flyingscot

I thought that was more down to Motherwell just accepting a 1-0 and shutting up shop.

I agree with both of these posts. I didn't really think Harkins was a great signing, although he does have some great bits of skill the way things went at Killie concerned me. He doesn't seem to have a lot of pace and his tracking and defending (esp at Ross County) isn't great. Gowser is more of a grafter (not a he runs about a lot more so is better camp) but McGowan has genuine quality and vision. McGowan could and should be played much further forward but not up top. He is the focal point of our attach and is wasted deep.

This. You'd have to question why foreign owners would get involved if this is true.

Those specialty beers always seem a bit ropey. Had some good ones. Liked Kelburn's Pivo Estivo and had a Kirstall Pale Ale too. Belhaven 60s was good for a 2.9% beer

Technology plays apart but I have real doubts that a public sector monopoly telecoms company would have pushed new tech as much.

I thought it was loosely based on %, with a (understandable) mark-up for the foreign stuff. The weaker stuff is £1.20 a 1/2 and the strong stuff £2.50.

Aye cause the old British Telecom were renowned for their brilliant and cheap service. The brilliant days of party lines and waiting lists for installation to a business starved of investment. I now have a choice of loads of telecoms companies and pay £8 a month for a mobile phone service. If I don't like it there are plenty of other operators out there to move to.

Ulster 12-13 Glasgow What a way to spoil the new Ravenhill revamp opening. Glasgow well under the cosh for last 30 mins but ended the stronger despite being down to 14. James Eddie crossed under the posts in the last minute and Hogg converted for the win with no time to kick off. Brilliant win but a complete robbery!

In all honesty a bit of both. I think Telecoms is the best example of privatisation out there to be honest. Others are variable.

The only privatised business that has done well is Telecoms.

True, but that assumes it's linear. It probably is more complex than that. That's also just looking at away support although looking at Hearts homes support is difficult to do as they've been in crisis. Any cost saving has to increase the home support too and Motherwell proved that the fairweather support wasn't there enough even when tickets went down. We've done similar before. We had offers at Paisley University back even when we were in D1. Interesting to hear Doncaster praising us on the BBC over the Panda Club too (and rightly so the idea is good).

True, but then when we came into the SPL in 2006 I think Saints tickets were £20, and they haven't really changed much have they- whereas with inflation should now probably be £25 or so. I agree that the game is a struggle to convince people to come. Especially as kids now are more used to watching football on TV these days rather than in stands. I can remember being a kid that it was only big games and internationals on TV. Now it is Real/Man U/Dortmund on the TV with football on every day in a way that would be unthinkable 30 years ago. Cheaper tickets would probably help but marketing from both club and league level needs to step up. It costs money but it really produces returns. I've been impressed with some of the effort the SRU have put into marketing rugby in Glasgow. If we take Glasgow rugby as an example in 2007 they got 1600 against Cardiff. Last week they played them and got 5,052. That's despite increasing ticket prices too. Now I accept they are coming from a low base and football is never going to have the same growth possibilities due to the number of clubs / local loyalties / gruesome twosome hoovering up fans but we could do better from a marketing viewpoint, however it costs money. On the point that Last season Hearts charged us something like £24 a ticket at Tynecastle. 366 Saints fans went. Now if we assume half were concessions at half price that is something like £6,500. They reduced it to £5 for our last game, 1044 went making them £5,200. Maybe there is a point where lower prices would make more money but I can't see that being £12.

Looks ropey but again I've seen things like that actually being legal! Nah I've you've got special auth you're good to go and issue fines to drivers. Most won't know anyway- whilst it's easier to get off if it has been decriminalised the police giving you a ticket and you ending up arguing in court is maybe wasting more than £50 notes. Very difficult to actually get a legal box junction on a road network designed centuries ago. If I worked for the council I'd be applying for special authorisation all the time till they changed things a bit. I actually don't like box junctions- think they are ugly.

Correct. I understand why they did it and it make sense, as white markings or keep clear would be ignored. However you can't legally enforce it unless they have been granted special authorisation by Transport Scotland.

It's only £30 and no points for a box junction from memory (unless they've upped it) Plus the box junction at Underwood Road isn't likely to be enforceable they'll give him a ticking off.

If I put my phone near my season ticket it bleeps too. Presumably because the chip in the phone must be picking up the season ticket.

Graeme MacPherson alluded to both being possibly correct. The board comes out and states that but they were never going to say "Naw we're having a meeting to discuss firing him but don't tell anyone till we speak to Danny"

Regression to the mean is a decent logic statistically, like you say. I've used it in accident analysis- you can have a road with 1 or 2 accidents a year, which jumps to 4 or 5 then falls back to its previous background level. Not sure how well it works to a football environment where there are perhaps more variables, year to year. I also find some of the results bounces if they hadn't changed the manager debatable. Not sure McLeish would have got the same signings or results as Lambert has with Villa. Sometimes a change of manager can result in a change of direction- particularly with signings. I can understand the losing the dressing room scenario too. Morale, confidence and leadership come partly from the manager. I've seen situations outside of football where a managers decisions have caused loss of morale and subsequent dips in staff performance down to managerial decisions. Equally if you see colleagues or team mates frozen out, perhaps unjustifiably (Lee Mair?), it is likely to cause concern to others that it might happen to them.

The abuse to Caprice was out of line. I understand the frustration, but to a young kid on his home debut that hadn't done anything wrong in the minutes he'd been on it wasn't acceptable, or helpful to the kid. His reaction told you all. From where I was I saw a few people in front then argued with the guy.

Harkins is a luxury player we cannot afford as he does not do enough work to be in midfield picking up runners.

This comes from the goalkeeper bashing that seemed to start because he took time to settle in during pre-season. He did nothing wrong that whole game and saved us from a bigger hiding. The worst think I heard yesterday was someone in the west stand who told Caprice with 5 minutes left to 'F**k off back to Blackpool'. Caprice absolutely heard it as did the Thistle players by their reaction. Poor lad looked stunned. Guys in front then had an argument with him about it. Grim. Booing at full time is acceptable. We gave the team good support through the game, but the fans want the board/manager and others to know that what we've been seeing is not acceptable.

Yep. Look at the video Dave J posted! You need to take the wheel off to get access to the headlamps. Ridiculous design- took a Green Flag guy over 40 mins to change!

Ha, I'd be amazed if they do the Megane. Wheel off job isn't it? Typical nonsense French design!

Correct Danny deserves praise for winning the cup, without a doubt. It doesn't excuse the work in this year's transfer market which has been awful in my view and he has failed to plug noticeable gaps, particularly up front and in left midfield. Even Grainger came in after pre-season had started. I also think releasing Guy before we had replacement strikers was a mistake. I hope we get things sorted sooner rather than later.

From the radio it sounded like Cornell had been pulling off decent saves all night. I think he is getting an unfair amount of criticism- he didn't seem at all bad last few couple of times I saw him. I'm critical of Lennon but I think a wee bit of a reality check needed at the moment. Tonight wasn't make or break for Lennon, although it is thoroughly disappointing. SPL clubs have hit the rocks at Palmerston before- Hibs last year at the same stage and it was a very tough unseeded team to get. Killie went out at home to Hamilton and Stranraer put 3 past Ross County to win- underdogs do sometimes rise up to beat the 'bigger team'. Lets move on, focus on Saturday and see where we are after that.