🦄 Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 v 🇬🇪 Georgia 🐺

[Skyline Drifter]

25 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

The forks appeared about 10 minutes before the match restarted. There was clearly none in the stadium, only squeegees, and they obviously had to either go and buy some, or go to another sporting venue to borrow them. Fucking amateur imo.

Yes, we were debating whether they'd found a late night B&Q to go buy some stuff when more volunteers came out or if they'd got some from Celtic Park, or Ibrox or Firhill, or a local cricket club / bowling club, or what.

It's incredible that a grass pitch venue wouldn't have some forks etc on the premises but I've no idea how it worked with these hybrid pitches now which are partly artificial.

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

My only (very slight) disappointment about last night is that we didn't win by more goals.

There must have been at least 4 or 5 occasions where the ball was flashed across the goalmouth with no one on the end of it.

McGinn sitter

McTominay effort (which in fairness was a great save).

Porteous sitter

With more clinical finishing we could easily have scored 5 or more last night. Clearly it didn't matter, but we will play better teams than Georgia and will need to be better in that area.

All that said.....still buzzin'. 

[kennie makevin]

23 minutes ago, Willie adie said:

I remember the days when our squad was featuring 

Leighton, malpas, McLeish Miller Gough. Mcstay, Aitken, Johnston, McCoist,  that era when if they didn't play we had

Goram, Nicol,  Narey, Gillespie, Narey,  Bett, McCall,   the only area we were short of cover for was up front.

Sharp, Gray, McClair, McInally, were poor for Scotland 

I remember those days too....much, much better now.  This might possibly be the best Scotland squad since I was first old enough to pay attention (1969). What we do have, without doubt , is the best Scotland manager since the national team started having a manager.

[Skyline Drifter]

2 minutes ago, forameus said:

I echo the comments on the ground-staff.  Viaplay were repeatedly giving them praise, which I guess is OK as they got the game on, but the whole process seemed totally amateurish.  Gathering together what seemed like one actual groundsman and seven volunteers when the pitch looked like the North Sea wasn't a great start, but there didn't seem to be much of a plan as to what they were going to do to clear it all.  I'm no groundsman (and looking at the grass I'm responsible for, good fucking riddance) but surely if you're clearing water, you start in the middle and work your way out?  Instead it seemed like they concentrated on the goalmouths several times, presumably as they had just gathered more water from other efforts.  And as others have said, a few people just sort of standing around useless as one guy did most of the work.  Then getting ballboys on, giving them brushes bigger than they were, and having them do largely nothing.  Then only just getting forks out with minutes to go.  

For all that our on-pitch stuff has been fantastic for a while now, the SFA keeps trying to remind us that they're absolutely fucking hopeless at pretty much everything else.

I think they concentrated on the goalmouths because they were both quite clearly the areas of greatest concern (and also the touchline in front of the dugouts) and where the referees had told them needed further work. That's both because that's where the important action happens and bad bounces, balls stopping in puddles, are FAR more important, and because goalmouths tend to be where most footfall is and therefore where the ground is most compacted and drains less well (also true to an extent of the area of pitch nearest the tunnel / subs benches).

I've no issue with concentrating on the worst parts first. That's 100% what they needed to do. But having people randomly decide what direction to sweep off, going across one another, sweeping water into parts already swept clear, not all moving together, complete shambles. Someone needed to actually take charge of the operation and direct it.

And the ballboys were absolutely for show. Fair play to them but the brushes were near useless and, to the extent they might have had some use, surely better to get a dozen adults to do it. If the staff were all too busy elsewhere then I expect they could have easily asked the nearest section of crowd to step forward with a dozen twenty something, fit (and sober) adult volunteers for it.

[2426255]

Probably the most enjoyable performance from the team in this campaign so far. Things went for us last night, can't believe Georgia didn't score - but we played some nice football, had good enough control of the game etc. I think that's us qualified now so happy with that and should hopefully just be a stress free end to the campaign.

It's an exciting time to be a Scotland fan because we are on the up. Won't last forever so best to enjoy it!

Edited June 21, 2023 by 2426255

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

52 minutes ago, Clangers said:

I managed to get away with that twice watching The Tour, first time in Annecy, “the French Alps would make a great holiday, watched 3 stages! Then the next year in the South.

Funny enough this morning I sent her a villa about 45min from Lille as a suggestion for our October holiday, she knows the cycling won’t be on so I suspect I will get away with it!

I have taken a different approach after last night.

 

'We are going to Germany on holiday next June'  

End of conversation...

[LIVIFOREVER]

2 hours ago, forameus said:

Looking at it purely objectively, I can kind of see where Georgia are coming from.  If that's a club game, it's probably unlikely to start, and definitely not going to resume after 90 minutes of a break.  Pitch was downright dangerous, and could well have led to injuries, no way the ref should have considered that playable at the start.  Had they gone in at 0-0 I imagine there would be reservations about coming back out, but to lose that goal as the last action, I can see why they'd have little desire.  Had the ref gone out at the first inspection and all was good, they probably come out fine too, but to keep getting strung along with the pitch clearly not being ready, I can slightly sympathise with how they're feeling up to the point where the pitch was (finally) playable.  At that point, you're pretty stuck, regardless of feelings.  You either play the game or you forfeit, not really much of an option otherwise.

But on the other hand, it's pretty funny, and they should get fucked.

Definitely wouldn't have gone ahead, nope.

 

We had a game called off minutes before kick off and it wasn't raining at the time, but the ref did a bounce test and the ball wasn't bouncing. Noticed about the 3rd time the ref did a test to decide if it was going ahead last night, he didn't bother bouncing the ball, and just kicked it, knowing it wouldn't bounce.

 

Fair play to the ref, the ground staff, and the fans, for persevering and getting it played, certainly looked a lot better after the restart, and fine by the end of the game. The seethe is an added bonus though, who doesn't love winning a game and the opposition greetin about how unfair it was afterwards.

[Scary Bear]

57 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

To be clear, I don't want to in any way be critical of the guys who put in the efforts to get the pitch playable, both professional groundsmen and willing volunteers. Thank you all for everything you did.

But........... I have to say I thought the clearing of the pitch was an absolute disorganised shambles. Clearly it's a once in a blue moon episode but they didn't have nearly enough squeegee devices to think about clearing a football pitch. There was one guy, presumably an actual groundsman with groundstaff gear on, who single handedly appeared to take more water off the pitch than everyone else added together. They had I think 7 people with squeegees, one of whom was irritating me intensely by leaning on it watching others work for a fair bit of it and then occupied herself squeegeeing the bit BEHIND the net where I'm pretty sure not a lot of football was likely to be played!

The brushes were largely a waste of time on grass. The inventive ones who turned them upside down and tried to sweep off with the back of it were achieving a little more. I'm no expert but having seen a few cricket grounds and golf greens cleared over the years, surely the done thing is for everyone to concentrate on one area at a time and line up in a row, moving forward together to sweep excess water away. Instead we had people working on about 4 different areas of the park at once, randomly deciding for themselves what part to sweep, some going diagonally across the line that others were sweeping off the pitch. Not only were they not lining up, they weren't even all sweeping in the same direction. There was absolutely no structure to it. Nor did anyone appear with a fork at any point that I saw, though my mate behind the goal in the East Stand said some people appeared with forks at half time at that end.

The game should clearly never have started. It was pretty obvious as the players were going off from the pre-match warm up that the pitch was gubbed. I actually have a bit of sympathy for Georgia here (not an awful lot granted). Those first 6 minutes were a farce and we grabbed a lead in that period from a goal that was partly affected by a bounce in a puddle. It corrupted the whole game. Pretty sure we'd have beaten them anyway and I now appreciate the rules would have let it stand even if we'd come back tonight but they have every right to feel aggrieved about it.

I saw a couple of guys spiking the pitch at the goal mouth at the West Stand, but that was ages after they had started trying to clear the pitch. Is using forks on wet pitches frowned upon these days?

On the use of the brushes/squeegees to clear the pitch. It did all look a bit disorganised, and some were clearly better at it than others.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

4 minutes ago, 2426255 said:

Things went for us last night, can't believe Georgia didn't score 

I can - they didn’t have a shot on target for 90 minutes, including from the penalty spot. I thought they were absolute dug meat and clearly didn’t want to be there after we scored the 1st. I thought we were in complete control from start to finish.

[The Other Foot]

I'm no forking expert , but surely jabbing holes into the pitch would be far less effective and remove far less water than scooshing it off the pitch with rollers. As they were doing. 

[tarapoa]

Thought Sagnol's interview was gracious.

Called out the shambolic sequence of events, but was very complimentary towards Scotland's performance.

Edited June 21, 2023 by tarapoa

[LIVIFOREVER]

6 minutes ago, The Other Foot said:

I'm no forking expert , but surely jabbing holes into the pitch would be far less effective and remove far less water than scooshing it off the pitch with rollers. As they were doing. 

Think the idea about forking it, is to help drainage so more water doesn't lie, after it gets squeegeed off.

[f_c_dundee]

2 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

The boys should be absolutely proud of the trail of seethe across Europe they've left in their wake.

[TheScarf]

How good is McTominay at arriving late in the box btw.  

[ClydeTon]

1 minute ago, tarapoa said:

Thought Sagnol's interview was gracious.

Called out the shambolic sequence of events, but was very complimentary towards Scotland's performance.

The interview - perhaps gracious

Actions during the pause - hardly respectable

[Self-raising Lazarus]

Anyone got a video of why does it always rain on me last night?

[Bogbrush1903]

Superb from the team but the usual shite from the SFA (F*ck the SFA)

Get the hard copy tickets back on the go and give people an option of either electronic or hard copy because obviously thousands aren't comfortable withe elctronic if they print the ticket.

Or, as in my case, you stupidly forget to download your electronic tickets until you're walking towards the stadium and then find you have to walk away from the stadium in order to get a network signal.

I can't complain too much because we won the game, but I don't think there was any consideration given to the fans that made long treks from the north (or any other direction yesterday), and I still think that those extraordinary act of God monsoon conditions yesterday should've been answered with a postponement of the match around 7pm last night.

However, the incompetence of the governing body shouldn't overshadow the excellence displayed on the pitch during this qualifying campaign from the players and the leadership of Steve Clarke and his team.

I don't want to jinx it but in the immortal words of Arthur Montford and slight paarapharsing, "...and it's Germany here we come!"...well nearly

[ClydeTon]

42 minutes ago, Self-raising Lazarus said:

Anyone got a video of why does it always rain on me last night?

Only the first chorus, 44s - although the noise of the N/W stands fully hit where I was.

Best i've got - second chorus picked up my own voice so was a bit f**ked.

 

[2426255]

2 hours ago, TheScarf said:

The forks appeared about 10 minutes before the match restarted. There was clearly none in the stadium, only squeegees, and they obviously had to either go and buy some, or go to another sporting venue to borrow them.

That's exactly what I thought too. 

[StellarHibee]

Noticed Kevin Thompson was tapping his foot away to Travis last night. Blue-nosed b*****d.

Decent tune though.