DoofersDad

Greater England? Or perhaps just England for short.

Of course, if we had a fourth stand .......

It's a difficult one. As a general principle I would like to see more integration as ultimately that should be the best way to get the kind of international cooperation required to manage the problems of resource depletion, overpopulation, climate change etc which threaten the future prosperity of this planet. Small nations will be never be able to defend themselves against the military or economic power of larger nations. It is strange how in science fiction, other civilisations always tend to have a singe world government rather than planets populated by a vast range of nations speaking different languages and warring with each other. It is as though there is something in the subconcious that tells us that a single world government is what we should be aspiring to. That's 2114 sorted - so what about 2014? I am one of the thousands of English immigrants who came up here and decided to stay because it is better here. In the short term I would be perfectly happy with independence. I think we have had much more responsive and sensitive Government since we've had devolution and I think that if that was extended to areas of Government currently reserved for the UK Government, things would improve further. It also seems wrong that Scotland should be controlled by financial policy dictated by a party which the Scots don't vote for - and I don't see that changing any time soon. A concern is that if financial policy is dictated by the party of the English majority, increasingly we will get a raw deal from the carve up of resource. At the moment we don't do too badly but that will be partly because Westminster wants to keep us sweet so that we don't go our own way. If we don't vote for independence we will see financial settlements which are less favourable and we won't get the chance to vote again for a long time. In many ways my heart says yes and my head says "I don't know". 2014 is still some way away and frankly I'll be glad just to be alive by then. Assuming I am, I will listen to the arguments for and against and make my mind up then.

Strange how things go. This time last year people were criticising the hype about Rooney by pointing out that so many of his goals had been scored from the spot rather than in open play.

Absolutely not. There's enough too many of their fans allowed into the ground as it is! Sorted it for you Ren

Obviously not their 1st team then!

An interesting statistic from Saturday's match day programme which illustrates the level of player turnover at the club. Prior to the game Ross Tokely had made more appearances for ICT in the Scottish Cup than the rest of the 25 man 1st team squad put together.

This might be just the incentive Dunfermline need to get their season back on track. But that works both ways and playing in front of the cameras is a good opportunity for some of our temporary staff to showcase their talents. I predict a better match than on Saturday (sticking my neck out there!) and for ICT to win by a single goal.

And how many of the 1601 who turned up on Saturday went because it's such a lovely little ground? I don't suppose for a moment that anyone stays away simply because there is not a fourth stand but it is surely undeniable that a better atmosphere would encourage a few more to attend. I accept it is not something the club can do anything about anytime soon but there should be the long term aim of correcting the errors of the past.

Working in Perth on Tuesday and was planning to head off to the match afterwards. Another change of plan as a result of the power of the TV companies.

It's just a bit of light hearted banter, Laurence, but that's what you get when you post pictures of yourself. I made the same mistake myself with folk saying I look like Mary Feldman - can't see it myself, but there you go.

There would have been a time not long ago when plenty of folk would hoping for a draw against County. Looks as though nobody quite fancies that at the moment.

Jonny's now got a contender for January as well

OK, so Dougal is trying to wind people up (and succeding very well, it would appear!) but to be fair, the point that our stadium is probably the worst in the league is one that I would certainly agree with. Putting aside all the reasons for why it is where it is and the way it is, it is undeniably a windswept ground with no atmosphere. And I accept that there is no money around to do anything about it and we are stuck with it. But the Board must realise that the lack of atmosphere is a major factor in keeping crowds down and, probably more important, will be a factor in players not wanting to play here. When playing at home players want a good atmoshere to lift them and it simply doesn't exist at TCS. I've heard more singing at a wee free funeral than I heard at the ground today. Continued long term success requires a better stadium than we currently have and that must be a long term objective for the Board. It is surely not controversial to suggest that if County get promoted and make improvements to their ground, they will have a better ground than us. After all, let's face it, they already have a better ground than us.

I wonder if people stop Martin Clunes in the street and ask him if he's Lawrence?

I think it was a mistake to play Davis today. He was poor - didn't want the ball and was looking to get rid of it as soon as he could when he got it. He certainly wasn't the player folk have been raving about - Looked as though he was on instructions from Mick McCarthy not to pick up an injury. Contributed nothing and IMHO should have got hooked sooner.

The biggest positive for me is that I am not a Pars fan. I can't imagine what they must be thinking. Up to the point of their controversial goal they were probably the least bad of 2 poor sides. Then with a goal lead and a man advantage against a team with a poor defence at best and three of the better defenders not playing, what do they do? They shamelessly waste time and show no ambition and even less ability to score a second and make the game safe. Then they shoot themselves in the foot by conceding an equaliser as a result of a farcial defensive blunder in the dying seconds of time added on for their own time wasting. Poor though we were and disappointing as it should be to only draw at home against the bottom side in the League, I left the stadium with a broad grin on my face. And it wasn't just because we got out of jail today, it was because I can be confident that we will not go down this season. Pars fans will surely be worried not so much about getting relegated this season, but about the prospect of relegation from the 1st division next season. It has been a while since I was last able to go to a match and I have to say that in the first half I was really quite shocked at how bad we were. As often happens, things improved when we went down to 10 men and after what was probably a no holds barred rollicking from Terry at half time - but it was still poor. There was far too much in the way of high balls punted up to wee McKay up front, poor shooting, overhit crosses, underhit corners and poor, even foul, throw ins. Not good. Foran for me was the stand out player but the rest of the midfield had games they will want to forget. Tade put in a decent shift up front considering the poor support and Golobart and Piermayr were solid at the back. We finally got a bit of luck today and miraculously are still in the cup. We now need to head down the A9 on the 17th and finish them off. On the Pars showing today, it really shouldn't be too difficult.

It would be nice to find a Jordon Rhodes. 12 goals in the last 5 games for Huddersfield including 5 tonight.

If you say you don't look like Martin Clunes, can I just say how much I like that dress you are wearing, Laurence.

Is this him getting his excuses in early for when Auchinleck Talbot dump Hearts out of the cup on Saturday?

I've never used twitter or facebook and don't intend to start now. I don't know their rules and whilst I understand the outrage being expressed here, I imagine the situation is not as straightforward as we might think it ought to be. These international networks are, after all, quite different from CTO. They do not focus on a single topic, they have vastly more members and could not possibly hope to have the same level of moderation as we have here. The rules are different of neccessity. It could be argued that when someone posts something you find offensive and you report it that something should be done about it. In practice, there will not be the resource for that and in any case, just because you may find something offensive does not mean it is not a legitimate point of view. Hence you get the stock reply. Remember, opinions are just that and can change radically over a short period of time. In fact, it is astonishing how quickly attitudes do change and one only has to think about attitudes to race in the USA in particular or to homosexuality in this country to see how attitudes which were openly held by a large minority or even a majority just a few decades ago are now considered so outrageous that we question the right of others to express those views. We may find those view repugnant now but does that give us the right to stop others expressing them? I don't think so. You counter those views by the strength of argument and where such views are voiced just to wind up and offend others then simply ignoring them is the best approach. In that respect, the statement from Twitter is fair enough. You may then say that you should ban folk who break the law or who incite others to. Again, it is not so straightforward as we might like. There are times when breaking the law is entirely appropriate. For instance, you would not ban someone for suggesting that if you were in your car in a 30mph zone and you saw a tsunami in your mirror approaching at 40mph that you should forget the speed limit and put your foot on the gas. And would you ban folk from Twitter for suggesting that the people in Syria should oppose the regime there? I sincerely hope not. These are muddy waters and I think what it boils down to is that folk will have accounts closed when their behaviour is seen to be disruptive rather than when they express views which others may find offensive. Freedom of speech is a precious thing and being offended once in a while is the price we pay for that. So how can you avoid being exposed to these morons and offended by what they say? Simple. Do what I do and stick to CTO.

I trust this forum will not be used again to incite ICT fans to rush down to the stadium and clear the pitch of snow. Such irresponsible action might be interpretted as inciting a mob of young men to intimidate the referee into changing his decision and declaring the pitch playable when before their arrival he considered it unplayable. Such behaviour cannot be tolerated.

It's the referee and not the club that makes the decision. Sounds to me as though the club felt the pitch was playable but the referee had his doubts when he arrived and decided he would do an inspection. There was certainly nothing unexpected with the weather in the intervening period so the question for me is why would the club and referee have such different opinions as to whether the pitch was playable? Surely there are fairly clear criteria for making a decision. It would be good if the club could give a clear explanation as a lot of people have been significantly inconvenienced by this late decision.

Having come off the bench for the Owd Wummin to score "a beauty" but yet end up on the losing side I appreciate I will be a hot target in the transfer window. However, before I get pestered with requests for a transfer let me say I've been signed up to the same owd wumman for 30 years, we make a good team and I'm staying put.

As Davie said on another thread, the only reason Foran does not have a broken leg is that he was not standing on it at the time. This meant that the power from O'Hanlon's lunge was not resisted and therefore it pushed Foran's leg away rather than breaking it. I have to say that my initial reaction had been that O'Hanlon had been trying to trap the ball but that Foran got there first. A closer look shows that is not the case for 2 reasons. Firstly, had Foran's leg not been in the way, the ball would not have been quite where O'Hanlon was aiming for. Secondly, this was a stamp, as evidenced by the damage to Foran's leg, whereas to control the ball with the sole of the boot requires give in the leg to take the pace off the ball. Regardless of intention, it was clearly a bad foul and warranted a yellow at least even if the referee saw it at the time as a genuine attempt to get the ball. But for me the issue is not the referee's failure to make the correct decision at the time, it is a question of what action the authorities decide to take now. The more I look at it the more it seems as though O'Hanlon is deliberately stamping on Foran. Had Foran beeen standing on the leg it could have been a career ending injury. The fact that it wasn't is down to luck and doesn't change the recklessness or intention of the challenge. All too often people are punished for the outcome of the action rather than for the action itself. There is no doubt that had Foran's leg been broken and the referee sent O'Hanlon off, he would have been given a lengthy ban. But would that outcome mean that O'Hanlon's actions were any more reckless. No. Of course not. O'Hanlon made a reckless challenge that could have ended the career of a fellow professional. The SFA have the evidence and should throw the book at him. Will they take action? Probably not. Instead they will hide behind the ineptness of the referee and do nothing.