Toby

This can only be seen as good news, any tickets I’ve bought through fan base have been a piece of piss to buy. Now work towards binning the security company.

Raith qualified by winning the League Cup in 1994. That route was blocked years ago, costing St. Mirren a place in Europe in 2013, whilst Scottish Cup runners-up Hibs qualified and proceeded to lose 0-9 to Malmo, which was a real shame all round.

I’ll take that as the only consolation from a fucking horrible evening.

I’ll be absolutely delighted if you prove me wrong on this one.

Worth noting that if Rangers and Celtic are paired together in tonight’s semi-final draw, one of Ayr, Falkirk or Inverness is guaranteed to be in the group stages of the Conference League at worst. The financial advantage this could give one of them in the Championship next season doesn’t bear thinking about and a Celtic v Rangers bunfight in the final is for once the best case scenario. Imagine qualifying for Europe and clearing all the debts accumulated during your banter years by beating Wick, Alloa, Darvel, Ayr and Inverness? That’s an absolute nightmare scenario.

Whilst the McKinnon thing was a big story at the time, I’d say opinion on him has softened from venom to mocking. His fortunes at Falkirk were so bad, and so delightful for us, that he’s now the ultimate joke figure to us. Tiffoney I said in my match preview doesn’t attract quite the same disdain as Graham, and in spite of his behaviour yesterday, I stand by that. Graham’s the one active former player who I dislike above all others I’d say. McGinty’s crime was that he was utter shite, and I suppose you could give him a hard time for his stupid red card against Arbroath that rules him out of the play-offs, but let’s be honest, he did us a favour there. He got his moment of glory the other night and enjoyed it, but he won’t always have it so good. There’ll be another blunder round the corner, hopefully against us. Tidser blotted his copybook in much the way Tommy Turner did. I’ve probably mellowed towards him in recent years because he didn’t do anything for those tramps, but he still left us to go there, so gives up any kudos he might have had after leaving because of his destination. O’Ware’s a cock. I don’t recall ever having any significant exchanges with him, but he strikes me as the sort of guy I’d hate to share a room with. I’m glad to see him showing a bit of contrition about how he left Morton, but worry he’s trying to weasel his way back, and suspect his agent may have sounded Dougie out. Hopefully their 6-1 schooling yesterday is off-putting enough. It’s nearly five years since I did the poll about the most hated ex-Morton player, which was won by James Grady, pipping Dean Matthew Keenan to the post. Keenan still takes first place in my eyes though. I suspect Graham would be further up the rankings now, though.

Can’t remember anything about that game, happy to be corrected. Although I don’t accept the team would’ve been booed off. Unless he’s mistaking it for something the officials had done, like Dougie last week. Here ends all comparisons between Dougie and O’Ware, though.

Think the main conclusion I can take from that is that Steve Evans is an absolute bell, but I doubt anyone would’ve contested that before watching the interview. Interesting to see O’Ware referring to the big bad Morton fans booing them off the park at half time when leading Queen of the South 3-0. When was this? Anyone got any ideas? The only time I remember having a resounding lead over them in that period was the 5-0 win at Palmerston the week before the semi final when we were all on cloud nine. I take it as a bit of a compliment that we’re a demanding bunch, but I’m absolutely calling bullshit on that one.

Good read, this.

Nice to see Ross Forbes is still doing bits. Hope he’s having a lovely time of it.

This was absolutely the main reason the atmosphere was flat in comparison to most home games. I wasn’t a big fan of the idea of a drum when it was first spoken about, but it really has helped improve the atmosphere at Cappielow in recent years, and fair play to the boys that bring it. To be fair to Dougie, he might have been wrong on this one (I actually remember thinking at the time the booing could’ve been misconstrued as being directed at the team), but there’s more than enough credit in the bank that he can moan about whatever he wants. Heaven help someone like Gus or Hopkin if they tried it though.

Ricky Little will miss their game against us at Gayfield now, with them sitting out next weekend due to the cup quarter finals. Assuming he doesn’t win any appeal of course.

To put it into context, we were bemoaning a debt of £2 million to the Raes after 20 years of overspending by them. £3,471,000 over a six year period. Dig out the dancing shoes.

Inverness’s accounts are due to be published very soon. That should be some laugh.

There’s definitely an element of misbehaviour amongst the kids, there’s no doubt about that. And there’s been too many incidents of chips etc. being thrown down at adults in the back of the shed too, which has resulted in folk having to be held back, and that very often contradicts our appeals for leniency with them. But I feel it’s the kids, rather than the stewards’ behaviours that are reactionary in the main. Treat a kid like a brat and he’ll behave like a brat. And if we look at the stewarding thread, there are plenty of adults that have been treated with utter contempt by these folk. I don’t accept that we should expect to be paying more for a higher standard of steward either. You shouldn’t need an SIA badge to understand the importance of good customer service skills in a role in which you’re working with the public- we’re asking for the bare minimum, here. And leadership comes from the top. I don’t know the match commander at Cappielow, but the example set by the most prominent steward is, on the occasion of almost every home game, absolutely appalling and will only rub off on her staff.