houston_bud

I struggle to see what the ref saw in the replay that he didn't see in real time though. There was a nudge, everyone saw it, and he chose not to give it. The replay showed the same thing, just more slowly.

Alistair Johnston's looking well

He'd probably make far more money in the K League than he would playing for us. So, no chance he moves to us permanently. He seems to be enjoying it, so he might end up back on loan. If we can sneak into Europe then he might want to have a crack at that. Take Hibs last year getting to play Villa, a good performance in a game like that could do wonders for his career.

The foul by Kwon is so soft. A slight nudge and the player has gone down. The referee had a perfectly good view of it and decided to play on. Had the referee given it at the time I wouldn't have complained too much but I'm not having that can fall into 'clear and obvious'. 3-0 wouldn't have flattered us. St Johnstone rallied a bit at the end, had they managed to get score from the one that went past the post we might have got nervous. But other than that, we were pretty comfortable.

Both?

I agree. I also think she's looking for validation, she's a national joke in the UK, so she's jumped across the Atlantic to speak to the nutters there and has had to spout even more ridiculous nonsense for bigger rounds of applause.

Fair point. Looking back it feels a lot more comfortable than than the previous season's penalty shoot out play off. Although, given Dundee Utd's ability to score penalties it was maybe similar.

Goodwin got Alloa promoted and kept them in the Championship, they were the only part time team there at that time. As St Mirren manager, we stayed up pretty comfortably in his first season (admittedly the short covid season), he got us to two semi finals missed out on top 6 by a last minute goal the following season, then had us well on track for top 6 before he left for Aberdeen. You're probably right that wouldn't have got the job had he not played for us - although we have taken managers from part time teams before like Lennon and Hendrie - but he did well for Alloa and he did well for St Mirren. I wouldn't swap him for Robinson, but Goodwin was a good manager for St Mirren (and Alloa) by any measure.

Sad news, what a great character and played brilliantly. The bit where he's getting his appraisal gets me every time.

Covid is factor but it's not the only reason. Rise in poverty/inequality, social media with it's 'copy cat' stuff like trashing school toilets, plus a number of other factors. A lot of schools at the same time have moved towards 'restorative' forms of discipline, and for a lot of kids that'll will work, but I suspect there's a fair number of kids that just see it as there being no consequences for bad behaviour. Once behaviour starts to get bad in a school, it is pretty difficult to claw back. Edit: another thing I would add is that some of the school buildings are in a terrible state with little sign of new buildings/renovations. This doesn't excuse any violence, but i think maybe part of the reason for the disregard shown by kids. If places are a shit hole, then they're less likely to take any care or pride in it.

I guess "Cillian Sheridan trains with Queen's Park" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

It's definitely got better though, to a point where it almost never happened. It seems to be creeping back in, and whilst I wouldn't overplay it (we're not seeing supporters buses have all their windows put in), I'd much rather it wasn't happening. I agree that it's a countrywide problem, it happens in lots of other countries too. It might never be completely solved but we should still try and tackle it.

I'm inclined to agree, but there are definitely places where it's used much better. I've been to a few games in Korea recently and they definitely intervene a lot less there. At half time of the first game I went to, I had assumed there was no VAR. There was one check in the whole game, for a red card. The ref immediately went to the monitor when play stopped and pulled out the red card in about 30 seconds. I'd still get rid of it.

Now that I'm too old for it, I completely agree!

The club should be handing out bans to anyone involved in any violence or physical abuse. Hopefully that would act as a deterrent. There's a bigger problem than St Mirren though - and I don't say that to play down what happened or absolve anyone of responsibility. There's an increase in violence in schools, so there's definitely a societal issue. It's difficult to know exactly what's causing it; rise in poverty/hangover from the pandemic/social media? Groups of teenagers, probably with a bevvy (possibly more) in them, always has the potential for aggro, couple that with seeing endless videos online of other wee dicks causing trouble at games around the country.

Is it worth the trade off though? Ok, there is more correct decisions, but there's also more controversy, and long stops really make the game far less enjoyable. There's so many decisions that are subjective - I made the same point on the other thread - if qualified officials (plus the panel of so called experts) can look at several decisions multiple times, and from multiple angles, yet still arrive at a different conclusion then it tells us the system isn't fit for purpose. I can't imagine ever stopping going to St Mirren games because of VAR, but I definitely watch fewer games on TV and I've turned off more games than I can remember in the past couple of seasons. VAR is a big part of that.

I think I enjoyed the Pacific more than Band of Brothers, possibly because I hadn't seen as much TV/film about that part of the war. I thought Masters of the Air started quite slowly but the last two episodes have been good.

There's some class kits in the KLeague. Seongnam in K League two just released this cracker

Yeah, I think you're right. I'm not pointing any fingers. There's a domino effect to this sort of thing, as soon as one or two clubs have some folk wanting to be seen as hard men, then it will follow at other clubs too.

The 'ultras' have made a difference to the atmosphere and it's definitely better for it. But if the trade off is that means we need to endure wee fannies looking to cause bother, then I'd rather see it all binned. It seems to be creeping into a lot of clubs now, whilst it's not exactly the Shadwell Army, it's still not nice for folk to get caught up in it. Especially if you're trying to take kids, or there's older folk there. The clubs probably need to put their heads together and come up with something to try and nip it in the bud, I think it's difficult for individual teams to tackle it alone.

I'm not really looking forward to this. The last game against St Johnstone in Perth was horrible, we actually played better against Livingston that we did in the game at McDiarmid but I had a similar feeling after both games. I think predicting our games is a really hard thing to do. We don't really draw games, have pumped a few teams, have been pumped, have lost out to the odd goal against teams at the bottom of the league, have edged out some so called 'bigger' sides by the odd goal. I honestly have no idea how Saturday will go. I watched a bit of the St Johnstone game yesterday and they looked ok. If Rangers found them hard to break down, then we certainly will.

He says 'not once have I had a call from a big club at home'. Is there an implication here that he's had a call from a club he doesn't deem big enough?

I probably consume more audiobooks than paper books these days. I started listening to them in the first lockdown when out walking, as I find walking pretty tedious, and they've been a permanent fixture since. I learned quite quickly that a narrator can make or break an audiobook, so always listen to a sample first. The Ambros Parry books are excellent on audiobook as the narrators are terrific. I just finished Liz Cheney's book about the attack on the US capital and subsequent investigation. Whilst there is a bit of self aggrandising about how 'freedom loving' she is and some vomit inducing stuff about the US being 'the greatest country that god ever created' and other such shite, it was still an interesting - and terrifying - read (listen).

Even Yardley and Lavety only had a season together. And we played with a front 3 that year. We've had some decent strikers over the years (Thompson, Higdon, Sutton all come to mind) but I can't remember many 'partnerships'. Sutton and Kean for a season? Dargo and Mehmet?

Certainly seems like it. You'd think Robinson would he experienced enough to ignore it, or challenge it in a calmer manner. Seemed to lose the head. There are some fans that deserved to be called out though.