Coventry Saint

It will require at least two of St Mirren, St Johnstone, Hibs, Celtic and Rangers to vote in favour. Dead on arrival.

It's really odd: I wrote this on page one of this thread (albeit with tongue in cheek) and not one single Hearts fan leapt on the opportunity to agree with me. Wonder what changed.

Fair play, gents. Fair play to you all. The opening batch of pages from this thread make interesting reading. If you're still furloughed and bored to f**k, that is.

"I wonder why bonnieprincecharlie never posts, just goes around red dotting peopl... Oh. Right."

The Championship forum is in for a real treat next season.

You ideally need a comma after school. You should say 'are', not 'is', when referring to more than one thing. You've got an extra space after 'a'. Five-year-old should be hyphenated. Now f**k off back to school.

Yup. Hearts appear to have no idea the number of ways in which that has spiked any legal challenge they might have, and that's even before you consider there's absolutely no way the challenge had any basis anyway. I can't imagine what might be motivating the lawyers who might have told them this is worth a go.

I'd actually be keen to see why he thinks the legal challenge would be successful. Sadly, he's an utter shitebag.

Absolutely zero grounds for a legal challenge. They're utterly deluding themselves and/or it's a PR move.

To be fair, they've already done that.

This is still what I find absolutely mental in all of this: they talk about the cost of relegation as if it's ONLY happening because of Covid. They were adrift and odds-on to go down. They must have been preparing for it anyway. The narrative that Covid has brought this upon them is Trump-esque.

This is a 'running out of green dots' sort of a day. Get. The f**k. Down.

Edit: @jamamafegan beat me to it.

It's just not fair, though, is it?!

It was clear when the first vote rolled around that the carrot of reconstruction was just a bullshit line to bring clubs onside and to placate Budge. It was equally clear last Friday that the carrot of reconstruction was just a bullshit line to bring clubs onside and to placate Budge. The vote to finish the Premiership season will go through and Hearts will be promised reconstruction talks while the other clubs snigger behind their hands.

Was it a decision or a vote?

Yeah, I had Cooke pegged as 'one for the future' until someone pointed out his age! As pointed out above, Brexit and Corona could really create a perfect storm in terms of reducing the selection, and therefore the quality, of players available to all Scottish teams. It will also completely wipe out transfer budgets of the sort of teams that typically buy from Scotland (ie Championship/League One in England). Also, we don't yet know what impact it's going to have on people's willingness/ability to relocate. It's one thing doing social distancing in your own town, but imagine doing that in a strange place (if you're someone like Famewo, for example). It might be that teams such as ours, and others of a similar size, have to look a lot closer to home to fill squads for a couple of years. It wouldn't surprise me if Jim has to readjust his views on Jack Baird, as the most obvious example, and I certainly hope Erhahon will get his chance as a DM.

At which point, you'll continue to pish them but for entirely different reasons?

Yeah, I made this exact point somewhere else in the depths of this thread. Sometime around the point that JTS was banging on about 'unfair loss'. The spectre of relegation has been hanging over them for long enough that preparing for it should have been a top priority. The financial loss in and of itself is not a reason not to relegate them, because they were likely to be facing it anyway. Ultimately, the fact remains that Corona isn't relegating Hearts. Other clubs aren't relegating Hearts. Four wins in 30 games are relegating Hearts.

There's some fierce ironic usernames flying round this place.

Bonnieprincecharlie red dotting in five... Four... Three...

JTS would certainly be just as enthusiastic in his defence of St Mirren if the tables were turned. It'd be easy for him because Ann Budge would be defying the majority of Hearts fans to fight our corner, too. Ethical consistency, after all. I've heard he's been all over the Clyde thread arguing against a reconstruction that would harm them. It's a tough life, being so ethically rigorous.

The issue is, though, that catastrophic global events have turned it into a 30 game season and there's nothing that can reasonably be done to change that. You've got to forget what you were promised because events have occurred that have changed things. And, as it's consistency you're after, then, as has been pointed out ad infinitum on here, there is historical precedent for seasons being called early and relegation being applied.

I'd very strongly argue that altering the entire league structure just to suit one 'big' club is the spineless option. Standing up to those entitled Gorgie bullies is the far braver course of action and I'm glad so many clubs have found the resolve to do so.

To be fair, I hadn't previously realised that Hearts had briefly performed to a vaguely acceptable standard against St Johnstone. I therefore take back everything I've said: it would be unfair to relegate them and we should definitely temporarily reconstruct the leagues on that basis.