The Mantis

^^^^^^^^^^ What he said

A lot of fuss was made about selling out the whole library stadium. Both the East and West Stand had empty areas at the corner flags, nearest to us, could easily be 100 seats each. Also the wendy house had a couple of dozen spaces. OK I suppose it's normal for a few people to buy tx then not turn up. Caley100 and i just sat anywhere as we couldn't actually find our seats in row D. Mine was D159 (Caley100 might have had D160) but i sat in D144 in an aisle seat. The last block nearest the wendy house had less than 16 seats in a row (I counted but I forget now) so 159 and 160 couldn't have existed. There was a RCFC fan and his girlfriend on the Innes Bar bus and they said their seats in the East Stand didn't exist either.

Ironically it could turn out that the very first time we reach the top six could be the worst time finance-wise (apart from the prize money). Normally you'd expect one of the OF at home, plus possibly Hearts, Aberdeen, Hibs. This year, if the fixtures go to plan, we could be away at Celtic and County, and the home games could be the likes of killie and st. Johnstone. Better secure that second spot then.....

Rene, I haven't looked at their sleepy wee board for ages. Deleted it from my faves. Back in the day it was good to go there for a bit of banter and a wind up especially since every second thread is about us anyway. A few decent posters but too many bitter wee chippy guys. You know there's a problem when some people seethe too much to even say our name - they call us 'THEM' or 'The Scum' instead! Of course maybe it's just Adams signing up under a dozen usernames......

We've not been playing well while C(o)unty are on fire. Cownty are much improved since the transfer window and winning is the best cure for anything. But as the home team they never really created much. I thought the first half was a bit like the cup game. We probably shaded it and looked the more composed side. Also like the cup game, Cownty got right in our faces second half from the off. Our defence stood firm and were never really stretched but midfield to front we seemed to think the game only lasts 45 mins. We seemed to sit off them in midfield and Brittain was getting time to spray these passes left and right, although he's not got the class to make killer passes anyway. Graeme handled Sproule well but he never did much against us anyway even in his prime. Pitch was awful, both teams made loads of unforced errors but it seemed to affect our flair players Shinniesta and Doran worse than others. The ball wouldn't run for Jones either. Some people's distribution was even worse - yes that's right Dave the Rave, we mean you! Back in the summer everybody was saying how Cownty's park would be better than ours. I did warn you that Viccy Park would become the Global Energy Library - was I right or was I right? Travelling back over the Kessocko isn't our place a sight to behold? No contest. Bring on the 16th.

Back in the day they would have given us a more experienced ref - we used to get the likes of Dallas coming up. I'd rather have seen Willie Collum or Calum Murray. I felt McLean was out of his depth. Now we're deprived of Graeme for an important match which could see us make top 6. Devine can play LB can't he?

Penalty, obviously......

Unbeaten since 7/11/09 ;@

Dont know how you will kill time mate, always go a wander about the town... take about 4 minutes, get your fortune told - plenty of choice! or if you had time left visit a pub or someting for a wee pint? sure you will work it out - you can be the advance party! Take a bin liner and fill it with tumbleweed

Bit of a bad start if he can't even get the population right........... It's your money they're after Laurie boy!

Pleasing

Cheers Manny, certainly not over the line!

One of my rare appearances at a midweek game at TCS and pretty entertaining for a 0-0 as many people have said. Thought we shaded the first half and had the bulk of the chances in the second, although some of yenitit's passing was Barcelonaesque in the final half hour. Willo Flood is like a wee waif but he doesn't half have an impact. Devine MoM, Shinniesta covered the whole park without really finding a moment of inspiration to win the match. Meekings did well considering he played virtually the whole match with a booking. McKay and Draper both had headers straight at the keeper when they had the whole of the goal to aim at. I'm sure there was another identical chance too. Can't believe Macnamara is moaning about deserving the three points. Maybe he will be the new Jefferies. The effort from Daly didn't look over the line to me and in the North Stand I was certainly closer than the away dugout. Haven't seen any replays yet so I stand to be corrected.

Maybe it's just me? I wouldn't swap any of our cup record. I think we have created 12 upsets in 11 years in the lower leagues. Two semis at Hampden plus a replay. Beating Celtic twice. The first time was 10 years before Cownty and it was our first ever season in div 1. More wins at Tynecastle, Fir Park etc. Coming from 3 down to beat Ayr. Reaching the quarters as a div 3 side. Taking DUFC to 210 mins as a div 2 side. Swap all this for what? One cup run beating Hibs and Celtic to reach a final, and then forgetting to turn up. Don't think there's a conflict of opinion. I never suggested I would swap our cup history for theirs and I certainly wouldn't - but that doesn't stop it wrankling that they have got to a final and we haven't. No, that's cool, was just wondering what others thought as we have probably never discussed it on here......

Maybe it's just me? I wouldn't swap any of our cup record. I think we have created 12 upsets in 11 years in the lower leagues. Two semis at Hampden plus a replay. Beating Celtic twice. The first time was 10 years before Cownty and it was our first ever season in div 1. More wins at Tynecastle, Fir Park etc. Coming from 3 down to beat Ayr. Reaching the quarters as a div 3 side. Taking DUFC to 210 mins as a div 2 side. Swap all this for what? One cup run beating Hibs and Celtic to reach a final, and then forgetting to turn up.

Get the first goal. If you look at their run they have no experience of chasing the game (except in the 2-2 against hearts at home). Usually they get the first goal and shut up shop. Also since the new year we have been robbed in 2 or 3 games while playing well. Can you say there's been even 1 game all season that Cownty have lost when they deserved to win? Credit to them all the same. Before the break they were a very limited side. A couple of new faces in Sproule and Lawson and hey presto loads of confidence. But hey, they hate us, lets give them something to hate about. Is anybody remembering we've got a game tomorrow?

Oh yes, 3 succulent points..........

Come on Charles......... You should know everybody's out of step except oor Laurence

I only ever use Safari (which lets you see the code) or Firefox (which shows you the quote in a box but, to me, is actually harder to use). I'm sure they both have alternative settings for those who care enough. By the same token, only FF lets me access smilies etc on CTO. Apologies for going off topic.

I just need to plug a £20 cable and get a bit of software on the computer to clock mine in a couple of minutes ;)Mind you, do they have computers in Dingwall? Somehow I knew I was setting myself up there.......

Say what you like about Roberts but there is absolutely no chance that he rates below the likes of Gnapka. Or Deano!

Something's not right though, as just the other day we were quoted as being second lowest after Perth saints, with the cabbagemen being a couple of hundred better off...... I imagine football clubs are free to quote any figures they like. I also imagine the counters built into the turnstiles are what really matter to HMRC and these days they'll be about as difficult to 'clock' as a modern car, i.e. fairly difficult. As for uncle Roy - I'm sure CB that you have to keep a foot in both camps and appear neutral. However I have both feet planted on the same side of the bridge and even allowing for my personal bias, it's clear that Roy has been fighting a propaganda war against ICT for many years. RCFC's crowd figures have long been a subject of ridicule amongst fans of clubs such as Partick, St Mirren, Morton and Falkirk. Although they reported 3055 against Hibernian a couple of mid weeks ago, one jailender (ok, anecdotal evidence again!) reckoned the actual attendance was about 1800.....

Cownty already get far less than we did when we arrived back home in Jan 2005, despite uncle Roy exaggerating everything, and that can only get worse as the novelty wears off. As for ourselves, a look back at 2009-10 in div 1 shows that our hard core support was about the same as it is now. 2700 on a poor day and about 3600 on a good day, excluding derbies and clashes with Dundee etc.

No, the gist of it was that it was abusive. Not content with a post which abused a player twice, you then posted the whole thing in triplicate. It's not difficult to edit/delete your own posts. We did you a favour deleting it for you - it saved everybody else seeing (3times) what a stupid post it was.

Not surprised at today's result at all. It was Wednesday that was a killer. We've just had a hard run of games and the remaining fixtures are much more winnable. However I've said dozens of times that football is largely psychological: who knows what shape the players are in after failing to win in 6. Totally dominated killie and looked the better side today for half an hour before going behind to the inevitable higdon strike. Contrast that with the wee cousins over the bridge who don't seem to have been playing well but have been able to get their noses in front and hang on.