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I dont know if its been mentioned anywhere else on this forum, and I feel too shocked to troll through to see, but sadly I have just found out that Dave Grant, husband of Laura (L_G) lost his battle against cancer today. I think, knowing what all this family put into supporting our club, it is right and fitting that mention is made on our main forum. There are not many guys nicer than Dave nor many families nicer than the Grants and both my wife Aileen and I are deeply shocked and saddened by this news. We give our deepest heartfelt condolences to Laura, Alan and Lynne in these sad times. Rest in peace Dave.

I can see the headlines Ross County duped by travelling folk. I cant understand it they seemed so nice, They turned up and asked if we needed any work doing and we mentioned that we needed a new stadium,they walked around and gave us a price, it was very reasonable only £748,000, they turned up tidied the place up a bit and we havent seen them since. We have informed the SPL that we also have a plan B to fall back on, as we have applied to 60 minute makover.

I think this is a really difficult question. I don't like cheats and we've had discussions on this forum about cheating in the sense of footballers diving etc. A gut reaction is that drugs cheats in athletics should get banned for life but I don't think a more objective analysis supports that view. I fully understand Charles' anger at an honest and hardworking athlete missing out on glory because someone else cheated but I don't think it follows that someone who cheated on one occasion (and yes, perhaps over a period of time) should be banned for life. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, can we really define what cheating is? There are athletes and other sportsmen and women who have been found guilty of "doping" but who have either taken something like a cold remedy unaware that it contained a banned substance or who were given something in a nutrition drink etc by a coach (not Charles, obviously!) and who were unaware they were taking anything wrong. These folk will test positive but are they cheats? Foolish and naive perhaps, but surely not cheats. Some substances are banned because they allow athletes to perform better than they could without them. But it is all quite arbitrary really. For instance, athletes are allowed certain pain killing injections - and what do they do? They allow athletes to perform better than they could without them. So, it's OK to use a pharmaceutical substance to allow you to perform better after you have overdone your training in an attempt to get one over on your rivals, but it is cheating to take a decongestant to relieve symptoms of a cold that you caught through no fault of your own. And drugs are only one way in which the body can be modified to enhance performance. Athletes get a boost from altitude training, blood doping or by benefiting from the latest research in nutrition and physiology. Why should it be cheating to enhance your physical performance as a result of advances in pharmaceutical science but fine to induce the same enhancements as a result of physiological science? It is also true that many significant improvements in performance are not the result of drug taking but as a result of technological advances. Cycling has already been mentioned but developments in swimwear and running shoes, for example, have also been a factor over the years where some athletes have gained an advantage over others for a brief period. These developments give an artificial advantage but have been allowed and it is not considered officially as cheating simply because the technology is ahead of the rules. But the ethical issue is the same regardless, and is that whether it is the taking of a performance enhancing drug or the application of a technological advance, the object of doing it is to gain an advantage over your competitors which may overcome the fact that your competitors may naturally be more talented than you. So it appears that "cheating" is only "cheating" when some official body decides it to be cheating. But even if you do "cheat" (and we should use the word here to mean that you deliberately do something which you know not to be allowed in the rules) then should you be banned, and if so, should it be for life or just a short period? In this context, it is interesting to compare athletics with football. Footballers cheat all the time and they don't get banned. They may get banned for drug offences but in truth, a dive or holding in the box is likely to have far more influence on the outcome of a game than any amount of intake of pharmaceutical substances by an individual. In life in general there is an acceptance that if you do wrong you take your punishment and then society supports your integration back into society. We don't lock folk up for stealing possessions from others and then simply throw away the key, and nor should we in sport. As long as the former cheat is no longer cheating and no longer gaining any advantage from their earlier cheating, then they should be allowed back into the sport. In my view, this is important not just because it seems like natural justice in line with legislation in other aspects of society, but also for the sake of other competitors. This may sound strange to some, but if I were an elite athlete, just as I would not want to be denied success by a cheat, I would also not want to be denied the opportunity to prove I was the best because a former cheat was not allowed to compete. Consider the position if Chambers was not allowed to compete in the Olympics but was running 100 metres regularly under 10 seconds and sometimes at around 9.8. If he was getting tested very regularly and was shown to be clean, could Usain Bolt claim to be the best in the world if he won the Olympic title with Chambers absent? I don't think so. Whatever Bolt might say, I am sure Bolt would want Chambers and any other "clean" former cheats to be allowed to compete. The Olympics is about being the best and you can only prove you are the best if everyone else is allowed to compete against you. It is not a straightforward issue. Unfortunately for me and many others, athletics, swimming, cycling and some other individual sports have been seriously devalued by those pushing the rules to the limits and beyond and we are cynical whenever someone does something extraordinary. Someone once said that the definition of an Olympic champion was a cheat that hasn't been caught yet. I certainly am not as cynical as that but the element of suspicion takes away the enjoyment of these sports for me. So whilst there is cheating in football (and it annoys the hell out of me), any articicial enhancement of an individual's physical performance makes barely the slightest difference to the outcome of a game. Football is about the skill of a player, the cohesion of the team work and the tactics of the game. It's not perfect but all these elements combine to provide a quality of richness which will always mean that the cream rises to the top despite the best efforts of the cheats. To me, it is and always will be, the beautiful game.

It is really difficult for the youngsters to advance without a reserve league. In the current set up either the kids get drafted straight into the first team (and probably only because first choice players are not available) or they go out on loan to SFL teams and away from the set up that is nurturing them. Both options can be difficult. A reserve league is a step up from the youth leagues and allows them to play alongside hardened pros in the twighlight of their careers. This teaches the youngsters so much about the game and prepares them much better for 1st team football. In England even teams in the 5th and 6th tier of the non-league game have reserve and youth teams. I can't comment on the attitude that our youngsters have but not having a reserve team to aspire to can't help. The better youngsters may get into the first team squad but then never get a game whilst the next level simply have to look for a lower league club when they are too old for the youth team. With a reserve team the better players get the benefit of regular games at a good level whilst the "also rans " have something to aim for and it allows the late developers to come through. This is just another reason why Scottish football is going down the pan.

Thing is though Charles, there's nothing (as I understand it) which allows the plan put forward for 31st March to be changed automatically if the Stadium is ready (which I believe it will be). The SPL will not accept a "Our ground will be ready on time so we'll use it" proposal, even as a Plan B. This means that C*unty have to submit their plans on the basis of a groundshare, and once work is complete ask for special dispensation to change the plan to starting the season at their own place...even if that is before the start of the season. In fact the agreement between ICT & C*unty will be for a full season sharing as there's no automatic rule that allows a return half way through the season. ICT suffered as a result of these rules....we were told that even if our new stands had been ready in time for the start of the season we would still face sharing with Aberdeen because that was our registered stadium for the season in question. It was only by special dispensation (and agreement with Aberdeen to cancel the contract) that we were allowed to return half way through the season. It's a ridiculous situation and one where you would hope that common sense prevails....but this is the SPL, a league which talks about doing stuff for the good of the game, but has done little to back that up with actions. If their track record is anything to go by then we should expect a course of action which flies in the face of sensible thinking/behaviour.

Well the extra money made from ground sharing could go on making new terracing.

Might be wrong but I recall that part of the deal was that if the pitch needed to be relaid, we paid for it. I also have a recollection that the "rent" was £35,000 per game but I don't know if that included or excluded all the extra costs like stewarding. The rent for us would be more realistically based on whatever County charged us for the cup game we played there.

"They" will have our end for their home games, including against us. We wont even sell our the south stand anyway the way things are going!

no problem with them groundsharing ..... we would not have got into the SPL if it wasnt for Aberdeen agreeing to it and we should be amenable to returning the favour to another team .... even County ! I can see the logic behind the March 31st deadline but realistically its a crock of **** . Most seasons, where there is no runaway leader, it can put teams under a lot of pressure to spend money they perhaps dont have to upgrade their stadium on the off-chance that they win the league. I have always maintained that the team that wins the 1st division should be guaranteed promotion, regardless of their ground facilities. They should be given two options. (1) upgrade their ground before the start of the season as County hope to do and be able to use all parts of it in the SPL, or (2) upgrade by the end of the first SPL season, and only use those parts that meet the all-seated criteria. This would allow teams to use the increased revenue from the SPL to pay for ground improvements and maybe prevent some potentially horrible financial problems.

I can report that I safely managed to read the article without choking on anything.