Ivo den Bieman

Context: Brexiteer loon defects to Alba 220 × 160

max 15 nerds

That's great you're amused, pleased to hear it.

I still can't see this "pledge" as being anything more but a device to get the vote out on Thursday. The SNP still dominate Scottish politics and don't have to try too hard to do so. The opposition is an absolute shambles led by a semi-retired linesman, a smarmy hypocrite and whoever leads the "Lib Dems" these days. There's been an undeniable rightward drift from the SNP in recent years and we've seen some of the old Labour entitlement begin to appear in the demeanour and attitudes of SNP politicians. A government that rules by default because all potential alternatives are so crap isn't a government fired up and motivated to bring about change. The SNP also benefits from the UK government being an incompetent, corrupt, troughing binfire but one day these people will be out (and hopefully, more than a few of them in jail, where they belong). One day the SNP will have do do a bit more than say "but at least Nicola isn't Boris Johnson/ Theresa May." For now, they don't have to bother much.

I guess this is his last few weeks on Sportsound then...

Where I live I've only had a leaflet from a Tory candidate- one of these appalling Brideshead Revisited candidates who seems to think posing with a Golden Retriever and looking serious by some litter will get people to forget the appalling Tory-Labour stitch up locally. That said all of the "local" candidates are about as appealing as a damp evening in Magnitogorsk. Spoiled ballot it is.

Could easily see Tayport, Lochee United in the HL in 5 years' time. Carnoustie, too, if they decide it's for them (not convinced they want it really).

The problem was there was never a big enough crowd to generate any atmosphere for 90% of MTFC's existence. I remember a dire 0-0 between Meadowbank and Montrose in the autumn of the 91-92 season; genuinely one of the worst games I've seen in my thirty years watching football. Attendance: 188. The ten or so Montrose fans in the travelling support tried to get a chant going but it was like shouting at an old beetroot stain in an abandoned fridge. That day, Meadowbank's team of exotic perms and tatty 'taches played the offside trap endlessly. I think Terry Christie cloned Wattie Boyd in the lab at his High School; it seemed to be a rule that you had to have a tache and a perm to play for Meadowbank at that time, with only wee Stevie Logan having a note from his mum. The last time I was at old Meadowbank was in the 2009/10 season when Steven Tweed's squad of bottom of the league YTS boys won 3-1. There were over 1,000 there and with a crowd that size the atmosphere was not too bad, even setting up a lively confrontation between our supporters' bus and some E-number fuelled wee boys who'd spent too much time watching Green Street, after the full time whistle. I hope ECFC get a proper stand in "new" Meadowbank which sounds very depressing. All the best for the play-offs.

Thanks!

Who actually funds Darvel to their current level?

Think Auchinleck (should) prevail this year. But yes, in an ideal scenario, Auchinleck & Tranent or Penicuik would come up. The Lowland League start brightly amidst much junior team indifference / sniffiness but is fast becoming not fit for purpose either in facilitating access to the SPFL or in opening up Tier 5 to a much more coherent pyramid below. If the league was expanded to eighteen teams there should be no problem with the bottom 2 going down automatically and the third bottom team in a play off. And yes, I think the bottom team should go down automatically from League Two, replaced by the winners of the LL v HFL play off, with the 9th team in L2 facing off against the winner of a 4-team mini league consisting of teams 2& 3 from LL (Colts obviously banned and, preferably, got to f**k) and HL. How to break a logjam of obvious self-interest in both L2 and the LL? perhaps a topic for another thread.

Please stop posting this semi-literate drivel. No-one cares.

Cracking game. Two decent sides going at it full pelt. Thought Talbot marginally shaded it but Darvel a bit more ruthless with the chances they had.

hence I qualified "big big club" with "historically". Clearly they haven't been for half a century at least.

I can remember Burnley being a game away from relegation to the Conference in 1987, playing down in a crumbling, run-down dump of a stadium. Memories are short. They're a big big club historically; their survival made the 6 O'clock news that day. Sean Dyche comes across as a bit of knob (his weird drivel in post match interviews about top 3 clubs being "market leaders") but there's no denying he and Burnley have defied gravity for a long, long time. Chris Wood wasn't replaced well and results have been poor all season. So, it may seem harsh from the outside but most other managers with this kind of record this season would have been away long ago. Nuno Espirito Santo would be a very good shout for them but with only eight games left it's a big risk for him personally after his profile was damaged badly at Tottenham. Would expect a new man to be in place early next week. Edited: Michael Carrick & David Unsworth listed amongst frontrunners for the job alongside more predictable shouts for Fireman Sam & Nuno. Cheltenham boss (and ex Burnley legend) Michael Duff mentioned fondly by supporters but not a serious contender. Slaven Bilić "interested"

Testy. If we're talking "top end", 5 years ago Turriff under Ross Jack had serious ambitions to move up further. Now those hopes are in ashes, and the team will be in real relegation trouble next season. In recent seasons Forres, Wick, have been on the fronges of the top six but fallen away badly. Not so long ago Keith & Huntly regular winners / title challengers. My point is, only a few teams have the infrastructure and money to cope with promotions- the current top 6 or 7 (you feel Brora's star is very much on the wane). The rest, sadly, are just making up the numbers, and it shows.

not quite true...the standard in the top 4/5 is probably a little better a few years ago. There's an awful lot of dross in the lower reaches of the Highland League, however. Arguably the lower end is poorer than a few years ago.

We're not even at war. We're supplying weapons and moral support to an ally. That's it. The idea that "the West" will ever be at war over Ukraine causes the collective leadership of the US, UK & EU to shift uncomoftably and look at their shoes. It's not a reason to keep a corrupt, lying idiot in power.

The line will be that both Johnson and Sunak "inadvertantly misled the house" owing to an "erroneous understanding of the rules" at the time and will not be resigning, accordingly. There'll be impotent rage from opposition circles which will go nowhere. As someone said above this is what you get with an outright Tory majority- absolute contempt for the public, and the rubbing of oppoenents' nose in the dirt. Expect a lot of this in the next fortnight.

Conveniently ignoring the historical fact that Prime Ministers were changed during both the First & Second World War. Presumably the current crop of Tories will be wheeled out to suggest that Asquith and Chamberlain should have been kept in place.

Johnson absolutely will brazen it out. He will need to be dragged out of Downing Street. Sunak may light a fire under him and leave him hopelessly exposed, by resigning over this. Reportedly close to walking over the weekend. And, of course, he'll saunter off back to the US to profit from the break up of the NHS which he's been surreptitiously selling off to the Americans. Expect a mixed "defence" of "we've all moved on from this" and "now is not the time because Ukraine" over the next few days. A snivelling, craven and self-serving Speaker will not recall parliament. And Shur Kieth Stauner may have his day at PMQs but this gang will shrug and move on. They absolutely could not care less what you think, or twitter / newspaper comments page outrage. You think Johnson et al care about legitimacy? Do they f**k. This is the problem of an unwritten constiution which until 2019 was observed, apparently, in a gentlemanly fashion according to unwritten codes of behaviour passed down througb generations of politicians. We're now seeing the consequences of a collision between a democratic myth and a venal, self-interested small group who will literally contemplate anything to hold onto power.

That's my 23rd April sorted out then. Having seen B O'D see off a pish East Fife side in the cup it wouldn't surprise me if the final aggregate score after the two legs is in double figures, in their favour. Can't see Fort being a Tier 5 club again in the foreseaable future.

Brechin will be quietly frustrated but I think people underestimate the time needed to re-build a club after relegation to non-league. The mood around Glebe Park seems much more positive. Brechin have a decent squad and a good team spirit. In retrospect two poor performances against the Broch and a loss away to Buckie / Fomrartine were the four games that sank them...otherwise pretty consistent. Need a regular goalscorer and better option at centre back(Davidson looks finished to me now) and they'll be right up there challenging again next season. The jury is still out on Kirk for me, the pressure will be ramped up next season and I can see him moving on if early form is indifferent.

If a Trotskyite political party became a football club, it'd be Stirling Albion. All we need now is a shouting elderly Stalinist using words such as "wreckers" and "saboteurs" and calling for mass shootings, and the debate will be complete.

A friend in Macedonia who ordinarily could not give a single shite about the football is right up for this tonight. Meanwhile a Portuguese workmate insists miserably that his team perform very poorly against teams that they are supposed to beat. It would be absolutely wonderful if Macedonia made it, but I just can;t see them performaing with the same intensity and enjoying the same charmed life in front of goal twice in the sapce of five days. Plus this is CR7 (TM) last tilt at a world cup so can't see him spiralling out with a whimper in a qualifier against a diddy team. Intriguing match ahead.