Yoss

I'm away in Moscow at the moment but just got a mail from my dad telling me about Hutton. Really sad news, a big loss to Scottish football as well as to Raith. Probably need to step back and let a bit of time pass before deciding the most appropriate tribute in terms of naming stands or whatever - but he certainly merits something a lot more than just a token minute's silence. RIP.

haha, good call.

He didn't get on, but he did trot just in front of us while warming up. We had a brief brainstorm to see if there was any nice succinct abuse I could come up with that would also make it clear I was a Rovers fan, but couldn't think of anything. (And, of course, I'm too nice / wussy to shout abuse at anyone anyway.)

I'm at Wimbledon v Northampton. Somebody called Ross Perry is on the bench for Northampton.

Anyway, I'm off on my travels. Assuming we don't make the play-offs that's me for the season. See you next month.

Indeed.

Always been wary of over-reacting to results, but I think it's reasonable to say now that our improvement since Christmas has been genuine and not just a statistical blip. Hat off to everyone concerned.

Nah, I'd be against Cardle.

Davo clearly still has an affection for the club - he's always at the games if we've got a home game when Dundee aren't playing. The only comments I'm aware of after he left were attributed to his dad rather than him. I'd have no problem with him coming back.

From the Alloa thread: We've now played everyone three times, and you can split the rest of the league up into groups: the big teams, the other full-timers who should be our direct competitors, and the part-timers. Big three: P9 W0 D2 L7 - to be expected I suppose, but I'll be a bit disappointed if we end up having played twelve games and won none of them, even if we did win the cup game. Other full-time (Queens, Falkirk, Livi): P9 W3 D2 L4 - more or less average. Dunno how our budgets compare, I think Falkirk's at least is bigger. Queens are having a good season, balanced out by Livingston going to shit. Part-timers: P9 W6 D2 L1 - can't have any complaints here I don't think. It so happens that the worst two results, home to Livi and away at Dumbarton, came back-to-back. Livi was just an all-round disaster but at Dumbarton I thought we were just plain unlucky. So yeah, in summary we've performed across the season roughly to par but no better. The positives are that at least we've had the edge on the teams we should, and need to, and that we've improved in the third quarter of the season. We'll see in the fourth quarter whether that's a blip or represents a genuine improvement - for all that we've nothing much to play for in material terms, I think that's nonetheless quite important as far as planning for next season is concerned.

Callachan is the only one of the four centre-mids guaranteed to be kept, though I'd also keep Moon despite his indifferent season. It's the main area that needs addressing, I think. Reasonably happy with defensive and wide options, and obviously delighted with the goalkeeper.

I'm not going to agree that we've underachieved this season - where we keep finishing is about right for our place in the Scottish game and for the budget we have. That's not to say we should just be content with our lot, but it's not some kind of disaster that we need to have inquests about.

Ah right, see what you meant now yeah. Very much agreed. Not all the players were failures as individuals but given the cost it was pretty disastrous overall.

'96 we stayed up, it was '97 we got relegated. And my recollection is that Twaddle was also signed the summer of '96 along with Browne (and Harvey). But yes, the general point stands. Having stayed up in '96, and with the money from Cameron, Crawford, Dair and Sinclair burning a hole in our pocket, we seemed to think we were a big team, and the combination of transfer fees and wages we spent over the next couple of years on McEwan, Browne, Harvey, Paul Bonar and indeed Paul Hartley was reckless and we're still effectively paying for it now. (Harvey is still quoted as the record buy, but my understanding is that Hartley effectively cost us more, 'cause we wrote off the last tranche of money that Millwall owed us but said they couldn't pay.)

Okay, that's another season done. See you all next time.

This'll probably be a minority opinion, given the obvious humour value of seeing Rangers f**k up - but I really hope they go up, don't want another four games against them.

I quite like it, gives me chance to get to another game (usually Kelty Hearts, this season). But not everyone is as sad as me. In fact, hardly anyone is as sad as me, to be fair.

We've already had one on telly - the same as in last year's apparently profitable run. Also, there'd be something wrong if we couldn't make a few quid this season with the big three in the league. Turnover must be up, anyway. And if that's not enough we'll just have to beat Inverness.

Would you wish that final away? It has had / will have indirect financial consequences as well as any direct ones, in any case.

It's misleading to say we don't make money from the Challenge Cup, if the money is largely pooled - which I don't have a problem with - then everyone makes something out of it, it just wouldn't stand out because it will have disappeared into the budget in any case. (Nonetheless I'm also a bit surprised if winning it made no appreciable financial impact at all.)

Saw Allan Walker and Kevin Smith playing for East Fife this evening. Walker was okay but quiet, and was replaced with a couple of minutes to go (by Fraser Mullen). Smith scored twice - the first a fine solo goal and the second a late-ish winner. Still don't really understand how he ended up playing for East Fife.

Quite. I'm pretty fucking sceptical that they'd have paid in the first place without some fairly solid quantification of what was due and why.

I'm going to be out the country for the semi-final. At least I'll be back for the final.

Fair enough. Pleased to hear you say so.

A bit early to say Murray is out the woods yet, don't want to overreact to a good run in the way that I was accusing people of doing to the bad one. But I'm really pleased we stuck with him as well - so long as we stayed up, which looks virtually assured already, there was never anything to be gained by sacking him during the season anyway. If he can or has turned it round then he'll be a better manager for it, where if we'd sacked him before Christmas he might never have got another chance. First and foremost, I'm chuffed for the man himself.