SimonLichtie

Excuse me - I'll have you know Terry is an Arbroath man, born and bred who works in the town. It's not his fault he wasn't good enough to play for ourselves and had to move to one of the lesser Angus teams No hard feelings against him...... he's no Mark Peat/ Jay Stein In all seriousness I thought it was really nice to see Terry choose to play ourselves in his testimonial game as opposed to a 'big' team. He has a strong association with the town, and we're the only other senior club he's properly played for, so nice to see Thanks for that - much appreciated I'm currently missing the attendance, ref, Edin City manager and entire Edin City team for that game...... are you able to help at all?

This one? If so, I shall stick it in our archive with your name as photographer?

There was no manager to sack! Previous manager Tommy Gray left in March 1957 and wasn't replaced, instead Chris Anderson (who had a scouting role under Gray) was kept on to coach and help the committee pick the team, and this arrangement stood until John Prentice was appointed in April 1960. Chris Anderson went on to join the Aberdeen (his home town) board in 1967 and played a huge part in their success through the 70s and 80s. He still, quite rightly, has a ground named after him in the city Incredibly that years home game against St. Mirren, played three months after this 8-1 drubbing, saw us win 6-2!

Due to one of our ex players being an absolute top man and going out of his way to help with things, we now have some further match footage on our Youtube page St Mirren, Rangers, Kilmarnock, Berwick Rangers, Aberdeen and Dundee featured! I've seen the Dundee footage previously - but the other four are completely new to me I'm hoping to unearth some more footage from the STV archives and a few other places - if anyone has any ideas/ tips/ contacts for this please let me know

Finally, Rangers 2-3 Arbroath 02/02/1974

Due to one of our ex players being an absolute top man and going out of his way to help with things, we now have some further match footage on our Youtube page I've seen the Dundee footage previously - but the other four are completely new to me All of these games are, of course, on the archive itself with full teams, game details etc. as well. Any questions etc. just get in touch and of course if anyone has any further AFC footage from the past that we can get online please do get in touch

One final thing - Dick was absolutely spot on not to touch Goldy yesterday and to leave him in central midfield alongside Slater with McKenna just further up. The three of them have been absolutely superb as a midfield trio over the past month, and McKenna's upturn in form alongside the partnership being formed by Goldy/ Slater behind him is one of the key reasons for our success in our last four league games. In our last 4 league games/ wins, all three of these players have been in with a shout of man of the match awards and haven't put a foot wrong. Wonderful stuff

With October and the end of the first quarter fast approaching, it's evaluation time The fact we can already give the first quarter a 'pass' with the 10 points a quarter target already seen off with 2 games to spare speaks for itself really. After making some extremely poor decisions in the first three matches of the season, Dick has got absolutely everything spot on over the past month. We've got our shape nailed, we're far more fluid than we were previously and we've found 9/10 of our starting 11 with the main area of debate being the lone front man, who could be anyone from 3 and no-one could really complain..... a really, really good position to be in. Partnerships are being allowed to form and you can see much more understanding within the team positionally when filling in for someone who has pushed up. In early August, if Scott Stewart pushed up at all there was a huge hole in behind him, where as now we have the fluidity and understanding for someone like Slater or even Hylton at times to drop and fill that gap. One thing I do find slightly strange is how we sat off so much up until mid August, playing in a way that would suit Scott Allan but giving him no minutes, then as soon as he left the club we've played a much more pressing, high tempo game which he wouldn't have fitted into at all. No complaints from me at all, just an odd one. There's no doubting the style we're playing currently wouldn't suit him at all though. We're now at a stage where signings are bedded in, players are fully match fit and we've got a consistent system in place. It's now fair to judge players fully in my opinion. I saw comments from people very negative about Craig Slater in August..... a guy who has proven quality as he has shown at all former clubs, yet some folk want to write him off based on a few games coming in off the back of an injury?! I cannot emphasise enough how little friendlies and league cup games in July mean when it comes to the league campaign. I'm hoping after the last 3 months we won't go through the same thing next year The summer months and how we've done as a club should be evaluated at the end of the summer, not in the height of July when we've played a few friendlies, the transfer window isn't close to shutting and no-ones had time to fully get up to speed. Likewise, the start of the season shouldn't be evaluated after 1/2/3 games. A football season lasts 10 months, to be forming full opinions, sacking people, frothing at the mouth less than a month into it will always be silly in my opinion. Finally - I said it to a few people 3/4 weeks ago and I thought they were going to faint, but I'll say it again. This squad is, in my opinion, as good as the one that finished 2nd two years ago. I have a real belief in this squad of players and their ability. We have so much more than last year, much more depth and some real individual quality in there. Previously, we were hugely reliant on individual players to get us through - Nouble/ Jack Hamilton as two examples - where as if one of our strikers gets injured currently we have two others who're proven quality to come in for them.

As I previously mentioned, I hope I'll be able to get further highlights etc. in time.... unfortunately almost all the things I said I hoped to work on in the weeks/ months after the archive was released have not come to fruition just yet, mainly as I've been focusing most of my time on pre world war 2 trialists both for and against us . It is a good use of my time, I'm sure we all agree I'll still be working away on things for years to come I expect, but the vast majority won't be noticed due to them being either very historic or not really interesting to most people.... I'll try and bring myself to start the process of hopefully unearthing some additional highlights over the coming months Ideally in a few years time we'll have the Arbroath Archive YouTube channel with all of our historic highlights that are spread over different places/ platforms currently, as well additional content we find along the way

I disagree...... the reality is that no matter what the situation, sacking a manager after 3 league games is ridiculous, as are shouts to do so. In a league campaign things should be taken by the quarter - every team has good and bad runs of form throughout a season, and 3 games isn't even a 'run' as such.... it's 3 games. In terms of 'going terribly for an entire year' - again I'd disagree. In the second 18 games of last season we only lost 6 of them. We went on a 7 match unbeaten run during the spring. Both of these stats come from a season we would all consider to be a poor one. Squadwise we were a bit of a joke during the first half of last season, we improved a lot in the second half of the campaign despite still having an all round poor squad and this year we've improved again squad wise. I don't even see this squad as comparable to the first half of last campaign, as we went through long spells of last season when the only thing we could do was to try and keep it tight and grab a 0-0 or a 1-0. Dick got the time he deserved last year, but this year is different. The aim should be 10 points a quarter, and if we're hitting that no issues, if we have a quarter where we pick up 5/6 points, it puts pressure on the next one. If we have a prolonged period - aka two quarters - of 6 or less points then things have to be seriously looked at.

While I dislike the competition, I see games like this as a relative free hit at this stage. I expect we'll make 3/4 changes from last week and try a few things out - one of those games where no-one should really be fussed by the line up or subs. We've got to give Jess Norey a run out, Hylton deserves a start after the last few weeks as does McIntosh while Adams should get a game as well. I'd give Stowe another start as well.

Well that was, quite simply, a superb team performance all round Our best all round 90 minute display this calender year at least. I've pointed out various things Dick has done over the past few weeks which I think have been really poor, but today he got everything spot on. The starting 11 and their shape worked really well, to the surprise of everyone I think, with Turan making it a 4-4-2 on the ball but dropping deep on the left when we were out of possession allowing Gold, Slater and McKenna to cover the centre of the park. I think we'll still struggle in the centre of the park against the stronger teams in the division but today it worked. Subs wise the like for like with Bird & Gold when they both got knocks were the correct subs, as was bringing on Hylton for his pace in the last 20 for Turan and I really liked seeing us not make 4/5 changes in a game for once...! Slater, Turan and McKenna were all absolutely outstanding. Three big performances which were needed from three players who have things to prove after the last few months. Wonderful to see the travelling support serenading the big man as he was subbed off and at full time although it did lead to my biggest disappointment of the day - 1320Lichtie not being in attendance to join in with the 'Turan' chants. Interesting to note Morton only had 5 subs today and they're still lacking players in key positions..... it's almost as if other teams in the division are also still needing to add players to their squads.... we're far from the 'finished article' but we have a good base that if the right players are added to it then squad wise I've no doubts we have enough to stay up. Utilising the players we have correctly, like we did today, will of course be the key.

We have gone with Ricky pumping it up the park from day one. We've not created enough chances so far and we've not retained the ball as much as we need to. The one player we have who is able to do these things featuring for 0 minutes in the league and being punted is not a good look in my opinion...... this entire season is going to be long ball, playing for knock downs and second balls etc and full backs and central defenders launching it. It's fine to go with those tactics when you don't have the players to do otherwise, but it's frustrating to have the players to do otherwise and make the choice to go long ball shitfest tactics from minute one. It's more frustrating when this is the choice that's made, and the management seem surprised we struggle to create chances.

I watched Dick's interview, something I very rarely do, and after the first minute I have immediately remembered why I don't watch them and it was swiftly turned off. Quite simply, I disagree with everything that he said in that minute.... The comments on the goal which we lost are incredible in my opinion. We lost the goal because two minutes prior to it he had taken a central midfielder out and gone with 2 instead of 3. Immediately we were overrun and the spare man had all the time in the world to pick the pass. Absolutely nothing to do with concentration, absolutely everything to do with the unnecessary tactical change minutes prior which is completely ignored. The comments regarding the three strikers on the pitch with 15 minutes to go are also absurd, as that was the reason we lost the goal and ultimately lost the game.... 'showing we wanted something out the game' - it cost us the bloody game.

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I am tremendously frustrated with that overall due to what I see as one really poor judgement call has cost us the game. The difference between a 0-0 where we put in that performance, get our first point of the season, get some confidence in us and look to push on and losing 1-0 is massive going into two very important games for us. For 65 minutes I was very impressed with us, in comparison to the last few weeks. We were much better than our two previous league performances. A lot sharper in midfield, gave Queen's a lot less time to play and the shape worked really well. Mikey McKenna, while still not close to where he can be, was better than he has been in recent weeks and it's a real shame he got injured as he looked to be regaining his form in the first 45. I also think Ryan Dow did really well when he came on and took up the same position, he played three or four really good balls for Stowe and others in behind, something no-one else has done so far this season. At this point, the shape is good, the midfield is tighter than it's been in any competitive game and we're creating half chances and it's a fairly even game. I cannot comprehend the decision to then change the shape, change the midfield, get rid of the wide players and go with 2 in the centre of the park and play a striker out wide left Within three minutes of making the change, a huge gap appears in the centre of the park and a QP midfielder has all the time in the world to play a through ball for the goal. During the first 65 minutes we were cutting these out, we were closing down and we were looking far stronger in the centre of the park and we chucked all of our good work in that time away with this change. I felt player wise we were much better today than the two previous games, and certainly wouldn't pick any of them out as playing badly. Credit to Dick for putting out a line up that worked well and the right shape for the first 65 minutes - but that credit evaporates and then some when you make those sort of decisions during the 90 minutes.

Absolutely nailed it

Frankly I'm outraged at this disrespect for the Forfarshire Cup! I'll have you all know our Forfarshire Cup wins were all much superior to any nonsense the Challenge Cup has produced in recent years! The B teams and Welsh/ Irish teams inclusion is absurd..... the day B teams were added this cup fell to below the Urquhart Cup in levels of significance. I would rank the importance of the cup competitions as follows 1 - Scottish Cup 2 - League Cup 3 - Forfarshire Cup 4 - Urquhart Cup 5 - Watters Cup 6 - Challenge Cup

Hello. Long time lurker on this thread, and despite very rarely posting on here it formed part of my initial 'wouldn't it be good if there was more Arbroath related history stuff online' thinking a couple of years ago. This resulted in me taking things slightly too far, as I have a tendancy to do, and creating The Arbroath Archive. Most of the below is a copy and paste from press stuff a couple of weeks ago, because I'm a lazy b*****d and it's easier this way The archive is now fully live and can be found here; Arbroath Archive. Below gives a rough idea of what we've got on there: · A record of every game we've played from 1878 until present day, with over 6400 total games in total, with game date (teams, subs, scorers, ref etc) where known, and highlights for modern day games · A match report for every almost every game with thousands of old reports from the Arbroath Herald & Arbroath Guide and dozens of other sources, as well as fan reports from the old arbroathfc.org.uk website for our games in the 90s and early 00s · A profile for every player who has played for the club containing their full playing record for the club as well as player info, a picture where we have it and a biography · Our all-time player appearance records, goalscorer records and clean sheet records · Hundreds of pictures, programme covers, a managerial timeline, hat trick heroes and lots more! As well as the site itself, we will be looking to keep our social media pages fairly active with regular posts on a whole host of things, such as 'Guess the Player', 'On This Day', 'Did You Know?' etc. as well as hopefully further articles/ interviews in the future. Facebook Twitter On the Facebook/ Twitter pages I try to post twice a day; an 'On This Day' and something older/ different like the following.... it's this content that seems like it'd be of more interest to posters in this thread Our manager Albert Henderson went to watch Alex Ferguson, then a part timer at St Johnstone, play in December 1963... unfortunately he'd been promoted to the first team that day and promptly scored a hat trick at Ibrox.... safe to say any sort of move was scuppered In 1950, one of our players was fined for playing football in the street.... Gayfield in 1950 Shooting practice in January 1939. The committee in April 1935. Three of our fans in 1965. Another copy and paste job below due to the aforementioned lazyness George Best at Gayfield! One of the things we've been lucky to get our hands on is previously unseen highlights from the Arbroath v Arbroath Vics match played in August 1982 to mark the junior clubs centenary. The game, which was won 4-3 by the Vics with Best scoring two penalties, was captured on a VHS Camcorder from the Gayfield tunnel and the footage had been in the loft of former Arbroath Vics committee member Ed Collier for the past few decades. After Ed's passing last year his son, also named Ed, found the footage and gave us a copy. The highlights are 20 minutes long with Best being prominent throughout. He wasn't the only 'well kent' face on display that day however, with both teams featuring plenty of players who still have lots of connections to the club and town of Arbroath itself.

Absolutely not excusing the situation - but the reality is a wee bit different from what's being said... We had trialist left backs in pre season training with us and playing bounce games way back in June/ early July. We also had a left back who would've been an excellent signing training with us in July, but it didn't materialise. We've also tried to loan a left back in recent weeks and lost out at the last minute. It should've been sorted by now, but to say we've not been trying to sort it/ only recently been trying to sort it simply isn't true. It's the same situation as last August/ September with strikers - we had loads of them playing in bounce games, training, loans we tried to get that never happened etc. It was absolutely unacceptable we basically had no proper strikers for half of last season, but it's not like it was through choice. The same way having no left back throughout pre season and into August is absolutely not a choice. By all means, it's perfectly fair and very understandable people are pissed off with the lack of proper left back currently. I am with you, believe me. However, it's not fair to say the management haven't been trying to sort this for months - they have and they've had some bad luck but ultimately at the end of the day it's their job to put a squad together....

I never for a second said I believed we stayed up due to good management. I said last season was a success based on us staying in the division, which was and always is our realistic aim at this level. Excellent post overall and plenty to think about within it However the one part I've highlighted is where I think the key differences lie. In my opinion, as a part time side our aim in this division will always be primarily to avoid relegation, and we've been successful in doing that over the last four seasons. A three/ four month purple patch in one of those campaigns doesn't suddenly move us up the food chain above other established, full time clubs at this level. While we were obviously horrific for the majority of last season, as I've said before, I think it was amplified by the success of the previous campaign in challenging right up the top.

I was obviously joking, and I can only assume you are too.

I mean you could argue Dick has failed the entire time he's been with us. We only win League 2 because Forfar fucked it up. We only won League 1 because Raith were a let down that season. He ruined our chances of promotion to the Premiership two seasons ago and we only stayed up last year because of other teams and nothing to do with him? He should've been sacked after that first season when we got lucky and Forfar gave us the league Last season was a success, as we achieved our aim of staying up in the division. We were absolutely horrific in the first half of the campaign, and in the second half he turned things around (we went from horrific to just about passable in enough games ) and we managed to survive. Last year we had 1 point after 5 games and we stayed up. Last season is a complete and utter irrelevance to any 'sacking' talk. It was a very different squad of players. I've no idea how a game last September in which we had a very different squad of players has any relevance to this present season and getting the best out of our current squad. The issues at present seem to be, for me, two problem positions and the fact we've not been able to yet put together a team with the correct shape/ balance to it. To give any manager a handful of league games to decide on their best team etc. is very unfair IMO. A manager not knowing his best team/ being able to get the best out of them in early August is fairly common and understandable to a point. If you're going to be firing managers after half a dozen or less league games, you're going to find yourself a club that goes through 2/3 managers a season and become a bit of a shitshow. Like most clubs, our best periods have come when we've had stability management wise and our worst ones have been where we've gone through a manager a year on average. In terms of 'not another manager in Scotland' getting the time Dick has..... John Rankin? Robbie Horn? I say all of the above as someone who is really annoyed with yesterday and thinks we got almost everything wrong from a management point of view, as well as being someone who hasn't ever been overly enthused by Dick's cheeky chappy banterous persona. I also think it's not unlikely we're heading towards the end of Dick's time in charge of the club - however we started the season with him as our manager so lets get on with it and see where we're at a few months into the campaign before re-evaulating things. He could prove the vast majority of our fans wrong again, like he did just last season.

Sacking a manager two games into a season is, frankly, absurd and is for clubs that are in turmoil. Any manager who starts a season should be given, at least, the first 9 games and anything less reflects very badly on the club in question. In my opinion there are 'right' and 'wrong' stages in a season to sack a manager, unless there are underlying issues at play. Early/ Mid October after the first quarter, late November in order to get a new manager in and give them some time to assess things prior to January, and late February prior to the last quarter. Sacking managers during transfer windows is usually a bit of a nonsense in my opinion. You either have a manager and back them to do their thing during that time or you make a change prior to it to give someone you think better positioned the job. Between now and October will form my opinion on what's best for us going forward for the rest of the campaign, as it would do in any given season.

Oddly, and I can't entirely put my finger on it, but todays game really annoyed me. Every poor performance/ defeat we've had so far in pre season, and last week, I've not been phased by at all, but today was the polar opposite. We were poor for the majority of the game, but I felt like we got basically everything wrong in almost every area tactically and in terms of substitutions which is really frustrating. Players who were really struggling throughout the game got 90 minutes while others who were beginning to come onto a game were hooked. We made the same double substition we were planning to make at 1-1 as we were at 1-0. My reading into that is Dick didn't see the situation any different when it was 1-1 than being 1-0 down, which is absolutely incredible. I also feel like for a lot of last season there wasn't much we could do in terms of changing it up etc. because we had such a poor squad overall, but our squad is miles ahead of where it was 12 months ago in my opinion. I genuinely think apart from the two blindingly obvious positions we need to fill we are in much better shape overall. That's a credit to the management. However - with that comes the belief that we should be doing better than we were throughout last season. If were not, then serious questions will need to be asked in a couple of months time. Finally, once again, I have to question why Scott Allan has literally become our last pick of all our outfield players both today and last week, with 5 subs on ahead of him. Throughout both of these games we've struggled to string two passes together and keep the ball for any length of time. We have much better forward players this season than last, and we've given them basically no service so far in the league games. Scott Allan struggles with various aspects of the game, but the two areas he's miles better than anyone we have are picking out a pass and ball retention. In our first few pre season games we seemed to be looking at playing him as a ball playing sitter in midfield, and he looked a lot fitter, we were holding the ball and knocking it about and we had possession far more. My worries of several weeks ago that if we didn't play Scott Allan we wouldn't be seeing a lot of the ball and would be whacking it long the vast majority of the time have grown considerably. Far more negatives than positives today (although there were a few of them as well) and really frustrating. However, it's games against the other teams in the bottom half that'll make or break our season, not ones at the top end such as we've played today and last week.