Caley Stan

You are kidding yourself on both points. For one thing, Scottish football doesnt appeal to that wide an audience and changing the setup will not change that outside of maybe having an extra old firm game on TV outside the UK each year. and as for competitive ... a little look at who has finished first and second for the last few years will answer that one. I should clarify what i mean by "wider audience" and "tight and competitive". By "wider audience", i simply mean wider than the hardcore of season ticket holders and regular attendees who continually call for a 16 or 18 team league. Their views should definitely be considered, but clubs cannot be expected to ignore the fact that attendances and tv audiences increase when there is something at stake in a game, games which occur more frequently in tighter leagues in which most of the teams compete for either the title, European places or relegation. The fact that nobody outside the OF can challenge for the title is sad, but there are many cultural and historical reasons for that dominance and it has persisted through 10, 12 and 18 team leagues. To see how a 16 team SPL might look, it's worth looking at the Swedish and Norwegian leagues of last season. In Norway there were 30 points and 10 teams between the last Europa League place and relegation play-off position. In Sweden, 28 points and 10 teams. That's helluva lot of dead rubber and people just won't watch it IMO.

As well as less overall games, less important games, less fans and less tv money. 16/18 teams was never on the table for these reasons. Hardcore fans may be bored with playing the same teams 4 times a season, but in order to appeal to a wider audience, the league has to be tight and competitive. I thought that a 14 team league with a 6/8 split and play-offs for the final Europa League spot was a good compromise position which allowed for the expansion of the league and an increase in competitive games.

What happened to Garry O'Conner apart from making a shitload of money and getting a move to the EPL despite failing to score or even run very much? If i was advising Rooney i'd be telling him to take the Russian money while he can.

Sutherland ruled out giving the shares to the trust in last nights interview, saying something about being happy with the level of influence they currently have on the board.

I've no idea. He may well have the best of intentions. I'm a cynic who hates the rich so i'm instinctively suspicious. It does sound good on the face of it though.

Very interesting, if slightly puke inducing, interview with 'Sir David' on Sportsound. He is willing to give away his shares to someone who will make a substantial investment in the club and he's sounding well chuffed about it.

The running of the club is shrouded in such secrecy that few people would really know. It is a concern that we don't own our ground or have our own training facilities. Off the top of my head, Hibs and St. Mirren are two clubs who have managed to achieve those things without going into serious debt.

Shock! Horror! Shane! It'll be interesting to hear if he plays out on the right as he did when he came on at Tynie or right up with Rooney.

Are the BBC allowed to show more than 5 minutes of highlights per game?

Glad to hear we're opposing the 10 team nonsense. Jim Spence states that clubs in opposition "want further discussion on league sizes while also exploring new play-off proposals, such as exists in the Eredivisie in the Netherlands". This suggests a larger league with Euro play-offs may return to the agenda. I certainly hope so. Since the required majority is 10-2, what's to stop everyone else sticking it to the Old Firm by including 2nd place in the play-offs?

Like most others, i just voted for 3 defenders in the POY which gives some indication of just how under the cosh we were for long spells. We started brightly, pressing well and finding pockets of space down the left with Ross and Foran looking to create openings. After our goal, Hearts took a firm grip of possession and we found it very difficult to get out of our own half, with resolute defending and a degree of luck combining to allow us to escape with a point and our record intact. I thought our shape was slightly different yesterday. Lee Cox appeared to be stationed in the centre of a line of 4 with Nick Ross. Russell Duncan was very much a lone presence in front of the defence. Rooney was very isolated as nobody in the 4 seemed to have a licence to join him in attack in the way that Ross or Odhiambo have in the past. I think the team was set up to take a point and given the form that Hearts are in we should be happy enough with that.

Sunday service from 10am.

From glancing at SPL attendances each week, we seem to be on course to finish 9th on the end of season average attendance table ahead of St. Johnstone, St. Mirren and Hamilton - our highest ever position. Our attendances are also a lot closer those posted by Kilmarnock and Motherwell than they were when we first arrived in the SPL.

Off the top of my head, there is the infamous Lennon / Juanjo incident after which Juanjo's red card was rescinded yet Lennon escaped punishment for blatant play acting. When we beat Celtic 3-2 a few years back, Pressley gave away a penalty by hacking down Niculae who had a clear goalscoring opportunity. Don't think he was even booked. Fast forward half an hour and our own David Proctor receives a red for the same offence. This P'n'B Thread provides examples from fans of other SPL teams of bad decisions in Celtic's favour in games against their teams. You may wish to read it since, in your own words, you "wouldnt see them as im bias in favour of celtic". I'd suggest that this, and not the referees, is your problem.

Where did i say that? My point is simply that aggressive policing can exacerbate the situation. It was a response to your suggestion of water canons and "a good kicking" as potential solutions to the problem. The article that i linked gives an idea of how angry aggressive policing can make peaceful protesters. Surely you accept that society benefits from having trained doctors, nurses, engineers and teachers? I would take it further and say that we all benefit from having artists, historians, theologians and sociologists - educated people in general. Grudgingly, i even accept the need for lawyers, economists and accountants. If these people end up earning significantly more than you then they will subsidise the roads you drive on under our system of progressive taxation. No man is an island and we have to pool money together in order to improve the lot of the population at large. I don't benefit from some stranger undergoing heart surgery on the NHS and i may never need to use that service myself but i certainly don't object to my taxes being used for that purpose. I applaud them for their efforts and lament that they didn't go far enough! The fact that the royal couple were out in central London in the middle of a large student protest is a testament to the stupidity of that pointless, inbred family. I was at the Laphroaig distillery recently and was informed that the Duke of Rothesay has a standing order for 6 bottles of 18 year-old every month at a cost of ?300 to the British taxpayer. If you want to get your knickers in a twist about wasting money than i suggest that he is a more suitable target for your ire than the students.

I have gone along to number of protests feeling calm and peaceful until i was confronted with the kind of police tactics described in this article. As for the cause, i think it is just. We have a system of progressive taxation in this country and that binds us as a society. By attempting to reduce everything to a service which involves payment on an individual basis, the government undermines that society. The argument that "not everyone uses university so why should everyone pay for it" just doesn't work. Aside from the obvious fact the country as a whole requires people to be educated to certain level in order to function, there are also range of different things we contribute to on a collective basis that not all of us use. We don't exist as individuals cut off from the rest of the world and we wouldn't survive as a species if we did.

Which of the following McBains is your favourite? 1. Jill McBain, played by Claudia Cardinale in Sergio Leone's epic spaghetti western Once Upon a Time in the West. 2. Muscular Simpsons action hero and 38th Governor of California, Rainier Luftwaffe Wolfcastle aka McBain. 3. Evan Hunter, who as well as writing the screenplay for The Birds used the pseudonym 'Ed McBain' in his other guise as a bestselling writer of crime fiction. I was starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel there. Are there any other famous McBains? Roy is more straightforward: Roy Jenkins, Roy Cropper or Roy Race?

Yup, it's another set of quotes that fails to tell us what we want to hear. Did you notice how Pele / Robbo / Brewster jumped ship? It always begins with a week of quotes about how much they love life at ICT and how happy they'd be to stay and continue what they started. It's all very nice but it still allows for a but......i just couldn't turn down the opportunity of working for a big club like Aberdeen / Hearts / Dundee United. If Butcher's offered this job then i think he'll take it. Hopefully he doesn't get offered it.

He'd regret walking away from his biggest success story into the mire. But he'd still do it if he got the chance. Too big a job to turn down and all that. The comments above are those of a man that's keeping his options open.

The amount of energy most people consume in this country is unsustainable. Two jumpers, a scarf and thermal underwear get me through even the coldest of winters.

I'm listening to 5 Live and they're blaming anyone they can find. Shocking lack of dignity from our neighbours whose display of arrogance and hypocrisy continues to prevent them from hosting this tournament.

Big Terry's getting them telt on Sportsound.

Pique may be the only one from the city , but Valdes, Puyol, Xavi, Bojan, Busquets and Pep are all from Catalonia. It's unique in modern football for such a big club to retain its local identity so strongly.

Ross is getting better every week and from what i've seen his best performances have come in the centre of the park. I wasn't convinced about him at the start of the season and felt that he was only in the team because Foran was injured but he's rightly earned himself a starting place ahead of Odhiambo and showed why with brilliant displays against United and Celtic. Hopefully this contract will keep him at ICT for a good few years to come.