clacher_holiday2

Could be worse, Marius Nicolae played in Romanias 3-0 home loss to Lithuania!

Good signing for the Dons. Agree with SMEE. Looking forward to the 1st of Feb for the next thrilling installment.

I think having a ground at the Bucht would add an extra 1,000 to our weekly home gate, no question at all.

Wanderer, you were the one who brought up the points differences as a sign that alls well, theres been a negative swing in the points difference between ourselves and St Mirren and a huge one between ourselves and Falkirk. So perhaps the slippery slide plenty have warned of is well under way? I think you have to be on the wind up now, so I'll leave it at that!

Seem to remember we finished above Falkirk Falkirk 38 49 -4 Hearts 38 48 -8 Inverness CT 38 43 -11 St Mirren 38 41 -28 Kilmarnock 38 40 -13 :thumb04: Of course those promoted clubs havent gained on us whatsoever Wanderer have they? Or we could just use a side thats now extinct as the yardstick on how far we've come on all aspects of running a club, that way we'd look like Real Madrid and nobody could criticise a thing.

Falkirk are building a third permanent stand to bring their stadium capacity well above ours, which will return more money long term, the ground also looks 100 times better than ours and doesnt look as if its being built on the cheap. St Mirrens new stadium will open this year and offer them far greater opportunities to make money form the ground all year round and more on match days. Hamilton are the third team to come up that will invest in their infrastructure, plans have already been submitted for a new stand with increased corporate capacity and of course their club shop now has a permanent home, so the fans dont feel like pikeys when asking to try on a shirt before buying it. None of that has an effect on the first team, perhaps in the future when 3 or 4% is being added to the clubs annual turnover but not initially, which really isnt the point at all. The stadium should be there to service the fans at all stages on a match day, even something simple like not asking fans to cue in the pissing rain on their way to spend more money would improve the Tullochs (nevermind having to sit in the open end of the main stand to watch a game like Monday nights!). If you want to ignore everybody on here who isnt totally satisfied with the way things are run at the club, or the apparent lack of motivation to push us forward in any way, then youll be counting about half the members of this site out right away. Though youd be free to post up as many irrelevant stats from 2005 as you wanted without people laughing at you.

How many points did we finish above Falkirk and St Mirren last year Wanderer? Have we made progress from +25 and +10 points?

Good posts and a good question. I've said it all before but I'm sick of the way things are done at the club, when I last lived in Inverness I made the decision not to goto dozens of games, preferring to just meet folk in the Inness pre-match then head off to a pub in town to see the scores come in, a wise move on many afternoons. If I felt like we were going in the right direction I'd probably make more of an effort to get to maybe one game a month (live in Edinburgh) but as things stand theres not a hope in hell. Incidentally, as a side to us doing nothing to improve the infrastructure of the club since promotion, one of the very first things Hamilton did this summer when being promoted was build a permanent club shop, as 'thats what the fans of an SPL club deserve'. I warned off it loads of times but every teams thats come up behind us has progressed or is progressing beyond where we currently are, we still have plastic stands and a portacabin to call home into our fifth year of top flight football

David Bingham emailed me when he got back from his summer holidays He's a youth coach with Dunfirmline at the moment, he applied for the Berwick and Forfar mangers jobs over the summer but didnt get them, would expect him to forge a career as a coach somewhere in Scotland over the next few years. No idea about any other ex players.

Montros @ 1.90

I'd add the runners myself folks but William Hills wont let me change the odds display into our decimal format..

So how much did everybody earn when they were 15? Who here is the BIGGEST ICT fan? Or should we keep this on the topic of Barry Wilsona testimonial v Liverpool?

Well said. Cant add anything to that, they really do view this place as some kind of mystical fairyland. I always sound quite bitter when talking about the festival and the background of the middle classes (from everywhere, not just the South East) in attendance but I really try not to be, their background really shouldnt be an issue whatsoever, Edinburgh has always attracted its fair share of folks form the South East who are willing to spend some cash for a better quality of life. I do know that once upon a time, and even in my memory at the age of 25, that the festival took on a totally different picture in the years before cheap flights, the internet and channel 4's late 90's obsession with 'breaking' new stand ups. You can read about festivals of the past that were genuinely interesting from as little as 10 years ago, with the lower end of the market being dominated by those with radical political agendas or young artists and of course the higher end theatrical, operatic shows, the military tatoo etc which I suppose are still on the go. The place never used to be as affordable as it is now or as accommodating in events for window shoppers, again not a wholly terrible move by the organisers as I'm sure theres thousands of natives profiting from it all. In the past you wouldve only ever found people here who had a reason to attend, beyond merely wanting something to stick up on their bebo page before Uni kicks off. The place is like f##king Disneyland just now, since the organisers have started getting erections over attendance numbers and spots on TV, the whole energy around the place has vanished. The festival is dead beyond being just another tourist attraction for those who wish to pretend to be intellectuals or the kids of middle England who are unrepentantly just out for a summer jolly, the truth is theyve all been taken for mugs but who am I to say anything if theyre willing to pay the price and I'm not. Maybe I'm just bitter because I was asked to pay ?5 to get into my old local tonight for f##k all more than normal, or the annoying fact that the place was packed wall to wall with people willing to pay in before me, making me queue for 10 minutes to get served! And afterall I shouldnt forget that I'm just as much of an outsider as anybody else who is here for the month, maybe theres more in my upbringing that gives me something in common with those in the poor part of town the festival ignores, but I really am not the person to be sitting here moaning about any of this as its not my town thats chosen to go down this path.

Come on folks its a marathon, not a sprint, no need for the draw bets yet... East Fife @ 1.66

Agree IHE, those were my words exactly today in work when comparing him to the strikers other teams around us have brought in (Lovell, Russel, Wyness, Peneruu or whoever Hibs brought in) This could be a real proper bargain, wouldve loved to have seen him in on loan for half a season, this THREE YEAR deal is brilliant, cant wait to get him gelled in.

Come on lads, the last thing we need to be doing is turning this into a bloody episode of Big Deal, give us English speaking folk of Scotland a chance.

Had a similar problem last week too before the Aberdeen game, there may have been a site issue with it. See the prizes have increased, glad to see its not winner takes all this year, may have hung around a bit longer myself last time out if there was a sniff of a return (such was the exploits of reef... grumble grumble etc). Once again thanks Bob for making it interesting, infact it makes the whole competition really doesnt it? Looking forward to the year ahead, just need to be within 40points of the leader (or indeed 40 ahead of 2nd) 10 games out and its all to play for.

That was almost a good result for us last night, let them think alot of themselves I say, United were toothless in midfield and hopeless going forward, we'll be packed in there and they wont get anywhere close to the amount of room they did. I'm confident about the game, had Hamilton still felt like they had something to prove I'd be more apprehensive, we should be too good for them at the weekend, better than them in the middle of the park where it counts. On that evidence alot better than United too. On a side note it was a bit disappointing to see so many empty seats in the home end, I wouldve hoped the locals wouldve turned out in force for it, remember our first game in Inverness was packed, mustve been about 5,000 home fans in attendance. It'll be interesting to see what kind of turnout they get once the season starts to slow down to a dull 'oh god theres another game on today' pace.

Stayed well away form it in the end, wasnt expecting United to go and do a Cowdenbeath on me! Next time.. I'm having my most profitable start to the season so far, had a 9/1, 6/1 and 2/1 double/treble/4folds sail home from 6 bets, aint going to duff it all up on Monday night football. Tuesday night footy on the other hand....

With the head start the rest of us have it isnt something theyll be needing to worry about

Over the years we've used dozens more of our own youth players than County, we had 5 on at one stage v Aberdeen at the weekend (6 if you include Ian Black, which you probably shouldnt as he has always been involved with the first team) in Hastings, Roscoe, Fraser, Munro and Macallister. I think the only out and out County youth player we've ever bought was Don Cowie, the rest of the signings developed elsewhere.

Must apologise for that, sorted now. Any word on which username Gringo_Jnr's missus uses?

I'm watching it now, USA seem to be too good for them, every inch the Chinese give them they go straight up and score

I thought we were letting the newcomers start on 250? I'll go take the 10 points off them all

I updated the table and stuck it to the top of the forum where people will get used to finding it. Shocking performance from the new players The usual suspects (Joe Di, kipper, bob etc) made steady progress. Loads of you found draws this week so well done on that, unfortunately for most of you the new leader was the only one to bet on it. Well done Gringo. If anyone knows the username of MrsJnr I'll stick it in the table..??