invocr

Arbroath have a main stand sponsor now? Coelbrew - who? "we have temporarily removed the CoelBrew Main Stand from online purchases." https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/fife/3070481/gluten-free-beer-fife/

What's it say? Need to subscribe to read it.

Did anybody go to this? Did we manage to name a full starting XI?

Other than this keeper we've just got in, I wonder how many loan players we'll get in. Premiership teams maybe prefer putting players out to p/t times as then they can have them during the week for training rather than having BS possibly ruining them for six months or a season. I think I read (but maybe I'm wrong) that loaned out players can also play for their parent clubs in the reserve league. This is maybe less likely to happen if they're with a f/t club who would presumably want them training rather than back at the other club for a reserve match.

*an unattended physio table. From the article at the time of his resignation announcement: "Stuart will work an agreed notice period, to allow us to recruit a replacement." So hopefully he's still there to treat them....

Ali More appointed as director: http://www.raithrovers.net/35824/new-director-appointed.htm

Fair enough. I hadn't used the audio pass before last season and didn't realise that so many more matches had been covered. When you put it that way then almost 50 matches for £40 (or £35 early bird) is pretty good value.

Some price hike! I understand that new equipment has been invested in but almost doubling the audio pass seems a bit steep.

The SFA site lists Montrose v Dunfermline as a friendly yesterday, but I can't see anything on either teams' website or their twitter feeds - did it take place?

Exactly. They’ll be plenty that do. I’m sure years ago when Ross County were part time Roy MacGregor employed folk through Global Energy. Even Nairn County used to do it with their chairman and Narden.

Matt Elder has just followed Grant Gillespie on twitter, if we can take that as news...?

May be a good signing but it's going to be quite underwhelming given he's been talked about for weeks. I've just checked Twitter and he only follows three football clubs: East Fife, Celtic, and us. It must be a cert.

They seem to have been. Bobby Barr mentioned in the Tell Him He's Pele podcast that he had a 25% pay-cut after relegation from the Championship and then was told by Smith that any new deal for next season would have been on reduced wages again.

You getting the two Dundee teams mixed up like Sky Sports?

I'm sure we have this "should we move to a new stadium" debate every close season before we have any signing news to moan about. As much as I can see the failings of Stark's Park - I'd far rather stay there (plastic pitch and all) than have an out of town stadium.

Scrape winning the league, or promotion through the play-offs, and then can justify not renewing his contract by saying that the progress this season hasn't been enough to show that he could keep us up in the Championship. I'd rather worry about winning the league though rather than worrying how not to renew his contract!

To be fair on poor Barry Smith, I'd blame both our keepers for dropping points in these games just as much as the tactics. Smith's howler at Albion Rovers in the match they won, and another one not going to claim a ball against Forfar, when Davidson then got sent off. And Lennox with a howler in the midweek match away to Forfar.

Agree with all of this. That said, I can't see Smith being fired by Sim - even though he's made it clear he wants youth to be given more of a chance. Also struggle to think of other managers who would be jumping at the chance to come and manage us. I'd almost be tempted to say I'd be happy with Dick Campbell, but he's probably happy at Arbroath! Oh, and my "on this day" post on Facebook from two years ago is of the play-off match against Hibs. Three seasons in a row in the play-offs, worse each time. Does that mean we'll be in the relegation play-offs this time next year. Hope not!

Annex 4 then states that training payment levels will be set across four categories, and each national association categorises their clubs and determines a multiplication factor based on how many players need trained to get one professional. The player costs are shown here. According to the document, the SFA has to categories clubs across Cat 2, 3 and 4. Club categorisations are then meant to be published on the FIFA website but I can't find them. Under the SFA club licensing, Rovers are categorised as "Bronze" (from Platinum through to Entry), and for Youth, it just says FEFA. So, not much clearer in how much we'd get, but a minimum of €10k per year. Wiki says he was with us from 2013-2017, so €40k? (And FEFA getting any money if he was trained there before Raith?) On Drysdale's comments, maybe as well as a sell-on clause, or 'number of appearances for The Rangers' clause, there was hopefully a 'left you because you couldn't afford his wages clause'.

Not trained all week: Bobby Barr, Kevin McHattie and..... Scott Robertson!

What state is the pitch in at the moment? Has there been any noticeable difference in condition since Craig Surgeon left? On watching the Airdrie highlights I thought that the pitch already looked pretty heavy considering how early in the season it is.

As far as I can tell, he has a very small shareholding in RRFC Ltd and RR Holdings Ltd, but none in New RR Ltd (i.e. as a fan shareholder, rather than major investor). His place on the board will have been as he was CEO rather than a major shareholder.

The SPFL would have been paying the petrol money for their meetings. Eric Drysdale lost his place on the board when the club got relegated. (As did Leeann Dempster, when Hibs got promoted). The SPFL board is made up of three Premiership representatives, two from the Championship and one for League 1/2 (the Stranraer chairman).

No, although saw them saying a while ago they were preparing a new celebration GIF for twitter so maybe they were testing it? Is it bad...?!

You wait 2282 pages for somebody to say "myopic" and it's used twice within an hour....