Bainsfordbairn

If that's aimed at me, as I think it might be, then there's no danger of it happening. I can just imagine the conversation on Monday morning. I'm just boarding the team bus for the trip to Brechin and the reserve game against Aberdeen when the manager walks up and says "So what's this about you going online and demanding that I get sacked?" Err no, I don't think so I didn't think we were as bad as many feared and tried to be positive. Sadly, today did not make for happy viewing.

And our U20s finished bottom of the league last season, which was their last year of existence. And our ladies team are currently bottom of their league, ten points adrift of safety. I watch all of those teams, every week, sometime three or four times a week depending on what matches are on. And I'm sick fed up of walking out of a stadium having seen the team in navy blue not only getting beat but often playing badly. Do anyone else wish they'd been feckin born in Barcelona?

That's not a positive though Shodwall. It's just me answering a question raised by aother poster. Hopefully the positives begin at 1645 tomorrow. If it makes you feel better I'm not overly impressed either. I'm just not quite ready to demand that the manager be sacked tomorrow night if we don't win.

Because my definition of a "doing" is losing three or four goals. Those who're putting a negative slant on results are including league cup games and in some cases friendlies. ("no improvement since the first game", etc) If you include all those, we've played eleven matches since the first game of the season. Not one of them has seen a loss or defeat by more than a single goal. Including two games against Premiership sides. We've been close to the opposition - at least in terms of the thing that matters - scoring - in every game since The New Saints. So it's reasonable to assume that tomorrow will be no different. Hence why I don't think we'll get a doing. We might well lose and this post will come back to haunt me, but at the time of writing I think recent results suggest otherwise.

I doubt that's true though. Days out are hardly dependent on a football match. You could make that claim if it were a Scotland trip, as there's undoubtedly fans in the TA who care more about the piss-up and getting away from the family rather than the end result. But at Falkirk where the "day out" is a Tuesday night game in Inverness during January? Tell you what EB. Name one of these posters, and when I have time next week I'll trawl through their posts. I bet you I can find either an anti-manager, anti-player or anti-BOD posts from someone you consider to be a happy clapper. The only caveat I'll put in is it has to be a genuine Falkirk fan, with say a hundred post to their name and who's been active in the time you've been on this board. It won't be hard to find negative posts from Falkirk fans at the end of Houstons reign.

If we get a doing (which I don't think we will) then a fair number of our support will agree with him. And if we continue to struggle, then just about everyone will want Hartley out. Just as they did with Houston last year. The difference is most want him to succeed even if they doubt his ability to do so. You get the impression Edibairn wants him to fail, which is why he repeats the same line time and time again. Say it often enough and maybe people will come round to your way of thinking. Shodwall is a moaning bugger, but I've no doubt he's a genuine Falkirk man. I don't get the same impression with EB and from the comments made by others I'm obviously not alone.

Fair enough. There were a number of folk moaning about where he came from and I thought you were one of them Shod. My apologies.

Strange. I could have sworn you were one of the guys who slagged off Mackin on the night we signed him because he came from Brechin.

Shodwall, do you make up things as you go along? First of all, he didn't immediately sign a right back. It took him six weeks. Hartley arrived on 9th October and Tumilty was brought in on 23rd November. If that's your definition of "immediate" then I'd hate to be standing beside you waiting on a bus. Longridge was actually his first signing at the end of October. Secondly, Tumilty was brought in to cover injuries, as was clearly explained (with quotes from Hartley) in the website story on the day he signed. That's why his initial loan was only for a month. They presumably decided to keep him for longer as he turned out to be competent. I'm speculating here, but I think that if Balatoni hadn't been injured for so long then it might even have been Tumilty who left in December.

Not having a dig BPM, but you seem to change your mind about club staff quite often and attack them on a whim. It wasn't that long ago you were praising the CEO, particularly about his openness when he was releasing his regular updates on the state of the club. Now you seem to have bracketed him along with the owners as a target for stick. Another example of this would be the Commercial Director. He was in your sights for several years and now his department are frequently praised online by yourself. What's changed? I get your disillusionment with the manager. He seemed to do everything that many of us fans wanted, such as bringing in players from outwith Central Scotland, binning those who we didn't think were good enough and starting again from scratch. We had an exciting summer of new signings and suddenly they haven't hit the ground running and the flak is flying. Fair enough. PH is judged on results and performances so at the moment any criticism of him is understandable. From where I sit though, all the other two have done is backed him to the hilt, including tightening the belt. You've previously highlighted a couple of internal issues which I think were caused by this but that's standard for any workplace. Nobody can keep everybody happy all the time. The academy decision was a biggie and affected so many people that I wouldn't criticise anyone who were against the CEO and Chair because of it. Is that your only reason for having a go and if not what else have they done wrong in your eyes?

TBH I would describe the reserve pool as seven ex FVFA graduates, two first teamers who may or may not be with us after the window closes and one other. Over the course of the season they'll presumably be supplemented by first team squad players who don't get a run out on a Saturday.

The reserves don't have a centre-back though. The two U20 CH's were released two seasons ago and there was nobody ready to make the step up from the Academy at the start of last season. Hence why they played most of the year with a converted centreforward (Harry Girdwood) - at centrehalf. Or players like Watson and Grant when they were coming back from injury. I actually think that's part of the reason the U20s were so poor last year. Dallison & McGhee went off with injuries in the Rangers colts game & we know Brough is out, so it's hardly a surprise that Muirhead & Harrison weren't risked in a reserve game today. And without them, there was no-one else to play the position.

He's a young lad who's been training with the reserves; there have been a few in over the summer. None of them are names that would be recognised. While I haven't asked anyone about him specifically, I would be surprised if he's under consideration as a potential first team signing.

I honestly have no idea. I heard from one player that the Morton victory was largely down to the combined efforts of Mick McArdle and a senior player rather than Alex Smith, and I heard an entirely different story from Alex on the team bus during the journey to an away U20 game some months later. The truth is that unless you're inside the dressing room after the door gets locked it's impossible to know. If you're friends with a specific player you might get one side of the story but there may be dozen different viewpoints and us ordinary fans have no way of knowing which is the most accurate.

That question was asked at a Bairns Business Club meeting with the manager in the last couple of months. The managers response was that there had to be an element of trust in the Head Of Recruitment, after which he went into detail about the guy's background. The questioner didn't push it so there was no further detail as to whether the manager had made a final check by watching the players in the flesh, reviewed videos, taken them on trial, sought opinions from other trusted sources etc. He could have done all or none of those. I imagine someone will raise it again at whatever the next open forum is.

At the end of the season the players were told on the Thursday before the final league game if they were being released. I know because I was in the club that day, and was in the following day and shook hands with some of them as they said their goodbyes to the staff. None of them knew beforehand that they were going. Not unless they, and various staff members I spoke to in the preceding days, were lying to me. I'm not quite so sure about the departures in the January window. However, I had a long conversation with Fash two days after Christmas at the Junior Bairns Day and he didn't seem to have any idea that he was going to be released within the week. There was a also a conversation reported by fans on social media in which Balatoni was heard bemoaning in Reception that his contract was up tomorrow and he had no idea what was happening. And the reported conversations with Miller & Kerr on Christmas Eve in which they were told their time was up. For those reasons I find it very, very unlikely that players were told in November. Can I ask what your basis is for making such a claim?

No idea. The guy who does the questioning is fairly well known amongst the Falkirk support; if you feel strongly about it why not contact him via social media to ask? It might even give him a line to probe a little deeper. "Hey gaffer, we've been contacted by various fans who would like us to inquire about...…" In general, all these sort of interviews tend to be pretty bland. They're worth doing for the occasional nugget though. My alltime favourite remains Gary Holt's rant after Phil Roberts got sent off at Alloa.

Sometimes managers can be a little bit tetchy of anything they perceive as criticism. That particularly applies to "in house" media; I know of a few instances over the years where a variety of managers have taken exception to comments made during match commentaries which the average fan wouldn't think twice about making. One former FFC TV commentator was notorious for it. Note the use of the word "former". If a TV interviewer asked your last two questions of any manager it's unlikely he'd get a civil answer. Or the chance to do another interview with that manager again. There are plenty of examples on youtube of managers having a real go at the press during interviews. And those are professional interviewers with an audience of thousands, not an unpaid fan who could be kicked out his role if the manager thought he was being cheeky. And if there was a "disagreement" over the questioning, the interview would probably never see the light of day anyway. It's not a role I'd want to do. Damned if you ask and damned if you don't.

He can't have. EdiBairn previously told us we would all be surprised where he ended up and that's hardly a surprise to anyone. If fairness to EBs comments earlier (don't know how to multiquote) I think he WILL have a successful career, depending on how you define success. He's good enough to play football at a lower level for a number of years. I see him as being akin to another of our ex-youth strikers, Andy Rodgers. I don't think there's any danger he will bypass Falkirk. Not unless he suddenly develops attributes that he hasn't shown during his time with us. And I say that from the perspective of having seen virtually every game he played for Falkirk. Good luck Scotty. I hope things work out for you.

Not really. There's a lot to be unhappy about at the moment, but anyone who points out that Edibairn talks nonsense will have my support.

Do you remember the fans meeting with Martin Ritchie after the news broke about HMRC? Multiple fans stood up, were given the microphone and told him that the support didn't want Pressley as a manager. Every speaker who made that point got a roar of approval from the hundreds of folk who had turned up. It made not one blind bit of difference. The board ignored them. And Pressley stayed for as long as he wanted to. Ignoring fans isn't hard, particularly now that the season ticket monies are in. Ignoring sponsors, corporate business etc is harder. Once you get three men and a dog in hospitality, as there was for a few games last season, then the alarm bells may start to ring.

I'm not really saying anything BPM; just pointing out what I think is an interesting stat.

We're played six competitive games. In five of those games, we've conceded in the first half. We should have conceded in the sixth one but Forfar missed a penalty and hit the woodwork twice. Virtually every one of those first halves saw a poor performance which often saw the team jeered off the pitch. Nobody has scored against us in a second half. Every goal we're scored this season has come in a second half. Every decent performance we've put in has been during a second half. Hmmn.

Only bothers me when you get things wrong BPM. And you're right about Willie.

It's not impossible some players will go out on loan over and above the three who're very clearly not wanted.