VincentGuerin

I think that's a misunderstanding of what was said. The issue it that we're more likely to get a system that is to our liking if the clubs work together. Some people won't like that. Superfan points for you.

Daft thing to say, but also a daft thing to be even remotely bothered by. Who cares?

I agree. I know that Budge and Dempster had a good relationship when LD was at Hibs, but I'd like to see those clubs trying to be a bit more of a block. The three clubs are pretty similar and have more or less the same interests, although obviously in competition.

Football isn't fair. I think we'd get used to it. A former Bayern technical director has suggested using the play-offs every season year. Basically the years where there's no summer tournament. That seems a reasonable compromise to me. Even year numbers are a straight league as normal, odd years use the play-offs.

Obviously, the more depth, the more likely we are to get a different winner. But I think that would just create a different kind of in-built polarisation without necessarily narrowing the gap enough to be a meaningful improvement. And there's no chance the smaller clubs in the top flight vote for it. Who could blame them? Any meaningful solution is basically going to mean the other clubs ganging up on the Old Firm, as there's no way they will willingly spice up competition, and their cheerleaders in the media will dismiss any radical suggestions to do so.

It seems Bayern haven't completely ruled out being ok with this. I haven't found too much about it in English. I think Bayern's motivation may be recognition that it is damaging their brand if the Bundesliga is viewed as a joke. I share your immediate 'no' reaction to this. But only if there's going to be some kind of action taken to make leagues competitive again. If things stay as they are, I'd be all for play-offs to decide the winner. The same team or two teams winning all the time is pointless. Most people will have an immediately negative reaction to this. But has anybody got a better idea?

Shouldn't have bothered.

I'd completely missed this, but got a mate last night mentioned that the new head of the Bundesliga has suggested implementing play-offs to decide the champion. Seems it's not just some daft rumour, but something actually being discussed. I know most people are automatically against the idea, but if we're not going to do something to level out the finances within national leagues, then I think it's fair enough.

That's not what I asked you. I asked you why the referees would want to do it. A good referee from England will want to referee in England. We'd get their rubbish ones. It's also massively diminishing for the stature of our game. To openly parachute in our neighbour's unwanted refs. And people slag Doncaster for talking our game down...

Why would a good English referee want to give up reffing in England to do it in Scotland? Surely we'd just get the rubbish ones? I don't see that as progress.

32 teams for the Euros could actually be quite good. Use the Nations League as the basis for the everything and eliminate the need for separate qualifying altogether. Teams in League A qualify automatically except the bottom sides, for example, along with the 4 League B winners. League A group winners and runners-up are top seeds for the Euros, League A third-placed sides and League B group winners are all second seeds. League B runners-up and League C winners qualify as third seeds. All remaining sides into a play-off system to qualify as fourth seeds. Hosts need to qualify like anyone else. This would give the Nations League real teeth, as being in League A teams would want to guarantee a good seeding and to avoid a play-off. For example, England's third-place in their group last time would see them punished with a Pot 2 draw rather than Pot 1, making it harder to win their group and get an easier last 16 game. Leagues B and C would be really competitive to qualify as second or third seeds, and teams in lower leagues would have a real incentive to move up. We'd also eliminate loads of boring qualifier mismatches. Fewer games, but more competitive games feeding into a prestigious final tournament. From the last NL, Iceland, Sweden, Bosnia, and Ukraine would have been the bottom-placed League A sides missing out on a good seeding and having to play-off to scramble in as fourth seeds. These League A sides would either miss out altogether in the play-off, or maybe add a bit more jeopardy to the Pot 4 draw for the final tournament. Play-offs are easy. Top 2 from each League D group plus the remaining sides from B and C gives a first round of 24 teams playing a knock-out. 12 winners added to the bottom-placed League A sides, winners of the second round games qualify. Those 8 teams are Pot 4. In terms of games played, it's the same as a 24-team tournament for the finalists but you give a wider range of teams the chance to play and maybe one of those extra teams causes a surprise along the way. 16 was perfect, but the outlook has changed and 32 is better than 24. Qualifying is shite these days anyway. Loads of pointless boring games. Go with 32 and change the focus a bit. UEFA, give me a call.

PNE v Huddersfield tonight for me. I always like going to Preston. It was my 50th ground, so has a place of affection for me. But Preston fans are usually a decent chat and I hardly ever see a bad game there. Bank on a shite 0-0.

Not like our Les to cause controversy.

I believe it was about six months. Big games like cup finals did tend to be different. Just checked. 98 cup final was four and a half minutes.

Hi @craigkillieIn the spirit of being truly boring, I've decided to investigate the extremely important issue of injury time in 1997-98 to see how well-founded the Bobby Tait's Masonic Watch memory is. I've just chosen a random selection of games from 97/98 to check the second half injury time. Annoyingly, a few games I've found are copies that don't have the running clock. Here's the league games I clicked on at random and that had a clock. Leeds v West Ham, November 97 - 1 minutes 31 seconds Newcastle v Liverpool, December 97 - 50 seconds Celtic v Rangers, January 98 - 1 minute 27 seconds St Johnstone v Rangers, January 98 - I min 26 seconds Derby v Leeds, March 98 - 43 seconds So, it is my considered view that Bobby Tait's watch was a mason. If anybody else on this website considers themselves a boring b*****d, I've just set the new standard. Come at me. All joking aside, it is interesting that the standardising of injury time with subs, goals etc does seem to have lengthened games.

Big games like cup finals sometimes got more, but you weren't getting three and four minutes regularly in league games. It's notable in a lot of old World Cup games as well. Two minutes, that'll do. Standardising it with subs, goals, etc has lengthened it. As mentioned above, the Hibs - Hearts 2-2 game had two second half goals (before injury time) and a red card, as well as a disallowed goal and a couple of lengthy injuries. 2 minutes. That was the norm.

Three minutes was quite long back in the day. Commentators etc used to say things like 'past TWO minutes of stoppage time...' 'It ain't over till the fat striker scores' Hibs 2-2 Hearts derby where Robbo scored in injury time got less than two minutes. And that second half had two goals (and one disallowed), a couple of lengthy injury stoppages, and a red card before stoppage time. Injury time is definitely longer now. Rangers - Killie was hilarious regardless.

I chose Rangers - Killie. You chose to lose the heid.

I love the journey from the first picture to the second picture. The first picture has an almost poetically beautiful sadness about it. Look how smug they are. Look how much fun they're having. Look at the glee. Look at the joyful anticipation about reminiscing about this day forever. They've hoped for a day like this their whole lives, which football fan hasn't? They have absolutely no idea what is about to hit them. Then look at those faces behind the goal in the second picture.

And it would have been terrible. If you lot hadn't come with us and then stayed there for three years.

And to spice it up, no fixture list. Just ring round and arrange games whenever you can. Games whenever you want. Season finishes and positions stand as soon as one team has played all 41 opponents.

Arguably the greatest act of hubris ever seen in the Scottish top flight. Just wonderful. What a finish to the season.

I didn't mind Love Street. Better than the shite they have now. East End Park is arguably the Scottish stadium that has suffered most from renovation. With terracing it was fantastic. It's dreadful now. Just has nothing about it. I'm sure there's planning/cost reasons etc for it, but those two big end stands ruin the whole thing. A real shame.