stu2910

So let me see, I’m guessing the response from Rangers is going to be something along the lines of: Game off - what an embarrassment, the club should catapulted into the sun. Further inspection - what an embarrassment, think of the fans. Game on - what an embarrassment, think of the players. Seem about right?

Can't reply to all in detail but basically: Transport Scotland are happy and more qualified than the Civic Trust. Maybe more car use, especially short term, but it moves it away from the city itself. There will be a couple of concerts a year and they always cause congestion. I'd rather they caused congestion here than in another city. Residential maybe is contrary to the plan, but plans can change if a better option comes along. A big events site needs a hotel, it would be stupid not to. Everyone knows there is demand for a crematorium. It's possible to create new jobs without losing others in the city. That's how you grow. We can easily build a new stadium at Dens but would have no funding to do so, it's been covered endlessly for years. Also, while ground sharing has merit a planning application can't be refused on that logic. Dundee and Dundee Utd are rival businesses competing for the same customers. You wouldn't refuse Asda a new store because they could easily just add it on to the back of Tesco, it's idiotic. Also, Tannadice is barely any more capable of being an events space than Dens is. Emissions happen, are we supposed to just not build anything any more? Poor Design. Great, thanks...based on what? Any suggestions of what would be better? Surely housing, commerical (which I'm assuming will involve a small shop), events plus a doctors surgery was mentioned I'm sure, is the definition of a 20 min neighbourhood. Other than a school which they'd be up in arms about too what else would you need? Green spaces for the enjoyment of who? The site has been a mess for forever and is already earmarked for development. Trees, hardly any lost. Flora, clear mentions were made of areas supporting this. Open land and visual amenity, so you want empty space to stand in and look at more empty, post industrial empty space. You can currently see multis, an old ugly water tower and a bunch of other unattractive stuff from Camperdown. Is a nice new development that you can just about see if you try really hard not an improvement? Not sure what more they can do to be more energy efficient but I'm sure everything that can be done will be. Every new development is the same now. Was there a hint of a compliment there though?! You can't build a new stadium complex in the city centre, as much as we'd all love it. So how on earth do you get round that? Are we just never allowed to build one? There was plenty mention of active travel, I remember being specifically bored by it. My only "complaint" really is that we are a UNESCO city of design, so it would be fantastic to be able to create something "extraordinary" rather than the "nice end of legoland" design with a hint of Dens. Unfortunately the kind of money needed for that just doesn't exist for a club of our size.

Close, but I think we need the match to start, only to be abandoned after 50 mins with Rangers somehow failing to beat the kids. Heads gone for both sides as they try to work out whose been cheated more.

If this gets pushed back to Thursday at Airdrie then we are going to end up in the same situation we were in in 2008. I believe we had to play a Scottish cup quarter final on the Thursday and were due to play, ironically, Airdrie on the Saturday. We requested it be moved to the Sunday but Airdrie refused I think because they’d sold hospitality etc. We played our kids against Airdrie and then got fined for deliberately playing an under strength team (as if the 7-0 thumping wasn’t enough). Can absolutely guarantee that would happen if we basically chuck the match against Rangers but only an idiot would play any of our first team when the game on Saturday is what’s really going to matter.

I’m fairly confident that’s not what they’re doing.

Seeing a lot of people on other sites citing Motherwell's issues a few years ago as an example of what we should be doing to fix the pitch. Any 'Well fans fancy enlightening me on how it took after the problems first arose to them being fixed? It was a while ago now but I'm fairly confident it wasn't a few months.

Stop being so sensible, this is neither the time nor the place.

Weirdly I don't think the infamous corner is actually that bad at the moment. The majority of the pitch is basically fine (or no worse than others anyway), it's just that there seems to be a few random patches that are completely ruined.

Even if we got it up to Scottish standards, we could cause ourselves all sorts of problems if we do manage a late season surge and qualify for Europe. I would imagine the requirements, not only on the pitch but the stadium itself may be an awful lot higher than they were 20 years ago.

Would be lovely if the pitch took a battering this week but just managed to be playable for Motherwell, then ended up useless again for them.

I was exactly the same. I think the handball was so blatant and then the ball seemed to spend so much time in the air with no defender getting anywhere near it so it just looked like the game had stopped. It was only when I saw the ref give the goal that I thought "oh, brilliant!".

It’s a weird one regarding a red card as the keeper being 40 yards out his goal is essentially a goal scoring opportunity in itself, as shown seconds later. It would be incredibly harsh though with several defenders running in behind him I doubt he meant it. Blatant yellow though.

Was just about to back you up on that one! I'm not usually a doom and gloom merchant but I fear VAR is here to stay. Is there actually a precedent for this anywhere that we know of? Has anyone in sport implemented anything on this scale and then scrapped it? Would be interesting to know.

VAR will never be scrapped in Scotland as I believe it would prevent officials being able to take European and International matches that would use it. It's frustrating as I reckon the majority of fans in Scotland would be in favour of scrapping it, but it won't happen while UEFA supports it. Unfortunately the soul of the game has been sold for 5% more "accuracy".

Hard to believe there will be a punishment for this at this stage. Dens has historically had one of the best pitches in the country that has, for whatever reason, finally failed. Given that no work can be done during the season, it doesn’t really matter whether there have been 2 postponements or 10 and anything more than a warning would be extremely harsh. Obviously if the problem persists next season the conversation changes. The statement from rangers is also nonsense. No other games postponed - that’s probably something to do with them taking place before the rain. Rangers not notified early enough - the first inspection was announced on social media at about 8:45 and was likely communicated to rangers before that, how early would they like exactly? There were thousands of away fans already at the ground - they knew the game was in doubt 3 hours before kick off and couldn’t get in until 1 hour before, so why were they there so early? Besides, the club arranged a pitch inspection for nearly 3 hours before kick off. The fact the referees took more than an hour to determine the result isn’t the clubs fault.

I think getting the squad down to 23 is going to be incredibly tough, which is a weirdly nice position to be in but I'm glad it's not my call. Assuming everyone is fit, Hickey and McGregor will definitely come in, so 4 need to be cut. You're probably looking at Kelly, Ralston and 2 CBs. Tierney will be there and I would imagine Porteous and Hendry would be too, so how do you choose between Cooper, Hanley, McKenna and Souttar when there's not an awful lot to choose between them. My guess would be that Souttar and Hanley don't make it but you could argue any of them.

The last sentence sums it up for me. I'm certainly not supportive of the way the military is used and glorified but that doesn't mean that the people affected by it don't need support.

We are doing these kits for charity though rather than as genuine 3rd kits. Totally agree that if we were in Europe or something and required a 3rd kit, black or purple would be ridiculous, as probably would light blue this season. As one-offs though I quite like that it gives us the opportunity to see these more unlikely designs. If we ever required an actual third kit, it’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t dark blue plus 2 of white, light blue and red. Orange and probably green won’t happen so it only leaves pink (which we did do once) or yellow (next years prediction) as other options.

Seem to read this opinion a lot, so genuinely, why do you think that? It seems to be the standard position in this country that anything positive or ambitious just won’t happen.

Obviously the last thing we want to do is to hand an opportunity to our rivals, we may not get the same price as if it was sold for housing and it might be a little painful for the site to be in their hands, but I've always wondered if Utd would fancy buying Dens. They are never going to get an opportunity like this again to create their own football complex without moving home. They could essentially stop using St Andrews and have Tannadice & Gussie, plus another pitch or 2 plus fitness suites etc all virtually on one site. Cue inevitable comment about Dens already being their training ground, but they'd be daft not to at least think about it. Whether we'd sell to them is another matter.

Can see here that it's not listed: https://hesportal.maps.arcgis.com/apps/Viewer/index.html?appid=18d2608ac1284066ba3927312710d16d I think the biggest issue with Dens site is just size. While it's total footprint is enormous compared to nearly any other ground in Scotland, it's only big for a stadium on it's own and nowhere near big enough to house all of the supporting projects that are essential to finance the whole thing. It was never seen as an issue for any of our previous owners to just rebuild on site which is hardly surprising given their collective lack of business ability. Our current owners unsettlingly seem to know what they're doing and staying put just doesn't work for them financially.

Love it - listed buildings are often a bit weird. My in-laws have a potting shed attached to the back if their house which is listed, but the house isn't! Like someone decided that this great historical potting shed couldn't be lost, so they built an entire house attached to it.

We already have planning permission to demolish a listed building at the new site as well.

Article in the Courier this morning written by Nelms. Will probably be in trouble for posting it here but well known workarounds do work. Makes a point of stressing that the debt involved won't sit with the club and that the "repayment" will be significantly cheaper than spending £700k a year to keep Dens going.

Legzdins has been an important but flawed keeper over the last couple of years. Still decent but very much finishing his career. For most people McCracken is superior and is nearly half his age.