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Is this a Scottish Police agenda to try and increase funding before next season if the other side of the OF do get back up and they spend vast amounts policing the games and the after effects of the result. Other than the odd idiots I don't recall too much bother up here over the last 20 years . Hard to believe 35 of 42 clubs up here have them seems like scaremongering TBH

Going back to the original point of the thread.... Anyone who doesn't realise that the Champions League was designed to catapult/guarantee the inclusion of a select set of teams pretty much from the outset is blind. You just have to look at how coefficients etc are calculated to realise that it is heavily skewed and designed to keep the wee teams/nations out. Criticise this new approach all you like, but at least it's honest in it's corruption. Those running the game at the highest level aren't interested in football fans. What they want are consumers and TV has been killing fans and producing consumers for over 30 years now. It's not about the sport anymore....about having teams competing on a level playing field. It's about entertainment and generating as many blockbusters for the TV as they can....because that's where the money is.

Ah - the good old testosterone filled 70's and 80's

Probably more a case of increased reporting of anti-social activity in and around football grounds due to the growing ubiquity of social media and content sharing, rather than an actual increase in anti-social activity. In days gone by incidents would pass largely unnoticed by anyone outwith the immediate vicinity. Today phone footage and eyewitness testimony will be published online within hours and disseminated all over the internet, leading to a distorted, augmented sense of prevalence. I'd be extremely surprised if 'casual' culture actually returned to Scottish football in this day and age. Football, as a subculture, largely reflects culture at large. At the risk of sounding blunt, the youth of today are somewhat 'low testosterone' in comparison to their 1970s and 1980s counterparts (studies actually bare this out). In the old days hard drinking and fighting were deeply ingrained aspects of Scottish masculine culture. Violent crime has been decreasing for decades. There are multiple theories as to why (some even attribute it to banning leaded petrol!) but the end result is an anti-social generation who would rather sit at home playing X box or chatting to their pals on whatsapp rather than leaving the house. Real world social interaction is a drag for many of these kids, who struggle to be separated from their smart phone screen for any extended period, let alone deal with a situation where they could be punched in the face.

Do you remember when Mark Wright apparently got attacked by the ICT cake baking casuals in Glasgow train station and couldn't make it up to Inverness for a guest appearance at a nightclub.

Yes, the coefficient is a thin veil to try to hide a cunning ruse to keep all the big boys at the party, but it can have a modicum of effect if a nation performs poorly for a few years (listen to the bleating South of the border about the possibility of "losing" their 4th CL spot (as if it were a God-given right and another Italian team will dilute the quality!) I agree with DD that a return to a straight knockout for champions is what this should be, but those days are long gone now that the cash return for a league system has been realised. Ruminigge's plan is simply stage 2 to close the shop completely and make sure Bayern et al retain an even bigger piece of the pie. Doncaster's hypocrisy (colluding to help Rangers return to their "rightful" place at whatever cost, while criticising the CL plan) is laughable, but you don't expect anything different from our corrupt footballing authorities.

The closest you ever got to the "casual" scene was the Bay City Rollers in concert at the Caley.

I think CB may have missed the point of OTB. It bills itself as the most petty and ill informed football show on the air, and lives up to it! It's irreverent style is no accident and is a welcome reprieve from the seriousness, and repetitiveness, of Scottish football coverage. Sure, it's not going to win many awards (although, if I remember right, it has done so in the past?) but I enjoy it when I manage to catch it. Where I would be critical is regarding the SportSound offering in general nowadays. Inarticulate ex-players on open all mikes, every discussion generally reverting to the 'glory days' (i.e. pre 1990...) and a general staleness. Don't get me started on SportScene either. Absolute amateurish, parochial, over cosy mince. I often listen to 5live on a Saturday and it really is chalk and cheese in comparison. Professional reporters combined with decent interviews and features, you'd scarcely believe it was from the same organisation. I appreciate that the budgets may be a little (majorly) different, but surely the producers themselves must wince at OAM whenever forgotten never was ex-footballer #23 utters the same standard cliche over, and over, again?

I can understand that allowing people on the radio who are not of a high enough intellectual standard must be very upsetting for you! Also that you picked such a poor example to convince us that we're all up our own backsides... If your memory tells you Traynor was better, you must be showing early signs of dementia Nah, I quite like OTB on the odd occasion I manage to hear it (I didn't today). I see Spiers is on it too. I'm a Scottish football fan. It's what Saturdays are for. The standard is poor but it's all we have. It's never anything like 7 hours anyway if you go to a game. Spend the day getting all the updates then MOTD at night. Magic

Sat 13 Feb 2016 SL 1 R McAllister, S Sutherland ( Peterhead 3 - Forfar 2) SL 2 B Gilfillan (Annan A 3 - Montrose 3) EL 1 T Aldred (Blackpool 2 - Shrewsbury 3) Spain Segunda Group 2 D Lopez (Arenas Club de Getxo 2 - Ebro 0) Dani with his second for new club!

One of the major concerns for me in all of this is that the focus is on branding rather than on the quality or the entertainment value of the football. This has increasingly been the case in recent years as the "European Cup" has morphed into the "Champion's League" and we have the group stages which clearly generate a lot of money but which often tend to produce some rather lack lustre games. All it does is give more games to the privileged clubs that reach that stage and ensure maximum exposure of the big brands. And then what is even more outrageous is that some of the clubs which fail to progress in that competition get a second bite of the cherry in the Europa League (group stages and all). From a fans perspective, I would rather go back to the old format where the champions of each nation played home and away against one team in each round. Same with the Cup Winners' Cup. In that way all countries had the same right of entry as as any other and where, if a top team had an off day, smaller clubs could come through to win. The 3rd competition (once the" Fairs cup") allowed a few more teams from the bigger leageus a taste of European football which is fair enough. That system almost guaranteed the big clubs European football each year but also allowed the likes of Celtic and Aberdeen from Scotland and Villa and Forest in England to seize their opportunities and win major European trophies against the odds. That would just never happen now. Not only is it the way the competitions are structured, it is the way the money is distributed that makes it so hard for other teams to break into the big time. Television money and the exposure television brings means that as soon as decent players emerge from smaller clubs, they are snapped up which makes it increasingly difficult for the smaller clubs to compete. Of course, there will always be circumstances where smaller clubs emerge to upset the apple cart (such as Leicester City this season) but in the longer run, the big brands will become increasingly dominant. Unless a way can be found to revise the structure of competition and the distribution of television money in favour of fairness, then we will continue this trend towards branding and away from diversity.

I don't like them either, but anybody who gets around the various grades of football, visits community clubs etc can see how that 28% will soon be over 50%. As a Northern nation our weather has more in common with Iceland and Norway and the Faroes where these things are ten a penny. Whitehill Welfare have played ONE game since October 24th while other teams like Spartans get their fixture played then let another club use their pitch afterwards, and charge them for the privilege.

New 4g pitches are a dream to play footie on I'd love for us to have one

No problems with artificial pitches. SFA released info:- "On the question of available research, a report in the British Medical Journal in 2010, entitled risk of injury on 3G artificial turf in Norwegian professional football, determined no significant difference in injury location, type or severity between turf types: 17.1 injuries per 1000 match hours on natural grass and 17.6 injuries per 1000 match hours on artificial turf. "A similar piece of research in 2007 - comparison of the incidence, nature and cause of injuries sustained on grass and new generation artificial turf by male and female football players. Part 1: match injuries - again showed no major differences. "However, the severity of non-season ending injuries was 7.1 days on (artificial turf) versus 8.4 days on grass."

Where did Galling sign from?

Did Asda send Willie Good-David for work experience to Aldi?

http://sport.stv.tv/football/clubs/inverness/1342582-ross-draper-i-may-not-have-signed-new-deal-if-ict-had-plastic-pitch/ Well said Ross it's about time someone spoke out regarding this nonsense, think I speak for the majority of ICT fans regarding this subject; ICT must never lay an artificial surface they play on grass and they will continue to do so, there is enough plasticity as it is without adding to it Ok the surfaces have vastly improved since the QPR or Luton days back in the 80s but the surface is still highly dangerous and players don't want to play on it as the chance of injury increases ten fold Leave it for the MLS where disney characters etc can dance about on it, the only clubs that have introduced it in this country are those that try and get an unfair advantage on their opponents Dougal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/35544730 Having experienced this first time should we be worried about unrest on the streets of Sneck or are the authorities/media simply overreacting? Dougal