qpsnapper

Was at New York Red Bulls v Vancouver Whitecaps a week past Saturday, easy 3-0 win for NY Red Bulls. Stadium is relatively new, about five years old, capacity around 30,000 and was around a third full for the match, about usual according to the regular fan who was sitting next to me (only Scottish teams he knew were Rangers, Celtic and Hill o Beath!). About 15 minutes walk from Newark station so quite easy to get to, NY lay on buses to get fans from the station to the stadium but most fans on the train seemed to walk. Got a seat in the second tier right on the half way line, USD35 for the ticket. Only name I recognised from either team was Wright-Phillips for NY, but it was Bradley, the brother of Shaun, he got two of the goals but could have scored more if he hadn't kept straying offside so much. Security was quite strong, everyone's bags being searched before entering, everyone also got scanned through a metal detector before entering, not sure if that was a short term response to the Las Vegas shooting or a regular thing, but security in general in New York seems to have been ramped up in the last 12 months.

Was at the Rapid Vienna v St Poulson game at the end of May when I was over in Vienna. New stadium (I think this was its first season), home end was full ages before kick off even though Rapid had nothing to play for (last game of the season). Looked like the fans had free reign to do what they wanted (within reason) in the home end, platforms at the front of the terracing for the supporters with the megaphones, all chanting/singing/flag waving very synchronised, quite impressive. Loads of flares and smoke bombs, hardly any stewards inside the ground, loads of beer and not a hint of trouble. St Poulson were second bottom and needed to win to be 100% sure of staying up. Rapid won 2-1 and there was a few nervous minutes for the hundred or so away fans in the corner of the stadium before the other team's match finished, however the bottom team lost so St Poulson stayed up. Admission was 25 Euros, decent value.

Really pleased for him, can't believe the progress he's made in just 18 months. Also the first former QP player to score for Scotland for over 50 years!

Richard Sinclair is the caretaker, however I wouldn't expect him to get the permanent position.

All change at the top, Gardner Speirs left Queen's Park after today's game, Dick Campbell takes over as the longest serving manager.

QP's last sacking was Kenny Brannigan in August 2004, given Billy Reid had been at Hamilton since June 2005 I would imagine they could beat that?

I probably should, but I'm really pissed off with my bosses attitude to the whole thing. She's well aware of the problem but just pretends it's not happening. Anyway, I'm leaving in a few weeks time so it won't be my problem then.

I am spending yet another day in work sitting next to someone who is clearly a stranger to soap. He is absolutely stinking. My boss's way of dealing with the problem is to make sure that she sits as far away as possible from him and then pretend there's nothing wrong

The difference with Vodafone is that they sat down with HMRC and negotiated the figure they had to pay (however unpalatable the result may be to you and I), they didn't decide just not to bother to pay their taxes.

Takeover imminent for Leeds? http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/leeds-utd-bahrain-bid-control-115834256.html

It's not really like that at all, when I went I was starting in San Francisco and finishing in New York, if I flown directly between the two cities I would have lost virtually an entire day from my holiday, so I wanted somewhere in the middle to break the journey for a couple of days and, as i'm interested in JFK, Dallas seemed as good a place as any.

There probably is, but as I wasn't driving (and only there for the weekend) I was looking for things in and around the city centre. I'll also admit to being woefully unprepared for visiting Dallas, despite knowing I was going there for about four months beforehand I didn't bother looking into what to do until I actually got there, normally I know what I want to see and do before I go somewhere.

Would add more support for Chicago, great city and the centre is relatively compact and a lot of things are in walking distance; there's the loop if you can't be arsed walking. Great food as well, I've never seen a city with so many restaurants and absolutely massive portions! Washington is really interesting, loads of monuments and places to visit, a lot within walking distance of each other, I would say you needed more than three or four days there though, I was there for five days and still had a couple of things I wanted to see. Dallas is okay for a couple of days, not sure there's enough to keep you busy for three or four. Was there a couple of weeks ago for the weekend, apart from the JFK stuff (which is really interesting and the Sixth Floor Museum is well worth a few hours) there wasn't really a huge amount of other stuff for tourists. They do know how to cook a steak though!

Was in the States during the International break but thought I'd miss all the tennis as I wasn't due in NY until last Monday. Thanks to the remnants of Hurricane something-or-other getting the semis and finals put back a day, and a very good hotel concierge who got me a ticket 90 minutes before the match started, I made it along to the men's final. Really pleased I made it, first set was tremendous stuff and no-one in the crowd left their seat. Start of the second set was a bit weird as all the Yanks went for their hot dogs/nachos at the end of the first set and the stadium was half empty for ages. After being four games down in the second Djokovic raised his game and Andy did well to hang onto the set, but in the third and fourth you feared the worst as Djokovic bossed the match. However, as soon as Andy broke Djokovic in the first game of the fifth it seemed to be a matter of when, not if, Andy would win. Djokovic looked goosed and had the crowd giving him the bird when he called for an injury time out before the last game. Winning point was a bit weird as it was a really close line call, for a split second (although it seemed like ages in the stadium) nobody was sure if it was in or out and if Andy had won or not. Trophy presentation was a bit poor, gave the players their trophies, a quick interview with each of them, a few pictures for the professional snappers and then they all pissed off, thought they might have let Andy take the trophy round the court and allowed the crowd to get some pictures of their own like they do at Wimbledon. Plenty of Scots in the crowd and I would say the majority of the crowd wanted Andy to win, certainly more vocal support for him than Djokovic. Finally, perhaps someone at Scotrail could take a jaunt over to NY and see how their transport people deal with big crowds? Thousands of people going for the metro after the game, no queues at all, just a load of trains filling up and scooting off as soon as they were full.

That agreement was torn up last week: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/rangers-end-deal-with-jjb.18643071

It would also require The Rangers fans to part with their hard earned to back Charles Green. You will recall that when David Murray tried a similar excercise a few years back it was a massive flop and raised about £500k from Rangers fans when Murray was looking for millions to pay off debt.

Great, another shitty Rangers joke thread. Just what we need.

With Sevco in the SFL for at least three seasons, there has to be value in a TV deal that the SFL can exploit. Even just a half hour highlights package or something. It would end up being mainly about Sevco obviously, but it would give the other teams in the SFL some exposure. There was talk of reviving the Glasgow Cup as a senior tournament on a home and away basis to give broadcasters some "old firm" action a while back, but I doubt Secvo would want it for another couple of seasons as they'd probably get their backsides whipped by Celtic just now.

Apologies if this has been psoted already, but Jim Ballantyne is quoted on BBC: "We don't have any control over the SPL. And they are entitled to do whatever they wish, within their own rules. "But it's important to mention that the Division One clubs went out of their way to make it clear that their route regarding a solution involved all 42 teams." Fair play to the First Division clubs, SPL & SFA tactics of divide and rule have failed miserably.

Haven't seen the expression "tail wagging the dog" for a few seasons. Wonder how often we'll see it in the coming days? And no doubt the authors will gloss over what a fucking mess the dog made of wagging the tail.

Several clubs have said that was what was said by Regan at the last SFL meeting of all 30 clubs but this was quickly denied by Regan after the meeting. I know who I believe.

As mentioned they can sign players right up to 31st August. However, for Cup matches, all players have to be registered with the SFA beforehand, you can't play trialists in cup matches. So Sevco have three weeks and a day to get themselves sorted (assuming they enter the Ramsdens Cup).

Another quote after yesterday's meeting was "This is what the supporters wanted". In other words, "It's all your fault". I half expected him to look into the camera and start shaking his fist when he said that.

The SPL are quite good at that, did the same with Gretna and left the SFL to clean up the mess, lo and behold they are doing the same with Sevco. Bunch of gutless wonders, time for the SPL to be abolished and everyone back under one set-up.

It was probably someone else's money anyway.