velo army

Cheers for the reminder. Velo_army

The man hasn't been fit in 4 years and, imo, lacks the desire and discipline to be so, sadly. I did think he looked hungry when he came on against Israel though, so maybe there's hope. For what it's worth I reckon Burke is pish, but has the potential to be an absolute cult hero. McBurnie has been a passenger everytime I've seen him.

I'm up for this and will register by the end of today. Starting at the bottom of the pyramid for me.

And, iirc, a penalty against. Or maybe it was outside the box. Can't remember exactly, but it was defo a red. The narrative around this game reminds me of the Italy 2007 qualifier where the vast majority of Scotland fans get hung up on the free kick at the end (that we defended horribly) but forget the perfectly good goal Italy had ruled offside at 1-0 and the fact that our goal was offside. See also the Lithuanian boy's dive (the Hearts lad whose name I can't spell) to get a pen, but not O'Connor's dive in the same game.

Livingston, I'll concede, have been decent replacements for us since coming up.

For a couple of good, funny and eviscerating reviews on Wonder Woman (both films) I recommend "The Critical Drinker" on youtube. He has a cracking go at Star Wars, Star Trek and Ghostbusters 2016 too (ooh, and GoT). Guy plays a drunken shambles while grounding his reviews on an understanding of character and plot. Anyway, I watched "Four Minutes" as I was looking for something uplifting and my google search of "uplifting movies on Netflix" recommended that. It's set in, I think, the late 90's early 00's. An aged piano teacher teaches piano in a prison and has done since 1945 (why? don't know). It begins with her piano (her own, personal baby-grand) being taken into the prison by two ex cons (one murderer and the other raped his niece....this revelation is played to make her seem like a progressive maverick next to a supposedly atavistic prison guard but we learn nothing of her motivations so this just jars) and we also see a highly troubled (and excellently played tbf) young woman who is seemingly not just highly talented, but practised and accomplished at the piano. We learn a bit about the background of each character, but it's lazy. The young woman was a prodigy but her father sexually abused her constantly. She is in jail for murder, but daddio pops up later to say she didn't do it, that she got into the wrong crowd. It all leads to a fairly confused narrative for this character and I never bought into her journey. There's no motivation for her training with this teacher as she can already play to a high standard. The performance at the end is a nice enough end to her arc, but the audience is left with too much work to do to care about these characters and their so called stories. The emotional investment in the teacher comes from us knowing that she had a lover when she first worked at the prison, a female communist prisoner who was executed. Nothing is done to link that to what she is doing now, or why she keeps teaching at this prison. We learn nothing more about her. Her interactions with the other characters are cold and although she inevitably warms to her young charge, the relationship isn't given any time to breathe. It's just constant melodrama and histrionics. The end result is a movie that doesn't do anything to get you invested in the story. It's a cynical effort that uses cheap parlour tricks (omg, she was sexually abused.....omg, the teacher is a lesbian who is still in love with her lover) that feel manipulative. A bit of a rant but this pish got 85% on Rotten Tomatoes audience score and it precipitated quite the heads gone from me. I was not uplifted by it. Not one bit.

That really is absolutely fuckin dire. Jesus.

Lennon has always been like this. During his first stint as Celtic manager he played the persecution dog-whistle (tbf it was more like a bugle) whenever he was under any kind of pressure or when his team lost. It was excruciating and irresponsible at the time, I felt, as he was throwing fuel on a fire to distract from his own inadequacies. Anytime his Hibs team were under pressure or not performing as they should he would come out swinging, or would throw his players under the bus, something we've seen a lot from him this season. He is a classless individual who has shown time and time again to be an entitled egomaniac, as well as being a fairly poor coach. All the talk of mental illness actually gives me less sympathy as he hasn't demonstrated any willingness to take responsibility for his behaviour instead, as when he was Hibs boss, using it as a shield to deflect criticism of his character. This article is merely another in a long line of Lennon rants where he attempts to gaslight and deflect rather than make any attempt to understand why others (including the Celtic support) are disappointed and angry with what was, at best, a ludicrously tone deaf trip to Dubai.

He actually isn't. He's actually quite pish and I can see him getting a start in the third tier which is, I believe, his level.

Aye without Covid you'd have people around you at this time and you could share in your nostalgia of your old man, remembering stories and insights that were personal only to you. It sounds like a seriously hard time, especially given that it's your first Christmas without him. That's a blow mate, and made infinitely worse by the current situation. I'm glad you found a bit of a refuge here and I hope you keep in touch with the thread. Feel free to PM me if you need.

Tautologies thread for this pish. Seriously though I was wondering whatever happened to Mikie Johnstone at Celtic. Did he regress, get injured or did he and Lenny have a falling out? Dapo Mebude at Rangers seems to have potential too.

Aye that's horrendous news mate. Find support in whatever way works for you. We're here for you. This is gutting.

I for one am absolutely fuckin delighted that we didn't have these when I was in my teens and early 20's. And I mean a huge, bodily felt sense of relief. I'm bad enough for it now with going after the dopamine hit of likes and new content, but as a teenager I reckon it would have sent me over the edge as I was an anxious as f**k kid. So I applaud anyone who kicks it to the kerb, I imagine it detoxifies the soul quite a bit. I also had a thought recently about the amount of negative threads there are here on the GN part of the forum and how they may affect mental health. I'm talking about the dominance of threads such as "Petty things that get on your nerves", "c*nts on the road", "things you hate about the football" and others of a similar bent. Reading and participating in threads like that might seem cathartic, and I can enjoy the gallows humour in some of the posts, but given that threads of this nature dominate in relation to more positive ones (and I mean overtly positive ones that deliberately get you to focus on things that you like) it shows and also creates an attentional bias towards negative stimuli, which is one of the indicators of depression. I'll own up to having wanted to start threads that encourage a focus on gratitude (an emotion strongly correlated with emotional resilience) such as "things we fuckin love about our partners", "things we absolutely love about the fitba" etc but have shat out of it thus far. I'll get on it tomorrow. To @buchan30, I'm delighted you posted what you did mate. The fact that you seemed worried about whether your post belongs here speaks to a fair amount of courage in doing so. I don't imagine it's remotely rare either. We all of us have a thing that gives us structure, exercise, a sense of self that isn't "employee" and, given that it's fitba, a sense of fun and play. Having that taken away sounds like a fuckin huge blow to you and it's wholly natural to feel fear, anger and sadness around that. There's also the added thing of physical contact. We all need touch mate, and sometimes as men (if you're not a man then disregard this) our only way of getting it is through the context of sport. So aye, be kind and compassionate with your reaction to this as it's a fairly big loss.

I remember being utterly delighted we signed this man to push us up the league and away from perennial relegation struggle.

On this day in 2001, during what was a seminal season for us and the greatest in my lifetime of Jags support (including the top 6 season), we beat St Mirren with a single goal from super sub Martin Hardie. It was a game which saw John Lambie take his place in the dugout in full highland dress as the club launched its new tartan. We'd won the second division the season previous and made it back to back promotions by winning Division 1 that season also. It was fairy tale stuff given we'd been on the brink of liquidation in 1997 and of relegation to the bottom league in 99/00. St Mirren had been relegated from the SPL (or whatever it was in 2001) and still had the quality throughout with the likes of Quitongo, Roy and Yardley and they were unbeaten against us at that point in the season. I recall a great game where Paul Walker missed a one on one, Kenny Arthur saved a penalty and BMMMH came on to score a late winner, creating scenes in a packed Jackie Husband stand. Hardie's reward for winning the game was a seat on the bench in our next match against Ayr, where again he came on in the last quarter and scored the winner. We even had a cup run that season, and we were always utter shite in the cups (even as a premier division team), so it was a class season all in. We seemed to win so many games at the death too. What a team.

Arbroath Steak and Black Pudding Pies >>>>> Forfar Bridies. Get intae this shower o shite today Jags!!

Nice work BFH.

Leon Constantine played for us for about two games at the start of the century. Utter baller. Ran the show in a 4-0 (?) demolition of Falkirk at Brockville in one of the last games at the old place (I miss that ground) and then went back to his parent club earlier than expected. Still remembered very fondly despite only playing two or three games in what was a seminal season (and great team!!) for us (2001-2002).

Like my Arab chum a few posts up I only ever make my own soup from scratch. A huge pot of lentil soup with spices (and loads of carrots and the occasional tattie) does me for days. I can't recommend that enough tbh, just freeze the rest and microwave when required. It takes very little time too. Just chopping the veg, frying it up a bit, adding lentils and stock and boil for about 30mins. Nae bother. A wee blended soupie with parsnip and ginger is an utter treat too (although I have a decent harvest of celeriac that I could sub for that ). For a hearty b*****d you cannae beat Cullen Skink though. Ooft.

This is just fuckin beautiful sir. Just beautiful.

I have equally fond memories of that day, jumping about on the pitch and there being a tannoy announcement that there were no bridies left in Forfar owing to the large crowd that day After half an hour of the match!

I fuckin love Forfar and one of my favourite ever games was when we won the Second Division up there. McGrillen's opener, Barry Elliot's clincher and me in a circle with the team on the field with my arm around a shirtless Archie (). Genuinely upset that I can't go to this as a fan. Cracking ground and lovely wee town. Thistle to dominate, get 45 shots on goal (3 on target) and to be pinned in our own box for the final 5 minutes with Forfar scoring in 90 + 6mins. 1-0 Loons, and not even a bridie to take my mind off it. Sad.

Unashamedly festive at the moment so I was daunering up Union St whistling "wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas" from a Muppet's Christmas Carol. After that I was whistling awa to "Bist to bei Mir" by Gottfried Heinrich Stolzel (from the film "Joyeux Noel"). It'll mainly be Christmas songs for the next few weeks I imagine.

I don't like this being framed as a "disease" but it is a real thing. In fact, it's wholly natural. We're supposed to take it easy in Winter, it's what we're evolved to do; get enough food in and stay warm and do not a lot until Spring. It's only in the last 150 years that we've been required (demanded?) to keep up the same productivity levels throughout the year that we now hit a wall. As soon as it gets to 3.30pm and the lights go off outside I can feel my body being flooded with melatonin. My whole being just wants to do f**k all after that time. I force myself to do uni work, but it feels like my whole being, physically and mentally, is wading through tar. I can see this hitting particularly hard this winter. The loneliness caused by the imposed isolation is going to exacerbate the feeling of melancholy most feel at this time of year, and the anxiety levels which would normally be soothed by being in physical proximity to friends and lovers are heightened. Be really gentle with yourselves this year a'body. Do what you need to do to take care of yourselves. This might mean taking a day off here and there. For those on zero hour this might seem like financial madness, but taking yourself out to walk up a hill or play football with your pals might be the radical self love you need (and I was, until a few weeks ago, on a zero hour contract too). This isn't an individual disorder by the way. There is nothing "wrong" with you if you experience this. Like almost all depressive "disorders" it's mostly caused by us living a life contrary to our nature. Capitalism demands the same effort all year with no regard to the seasonal rhythms of our bodies, and when our bodies and souls rebel our social conditioning tells us that there is something about us that needs to be fixed and adjusted. So in short, aye, I do experience this, and at times pretty badly. I used to see it as a problem I had. I now see it as a reminder to nourish myself with food, rest, outdoor activity and oxytocin (ask your friends for a hug....shitebag if ye dinnae!!). To be clear this is a reminder that I don't always listen to and I find myself numbing with alcohol and takeaway food, so I'm not putting myself on a pedestal here. Take good care of yourselves chaps/chapettes/chapneutrals

Do they say who their big team are?