ictchris

People are quite right not to go to pre-season friendlies, they are complete *****.

I used to go to all of them when I lived in Inverness, what an idiot.  I once drove, on my own, after work, to Huntly, watched us lost 1-0 and when I got home, found out that it had actually been 1-1, I'd missed the goal by arriving late.

Having said that, I do remember seeing Steve Hislop pinging in a 35 yard volley against QPR and realising that we'd signed a diamond in Ian Black during friendlies.  So maybe I'm being unfair.

2 hours ago, Renegade said:

P&J are reporting that we’re trying to sign Dumbarton midfielder Kyle Hutton. 

Do we need another central midfielder?  Beith, Polworth and Trafford can all play there.  Hutton is also a bit older than the players we've been looking at.

Vigurs was a great player for us last season, deserved his Player of the Year awards but he was always going to take a bigger offer.  He's 30 years old, this could likely be his last long term deal.  

19 minutes ago, ymip said:

We appear to be shopping at Aldi and they are clearly intent on melting their plastic in M&S. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/aldi-whisky-world-best-ranking-glen-marnoch-speyside-single-malt-scotch-glenlivet-a7896116.html

Leaving aside the forums latest Walter Mitty, football fans really need to have a look at themselves sometimes.

Being a teacher and working in the emergency services are vital jobs, you need to be trained for years and dedicated to your profession to do it. Why should the authorities in charge of these services push a load of ex footballers ahead of other applicants? The entire world does not have making Caley a good team as a goal. And specifically to teaching, you really should have a degree in the subject you are seeking to teach, how many footballers meet that criteria?  

If footballers want to retrain as teachers then that’s fine but the world doesn’t owe them a living.

10 hours ago, Blair said:

The real problem with being a teacher in the  government  make it so much harder for you with it being more less impossible to get a job doing it. For example my oldest brother is a teacher in China he gets paid 20 times the average wage of a Chinese person and free flat or house with his job and also like 50 helpers who  work for him. He can also buy within 6 months quite easy flat or small house with his wages easy and you get very decent holidays like he just worked 2 months and get got 2 weeks of to me that sounds pretty good to me.  One final part I want to include he gets a guaranteed job in China before he even steps into China 6 months in advance to be fair if I did not have my own businesses going I would probably do same as him.

Why are you lying in a football forum about having a brother who teaches in China?

You can't move for businesses who are desperate for unskilled part-time new starts in their mid 30s, right enough.

GDPR sounds like an organisation Rangers and Celtic fan sings songs about.

Robertson came into a situation where he has to scrabble about to put a team on the pitch, having to sign players from YouTube videos or on agents say so. It meant we couldn’t really get a team straightened out until a quarter of the way through the season by which point we’d dropped so far behind that it was almost insurmountable.

Also, some of the players signed didn’t gel into the team earlier -Ridgers, Oakley and Chalmers for example, improved as the season went on and Austin was injured almost immediately in January, 

49 minutes ago, Caman said:

Agreed. Look where St Mirren and Livingston were 12 months ago. 

 

This is an excellent point.  People are saying that we can't compete due to finances or crowds - Livingston have an average crowd of 1000 less than us, they have finished second in the league with a team made up of, not to be unkind, youth players and cast-offs.  

St Mirren have won the league by miles, clearly the best team in the division.  This comes off the back of some absolutely horrible seasons, with some parallels to our own fall.  They won a cup but didn't build on it and appointed a shocking manager leading to them being relegated.  Last season they had an utter disaster, they were 10th for practically the entire season, didn't win a game until December, only won two games in the first two thirds of the season.  They went on a great run and built on that.

If we recruit sensibly and retain some of our best players then we can challenge next season - properly challenge rather than the late scramble we've had this season.

We are back on the 'body language' / 'attitude' stuff for Polworth again I see.

Liam Polworth has had an absolute beast of a season.  He has had 16 assists in the Championship, six more than the next best player, more than gjuys like Lewis Morgan, Stephen Dobbie.  That's playing in a team that's been in the bottom half the table for practically the entire season without a striker who has a decent number of goals.  On the run that we've had at the end of the season he's scored or assisted eight of the twenty goals we've scored.

I didn't see any of our games against Queens this year so have no idea if he's any good or not.

If he has two legs and can walk ten yards in a straight line he's an upgrade on Seedorf.

Stranraer fans on P&B on Angus Beith

When he came to us he was described as a deep-lying midfielder, and he has enough dig about him to sit deep, but really came into his own when the manager encouraged him to get forward and gamble in the box.

By all accounts he barely scored in his previous loan spells and played a deeper role, but with us he scored on his debut, and went on to grab 8 goals in 14 games from midfield, all from open play. Seemed to love his time at Stair Park.

Has an eye for goal, works hard, tracks back, basically an all-rounder and a great attitude by all accounts as well.

If you can clone him you'll have a very good team.

it's going to be hilarious when the announcement is a new away strip or something banal like that.

I’m sure that the announcement will be the conclusion in the investigation into the Twitter account favouriting porn accounts. That or the first round of the Duncan Shearer Memorial Under 11s Seven A Side Tournament. 

3 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

Dennis Wyness plays his last ever game of professional football on Saturday assuming he is selected by Huntly at the grand old age of forty one.

One of the most talented and entertaining players ever to wear our shirt. His cheeky step overs will live in the memory forever and there was seldom talk of a striking crisis when he was on our books in partnership with Iain Stewart, big Brian Thomson and others.

Thanks for those great memories Denzil and enjoy your retirement from the game.

He only played with Stewart a few times in 2000 and he was never at the club at the same time as Brian Thomson.

He had his best partnerships with Paul Ritchie from 2001 until 2003 and then a purple patch in the SPL when he and Craig Dargo combined. Looking back he didn’t have the pace or power to make an impact as a striker at the top level but playing in the First division his touch and finishing ability elevated him to a different level. The guy was a joy to watch and fitted perfectly into our team at the time. The run we went on before Pele left in the winter of 2002 has to be some of the best football I’ve ever seen from us, bodying teams left!right and centre. Glorious.

Our league record so far against the teams we are still to play (Dumbarton, Livingston, Dunfermline and Morton).

P -11

W - 2

D - 3

L - 6

F - 8

A - 16

I think some people are underestimating how hard winning these games is going to be.  It's possible but I think it's very unlikely.  We haven't beaten Morton or Livingston all season.

If we win all our remaining games we'll have won eight games in a row, our best run since we won nine in a row in 2010 on the way to winning the First Division title.

It's a lovely thought but it's very unlikely.  We've barely won eight games all season. 

22 hours ago, RiG said:

(another Polworth assist - GIUY haters) 

Polworth now has 21 assists in all competitions this season.  He's also scored four goals.  We've scored 59 goals in all competitions, meaning that he has had a direct hand in 42% of our goals.  That's not taking into account other goals that he's had a hand in, such as the goal of the season against Dundee Utd at Tannadice.  I haven't gone through and confirmed it but he's probably had a hand in half our goals.

1 hour ago, DoofersDad said:

The problem with all this political correctness is that people can no longer speak their mind without being vilified.  Obviously some views will be unacceptable in any civilised society but we have reached a point where you are vilified for holding views which were the norm not so many years ago. A classic example is homosexuality which not so long ago was both illegal and generally seen as wrong.  These days, having a gay friend seems to be a must have fashion accessory to demonstrate what an inclusive individual you are.  But If you say that you think homosexuality is wrong, these very same people turn on you for having unacceptable discriminatory views, thereby demonstrating how intolerant they are.  Live and let live, I say.

I was thinking about the intolerance of those who claim to champion the rights of minority groups when I listened to the reporting of the death of Eric Bristow at the early age of 60.  The "Crafty Cockney" was a legend of darts and had a reputation for speaking his mind.  His friends may not all have shared his views but there was a mutual recognition that others have a perfect right to express their different views and they didn't let their differences get in the way of their friendship.   However, when they were interviewed with their tributes, one after another seemed to distance themselves from some of Bristow's views as though they would be seen by the PC Brownshirts to be guilty by association unless they did.  It was really quite illuminating.

I may not agree with much of what Bristow said but I certainly accept the right of people to express their views   I remarked to someone over the weekend that it was rather fitting that Bristow should have bowed out on a treble 20.  I was told that was a very tasteless and disrespectful remark by this rather PC person.  B***ocks.  I think the Crafty Cockney might have had a wee chuckle at the thought.

Oh!  And as a final thought, what about the idiots in Kent who want to cut down a fine old sweet chestnut tree at a school because they are worried that falling chestnuts may injure the children.  FFS!

Me, reading Charles Bannerman's posts

It's easy to say that we should've signed up our best players on longer term contracts but it isn't as simple as that.  You are assuming that the players would want a contact of that length in the first place - in a lot of cases players prefer two year deals as it gives them a lot more leverage and opportunity.  It also doesn't tie the club into deals that could end up costing a lot for a poor player.  Look what happened when we gave a manager a long contract, it ended up costing the club.  

Danny MacDonald was at the game on Saturday, wearing official club suit and in the directors box area. If he’s moved over to the football side then that’s a good move,  IMO. He’s got background that and did well that area previously.

when I was queuing for pies at half time I saw two fights break out. Firstly some guys were trying to sing Celtic songs while standing waiting and another fan shouted at them. They exchang d words and both parties waited for security to arrive before giving it the old “mon then eh” display, safely behind stewards so nothing could actually happen. There was then a punch up further back in the queue but I didn’t see what that was about. 

It was hilarious to be honest, fail to see why a statement has to be released about it. I was disappointed because I thought we were going to get an update on the investigation into the Twitter account liking porn or when we are going to see the Duncan Shearer Memorial Under 11s Tournament,

Get him on a forty year, Jim McLean style contract

Cup finals are games for winning. You have to win, that’s it. We won, thrillingly so.

The performance was typical of this season in its limitations and positives. It says a lot that a 16 year old got into better positions, created more chances and threatened their goal more than than our three starying forwards did the entire match. 

Be interesting to see how we play Mckay for the rest of the season. I don’t think we can start him but he should be among the first ports of call from the bench. The management will have to take a call on how well he can cope with first team football physically - guys like Harry Cochrane are playing every week at his age.

overall though, it was a great day, good to get some good feeling back in the club after some diabolical seasons.