Sneckboy

I wouldnt worrytoo much........Aberdeen will be wondering where 30 000+ of their supporters have gone It's all relative, SMEE. They had around 35% of their Cup Final crowd attending, as did we. However, they're parading a cup around Aberdeen today and likely 'capturing the imagination' of a few interested observers. All great Public Relations. Actually, to be fair, they increased their attendance on their previous home game v. Kilmarnock. Unfortunately we didn't with our crowd vs. Partick Thistle. An indictment indeed, but particularly embarrassing for us, as I will explain. Although a hackneyed topic, attendances are very relevant to a club's health. What I cannot fathom is this: Just picture being at the Partick game back in October. At the Sunday lunchtime kick-off, when we'd not even played our League Cup quarter-final at that stage, you turn to your mate and query... "looking at my crystal-ball, the next time Partick come calling, it'll be a more traditional Saturday 3pm kick-off: We'll have a new manager who'd likely appreciate a big crowd to spur the team onto his first home league win..." "We'll have all our key players signed up by then on extended contracts and we'll have just secured our 2nd consecutive top-6 finish..." "Oh, I forgot to mention, We'll have, just 6 days ago, played in our first major cup final (!!!) and taken nearly 8,000 fans to Glasgow!" "One last thing, the club will have put an incentive into place (as if it was needed after our pervious weekend's cup final), whereby major discounting incentives, free admissions and concessions will be aggressively advertised to entice the fans in." "So...let's just speculate that, what I've (probably unrealistically) prophesised, somehow came to light..., then surely we'd expect a higher crowd than today?" Answer: Obviously, YES, naturally, of course!! (swear words removed). Reality: NO. Sadly, part-time football will be the reality at this rate.

Only my view, but I'm trying to simplify it. Look at it in this order: The Scottish Champions go to the Champions League. The Scottish Champions, therefore, are not eligible for the Europa League. (ignoring the scenario where they 'parachute' in at a later stage). That leaves 3 Europa League places available. 1 from the Scottish Cup: Best team eligible for the Europa League qualifies - Call them 'team x'. 2 from the Scottish League: Top 2 clubs aside from the Champions and 'team x'.

At the time of writing, the Dons are currently inching along Union Street in their open-top bus, and it got me thinking.....what jammy gits! But in all seriousness, if we'd not lost out on penalities last Sunday, would Highland Council have dipped into the common-good fund to finance our celebration in the traditional football way, or would there merely be a private civic reception sometime in June? I'd hope we'd go down the open-top bus route. Aberdeen has the naturally fortuitous set-up of the Town House destination being situated at the end of a straight, near mile-long stretch of the city's main thoroughfare. Where would our 'hypothetical' bus route start, if the Town House was indeed to be the end-point? I'm no expert, but my suggestion would be to start at the 'Phoenix'-end of Academy Street (having maybe set-up and come from the Stadium) and continue down to M&S before turning right under the shopping-centre 'tunnel' that would take them to the bottom of Stephen's Brae - then obviously down the pedestrianised Eastgate and High Street to finish outside the Town House. A good vantage point for the players to parade the cup to the fans could be from the balcony outside the Tourist Information Centre. The Gellions would be pleased with that arrangement! God, I'm envious right now!

I've had a look at the UEFA rules and although they don't cover every possible scenario, I think you've summarised it accurately, Rasczak, in your possible scenarios. DU v Aberdeen final = Aberdeen win, ICT in Europe, DU win, them in Europe (Winner as cup final representatives) DU v St J final = Winners in Europe (Winner as cup final representatives) Aberdeen v Rangers = 4th place in Europe regardless of result (Aberdeen as cup final representatives) Rangers v St Johnstone = ST J in Europe (St J as cup final representatives) In essence, we really need Aberdeen to beat St Johnstone to have any chance with a 4th placed finish!

19th and 26th April. 3rd, 7th and 10th May. 12th/13th April Scottish Cup semis I stand corrected.

We'll have a new home strip for next season anyway...and the current away strip will remain and just have the sponsor details changed. I've often wondered whether there could be fan input into the strip, even on a very basic level, but probably not feasible, however who is it that chooses the design? Is it simply at the chairman's discretion? This goes for all clubs. We tried that with the Icat mascot design.....and look what happened!

I think they're played on the weekends of the 12th, 19th and 26th April and the 3rd and 10th of May. (11th May for top-6). But TV schedules will doubtless dictate the specific date and kick-off times. They're not normally released until after the split, but with the top 6 known definitively at this early stage, there's actually no reason they can't publish the fixtures much sooner!

Yeah, runners-up get Europe if winners are already in Champions League. But with the Rangers scenario this season, it muddies-the-water slightly! UEFA insist on there being a representative from the Scottish Cup in the Europa League (as a throwback to the old Cup Winners' Cup). I go with Alex's interpretation, Rasczak. Assuming the Dons and 'well take 2nd & 3rd, we need to hope for an Aberdeen v, Rangers final and for us to finish 4th!

The above example still wouldn't qualify us for Europe. United winning the cup would see them qualifying alongside the teams 2nd and 3rd in the league. If United happened to be one of the 2nd or 3rd teams as well as winning the cup, then the club in 4th place would qualify. There appear to be no scenarios where 5th place would be good enough (this season). League: top 2 from Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee United, St Johnstone, Motherwell Cup: winner from Aberdeen, Dundee United, St Johnstone

Update on suspensions from SFA website: CARL PHILIP TREMARCO (INVERNESS CT F.C.) 1 SPFL FIRST TEAM MATCH FROM 26/03/2014 RICHARD FORAN (INVERNESS CT F.C.) 1 SPFL FIRST TEAM MATCH FROM 02/04/2014 Looks like Carl Tremarco will miss the Dundee United game and Richie Foran the Ross County match.

Yeah, the win over Dunfermline was indeed the first game at the TCS. But that was in the 2004/05 season. The 5,061 average is from the following season. We certainly benefited from the SPL novelty, with many opposition fans travelling in numbers to an SPL ground they'd never been to before. For example, we got 6,700 for a Hearts game, which incredibly was only our 7th highest home league gate of that season! We surpassed 7,000 on 5 occasions!

I think we also once sent a representative team to play in Benbecula! Also, didn't we used to enter a pre-season tournament hosted by Oban Saints?!

I don't think we've ever played at Annan Athletic's ground. But one 'obscure' ground we have played at is Golspie Sutherland's - in a North of Scotland Cup game a few seasons ago.

A good return! The Umpire strikes back!!

Sorry I'm Lleyton getting back, was putting on my Rafa tickets. Then I was watching old DVD's of the Eurovision Tsonga contest before discovering a long lost 'different' DVD - so obviously had a Jankovic! My girlfriend wonders how I managed that as she claims it's like looking for a Nadal in a haystack!

I knew you'd have another passing-shot at Mahonio, IHE! I hope this verbal rally doesn't descend into a volley of abuse! I overhead somewhere that you do like taking centre-court in these debates and enjoy the proverbial 'minutes of fame' - but we all love-fifteen!

It's actually 5 wins, 8 draws and 7 defeats, but regardless, we don't want to be going down that road of firing managers a few months into their tenure. Fulham appointed Rene Meulensteen the same day (I think) that we employed Hughes. He was sacked over a month ago, which frankly is ridiculous and laughable. One thing in football that I've always found a bit odd is that Chairmen and boards of directors get rid of managers - that they've painstakingly selected from scores of applicants - with impunity. Sacking a manager is surely, by definition, an admission that they got it wrong! Managers may pick the wrong players, tactics and formations and ultimately pay for it with their job, yet directors can preside over the selection of unsuitable candidates, time-and-again! Although not a fan of Hughes personally, I think it's only fair to let him get the bubble-wrap off his fridge before starting to plot for a replacement. The end of the calendar year would be a more appropriate time to evaluate where the club's going under his stewardship. If then, it's deemed that we're regressing, then yes, we may need to look at other options, with any new manager having the January 'transfer window' available to arrest the slide.

Hibs, St Mirren and St Johnstone have all had 4 game droughts in the league this season so we need to notch against Partick to avoid joining them!

There are a few moments in this short BBC highlights clip of the Motherwell game, which hopefully is accessible from Canada. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/26134997

Just had a look and you’re right, Renegade. Staggering how bad Aberdeen were that season 1999/2000. They had a 6 game run without scoring in the SPL – the first 6 games of the season! P6 W0 D0 L6 F0 A18 Pts0. This was the season during which they recorded some disasterous scores, including: Aberdeen 0-5 Celtic Celtic 7-0 Aberdeen Aberdeen 1-5 Rangers Aberdeen 0-6 Celtic Rangers 5-0 Aberdeen Aberdeen 0-4 Hibernian Celtic 5-1 Aberdeen Aberdeen 1-5 Kilmarnock They were hopelessly out their depth and finished bottom but were reprieved by Falkirk being denied promotion on stadium rules. Incredibly, they actually managed to reach both cup finals that season!!...and even qualified for Europe! (where they lost in the preliminary round to a League of Ireland team)

For many, this season will rank as our ‘best ever’ due to the League Cup final. However, it’s also been the season that's seen us notch-up some unwelcome records – longest goal drought (ongoing), our heaviest (equal) SPL/Premiership defeat and our all-time heaviest home defeat….and all since the turn of the year. For one of the aforementioned statistics to occur during our ‘best season’ could be viewed as ironic, with two possibly being an unfortunate coincidence…but all three is just sheer carelessness!

Obviously a first ever cup final followed by a midweek game down at Motherwell is a totally unfair comparison, but I wonder if the respective ICT turn-outs have seen the biggest percentage disparity in consecutive crowds, anywhere, ever?! 7,800 fans, followed three-days-later by 53. That's around a 99.3% drop!

Ah, Kingsmills, I knew you'd be in the frame for top pun! But anyway, when to discontinue adding puns...what's the stance on this? (I went for a double there!)

Not sure about it being a 'should' win game! Just 1 point from 6 against Partick this season. But a win would be revenge for the home loss earlier in the season and would end the scoring drought! Not to mention getting the monkey off Hughes' back with a first home league win under his tenure! So, hopefully get the 3 points in front of a 4,000+ crowd!