Skyline Drifter

And Livingston were not in breach of any rules laid down by the SFL or required to show them any accounts at all at that point. Who says Livingston were "on the point of bankruptcy"? The press, some creditors? They were right in fact but Massone denied it. The SFL can't work based on rumour and internet postings. Haemorrhaging money on court cases isn't illegal and plenty other clubs have done the same (my own did so in the 1980's somewhat ludicrously). It's certainly not for the SFL to tell clubs what court cases they can spend money on. Players didn't so far as I am aware go for months without pay though certainly there appear to have been many months when it was paid late. Staff may have done, I'm not sure. In itself that isn't a reason for the SFL to interfere. Did Livingston fail to submit annual accounts by a deadline? Who to? For what purpose? Got a link to that, I've nver heard that one?

On what grounds? Like I said, they weren't in breach of any rule. Massone could have perfectly legally told them to get lost. I might consider it in my view reasonable that I should pop round your house tonight, make myself comfortable on your sofa and demand sight of all your bank statements but you'd equally tell me, politely I'm sure, to "Get lost". And you'd be right too. keithgy is a moderator on here. I stand to be corrected but I've never seen him post a wind up ever. If he posted it (and he did) then he undoubtedly had grounds to believe it at the time. Whether he maybe knows people involved and that was a knee jerk response now being re-considered after some more rational though, only keith and his source will know.

It's been said before, but for all the criticism of the SFL's inaction prior to last week, I've no idea what it is in particular that people think they should have been doing? Livingston were prior to McGrouther's appointment not in breach of any rules and Massone was denying there was any problem. The SFL had no entitlement to get involved. I'd agree. The only doubt in my mind is that it came from keithgy, not know for posting wind ups.

Sounds dramatic. Glad we didn't have anything like that and glad everything is ok now. Congratulations. All the best Mrs G_Man too, not long now.

Oh dear! Since the bit in bold is clearly you paraphrasing what I posted I'll thank you to also note that at no point in any post on this thread have I ever said they were hell spawn or utterly redundant. Indeed as I've already said several times on this thread, I have a lot of sympathy for the SFL who haven't really been able to do a lot prior to last week and have since got it in the neck for not acting quickly enough. As I've also already said, so far as I am aware Jim Ballantyne declined to have any involvement in today's meeting or decision and didn't chair it.

I think the SFL misjudged the feelings of its own members a week ago, got it wrong, and in conjunction with the gun to the head tactics of Messrs Rankine and McDougall who clearly thought they were invincible this week, reacted with a knee jerk response to fix the position. I think they should have punished Livi with a points deduction somewhere around about 10 points last week and probably everyone would have been happy enough, enough to keep them just about interested but probably too much for them with meagre playing resources to actually recover and avoid relegation. Other than that I have great sympathy for the SFL which really couldn't have done an awful lot before last week. It can be argued they should have acted more decisively regarding non-payment of wages by a member and perhaps introduced a signings ban before now but short of that, until they entered interim administration no rule had actually been broken. Not paying your bills as they fall due and robbing Peter to pay Paul isn't in breach of any actual SFL rule. Frustrating as it is for everybody, I'm not sure the SFL could have done things a whole lot quicker. I've no real idea where it goes from here because the ball is back in Livi's court. They can accept it and that'll be it done. They may or may not go out of business as a result but everyone else will move on. Or they can appeal. If that's to the SFL then it'll probably be heard very quickly but it will fail. There's little chance of the SFL finding it's own decision incompetent and there's little doubt the committee did not, under the rules, act ultra vires (outwith its authority). So what possible grounds are there to appeal to the SFL? None. I would assume any appeal will be to the SFA on the grounds of severity. Again I can't see it succeeding. An appeal made by Hamilton to the SFA on the same grounds after the League Management Committee docked them 15 points in 2000 failed on the basis that the committee was competent to make the decision, albeit that appeal failed by a 3-2 vote. I'd expect any appeal to the SFA to fail also but it would undoubtedly take time/ Like Hibee Jibee I can't see any reason particularly that the games involved, apart potentially from Livi's own, should be postponed in the meantime. I don't see what in particular is lost by playing them even if they were later annulled, the only problem being the issue of bookings / red cards plus any injuries suffered. I can't really see what Livi have to gain by any appeal unless their saviours really have some backscratching mates in the appropriate places in the SFA.

Peterhead were also a playoff team last season and lost at the same stage as Brechin (though granted Brechin finished higher up the table in the regular season). I think we can probably presume that officials at Airdrie and Cowdenbeath were sounded out before the decision was announced. Especially given the chairman of Airdrie is chairman of the committee that made the decision (though I believe he personally declined to be involved in the discussion because of that).

Well I didn't really see this coming today. I thought it might have been a possibility a week ago but not now. To be honest I remain unconvinced by the argument that direct relegation to the bottom division is a fair punishment for administration anyway. If the club can get itself sorted out (not likely in this case granted) then relegation to the bottom division gives a chance to mount a promotion campaign straightaway and be bouncing back through the league in no time. If they can keep a semblence of the current squad together they will be too good for that division which instantly impacts on the chances of innocent third division sides having a successful season too. I'd much rather see a points deduction making it extremely likely the club in question will struggle away fruitlessly all season, be relegated anyway and waste a year along the way. A points deduction would also have been a far more practical solution given that we are three days from starting the league season and confusion reigns. I'm surprised. I can't help but feel the outcome is a result of the general perception both inside and outside the corridors of power of the way the prospective "white knights" have conducted themselves this past week. Starting with the whole "business plan is based on first division or nothing" ultimatum and culminating in this morning's "bond is too high and won't be paid if we're not in the first division" it's been nothing short of attempting to hold a gun to the SFL and its member clubs for days. Bad tactic boys! It may be inconvenient but the SFL has been here for over 100 years and is bigger than Livingston FC. It can live without them too if need be. The people from Livingston giving it the big "yahoo!" last week when virtually nothing was done would have been better keeping quiet. In fact they'd have been better getting a points deduction handed down a week ago and getting on with it. I doubt much more would have been said. Sadly we now have a farce for half a dozen sides this weekend at least and quite probably a vacancy in the SFL for next season. Airdrie and Cowdenbeath will compete in divisions they aren't truly equipped for (though I doubt Airdrie are in reality much weaker than the side that took 7 points out of 12 off us last season). First division sides will now have ten sides on an equal footing starting the season rather than the security net of a heavily points deducted Livi propping everyone up It will be interesting to see what appeal is made if any and what the consequences of that appeal are, especially if it isn't heard before the weekend.

Apologies, I actually thought he had moved on but wasn't sure where to.

There are supposed to be nine members of the League Management Committee in theory, three office bearers, and two representatives each from the three divisions. I'm not sure there actually are nine though. Some of the office bearers double up as divisional reps too. Unless relegation is seriously being considered I don't think Jim Ballantyne should be excluded. If the rest of them conclude relegation isn't happening there's no reason Ballantyne couldn't contribute to the rest of the discussion. The two first division members (who are I think Jim Leishman and Donnie McIntyre from Ayr United but McIntrye is an office bearer so there may be a third) ALL have vested interests too. It's obviously in their interest for Livi to potentially suffer a points deduction but stay up whilst Leishman also has some loyalties in the other direction, though that in itself probably isn't enough to disqualify his contribution any more than we should prevent players facing their old clubs.

It depends really. I don't have a problem with a full time working employee who also happens to have been appointed a director receiving a wage. That's only reasonable. However, I would agree that any person appointed as a director of an SFL club who has their own full time job / income source that they lived on merrily before they joined the football club board certainly shouldn't then get an income from the football club purely for being a director. As for the title 'Chief Executive' it's just a job title isn't it. We don't have one but we have a club secretary who is remunerated as the main administrator at the club. If we change his job title to 'Chief Executive' does it actually make any odds to anything?

No. No they really didn't.

Was indeed a brilliant day and the wee man was star of the show.

May as well get used to it early. It'll be feeds every four hours after the baby is born! That's a killer in the middle of the night. Indeed, and as a complete novice six months ago, I don't think there's anything can prepare you for that short of experience. What a journey it is! Christening today and the Sun is shining. Lovely day (and we won yesterday and took a pile of cash from Mr Ladbroke in doing so). Gonna be a good day I think with family and friends.

Jesus! Fairly serious potentially then. I can only presume the wife was tested for it and didn't have it then because I don't ever recall it being mentioned to us and she wasn't on anti-biotics during labour so far as I am aware. All the very best of luck with that. Personally I had absolutely no childcare experience at all and neither did the wife so I found some of the things in the four week course pretty useful. It wasn't at all what I expected though and I was genuinely surprised that attendance was so poor at it.

I'd have to concede I've never heard of it.

We did all four Ante-Natal Classes at Cresswell, Dumfries. We were just about the only people who did though. Considering how many people must be due in any given month, the first class had about four other couples there and whilst some of them did 2 or 3 weeks, I don't think anyone else attended all four. Still, I suppose it's only really for first time parents so that's bound to cut numbers. We certainly did the hospital tour. I think it helped know what to expect and where you'd be. We didn't bother with a 'birthing plan' either. Had we written anything then "whatever the midwife says" would also have been what we put!

The actual link hasn't been posted (I don't think) but the story was discussed a few pages back.

No, the League Management Committee would decide and in fairness it was already common knowledge and precedent that it would indeed have been Airdrie United and Cowdenbeath that went up.

I don't care how many Livi fans the Scotsman journalist happened to physically count on seats at 3pm last Saturday, 130 fans paid into the Livingston end.

It's a slightly surprising thing for Kenny Black to say and an even odder headline for the Scotsman to go with considering his Chairman is head of the Leage Management Committee that made the decision.

Where on earth did you get all that crap from? We did no such thing and Livi had 130 fans there.

Interesting. McIntyre is also on the League Management Committee.

Then with all due respect you must be the only Dundee fan in existence who hasn't quoted chapter and verse about the corporate restructuring last year. It was all in the published accounts, on which there were threads on here at the time. All they did was move the debt into two subsidiary companies, Sandeman Properties Limited and Deelite Limited to separate it out from the football club. They also moved the ground into Sandeman Properties Limited.

Mmm, I never really had a problem with it. People went on and on and on about it but it didn't bother me at all. If it comes out of his backside I'll clean it. I don't really see what the fuss is about. It came out, I cleaned it up. Liquid shit comes out I clean that. Some more solid stuff appears, I clean that. No problem, never really seen what the fuss is? Indeed the wife has been known to phone to check how far away I am when he poos because it doesn't bother me at all to clean him up and she doesn't like doing it. MB I think (Maxwelltown Boy, Queens fan).