Do We Deserve Top Tier Football?....

[Wrong Planet]

We deserve top flight football more than some Championship/League 1 cheating basturts I could mention. While we were meeting every stadium criteria going - safety exits, new stands, USH, 10,000 seats - and not spending money on players, Falkirk were allowing Brockville to crumble and were signing Simon Stainrod, Kevin McAllister and others. Dunfermline were acting like Man City wannabees. Dundee thought they were the Harlem Globetrotters. Gretna 'lived the dream', Livingston finished third, won a cup, played in Europe.... all paid for by Carol Vorderman's Ocean Finance.

Now they are 'ambitious' and we should step aside?

Clears throat... Fires up the Shullmobile... FCUK UM!

Excellent points Pozbaird, I remembered the Under Soil Heating debacle all too well, but your reminders of those other areas of 'compliance' (which then changed with the wind!) together with some of the antics of our 'would be replacements' really hammers home the argument (over and above the simplistic fact and obvious point that we have avoided relegation in the 8 years so end of!). As Drew reasonably noted 'we remain (for now) in the top tier on merit. It has been seat of the pants stuff at times, but so it goes.'

[ged62]

Do you think these stats show Lennon in a great light?

No but show's he's something that rhymes with light!

[faraway saint]

No but show's he's something that rhymes with light!

Bright?

[ged62]

Bright?

Yeh it might lol

[faraway saint]

Yeh it might lol

Patronising cnut.

[ged62]

Patronising cnut.

Night!

[the digger]

So anyone who has gone home and away through all the Gus and Danny years has seen the opposition score 151 times more than St Mirren?

Those fans deserve top flight football more than anyone!

[The Stickroth Fanclub]

I think that we deserve to be in the league until results tell us otherwise. I think for a club whose fanbase would triple if folk supported the club from the town in which they were born instead of glory hunting with the ugly sisters then we're doing OK. Arguably Partick Thistle suffer much like ourselves in that respect. I've said it before but I'd prefer an acceptance of our limitations and be fiercely proud of what we have achieved just to survive. Home games would be more enjoyable without all the negativity.

The bigger argument is the scandal of the SFA and people like Doncaster and Regan are running the league. It's an on-going shambles and have proven they are inept and unfit for positions of responsibility.

[BuddyHolly9]

As bad as any stats look league position is what determines the league you play in. Hamilton & Dundee (top of the first - championship sounds so bad) have had there chance in the SPL recently and over the course of a league season - we were better.

I remember a hack in the rag that is the record saying something similar about Saints at the start of the year we actually finished 8th and played some very very good football saying we had no right to be there. Right is earned and by one way or another we earned it.

[Stuart Dickson]

We deserve top flight football more than some Championship/League 1 cheating basturts I could mention. While we were meeting every stadium criteria going - safety exits, new stands, USH, 10,000 seats - and not spending money on players, Falkirk were allowing Brockville to crumble and were signing Simon Stainrod, Kevin McAllister and others. Dunfermline were acting like Man City wannabees. Dundee thought they were the Harlem Globetrotters. Gretna 'lived the dream', Livingston finished third, won a cup, played in Europe.... all paid for by Carol Vorderman's Ocean Finance.

Now they are 'ambitious' and we should step aside?

Clears throat... Fires up the Shullmobile... FCUK UM!

Oh Poz, you are rewriting history again and dressing it up as something it wasn't. You appear to have forgotten that it was St Mirren who cast the single vote that brought the SPL into existence, along with it's 10,000 minimum seat criteria and left it open for top teams to set up protectionist measures like USH to prevent teams coming up from lower leagues having the capability to compete with the incumbent clubs. It was an anti competition move by clubs like St Mirren that effectively ended the opportunity for clubs like Stranraer, Berwick Rangers, Montrose, Cowdenbeath and East Fife to ever achieve top flight status given that each of those clubs would have had to have attracted more than their entire local population of males to fill their seats. It should also have prevented Ross County from taking their spot in the top flight given that even with the modified rules they need more than 100% of their local residents to attend matches to fill every seat in their ground. So it's more than a bit ridiculous when a St Mirren supporter bleats about how unfair it all was.

That said I have to agree that St Mirren deserve their top flight status. They may well have been protected in recent years by the SPL's limiting of promotion and relegation spots to just one place and it may well be that this season St Mirren are undone by the prospect of a second team being promoted but the league rules are what they are and St Mirren, so far, have been able to maintain their place in the top flight fair and square.

For me any disappointment the supporters have in their team should come from the fact that with one of the longest serving board of directors in Scottish Football that more has not been done to advance the club on the field. Ambition has been limited to being just one place above relegation for too long now and there seems to be no understanding and no idea of how to increase the clubs fan base beyond the circa 3,000 hardcore supporters the club has had since the late 80's. You'd think that over the course of 17 years the club would be showing signs of advancement in all area's by now, especially since they sold the clubs historical home.

[Bud the Baker]

Yes - but you'd have to admit that in a league less focussed on self preservation (sic) we may not have lasted so long and as the song goes - there may be trouble ahead!

[Gruffalo]

Oh Poz, you are rewriting history again and dressing it up as something it wasn't. You appear to have forgotten that it was St Mirren who cast the single vote that brought the SPL into existence, along with it's 10,000 minimum seat criteria and left it open for top teams to set up protectionist measures like USH to prevent teams coming up from lower leagues having the capability to compete with the incumbent clubs. It was an anti

So let me get this straight that the whole concept of the SPL was voted by only St Mirren. No one else got a vote.

Interesting concept on the principals of democracy and voting.

[Howard Hughes in BlueSuedeShoes]

This is all that matters:-

if we manage to scrape by with enough points to stay up every season then we've earned our right to be in the top league.

[Seaside Nipper]

Top Tier football.................yup, we are where we are on merit.

Slight off topic gripe, but I couldn't help notice that last night a 'top tier game ' and a championship game just about aggregated 3,000 supporters across the two fixtures.

Pretty desperate and kind of sums the game up in Scotland. Top Tier and Championship football in Scotland, ..............of little ongoing appeal, worrying for the future tbh.

[Simon_Towel]

Yes

[Katie Bear]

We were talking about this League Cup Final Day.

Aberdeen fans arrange a card display and they have almost full participation and the opposition fans literally saying "f*****g hell that's amazing"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzXdY7Hir-I#t=63

.....Both our neanderthal Glaswegian neighbours do it regularly despite not having fully formed hands and 70% unable to read the instructions on the cards.

Motherwell managed it

Killie managed it

But when someone got off their arse and tried to do the same for our Cup Final appearance we had page afer page of moaning gits saying.... I want my hands free to clap my team out....I don't want to hold up a piece of card ......I.......I.....I.....

...and there aren't many pictures because frankly so many people couldn't be arsed it didn't come off.

Based on this little comparison I'd say Yes we have the whingiest moaning faced bunch of fans out who are happy to cry tears of joy on the great days but are a bit too quick with the Booooooos when it's going wrong......so maybe we don't deserve it?

6 games left ....4 of 'em home
Players......Fans.....Come on give it some Welly !!!!!
Let's deserve that SPL place together.

[bluto]

We were talking about this League Cup Final Day.

Aberdeen fans arrange a card display and they have almost full participation and the opposition fans literally saying "f*****g hell that's amazing"

.....Both our neanderthal Glaswegian neighbours do it regularly despite not having fully formed hands and 70% unable to read the instructions on the cards.

Motherwell managed it

well.jpg

Killie managed it

killie card.jpg

But when someone got off their arse and tried to do the same for our Cup Final appearance we had page afer page of moaning gits saying.... I want my hands free to clap my team out....I don't want to hold up a piece of card ......I.......I.....I.....

...and there aren't many pictures because frankly so many people couldn't be arsed it didn't come off.

Based on this little comparison I'd say Yes we have the whingiest moaning faced bunch of fans out who are happy to cry tears of joy on the great days but are a bit too quick with the Booooooos when it's going wrong......so maybe we don't deserve it?

6 games left ....4 of 'em home

Players......Fans.....Come on give it some Welly !!!!!

Let's deserve that SPL place together.

To be fair, I think the biggest weakness of a Saints display is that black just disnae show up for it. The white looks fine but you needed a block of some other distinct colour for an impression to be made.

[shull]

Card displays are for jessies.

CLAP YIR HAUNS IF YOU'RE A ST MIRREN FAN

[Katie Bear]

To be fair, I think the biggest weakness of a Saints display is that black just disnae show up for it. The white looks fine but you needed a block of some other distinct colour for an impression to be made.

You think?....there's no more fans in these sections pictured at Juventus and Newcastle than we took to Hampden....even come Cup Finals we have fans who just cannot be arsed then demand 100% from players.

The Supra guys efforts might look a bit cringey sometimes on the scale they can manage but I applaud their pure daft passion.

[bluto]

Juve and Newkie regularly have massed fans - they are in the habit of trying this, have been 'trained'. Saints big occasions, coming together as Buddies and doing the right thing are rather less regular. Are hit and miss...

Those displays you show.... have discrete splodges of black, hemmed in by white.... And my aged memory thinks the attempted Saints displays did not do that...?

I, for one, applauded the enthusiasm of the Supras.

[pozbaird]

We were talking about this League Cup Final Day.

Aberdeen fans arrange a card display and they have almost full participation and the opposition fans literally saying "f*****g hell that's amazing"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzXdY7Hir-I#t=63

.....Both our neanderthal Glaswegian neighbours do it regularly despite not having fully formed hands and 70% unable to read the instructions on the cards.

Motherwell managed it

well.jpg

Killie managed it

killie card.jpg

But when someone got off their arse and tried to do the same for our Cup Final appearance we had page afer page of moaning gits saying.... I want my hands free to clap my team out....I don't want to hold up a piece of card ......I.......I.....I.....

...and there aren't many pictures because frankly so many people couldn't be arsed it didn't come off.

Based on this little comparison I'd say Yes we have the whingiest moaning faced bunch of fans out who are happy to cry tears of joy on the great days but are a bit too quick with the Booooooos when it's going wrong......so maybe we don't deserve it?

6 games left ....4 of 'em home

Players......Fans.....Come on give it some Welly !!!!!

Let's deserve that SPL place together.

Here's a photo I took from my seat at Hampden. I thought it was a good effort and did create a 'chequered' effect. Sometimes I wonder why we try to be like other clubs - like Aberdeen with their Red Ultras displays (look on the internet for their home European display - it was astounding), or like Johnny Foreigner clubs who also go in for orchestrated displays, or have blokes with loudhailers acting like demented cheerleaders.

We are a bit like St Johnstone or any number of other smaller clubs. Restrained, a bit low-key, Paisley folk are, well, Paisley folk, and I'm proud to be one.... but we don't really do grand gestures and go about our own business. There's nothing wrong with that. It's our identity, just because it isn't loud and brash doesn't make it bad. As a support we have had our days in cup finals, and Europe, semi finals and big games like the relegation battles at Falkirk and Motherwell away - and we still talk about how good the atmosphere was at those games - without card displays.

If we had a much bigger support, if we had a much bigger bunch of guys and gals able to organise these displays, if they had some money to do stuff, if the club got behind it, if our colours were brighter!, and if it was much better advertised and promoted as happening ahead of any big game - it might work better. It's no reflection on those who did the display on March 17 2013 - I absolutely applaud them for their time and effort. I held up my card in one hand and took this pic with the other.... I think it would have looked pretty good from the Hearts end.

Edited April 3, 2014 by pozbaird

[bluto]

Hmmmm.

Can't even see a black sheet of paper, anywhere.

Were there any, Poz?

Also... In the Juve, Newkie, Dons displays....

Did they only have flimsy A4 sheets or bigger, more substantial Cards?

[pozbaird]

Hmmmm.

Can't even see a black sheet of paper, anywhere.

Were there any, Poz?

Also... In the Juve, Newkie, Dons displays....

Did they only have flimsy A4 sheets or bigger, more substantial Cards?

There were only white cards at our LC final. The Newcastle fans messed up their display. It was supposed to read 'Mike Ashley is a cnut'.

[faraway saint]

Juve and Newkie regularly have massed fans - they are in the habit of trying this, have been 'trained'. Saints big occasions, coming together as Buddies and doing the right thing are rather less regular. Are hit and miss...

Those displays you show.... have discrete splodges of black, hemmed in by white.... And my aged memory thinks the attempted Saints displays did not do that...?

I, for one, applauded the enthusiasm of the Supras.

You would have been better holding up a card.

[bluto]

You would have been better holding up a card.

I must have been 'in the black' that w/e.

You could probably have SEEN me on your magic radio.

Edited April 3, 2014 by bluto