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On 30/08/2023 at 20:05, O'Kelly Isley III said:

I don't know if he's still involved but Roger Graham was a great football presence at the Telegraph, and a smashing bloke also.

Roger retired around 15 years ago. Good guy, great journalist for the Tele

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On 30/08/2023 at 20:08, Jan Vojáček said:

I'm obviously biased, but the way I look at it is that, in 50 years or so, there probably won't be online match reports from games years ago. Or interviews with players and management from the time. Even transfer news from my childhood 10-15 years ago can be hard to find outside of programmes.

I sat down with our club historian for a good few hours when we did a 150th anniversary pullout, and without newspapers there simply wouldn't have been any way of knowing teams or match reports from midweek games with Forfar or East Fife in 1907 or whatever! Huge gaps of the club history would simply have vanished.

Same goes for players. I've had a fair few players and their families ask me for papers so they can put them away. My Granda has a framed team photo from when his dad was playing juniors in the 30s, which is a cut out from a newspaper of the time. It would be a shame if we lost that.

As an aside, I notice tonight that Todd Cantwell has just done almost exactly what Carlo Pignatiello did on Saturday and hasn't been booked. I'll be watching those type of incidents like a hawk from now on to see how many referees are taking a no-nonsense/no common sense line.

That’s a great point- old papers are a great source of club history.

 

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Findlay Gray!

Quite obvious now that he is the best player in our squad and potentially in the division. I really hope we can keep him fit, which might be easier said that done as he was taking a few badly timed tackles today - probably a combination of his style of play running at players and also the old mantra of 'boot the wee silky one'.

Something I hope he can add to his game though is his final ball. Trying not to be overly picky here, as he is a huge assist to our gameplay, but he does so well dribbling and finding himself in positions and today, especially in the 1st half, a lot of the time he then went on to find no one with the final ball into the box.

In terms of transfers and contracts. I was pleasantly pleased to see the deadline come and go and him remain at the club. Although the rumoured interest had appeared to have cooled off, it was always a risk that one of the FT sides made a late move. 

Faz has appeared to have some success in the past in convincing players to join/remain with us but this one might be his biggest and most important one yet. We've a small window to try and get him to sign an extension - even if its only to protect the club in terms of a fee. The fee we would get in January will be a fraction of that being quoted in the summer and he will no doubt have interest from those in the league(s) above on a pre-contract.

cc: @Paul Mc on the hope you're still reading the forum and owners can back the manager on this one.

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As I said last season, Gray is a dynamo, with great impact running forward from midfield, but still needs coaching to remind him he's a central midfielder, not a winger or striker, so he needs to learn to see and make passes rather than always try and do it all himself. He's a great individual talent, but it's a team game and a central midfielder's key task is passing the ball. If he adds that to his game, he won't be with us long.

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Ryan Wallace is forever going mental at Gray for not releasing the ball at the right time or choosing the wrong option but everything else Gray brings to the team raises our level. If he starts learning that final pass this year I think he could slot into a Championship squad next summer but right now that will stop him going higher. He's a joy to watch though, his ability to breeze past 2 or 3 players like they aren't there is unrivalled. 

Really like to see how the team does with everyone fit. The defence will pick itself but a midfield of Malcolm, Gray and Hilton excites me and I'm hopeful two intelligent players like Ruth and Ryan Wallace can hit it off up top. Mental to think our best 11 doesn't contain Kalvin Orsi who nobody wanted to see leave in the summer, but here we are struggling to fit him in. 

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Just home from the DFC quiz night.

First one in several years because of various things going on, including the *virus of unknown origin.*

Good turnout of teams, including from both the players and the management. Guys work during the week, train and play football on a Saturday. They didnt need to give up their Saturday evening to support a club event, but they did. We havent seen that kind of engagement from players since the days of Andy Graham and Bryan Prunty. An enjoyable evening and good to see events happening at the club.

Made even better on the back of taking all 3 points this afternoon.

Edited by BallochSonsFan
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11 minutes ago, BallochSonsFan said:

Just home from the DFC quiz night.

First one in several years because of various things going on, including the *virus of unknown origin.*

Good turnout of teams, including from both the players and the management. Guys work during the week, train and play football on a Saturday. They didnt need to give up their Saturday evening to support a club event, but they did. We havent seen that kind of engagement from players since the days of Andy Graham and Bryan Prunty. An enjoyable evening and good to see events happening at the club.

Made even better on the back of taking all 3 points this afternoon.

"Unknown origin "?

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8 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

According to the preview for tomorrow's Challenge Cup tie with Kelty, our visitors have a striker who scored 83 goals last season for Bo'ness.  WTF ??

Bo'ness Athletic (East of Scotland third division) rather than Bo'ness United (Lowland league).

Still an impressive tally.

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