Skyline Drifter
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Posts posted by Skyline Drifter
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Ryan One has a lot of talent and is a real prospect. Very early for him yet though. He's also eligible for France and presumably Ivory Coast, albeit he's grown up through the Scottish system.
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29 minutes ago, Stag Nation said:
Have you actually read the requirement?
"The club shall nominate a Board / Committee member who has lead responsibility for equality in the club.
The club shall publish a public commitment to addressing inequalities and preventing discrimination. This should be published, as a minimum, on the club website.
The club shall establish and implement a policy for equality, which shall include provisions dealing with harassment and unfair treatment. This policy shall be communicated throughout the organisation."
So, they need to nominate one individual, and do a bit of cutting and pasting of other folks' policies. Hardly a nightmare, is it? Maybe a couple of hours work?
Also, it's the same requirement for entry level, so they should already have done it.
Yes, I've actually read them. And worked on them. It would be very wrong to suggest this is a "couple of hours of copying and pasting".
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40 minutes ago, Ewanandmoreagain said:
Certainly the injury situation is a major cause for pessimism
The injury situation is a real worry in terms of filling out a squad. We've been very lucky so far that by and large it's not affected the best eleven barring very obviously at right wing back where we may be without our best two options.
I accept Tierney and Gilmour are currently out but both are expected to make it. I suppose there is an argument Hanely's in our best eleven but he's been out more than a year so we're a long way down that road.
None of the other outs or major doubts (Armstrong, Ferguson, Jack) are likely starters anyway.
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5 hours ago, Lex said:
Winning a game would be the first target, remarkably we haven't won a single game at a major tournament since 1996. Second target is just not finishing bottom of the group. The dream is to qualify from a group stage at a major tournament for the first time ever, which is doable but will be tough.
Based on our current terrible form and lack of tournament experience compared to our opponents, we are certainly more likely to finish fourth than anywhere else
And we very rarely win a game before the 3rd one where it's either death or glory or we're already out.
1954 World Cup - Played two, lost two to Austria and Uruguay - Out
1958 World Cup - Played three, drew 1st one v Yugoslavia, lost to Paraguay and France - Out
1974 World Cup - Played three, beat Zaire first then drew with Brazil and Yugoslavia - Out due to not scoring enough against Zaire
1978 World Cup - Played three, lost to Peru, drew with Iran, beat Netherlands - Out due to not beating the Dutch by enough!
1982 World Cup - Played three, beat New Zealand, lost to Brazil, drew with Soviet Union - Out on GD again
1986 World Cup - Played three, lost to Denmark and Germany, drew with Uruguay - Out
1990 World Cup - Played three, lost to Costa Rica, beat Sweden, lost to Brazil - Out
1992 Euros - Played three, lost to Netherlands and Germany, hammered the Russians - Still out.
1996 Euros - Played three, drew with Netherlands, lost to England, beat Switzerland - Out thanks to David Seaman conceding late v Netherlands
1998 World Cup - Played three, lost to Brazil, drew with Norway, hammered by Morocco - Out
2020 Euros - Lost to Czechs, drew with England, lost to Croatia - Out11 tournaments. We've won three of the 22 games we've played in the first two each time. Two of those were 'minnows' in New Zealand and Zaire back in a time when minnows genuinely meant gimmes. Sweden in 1990 is the only time we've won one of the first two games against anyone not just making up numbers.
In fact in 32 games we've only had six wins total, and the CIS one in 1992 was a dead rubber. The wins over the Dutch in 1978 and Swiss in 1996 were achieved under necessity but we still fell short of what we needed to do.
Agree with your comment though. First aim is to be competitive and not slink off home with three defeats. Ideally we want to finally get out of a group. That's achievable given 4 of the 6 go through in 3rd. It's not the weakest group but it's not the strongest either. We should be able to compete with at least the Swiss and Hungarians but much depends on the team we can field.
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41 minutes ago, TheScarf said:
Yeah, its effectively a back door way of trying to stop relegation from League Two but still having the relegation play off.
It's not though. EK have a licence. There will be a relegation playoff and arguably EK will now be better prepared for it than they would otherwise have been. I also acknowledge there's an argument that sitting idle for a fortnight before is less than ideal.
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1 hour ago, jamamafegan said:
I don’t understand how in 2017 Buckie were eligible to participate in the play-off (they lost against EK) but in 2024 they are not. Have the rules changed?
The rules change every single year. Club licensing is a never ending fight against the tide, like bloody King Canute trying to stop it washing over you constantly!
I see they are not compliant on the Diversity and Inclusion point. They have my sympathy. It's an absolute nightmare to comply with that sort of thing and it only came in a couple of years ago and was made far more stringent last year.
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On assumption we don't drift into the playoffs and that remaining two games go ahead without postponement, updated list for QoS:
Never - Bonnyrigg Rose
05/09/90 - Celtic
(11/09/01 - East Stirlingshire - No longer a League Team)
20/04/13 - Forfar Athletic
27/07//13 - Spartans
(21/03/15 - Cowdenbeath - No longer a League Team)
(29/07/17 - Albion Rovers - No longer a League Team)
(02/09/17 - Berwick Rangers - No longer a League team)
24/03/18 - Livingston
(28/04/18 - Brechin City - No longer a League team)
14/07/18 - Stranraer
14/08/18 - Stenhousemuir
10/02/19 - Aberdeen
26/04/19 - Ross County
20/07/19 - Dumbarton
27/03/21 - Heart of Midlothian
05/04/21 - Hibernian
30/04/21 - Dundee
19/03/22 - Kilmarnock
03/04/22 - Raith Rovers
19/04/22 - Inverness Caledonian Thistle
12/07/22 - Ayr United
16/07/22 - St Johnstone
30/08/22 - Rangers
26/11/22 - Morton
11/03/23 - Clyde
01/04/23 - Peterhead
15/04/23 - Dunfermline Athletic
29/04/23 - Airdrieonians
18/07/23 - Motherwell
22/07/23 - Elgin City
25/07/23 - East Fife
29/07/23 - Queen's Park
09/09/23 - Partick Thistle
14/10/23 - Arbroath
25/11/23 - Dundee United
20/01/24 - St Mirren
09/03/24 - Annan Athletic
16/03/24 - Falkirk
23/03/24 - Alloa Athletic
30/03/24 - Hamilton Academical
06/04/24 - Kelty Hearts
13/04/24 - Edinburgh City
20/04/24 - Stirling Albion
27/04/24 - Cove Rangers
03/05/24 - MontroseUpdated for another season. Yet again avoided playing Celtic and took the time span since we did up towards 34 years. Other than Bonnyrigg Rose, who we have never played, Forfar Athletic are next longest at more than 11 years.
We played East Kilbride competitively in July 2017 in the League Cup group stages. We've never played Buckie Thistle. I'll update once we know who next season's Club 42 is.
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Queen of the South infamously clinched the 2nd Division title in 2012/13 after the snow had been cleared off Forfar's pitch!
It was actually on Wednesday 27th March 2013 so was a fairly unseasonal snowfall but it only went that far in the first place because Brechin, who were 3rd but had loads of games in hand, had been unable to get games played at Glebe Park for so long. Eventually the league lost patience and ordered them to play some at Station Park, including ours. We still had 7 games left to play at the time (19.4%). I think we'd have at least matched the record of 22.2% left by winning it a game earlier if Brechin didn't have so many unplayed games, or if the game that was played then had been played on its due date.
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On 06/04/2024 at 19:21, PSJ.84 said:
Hybrid
On 06/04/2024 at 19:24, bleedingums said:Ah, ok. Fair enough. Cheers
Technically hybrid currently but I think Callum Gallagher, who is leaving for Arbroath at the end of the season, is their only part time player now. In reality they are full time and will be fully so next year as far as I know.
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10 hours ago, 2426255 said:
aye, KT's off to Arsenal and Scott McKenna's off to Forest in the summer too so looking forward to that too!
Appreciate the point your making but the pedant in me feels the need to point out McKenna wont be returning to Forest. He's out of contract and will leave in the summer.
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1 hour ago, PSJ.84 said:
5pm kick off in Gibraltar, £30 for adults. ‘Neutral’ tickets available.
Looks like about 1,500 tickets for Away fans via the SFA.
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32 minutes ago, craigkillie said:
At the last tournament, he already didn't use two of those 10 defenders at all (Taylor and Gallagher), and only gave one some minutes at the end for experience (Patterson), so it would be a fairly big departure from that.
If you want to take an extra right-back, fair enough, but even at that you're still not getting to 12 unless you also pick 7 centre-backs which seems ludicrous to me.
We already have Tierney, Hendry, Porteous, McKenna and two of Souttar, Hanley and Cooper, so I don't see why we would need any additional cover at centre-back. Getting three injuries in those postions would be extremely unlikely, and even if we did then you have guys like McLean and McTominay who have experience playing there before.
Indeed. But if we're at a stage where he genuinely thinks he's not going to play those extra 3 players in nearly any circumstance, then might he simply use the three spaces to reward loyal servants who might otherwise not make it such as Taylor, Souttar and Jack if they weren't in the initial 23? Hence my slightly mischievous suggestion that he might use one of the extra three to take a 4th keeper and save him disappointing one of his most loyal. I don't seriously expect him to do that as he can call a goalkeeper up in the event of a tournament ending injury so it's pointless, but it would save him a decision.
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25 minutes ago, Butters Scotch said:
Eh isn't it fairly obvious... in the main he will go with his trusty lieutenants and then suitable players where we need the cover? So if Patterson/Hickey is out then he will add in two RWB's
Stating the bleeding obvious here but if Patterson and Hickey are out and he replaces them with two RWB's (Ralston and McCrorie most likely) then that's not relevant to how he's using the extra spaces. Taking two more right backs PLUS Hickey and Patterson because they are a doubt would be him using the extra spaces though.
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2 minutes ago, 2426255 said:
Don't worry about it, it's a lot of names. I only saw it as I was checking the names off my spreadsheet to see who maybe hadn't been thought of. The others were Dom Hyam and Robbie McCrorie who haven't any chance of being selected. So the rest is spot on.
If the squad goes up to 26 it becomes more unpredictable. Who would have predicted Gilmour, Patterson and Turnbull in Euro-2020? The unanswerable question is what 3 extra spaces will be used for?
- Younger players to show the pathway (Johnston, Conway).
- Cover fitness doubts (Fraser, McCrorie, Johnston etc).
- Players who've earned Clarke's loyalty (Jack, Brown).
- Mixture of the above or players that tick more than one of the above boxes.
I considered listing McCrorie but in reality he's only got a chance of going if two of the other four are injured in the next month. He's not a consideration to be actually picked and all four keepers are currently fit so I deliberately didn't even mention him. I concede I completely forgot about Hyam but the last thing we need right now is another centre back. Even if Hanley doesn't make it Hyam's on the outside looking in for the summer I think.
I think if we'd had everyone fit and the widely accepted 23 picked (allowing for the debate about Jack / Souttar / Taylor for the 23rd shirt) then the "26" would simply have seen all three of those go and one other from Ralston, Brown, Nisbet, etc. Even Anderson or Barnes if they'd declared late.
The injuries to Ferguson and probably Patterson have opened up another couple of spots to play with. If Armstrong or Hickey don't make it either (I'm assuming Gilmour should be fine) it becomes really difficult. He's had such a settled squad for so long you have to go back a distance to find three or four more names, or he bloods youngsters. Ralston would clearly have to come in, probably with another right back be it McCrorie or Johnston. Otherwise anything is possible. Might he even take all four keepers despite saying previously he wouldn't? It saves making a decision on one of his more loyal players and given the lack of an obvious replacement it's possible. I doubt it because it would be a purely sentimental pick but.........
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2 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:
What position does Callum Paterson play these days and where's he at? I'd honestly prefer him as a call-up for the back-up RB spot instead of Ralston.
Patterson's done. He's playing with Sheffield Wednesday but although he's involved most weeks, he's not a regular starter now. And when I've seen him come on it's been as an attacker (mainly because Wednesday are usually chasing a game perhaps).
I'd call up Stephen O'Donnell before Callum Paterson to be honest but I wouldn't be calling up either ahead of McCrorie or Johnston.
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48 minutes ago, 2426255 said:
Does right back? Hickey may have to cover left back, Hickey might not be 100%. It wouldn't be a great surprise to me if we took a utility player who can fill in there as well as elsewhere (McCrorie) or a younger player (Johnston) to show the pathway from the 21's .
Taking either player would serve multiple purposes. Both have been involved recently.
In a 23, with Hickey first choice right back and 2nd choice left back, plus Tierney already in as a centre back but 3rd choice left back I don't think you need an extra left back. You obviously have Patterson (if fit) as 2nd choice right back and you take another (presumably Ralston) to cover if Hickey has to go over to the left. If Patterson doesn't make it you take another (presumably McCrorie but Johnston is a more outside shout). If Hickey doesn't make it then it's a bigger pain because you lose the flexibility and maybe need Taylor too.
In a 26 of course I don't think it matters, we'll take Taylor anyway.
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1 hour ago, 2426255 said:
I think you've missed out Billy Gilmour who maybe fits best under 'Currently Injured but Certain Picks if fit'.
Well that's not embarrassing at all is it?
I looked at it and looked at it and thought I'm missing someone and still couldn't see it! I've edited and added him. I've taken Brown off the italics list of likely squad fillers as a result though it might just as easily be Jack.
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On 21/04/2024 at 21:56, Diamonds are Forever said:
Yeah I'm not having the first one as a foul, he just collapses in a heap, the contact isn't enough to be a foul. Even if someone thinks it is, there's no way it meets the 'clear and obvious' threshold to be overturned so I don't blame the ref or VAR for that one.
Like you I think some of the handballs that are getting given now are absurd, but that today is a penalty. Very similar to the Wan-Bissaka one which was given. That said, there seems to be so much inconsistency regarding what gets given for handball that I'd not be too critical of that if it was in isolation.
But the third is just a horrific decision and one of those ones you genuinely can't find any excuse for. I know VAR is still individuals making decisions and they make errors, but if VAR as a system cannot correct errors like that then there is something majorly wrong with it. There are enough people involved in it to be getting that right.
I think the first one's a foul. There's a pretty clear kick to the ankle of Reyna. Twelve months ago VAR is giving that every game. I accept however they've throttled back on the overturns for incidental contact and it's a legitimate opinion to say there's not enough in it to overturn as 'clear and obvious error'.
The handball's one of the more blatant ones. His hand's well out from his body and it's a trailing hand. He also appears to lean towards the ball at the last moment. That VAR apparently called it a natural position is fairly incredible to me.
There are absolutely no excuses for the third. There's an argument it's also a red card though I imagine they'd claim he's making an effort to play the ball and ends up near enough to doing so to avoid that. But he doesn't play the ball and clearly takes Hudson-Odoi down. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, and I think the Forest statement was utterly embarrassing and amateur. However, I cannot understand what Stuart Attwell thinks he saw in that one. It just IS a penalty. There's not even an argument to the contrary. I assume he will be sat down this weekend because that's fundamentally dreadful refereeing. It's not corrupt, it's just rubbish.
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On 22/04/2024 at 10:01, Skyline Drifter said:
If it's 23 for June and picked today (on the assumption Hickey, Hanley and Armstrong make it but Patterson and Ferguson do not) then:
Gunn, Clark and probably Kelly
Robertson, Tierney, Hickey, Ralston, Hanley, Hendry, Porteous, McKenna, Cooper
McGregor, Gilmour, McGinn, McTominay, McLean, Christie, Armstrong
Dykes, Adams, ShanklandWhich is 22. One more from Souttar, Taylor, McCrorie (Ross), Johnston, Jack, Brown, Nisbet, Conway
If Gordon plays 3 or 4 of Hearts remaining games and plays ok then he displaces Kelly.
Possible Souttar is preferred to Cooper, that's a coin flip.Armstrong not making it opens the door for a question about Fraser, Gauld, Cairney, etc but it will most likely be Jack or Brown unless both are also not fit.
26 man squad opens up the possibility of more adventurous picks but I guess it's likely to just mean three more from the list above.
So with media reporting that a change to 26 man squads is to be rubber stamped this week I thought it worth looking at where we are on this now. For purposes I've assumed only Lewis Ferguson is formally ruled out at this point. I accept Nathan Patterson is probably a long shot though:
Certain Picks (unless injured before then)
Angus Gunn, Zander Clark, Andy Robertson, Kieran Tierney, Ryan Porteous, Jack Hendry, Scott McKenna, John McGinn, Calum McGregor, Scott McTominay, Kenny McLean, Ryan Christie, Lyndon Dykes, Che Adams, Lawrence Shankland
(15)Currently Injured but Certain Picks if fit
Billy Gilmour, Aaron Hickey, Grant Hanley, Stuart Armstrong, Nathan Patterson
(5)Near Certain to Now Go due to Doubts over Others
Anthony Ralston
(1)Candidates for the Remaining Spots
Craig Gordon, Liam Kelly
Liam Cooper, John Souttar, Greg Taylor, Ross McCrorie, Max Johnston
Ryan Jack, Ryan Fraser, Tom Cairney, Ryan Gauld
Jacob Brown, Kevin Nisbet, Tommy ConwayI've put in italics the ones I think will end up picked in a 26 man squad if everyone makes it. In the likely event of Patterson not doing so, I think McCrorie comes in as a straight switch.
I've said often enough that Gordon needs to play regular football for Hearts over the last month to get in. There are signs he's going to do so, but if he doesn't play again I think Kelly goes. I suppose in a 26 man squad he could take 4 keepers but if he does that it's pure sentimentality. There's no football reason to take 4 keepers.
Obviously there are also doubts about Jack and Brown at this point and they may end up ruled out also. Fraser, Cairney, Gauld and Conway are of course just based on musings on here rather than any particular recent evidence but Fraser's the most likely of them I assume. There are further left field shouts recently such as Lewis Morgan, Josh Doig, Danny Armstrong, etc who I think are even further out of the picture.
Given the lack of obvious clear candidates to take the extra three spots, I do think he's more likely to take a gamble on the likes of Hickey and Armstrong, or even Patterson. God alone knows what happens if the Currently injured 4 AND Jack and Brown don't make it! Or others get injured. We'd need 6 other players from somewhere. Guys who haven't been involved in the last 3 or 4 years or future stars from the 21s will end up called up.
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1 hour ago, AndyDD said:
With Tierney in the squad, you really only need Robertson and A N Other left back.
If Hickey's fit you don't need "A N Other" left back. If Robertson is unavailable Hickey would switch wings and if he's unavailable Tierney would step out of central. No reason to take Taylor, Doig or anyone else. Of course that goalpost moves if Hickey doesn't make it or indeed if the squad size is moved to 26 as now appears likely.
We all know there's no world in which Clarke is picking Doig over Taylor right now.
1 hour ago, craigkillie said:I don't think we need 12 defenders in the squad for 5 places.
We don't, but that doesn't mean we won't take 12, particularly now it looks likely we're going to 26 players. You'll be more conscious of Clarke's loyalty than I but you see him as the sort of manager likely to pass over picking Cooper, Souttar and Taylor for a left field shout or two at this stage of Fraser, Gauld, Cairney etc?
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7 minutes ago, Pie Of The Month said:
I agree they could and probably should but I just don't see them caring enough to implement it for home games when it could impact ticket sales even if it would be small numbers.
People don't seem to care as much about harvesting if it's home games either for whatever reason so until that attitude changes which it might do as those on higher points continues to go up and up and allocations for away games sell out at higher points levels I can't see them doing anything about it.
Yeah, as debated on the other thread, if we're in a situation where 6,500 had at least 12 points a year or so ago and over 18,000 may have 12 points within the next 6 months or so then those extra points will matter.
I just thought logically if the Hampden App provides this technology then it makes sense to actively use it. Didn't actually occur to me they wouldn't be using it for home games. Does it specifically say somewhere that they aren't?
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53 minutes ago, betting competition said:
I was just reading on the TAMB forum that someone's flight was cancelled on the day to Amsterdam, and they didn't make it to the game, so their points weren't added. I didn't think they'd have a system like that, but evidently they do. I wonder if they apply the same rule for home games?
Looks like Gibralter game is collected in person.
I think that's a slightly left field one. Although they didn't actually "attend" the game in such circumstances if they can prove they were booked on a cancelled flight I think they should get the points. A bigger concern as @Pie Of The Month says below is we know of at least two instances of fans who were at the game not being credited with points as the Dutch haven't scanned them in properly.
42 minutes ago, Pie Of The Month said:They don't apply the same rule to home games and I doubt they have the appetite to either since they probably just want the money, especially for games which don't sell out like Northern Ireland.
Surely they now could very easily apply the same rule to home games? It's all scanned entry now on the new Hampden app. It should be able to tell if a ticket is used or not and update accordingly, or if it was transferred to a non member to use. Whilst I doubt it makes much odds to anything significant, I'd say they should be using it at home games if the technology is there.
32 minutes ago, lubo_blaha said:It seems likely a needless hassle to get this data from the host association and then go got the trouble of applying it for those who didn’t scan in. It won’t be consistent across all away games either as I imagine most won’t be able to provide this.
Well the issue is so far they are resisting any manual adjustment for those who weren't scanned in properly, but that's a different debate. I'd support using the technology if it is reliably there to use. We all know there are points harvesters out there and this will go at least part way to addressing that (nothing to stop harvesters buying for the Dutch game and giving to someone else to use of course).
Gibraltar is going to be 100% collection so it amounts to the same thing.
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On 18/04/2024 at 11:39, The Moonster said:
The fact we never done anything in League 1 with Dom Thomas and Gall up top remains a travesty.
I'll see that and raise you that we ended up in a Championship relegation playoff in a season we played Dobbie and Dykes up front together! Despite Dobbie scoring 43 goals in it even though he missed two months injured.
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3 hours ago, Virtual Insanity said:
I think it may have been me. I can't quite get my head around that jump - the Poland game falling off and being replaced by the NI one shouldn't have seen much of a movement as far as I can work out from the best guess attendances (I can't find anything official on this). Austria falling off as an Away and being replaced by Netherlands is probably a more significant factor but I would have thought at that level that you're largely dealing with the loyal home fans who don't really bother with away games?
The away game cant possibly be the reason to any significant extent. The number on 12 points or more is up by more than 2,500 and the number on 11 or more is up by over 3,000. We only got 2,400 for Netherlands and about 1800 of them were sold on day one to those who were already on points above that level. It certainly drifted down to 7 pts though so probably about 500 or so of the lift can be attributed to people taking a chance to go to an easy away trip when it was there.
No, the rise is in the home member attendance. As I said before, qualifying for Euro 20 re-ignited a lot of interest. The SSC sold out and a lot of the newer members stated going every game (or they may have been going every game before but not members because they didnt need to be). It maybe wont go quite as high as I thought given the number on 10 hasnt really moved but it looks fairly likely up to 18,000 people might have 12 points shortly. Compared to 8,000 6 months ago.
If I recall correctly the discussion was about how easy it may be to get away tickets and tournament tickets in future. Its likely going to get harder and for qualifiers with any sort of rationing people are going to need the mid teens to have a chance. I'm seriously considering heading to the Gibraltar game to get the points. Otherwise my ceiling any time soon is likely 14 points.
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Annan v Falkirk
in Scottish League 1 General Chatter
Posted · Edited by Skyline Drifter
Can only assume @Bainsfordbairn has phrased that really badly. Still photos rarely tell you much but on the face of it the photo looks like a penalty and his post about being "fractions late" and the "ball had gone" sounds as clear a description of a penalty as there is. Something lost in translation perhaps. I'll wait for the footage.