DoofersDad

No doubt someone will come up with what the rules say, but my understanding is that a penalty will be awarded for handball if the player deliberately handles the ball or if the ball hits the hand / arm when the arm is in an "unnatural position". The argument being that whilst the player does not deliberately handle the ball, his arms are positioned so as to block the ball. Dixon had his arm high and was leading with it. That was probably more to protect his face than anything but I can see why the referee would think it was an unnatural position. I'm not sure what the rules say about a red card in that situation but all I would say is that it is absurd to send someone off for such an offence. The team is punished enough by virtue of the fact that a penalty is given. Certainly the offence (if you can call it that) is much less serious than what Ciftci has been getting away with. If a red card and subsequent ban is the punishment for a situation where a ball hits a defenders arm which is deemed to be in an "unnatural position", it just goes to illustrate the peculiar mindset of those who regulate the game.

I was struck by Terry Butcher's inept performance on Sportscene. Despite the fact that he was a previous manager of two of the clubs in the Quarter finals, he was introduced as the "former Rangers captain". The fact that he had been our manager was probably why he was asked to be a pundit on the show where the main event was meant to be the ICT game, but apart from the bald facts of the postponement there was no talk about any thoughts about the way the game might pan out. Instead we had chat about the Rangers and Butcher squirming when being asked about his own interest in the manager's role at Ibrox. He wouldn't say yes or no but it was pretty obvious he would give his right arm for the job. Given that his presence on the show was no doubt because of the involvement of Hibs and ICT in the QFs, the irony of how well we and Hibs have done since he left the clubs seemed lost on him. Butcher looked a sad shadow of his former ebullient self and it seems inconceivable to me that Rangers would consider him for the post. But no offers from me to eat my hat if he gets the job - after all, Rangers have done the inconceivable before.

The referee did not have his best game ever yesterday but I think he can be excused for not spotting Ciftci's kick out at Brown. But the SFA will have seen it on the replay and will need to decide whether or not they consider a boot in the face to be equally innocuous as an elbow in the neck. Meanwhile Ciftci's team mate Dixon will no doubt face a ban having been red carded for the unforgivable crime of not having the fastest reflexes on the planet and therefore not being able to move his arm out of the way of a short hit at point blank range. Dixon makes an instinctive lunge to block the shot and is turning away from the ball. It hits his arm which arguably is in an "unnatural position" but which equally is arguably is not. What it is not is deliberate handball. Penalty? Probably yes. Sending off? definately not, but not the sort of decision which would be overturned on appeai? A more serious offence than Ciftci kicking Brown in the head? Hmm. I'll have to think a bit more about that one.

No, I don't think they do. They still play the music but nobody knows the words anymore

I think loyalty and commitment often gets exploited in business. If you let it be known that you are keen to stay and the family is settled etc, then contract offers will be less attractive than if the business wants to keep you but is worried you will be off with the first decent offer that comes from elsewhere. Successful businesses pay wages which are the least they need to pay in order to secure the services of the staff they want. Our club may have decent people at the helm but they are managing a business and will be business-like in their contract negotiations. It's not fair, but its the way it is.

Will need to refresh my memory of the site rules to check our current policy on voodoo and witchcraft.... You mean that if the rules don't currently allow it they will need to be changed!

HT 2-0 FT 3-0 First ICT Tansey First Opp None Time 13

The job of lawyers is to look after the interests of their clients, not to uphold the law. In other words, the only lawyer you should ever trust is your own. Of course, the SFA disciplinary hearing is not a legal process in itself although there may be some loophole here whereby Ciftci might have had some legal claim against the SFA if they had banned him. Perhaps this is all a variant on the blue dress phenomenon. We saw Ciftci assault Warren whilst Scumdee Utd saw Ciftci valiantly but unsuccessfully trying to stop Warren falling to the ground after slipping on the tannadice mud.

All this carry on about the TV debates is a bit strange. I've no idea what Cameron is playing at. He must know that refusing to take part in the debates looks bad and will cost him votes and one must also assume he realises that if they go ahead without him, it will provide the opportunity for everyone else to trash Tory policies with no come back from him. To add insult to injury he is proposing that there be a single 7 leader debate before the election campaign proper begins and before the Tory manifesto is published! One of the proposed debates is a head to head with Ed Milliband which one would have thought he would relish, after all, this would be a straight debate between the only 2 contenders to be PM after the election. Cameron must know that not participating will do significant damage to his credibility. One can only assume that privately he fears that a poor showing in the debates will do even more damage. Perhaps he has a very much higher opinion of Milliband's debating abilities than he would lead us to believe.

I'm with Sneckboy on this. Having written to the SFA arguing why Ciftci's band should be a lot more than the 2 game "offer" in the citing, I would hope the SFA will actually write to me to inform me of the outcome. If they do, then I doubt they will justify their not proven conclusion to me. I will give them the opportunity to, but if I hear nothing by early next week I will write again and ask them why they concluded it was not proven when there is pretty clear evidence. I doubt they'll tell me then but I can but ask. Of course, he was only cited for the one incident and therefore they will argue that the Shinnie incident was not an issue for consideration at the appeal. With regard to the Warren incident and in the absence of footage from another camera angle, the argument may be that there is no proof that Cifci made contact with Warren. Whilst it seems pretty clear from the footage that he did, they may say that Warren could have slipped when Ciftci approached him and it simply appeared that Ciftci struck him. And without footage to confirm there was contact, then a not proven conclusion is all they can give. Mind you, the footage as it stands plus the fact that Warren reacted they way he did (and presumably a statement from Warren that he was struck?) should all add up to pretty compelling evidence. Anyhow, loophole or not, Dundee Utd management must know what he did, and in challenging the complaint they deserve the contempt of decent football supporters throughout the country.

Unbelievable. Does the guy have to knife someone on the pitch before the SFA takes action against him? Just what more proof can you have than clear video evidence on the SPFL website? I sincerely hope the club takes this up with the SFA because the SFA is clearly failing in it's obligations to uphold the dignity and reputation of the game in Scotland and in it's duty of care towards honest players at the receiving end of such dangerous and malicious pre-meditated thuggery.

Based on population I would class that as proportional representation which based on your figures I argee but not the concept in this scenario which I believe should be equal hence 25% each - think there is a difference in what people consider the context of the terms equal or proportional. Its neither xenephobic or any other discrimination from my perspective no matter how you wish to try and spin it. I could state how N Ireland don't have as much population or football quality as Scotland but wont - I believe that they would as equal to 25% representation in a GB team as anyone else. If based on the logic you propose then there is no motivation for any of the nations other than England to be involved. Based on populus we would each get 1 or 2 players to supplement and England select? It seems that if anyone is promoting a xenephobic approach its those who wish to have a team GB dominated by only England players. At least with othere Olympic disciplines within team GB there are qualifiers to decide who is the 'best' - whats the criteria for football to be done this way? I'm honestly not sure if you are on a fishing trip or whether you seriously believe this. But on the off chance that you are actually serious, I'll bite. This is sport we are talking about and not politics. If participation in any team sport at an international level requires us to have a British team then can you not simply accept that? Can you not accept that regardless of which part of the UK team members come from, chosing a team on merit means it is our best team? What possible reason is there for saying there has to be the same number of team members from each of the home nations? How can it possibly be equal or fair to say that one player has 10 times more chance of playing for his country than another simply because of where he was born? What such an absurd policy would do is to reduce the chances of success and deny better players the opportunity to play at the top level. It really is discrimination of the worst kind. And you can just imagine what it would do for team morale - better players sitting on the bench or not even in the squad whilst a League One player whose mother happened to have been born in Belfast is on the pitch as part of the N. Ireland quota and makes the errors that ruin the teams chances of success. Or in an athletics context, should Team GB's relay squads have one runner from each of the 4 home countries? These are events we have won medals in with some regularity because the team has been selected on merit. If we had to pick relay teams for the World championships and the Olympics based on one runner from each home country we would probably never win any medals. What is particularly nasty about such an approach in my view is that it denies success to athletes who have devoted their lives to try and excel in their chosen sport and who, if selection was based on merit, would have a good chance of success. I am an Englishman who has lived in Scotland for the last 40 years and I would echo what Alex says about xenophobia in the sense that I have never experienced personal animosity because I am English. But what I cannot for the life of me understand is how some Scots seem happy to support manifestly unfair proposals like this which actually reduce the chance of their team succeeding. I don't know if it is this that Lawrence was really alluding to but it does seem to me that the a minority of Scots simply cannot take any joy or pride in a British victory, even if there is a small Scottish representation, if the majority of the team are English. They seem to fear it will be seen as an English victory and therefore something to be resented. So rather than celebrate a British victory, (albeit one where Scots are proud team members selected on merit), they would prefer to adopt a grossly discriminative quota selection policy which denies participation by athletes who on merit deserve selection. Thereby they both deny the athletes the chance of the success they deserve as well as denying themselves the pleasure of celebrating that success. However, such a policy also reduces the chances of the English celebrating success and therefore it is all somehow worthwhile! For goodness sake, can we not consign such bizarre attitudes to the dustbin of history and get behind our sportsmen and women, give them the best opportunity to succeed and then celebrate their success with them?

What you are proposing is not equal representation though. Scotland has less that 10% of the UK's population and therefore should have only 1 player on the park at any time by your argument. But the whole concept of equal representation is nonsense because it discriminates against individuals who are more deserving of a place. Just pick the best team regardless of nationality because every one has an equal opportunity of selection if it is merit based. In any case, large numbers of players may have been born in Scotland and have an English parent and therefore maybe considered English or Scottish. Presumably you are also in favour of geographical representation within the Scottish team?

Behind him. At a respectful distance, of course.

You can still see the scorch marks on the roof. Those were the days when you could do real chemistry in school!

So the authorities think that allowing a few extra fans to pay some money to stand on that tiny bit of terracing and support their local football cub is a "retrograde move" in terms of ground use? What utter sh*te. What is true is that employing these idiots is certainly a retrograde move in terms of good use of taxpayers' money.

What's the odds of Charles becoming leader again? I think they will need a leader in Parliament and I think Clegg's seat is vulnerable to say the least. As you say, an honest politician and a decent man.

Whilst my view expressed on another thread is that sportsmen and women and sports fans in the UK would be better served by having a single UK (or GB) team for all team sports, the fact is that with a few exceptions and anomolies (eg. the "English" cricket team represents the Cricket Board of England and Wales) the home nations have separate sporting bodies. The major exception to the rule is the Olympics. That being the case, the issue really ought to be why the home nations are not represented separately at the Olympics. But, if there is a sound and compelling reason for the Olympics being different and requiring it being a GB & NI team, then why on earth should we approach the fielding of a UK team in football any different to all other Olympic team games? Being scared of Blatter is simply not a valid reason in my book. OK, so Blatter will raise some questions. So what? The questions are there in any case and not just for football but all sports. If there are valid reasons for the home nations to have separate football associations, what's the problem?

One could be excused for not realising there was actually going to be a General Election in May. Despite the fact that there is a potential for a radical shift from previous voting patterns resulting in the potential of having the largest party having major problems in forming a credible Government, discussion and media coverage all seems pretty low key. It is as though none of the parties want to peak too early in the race or, if I am being cynical, don't want other parties to have too much time to pick holes in their arguments. Scottish Labour have certainly dug a hole for themselves by trying to be as independent as possible from the UK party whilst apparently opposing Scotland being independent from the UK. Focusing on support for labour in Westminster is what they should be focused on but that means making a case for Ed Milliband as Prime Minister which, one has to admit, is not an easy sell. In any case, if Labour do lose seats in Scotland (which seems highly likely) it will be to the SNP. The SNP will support a Labour administration at Westminster - but at a price. Labour supporters in Scotland may well feel that they are better off voting SNP on the basis that it will make no difference to the ability of Milliband to form a Labour Government but an agreement with the SNP would likely result in greater benefit to Scotland than a majority Labour administration. Whilst they are currently nowhere in the polls, the Lib Dems may yet emerge as king makers again. They have been roundly vilified for getting into bed with the Tories but unfairly so in my book. Had they not done so and another election was held, we could have ended up with a majority Tory administration where the impact of austerity measures would have been far more hard hitting. Worse still, we could have ended up with a majority Labour Government with a spending agenda which would have made the debt position far worse. In truth, the Lib Dems have been a moderating influence on the Tories and whilst they have gone along with a lot of policy which may have been quite at odds with their manifesto, they have done so as the cost of blocking more extreme Tory ideas and of getting some of their own manifesto priorities onto the statute book. Coalition politics is about compromise and the junior members of a coalition clearly have to compromise more than the biggest partner. I think history will conclude that the Lib Dems have done a pretty good job of moderating the right wing zeal of certain sections of the Tory party. They would have done exactly the same had Labour got in at the last election. I reckon that as the election progresses people will increasing recognise that and will appreciate that having a strong lib Dem presence in the next parliament will good for political stability in this country.

I can see no reason why nationalists would ever take pleasure from their failure at a quintessentially English sport. On the contrary, they take great delight in doing well in such sports particularly when they do better than their neighbours South of the border. I would have thought nationalists would see success at such sports as a reflection of the ability of Scotland to succeed politically as an independent nation. But it is interesting in that sense to look at the success of the Irish Rugby side. There, politics have been set aside and the team represents the island of Ireland despite the troubled political background. They seem to do pretty well on it. The West Indian nations do it in cricket. One could argue that in turn reflects a political message of being better together, but that would be rather flippant. In truth, it is a numbers game and it follows that if you have more people to choose from, you are more likely to have a better team. Of course, England has a much larger population and is in a better position to succeed on it's own, and it has enjoyed success. England won the football world cup with players from England, but how much more success might a UK team have had with the likes of Best, Giggs and Dalgleish gracing the world stage as part of a top team? I just wish we could keep the petty nationalism out of sport and separate sport from politics. The sad thing for me about the way nationalism impacts on British sport is that the insistence on having separate English and Scottish teams teams etc rather than a British team actually reduces the chances of supporters throughout the UK of enjoying success at international level and denies the top players the chance of success or even of competing at the top level. Instead of celebrating success, we are forced to wallow in a level of mediocrity and resort to mocking each other over our failures. Perhaps this is where Charles is coming from. We enter international competitions with a team structure of our own choosing which makes us less likely to be successful. So when we fail to succeed then there is a simply inevitability about it. It really is quite pathetic. Personally I would like to see other sports taking a lesson from golf. After routine gubbings by the US, it was decided to open the Ryder Cup team up to European players and as a result the Ryder Cup has become one of the great events in world sport. Just because it is not a Scottish team does not stop us from celebrating our victory. Indeed, the fact that the team is a broader international team makes an individual nation celebrate the participation of it's own citizens at the pinnacle of international sport that much more.

I agree with Scotty and Renegade. The article quotes the spokesman of County calling for the return of terracing to be added into the debate and I think that is the line we should take. Costs for German style standing areas are prohibitative for most of the SPFL clubs but common sense tells us that there should be no need for that. Of course Hillsborough was awful but as so often happens, the response to such tragedies takes us too far the other way. There is nothing wrong with terracing per se. As long as barriers are maintained and entry is appropriately controlled terraces are perfectly safe. Frankly people are currently more at risk of tripping and falling into the row in front when squeezing past others to get to their seat. There needs to be a serious reconsideration of terracing. In the meantime, as CaleyD says, the more pragmatic attitude the stewards are taking now is a sensible interim position.

After my earlier rant on here I thought it would be more constructive to rant to the SFA as they are, after, all, the governing body of football in Scotland. So I wrote to the compliance officer saying that I thought the premeditated and dangerous nature of Ciftci's actions, which appeared to have been made with the intent to harm, warranted a much more serious penalty than the standard red card offences which occur in the heat of the game. I also pointed out that if they fail to distinguish between this type of incident and the more usual type of incident then they will be failing in their duty of upholding "the dignity and reputation" of the the game in Scotland. I don't suppose it will make any difference although if enough people from all clubs took the time to write to request more robust action in stamping down on the worst aspects of cheating in the game, we might just get somewhere.

Well you certainly can't take away from Hercher that not only did he score on his league debut, but he scored a hat-trick. I think a cup debut hat-trick from Eddie Ofere would do very nicely as well.