Slipmat

Don't forget Murphy's work with Bauhaus in the late 70's/early 80's. A charismatic frontman, and songs like "Bela Lugosi's Dead" and "Kick In The Eye" are now regarded as post-punk/goth classics which have stood the test of time.

Our Board of Director may be keen on bringing Murphy in if they are best buddies. I'd prefer Murphy too to McCall to be honest, but first things first, let's get the incumbent buffoon out of the door. No point in contemplating who his successor may be while there's still a danger that he may still be here in May and beyond.

Talking of finances and how to address losses, I was re-reading my Scottish Cup Final programme the other day and it was interesting to read in Davie Rae's interview that in the first season under McCall we lost £330,000 and the second suffered another loss of £120,000 (including the £20k fine for playing Jamie Adams in a cup tie he wasn't eligible to play in). Obviously we hovered around the relegation spots in both seasons which affected crowds. Rae's solution was to go full-time to attract a better quality of player, but crucially he dictated to Chisholm that he ran with a squad of no more than 20 players rather than the 30+ that McCall ("I just need to add another 2 or 3 players to the squad and we'll be fine" - rinse and repeat) had on the books as he felt that the main cause of the losses was the size of the payroll, even one made up of part time wages. The full time team then finished fourth and got to the said cup final and the crowds swelled. Pity that Hewitson wasn't so strict with Bartley in terms of adding more and more players to an already bloated squad this season.

Well, I managed to make it through the first 45 seconds of the buffoon's post match interview before turning it off. His opening gambit regarding his pre-match team talk was "it is imperative that we don't lose this game of football. Go out there and give everything you can, possibly to win it." Possibly? FFS!

Well, he's definitely going to be in situ until the new board has been formed. It's starting to become a major concern that it would seem that only one suitable director has been identified or put themselves forward in the two months since the current mob, who clearly have no intention of dealing with the Bartley problem, announced that they would stepping down. This makes it all the more essential that Hewitson & Co ramp up their efforts to get a new board is in place asap, a new board who recognise that binning Bartley before the summer transfer window opens in order to prevent him from overseeing another summer recruitment shambles is an immediate priority.

I can only assume, to use a well-worn cliche, that Ferguson "does a lot of the unseen work for the team"... because I've failed to see it. Speaking of things unseen, what's happened to Houston? Has he picked up another injury? I know Bartley regularly used him in the scapegoat role, but now he seems to have lost his place on the bench to Jay Burns. I would have thought that at this stage of the season having one of our more experienced players around would be more beneficial than deciding that this is the right time to potentially blood a youngster.

I've called him a lot of things but never a manger! To be fair though, I would never call him a manager either. The fuckwit description certainly applies though.

Annan no longer getting beat

Annan getting beat!

You called it!

Bartley will be satisfied. We've kept a clean sheet for 45 mins.

Kelty 1 Stirling 0. Annan move up to 8th in the live table, Stirling down to 9th.

Annan 2 Cove 0

Annan winning.

He'd get my vote for POTY despite only having played in half a dozen league games! When he picked up his injury we were comfortably top 4 and had just knocked Partick out of the Challenge Cup. Then Ferguson stepped into the Mimnaugh role and has barely missed a match. That's worked out well, didn't it?

The reserves completed their league programme today, and it looking at their final playing record it would appear that the home form vs away form issue isn't exclusive to the first team: Queen of the South Reserves 8 1 0 3 7 9 2 1 1 9 9 -2 10

You may be onto something here. In English football, in my youth the club with the reputation for being hardest to beat on their own ground was said to be Millwall who went through 2 consecutive league seasons unbeaten at home in the mid-60s, and then on a further occasion in the very early 70s. This included a 59 game unbeaten run. Obviously this was probably helped by the, ahem, "boisterous" reputation of Millwall fans giving the (old) Den a most unwelcoming and threatening atmosphere. There's certainly none of that at Palmerston where we only tend to grumble and tut-tut at our own players, aside from the odd occasion when an opposing player gets away with a horror tackle or gamesmanship. Now I'm not suggesting for one moment that Queens fans go all Millwall and start ripping up seats and throwing them at the dozen or so Cove fans who make the trip to Dumfries in order to create something approaching an intimidating atmosphere , but the current shitshow on the pitch gives us very little to shout about meaning that the old "the supporters are our twelfth man" cliche certainly doesn't apply at Palmerston. ETA: not having a pop at our fans, it's just that the on-field product doesn't exactly stir the emotions.

I hope our incoming one man board of director has deep pockets so that Bartley, Doherty, Hutchinson and McKechnie can all be "released". Grant Murray too, if he is contracted for next year. Does anyone know if there is a minimum number of directors requirement in order for the club to be SFA/SFL compliant? At the painfully slow rate that we're going at in terms of assembling a new board, I fear that some of the current board members will still be around next season to make up the numbers.

Just had a look to see how Hutchinson has been getting on at Eastbourne. He started the first four games after his arrival and failed to score. Next three games he came off the bench and failed to score. The last four games he hasn't even been used as a sub.

Met Office predicting wind gusts of 45mph. Cue lots of hope(ful/less) long balls up to Mumbongo instead of keeping it on the deck.

Motherwell also avoided relegation through league restructuring in 1986 and again in 2003 when Falkirk were denied promotion due to Ochilview falling way short of SPL ground requirements and the construction of Falkirk Stadium still a year off from being completed.

We'll have to wait and see what design Brechin come up with.

While some teams can start a match fired up, our gang jog onto the pitch looking for all the world like damp tinder. The manager spends the rest of the match rubbing two sticks together in the hope of creating a spark. And usually fails.

That'll be the same youngsters that scored 5 goals at Kilmarnock in the reserve league this afternoon.

Kelty should be fine. Five consecutive defeats looks poor, but they have been against the top 5 teams in the table. I would certainly expect them to start picking up points agains over the next 4 or 5 fixtures. Stirling are unpredictable, but do have the easiest run in on paper. It all comes down to how they perform in the head-to-heads against the other 3. Queens are in a shocking state, the three most winnable games are all at Palmerston which given our horrific home form mean we probably won't win any of them. Annan's form isn't quite as impressive as I'd imagined, it's as much a case of the other 3 clubs sliding towards them as them stringing a series of wins together. However, they do look capable of getting results where maybe a couple of months ago they would have been stick-ons to get beaten. As bad as they are, I wouldn't be surprised if Edinburgh throw a spanner in the works by getting something from their matches against one of the above. So, I'll go with 6th Kelty, 7th Stirling, 8th Annan, 9th QOS.