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davie

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Everything posted by davie

  1. what a game. Has to be one of the displays of the season - we were better than partick in every position. There were times in the second half when we threatened to run riot and up front it really did click. Tells you something when Miles storey thought he should have had 4. Absolute joy to watch.
  2. aye I noticed! Called him a comic in my first post but failed to remember what show he was in. Get my drift though.
  3. Charles, thanks for the reply but you appear to have missed the point. I defend your absolute right to say whatever you want to whether or not I agree with it, I’ve made that clear. You were not “asking hard questions” you were being inflammatory and wrong-headed in respect of what you were arguing. You are no Nick Robinson. As for your role as a journalist Charles, I would expect you to adhere to The NUJ code of Conduct. The BBC have a very clear policy on off-air activities which includes that on “personal use of social networking and other third party websites including blogs, microblogs and personal web space” You may want to have a look at both. There is quite a bit of your post activity in this thread that might be called into at least some degree of question. Part time freelancers can freely express political views but not offensively or inaccurately. I also have no problem with your postulating parallels with Germany in the 20’s and 30’s except that’s not what you did. You are directly comparing and inferring a similarity between the SNP and the Nazi party. It is a different matter entirely. By your use of unrelated photographs of German WW2 soldiers and Fergus Ewing you simply compound it. To be honest it appears to be verging on the libellous. Your use of hacked about Nazi nomenclature is similarly dishonest. Far from creating “a situation where people can behave completely outrageously and never be held account for it” that is precisely what I’m doing. Now. Your comparison is fallacious. Will you please address that issue directly? I’m glad that Doofers Dad got the point – about informed debate as part of a “serious topics” forum. That is what this should be but I fear you have devalued that not in the least by quoting Stalin. It comes across as a challenge of sneering dismissal which might not be your best course of action here. It’s the same as your “great unwashed” tactic. You might find that those who want, embrace and enjoy open debate have a multitude of “divisions” who will challenge your bilious and disingenuous froth and I hope that they do it fairly and without recourse to the many dreadful characteristics you ascribe them. All this 696 years to the day since the signing of The Declaration of Arbroath. Would you credit it.
  4. I respond to this only on the grounds that there were quite astonished reactions to the content of this thread on twitter and I thought I’d have a look. I wish I hadn't. Apart from the polarised political viewpoints (to which everyone is entitled and can voice as they wish within the constraints of the Law) there is a quite dreadful quality to some of the arguments being propounded which call the right of some of the points being made into question. Before looking at this, it would really help if posts were numbered so that they could be referred to easily throughout the thread. Charles Bannerman, in his post Thursday 9:36 pm, makes several erroneous points in support of his arguments that seem to point to similarities between the SNP and the National Socialist (Nazi) party. In sequence:The Nazis came to power in Germany on the back of an idea of Prussian based military thinking that they had not been defeated in WWI, an idea that they had been “stabbed in the back” by Versailles and a territorial inheritance from the old Holy Roman Empire that divided people along lines of language based cultural identity. Those without a territorial base (Jews, roma etc.) were historically marginalised and anti-Semitism had been a recurrent theme of German life for centuries . It became lethal only when several truly ridiculous and odious ideas about race and genetics were injected into the mix. They had originated in Vienna in the late 19th Century and with the assimilation of German speaking peoples into the “Reich” became political dogma. There is no parallel whatever with the present political landscape in Scotland. The “Sturm Macteilung” reference is odious and in its self worthy of censure. The "Sturm Abteilung" were the original Nazi brown shirts that Ernst Rohm led in a campaign of torture and murder in the 30's. Likewise, I have seen no Kristallnacht of book burning in Scotland – 3 SNP Councillors burned a copy of the Smith report and were suspended for their actions. Ed’s post of Friday at 7:08 shows a comic in Wehrmacht uniform to reinforce the post above. Wrong uniform, wrong inference. Doofers Dad’s post of Saturday 11:35 is the most rationally intact one on the thread, but there are a couple of points. The Conservative party have not been set up here, they have simply not attracted enough votes to get their political message across enough to be voted in. That they have done that in England emphasises their comparative weakness here. Nothing more. The austerity argument is muddled, especially from the NHS point of view. What “significant” parts of the NHS have been contracted to the private sector? If you are referring to purchasing services or bed capacity, that’s a national policy and a conservative one at that. I do, however have a degree of empathy about the Council Tax argument. The most important point is that this is a post we could (should) debate. By Sunday, Charles Bannerman is posting something that appears to be nothing more than a goad to provoke reply to his arguments. I note Alex MacLeod’s response but this is that direct response. On Monday at 2:32 Charles Bannerman posts the out of context picture referred to above with a direct comparator of an SNP politician. Are you really suggesting Charles, that Fergus Ewing is a Nazi or has Nazi sympathies? Westhill 1 (a new signing with Ed) states that the “one party state” in Scotland should implode within 5 years. It may or may not, but Scotland is no more a one party state than Britain was during the Thatcher era. The opposition simply weren’t effective enough and that is what is happening now. If you want change, argue and persuade others that you are right. There is no dictatorship in this country. Charles Bannerman (Monday 11:58) reinforces this. I note that Alex takes exception to the “great unwashed” or the “proletariat” but I find them referred to as “ballot box fodder” more disgusting. Everyone’s vote is equal in weight, Charles. That’s what universal suffrage is about. Your vote is no more significant or valid than anyone else’s despite your frankly appalling debating strategy. Doofers Dad again contributes with a defence of Charles Bannerman making “reasoned and evidenced” argument in this thread. His arguments are neither. There was no real need to refer to Alex’s input as “your indignant little claim.” It demeans your point. Charles Bannerman then replies in post of what is now “12 hours ago”. It is this post that I find the most disturbing and disingenuous of all of them. No amount of wishful thinking can alter history Charles but your scenario would have resulted in a set of quite unquantifiable events. That’s revisionist particularism for you. More importantly and as you know Charles, you are not entitled under Law to be offensive to others on the basis that you have chosen (nationalism) with impunity. You are not being anti-Scottish, simply reactionary and muddled in your thinking and your arguments show several serious lapses of judgement. I have seen no “nastiness and arrogance” here from people who have disagreed with you, merely a sneering, dismissive and at times braying dismissal of them. Physician heal thyself. The "PC serially offended" may well not like your explicit parallels with the Nazis and the SNP, but it comes perilously close – and in some cases probably oversteps – the legal definition of hate speech in the various statutes it is defined in. You have demonstrably chosen to align the SNP with a national group (Scots) and project arguments designed to align your political opponents (aforesaid SNP) with perhaps the most odious political regime in history, one responsible for the deaths of millions. It is utterly and disgracefully wrong. I inferred above that your “rant” – for it is little better than that – showed a serious lapse of judgement and that is illustrated by the above to a degree that is unarguable. What I object to is that you have a vehicle to express your opinions as a representative of the Highland News and of the BBC. You have obligations and you are wilfully ignoring them ( by your repeated arguments above in a public forum using your own name) and I would have serious questions about your fitness for these roles. Not because of your politics, your personality, your nationality or your religion but simply because of your persistent, disgusting, divisive and wholly inflammatory arguments. You need to examine what you are doing here.
  5. Two things. "Elected" just means "chose" and it's not Mo Johnstone we're talking about here. Move on.
  6. I share Kingsmills unease about banning a whole group of people. I had some idea that this might happen but only got a screen shot of a message copied to me this morning. It is the prerogative of CJT to transport whomsoever they want to and from games and I had heard reports that the behaviour on bus 3 was far from ideal. But ban the lot? It's an easy way out and doesn't do much to identify and address any behaviours that individuals show. Contrary to the message sent, CJT have not denied a right to people to travel - they have exercised a right not to take their business. There's also a question that CJT don't have "control" over people using their buses. They have a code of conduct that I presume those on bus 3 have broken. That needs to be clear. Final point, the bus convener shouldn't be signing the message personally, it's CJT's collective responsibility and should be signed the board as a whole or by the chairperson. These are my personal views only.
  7. In my view, CJT and Ross County have acted prematurely by supporting any and all sanctions (as they seem to in the joint statement that prompted this thread) and a great deal of the criticism levelled in this forum is little more than dressed up prejudice regarding young people. Sentiments that have gone without comment, except from Renegade, such as “at least they are at the head of the queue when collecting Darwin awards” are as humourless as they are tasteless. For those of you unaware, the sentiment expressed is that at least these people will kill themselves sooner than most. Nutty and discredited indeed. Scottish football supporters are already subject to surveillance from several sources and there is legitimate concern that they are being treated in a potentially criminalising way that non-football attending citizens are not. Clubs use CCTV to monitor crowds from a control room at every ground and have the necessary mugshots of persons banned to hand. The operators are in radio contact with stewards and police if their intervention is necessary. FoCUS, the national football intelligence unit, can be regularly seen filming fans. It is funded by Scottish Government to obtain the type of intelligence that the SFA appear to be saying will cost a further £4 million to refine and implement. To what end? Looking for smoke bombs? The people being subject to this are customers, not potential law-breakers. It is a palpable waste of money when the means to control crowds are already in place and it will do nothing to address the oft observed reluctance of stewards and police to intervene, especially when large travelling crowds are in attendance and “pyro” becomes more likely to be used. What will happen is that someone, more readily identifiable from a smaller support, will be chosen as an example. That puts ours and County’s fans at greater risk of prosecution than, say, those supporting a Glasgow team (who actually have a history of using flares) and that’s not justice. What is clear is that the use of these things is something that some younger supporters (customers like all of us) see as either a minor issue at football, or as something that they actually want. Contrary to what has been said, there is a place for these people in football. Why? For years, the media has lauded the “atmosphere” at (for instance) Bundesliga grounds as laudable, desirable and something to be aspired to and that appears to be what these kids have bought into. Nothing more. BT Sport, for instance, have published their 10 best “tifo’s” (fan displays). So have the Guardian. The Daily Record thought CSKA Sofia fans “astonishing” and awarded them a “gold star” for their star wars display whilst deploring anything similar in Scotland. The use of “pyro” is integral to these displays, so it gets copied and the media reinforce that by their double standards in reporting the issue. So kids keep doing it. It’s nothing more sinister, irresponsible or “stupid” than that. I’d better make it clear now that I personally don’t want to see “pyro” at our games. I don’t want to watch clouds of smoke, I want to watch the game. I certainly don’t want to watch younger fans get themselves into conflict and criminalise themselves. Above all I don’t want people to get hurt. What needs to happen is behavioural change by peer pressure from fans organisations to stop our fans from using smoke bombs. This will only be done by engaging, not ostracising them. If people don’t change, there’s a law in place for the authorities to use and it must not be broken. Let’s just not get carried away.
  8. I thought we played really well yesterday against a good aberdeen side who were (in the second half at least) determined to go all out for the win. In the first half, we played them like a fiddle. Despite the pre-match doom spattered statements, the shape worked really well. Aberdeen's midfield had absolutely no chance of getting past Draper and Wedderburn and by the time they had tried and shipped the ball to Hayes etc., they were mugged time and again by Tremarco and Raven . The only real surprise was that we weren't three up by half time. Don't listen to those who tell you that Aberdeen "bottled it" or didn't play well - they didn't, they were just bettered in the first half. Second half, they were better when they went two and the workload we had put in showed. By the time Storey was subbed, he was out on his feet. So, pretty natural that we get pushed deeper and there is only one outcome from that. A Gary Warren slip and it's 2-1 and the Collum show starts. He was dreadful to both sides in equal measure yesterday, but the worst of it was that when the crowd got on his back he reacted to it. I can't see any other reason for the penalty in the last minute. Not so much inconsistent as incoherent. David Raven looked fresh and determined to reclaim his place but Liam Polworth was astonishingly good. I had concerns that he might not make the breakthrough this season that he needed to but was I wrong. He's blossomed under the Hughes passing regime and added passion and dig to that yesterday. Don't be downhearted, this was a great point.
  9. Shaun, SHAUN! Where are you? Did you hear the news..........
  10. That's the worst, most graceless highlights reel i've seen in ages. It's reminiscent of the publicity of stalinist russia (or Ibrox in the old days) in that it's a travesty of what actually happened. At no time did we look like that we had run away with the game, but we could have scored 5 with what was effectively a second string eleven - we had a hell of a lot more of the game than that shows. Motherwell are an excellent club who are badly let down by a partisan element who put this lot up. Get real.
  11. I say it IS the business of the club to get support up - home and away. If there is no supporters bus for away games then that is pretty shameful and reflects badly on the club. I would also think that the game against Motherwell is a vitally important one albeit not high profile. I am certainly not having a go at John and CJT - what I am saying AGAIN is that the club should step in. I would never expect my trips to away games to be paid for by the club . Who would abuse the club they support in that way? As for using it or losing it - I use it all the time. Unfortunately it looks like I am also losing it. I would also say - appreciate fans or lose them. It works both ways. Hearach, I hear what you say, but your post that I replied to stated that "the deficit wouldn't be a huge amount, it could be paid for by using the salary" etc. That's getting the club to pay for the attendance of supporters (at least in part) to away venues that they accrue no benefit from. I have no doubt that the club appreciates supporters and it does a myriad of things to "get the support up" by various pricing initiatives and more - at home games that generate income for the club. . At no point did I think you were having a go at John. As I said before and maintain this is essentially a supporters matter. It is the fans who are not using the bus - how can this be a lack of appreciation from the club that in your opinion should "work both ways"? If you and CJT and others work to recruit fans to fill the bus, it will travel.
  12. Glad to see John gone? Our most successful manager, how on earth could you possibly "be glad to see him gone"? I am not denying that he will be gone one day but I do feel he has another 2yrs before he is gone. This clown is not a true supporter in my opinion and has probably never stepped foot into the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium! He's not a clown and neither has he stepped foot into the stadium (that's another story) but he's been attending games for years. For what it's worth, I agree that John Hughes record stands scrutiny and that judgements such as Shaun's shouldn't be made on the back of a limited slump in form and injuries. I've seen plenty of conjecture, rumour and some fibs around this but absolutely no evidence that the Manager either wishes to leave or plans to.
  13. Hearach, it's not the business of the club to effectively pay for supporters to attend away games where they incur little or no benefit from any investment. Obviously this is different for one off high profile games where the club have (and I presume will continue to) help. The club will continue to provide what benefit it can to boost home crowds and income that can be invested in our club. This is a supporters problem. I know John Horne struggles manfully to keep the busses running but there needs to be a commitment from fans here to support that. Possibly if it was publicised in a wider context, booking offered in a variety of methods and suppliers sought with an absolute focus on minimum cost it might help, as might an attempt to pull fans out of what appears to be a fairly powerful lethargy. At the end of the day though, it's a supporters problem of use it or lose it. Starting soon.
  14. don't think you noticed but we didn't lose to Dundee of the sides you term mediocre. I'd only call killie that. Wrong emoticon
  15. I think with Draper it was a question of getting him through to half time and then seeing how he was. Wasn't a bad idea against a side that had created next to nothing against us up to that point and we have been shown to be vulnerable when Drapes isn't there. Williams also felt the effects of that collision with Draper, so no real choice with that sub either. Raven by all accounts was feeling a knock so all of the substitutions were enforced. I'm also not sure that our players wanted to chase that game 100% on a surface that most of them don't like and on a week where I'm sure that most of them would have welcomed the managerial speculation like toothache. I also think that the surface limited the amount of potential returnees that would be risked - especially from any kind of ligament strain etc. where there is a belief that the plastic pitch would just make it worse. Seeing what happened to Dundee's unpronounceable Basque defender at Hamilton kind of reinforces that. Maybe it is one to just consign to the bin - bad day, bad pitch, bad luck and a defeat after a few good results.
  16. nice night for it down here. Grabbing my tea in 'spoons and their fans say that they fear a thrashing - they have been that bad this year. We need focus and to do a job here. Any kind of win will do me.
  17. Spare me the sanctimony. If you raise your hands to an opponents face and the referee/ assistant sees it, you are off - rules of the game. It was a clear punch. Neil Alexander called it right last night - he was screaming at Oshinwa, calling him a "stupid ba****d - you can't do that here" as he pulled him away. Unlike Chris Sutton, who reckons that modern players can't handle being punched and others here who reckon "if he was in a boxing ring he wouldn't last 30 seconds" Fair point but it's a football pitch he was on, not canvas. Correct decision, no fault attached to Silva.
  18. I'll reckon you watched that on the tele, didn't see what was a clear punch (and it wasn't the first) and can be excused for your "downside" drivel. Utterly uncalled for.
  19. I'll chip in as one of the people who introduced the £1 fee for CJT membership. IMHO it's a bit of a red herring to put increasing the membership fee as a means of subsidising the buses, which have always been "challenging" to administer and fund. The £1 membership fee was introduced as a means of democratising the trust (as it was then) by increasing the membership. This has happened and CJT should now reflect the opinion of a significant proportion of our support who are members and therefore engaged in their supporters trust. If all of those members were to pay the £10 fee mooted above, they would simply be subsidising the few that use the busses without addressing the core issue of why more people don't use them and it's easy to see how this could create tensions. I also suspect that a significant proportion of the membership would simply default on renewal. It's also difficult to see where a reduced cost of coach hire could be sourced in Highland that would allow reduction of fares. Remember that reduced fares on stagecoach and scotrail are subsidised by the whole network (and by Scottish Government) so they don't reflect a cost model that CJT can hope to come close to. It may be that the creation of a separate arm of CJT that works solely on busses is now an idea, one that doesn't rely on ad hoc subsidy by the membership and which concentrates 100% on getting members to use it and not lose it. Final thought, maybe people ought to consider that the £20 return fare is a service that is worthy of them supporting by digging that wee bit deeper. Aye, you can drink on the train or get a megabus for next to nothing if you have lived long enough but they put nothing back into the trust or the club. Use the CJT buses and it allows them to reinvest that money in ways that benefit all our supports. Your call.
  20. well written but frankly wrong. Nine, aye nine first team picks being out, but still picking up a wage means a weakened squad but not a lot of room to improve at least in the short term. Resigning people in summer after a successful season resulted in having to spend more just to stand still. We are losing games because our defence is decimated and our attack depleted. It's not being apollogist, just stating facts. We weren't too far off it for spells today.
  21. We simply need between 500 and 1000 additional people through the gates in addition to our core support at every home game. This would create an income against our cost base that would allow the club to be run sustainably and allow it to plan ahead. We've known this for years.
  22. I find the above by DD quite puzzling. If there was ever a beautiful illustration of taking a collection of unattributed and, in some cases only half utilised, stats to illustrate what amounts to a delusion (a preconcieved idea, fixed and not amenable to rational examination or alteration) regarding Hughes, that's it. Please, please abandon the anti-Hughes agenda DD, almost everyone else has. Or give me a rational basis to agree on. Let's look at this; our success flattered us. Over the course of a season, you get the success you deserve - luck eventually runs out. That's what makes a league competition so difficult, and success in one prized. You don't get lucky. Hughes happened to be "in the right place at the right time" Has he done nothing to influence matters? Actually, he completely altered the style of play from the Butcher era and initially the team suffered. He brought in people who could play that style and is building on that - managing. It's his side, not Latapy's. His signings are no more or less successful than his predecessors. I could dig out the excoriating criticism levelled at Billy Mckay on this forum as an example of this. However, on the basis of a couple of pre-season games you are willing to categorise recent signings as a "mixed bag". I'll wait. There are genuine questions as to us requiring an out and out striker (on the grounds that one might have capitalised on the many chances we created against Astra) but one of sufficient quality to gel quickly, be fully match fit and be guaranteed to hit the ground scoring would be beyond our means. They generally cost in excess of £250K minimum. You quote 52% possession averages as being "hardly what you would expect" Can you tell me where that figure lies in relation to all other clubs in the league? In isolation, it means nothing. I know that you are worried by the dearth of goals that we score, but I'm sure that you will agree that the difference that you identify between 1.36 and 1.67 goals per game, averaged over a season, is statistically insignificant. You also can't compare a "year and a bit" against a season. It has to be like for like. As for this year's league, it may or may not be stronger and we may or may not suffer injuries. Neither you nor I know. Hughes has added to the squad - Wedderburn, for instance looks like adequate cover for Draper, a player previously seen as indispensable and that will help when injuries intervene. By the way, you omitted to mention injuries to Brill, Vincent and Raven that impacted upon their seasons and ours. Overall, we were lucky, but not that lucky. I agree that Ryan Christie is a marvellous talent, to be nurtured and progressed. He is not, however, a one man band - if you recall there were games that he struggled to impact upon and that was to be expected. Finally, the league was what it was. You can only play the teams that are there and I'm sure that supporters of Aberdeen, Hamilton, Dundee and Celtic would disagree that any of the teams that you mention would have offered more than them. Hamilton, for instance,were in the league because they beat Hibs fair and square for the privilege. And please, Rangers making the league stronger? Did you see them last year? They were nothing more than a tired old orthodoxy struggling vainly for any kind of relevance in a game that has passed them by. They would bring nothing to the premiership. There you are DD - they are my thoughts, nothing more. I'll await this season in expectation, hope and a genuine belief that we can replicate the league achievements of last year. And I'll give Hughes the credit he deserves if it happens.
  23. I think Lopez is being given a rough deal here. Ok he has tired in games (I tired just watching in Giurgiu) but to imply a lack of effort is off the mark. his final pass is out because he's getting to know the people around him and he needs to get fitter. Both of these things will improve with time and that's precisely what we didn't have. Lopez is full of praise for the style and quality of the team he's landed with and seems genuinely excited at being here - at least that's what he's told me. I agree with rene about the shape of the team, it looks good for this year and when we gel the goals will come. We need a striker and one of sufficient quality and experience to fit into the team instantly and hit the ground at speed (or at least we did for the Astra games) but they cost amounts of money that we just don't have. Bucharest was quite brilliant, I would have liked more of that but there's always next year and the year after that etc. What a week!
  24. I'll probably get shot down for this but here goes. The OP contains so many assumptions that it makes much of the rest a bit of a fairly scatter-gun rant, which to be fair, he acknowledges. I'd be stunned if the club didn't tell fans where and how to purchase kit when the details are confirmed. As far as information and the imparting of it goes, the club is in a position where it can only go public when it is absolutely sure of the information it has, otherwise the label of "second rate amateurs" gets chucked around by the habitually disgruntled and the marketing of the club gets another on line bashing. As far as timing goes, it's only three weeks after the end of the last season, and in normal circumstances an August launch would be perfectly appropriate and acceptable. If anything, there's probably been an under-estimation of last season's achievements when this deal was set up and given that a fair few on here were predicting a season of middling mediocrity is that surprising? No wonder there's a bit of risk aversion when it comes to publicising things. People on here have moaned for years about the relative inaccessibility of the club shop and its limited opening hours but somehow the retail park is worse. Eh? I fully realise that people want a year round town centre presence for the club but at present (as far as I know) the figures just don't stack up and there are other things that have a more pressing demand on a limited kitty. You simply can't have everything. Except two cracking shirts of which I'll have one of each. Size L.
  25. Keeper looks like he can't deal with crosses (insert dracula joke here) and that back four look really flat. How that boy from the blue team stayed on the park was beyond me and if that's how they challenge in Romania we'll need a strong referee. No question that they are a good sidebut they don't look unbeatable.
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