Ray Patterson

Do we reckon he's actually dead? If so it's a disappointing end to Summer 2023's main character arc.

For both legs you would reckon that TNT will almost certainly take the Hibs game. BBC Scotland will definitely take the Hearts and Aberdeen home games as they're in the main "prime time" spot, and BBC will be charge of production for it. Annoyingly for the first leg, the Aberdeen game kicks off at 6pm so there's a small clash, haven't seem the PAOK kick-off time for the second leg, but it sounds like it will clash with the other two games, if it's the 6:30pm slot that the Greeks like to go for.

For "sacrificing" two home games per season for TV that went into the general prize pot, which Ayr's share was over £500k last season. Ayr hosted Dundee and QP on the TV in the league last season, the attendances for both those games were 432 down and 178 up on the corresponding fixtures. So even at a generous £25 a head it cost Ayr a total of £6,700, which they would have made up in uplift from having the electronic advertising hoardings. It was well worth it for Ayr

Fantasy Football Scotland is the main go-to one.

Week 1 - Celtic

It's quite something but it's no Lee Anderson

Poland is a modern military with a professional army and modern equipment. Russia have taken about 100km of territory in 18 months of war against a country a third their size with absolutely no natural defences. Poland wins that battle every time.

In the Telegraph: Didn't realise that Delhi was in England.

They'd farm it out to Manchester.

Scotstoun with Temporary Stands, maybe? Facilities is one thing but the cost of organising will be a lot. Even the Cycling Worlds are costing £50m and they probably have a bigger ROI in terms of Global Reach (more athletes too), and all they needed built was some new trails in Glentress. You'd be looking at least £300m for the Commies and that's excluding Athletics I do like the idea of spreading it about Scotland though, rather than just Glasgow.

Sorry it's that rag, but Christchurch look like they want to step in: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12312517/Christchurch-offers-host-2026-Commonwealth-Games-Victoria-pulled-out.html

I don't think so, but I think they certainly could make it work. Might have to be done a la Hampden. They've got an International Pool and Hockey Venues in Cardiff Bay, Velodrome in Newport and Sophia Gardens for Cricket.

Crap news this, I worked with a few athletes that went to Birmingham and Gold Coast, and it's massive for them in keeping their funding for training and going to competitions, and a few went on to compete at Tokyo and are likely to be heading to Paris. Really hope someone can come in. The fault is completely on the Australians, why they insisted on keeping all the venues outside Melbourne was mental. Events like track cycling should have been held in Melbourne, where there was existing infrastructure, instead they were going to build a temporary velodrome in Bendigo. Would really love to see Cardiff host it - they certainly could do it, and there was chat of them going for 2030.

They call it the Widowmaker for a reason...

The SPFL are weirdly strict over rights use, the BBC only have partial rights for radio broadcast as well, hence why they don't have live comms of every game. There was a few years when Bauer had live comms of all 3pms.

Had a look at what they're doing to replace the Cricket World Cup League 2 for the next few years, and it seems utterly silly that Scotland will remain in the same diddy league, below Ireland and Windies after beating them both in this tournament. They're ditching the top league, but this whole World Cricket League makes it much harder for Scotland to play series against comparable nations, and instead have to play Nepal and the USA in series constantly.

Proper Judean's People's Front/People's Front of Judea vibes going on here

An internal power struggle in Russia? https://twitter.com/emopunkmedia/status/1555189217231249410

The argument is that by having a better stadium you can attract better non-matchday events, and increase the possibility of hosting European finals, especially if there's a small expansion included.

At what point does Russia 1 Channel start playing Swan Lake?

Prigozhin acting like Napoleon returning to Paris with the Army sent to stop him, joining him. Kadyrov will flip as soon as Wagner offer him a better deal.

Also kicking off now with a few videos of skirmishes breaking out in Rostov.

Thread name needs changed to Russian invasion of Russia imo.

Well now...