the_bully_wee

Journey, story, marathon, chairman won't thank me IMO

Why? We needed a left-back a lot more than we needed a centre-back.

Is it only a fan theory? I thought it was pretty much accepted. The scene in season 1's "Charlie Got Molested" where Charlie's family and friends (including Uncle Jack) gather around to stage an intervention shows pretty explicitly that he's a meganonce, as he's practically salivating when Bonnie implores Charlie to show everyone on a doll where the teacher touched him. There are some really outstanding scenes and moments in season one alone; Mac first meeting Carmen to try and set her up with Charlie, being incensed upon finding out that she has a penis and then saying he'll call her after she calls him "ripped"; Mac's entire gambit in "Charlie Got Molested" in which he's upset about not being blown by the teacher, culminating in him trying to seduce the teacher in his house; Dennis revelling in the attention of the customers of their new gay bar ("the boys are out tonight, huh?!"); both Mac and Dennis trying to manipulate the abortion rally to meet their own seedy ends. The whole Mac and Carmen storyline is absolutely exceptional, and takes on a whole new slant when you're re-watching it.

Eighth would be absolutely fine by me next season if I was offered it right now. There's absolutely no reason to be genuinely fearful, though, because we're miles ahead of Dumbarton and some distance ahead of Stranraer. I would argue we're also a fair bit better on paper than Peterhead, too. It's frustrating, in a sense, because we're probably two good left-sided defenders away from having a right good tilt at the promotion play-offs, but we're still in very good shape going into the season. Much better shape than we'd have been in 2014 or 2016 anyway...

Could be adding two and two together to get five here, but if we're really looking like getting someone on loan from Kilmarnock I'd be very happy, assuming it was who I am thinking it may be.

Yesterday's was my first game of the season and, based on that, there's more cause for optimism than worry, I reckon. All that the squad is short of is a left-back and a centre-back, and given Liam Allison's trial and our link with Alex Petkov, it looks like Lennon's eyes are firmly set on signings in both positions. It's worth remembering that a large chunk of Airdrie's squad is full-time, so they'll likely have worked on a lot more than us. Nevertheless, it is - for the hundredth-or-so time - clear that McNiff as our starting LB just won't do. We got away with it last year, and his goalscoring exploits last season were enormous for us, but he's just not agile or quick enough over short or long distances to be an effective full-back at this level. Very handy squad player, though. I was really impressed with Mark Lamont in the opening and closing stages of the match; he's always had that ability to take games by the scruff of the neck, but consistency has been an issue for him. He'll be a really important player for us if he can reproduce that level of performance throughout entire games and across the full season. The Norwegian Prince looked surprisingly good up top for a spell, but as we dropped out of the game he grew more isolated; definitely at his best committing players in a deeper/wider role. Chris Johnston showed that he will be a massive player for us this season - stuck out on the touchline he struggled to influence things, but centrally he was outrageous at times. Always looking for the ball, some great control and nimble ball-carrying. His set pieces and crossing will be a real asset for us this season - great to watch, too. Darren Smith looked a wee bit off the pace, but he's clearly a pretty intelligent player and a very good option to have. I thought that Craig Howie had a very reasonable game, one rash challenge and poor clearance aside; it's some jump from the Lowland League, where such mistakes are less likely to be punished, to a team with top-half aspirations in League One. I think it speaks volumes of his capabilities and potential that Lennon gave him a two-year deal. In goals, David Mitchell had little to do, but his distribution was very sound and he's a right good talker. Goodwillie, as he does, changed everything for us, while Tony Wallace and, in particular, Ross Lyon both showed some good stuff in their cameos. One thing that clearly needs work is our playing out from goal kicks. The law change is something that should suit a passing team like ours down to the ground, so with some work on press-breaking combinations that could be a really useful tool for us building out from the back rather than scudding it 60 yards up the park. ETA: Danny Lennon is never going to play three at the back, so I think we should all forget about the postulating of such a system. Even if he had any inclination to set us up like that, I'd only want it happening if we'd an option on the left as strong as Cuddihy on the right. Shoehorning a guy like Tony Wallace (defensively) or - shudder - Kieran Duffie (offensively) into that role would be a shitemare.

Duffy doing his best Jim Chapman impression this season

I'm not entirely sure where your obsession with all things Tom Lang stems from, but this is very bizarre stuff. I didn't speak of a "very top wage deal" and, as you'll know, the two terms I've used to describe any offer made to him are virtually identical. You're obviously - as a long-standing and fervent Lang superfan - privy to what he was offered and where that lies in relation to the rest of the squad, so what are your feelings on it? Do you think Lennon low-balled him? Or do you think we made him a very good and fair offer, which he quite understandably rejected for a full-time wage packet and the potential career advancement which accompanies it?

Really?! Everything he's said and done in the last couple of months reeks of a man working his ticket and just continuing in the job because there's no better opportunity available to him. That just makes it even more bizarre that you've shed so many of your better players from last season and brought in junior/Lowland jobbers. I do not understand the man, not one bit.

In what way is it not obvious that we'd have made him a very good offer to stay?

I didn't think Duffy could do any worse on SSB than when he said his Clyde team couldn't make the promotion play-offs while about six points off fourth place in January one season, but if what's being said is accurate then that is genuinely astounding. He could at least be honest about the current state of affairs, which I'm assuming is that there's hardly any budget available to him and he's waiting for players without a club later in pre-season.

Who gives a f**k who was offered what? Lang is yesterday's man. The only reason his name cropped up was due to suggestions that our budget is used up, which - given the fact he fairly obviously would have been tabled the best deal we could offer him to stay, and combined with the development fee we'll receive (however small) - clearly isn't the case. Especially with Howie signing a two-year deal today. As regards Howie, I'm pretty happy with that signing. From the little I've seen of him, he looks very comfortable on the ball and distributes it well, is pretty quick across the ground and has a good build too. Hopefully, with the right coaching, he'll become a more accomplished one-on-one defender and a dominant aerial figure. Certainly has time on his side anyway, and a fair whack of experience under his belt (albeit at a very mixed level). What a birthday present for him yesterday, to be signing for the Clyde!

I will be very disappointed if we sign Petkov and fail to appropriate Berwick fans' wonderful Tom Jones tribute to him: Petkov, Petkov, Alex Petkov, He's on loan from the Jambos to play for Danny Lennon Petkov, Petkov, Alex Petkov, A Bulgarian who turns me on

I am EXTREMELY pleased to hear it. He seems like a real arsehole, and we really needed one of those - particularly with King Kev now gone. It's funny how it's gone; last season we were overstocked at the back (particularly centre-back) and in the midfield, and this season it's up front (particularly the wide areas) and in midfield. All the guys we've added are fairly versatile, too, which is a bonus. So much competition and cover, which can only be a good thing. It's not time to smash the panic button yet, and the re-signing of McStay is as important to our defensive strength as a good Lang replacement is, but the left side of defence is the only area I'm not really happy with. The guys we've brought in so far are all clear and obvious improvements on the guys who've left, and we've retained all but one of the players we wanted to keep - it's been great business so far, overall, but we're still two good additions away from being a promotion-challenging side in my opinion. As I've said before, I highly doubt we'll have spunked all the budget quite yet, especially given the offer on the table to Lang and our present lack of defensive numbers. There won't be a lot of free agents of any repute available for trials at this stage, and our best bets will be loan targets (a few weeks to go before finalising anything on that front, I'd imagine) or guys who, come August, haven't had the FT offers they were hoping for. With the manager and squad we've got, I can't see us being anywhere near the bottom really. We should be aiming to make the promotion play-offs, though.

Higgins narrowly missed out and, were there not dozens of them to list, he would have been one of the "honourable mentions". Scored a few important goals for us and showed some form in the 2015/16 season though, so that worked against his inclusion. A huge disappointment overall, though.

Stewart was terrible pre-Duffy but actually went on a bit of a goalscoring run towards the end of the 2010-11 season as I recall. If my memory serves me correctly, he had agreed to sign on again for the next season before his contract offer was pulled for sectarian tweets or something like that. Sawyers was really, really bad, while I didn't think Park was great but didn't quite reach John Kane levels of inefficacy. Those four were always reasonably steady performers for us during a time where we had a comparatively small budget. Barclay was a decent League Two 'keeper, had a few hairy moments and hated crosses but made some outrageous saves at times. Gray and Scullion were very versatile and did jobs wherever they played, generally. Sweeney was a headless chicken but a good player for us; first couple of seasons he was a bit out of his depth but performed pretty strongly in our play-off campaign. Would obviously have absolutely none of the players mentioned near our first XI now, though. Because it's important to remember where we've come from. Additionally, we are enduring a torrid pre-season results-wise and we aren't signing world-class talent to fix the left side of our defence.

Where are we playing The Bone and how has he looked? I will be re-branding when the squad photos are taken and, although not essential, would prefer it if he were deployed in a role in which he will body folk and perform exceptionally.

John Gibson John Kane - Ross Fisher - Ryan Frances - Gerard Traynor Ryan Kane - Giuseppe Capuano - Scott McLaughlin - Andy Gibson Kevin Watt - Stephen McDonald Racking my brains, that is the "best" and most balanced team of 2011-2017 shite I can come up with - I've tried to keep it to players who were, at least for a spell, semi-regular starters for us in their 'strongest' allocated positions above. There are far more ringers over and above that who either barely featured or could be shoehorned into a different formation but, as a tribute to Jim Duffy and his banks of four, going 4-4-2 was simply the right thing to do. John Gibson: 'Gibby' came to Clyde from Alloa in 2015, and somewhat unbelievably remained our number one across much of the next two seasons. Alloa fans warned us about him, Elgin fans told us we'd made a fantastic signing - it was the former group whose forecast was most accurate, as Gibson treated us to over fifty appearances fraught with hesitance, indecision and the odd moment of downright madness. One of the tallest 'keepers I've seen with us, and yet utterly pathetic with all crossed balls. John Kane: It's long enough ago that I've mercifully started to forget about John Kane, but Jim Duffy was delighted to secure the full-back's signature alongside that of Stuart McColm when the pair joined Clyde from newly-promoted Stranraer in the summer of 2012. This poster remembers Kane having a stinking attitude towards Bully Wee fans which, combined with his extremely limited ability, did very little to endear him to anyone. Thankfully replaced by a post-weight-loss Gavin Brown and a 500-year-old Lee Sharp in both full-back positions - and that's saying something. Ross Fisher: For all the shite Clyde fans had to endure in this lengthy spell, we always seemed to do quite well for ourselves at centre-back. Ross Fisher, a mainstay in the worst QP side ever - and hooked after half an hour when we beasted them at Airdrie in the season before - signed up in Barry's first season, as he bodied all of Jim Duffy's lieutenants out of the club. Fisher wasn't all that bad for Clyde, but he's certainly up there with the poorest regularly-starting centre-backs seen in this era. Ryan Frances: One man who can't be remembered with any sort of affection is gangly left-sided defender Ryan Frances, who looked equally uncomfortable both as a centre- and full-back. Frances was so poor that Duffy sought to sign the podgy, fairly unfit and crimson-faced Ross McKinnon to cover our left side in 2014. Frances was one of the first to be unceremoniously bodied out of the club by Ferguson, much to the player's fury. Barry got plenty wrong, but the swift removal of Ryan Frances from our club was a right shrewd move. Gerard Traynor: This is perhaps a somewhat harsh inclusion, but there are two particular moments which make Gerard Traynor stick very unfavourably in my mind. Yes, 'Ged' was something of a youngster when he had a spell as our first-choice left-back, but he just wasn't very good. The first such moment I speak of occurred at Hampden, with Clyde leading 1-0 in the 90th minute on the cusp of a first victory at the club's very own shitemare venue since 2010. Up came QP 'keeper Muir for a last-gasp corner, and who else but oor Gerard was on hand to haul him by the jersey to the turf. Penalty, Darren Miller, scored, Clyde fans given the "shoosh" symbol. A @ScottR96 (hiya pal) broken toe from hoofing a chair out of seethe. The second came when Albion Rovers journeyed to Broadwood to try and win their League Two title in 2015; with his team having pissed away a two-goal lead, Traynor went in for a 50-50 challenge against Gary Fisher with such fear and lack of conviction that it became a 5-95 effort, and the Rovers right-back's cross-cum-shot secured yet another opposition title in Cumbernauld. Ryan Kane: Jim Duffy developed a serious hard-on for released Morton right-wingers; upon his arrival, Kevin Finlayson was already thrilling Clyde fans with his dogged, workmanlike wing-play. Jim decided to make this line of recruitment something of a tradition, with Ryan Kane and Sean Fitzharris both signing for the club in the following seasons. Kane was your stereotypical released youth product; flashes of talent, but very little else to distinguish him as a player with any sort of future in senior football. Fitzharris had more to his game and was, in my opinion, the more unfortunate of the two with injuries, so he's given a free pass here. Giuseppe Capuano: Giuseppe Capuano wasn't a bad player. He wasn't. He was technically alright, reasonably tidy. But the devilishly handsome, debonair Italian-Scot simply wasn't very good, either. Pretty lightweight for a limited defensive midfielder, not particularly mobile (though that was in some way refreshing next to the headless chicken-style shuttle runs of Captain Fantastic) and we improved as a side when Neil 'Scrabble' Janczyk (another player released by a club in the same division) assumed his berth in the team. Scott McLaughlin: Barry Ferguson's most trusted player throughout his managerial reign, Scott McLaughlin came to Clyde from Ayr United as a player who had been there and done it in the lower leagues. While he was actually a decent player for us in the two and a half years he spent at Clyde, McLaughlin came to represent the essence Barry's era: a host of experienced, overpaid mercenaries who weren't particularly likeable performing, individually and collectively, beneath their potential. The chapter's closure at Montrose in 2017 was fittingly rounded off when club captain McLaughlin started arguing with still-disgruntled Clyde fans on the terracing. Andy Gibson: I actually feel sorry for Andy Gibson, putting him in here, but he was one of the most hilarious features of a hilarious first season in charge for BF. Having kicked off trying to bed-in a Barcelona style of play, with a three-pronged attack of Scott Ferguson, Scott McManus and Kevin Watt, Barry soon realised that - at this level, and with those players - such a philosophy was doomed to fail. His first real batch of incomings in September of 2014 saw the arrival of former Partick Thistle and then-Beith winger Andy Gibson, a man who was clearly once a good footballer but who could literally no longer run. Gibson belied his geriatric physique to turn in a few surprisingly okay-ish performances along with a number of completely ineffectual ones before he departed with a whimper not too long after. Kevin Watt: "You Watt, you Watt?" some will ask, incensed, at the inclusion of wee Kev, but Watt was a player whose raison d'etre was to poach and score goals goals, and I have never seen a player described as such possessing his complete lack of composure at times. Watt's all-round game wasn't particularly good, he was something of a headless chicken and he made some really shite decisions all-round. Plenty of other contenders, but none saw regular action like wee Kev did. Stephen McDonald: I didn't actually think that 'Steph' made anywhere near enough appearances to qualify for this XI, but a quick look confirmed that he passed my threshold and was a fairly regular starter during the 2011-12 campaign. Signed up from Shettleston in Duffy's first summer window, McDonald started his Clyde career reasonably well, scoring in the shock 2-0 win over Peterhead in the season's opening game. That's about as good as it got for McDonald though, who was just a below-par player in just about every area. Not particularly big, strong, quick or gifted in any technical or tactical way, 'Steph' departed for f**k-knows-where at the end of that season.

Doubt our budget will all be used up yet when we've got piss all at centre-back; the deal offered to Lang would've been as good as we could possibly make it as well, notwithstanding the money in the bank from his compo fee. We can't just - at this stage - sign one for the sake of it, though. As players holding out for full-time offers don't get them, they will accept dropping down to PT level at League One to put themselves in the shop window. It's just a matter of having the right contacts, acting fast and appealing to a player as an option (which we definitely will at the moment). There's one centre-back who we faced last season who I'd very much like for us to get on loan, and he fits a fair few of the "Lang" criteria. Howie looks and sounds like he's a reasonable enough player; depending on his wage demands, I wouldn't mind us signing him having seen how far some players have come under Lennon and Moore. I'd want a stronger option for beside Rumsby, though.

Jim Duffy is making a late play to try and sign them for Dumbarton!

Daniel Fitzpatrick, Drew Ramsay and Jack Sloss all expected to sign by the end of the week.

f**k the SFA

Surprised we scored at all.

Plz be a wind-up