Scotty

Found this little comment on the FIFA website ..... "One bonus for the Scots is that their fine form over the last two years has hoisted them to 13th place in the world rankings which ensures them a second seeding for next week's FIFA World Cup draw in Durban, South Africa." GOOD NEWS

Think we need to add Iran, Peru and Costa Rica to Scotland's group ..... have FIFA declare that the managerial teams will be picked by them and find out that we have been allocated Berti Vogts .... then and only then will we have a realistic chance of qualifying. seriously though - looking forward to seeing the draw on Sunday - havent seen any word on seedings yet though .... If its based on current rankings then we should be OK, but if (like some of the preliminary rounds that have already been played) it is based on previous world cup qualifying performances (ie. 2006 WC) then we might be screwed !

Forget his spell at Aberdeen as an inexperienced manager - a job that also made the man that most ICT fans think was our best ever manager - look bad .... and instead look around at some of the message boards for other clubs he was at since then ... like Villa, where the fans are very positive about his influence and impact. one quote (from a profile of him on the VillaTalk website) .... "David O'Leary sees Aitken as a key reason for Villa's rise up the table with minimum resources! It is certainly clear that the Scot is very much now tied up in Villa and every ounce of passion goes into his match day work and work behind the scenes. He is very much a catalyst on the European march. When O’Leary took on the job as Villa manager he insisted that Aiken would join him – despite talk that it would be Brian Kidd joining the Irishman at Villa Park and not the fiery Scotsman. His worth to a management team is clear to see – and Leeds fans’ blamed a lot of O’Leary’s last season at Elland Road, where the team failed to produce the football it could on Aiken’s ‘demotion’ after Brian Kidd was employed." I remember going to Scotland games in the era both before he was captain of the national side and somewhat of a backup player, and also when he was captain of both his club and his country. The "Bear" was one of those players who was never the most skillful of players but his leadership qualities have never been in doubt and he captained the nation in 26 of his 57 international games. I think he would do better as national manager than he would as a team manager primarily because he has a record of getting the best out of players whereas some managers at club level (Souness?) rely on buying their way out of trouble. Incidentally, to bring it back to a (very loose) ICT connection .... his solitary international goal came from a header in the match that marked Kenny Dalglish's 100th cap ... a 3-0 victory over Romania in 1986, and his final game was against the same country in 1991 (which we lost 1-0). I dont think Marius Niculae played in either though ;) Having said that - I am more than happy with McLeish as manager and Watson and Aitken as his assistants

... really dont care one way or the other :012:

Must be a problem at PTV then as the source code indicates it was published on 21 Nov 2007 at 09:53:00 GMT However, I do sympathise with Fiona as its not always easy to get something up on a site in a timely fashion as myself and Donald both know ....... and if your website supplier has a proprietary publishing system which you have very little control over that can make it even harder. (trust me ... after a few years with Rivals, SportNetwork and now controlling all aspects of our own site, we know all about the foibles of third party suppliers !)

stupid story from a stupid man in what i always thought was a half decent newspaper ! If McLeish does decide to drop the Scotland job (which I dont think he will), then Souness is the last man I would want to see it given to. You cannot buy new players in the transfer market at international level, you have to work with what you have and get the best out of them ..... The draw for the world cup qualifiers is this weekend and while we may not have a WCQ fixture until September 2008 at the earliest, once we know what opposition we are up against it should be easy enough to organise a few friendlies against relevant (similar) opposition sides .... 10 months of preparation for a campaign that most fans are now looking forward to with interest ..... If McLeish does go, then continuity would be the watchword for me and that would make Roy Aitken my choice as next manager. A man who captained club and country (just like Souness) and who was renowned for urging his club side on to victory for the full 90 minutes of a game. Given the club affiliations however, it would be interesting to see if gordon Smith would agree :004:

I was talking about the backroom "dream team" ...... when Brew was fired, Malky was also fired, but the others he took with him stayed. Also CB's clearout at DUFC had a lot more to do with the grocer's wishes than his own .... the whole DUFC environment at the time was very messy and not comparable to ICT (i hope).

not sure who CB's dream team would be any more ... considering that Levein retained most of them !!!

There seems to be a lot of names getting thrown around with no rhyme nor reason ....... half the names mentioned in this and a couple of other threads probably havent even heard of ICT let alone be willing to come here !!! lets get real. If we can find a player who will improve the squad then fair enough, but lets not base that on the fact they seemed quite good in Football Manager ! The players need to be better than what we have, willing to commit to ICT for more than 5 minutes, and be within our price range both in terms of contract and possible transfer fees ..... those conditions will put a lot of players out of our reach and lets hope that CB can pick through whats left and find a gem or two ....

That petition is an embarrassment. Badly worded and badly spelled it would get laughed at if it ever reached anyone of power. As angry as I am, I cant put my name to that piece of nonsense .... now if someone wants to word one properly and put the text through a spell checker first ...........

Ahh, the good old "family reasons" excuse that is trotted out by many clubs/players [delete as appropriate] to disguise other reasons. If he does go I will be disappointed as he is a skillful midfielder who should be making regular appearances either from the bench or in the starting lineup. We have a squad that has too many midfield players but he would not be one of the ones I would be sacrificing to reduce the numbers.

Much as 5pm works for me on this side of the pond, and moreso for the likes of Scarlet Pimple I would imagine, I would agree that 3PM Saturday is when it should be ...... give Feb8 less time to blow that fiver kitty on babychams :004:

to be fair .... back in the early days of this site, the (macaroni) pie report was an integral and often more important part of the match report than the game itself !!!

Best Pies 2007 : Clicky Clicky and Highland Region Members of the ruling body .....

After a couple of days to reflect on the match, the final result and the manner in which it was obtained still makes me angry ..... I have no complaints against the Italian side. They are world champions and in spells they showed why. However, at times, a neutral would have struggled to pick which side were the champs as we matched them for long periods of the game. They are the only side in the group to beat us home and away. I have no complaints about the Scottish side. They have been a credit to the nation throughout this qualifying campaign (with the possible exception of the Georgia game). It would be hard to single out one of these heroes for more praise than others as they have all done their part but I am sure James McFadden may get more plaudits than others. For what its worth, I thought Hutton was superb in Saturday's game. I have no complaints about the manager(s) who took us so close this time. Walter Smith and Alex McLeish have brought the pride and passion back to the national side that was almost completely gone in the darkest days of Berti's reign. Walter was slated when he went back to Rangers but it seems obvious that he had laid foundations that McLeish could build on and I will be chomping at the bit to see who we get in our next qualifying campaign for World Cup 2010. Will we get the Italians for a third time in a row? or will we maintain a high enough position in the rankings that we get an easier group ..... [edited to note: The draw for the WC qualifiers takes place this weekend !!! http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/preliminarydr...ste+things+come The Tartan Army now seems rejuvenated and back to a place where it was many years ago. I have special praise for the "enlisted members" who have been with the side through thick and thin but cant fault the 'reservists' either who were 'called upon' in the latter stages of the campaign. They have all done us proud. They say you have to win your home games in any competition to stand a chance - and we did just that. With the exception of the blatant assist by the referee against Italy on Saturday we did not let a single point leave Scotland after a game ..... and even away from home we didnt do too badly, failing to take all 3 points in only 3 games - Italy, Ukraine, and Georgia. The Georgia result was always one that was going to come back and haunt us but even if we had won there, and events unfolded as they did on Saturday we would still have been be on 27 points and hoping the French would lose to Ukraine or Italy to the Faroes !!! However, if we had won in Georgia and the referee did not commit that scandalous act that handed the Italians a winner, and it had finished as a draw, then we would be sitting proudly on top of the group as winners with 28 points, the French would be next with 25 and a game to play (Ukraine) and Italy would be on the ropes with 24 hoping for something to happen in the Ukraine as they humped the Faroes in Italy. So if I cannot complain about the Italians, Scots, French, Supporters, Managers or anyone else who can I complain about. Thats right, my complaint is about Senor Manuel Mejuto González and his two sidekicks Senor Juan Carlos Yuste Jiménez and Senor Antonio Artero Gallardo. In my opinion, these gentleman have (by accident or design) CHEATED Scotland out of at least the (slim) chance of qualification from this group with a blatantly erroneous decision that undid two years of hard work by a team that was written off before a ball was even kicked. I will leave others to come to their own conclusions about whether the decision was made due to ineptitude or for a more sinister reason, but I certainly know what I believe. Was this the only decision they got wrong? NO. To be fair, there were questions of offside for Ferguson's goal (i certainly thought he was when watching it) and for the Italian 'goal' that was chalked off (which didnt look offside) as well as a few other decisions that went the wrong way or were inconsistent. However, this decision right at the death, during a period of play where Scotland were pounding the opposition and just might have grabbed a winner killed the dream and they should be ashamed of themselves for the second best screwjob I have ever seen. (referee who did the final of USA V Canada in Gold Cup still wins that award) You could argue the offside/not-offside questions I noted above and say it evened out over the course of the game, but at least for those decisions you could argue that it may have been hard to see or the play was going too quickly and they could get it wrong. However, this final decision was mere yards from the linesman and the referee was also in good position and yet they still gave it. I have to question that decision and how it was made ....... and when I do I can only ever come up with answers that I have to carefully word (or suppress) !!!!

yes - but by the author of it rather than a mod it would appear

OK folks - cancel all your holidays in Spain, boycott the f***ers after that disgraceful decision to award Italy the free kick that ended the game and our euro dream. feckin disgraceful. Full credit to every single Scotland player on the park today for 100% effort. I cannot fault any one of them. My MOM was Hutton i think - never stopped running all day.

C'mon Scotland. a good solid performance in the first half (barring the first 90 seconds) in atrocious conditions and a near goal just at the death ..... we CAN do this - 2 goals is all it takes ...... and the booster for me - tuned to TLN (latino) channel expecting to get satellite feed from RAI or some other italian channel but turns out its Sky Sports coverage direct from Hampden and in english ...... bonus (except for the Craig Brown co-commentary) !!!

Yup SP - like the tackle described in this thread, the Vancouver incident was also indefensible and what made it worse was to hear the comments of the RCMP who seemed to metaphorically shrug their collective shoulders.

Possibly maimie, but of course I couldnt possibly post it here as it is most definitely dodgy ....... must go and check my PMs :004:

I am not sure of the media rights for this particular game and therefore will not remove the above links. SP - One thing I have heard about the TV for this championship is that Setanta supposedly dont have the rights to Scotland's home games .... I am sure I watched Scotland V France on Setanta but could be mistaken but that might explain one of your questions. I am going to stick with TLN rather than any internet sites I have never previously encountered - who knows, i may even learn the Italian for "Scotland qualify for Euro 2008" :004: :004:

Do you get TLN ? Its on live on there .... the commentary will be Italian but at least it is live http://www.tlntv.com/channels.aspx

welcome to my world !!! I have these problems every week but for a different reason !!!

could be ..... I will let you into a little secret, the pock marked horse field he is standing on in that photo is not the lush bowling green surface of the TCS but was taken as he walked past the away end at the last ever game at Brockville......

although you should have seen Tommy's face when they announced he only got second place !!!! [attach=1] seriously though ... well done to Tommy who has always maintained the TCS surface as one of the best pitches in Scotland. I cant repeat what he said about undersoil heating but I think most people could imagine :015: tommycumming.jpg_thumb