the_bully_wee

The most turgid defensive outfit in the national leagues and two zip down at home inside twenty minutes. Pmsl

Forgot to come back in here after the next day, which saw me pack both Neymar and TOTY Dias (untradeable) in back to back packs in the last five of about a hundred packs opened during that week. Dias is unbelievable, even better than Varane who I used my fodder up on. Neymar hasn't been great for me so far, but is a big step up on both Icardi and Ben Yedder who I was tossing up between previously. Completed Paqueta as soon as I packed Neymar for links, who's a bit clunky but essential for chemistry. Squad is looking like this, with only Ederson and David tradeable: In even happier news, the massive price spike of in forms last night meant that my early-cycle strategy of picking up discard IFs paid off big time; made 2m last night, which I'll be selling on again. Almost £400 made from coin sales in this game already

Whether the McDermid song was meant with regards to sexuality or just appearance, I've got no idea why Clyde fans are slagging a former sponsor of another club and praising a player who forced a move away from theirs.

The sponsorship point is an absolutely ridiculous one. They'll have felt safe coming on board when there was very little heat around Goodwillie during his five years at Clyde, but I doubt many would be happy to become embroiled in the media shitstorm that would follow his signing. It would be an all-round mental decision to bring him back in.

Time for a three-pronged French attack of Oné, Tadé and Nadé IMO.

You'd be coming on to fillet Clyde fans whether they displayed condemnation, indifference or keenness toward the idea of resigning him. Away ye go.

There's also the fact that all the evidence on a file is reviewed to determine a person's suitability for whichever role they're applying to, and there would have to be more arbitrary lines drawn based on what kind of conviction history was deemed acceptable and unacceptable to earn a living from the game with. Given the fact that there is no direct contact with children or vulnerable adults required to be a professional footballer, it would be a colossal can of worms to force through any kind of requirement like this and would cause many more arguments than it'd solve.

Docherty is the guy I'd be handing captaincy to for the moment, absolutely the most qualified one for it among the current squad. I suspect it will be Love, though, in another seismic PR blunder. Going forward I'd like to see Cuddihy given the armband given his growing experience, ever-presence (when fit) and length of service, but he'd maybe have to be groomed into the role as he's not the most vocal figure.

Ross, first and foremost, sorry for your loss. The ones you know are coming aren't any easier to deal with whatsoever, as counter-intuitive as that can feel throughout the period of their declining health. Just make sure not to shut yourself off at all and be open with your loved ones, holding them as close as you can while you all grieve your gran. As BWV said above, returning to work might well be a bit of a tonic as a distraction but you should absolutely be looking out for number one and taking breaks or time off if it makes things any worse, or if things ever briefly get too much. I'm in a few similar boats to yourself. I've had my struggles with depression in the past and still have the odd bad day here and there, but thankfully all very manageable for a good while now. Of course, in writing this I'm now opening us up to the double-barrel of both being big bad Clyde fans, but maybe we'll just have to deal with that as and when it comes. I'm not looking for any kind of pity in saying this, but I don't think opposition fans understand (or want to try understanding) just how difficult it is to tear yourself away from such an enormous part of your life on moral grounds. A lucky few are able to, plenty lapse after an initial desire to boycott and, as you'll have seen, some just sadly don't seem to care a jot about - and in some genuinely disgusting cases, glorify - Goodwillie and the baggage he brought. For myself, several Clyde fans I know and, it seems, yourself, there was plenty of discomfort along the way but an inability to just dissociate ourselves from a cursed club so ritualistically embedded in our lives. Literally weeks after Goodwillie's initial signing, I met an ex-girlfriend of mine for the first time and over the course of our near two-year relationship she was, for some utterly madcap reason, keen to attend Clyde games here and there. I was eager to discuss the Goodwillie situation early doors and she thankfully wasn't at all bothered about it or my continuing support of the club and attendance at its games, albeit due to work at that time I seldom made many (a real blessing, as that was the Chapman era). Around the end of Chapman's reign she told me one night that she'd been raped, and that ever-vivid moment still tortures me to this day. I don't think I've ever been as viscerally upset, angry and guilty feeling as I was in the infinitely-long moments after she uttered the words. This conversation came months before she even started attending games; looking back, I'm not at all sure how she was able to enthusiastically attend as a victim, but it certainly made it easier for me to morally square Goodwillie playing football when her belief was that he should be allowed to. Unfortunately, it just happened to be at our club. As you've maybe seen me say elsewhere, though, it's a source of relief that he's gone even if the scars will rightly be visible on our club for years to come. As I've said, I wish opposition fans could be a bit more sympathetic, but then that's not how football fans tend to be. I've absolutely no doubt that if the roles were reversed, we and other Clyde fans would be asking opposition fans how they could possibly support a club whose star player and captain is a rapist, unable to comprehend it. In any case, I hope your mental health improves swiftly and I'm also hopeful that when you're next at Broadwood, there's no lingering doubt or shame - other than that derived from watching Rob Jones walking around the centre circle for 90 minutes, of course.

Clyde won't rake him back. They ain't going to get relegated and won't want the hastle. While we are now precariously positioned as a result of losing him, it would be an aberration if we brought him right back in. I would expect the maximum damage has already been done to the club's reputation after five years of service, having many fans bizarrely hero-worshipping him and - worst of all - appointing him as club captain, but speaking for myself it's been five years of gritted teeth waiting for yesterday to come, and I'd be extremely disappointed if my relief about his departure was ill-fated.

The only previous player with a sexual offence history at Clyde that I can think of was Lithgow, who was last at the club about six years before Goodwillie arrived and committed a much less severe offence. As a result, I think the 'seal' remained to be broken and emphatically was; his signing for Clyde came out of nowhere really, with no rumours and no fan consultation, and caused a bit of a storm initially. You're right, though, in that after a few weeks Clyde weren't really in the spotlight at all - I can't see this blowing over quite the same way. You make valid points regarding #MeToo and similar movements in recent years, too, which are probably a big factor in the traction this has gained on Twitter where such topics are much more freely discussed now. I think what makes his signing for Raith, and the backlash, even more egregious was the fact that the story met with such fierce opposition when it first broke a month ago, but the move went ahead anyway. It is just absolute suicide for a club with much more to lose than gain in a fiscal sense, absolutely nothing to gain in a moral sense, and extremely unlikely to gain anything meaningful in a sporting sense. As good as he is, a somewhat injury-prone 32 year old who hasn't played full-time football in half a decade is very unlikely to be the difference between Premiership and Championship football. For the outlay, surely to god the club could've identified a young player in the past month(s) with an even higher ceiling than Goodwillie's current fettle, or even a similarly talented established pro. Hopefully the Raith fans turned away by this can get back to supporting their club at some point, if they ever feel their wounds have healed and the club's worth supporting again.

By waiting until the end of the window we've likely a) maximised the fee received, b) sold him to a club that's not a direct rival, c) been able to bring Jamieson in and d) had weeks more of Goodwillie available to play. In what way has it been a bad move?

Sporting-wise, obviously a colossal blow. Transforms the season from increasingly looking safe back to looking quite doubtful, though we have still been picking up points lately. In every other sense though, silver linings can be found. It's become an utter embarrassment how singularly reliant we were on him, his presence at the club will no doubt have been damaging with regards to building and maintaining commercial relationships and, if any fans couldn't bring themselves to support us while he was here, hopefully we'll see them back.

Absolutely mental signing from Raith's perspective.

Raith fans when the club teases a deadline-beating striker signing:

He does look a nice card, but he just doesn't fit in at all for me sadly. Shooting is a bit sub standard as well and I've already got plenty of untradeable attacking super subs, so he'll likely end up in the Varane SBC. Very mixed feelings from a moral standpoint about using Varane but I can do him pretty much for free and he looks absolutely incredible. Big upgrade on Kimpembe who is, himself, more than a bit broken. On another note, I did eventually pack a TOTY earlier on today, but it was of course Donnarumma. Tradeable, though, so another 230k into the coffers. Now to see if there are any more mugs willing to pay for coins

I've opened about 50 saved packs ranging from premium gold players to 85+ x10 and 83+ x25 and the best I've had was Insigne - utter toilet, but I wasn't expecting anything different. I've been running a cheap team all year and refusing to get into the Mbappe/Neymar nonsense. Sold virtually every coin I could muster to some bloke for the thick end of 300 quid a few weeks back and thus will be going untradeable or cheap until the end of the year. Last week was my first week playing a fully untradeable team in Champs (ft. 74 rated WW Diallo at CDM) and I was a ballhair away from Rank 1. Rank 3 this week though after being completely schooled by God squads with Varane in my last two games.

Some effort by Docherty for the second, that. Postage stamp in those conditions and from that position is no mean feat. Clever routine for the opener as well, though you only really get away with those once!

Layne would be a better bet for us than Jones, and theoretically a reasonably good fit given how we play. We could be doing without another sex offender though and his injury record would be a huge worry if we were to gamble on him.

Cry more

Congrats on your 2-2 win

Our first good signing since... Lewis Jamieson!

Very sad for football purists having to watch QP's romantic journey stalling like this. Hope they can turn the corner soon!

Interesting to note that Dumbarton's brand new target man impressed and even grabbed a debut goal today. The constant mewling from Lennon (and now Moore too) about the difficulty of the January window is piss-weak as it is, but made even worse when you consider that same window (give or take a few days either side of it) in their first season saw us recruit Lang, Love, Boyle, Cogill, Grant and McStay, all of whom went on to be big players for us. It's wearing very thin now and surely comes down to pure laziness on the parts of all involved in the front-end of recruitment at the club. Elsdon's agent touting him about (as happens constantly with players now), Balatoni phoning Lennon, scraping around lower-ranked teams for players nobody else wants - it's embarrassing, and we should justifiably expect much more than being reduced to a team of honest smash and grab merchants with one outstanding player.