at Kelvingrove in August. Has anyone been to the Summer Nights stuff before and what's it like for food/drink? I used to work at Heineken and I know they have a lot to do with it when it comes to beer but over and above that I don't know anything about it. Hoping to make a day of it since it'll be our first proper post-kid being born night out.

You could tell The Amazing Snakeheads weren't going to last from the second you saw/heard them. Everything about them was amazing, from the shite silk shirts down to just absolute Glasgow mentalness. It was like some weird Alex Harvey-ned-Stooges mash up that I reckon it'll be a long time before we see again. Absolute classic car crash material. Had Ballads on full pelt the whole way home yesterday for the first time in ages, at one point I was listening to it daily. Their T set from a couple of years back is probably my favourite one I've seen there and when I saw them at The Caves in Edinburgh about 6 months later when the bassist rejoined them (I don't remember is the drummer ever came back) it was one of the best overall gigs I've been to. Dale Barclay's new band are alright as well, if a bit weird, but they'll almost certainly never be as good as the Snakeheads.

It's quite easy to get worked up about them using their fourth mug to drink four, half cups of tea, in quick succession or leaving their clothes everywhere but then, it's just as easy to look at their stupid wee face and think "you're actually alright". And I think that's probably what love is.

It was me who posted the Fresh Prince thing on Mumsnet but I think it's long gone from both sites.

Italy apparently.

Not wholly unexpected.

When I mentioned compensation, I meant paying it for an incoming manager. To be honest, after having a season ticket for 14/15 when I moved back to West Lothian, I didn't go to a single game this season and I'd be surprised if I picked one up this year regardless of who comes in. I just have a feeling of total apathy towards the whole thing. It's not the performances that are the problem, it's the fact that any good work done on the pitch is almost immediately undone at board level. Off the pitch, next season will be the exact same as the 21 that came before it. On the pitch, who knows. We'll always have the youth approach to fall back on but if we don't get it right with a new appointment, that's all for nout.

Replacing Hopkin is only worthwhile of we're going to look outwith the club for a replacement. Ideally we'd be looking to a manager who is currently doing well at a lower level, i.e. Darren Young at Albion Rovers. Idealism makes way for realism when we have to think about compensation however. We'll end up with promoting from within, which leaves us with Neil Hastings or, in our never ending pursuit to emulate Dream Team, Martindale, or we end up looking to someone who isn't being picked up by another club, there's usually a reason they are unemployed. I'm not denying that replacing Hopkin is possibly the right thing to do, but our track record in that department speaks for itself.