Specky Ginger

Terrible news. Although he played for a few clubs,even as a Rovers fan, I always associated him with Falkirk more than any other. One of your own. RIP.

That means he's been out of football for two years less than Rudi Skacel when we signed him.

Miller apparently due to sign for a French 2nd division team. I'm sure it was one of the clubs involved in the relegation stooshie in France.

Should we be getting remotely worked up about signing / not signing a guy who scored 6 goals in 29 appearances in league one last season?

If you think this is bad, you should have a gander at the reconstruction thread on Fantalk.

Great effort from your guys to make it to Tannadice today on the Winners' Walk. Hope they all have a well deserved few pints and a safe trip back north, and most importantly that justice prevails this week and you get your promotion.

I think Neilson said 'he' made no attempt to sign Nisbet. Maybe it was Hearts' sporting director, that Mrs Budge said was an essential appointment prior to appointing a head coach / manager, who approached Nisbet.

I hope you're right but imagine if someone had said four years ago, when Mckinnon was striking a deal with Stephen Thomson on his club mobile, that Rovers and Arabs fans would be having a wee love-in on a fans' forum and up in arms together about the despicable behaviour of another club's board and chairperson.

It's a dual purpose wooden spoon. Not only is it an award for being the worst team in their league, but Mrs Budge can use it to stir shit.

As I said a few weeks back, did Rovers unequivocally support a 14-10-10-10 or did they support the principle of it, subject to conditions such as distribution of prize money, future reconstruction, promotion / relegation etc? If someone asked me if I'd be prepared to pay a bit more tax to improve the health and education services, I would say yes, in principle. But if then discovered I was being asked to pay an extra 30 pence in the pound and the extra tax revenue was going to pay the salaries and pensions of bureaucrats and civil servants within these services, rather than on front line workers and new facilities, I would change my tune immediately. Maybe Rovers and others were in a similar situation regarding the reconstruction proposals.

The method of calculating how likely Hearts, and others, were likely to avoid relegation was average points per game. On this basis it was calculated that Hearts and the others were likely to finish bottom. Their behaviour through all this is akin to a kid from a posh school, with rich parents, who has pissed about all year, failed their prelims miserably, but is now taking the exam board to court for not awarding them straight As as they were deprived the chance of sitting their actual exams and might have done better than in the prelims.

It was priceless. We had our share of simulators at that time, but the two challenges by Derek Clark were utterly ridiculous. No idea whatsoever how Campbell felt hard done by.

That Airdrie kit is a pair of white shorts away from being a masterpiece.

That design works far better on the white away top than the navy home one. Would have been better if the Joma logo and the sponsor were in navy rather than black, but overall, one of our better recent away kits.

I think it was possibly Kevin Fotheringham who gave him the pass back. I think it might have been against Hamilton towards the end of 97/98 in what was pretty much a dead rubber. Van de Kamp was great in his first season with us, but as the team deteriorated, his confidence seemed to drain away and by the end (a shocker away to Stirling in the cup), it was better to part ways. I'm sure he played against us for Alloa towards the end of 2000/01 in what was effectively a relegation decider. We scraped a win, but all that did was prolong the misery for a further season.

1974/75 I think.

I'd be surprised if it's red or there is a could be an issue when we're away to Hearts and Arbroath next season. Surely not another yellow effort so soon after the last one. Not had a nice white and navy away strip for a while - much prefer that to white and red.

I never knew that book existed. I read one of his other books - Banoffee pie and blue rinse - but didn't know about his helicopter dreams book. I'm sure the game you're referring to was Gordon Dalziel's last game in charge of the Rovers. Mixu's brother and Gomis, who plays for Falkirk now, absolutely ran the show. It was 1-0 Cowden, going on 4-0 for most of it, then we stole an equaliser, missed a sitter to win it with about three minutes left, then Cowden scored twice late on, which in truth, gave the scoreline a fair reflection.

Sinky? Sent off? Wash your mouth out. You're actually almost right - it was September 2000 and we lost 1-2. Falkirk's first goal was from the penalty spot after a hand ball on the line. The guilty player - none other than Ray the snake.

I bought the original Black Diamonds book when it first came out and bought the updated version five years or so ago. Along with Simon Inglis book 'The Football Grounds of Great Britain', I would rate it as the best football book I have ever read. It brilliantly captures the euphoria of promotion and the excitement of the season in the higher league along with the disaster which unfolded thereafter. The way the story interspersed with the town's history and its people is brilliant. As a Rovers fan, obviously 92/93 has fonder memories than for the other Fife clubs. However, I remember the day Cowden beat the Pars at East End, we were playing at Stirling that day and having heard about demonstrations from Pars supporters against their management, took a wee detour through Dunfermline on the way home. The sight of a few dozen of them having a meltdown on Halbeath Road was joyous. Hope there's another wee period of glory in the offing for you guys, even if it's just to get a third edition of Black Diamonds printed.

Apparently Anne Budge has taken the £2m we received from the Pars for Nisbet into account when calculating a figure to sue us in court for - hence the £8m total. So I heard anyway.

Does anyone actually know the exact details of the reconstruction proposal the clubs were voting on? I know Bill Clark said Rovers were agreeable to the principle of 14-10-10-10, but that's not the same as supporting it unequivocally. Who knows, but maybe Rovers weren't happy about the redistribution of prize money through the leagues, maybe they weren't happy about the 11-1 vote in the Premiership (was it going to become 13-1 or 11-3?). It's unfair to castigate anyone who either supported the proposal or voted against it, without knowing how the details within the proposal (which would have been centred round protecting Hearts' interests) were going to affect their own, and other, clubs.

I think he played in the Airdrie and Falkirk games above, scored the next Saturday at home to Inverness (when we used to beat them at Starks Park as well), then the following two Saturdays the games were postponed. By our next game (after Christmas), his loan was up and Dargo was fit again after his bad injury in the Livingston game.

I remember watching that Clydebank game from the grassy bank behind the goal at Cappielow (before the Caledonian MacBrayne ferries advert board) . Clydebank fans were boycotting their games and urged us to do the same and there were more outside the ground than in. The game was rank, but the craic was great and you could nip to the chippy or the Norseman as you pleased. Clydebank never had a huge support at any point, but I remember most of their guys as really decent spuds. Sadly missed.

In fairness, McNeil was before rather than after, but as far as the rest are concerned, Livi were pretty much a mid table First Division team, we signed loads of their players and, surprisingly enough, became a mid table First Division team. Did Martin Scott not join us from Livingston as well?