DoofersDad

The current number is 115. As it happens, the Trust Board is meeting tonight. There will be other bits of information to update folk on after the information has been sent to members.

When Graham Rae was Chairman he always had a brief column in the digital matchday programme which was emailed to ST holders. I rather liked that and saw it as a good medium for communication. It was not only issues around the forthcoming game, but about the club in general and various upcoming events. This stopped when Graham stepped down. It would be an easy thing to reinstate and, with a bit of imagination, widen it out to include other items of interest e.g interviews of previous players, anecdotes from fans about previous games. It could be a good way of promoting a sense of community as well as keeping the club's most loyal supporters informed.

Next game is at home to Arbroath and we start as underdogs. Who would have thought we would ever be saying that a few years ago. Having said that though, we are still in a decent position for the play-offs and promotion to the top flight remains a possibility. Raith seem to be going through a very bad patch and clearly have been impacted by other issues, and we should have enough points in the bag to hold off the chasing pack even with out any dramatic improvement. We've yet to lose a league game this season by more than a single goal. This is a tight division and most games are decided by fine margins. The luck went with us in the early games and our league position rather flattered us. More recently things have not gone our way and we have not been able to find a way to win despite having decent possession and a good number of attempts at goal. Therein lies our problem - our shooting has often been woeful and it certainly was yesterday. I fancy our fortunes will change next week. Our first ever league match was, of course, home against Arbroath when we won 5-2. I predict a repeat of that score line with a hat-trick from Billy Mckay. I'd better stop now - there's men with white coats at the door!

HT. 1-0 FT. 2-0 ICT. Deas Opp Graham Crowd 2312

Fifa's decision is pathetic. It's a bit like saying it is fine for Russian tanks to roll into Ukraine as long as they don't show any Russian flags. Great idea about the blue and yellow saltire, Scotty!

Russia due to play Poland at the end of March too. That's not going to happen either. First action from Fifa should be to kick the Russians out of the competition. The Russian people need to feel the world's anger and disgust at the actions of their power crazed leader.

HT. 1-0 FT 2-1 ICT. Mckay Opp. Kennedy Crowd. 1019

Yes, essentially that is true. The relationship between the Club and the Trust should be one of respectful cooperation to the mutual benefit of Club and Supporters alike. The Trust is striving to re-establish that kind of relationship and trying to avoid an adversarial position. The Trust exists to represent the interests and views of the supporters, but it is also there to help the club and that is what we are trying to do. At this stage, as Chair of the Trust, I don't think it would be particularly helpful to go into the detail. What I would say just now though, is that the credibility of the Trust requires it to be representative. Whilst our membership has seen a healthy improvement in the last year, it is still only about 10% of the number of season ticket holders. If people are concerned about the poor communication from the club, then I would urge people to join the Trust and help the Trust grow into an effective and representative channel for the fans' concerns to be both heard and acted upon. As a collective, united voice we can be so much stronger than separate voices venting their frustrations on social media or simply fuming in silence over the lack of communication. As supporters of the club, we can also do so much more to raise money for the club and support it in other ways. It is not just new members the Trust needs, it is active members too. We are in the process of setting up a fund-raising committee with a view to raising funds for initiatives at the club and will be looking for folk to help with that. We are also short of members on the Trust Board and would love for some new blood to bring in some more energy and ideas to help raise the Trust's profile. Remember, the Supporters Trust can't effectively support the supporters if the supporters don't support the Trust. Membership is just £5 a year (£1 for U16s ) and folk can join here.

Duku scored for Havant and Waterlooville

HT. 1-1 FT 2-2 ICT. Samuels Opp. Ashford Crowd. 1772

Great picture of our last gasp equaliser on the BBC website. Whilst it was good we got the goal, it is a shame the referee couldn't also have awarded 2 penalties for the blatant fouls being committed by the Partick defence.

HT. 1-1 FT. 1-3 ICT. Samuels Opp. Graham Crowd. 1751 Yellow. McKenna

I thought we started quite brightly with the 3 new signings on the pitch all looking to get forward and not being afraid to take defenders on. Unfortunately, their efforts never came to much and nothing seemed to find its way to Mckay who looked increasingly frustrated as the game wore on. Perhaps that is in part due to their lack of familiarity with their new team mates, but what certainly didn't help them was the lack of ambition from the established members of the squad. In his post match interview Dodds said "We need to get back to what we are good at and where we were at the start of the season." That's easy to say, but the reality is not so straightforward. We weren't actually that good at the start of the season. We had a great start because we were tight at the back and things went our way. We are currently missing Devine, and Allardice is out for the rest of the season. Allardice is a big miss. I have said before that I think Welsh is far more effective playing alongside Allardice and the 2 of them playing in front of the back 4 made us a very solid defensive unit. You don't get that defensive solidity back by signing 4 forward players in the transfer window. It is inevitable that we are going concede a few goals, so in order to get back on track for promotion we are going to have to score more at the other end. That means we have to be more adventurous and take a few more risks going forward. It means we have to play much more football on the deck. It means we need more movement in and around the box to give defenders decisions to make. If we don't manage to gain promotion or even a play-off spot, than can we not at least try to play attractive football in the attempt?

HT. 0-1 FT. 1-2 ICT Samuels Opp. Ugwu Crowd. 1869

Are you sure that's the same Jordon White who used to play for us? On the commentary this afternoon they said "on too many occasions now for Rangers, Jordon White has been able to win a high ball with ease".

Doofers Dad HT. 1-0 FT. 2-0 ICT. Pearson Opp. Burke Crowd 4311 Doofer HT. 0-1 FT. 1-3 ICT. Pearson Opp. Mackay Crowd. 4198

HT. 0-0 FT. 1-1 ICT. Mckay Opp. Dow Crowd. 3511 1st Yellow. Carson

I thought we were significantly better against QOS than we were against Raith last week. There was much more energy and we created a lot of decent chances. Had we been a bit more clinical up front we could have won that very comfortably. We were undone yesterday by poor defending. Their 1st goal was a very good goal but should have been defended better. Paton received the ball in acres of space and both Welsh and Carson went to close him down. Paton released the ball for a 1-2 and moved off into space. Nobody tracked him so he was again in plenty of space to pick a great ball through to Connelly who may or may not have been offside. Players should play to the whistle rather than look to the linesman with an arm raised, which was the reaction of both Broadfoot and Deas. Broadfoot did do his best to cover once he realised the flag was not raised, but he'd left it too late. Deas simply didn't bother trying. The 2nd was really poor marking at a free kick. Deas failed to track Debayo who was given the time and space to allow the ball to drop and to play a teasing cushioned volley into the danger area with absolutely no pressure being applied. QOS will feel very fortunate to have got anything from that game. Without those defensive errors and with a bit more composure up top, we could have been celebrating another thumping victory.

HT. 0-0 FT. 1-0 ICT. Mckay Opp. Roy

The club has tended to take the position of not standing in the way of players who want to move on and further their careers. It is, after all, perfectly reasonable for players to want to move on to clubs playing in a higher division or paying more money. A career playing football only lasts a few years at best and can easily end sooner than expected due to injury, so it is understandable that players will be keen to grab any opportunity they get to further their careers. Having an unsettled player in the dressing room leads to an unsettled squad. But another important factor here is that if the club is seen to be sympathetic to players who want to take up other opportunities, it makes it more likely that other players will be happy to come here. If the club had a reputation of blocking players from moving when a bigger club shows interest in them, then recruitment would suddenly be a whole lot harder than it already is. We are always going to be a club that develops players and moves them on. The key thing for the club is that not standing in the way of players moving on must be conditional on getting a fair price for the players. If we get £150k for Deas, I would have thought that was good business. He's a decent player and would be missed, but he's not exactly topping the polls for POTY.

Not only is he clearly lying, he is also admitting he participated in an event which does not, by any stretch of the imagination, "technically" comply with the guidelines as he would have us believe. The guidelines which his Government put in place stated quite clearly that "Workers should try to minimise all meetings and other gatherings in the workplace" and that "only absolutely necessary participants should attend meetings". Clearly a gathering for some after work drinkies is not "absolutely necessary". The rules for meeting people outdoors limited contact to just one other person. Boris, in his attempt at an apology, said that in hindsight he should have taken folk back inside, but had people returned to the work environment, the gathering would still not have been remotely necessary. By admitting as much as he has, Boris is, in effect, admitting that he and all the participants broke the law. It seems that it is only he and his staunchest supporters who fail to see his position is untenable. Only they fail to understand that the anger and sense of betrayal felt by folk across the country is such that an apology is simply not good enough. He has to go.

Anyone following Afcon? After hosts Cameroun's 2-1 win in the opener against Burkina Faso, there have been 11 matches played in which a total of just 9 goals have been scored. Nine 1-0 score lines and a couple of goalless draws. It doesn't sound too exciting but I've not watched any of it yet. I'm hoping it will be a big success or else we will have the big European clubs trying harder than ever to justify not releasing players for international tournaments which are scheduled whilst the league programmes are on-going. Lots of coverage on Sky apparently and a few games on BBC. More goals, please.

What worries me is that we seem to have become so poor at doing so much of the basics. For 80 minutes today, we were 2nd to most of the 50:50 balls, we couldn't pass the ball, we couldn't shoot, we couldn't cross, we couldn't find spaces we, didn't try to take players on, there was no movement at throw ins and we couldn't cope with the far more direct and attacking movement of Raith. Thank goodness Ross got a knock early in the 2nd half because he made complete mincemeat of our defence in the first half. Yet again, it was Ridgers who saved us from the scoreline we deserved. We only came alive and showed a bit of belief after McAlear's great strike, but by then it was too little, too late and too panicky. We may still be 2nd in the division, but unless there is some considerable improvement in the quality of our, play we will be fortunate to even make the playoffs. I'm not going to single out individuals for criticism because we don't know who has had Covid and how issues around Covid have affected particular players and what can be done in training. But remember, we got 19 points from our 1st 7 games this season but have only managed 17 in the last 13 games - that's the sort of return that over the season would hopefully keep you just above the playoff place at the wrong end of the table. We'll need to do better than that for the rest of the season if we are to remain in the playoff places, and much better than that if we are to maintain our title aspirations.

HT. 1-0 FT. 2-1 ICT. Mckay Opp. Gullan

HT. 0-0 FT. 0-2 ICT. Mckay Opp. McKenna 1st Yellow. Carson