Ivo den Bieman

Cockroaches will be chasing a rusty Coke can around the radioactive remains of Hampden.

Yes Bill & Sophie were there supporting Montrose when we ejected Edinburgh City from the Cup at Meadowbank c. 2010. Probably the last time I saw him- behind the "jakey with a plastic bag" image which he played up to, he was a good guy.

East Stirlingshire 5, Dalbeattie Star 1 Was passing through the pebbledashed suburban skidmarks in between Edinburgh and Glasgow yesterday and it was a toss up between this and the Stenny game. As I hadn't seen the Shire since the day they dropped out of the SPFL set up in 2016, I opted for a freezing afternoon in the echoing Falkirk stadium.. Entry was free but I donated my ticket money to the collection for a local hospice. It was good to see that Shire still have a reasonable following of jovial eccentrics and outsiders although sad to recall that Mad Bill is no longer with us. Reckon there was 150-200 there and fair play to the half-handful of Dalbeattie fans who travelled all the way to watch this pish. Shire, clad in a strange black shirt that seemed to have had white artex sprayed on it, were in front almost immediately and accumulated steadily. Pick of the goals was the nutmeg of the keeper for the second or the rifling drive for the fourth but the fact that Niyah Joseph scored four of Shire's five gives you an idea of the overall quality. Dalbeattie scored late on in rare breakaway and the Shire keeper was beside himself with rage at losing a clean sheet against the divisional backmackers, berating his defence for a good minute after the goal went in. Dalbeattie's no 10 was ordered off for (?) I really don't know, maybe dissent or badmouthing the referee, and protested long and loudly on his way off the park. Rumour was the Police Scotland wanted to speak to him for being in possession of an indecent moustache, which had got in a time machine from Stevie Maskrey in 1983 straight onto his top lip, the poor lad. The Shire fans are a friendly, welcoming bunch and long years of deadening failure have learned them not to take the game too seriously. They had one or two decent wee players but hard to judge them against such poor opposition. Sandy Clark is trying his best with virtually no resource it seems and his side did try and pass and move at pace, with mixed success. Decision making was patchy and a good cross was often followed by a dismal, aimless sclaff into the yawning empty whale's mouth of the south stand. Dalbeattie tried to be organised but largely failed, and seemed to have accepted their impending relegation some time ago. A quick detour to see the Kelpies on the way home so not bad overall .

Peterhead are a bit more spirited and better organised than earlier in the season, but having seen them on a few occasions recently would be shocked if the Pars don't win by 2 or 3. They frustrated Falkirk for an hour last weekend but then the roof came in spectacularly

The relegation powerjet has not yet been invented that will scrape the Coatbridge roughcast off the gable end of the SPFL, and long may it continue. Rovers will be fine and would much rather have a club like them in the league than "Spartans", or some diddy made-up podcast team. The Rovers fans seem mostly to keep to their own company on their own forum these days which is a shame. Still, must head along to Cliftonhill before the end of the season.

pretty much yep. A real shame.

I thought Inverness' Scott Gardiner was quite pointed and funny- he clearly stated "There's not many sports journalists left in Scotland anymore" and "I know you guys are focused on the Premier League anyway". I get that he's not a popular guy in Inverness but fair play he came on and had the guts to recite a couple of the regular groans on this thread. 30 minutes on which Rangers fringe players to punt was excruciating though. Sportsound needs a total clear out of these time served hacks and ex-pros taking a day off the golf course. I'd bring in Richard Gordon as caretaker for the rest of the season and would only retain Derek Ferguson (his enthusiasm for a dreich 0-0 at New Douglas Park as though it's a later stages Champions League game never fails to amaze me), Rory Loy and Leanne. Get the rest of them to f**k- put £100 behind the bar at Tennents on Byers Road and wave bye-bye. Of course there's no chance whatsoever of awful numpties like Biscuits let alone the loathsome Weegie bluenose "Kenny Mac" being emptied. They really don't give a f**k what the listener thinks.

Poor fayre largely today but Montrose got the job done. Only Scullion will know what he was trying to achieve when he passed the ball into his own net after five minutes, a ludicrous moment of absurd lower league comedy missing only a sad trombone. Montrose are never comfortable just one goal to the good so it was a relief to see Dillon skiff home a glancing header from a near post corner midway through the half. The referee missed a clear handball in the box and there were several other close shaves. It could have been four or five at half time. Second half was an afterthought, Montrose came close from corners on a few occasions. In fairness Duffy tired of watching his side’s pish and used a lot of subs to try and freshen things up with some effect. Matthews in the home goal caught and saved well on a couple of occasions under pressure. Credit also to CJ, Paul Watson & Blair Lyons for good shifts. The game deflated into a protracted exercise in futility in the last quarter, a low drone from an abandoned accordion. Clyde look like they’re trying to find something to hold onto from an absolute shuttlecrash of a season, but have forgotten why. Oh well. Next.

if not malaise then "somethin's not right there "

Tom English is basically a rugby correspondent who ended up in the wrong stadium / radio studio by mistake. Why anyone gives him house room on the national football programme on a Saturday is utterly beyond me.

Macintyre pronouncing Bojan Miovski as "Bo-Jan". I understand commentators from the 80s /90s being bamboozled by names like Miodrag Krivokapić and Dušan Ristić but ffs it's hardly difficult to pronounce the boy's name right- "Boyan". It's one of the easiest names to pronounce and Yugoslavs and post-Yugoslavs have been playing in Scotland for nearly four deacdes now. It should be a basic requirement of a BBC presenter that they can pronounce names from abroad correctly and indeed that they spend some time mastering them as part of well, basic respect and professionalism. But still beyond the thick, provincial, ugly sisters-worshipping Weegie monoglot now in the chair.

Thank you. Next time I'll see your side will be at LInks Park in mid-March! But I do enjoy a visit to Balmoor, a good (social) club with good people at it. I did have misgivings about Davie Robertson going in there but fair play, he has made Peterhead visibily better in his time. Can't help feeling however that even if you finish 9th, somehow, that it would be better to rebuild in League 2 for Peterhead. Suspect it wouldn''t be long before you'd come back.

Who would have guessed that someone who was a thoroughly pish Cowdenbeath manager would be out of his depth managing Dundee United. Was always a dernaged appointment. A shame to see the club in such a mess.

A not very good draw between two not very good teams is the tl;dr version of this game, which I took in today as couldn't be arsed trachling all the way to Alloa. It's the end of the month. The sun visited briefly, scalding the turf, and then like the rest of us wondered what it was doing there, realised it had better places to be, and left, leaving the rest of the match to be played out in slate grey and freezing conditions. I've only just about thawed out now. This Peterhead team, strangers a month ago, are gelling, and seem much more compact and difficult to beat. Some of Davie Robertson's signings are working out well. Big Joshua at the back is a really solid player. McKenzie in goal has settled in. Bilsland is a quietly efficient player, not flash but puts in a shift. Fosu is a nuisance up front who creates space for others. Still Kelty's team should have had more than enough to deal with the division's anchored backmarkers. The game had started fairly evenly withthe big difference between the teams being Kelty's passing. They cut through Peterhead on a couple of occasions effortlessly and looked lethal on the break, carving nice filigree patterns; Pugin as compared with the mossy breezblock architecture of their hosts. They took the lead mid way through the first half in a move down the main stand side which bizarrely met with little resistance from the home defence. It was Martin of all people, a centre-half, who lazily negotiated a way through the Blue Toon's rearguard and sent a shot whistling past a startled McKenize high into the net from the edge of the area. I imagine he will have a more testing journey from his collbox to smoking barbecue in his back garden this summer. Kelty really looked menacing at this point but their best spell of the game didn't last for long. The game was niggly and stop started not helped at all by an atrocious fusspot of a referee whose litany of incorrect decisions throughout this game would struggle to fit into two densely typed leather bound volumes. Throughout the game he mystifyingly overlooked several blatant fouls on Peterhead players, giving very little to the home side. The querulous pitch of the home support intensified with each successive baffling blunder by the cluless buffoon in the middle (the linesmen had the good grace to look slightly embarrassed on a couple of occasions). You're never far from a hallucinating puffed-up clown in black in the middle of a lower league game these days; taking a couple of drops of mescalin before the kick off before confidently striding out to take charge of what can only be described as a totally parallel version of reality. In a rare moment of lucidity the whistler awarded Peterhead a free kick at the edge of the area, just before the break. The vastly experienced Higginbotham, still a quality player with a great eye for a pass, was trying to referee the game, and he and the Banksy-shredded maroon shirts surrounded the referee, causing him to yaw like a child's toy yacht in a swell. But they couldn't sink his decision, and up stepped young Wilkie to send a low tracer bullet of a free kick past the goalkeeper's outstretched left palm. 1-1, and amidst the shocked celebrations of the Blue Toon's thirteenth goal of the entire season, the Kelty recriminations began. Lots of furious shouting, finger pointing and shoulder shrugging which was still going on as the players trooped off for half time a few seconds later. The great tectonic plates of Potter's huge bald cranium knitted together alarmingly, and I can only imagine that the seismograph in the Kelty dressing room was juddering furiously throughout the break. A completely avoidable set piece goal to give away. Any hope that this late first half drama would galvanise Peterhead proved unfounded. The second half was one long refereeing gripe, the game struggling to flow properly through his constant mother-henning over trivia and non-offences. Peterhead had their moments but it wasn't Shanks' day up front and the visiting goalkeeper wasn't worked too hard by the rare alarms. Kelty has much more of the ball in the last quarter and win a series of free kicks and corners, but their set piece siege engine is in sore need of a good drop of WD40. McKenzie did save well under pressure on a couple of occasions but I didn't feel a breakthrough was coming. Potter really should be getting much more of a tune out of a talented group.I enjoyed watching Higginbotham and Barjonas again although Nathan Austin looked a shadow of the player that ran up cricket score goal tallies during Kelty's rapid advance from the defunct juniors. Congrats to a healthy travelling support who seemed to have a great day out by largely ignoring the game and chatting amongst themselves. All of which diaharretic spasms of inconsequence meant that this was not a terrible game, but not a great one either. The game hinged on Peterhead's defence being just about competent enough to clear theirn lines now, and Kelty being opretty clumsy in attack. Watching the Fifers try to score a winner was like watching a fingerless man try to bludgeon a jellyfish with a badminton racket. Peterhead are just about keeping the Crossroads-level melodrama of "who will be in the releagtion play off" alive for now. As for Kelty, well it seems like the longest pre-season for 23/24 is already under way. They're not going to be in the promotion play offs and are safe by default from relegation owing to the epically dreadful character of the teams in the bottom two spaces. What use do they have of the remainder of the camapign then? Plenty, of course, and we'll see if the "am no sure about him" gaffer, Potter, takes the opportunity to work out who will be in his squad next year, who he needs to bring in, and whether any of that work will have any consequence. I'm very tired and have not been sleeping well so congratulations to the 0.66 readers who waded through the runny verbal molasses of that report. I'll do better next time. Pass the fucking Nytol.

Kate Forbes is done, I'm afraid. Remarkably naive in airing these views in 2023.

True, and that's a massive problem.

Forbes is far too right wing and in the pocket of Charlotte Street corporate lobbyists. I'm also not comfortbale with a religious-obscurantist weirdo being first minister. Not sure Humza is hugely competent either and his image tarnished by a pisspoor spell as Health Secretary. A better candidate is needed- both of these meh at best.

Stevie Maskrey of East Stirlingshire c. 1985. Notice Fine Fare bargain basement pinstriped shirt and badge on the wrong side. East Stirlingshire wwnt for this strange abstract pentagon badge for a season or two in the 80s. Maskrey had a decent career at St. Johnstone, Killie and Thistle amongst other diddy teams. Finished at Cowden on loan in the late 90s. Handy winger in his day.

Montrose idle yet again in this broken-up-jobby of a start to the year so will head along to this. Some high quality petty bickering on the Stenny-Dumbarton thread so looking forward to more significant grizzling after full time here on Saturday. Forfar were absolutely gash under Gary Irvine so looking forward to seeing the impact Snakey Ray McKinnon's had. Always felt Forfar had a half decent squad for this level and that's beginning to show now that they have jettisoned the previous diddy manager. The same could be said of Stenny and feel whilst change might have come too late for them this season, they're in for a good year or two under Naysmith. Certainly the new boss has wasted little time emptying the gubbins detritus of Stephen Swift's shoddy agglomeration of jobbers and makeweights, and bringing in a few interesting players. Looking forward to the game which i expect will be tight with only a goal or two in it.

Honestly give it to Barry Robson ahead of any of these deluded chancers. Yogi

Having heard Cormack's statement on Saturday- and those awful photos of Goodwin stalking out of Easter Road on his own- it's hard to feel much more than sympathy for those two, really. Cormack ultimately carries the can- what an unholy mess he's made and it will take an awful lot of money to clear it up. Barry Robson in on a temporary basis makes sense and he just needs to get the tailspin righted. Emotionally the fans will want a lot of those chancers and charlatans in the squad out the door as fast as possible, but who to entrust with that task? It really is a massive 2-3 year job to clear out a lot of duds signed by Glass / Goodwin and get the right mentality and infrastructure in about the place. The chairman is accused of interfering in football matters and micro-managing. If that's true, will this awful week finally get him to change his perspective? It will be rinse and repeat if not. When even Tom English is laughing at the so-called "Football Monitoring Board" it's a no-brainer to shut that down straight away. Given the deep rooted knowledge and up to the minute panoramic view of contemporary football that those clowns have, the emerging shortlist to replace Goodwin no doubt includes Drew Jarvie with John Brogan as his assistant, Jim McInally, John Sheran, Stuart Baxter, and an intention to sound out Ally McLeod informally via ouija board. Hope Aberdeen can manage to turn it around soon, living here it's such an important institution for the city. No doubt the utter ridicule that has come the club's way since the disaster at Hearts is richly deserved but as an outsider looking in, not easy viewing.

I suspect it more likely we'll be soldiering on with what we've got until the end of the season, with Clyde and Peterhead already torpedoed in the relegation stakes.

Looks like a decent game, absolutely calamitous defending by Peterhead for the second and third. The second the centre half Ikwa gets totally lost under the high ball and misses a routine header, not quite sure what McKenzie was playing at for the third. It seems that apart from Joshua and Jason Brown a totally different defence from the previous week and playing all these new signings at the same time probably a mistake in hindsight. Peterhead are improving in terms of work rate and effort from the last weeks of McInally, but I wonder if they really have the time to experiment like this. QOS well worthy of the win it seems and looked a good deal more dangerous than they did at Links Park a few weeks back.

With Montrose idle I took in this Festival of Incompetence at Balmoor. Firstly, a beautiful day but absolutely Arctic, and it became clear that whoever handled the strong wind blowing up the ground would take the points. Clyde had the wind at their back in the first half and had a couple of good opportunities; both falling to the no. 9. One saw him bearing down on the Peterhead keeper after one or two nice passes but the goalie won the battle; secondly an abysmal sclaff from a Peterhead defender (no.6) played him in but again the forward unable to take advantage. The frustrating thing about the game was that both sides played as though it was a completely calm day. With such a high wind short sharp passing is needed and forget the long ball. Unfortunately both teams, largely, did the opposite. The wind was so strong that the ball quivered whenever it was placed for a corner or free kick; both teams went for the default blooter rather than keeping on the ground and trying to move it quickly. With the game scoreless at half time, it seemed as though pre-match predictions were coming to pass; both teams the mangy curs of Division One scrapping toothlessly over a pointless bone, desperate for the footballing vet to come along with his big needle and put an end to a miserable campaign. The second half was a little better than the near-subterranean bar of the first. What proved to be the winner came after a flurry of corners for Peterhead; the ball bobbled around in the box, the Clyde cludgie unable to clear the blockage, and wee Shanks cheekily back-heeled the ball home from an angle just inside the six yard box, past the sprawling Parry. Huge celebrations from the team and the home support and the goal really gave Peterhead an energy. Shanks was possessed for the next ten minutes, bullying the slothful Clyde no 14 off the ball inside his own half on a few occasions. Big Fosu upfront for the Fishy Jailers is an unguided missle; you never know what to expect from him. He's a limited player but very willing and a trier. He should have has Peterhead further ahead when he met a lovely right wing cross by the penalty spot, but somehow scrambled the header wide. A few minutes afterthere was an almighty scramble in the box and uncertainty from the Clyde keeper as the ball floated and swirled like a balloon at the end of a wind tunnel; somehow the ball stayed out with shots blocked by Clyde defenders. Jim Duffy seemed to regard the game with the indifference of a man at breakfast, thirty years into an unhappy marriage. He looked glum and miserable throughout. Bringing Rennie on for his debut seemed to ginger Clyde up a bit and for the last fifteen minutes they had the lions' sure of the possession and attack. However, watching Clyde trying to attack at present is like watching a drunk try to eat an avocado with a screwdriver. Peterhead's defence was more or less assured in dealing with the visitors' clumsy efforts, with the goalkeeper not having a save of significance to make. It was more nerves and mind games in the home defence that threatened an error. A couple of things to conclude. Firstly a crowd of nearly 700 on a totally freezing day who care enough about the fortunes of two such poor teams is a credit to both and I have to complement a good humoured Clyde support whose persistent chanting for their team was by far the most impressive thing about their club today. Of the two I have more optimism about Peterhead. Yes they are a very limited side who've had a terrible season for one reason and another but there are green shoots there. I thought they defended quite well with big Joshua and Jason Brown having good games at the back. The on loan keeper was decent. I was also quite impressed with young Jack Waddell and Shanks, a livewire confidence striker. Davie Robertson may just get enough of a tune out of this charity shop fiddle to see it in the play offs at the end of the season, a task which looked hugely optimistic when he was appointed a few weeks back. Glad that it's not really my problem where Clyde go from here. What a sorry mess the club is in.

did he sign for Clyde? can't see him signing permanently for Podcast FC and know he knocked back Cowdenbeath. Martin's a great, wholehearted player at his best, a really good servant to the club over the years, but experience shows L2 is his level. Not been quite the same since a serious injury.