The Mantis

Somebody’s just been whshed!

Brian Prunty scored for LL leaders East Kilbride against Whitehill Welfare yesterday. I also had the privilege of a long chat with David Proctor who is still playing (and coaching) at nearly 34.

Happy Ballistic Day

The bigger question is how did Rene manage to stumble on a 4 year old thread? Not much on telly tonight obviously

Had a quick look at the table. County have won 4 games. Away at Dundee and Kilmarnock early on, and home to Hamilton and Motherwell, the latter one being 4th November. Their equivalent result to our thumping at Hamilton was probably being beaten 2-0 by Partick on 30th December. In either of those games an away win would have lifted us/them off the bottom.

Well I see Regan has resigned anyway. An import who knew very little about any football, let alone Scottish Football, but thought he could fix all our problems in a flash. 8 years on... Let's see who's next.

Edit - I started to suspect it was Cove rather than Fort - it was actually Cove after a replay, 2-2 followed by 1-1. Couldn't check at the time as last night was the very night our 20-month old granddaughter was staying over and sleeping in the room where I have all my Caley stuff. She's voting against the merger though.

Currently 4-0 down at home so options 1 and 4 looking even less likely

Pretty sure Caley went out of the Q Cup in 90-91 on pens after a 3-3 draw. Seem to remember it being the Fort. It was somebody rubbish anyway

It’s obviously taken off a betting website.

Taylor Swift’s changed a bit since last week.

Ten men? I must have been away for a pie at that point

I was desperately trying to find an anagram of 'at an easel' but gave up

Warren was surprisingly decent on Saturday although I can remember at least one of his trademark late tackles Not sure if Seedorf would do any better especially at CB.

I just stuck a pie over each ear which helped keep the cold out as well.

They just wanted to mother you (and sell more pies) Try switching your hearing aid on next time...

That man’s a total amateur compared to the way Rene was turned out at Paisley yesterday

Decent display in the second half. The less said about the first half the better. Really should have taken something but when your confidence is low it's tough enough without losing your striker after 9 minutes. Trafford could never fill in for Vigurs, but the defence coped reasonably well even without big Coll. The goal was very sloppy though but Reilly finished it well. 177 away fans.

Tin hat on ready for the red arrows. Paranoia about biased refs is just silly although I suppose it worked for Alex Ferguson. Do we really want to be like Celtic FC (always cheated, never defeated)? Who would be a ref? It reminds me of when I was teaching. Some parents never seemed to realise it was a profession that involved years of training - they thought you just made it up as you went along, and picked on whoever you liked. I deal with refs regularly at Lowland League level as it’s my job to pay their match fee. BTW they are paid about £800 in the Premiership but only £75 in the LL. It’s up to them to make themselves available for a match each week then take what they get. In the case of Stephen Finnie (Category 1) he will take a game any week no matter what he’s offered. Just for the love of the game. We even had Collum one week. But in the average LL fixture we will get a Category 3 or what’s called Category 2 development. The list of refs and categories is on the SFA website. It’s quite enlightening when you go in and speak to them and hear their side of the story. They go over all the bookings with the assistants right after the game and code them. It’s amazing when your midfielder tells you ‘I never did f**k all’ then you hear the ref saying how many quiet warnings he’s had. Also relatively surprising is how well the players and refs know each other, and that usually they have a pint after the game when things have cooled down. At LL level you can hear the conversations on the park and most refs are encouraging the players and praising them for a good pass etc despite getting sworn at all through the game. Although there are one or two who make it all about them. The ref at Brechin on Saturday was Gavin Duncan (Category 1) who has handled LL fixtures many times. I thought he handled the game well. I missed the St Mirren game at TCS but when I read the forum I thought the ref had been eating people’s babies or something. Then I saw the highlights and couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. And yes, even at LL/HL level refs get supervisors checking their progress and development or lack of, as they move/don’t move up the categories. Haven't watched the Livi highlights yet...

A Swift wee flick, Taylor made for Oakley to finish.

Think it was an o.g. Baird was pretty useless and really should have been subbed at ht along with Polworth. Although Oakley scored 2 I’ve never really been impressed by him and a lot of it could be put down to Brechin tiring. Would like to have seen Doran get a spell. Coll Donaldson was MoM for me and wait till you see his part in the winner.

Reminds me of the postman who used to do our street.

Nollaig Chridheil Angus Bliadhna Mhath Ùr

That's an unqualified YES then?

Ian once gave me a whole box of 10x8 Caley prints which I was allowed to scan. I think you’re getting your book titles mixed up though