Meathead

Billy is releasing his own music under the name Haiver. Full album to come next year seemingly, with the first single 'So Slow' out now. I like it a lot.

Fans in Norway are actively protesting against the implementation of VAR there: Protest and resist: fans in Scandinavia lead backlash against VAR | Football | The Guardian Norway's clubs are member-run so perhaps banners and walkouts will be sufficient to rid their game of VAR, but I don't think they'd be enough here. The clubs have shown that, on the whole, they don't particularly care what fans think - about VAR or anything else. I think they'd find it fairly easy to ignore any symbolic forms of dissent. Ultimately I think the only way we'll ever be able to rid our domestic game of it is through co-ordinated action to withhold money from the clubs. They likely wouldn't pay any serious attention until their bank balances started to be affected. Is the appetite actually there for such action though? Nuclear options like boycotts don't spring out of nowhere - they're a last resort when more rudimentary forms of protest fail to yield results. We're not seeing a groundswell of visible discontent at games - can you imagine fans here booing their own VAR-awarded goal like Viking's fans did in that article? I haven't been to many Premiership games since VAR was introduced so maybe there's more protest going on than I realise, but if that is the case then the message isn't travelling very far. The Rangers protests in 2012 are a blueprint for what's possible if fans across the game are prepared to set aside their tribalist instincts and pull in the same direction. However, much as it pains me, at this moment in time I'm not convinced your average match-going fan is sufficiently opposed to VAR for something comparable to get off the ground.

If McAllister was a few inches taller then the mere notion of him playing at full back would seem nonsensical. His game is every bit that of a meat-and-potatoes centre half. He's good at it too - he was exceptional there against Raith at Somerset last December, so much so that he was singled out for praise in The Scotsman's match report afterwards (along with, interestingly, an out-of-position Ecrepont). But he was hung out to dry in the following game at Firhill. Rather than having McGinty track Brian Graham wherever he went, Bullen had him and McAllister stick to their usual left and right sides, and Graham battered McAllister for most of the game while McGinty watched. After that he got shuffled out to full back again once the opportunity arose. McAllister is another casualty of Bullen's tactical ineptitude. He's not an exceptional talent by any stretch, but the right manager, in the right system, would get a tune out of him as a centre half at this level. As it is though, we'll probably spend the rest of this season watching him struggle at full back before he's quietly released, dismissed as not being good enough, another square peg in a round hole just like O'Connor, Ashford, Mitchell-Lawson and McKenzie.

This sentiment is expressed often but VAR is only here to stay if fans (specifically season ticket holders) allow it to stay, whether through choice or inaction. Fans largely weren't consulted on its introduction because the clubs assume that most of us will return season after season regardless. They rely on fans as a collective being too myopic, too petty and too disorganised to come together and unite under a common banner. This isn't specific to VAR and also applies to lots of other things we all moan about: ticket prices, games being moved for TV, etc. We saw what's possible back in 2012 with the vote on admitting Rangers - fans en masse withheld their season ticket money, and eventually the clubs had no choice but to change course and do what we wanted. I don't think the strength of feeling is there at the moment for such a campaign to materialise for the removal of VAR, and maybe it never will be, but the clubs will vote to remove it if a critical mass of their customers withhold their money until that happens.

Despite not being directly affected by VAR yet, I do feel it having an impact on my enjoyment of supporting Ayr. It’s a peculiar position to find myself in, on the one hand revelling in the form that could see us return to the top flight for the first time in 45 years and, on the other hand, quietly hoping we don’t. I’ve been going to watch Ayr regularly for about 12 years. I’ve gone through three promotions, two relegations, cancelled trains in Dingwall, laps of Asda to keep warm in Alloa, thrashings in Stranraer and humiliations in Auchinleck. My enthusiasm has waned at times, my attendance has dipped on occasion, and I’ve had to defecate in some of the most deplorable toilets this country has to offer. But I wouldn’t change any of it. I’ve done it all in the pursuit of those elusive moments of pure, unencumbered joy. A late winner, an unexpected 30 yarder, a dubious penalty award. When everything else in life suddenly disappears and 100% of my being is concentrated on the euphoria all around and within me. Those moments don’t come often, but when they do, the sheer ecstasy they provide is unrivalled by anything I’ve experienced in any other walk of life. I admire anyone who can still celebrate a goal with reckless abandon while knowing it might be chopped off later by VAR, but I can’t. There is no variation on VAR, no time limits or restricted purview or any other kind of tinkering that would let those moments survive unscathed through my eyes. Maybe it’s not important to everyone, or even the majority of fans, but it is to me. Winning games feels nice but it’s not the be-all and end-all for me. I wouldn’t trade all the VAR-assisted 1-0 wins in the world for the bedlam in the away end at Ibrox when Alan Forrest equalised in a game Ayr eventually lost. If those moments are diluted or taken away all together while we wait for a VAR check then my primary reason for going back week after week has disappeared. For the first time, I find myself seriously questioning whether I want to keep going. Even if Ayr don’t get promoted this season, the club have ambitions to get there eventually. I don’t think hoping the club have hit their ceiling is a sustainable position for a fan to maintain. I don’t know what I’ll do in the end, but it makes me incredibly sad that the game I love has become like this.

Even if it were theoretically possible, why would any fan actually want completely accurate refereeing decisions? One of this sport's great joys is getting to lord it over the opposition and savour their fury when your team's clearly illegal goal is allowed to stand. Even more so if it's a late winner or equaliser. It's not like it happens every week - the infrequency of such moments is what makes them so special. Being on the receiving end from time to time is a price well worth paying to revel in those delicious moments of schadenfreude in my opinion.

We started the 2019/20 season playing a 4-5-1, with Kelly at the tip of the midfield, two holding midfielders behind him, wingers who liked to cut inside and a striker who dropped deep a lot. The front four were constantly moving and Kelly was absolutely electric in that setup. Our third goal in these highlights (about 2:47) is a perfect example of what he brought to the team: intelligence, anticipation, movement and poise. His technique is incredible; not many teenagers at this level have the confidence, never mind the ability, to attempt the type of cross-field passes he seemed to effortlessly execute every week. When Mark Kerr took over from Ian McCall part way through that season he changed setup to a 4-4-2 and Kelly played much deeper. He was fine in that role but he didn't particularly stand out. I only ever saw him on Sportscene with Ross County but it looked like they played him in a deeper role too, and I'm not surprised their fans felt very meh about him. If Livingston afford him the freedom to play close to the striker(s) then he could be very good, but if his job is to take the ball off the centre halves then you might end up wondering what all the fuss was about.

Living in Colour will always be my favourite. If Scott wrote a more joyous-sounding song then I'm yet to hear it. The 'by day I hope to rapidly die' line in the bridge makes me wince sometimes now, but the overall message is so uplifting that I never dwell on it. Chris Hawkins interviewed Grant on 6 Music this afternoon as part of Mental Health Awareness Week. Starts at about 1:07: Craig Charles - Chris Hawkins sits in and chats to Grant Hutchison - BBC Sounds

It's been out for a few months now but Frank Turner's song 'A Wave Across A Bay' is about Scott: My memories of those awful few days in May 2018 still feel so vivid - hard to believe four years have passed. Hope you're all doing alright.

I know the thread has moved on to other, more pressing matters, but I emailed the club about this and got the below response from Graeme Mathie today. Great news for us, and his enthusiasm for involving supporters in this and other votes in the future is very encouraging.

I hope the club are at least considering doing a fan consultation before the VAR vote in two weeks' time. While its introduction to the Premiership would obviously have no immediate consequences for us, inevitably we'd be exposed to it at some point. I'm dead against it but, regardless of whether that's a minority or a majority view among our support, it's important that we have our voices heard. This could potentially be the most seismic change to the in-person experience of watching Scottish football in decades and we're the mugs who actually watch it.

Not according to the website:

Couldn't resist getting tickets but £95 for two in Edinburgh is eye-watering.

Nothing at all to do with the game itself, but why are we insisting that away fans must buy their tickets online in advance? We need all the folk we can get through the gates. We should be making it as easy as possible for anyone to attend, not creating obstacles for some.

It's that day again:

At the end of the first half yesterday I thought Inverness could've slaughtered us if they'd wanted to. They didn't really turn up in the second half but I was still impressed by the way they moved the ball around. There was a passage of play in the second half when Allardice passed through our midfield to Gardyne (I think), he had a quick exchange with Mckay, and then Mckay hit it straight at McAdams. Obviously it fizzled out into nothing in the end but within a few seconds and about five touches of the ball they'd gone from almost the centre circle to the edge of our six yard box. I'm yet to see another team slice us open so effortlessly this season. I think we could learn something from Inverness with regards to the balance of their team. Obviously they have better players than we do, but they don't look like a team doing whatever it takes to squeeze all their best players onto the pitch at the same time. They play with two wingers and two big lumps at full back to protect them, two sitting midfielders and one in the hole, and a striker who knows how to play upfront by himself. Didn't quite pan out yesterday but clearly they all know what their jobs are. We meanwhile are lining up most weeks with three or four players out of position, Maxwell particularly shoehorned in wherever we can fit him, and no discernible strategy across the midfield. We're somewhat hamstrung by Hopkin's recruitment, and having O'Connor back will make a big difference, but at the moment it looks a bit like Duffy is putting whoever he deems our best players are at the time out onto the pitch and hoping for the best. I would like to see us line up with Salkeld and O'Connor out wide, and Maxwell playing through the middle with Murdoch and Muirhead/Chalmers behind him. Salkeld is maybe no great shake but he offers width on the right than no one else in our team does. The best Ayr United team to watch in my lifetime were the team who began the 2019/20 season, around the time McCall left for Partick Thistle (the highlights being the consecutive away pumpings of Alloa and Arbroath). That team did have some excellent players, but individually they weren't as good as the previous season's team. At their best though they were far more fluent than the previous season's team, because the balance was much better (no Geggan or Crawford being shoehorned in out wide). I don't think we have the players now to play quite as attractive a brand of football as that team did, but I do think a greater emphasis being placed on the way our team is set up would see us get far more out of the players we have.

If I could re-live any night of my life, it would be this one. I'll miss him forever.

These are spot on. He may well not be interested but he's far and away the most qualified of the semi-realistic candidates. A few posts in this thread have mentioned him being inexperienced. That isn't true - he's been the Montrose manager for over four years, and he's the fourth longest serving manager in Scottish football at present. The job he's done there has been nothing short of phenomenal. Prior to his arrival they had spent more than two decades hovering around the foot of League 2 and the old Third Division. They were bottom of the league when he took over in December 2016. He took them from the bottom of the league into the promotion playoffs in that first half-season, won the league the next season, and then steered them to back-to-back fourth place finishes in League 1. They're currently third. No other club in senior Scottish football have punched above their weight as consistently as Montrose have over the past few years, and most, if not all, of that credit goes to Petrie. We can tout managers with generic experience at a higher level but, for a club in Ayr's predicament, we need a manager with specific expertise in dragging a team out of the mire mid-season and, if we wish to look up the way rather than down in future seasons, having a team perform at what most people would consider to be above their 'natural' level. Petrie has an unblemished record in both areas; Montrose have had the odd sticky patch since he took over but overall he's exceeded expectations in literally every season he's spent as a manager. Darren Young has been mentioned in the same breath as Petrie but he would be a riskier appointment: East Fife have had some brilliant spells under him, but they've also gone on some long barren runs. Which isn't to say that I think he'd be a terrible appointment, but Petrie's track record is on another level.

With Lucy Dacus at Mono by any chance?

My favourite album of 2020 so far is Fenne Lily's BREACH. I find her music very soothing.

This was written in the days following Scott's death by one of his friends. It's a very personal and moving tribute from someone who clearly knew him well and held him dearly. I like to re-read it occasionally and I'm posting it here as much for my own reference as anyone else's benefit, but I think it's worth 15 minutes of your time: https://whiskyshelf.wordpress.com/2018/05/14/the-smokie-and-the-souter/ Incidentally, that post mentions Scott's introduction to Dave Hause. Dave's version of The Woodpile at the Barrowlands in 2018 is my favourite cover of Scott's music, and his continued inclusion of a snippet of it in live versions of the suicidal ideation-themed Bearing Down is very poignant:

https://tweedchronicles.com/2020/05/09/my-brother-scott/

I like Brian Fallon's new album. It's comforting on a dark walk around deserted streets.