GordonS

You're entitled to that opinion but I think you're completely wrong, and I think upcoming elections are going to prove that. People said *exactly* the same about monkeys in red rosettes, right up until they went down to 1 MP.

I think we've forgotten that this is what happens to parties that have been in power too long. Leaders can only ever be forged in opposition. In government everyone that comes through the party has the support of a big infrastructure and then as Ministers they have the civil servants doing everything for them. They lack agency. They have to follow the party line and the communications plans - and the kind of people who take that route are happy to do it. Usually they've never had a job in the real world. As the leaders that got them to the top fall away, those left behind lack the skills and experience needed to replace them - and tougher still, to renew the party while it's in office. The other thing that happens is you accumulate war wounds and those only heal in opposition. Ideological differences become insurmountable and you can no longer maintain a coalition wide enough to present a united front to the electorate and to keep enough voters on board. You also become bogged down by the weight of your mistakes, which are inevitable for anyone running anything this big. In a normal country the SNP would have lost an election years ago and gone through this cycle but the opposition haven't been up to the job of taking them down, for many reasons. Those fretting about seeing independence - maybe you will, maybe you won't. But these movements always come and go in waves and you just have to work so that each wave is bigger than the last.

That's because they know he'll never run. He's said before that he wouldn't put his family through that.

And apart from anything else, why TF is anyone singing about political violence in Northern Ireland at a football game in Scotland? If it's so important to you, go and sing about it over there. Leave the rest of us in peace.

Fine, then we'll sentence UVF supporters to 6 months and sentence you to 3 months. Feel better? You don't get to deploy "the other side are worse" arguments when you're planting bombs in shopping centres. You're all the baddies.

Yes. Murdering innocent people to try to make it happen is objectively a very bad thing that no-one with so much as a shred of basic human decency could ever support. Tolerance for that view is beneath contempt.

Fun fact: every time Celtic fans sing in support of the IRA they're breaching section 12(1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000. Not that there's the tiniest chance of Police Scotland or COPFS ever doing anything about it, of course.

Now that I think about it I might have talked to him at Loch Ness v Fort William in April last year, when Loch Ness won the league. Small world.

The Dogs of the Pyramid would make a great Twitter account. The only place I've ever seen that bans dogs is Sunnybank - they also ban ball games - and I'll always judge them harshly for that. For me the four signs inside the ground of a great non-league club that's an important part of its community are dogs, kids playing football, bikes and prams.

I was down that way yesterday, for the ferry to Belfast to watch the rugby. I love that road and part of the world and would rather have another reason to go there once a year than to East Kilbride, Hamilton or Midlothian. Accommodation is pretty cheap in Galloway and the southernmost part of Ayrshire, it's a great area for a long weekend with family.

You're not applying the League Cup Precedent, which says that whenever there's a vacancy in a competition the answer is Cowdenbeath. It's not the worst idea, it saves time on arguments.

FTFY

I don't know how that would be Sky Sports serving Scottish football better, but ok.

Presumably he'll get the Dundee-Celtic game. Alas.

The only alternatives to that were show none of it on Main Event in the first place, as the games overlap, or to cut away at a less obvious point. It's still on Football.

Sure but that was a one-off, a big send-off for the World Cup and our first game at Hampden in a long time. Our previous home match was as glamorous as it gets, against the USA, and we got 3,790. The last competitive game, in the penultimate World Cup qualifier and a critical tie against Switzerland that we won, attracted only 4,098. If we'd had a good World Cup instead of doing a Scotland I'm sure attendances would have been better immediately after, though. A lack of feelgood and then Covid have been very damaging. But there are underlying factors too. Looking at the figures it's really bad. We got two 10ks in the World Cup play-offs, down to 7k in the first Nations League game and 5k in the second. We got 15k v England but in better circumstances I'm sure it would have been more than double - it should have beat our attendance record - and then just 3k in our first Euro qualifier. That's back to the crowds we were getting at Tynecastle. As I say, underlying factors, but a good start would be sacking the managers.

1) Buckie get removed from the play-offs 2) EK beat Club 42 3) EK are excluded from entry to the SPFL because it is found that their doctor is actually a vet or their diversity plan is antisemitic or something. 4) Applying the League Cup Precedent, Cowdenbeath are invited to take the SPFL place - which was the plan aaaaall along. This is actually less mental than some of the stuff on the conspiracy theories thread.

For all those obsessing over the fates of bald managers:

Looks like the same platform that the WoSFL use.

Knowing the SFA's casual relationship with the truth, I sure as hell wouldn't be believing their version of events.

It's a fact that Germany, Hungary and Switzerland all have better records than us in recent years. That's why they're ranked above us. Ask fans of those sides who they expect to finish bottom of our group and they'll all say Scotland. Hungary were in a horror group at Euro 2020 but were 0-0 v Portugal until 84 minutes and drew with France and Germany. They qualified for Euro 2024 unbeaten and top of their group. In the Nations League they were in the top league and they beat England at home before humping them 4-0 away, and they drew with Germany at home and beat them away. Only defeat to Italy in their last match cost them a semi-final place. Switzerland qualified top of their group for Euro 2020 then made the quarter finals, knocking out world champions France in the R16. They only lost to Spain on penalties. They qualified top of the group for Qatar 2022 unbeaten, ahead of Italy, finished second in their group by one goal behind Brazil having beaten Cameroon and Serbia, before getting dismantled in the R16 by Portugal. In the Nations League they were also in League A and beat Portugal at home, Spain away and Czechia at home, to finish 3rd and keep their top league place. Those two sides have undeniably, objectively achieved more than Scotland in the same period and go into the matches against us as favourites. Not strong favourites, but definitely expected to win. I'd argue both sides have much better balanced squads and better players in defence and attack than us. One of the daft things about having high expectations of Scotland in these matches is that you won't enjoy any good results as much as you should. If we get out the group we'll have overachieved.

Hardly anyone was going to watch them when they qualified for Euro 2017 and had peak Kim Little strutting about, and hardly any more were at the World Cup 2019 qualifiers. We're waaaay behind other European countries and attendances in our domestic league are comparatively bad too. Glasgow City have been making the last 16, last 8 in the Champions League in front of a few hundred and the OF can't even muster a few thousand when playing each other. There's more to it than just the national team playing bad football - how many do you think would be going if they were good to watch?

That's the same point I made. There's money for facilities where people can play football and for other community benefits, like at Bo'ness, but the discussion on this thread has been about the facilities for fans. 3G cages suit the community just fine. When you're talking about spending of £50 billion you'll always be able to point the finger at something wasteful, but the reality is it adds up to very little now. The media does a truly dreadful job painting an accurate picture of public spending.

At a time of insanely tight budgets and huge cuts, for Scottish or local government to spend money on facilities for a few hundred folk to watch a game of football every two weeks would be batshit mental. They can't fund schools, community centres, ice rinks and swimming pools never mind our particular hobby. What we do isn't sport, it's spectating. There has been grant money available for community facilities - putting in astro and lights and making it available all week, like Bo'ness did. You need a genuine community benefit and not just some terracing for the likes of us. https://www.falkirk.gov.uk/news/article.aspx?aid=7715#:~:text=This is the second Place,the whole Bo'ness community.