DoofersDad

With our current budget it is more likely to be a bottle of milk laid down by Stratton's dairy 25 years ago.

Not only is it a semi-final, but Crusaders will be only the 2nd non-Scottish side we will have played a competitive game against in the history of our club. (Berwick don't count!). Of course, the SFA have been incredibly unhelpful by not clarifying the date earlier, but surely the club could have hyped this up a bit more! I've got my ticket but I get the impression we will be lucky to get more than a thousand through the turnstiles. Does anyone have any handle on how ticket sales are going?

You can see why the SFA were so keen on Michael O'Neill. He has produced a huge improvement in performance in Northern Ireland with a group of players who are, on the whole, very ordinary. His skill is in identifying players who will complement each other and work together as a team, and then getting them to work for each other on the park. Scotland has a significantly better pool of players to choose from but nobody who is likely to be considered as one of the Scottish greats. Success for Scotland will mean utilising exactly the skills which O'Neill has demonstrated across the water. Does McLeish have these skills? He has a reasonable record as a manager and seems to have done reasonably well at getting the best out of the players available to him. But management at international level is very different from club level. Instead of having a fixed squad , you have a wealth of players to choose from and have the freedom to select players that you think will gel together. I think McLeish won't be too bad in that respect but as Renegade says, it is an uninspiring appointment. I can see him adopting too cautious an approach in games which might lead to failure to qualify for the European finals by virtue of drawing too many games. I hope I'm wrong. I may be English but I would love to see Scotland reach a major finals again.

Receiving compensation when a manager goes to another club is totally different from when a manager is fired because he is not getting results. I guess adequate performance as a football manager is an extremely subjective thing. If we had clauses as Kingsmills suggests then we would be having every manager who is sacked going through the courts to claim compensation for unfair dismissal etc. It could cost the clubs more than just paying off their contract. Foran's 4 year contract was just plain stupid though.

Yogi was also on Radio Scotland this morning saying his achievements at Falkirk and Inverness made him the best man for the job. You can't help but love the way he talks, but Scotland needs a manager where the performance on the park is more entertaining than the manager's post match interview. With Yogi it would be the other way round.

Whether ICT's crowds are falling is neither here nor there. The crowds watching ICT are still significantly higher than those watching any other sport and there is a correspondingly greater number who don't regularly attend but have an interest in reading about the team. Of course, when athletes in other sports have success at a high level then it is good to read about it, but what these athletes get up to when not in these major competitions is of little interest to all but a pretty small number of folk. Using your argument in another context, you might argue that the film review section should use more space reviewing some foreign "art" movie with a single showing at Eden Court and which just happens to have won a prize at the Cannes film festival, than the latest Bond movie with multiple screen showings at Vue. As for County. If anyone wants to read about them they can buy the "Ross-shire" (or Caravanning Monthly).

But not ones which regularly attract crowds of 2,000 +. I'm with Bughtmaster on this one.

HT. 1-0 FT. 2-1 ICT. Bell Opp. Stanton crowd. 3089

HT 0-0 FT 2-1 ICT. Polworth Opp. Leitch-Smith crowd. 1864

And on the bench for the cup game against Man Utd who have new signing Suarez on the bench!

Maybe he should get a caravan and sign for County.

Quite rightly so IMHO

But he did get it right!

HT 1-1 FT 1-2 ICT Bell Opp Longridge Crowd 4321

HT 0-1 FT 1-2 ICT Polworth Opp Leitch-Smith Crowd 4011

Agreed. And it is exactly the sort of thing which actually causes controversy. Vigurs may have fouled Rooney, he may have given Rooney some verbals after the foul was given and he may have given Rooney some verbals after he got back off the ground. What he did not do was to raise both hands to an opponent and push him to the ground. I don't know whether Vigurs did anything which warranted a yellow card, but I do know Rooney should have been sent off.

It is very difficult to compare players when they have such different styles. Chalmers has been slotted into a role where he provides a bit of a base for others to do the more eye catching stuff. Since he started in his midfield role we have been firstly more solid defensively and latterly more creative going forward. I'm not suggesting this is all down to him (far from it) but if he was not doing his role well we would be seeing more pressure on the defence and getting less ball to the attacking players. What he does well is to make himself available to receive the ball and then move it on safely in the right direction. Defensively he is not a particularly great ball winner but he has good positional sense, closes players down quickly and generally makes it difficult for opponents. It's a pretty anonymous role but an important one which he is steadily growing into. He may not have caught the eye like Calder did yesterday but he had a pretty decent game.

Has he not actually achieved the hatrick already? He left us in January 15 for Wigan who got relegated to division 1 that year. He moved to Dundee Utd on loan the following season and stayed there all year seeing them take the drop. Wigan then loaned him to Oldham for the 2016/17 season, but he failed to score at all for them and then came back to us in January for the rest of the season. He's now heading for his 4th consecutive relegation!

That was a pretty good all round performance. Star of the show for me was young Calder who did a terrific job at left back. He got a bit of stick earlier in the season for not getting stuck in enough but he didn't duck out of challenges today. Instead he played a mature and assured game and seems to have had a good deal of confidence instilled in him. He got forward well and put in several decent crosses. He seems to have the ability to get a cross in where other players look to take an extra touch first. Tremarco won't get back in the side if he keeps that up. Donaldson and Vigurs were again excellent. Vigurs' headed goal was a thing of beauty - it wasn't powerful but he had the composure to pick his spot and the skill to put it precisely there. Bell and Oakley worked very well up front and with Doran and Polworth zipping about well, there was a lot more movement up front than we have been used to. If Vigurs' goal was a thing of beauty, Chalmers' wasn't. The BBC refers to him "firing" in the 2nd goal. If that was "fired" then it was certainly a slow burner. He seemed to miss-hit his shot from the edge of the box and the direction and probably a bobble or two deceived every one and it crossed the line in seeming slow-motion. They all count! Queens started the day in a play off place and they looked a pretty decent side to be fair. The fact that we managed to beat them pretty comfortably is a measure of how much progress we have made.

Vigurs got booked for being pushed to the ground earlier in the season as well. The referee was generally fine in the first half but made some strange decisions in the 2nd half. Twice Polworth won the ball fair and square and was blocked in trying to move away with the ball. Apparently it is an offence to try to play the ball but fine to block off the player trying to play the ball. I think some of these referees watch too much american "football".

Doofers Dad HT 0-1 FT 2-1 ICT Polworth Opp Dobbie Crowd 2321 Doofer HT 1-0 FT 3-0 ICT Oakley Opp None Crowd 2384

He seems to be doing his bit so far. He's now scored less goals this season than Jake!

We have previously compared the atmosphere between crowds at Rugby and Football and many of us would like to see non segregated crowds become the norm in football. The recent arrangement in the main stand is a small step towards that. The issue here is one of respect. Supporters of both sides have to respect that supporters of the other side feel the same about their side as we do about ours. The dynamic that can create helps to lead to more friendly banter and more competitive vocal support. It can enhance the whole match day experience What destroys this is those who demonstrate a lack of respect and who poison the atmosphere with obnoxious and threatening behaviour. There should be zero tolerance of this. Clearly the stewards have a role here but so too do supporters of the same clubs as the morons showing the lack of respect. They need to make it clear that such behaviour is not welcome by the majority of fans the morons purport to support.. I didn't witness the incidents mentioned here but I entirely agree with Kingsmills. Had the stewards done their job I am sure we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Fabulous win of course, but the 2 injuries are a worry as are 4 bookings. It will be interesting to hear from those at the game but it is noticeable that Falkirk had no yellow cards. You would have thought they would be really up for this game, particularly on the back of their excellent win against DU. Were they lacking in passion? Were we being a bit over zealous at times? Was the referee poor? Injuries and suspensions may well cost us come the end of the season but at least we are demonstrating a bit of depth in the squad now with people coming of the bench and contributing well.

Baird! Just on as a sub and settles any nerves after Falkirk score. Brilliant!