Julian Banjos

Not too far away at all then. 250 pledgers to get their direct debit details in (£60,000 over 2 years) and about 40 more needed for the '87 club (£120,000).

From the 10,000 hours update a month ago: http://www.10000hours.org/news/129-10000hours-update The Fan base needs to demonstrate that in monthly subscriptions or one off donations it can raise £250,000 in the next two years, basically the same as just over 1000 £10 per month members The 87 Club needs to be fully subscribed with 87 Members. To reach £250,000 on the tenner a month scheme, they need (by my calculations) 1042 pledgers. According to the website, 1027 have pledged so far, so that's almost in place. Should just be a case of chasing everyone up to get the direct debit forms in. Seems that it's going to come down to getting 87 businesses / individuals to pay £3000.

Just did a wee bit of research on the fate of all the Scottish clubs who have gone into admin. r*ngers would be the 5th in the SPL and 8th in total. SPL clubs: 2002 - Motherwell £11million debt (weren't relegated due to league restructuring) 2003 - Dundee £23 million debt (relegated 2 years later, administration again 7 years later) 2004 - Livingston £3.5 million (relegated following season, administration again 5 years later) 2008 - Gretna £4 million (liquidated) The other Scottish clubs who went into administration were: 2000 - Morton ?? debt (went from 1st to 3rd division in 2 seasons; took 6 years to get back to the 1st division) 2000 - Clydebank ?? debt (administrators sold club to Jim Ballantyne and he turned them into Airdrie Utd) 2002 - Airdrie £3 million debt (liquidated) So out of 7 clubs, 3 disappeared and 4 were relegated (if you include Motherwell who should have been). Even if r*ngers survive, we're probably looking at 5, 10 years of c*ltic dominance. Irony is r*ngers being in dire straits will slowly drag their ugly sister down with them as fewer decent players will want to come and play in an uncompetitive league, and fans will lose interest.

Once c*ltic fans get over today's gloating the time will come when they realise that if r*ngers go, Sky goes, if Sky goes, all c*ltic's high earners go, if all c*ltic's high earners go, their fans start to go.... I think we can be delighted though! "New r*ngers" in SFL3 and no Sky money presents a great opportunity for Scottish football to be re-structured in the way that most football fans want. 16 team league, summer football, sensible ticket pricing and whatever else. Might be a few years pain for everyone in the process (perhaps disaster for the likes of Killie), but something radical has to happen to sort the game out in Scotland, and this may well be the start of it.

Funny thing wit Brealey is, the BBC saved us by doing their show before he could buy us. This time they're 6 months late!

Danny Lennon interview on the official site suggests that we'll probably not have more than 2 new players coming in to the club - left back and wide midfielder. “It is no hidden secret that we still need a left back, I’m also looking for a wider midfield player and possibly another striker although I don’t feel that is a priority at this minute in time. We do have a few targets and I’m working the way down my list and see where it takes us. Three of the players we have identified are presently attached to other football clubs so we’ll have to see how they work out for us." 3 players attached to clubs? Scobbie, Carey & one other?

Rumour has it that Porter is to sign for Killie.

Queens' fan on P&B saying that Bob Harris is going down south for a trial with a Championship side. If that doesn't work out, he'd do for left back.

Another ex-SPL striker looking for a club is Jamie Mole. Hasn't been great during his loan spells in the 1st, but I wouldn't be all that surprised if we (or another bottom 6 club) took him on trial before the start of the season.

36 goals in 108 starts.

Picking up one injury a few months ago is a bit different from being 'injury prone'. Injury prone players don't make 250 career appearances before their 27th birthday. Here's his crap goalscoring record: 04/05 - 27 goals in 1st division (Falkirk) 05/06 - 9 goals in SPL; 3 goals in Championship (Falkirk; Hull) 06/07 - 1 goal in Championship; 5 goals in League 1; 5 goals in League 2 (Hull; Hartlepool; Swansea) 07/08 - 2 goals in League 1 (Swansea) 08/09 - 14 goals in League 1 (Bristol Rovers) 09/10 - 7 goals in League 1 (Bristol Rovers) 10/11 - 0 goals Last season didn't work out for him, but he's consistently scored goals at a good level. Actually amazing how many he has managed to score, because he hasn't had the chance to settle anywhere. We're kidding ourselves on if we think the likes of Hasselbaink, Barrowman or McAllister are better options than Duffy. Guy's got a good pedigree and would be a good signing for most SPL clubs. He only made 4 starts for Hibs FFS; hardly fair to look at that and ignore the rest of his career. What about a comparison to Steven Thompson? Thompson's 5 years older and has scored 89 career goals; Duffy has 73.

177 appearances for 6 different clubs since he left Falkirk 5 years ago. He's hardly had any injuries.

Mentioned it before, but what about Darryl Duffy? Linked today to St Johnstone and Carlisle. Thompson/Duffy as a St Mirren strikeforce.....

Darryl Duffy was on that Blue Heaven programme last night. He's a free agent after leaving Bristol Rovers. Was on loan at Hibs last season, but picked up an injury and didn't feature much. He's had a bit of a nomadic career, but I'd be happy to see him sign if McAllister isn't interested in coming. In fact I'd take him over McAllister in any case. Was linked to St Johnstone a couple of weeks ago, but hasn't signed for anyone yet.

From listening to the interview on the radio, it does sound positive... To me the key point is that, by becoming a CIC, the club's future should be secure forever. Nobody will ever be able to come in, buy the club, sell off our assets and walk away. To me that's a huge thing. Love the idea of integrating the club into the surrounding community and having the stadium in use every day of the week. Hopefully it should encourage more people through the turnstiles. However, there are a lot of questions still to be answered. RA said funding comes from various organisations who specifically fund CICs. Who are they & will they fund us indefinitely? Similarly, there are the local companies mentioned on the website who are potentially putting in £10K a year. Is their money critical? What happens if half of them decide to pull the plug after a year or if we were to be outside the SPL?

Great service this. Live updates from matches, all the official website news, on this day, etc, etc. Even got a message a couple minutes ago to say the rain stayed off for the team photo shoot this morning! Well done to whoever's updating it? Holly?

Confirmed by Gus in the PDE. Says that's all there is to it though.

Different guy!

We're taking a young centre half called Terry Nutkins to Italy as a trialist. Was released by Oldham a few weeks ago. I guess that he might be a replacement for McAusland.

700K it was.

I had a nightmare last night that we sold Andy Dorman to Dundee United..........

Essentially, a deal had been agreed and this f**kwit Harte then phones up the manager from the side of the motorway asking for more money. The club is hardly to blame for this. Okay, it was daft to release the story on the website, but you can't legislate for what Harte has done. The guy is a prick. No surprise to see billyg sticking the boot into the club when given half a chance. Yawn.

So he was driving up from England this morning and pulled over in Gretna, phoned MacPherson and told him that he wasn't coming after all. Looks like he's wants to stay in England with his family. Oh well.....

Interesting, though I don't think there's any doubt that his agent has alerted the media to try and coax bigger clubs than us into offering him a contract. Would be a good signing, but we'll see how it plays out.

Well he is the joint top goalscorer this season (along with Miranda & Corcoran) and has won us 6 points with his winners against Falkirk and Gretna. Unfortunately, I'd be surprised if he manages more than half a dozen this season. If they're all winning goals though then they could keep us up.