Tannochsidebear

Most bears seem to be of a similar opinion on this. Win the league comfortably, win the ramsdens cup, no embarrassments in the 2 major cups, but more importantly to play good positive attacking football. A stepping stone to next season when we can buy players, play them from the start of the season, and expectations will be higher. Ally has this season to prove he is taking us forward in terms or results, performances, and preparations for our return to the top flight. I won't be judging this in the first month or two with the restrictions in place, but over the whole season. Sadly, I don't think too many fellow bears will have the same patience if one or two results/performances are poor. I dot pay any attention to friendlies, either results, formations or performances, so I am strangely looking forward to this afternoon at Livvy.

I understand it is all about fleecing the fans out of more dough just when they have spent a few hundred quid on ST renewals, but surely the way to go with this is the way all the "big" clubs are doing it now, with wee tours to far flung places and charging a fee to the host club for us attending. You dont see or hear of Man Utd, Chelsea etc lining up these types of friendlies when they can get far more money from going to Asia or Oz and playing a local side/select team there. Newcastle are hardly marquee either. More likely, just like Bristol and Sheffield Wednesday, we have invited Newcastle because they will sell a few thousand tickets to their punters who fancy a wee trip to Glasgow for a piss-up. Or perhaps this is just something dreamed up by Sports Direct and shoehorned into both teams schedules. With regard to the ST, I renewed with the paper form and there was only an option for all non-league home games, which got you the semi final and final priority.

I am pretty cheesed off that I have bought a ticket for this match simply by renewing my season ticket and wanting my smartcard to be activated for home cup-ties (i.e. competitive games). Unlike previous seasons, I was forced to buy a ticket for home friendlies if I wanted to be automatically activated for home cup ties. So the club get another £13 or so from me, and I now have the guilt trip of thinking I should go because I bought a ticket, when I absolutely hate friendlies and cant think that I have ever seen a good game of football at one. That and from about 50 minutes it becomes a continual substitiution merry-go-round. I am quite looking forward to Sunday when the real action starts, (if a Ramsdens cup-tie against Albion feckin Rovers ever counts as a real game that is) but friendlies cant get my juices running anymore. And while I am on the subject, why the hell are we playing friendlies once the season is well under way. We will have had two cup-ties by the time this non-event comes along. The supposed whole point of pre-season friendlies is to get the team match fit for the start of the season. The German/Dutch/North Scotland tours were the right thing for the team to get ready but come the first game this weekend that should be it.

I think Doncaster got even this wrong. Did McLeish not want only one body running Scottish football? Doncaster appears to say McLeish wanted all the leagues under one body, but we still have 2 bodies running the game.

Thats pretty much my way of thinking on it as well. Only Wallace was a sellable asset from the established first team squad that wanted to stay and see this through. Of the others who stayed, like McCulloch & Alexander, it was probably more because they were getting good money, a guaranteed place, and no offers from elsewhere. Talk of loyalty etc from those 2 only goes a little way towards the truth I think, but they are still miles ahead of the rest of those who f'd off without a second glance.

Warnings dont work with Keevins and his kind. Total life bans for him and Spiers, Guidi et al. Scumbags that have rarely reported fairly on us, and have often deliberately misreported or lied about us. No more tellings off, refuse them club access forever more and see how their bosses like it.

For most of last season I couldn't name the nine teams we were playing. In fact I would probably struggle with it now! I still go to all the games, and enjoy my days out at the football with my mates and seeing the team play, but this "journey" isn't at all glamorous or exciting. Different, yes. Refreshing, at times yes. Exciting, no, not at all. The title is a foregone conclusion before a ball is kicked, so there is no need to be keeping an eye on the opposition as none of the teams are a threat to our season's ambitions of getting through the leagues. In the SPL you would be checking the fixtures for the next few weeks seeing who we have got and who the tims have got and the potential for any slip-ups. Seeing the match report of your next opponents to see if they are on form or not. Seeing who got sent off the week before for the tims next opponents! The best thing about these 3 years out of the top flight is the huge savings us match-going bears are making on ticket prices, and getting to go around the country to the wee grounds you only used to see in cup ties. Standing on the terraces is good as well, as you get into the grounds a wee bit earlier to make sure you get a good spot to view the game from. Stress-free footy I call it, as even if we draw or lose the odd game, the title is not in doubt and it doesn;t ruin your week like it used to in the top flight where every dropped point was a potential title decider.

Is it bad that I had to look up what division Forfar were in, only to see they are actually in our league?

Berra is a decent player for where we are but after 2-3 years would have little to no sell on value. Would also like to see a cull of players who failed last season before adding even more to the wage bill. Cribari, Faure, Argy, all brought very little to the party and we could easily do without them. With Alexander Boca Dorin and Hemmings all away already, if these 3 left as well I would be more at ease. Personally would also move on McCulloch and Black, who both should not be getting into our first 11 this season and are too expensive to be subs, but there is no way Ally is going to do this.

30K at this stage of per-season and before they are even on general sale is quite incredible. Very impressed and if we can get to 35K by August 10th that will be fantastic.

If this is a part of the Sky Sports package then fair enough. If this is a separate subscription package for non bt broadband users, they can forget it. I only subscribe to ESPN for the baseball, so it BT are only going to show Scottish and English footy they wont get any of my money. For BT read Setanta, ESPN, etc. Same old shit with the same old presenters giving the same old crap coverage of crap second choice games.

Done. Interesting survey. I have longed for many years for a club world/euro tournament in a world cup format where all the games are played over a 2-3 week period in the same country. Imagine going on a Euro trip that lasts 2 weeks playing your 3 group games all in Germany or Spain against good opposition, like a world cup but for us club fans as opposed to national teams. That would be a bit special.

I used to be a huge advocate for taking the moral high ground, for always doing things the way Mr Struth would have done. But taking the moral high ground when nobody else has any morals is pointless. Yet I long for the day when we can again ensure our football is morally sound, and we are leading the ethical and moral way as our club always used to do last century.

And another thing on this after reading der Berliners post above. If Hearts want a glamour match to raise funds, surely a derby match against Hibs is the way to go, or failing that surely the, ahem, champions would be the biggest draw? But no, they know who the biggest club in the country is!

This is pretty much my view as well. While I am sure most of us have little or no idea what actually goes on in this role or if he was any good, we all know Weir was the fittest we had and if his first appointment is this guy, it says a lot of his talents in his field.

Nice touch by a former Jambo. While I don't want our club to help hearts in any way shape or form, I have no problem with any of their former players who now play with us wanting to help their former club.

Not a chance we should be getting involved with this. That clubs owner and fans delighted in our troubles. You just have to recall our last match against them to see how much sympathy we got to our plight, a plight they are now enduring themselves. Hearts will still be around as they are a big club, but they should get no help from us and if they have to go down the same route as us, I.e. liquidation of the company and the club restarting in div 3, then so be it. If they manage a CVA and stay in the top flight, fair enough, but not one scrap of help should come their way from us. Talk of the moral high ground is nonsensical, as it has got us absolutely nowhere over the last decade but trodden over. If we have learned anything this last couple of years it is that we have to fight for everything we are going to get, and there are plenty out there trying to stop us at every turn. There are no morals in Scottish football, and here is no high ground either. Our game is entirely in the gutter and we are in no position to change this at this time. Things will have to change when we get back to the top league but for now things are still too sore and raw IMO to try to score brownie points with those who hate us.

Very nice, but somebody has got far too much time on their hands!!

Nowhere does it say we will play 10 games on a Friday night. There are 30 SPL and 10 RFC games in the contract. So we have a quarter of the tv games. Only a handful will be on Friday nights, and of that handful just how many will be Rangers games? I can see one or two games on a Friday night but no more.

Richardcl71

Wouldn't argue over the length of time with you mate, but I had it in my head it was the turn of the year before things got better for him.

I didn't have a ticket for that game as I was still a match to match east enclosure boy in those days. I was walking along PRW towards Ibrox about an hour before kick off to see if I could get a ticket at the ground when I spotted a familiar looking bit of paper on the ground. Imagine my great joy on picking up a piece of gold dust, a west enclosure ticket, right there on the pavement. I obviously had some sympathy for whoever had dropped it, but it was the best bit of luck I think I have ever had!! As for Hateley's comments in the OP, I still dont buy this nonsense he peddles about him getting pelters because the fans thought he was taking Super's spot in the team. He was getting dogs abuse for 6 months of completely crap performances before it clicked for him. There is no harsher jury than the Rangers support and if you come in for big money (a £1M price tag was big money then), you need to hit the ground running, especially when there were proven goalscorers on the bench to make way for his inept, lacklustre performances. He came good in the end as we all know, but I wish he would accept that the Rangers fans know a bit about football and want the best from its players. He wasn't match fit and took a long time to settle in and that was why he was seen as not good enough to be a starter for a large part of that season.

Easy choice for me, Lee Wallace has been the one player of consistent quality this season.

In no terms whatsoever should we accept this. The SPL is a busted flush, run by enemies of Rangers who hate our very existence and kicked us out of their league not even a year ago. Now they have found out that there is only 1 team in Scotland that drives the finances in this country they are trying their damnest to come up with a solution that gets us back into where they need us for their commercial arrangements to have any chance of realising enough monies to keep them all afloat for another year. We do not have the power we need to be able to turn around and tell them we will only come into the league if there is a complete clear-out of all the board memebrs of the SPL, including the CEO, and new blood brought in to run it without any CFC parties involved. We should be able to command the immediate withdrawal of the transfer embargo to allow us to build a team capable of challening in tier 2. There is not a chance in hell that the powers that be will yield such concessions so we should be big and bold enough to tell them to shove it. Our business plan allows us another two years before we are ready for the top tier, and we are not the ones going to go bust (again!) in the next couple fo years. Mnay of these clubs trying to force us into this option are however dangerously close to the chop, and I say we should play our way up and whatever happens to everybody else happens.

Surely if anyone was in any doubt as to whether this reconstruction is viable or not, the fact that Regan is supporting it must be proof that it is totally discredited and that they must vote no.