GordonS

I was among the Leverkusen fans at the Champions League final at Hampden, a brilliant bunch of people. Somewhere in that crowd there's a guy with my long-sleeved Queens Park top in their house. There's nothing like football. Bwoody hell.

25 wins, 4 draws and no defeats. Unbeaten in all competitions. Bayer Neverlusen.

Ah you'd need a heart of stone not to love this. It's one for the ages.

Absolute scenes in Leverkusen. It's a genuine delight to see a club lay decades' worth of ghosts to rest in glorious and emphatic fashion at home, at the first opportunity.

If the criticism of Liverpool's owners is that they're not putting unearned money into the club like Man City, Chelsea and Newcastle are doing, then IMO that's not a criticism and it definitely can't be described as 'not being interested in winning.'

I get the logic of this but there's little evidence to support it. They've spent £200 million alone on expanding Anfield. The Main Stand is a longer term investment as it will increase revenues but the new seats in the Anfield Road End can't be sold for premium prices. On the pitch, last season they had the third highest wages, well ahead of Man Utd and Arsenal and only behind the two big financial dopers. They have a net spend on transfers of £156 million since the end of May last year. FSG have lent them £137 million and they made an operating loss last year of around £30 million. Payments to directors aren't big and they aren't leveraged like Man Utd. They're not being run by Mike Ashley. It's also adebatable view of a club that started the day top of the league and have already won a trophy this season.

I love the guy, but come on. Dennis Irwin, Patrice Evra and Ashley Cole were better in the Premier League era. Kenny Sansom and Alan Kennedy achieved more in the 1980s, but I was too young to see them play much so I can't compare. Going much further back full backs usually played a different role.

It's just so disrespectful and unprofessional from Clement. This is a big day for Ross County and Don Cowie, and as manager of the strong favourite Clement owes it to them to give them credit, if not just meet the basic etiquette at the end of a football game. Someone like Walter Smith would have been straight over to offer congratulations. It may seem like a small thing, it's just a handshake, but it speaks to a really ugly attitude.

Clement straight down the tunnel without doing handshakes. p***k.

Anyone else think that shouldn't have been a penalty? Looked to me like the ball changed direction off the defender's head first, before it goes onto the boy's arm. His arm is in a natural position and he didn't have time to adjust.

Depends on whether you count the time of the incident or the award.

You'd think if there was one football club whose supporters could find a real drummer it would be Rangers.

You're right, it's too hypothetical and I should probably have left it alone. I just think a bit more consensus and wider, long-term thinking would be good. As a Linlithgow Rose fan I love the SJC and I miss it, but listening to fans of other clubs I realise it's mostly fans of clubs that had realistic chances of winning it that feel this way.

People confuse majoritarianism with democracy. Democracy includes the idea of giving people as much freedom to make their own choices as you can. It's not just the majority getting their own way over minorities no matter what.

For conspiracy theorists everything that happened must have been intended to happen, so you just change the narrative to suit the events. Nothing could ever be coincidental.

I don't think it was entirely sensible tbh and Naomi Wolf is a fruit loop. The idea that any government would want to force people to stay at home instead of be out working and spending money is completely irrational and illogical. For example, one of the first big things they did after the first lockdown was Eat Out to Help Out. What civil liberties do we, or did we, have that governments want to curtail? The right to protest - but even at the height of Covid risks they were remarkably accepting of protests against Covid restrictions, the Met Police and racism. What else? People vastly overestimate how much governments care about what they do with their days.

A vote to force a minority to do something they don't want to do and don't need to do isn't necessarily democratic.

Aberdeen and Celtic played each other 8 times in 1987/88 - 4 league, 1 league cup and a Scottish Cup 3rd round match that went to 2 replays. Rangers and Hibs met 7 times in 1977/78 - 4 league, and three times in the Scottish Cup final. They played each other 4 times in May 1978 - the three cup finals on 12, 16 and 28 May and the final league game of the season on 31 May. Celtic and Rangers faced each other 7 times in 2010/11 - 4 league, league cup, and Scottish Cup with a replay.

No. If Hibs had beaten Leeds Utd in the 3rd round of the 67-68 Fairs Cup they'd have played Rangers in the QF, and if Rangers had beaten Leeds Utd in that tie they'd have played Dundee in the SF.

Bonar Bridge were a little bit screwed by Loch Ness failing to field a team against Thurso, with Thurso being awarded the win. Loch Ness would surely have won that game and Thurso would have finished behind Bonar Bridge on goal difference.

I love watching Leinster and they're putting on a show here in front of a packed Aviva. Assuming Leinster finish the job their semi-final will be against Northampton or Bulls at Croke Park, which could have a massive crowd.

Dalbeattie face a fixture scramble to get their league campaign completed in time for the Lowland League play-off. They're already scheduled to play Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and now they have another fixture to play. But three of their scheduled fixtures are cup ties, so presumably they'll shunt one or more.

Who did they sign?

Yup, Airdrie are the form team any way you slice the past 10 matches. Airdrie getting back-to-back promotions would be one of Scottish football's wilder stories, especially after finishing 21 points off the top last season and winning the play-off final on penalties.

The defences of Gartcairn and similar sides here read like someone with a trust fund from the bank of mum and dad complaining that those pointing out their unfair advantages are just jealous. Football is a zero-sum game and every winner needs a loser. If a club is getting boosted by cash going into their playing squad from anything other than matchday income, market-rate sponsorship and so on then they're not having success on merit, and other clubs that can only spend what they've earned through their own efforts are bumped down the league system below them and miss out on cup wins or runs too. A secondary impact that's apparent in England and will be repeated here if it continues is clubs in an arms race, being forced to whore themselves to rich guys looking for a hobby, leading to increasingly sketchy chancers taking control of clubs. The risks to their existence is obvious. If locals with money want to put invest in things like youth development or facilities that's great. If they put it into the first team squad they're just skewing the competition. Asking people to "applaud the ambition" is pretty insulting. There's nothing ambitious about having money fall into your lap. It's sheer blind luck. Other new clubs are working with what they earn, like (afaik) BSC Glasgow and Inverkeithing Hillfield Swifts. If you care about fairness and meritocracy in sport, that's who you should be be applauding.