Jimmy Shaker

Off The Ball, by an almost infinite distance.

The IDEA of there being an M&S in Banff.

Maybe big enough for headers and volleys, but at least the slope isn’t as bad as Harlaw Park.

My garden at the end of Harlaw Road was playable on Wednesday. Whatever frost was in the ground didn’t go deep into the surface and wasn’t anything that couldn’t have been fixed with a pre-match warm-up and some ground work ahead of KO.

The state of this from the crackhead.

I think I said earlier in the season, the inconsistencies between officials and their desire to call games off is wild, and way, WAY more hair-trigger than anything I remember in my youth. The biggest problem remains clubs not doing enough with their pitches, and choosing to piss money away on players, but referees aren’t helping matters. If this weekend is as bad as predicted, I dunno where we stand in terms of getting this season done.

No danger the pitch at Inverurie was in worse condition than GSP in midweek, yet only one game went ahead. Incidents like this aren’t helping matters.

Still fine and busy years after they kicked all the dregs off?

Being played by two clubs without a functioning ground between them at a junior park. It's something alright.

It's being played at Longside Juniors. SHFL clubs seem willing to help with league fixtures but due to the Shire Cup being an additional (and regional) competition, I'm not surprised clubs - North FA ones in particular - aren't interested. Fair come down for this fixture tho. Once played in front of more than 2000 folk as a league decider now being played in the middle of nowhere in front of a crowd of almost no one.

Yup .

Ooo! Dreadful!

For reasons unknown, my brother chooses to listen to Radio Scotland on Saturday afternoons so we had this on on the way to Lossie yesterday, so it was the first time in years I’d heard it. Just what is it that’s so funny all the time? The two hosts laugh almost constantly and at nothing, and loudly. Braying like rugby twats at weak-ass material sent in, all of which seems to be read out with nothing junked by a producer. f**k it, I’ll just get my post from three years ago or whenever and rehash that because it might as well have been the same show I was listening to. Nothing had changed. If they’re not making the effort, I’m not gonna.

The most bizarre thing I’ve heard in a long time. Every League club played today so there’s hunners to talk about yet here’s Billy Dodds picking three songs for the radio. Someone needs to come on and explain this.

Genuinely fascinating to be listening to Sportscene or whatever the hell the radio thing is called, and come 1800hrs, at the end of a day that saw EVERY League club play a game, I’ve to listen to Billy Dodds music choices. What the f**k is going on here.

I think we'd rather the clubs in question spent some of their money actually looking after their fucking pitches, how about that. Don't want to go all 'things were better in my day' or anything but I'd guess about half the postponements this season would have gone ahead not all that long ago. It's the other half that's the problem, and thats the ones at Brora and Buckie. The former cheaped out on redoing their pitch in the summer and have taken way, way too long to accept the reality of the situation, while Buckie are reported to have pipes running under their pitch which are leaking but have been unable to stop the leak. 3G/4G pitches are one solution, but so is getting the finger out and doing more than (or even just) the bare minimum in terms of pitch maintenance.

At some point, questions are going to have to be asked of certain clubs who are clearly making no provision for making sure they can get games on by looking after their pitches while at the same time ploughing fucking tons of loot into their first team. Not namBRORAing any naBUCKIEmes or anything, but fucking hell boys, get your act together.

Brora should be forced to play the rest of their season away from home, such is the state of their pitch and their reluctance to anything about it, either in terms of fixing it or doing early inspections. Circus of a club.

It's not just the clubs at the top that need to hem games in now. The clubs at the bottom are lagging behind as well, with one game off tomorrow already and others likely to fall as well.

With regards, to their pitch, Fort got away with murder for years - decades, even. Everyone who has supported a SHFL team for long enough will have some tale of how close they got to Fort before hearing the game was off (Fort Augustus in my case), or some other bizarre tale involving deer dung, people camping on the pitch, someone wheelbarrowing sand onto the pitch to fill in holes big enough to hide toddlers in. In their first season in the league they were plagued by postponements and ended up playing their 'home' game against Lossie at Lossie on a Sunday at the end of the season. Their staggering incompetence re player registrations in their final SHFL season did them no favours. The only thing Fort got right in their final season was their ability to bait their fans online with claims of how the league was out to get them, when what actually holed them below the waterline was the morons and conspiracy theorists running the club. They were on the clock re the pitch the minute the relegation playoffs were added to the season, and did nothing about it.

Normally I’d not bother sticking my oar into matters involving Kirstene Hair’s favourite side, but I feel compelled to say you’ve an absolute riproaring c**t of yourself this week. And given the bar you’d already set yourself, that takes some doing.

Pay for the month came in today, with the other to come tomorrow. Would appear that my plan to shovel all the bill money into the bills account to make sure we've fripperies like a mortgage payment, money for petrol and the like for what is the longest month of the year means 'I'm really killing the Christmas buzz', and I should pay more attention to making sure people who don't care get parcels they don't want. We didn't do a food shop last month so she could buy things for other people.

For the 1897/88 season, what does 'LW' refer to?

They spent a bundle if the rumours are correct.