BonnybridgeICT

Worst night of my football life tonight.... and paid 15 quid for the privilege of that embarrassment of watching our reserves play. I hope some pride is restored in the league straight away.

Is it not standard practice across the Scottish leagues to present the trophy to the champions at their next home game following the title being clinched, therefore against Dundee for us? This would always be the case unless the title is clinched with no home games remaining.

I'm hoping Falkirk stay up for that reason too!

Lets deal in facts - 7 goals for Scotland in 15 games. ONE of which was a penalty against Faroes. Let me run through the rest of the goals for you to clarify- GOAL 1 - v Bulgaria - "Premier League top-scorer Boyd took just 13 minutes to claim his maiden goal with a fine first-time finish as he latched on to Darren Fletcher's perfectly placed pass to lash in an angled drive. " GOAL 2 - v Bulgaria - "Boyd, however, put his side back in front two minutes before the break when he was first to react after Stoyan Kolev spilled Russell Anderson's shot following a well-placed cross by Teale." GOAL 3 - v Faroe - "Fortune continued to smile on the Scots when a penalty was given for a trip on Boyd after 23 minutes. The award looked a soft one and the Rangers striker's spot-kick was not well executed but slid under Mikkelsen." GOAL 4 - v Faroe - "Boyd doubled his tally on 38 minutes, running on to a fine Fletcher pass and slotting into an empty net after Mikkelsen had blocked his initial shot." GOAL 5 - v Georgia - "Kris Boyd opened the scoring, heading home from a precise Gary Teale cross in the 11th minute." GOAL 6 - v S Africa - "Scotland improved after the break and Boyd scored with a half-volley after 71 minutes following a superb ball from captain Darren Fletcher." GOAL 7 - v Lithuania - "A glancing header from Kris Boyd gave the Scots a half-time lead." Quotes from BBC website via links from Wikipedia. Consider also that he has only made 6 starts in full international matches, in which he scored 6 goals. 8 of his caps were as a substitute (3 of which were in the last 10 mins of the game, including one where he came on in the 90th min, while a further 2 were in 70mins+). Info for this came from the SFA website. Yes, the 'ugly' Boyd apparently only scores penalties for Scotland. :D Personally speaking, I think Boyd needs to play in a set-up where he is supported by a 'work horse' striking partner. Sometimes this isn't an option/luxury that Scotland can work with in a game where we are playing against a top side and are playing for a draw or stolen goal. However, in the opportunities that he has been given for Scotland, the FACTS show that he has actually returned a decent scoring record.

What a terrible start to the year for you. Hope he sees sense soon. You could maybe try that aversion therapy to try to cure him of this affliction - maybe a Celtic shirt wired up to some form of electro-shock device?

I watched the old firm game as my wife's family are all Celtic fans. I thought it was pretty entertaining, if a bit one-sided. Certainly plenty of chances and only a cracking save and some awful finishing kept Celtic from winning. I can't wait to read the morning papers and read all the (no doubt) 'outrage' from one side of the OF about the disallowed goal. In the spirit of it being a competitive game where you want to see meaty challenges etc then it was a very soft foul... however, fact is, it was a foul and therefore technically correct to be disallowed. The replays clearly showed fortune's arm nudging McGregor's arm before Fortune then headed the ball, thus impeding McGregor after he had both hands on the ball in the air. The controversy that will rage on about the disallowed goal will of course ignore the fact that, for all their dominance, Celtic were pretty poor up front, with the exception of McDonald, and should have killed the game off easily. The other incident where Lafferty was shown a yellow card for his studs up challenge.... thought he was very very lucky to still be on the pitch. I can only think that the ref maybe didn't quite see just how high his boot was. I expected a red card to be shown. The thing that annoys me about the OF games is that any semi-contraversial incident is blown up into a major talking point that is debated and analysed for weeks. A Rangers fan I know actually has a season-by-season spreadsheet on his computer of major decisions that have went for and against his team in comparison to decisions for and against Celtic.... sums it up really! Meanwhile us poor folk seem to manage to accept that sometimes you get the breaks and sometimes you don't... it all just evens itself out over the course of a season!

To be honest, even if Boyd had made himself available for every Scotland game, would he have actually played many more games under Burley than he had done up to that point? Similar to many of the posters here, Burley didn't rate the guy. 31 year old, injury-prone Norwegian defender Iwelumo ahead of Kris Boyd?!?!? :( "aw naw!"

Scotland are hardly blessed with an array of quality strikers and when we create chances we need to have guys on the field who know where the net is and have the instinct to be in the right place at the right time. I'm still haunted by THAT moment against Norway - was watching it in a bar full of Norwegians....slightly ruined my holiday. Boyd's goal scoring record speaks for itself and Levein would be shooting the team in the foot to ignore a player like that who is willing to play for his country, regardless of what has happened in the past. Boyd's record at full international is 7 goals in 15 games - that includes a couple against Bulgaria in the Kirin Cup, one against Georgia in the Euro 08 qualifying, and one against Lithuania in the same qualifiers. Hardly what you would call diddy teams! In any case, they way Scotland have been playing, no team is a diddy team.

Levein gets my vote for manager. Exact same reasons as outlined by Scotty. If Levein is going to use the role as a stepping stone then, when the time comes, i'll be more than happy to cheer him on his way as he's parading the European Championship trophy/World Cup around Hampden. :(

Really like that - modern but traditional enough to keep most folk happy.

I know it takes a while to get stock organised, photographed, and uploaded on to t'interweb, but hopefully the new gear will be fully available to buy online in time for next christmas.

Aye, time is ticking on for folk getting the stuff in time for christmas. Hopefully it'll arrive soon so that the club don't miss out on a cash boost from folk buying stuff as gifts.

Damn.... didn't check ICT section cause I thought it would have been in here as it's Champs League. Ach well.... i'm sure a mod can merge it.

Watching man united champions league game just now on itv. Terry Butcher is doing the studio analysis and I was expecting to see the caption 'Inverness Caledonian Thistle manager' beside his name now following the whole 'Scotland Assistant Manager' caption that used to show. Guess what they've put up this week.......... 'RANGERS 1986 - 1990'!!!!!!!! Unbelievable!

Cracking first half today. I dragged the wife along to the game with me for her first ICT match and she commented at half-time that Caley should never be in the first division if they can play like that. What must have been a cracking half-time teamtalk over and a demonstration of why we are where we are then unfolded. Dumpdee came out and started the second half exactly as you would expect and we answered by having as much attacking danger as the wee boys that were playing on the field during the break (with the exception of that last wee lad that did a cracking chip!). Only decent thing about the second half was watching driving rain soak the Dumpdee supporters behind our goal. If we can recreate that first half performance for 90mins then we'll do well. The worrying thing about today is that I don't honestly think Dundee came out and played any better in the second-half. We came out and seemed to just look disinterested from the off and some of the passing lacked the vision and ability that was shown in the first half. What on earth did Butcher say to them at half-time!?! :huh:

My experience of the club shop has always been positive in terms of the customer service the staff provide. Hopefully the positive feedback filters through to the club so that they can see that the service is valued by the fans.

Dont mean to defend either of them but my understanding is that it was fans heading late towards the stadium who were picked up on the radio singing. Were they to know there was a silence in progress? Aye, it's amazing how super-powerful the tv and radio microphones in the grounds are these days that they can pick up the sounds of a few fans innocently singing songs whilst walking to the stadium. Also unfortunate that they timed the singing of the songs just after the silence started. Bet they were embarrased when they got into the ground and realised their error, although were probably partly relieved as had no doubt been wondering why the stadium was so quiet on their walk up to the turnstiles and maybe thought the game had been cancelled.

Well said. The way both Celtic and Rangers are playing just now I think they're more than worthy of a place in the Premier League in England..... Blue Square that is.

What they do? Havnt read anything about it in the papers There was a tiny snippet in the Sun on Monday that made out that it was random punters that just happened to be outside the ground and were singing. Funny, that as the Falkirk Stadium is a wee bit out of the way for folk to just be randomly wandering past! Sky TV cut the audio feed on the broadcast during the 'silence'. With the Old Firm harping on about going down to England to play, can you imagine Celtic fans doing that on rememberance Sunday at a ground down south..... there would be an absolute riot! Luckily as it's happened in Scotland it gets swept under the carpet and prevents further shame for our country. I can't understand so-called 'fans' of any team voicing any disrespect during a silence, especially as in this case it effectively shames the memory of Celtic players and fans who paid the ultimate price for their country in WW1 etc.

But i dont see why that club should be charged because of them having tear gas? They are alowed to in Romania, so why not? If you could in Britain im sure at OF games they would carry them. Russian police carry weapons but because they were not used nothing is made of it. You can clearly view in the footage that the fans are attacking the stewards and they are using the gas to fend them off. They've not been charged because they HAD cs gas. They've been charged because of their overall inept handling of the match, which may very well include the inappropriate USE of weapons during the event such as batons and cs gas. In the footage shown of a particular flashpoint it does indeed indicate that the crowd in that section were confronting stewards. Again, think about it in the context of our games - you always see fans having a bit of vocal argy-bargy with stewards about standing up etc. Imagine then that our stewards had cs gas and sprayed fans to get them to sit down.... what do you think would happen then? The situation was definitely inflamed and their stewarding was counter-productive. No excuse of course, but perhaps understandable when put in the context of the handling of some of the incidents that resulted in the initial flashpoints. We live in times when the health and safety of fans at football times is paramount. It might seem like a trivial matter to force thousands of fans to enter via limited turnstile numbers, but just think about stadium tragedies that have occurred around the world with stadium access issues as a contributory factor. The pre-match risk assessment of the match required one thing, but the Romanian side did another. On that basis alone they are right to be charged. Again, thinking of us - imagine if all the fans at our games had to enter via one turnstile on the main stand and had to stand in fenced off pens waiting to get in 2 at a time.... while at the same time police with batons 'helping' you along your way and trigger-happy stewards are spraying cs gas on mass into the penned crowd to stop them complaining at the wait. Sounds a bit extreme does it not and pretty dangerous if you realise that cs gas disorientates people and can cause severe breathing difficulties. I've only heard stories from reliable sources so I can only comment on the basis of what i've been told from fans that were there (all of whom condemn the extreme actions from Rangers fans that were reported).... but funnily enough many of the damning reports in the papers were also reported third-hand from reporters that weren't even there e.g. Bill Leckie in yesterday's Sun. I'm not in any way supporting what their fans did but just trying to suggest that the media will always report the incident in a way that is most sensational. There are clearly various parties to blame for the whole fiasco and once the matter is fully investigated, with ALL tv/cctv footage reviewed, then hopefully the appropriate punishments are dealt out.

It's always interesting to see how these things are reported in the press and how that compares to the reality. There's no excuse for ripping up seats etc but some of the independent stories that i've heard from reliable sources backup the claims of shocking stewarding, policing, and match organisation. I mean, stewards armed with CS gas!!!!! In the UK it's classed as a firearm and our cops need special training and are closely monitored in it's use, aftercare of recipients etc..... can you imagine Caley stewards wading in with CS gas at our games?!? The Romanian side have now also been charged by UEFA so it would appear as though this confirms the reality that they are not blameless.

Your right in what you say. I'll not name names, but at the time of one 'manager must go' campaign, I inadvertently found out that one of the pro-manager posters was a member of the backroom team. Obviously they are entitled to voice their opinion as much as anyone else but shouldn't be on here masquerading as a regular fan. There's always bound to be a small number of posters who are not quite as they seem on any forum.

Aye... i'm having to wear the home shorts with my new away shirt for 5-a-sides. I'm wondering if they're maybe considering not bothering with stocking them on the basis that they won't sell enough - the same scenario that prevents us getting gk shirts etc.

From what I could make out from his shouting it was to do with Bulvitis's positioning. At that point in the game they had been losing some of the runners and were getting carved open a bit. The pitch looked very heavy underfoot following all the rain - probably didn't help the quality of the football much. Had a chuckle at old bloke wandering round with the wee handwritten sign showing the prize draw numbers getting the banter with folk.

Quality saves for the ones he kept out and he was pretty unlucky with a few of the ones he didn't save too.