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I don't know how Brian Rice is getting away without blame over this.

If Beith is the reincarnation of jemba jemba it could still be the best deal we have ever done. As a team we are so much better of without jake.

That also shows he is thinking of his future after football. Credit to him.

I still think that our Board had something to do with it.

There isn't a perfect precedent for this. Albion Rovers were thrown out of the competition, but that was in a knockout tie rather than the group stage of a competition. Just over two years ago Dundee United did something similar in a league game against us where they won 3-2 - they were deducted three points, but we were not awarded them. I think the most likely outcome is that either Hearts are deducted the points, or that Cove are awarded a walkover victory. I don't see Hearts being thrown out because they have three group games left - if nothing else, it would deny other clubs much needed cash from the matches (assuming gate money is split like in most cup competitions!). Either of the above would be obviously to our advantage as, if we beat Raith, the only way a team could finish above us would be on goal difference.

This really does highlight the stark difference in cash flowing around the leagues north and south of the border. If Aberdeen are losing out to lower league English clubs there seems little in the way of hope for the rest of us building half decent squads. Something for us to bear in mind next time anyone wants to have a dig at ICT for an apparent inability to secure top class proven ability...

There's a fair chance that one day, ICT might field an ineligible player. When it happens, a section of our support will be queuing up to post the likes of "laughing stock of Scottish football", "shambles", "heads must roll", "amateur", Highland league" etc, completely forgetting that this happens to someone every season, including clubs with far greater administrative resources than us. Just saying!

Worst that will happen is a warning and the game being replayed, given Leveins chums on the board. No real punishment... If it was us we'd be thrown out

I was at the Cove - Hearts game last night and have to say that Mulraney had a very decent game which seemed to go down a storm with the visiting jambos. Will be interesting to see how he progresses this season. I don't see any harm in what he's said in terms of the relative professionalism of ourselves and HMFC. Hearts clearly have a better set up and more dough than us so it should come as no surprise. It goes without saying that Jake hardly falls into the Stuart Armstrong school of media eloquence so he's always likely to offer a fairly simplistic and un-sanitised response when asked to contrast the two clubs. No point in folk getting their knickers in a twist over a simple statement of fact.

Don't see him getting many starts then

Pretty fair comments from Mulraney. What's going to make you feel like more of a professional footballer - training at a windswept Fort George/IRA or Oriam?

In a friendly, on your debut, against an amateur team, with 7 youth players on the pitch alongside you - mad.

Just an opinion you know As far as I am concerned and I don't care if I am in a minority of one Having a world cup without Italy is like having Christmas with no tree

Which smaller nations are those? What regional qualifying system? Why are a poor Italy side deserving of a place over 'smaller nations' who are there on merit?

I noticed the other day that 4 times winners of the world cup, have failed to qualify' This is the first time since 1958 that Italy and their free flowing lovely football will not be seen gracing our TV sets.The 1958 FIFA World Cup, the sixth staging of the World Cup, was hosted by Sweden from 8 to 29 June TV sets - well in 1958 hardly anyone had one . There were two basics channels , BBC and ITV which was in its in fantasy, Very few people had ITV. To convert your receiver to what was know at the time as band wave 3, you had to buy what was called a Cydron unit. It entailed drilling a hole in the side of your TV set ftiiin box with a knob on you pulled to change from band one to band 3, you then had to turn the knob to tune into ITV . There were two wires attached to the box that you plugged into sockets you had previously removed the valves. You can see that watching the world cup on the telly was hopeless. There was a program on Wednesday evenings called sports view. This had films of some of the matches usually a week old In 1958 all 4 of the home nations qualified for the world cup. England and Scotland were if my memory serves me right were iliminated after the first round . Wales and Northern Ireland went through to the second round, The Wales tem with the great John Charles ( In my view the best player to lace his boots ) played France in the 2nd round. No match on TV but worse still not on the Radio, we called the wireless, Broadcasting live from Stockholm was difficult even for Radio. I dib manage as a 14 year old to get my Dads short wave radio to work and I picked up the broadcast in French . Can you imagine today not being able to get France v Wales in the world cup on the Radio. John Charles I mentioned was known as the Gentle Giant, he was amazingly skilfully, I saw him play live a couple of times for Leeds United, a very great player. He was transferred to Torino where he became a legend. I am told that a statue of John Charles stands outside the ground in Turin to this day. When as an old man he visited the ground and the fans cheered and cheered him. Now I Italy has no place in the World cup. yet lots of small nations will be there, because of the regional qualifying system, I don't agree with.