rocket_scientist

I agree that McIlroy is underperforming but I don't agree with you recommending centre-shafted nor cack-handed. There are personal preferences and NNF's (Non-Negotiable Fundamentals) in putting. Which weapon we use and grip-type is strictly personal preference. On the latter, McIlroy tried it and it didn't work. The vast majority of best putters even this decade are not cack-handed. His biggest issue this week has been surprisingly poor distance control with his bread-and-butter approaches, particularly his wedges, just shocking.

Agreed. Looks like a very good signing already *fingerscrossedsmiley*

Without McLean and Christie, we have even less options in the middle of the park and that's the area where games get won and lost. It's an indictment of how bad this squad is when a player who largely cheated the fans until he got a move to Norwich and a player who was on a severe declining trend were infinitely better than anything we have to replace them.

I think you should quieten your emotions and stick to the debate. Are you saying he was wrong? On which of the two points?

Most folk would rather be kissed with a lie rather than be slapped with the inconvenient truth. The queue for answers that are simple but wrong always exceeds the line for complex and right, not that complexity itself can be simplified. Gerrard was right. Aberdeen had no idea and they were a class above us. And anyone who can't see this doesn't understand fitba. There is zero doubt that Gerrard will finish above McInnes at the end of the season.

Pathetic performance saved by a teenage debutant. He must be our first choice striker until further notice. Cosgrove has been toilet and May is too, reduced to trying to cheat, claiming for corners that aren't. GMS is a weak weak man. And that cunt is meant to be one of our better footballers. To win games, you need to score goals. We were lucky to get one v. 10 men, our only chance of the 96 minutes.

Unbelievably shocking first half. Ball made a fatal error before Morelos got a (soft) red and then makes another one, totally unnecessarily to hand them a pen. Did McInnes not see the game at Parkhead, the first time he tried him at RB? Cosgrove looking like he needs four on a plate before he gets one. Absolutely zero chances against 10 men not a good sign. Jack strolling through the game.

We did white water rafting today down the River Tummel. My first but will be doing many more. It was awesome. My mate got thrown over within 5 minutes. The wifie (who with her teenage daughter drove up from Berkshire for two nights stay at Pitlochry JUST to do it) got thrown out and the boat went over her. It was scary at times but what a rush. The last double waterfall was 7 metres drop. If you land on one of the many massive rocks the wrong way, broken leg/face/back. Don't wait until your my age to get into it. It's class. Findhorn next.

You're becoming an obstinate pain in the fucking arse. Ever since you lost money being a spastic punter coincidentally. Him "wanting" to sign for Aberdeen isn't relevant. He WOULD have been an Aberdeen player if we were the first club to put up the money, or at least gone straight in to negotiate. You need to clean up your thinking son.

You may not be aware but we were offered Kilnnsman for 20k a week. We know this for fact because the chairman told us, at the first AFC shareholders meeting at the Capitol. He had received a fax that week. For younger posters, a fax was a communication medium that preceded the internet and e-mail. He dismissed it as ludicrous by reason of the exorbitance of the wage demand. Some of us calculated that an extra couple of thousand on the gate MORE than paid for it, let alone other commercial opportunities including shirts but that was effectively the last thing the hapless Ian Donald ever did in an AFC capacity, before being usurped, screwed over and spat into the dirt by an ambitious new director sitting to his right, a certain Stewrat Milne.

May was a hugely promising player once upon a time. We know this from personal bitter experience. He's been thoroughly disappointing for AFC. There are reasons for his performance differential between then and now. If the injury he suffered before we signed him is the principal reason then that's a failure from our management team and specifically our medical specialists. The high foot by Ryan Jack is NOT an excuse. That one wasn't a long termer let alone career-threatening and he'd had enough games for us before then that we could see he was nowhere near his previous excellent standards. If injury is NOT the main reason, then it can only be his lack of discipline/work ethic. Which is a management failing once again. We either recruited a dud or we are managing him into further dudness. One thing is for sure, Stevie May 83 is as much history as our own club's history and as much as his shirt number last year. The boy is fucking murder and he ain't coming back.

The work rate was immense by AFC. I didn't think they had that much desire and fight in them. Well, Shinnie always has but they gave their all and gave us tremendous hope and excitement. The gulf between the two teams was probably best highlighted by three world class saves by Lewis in the 2nd half. He had no right to stop all 3. It was amazing goalkeeping, even better than Murrayfield last September where Lewis was also freakily good. On any other day, at least one of them goes in. GMS flatters to deceive but produced hardly anything telling. McKenna has a lot to learn. Cosgrove was awful. Burnley's winning header was class. No blame to Considine. It was one of those inch-perfect crosses and clinical execution. They deserved the tie. We didn't do enough and didn't deserve it although boy we came close. As close as a great ball in and Stevie May managing to not get anything on it.

What a game to be at! Probably the bestest ever. I've never been to Murrayfield in my life * for sport. Missed the Hearts game last September as was driving up from London but heard the full commentary. Egg-chasing not my ting. 28 years ago though, I'll never forget that game and the most memorable thing about it for me was FoS. I had tingles in the spine and had to work hard on the old tear ducts which were welling up. We Scots don't do emotion, certainly not in public and I was in a heaving Dutch Mill. Edit: just remembered I saw Bowie at Murrayfield. He was shite. China Girl stadium tour. That's not the name but that was his hit at the time.

Was 56 last week, have been playing golf for over 50 years, first watched pro golf in 1968 (Lee Trevino) and have worked in golf for 12 years. So yes, been around the block a bit. It was always too elitist and exclusive before the boom years from the mid 70's, women and children being tolerated but not encouraged.

Whatever promise GS once had, it's long gone. Whether or not it's poor management, who knows but Stevie May was more than promising once upon a time, another one who at AFC under McInnes fails to get anywhere close to the performance levels at their previous clubs.

Totally agree. I like his strength and he links up intelligently. However, in the future time that he has to fully develop, my biggest concern are his feet. That shot he had on Thursday was weak. I don't think he's got a decent shot in him. He may well prove to be good for getting in about the defence and upsetting them but his goals may be restricted to tap-ins and headers. I can't imagine his strike rate will get anywhere close top two thirds of Rooney's and he himself had limitations. Just don't see a striker killer instinct in Cosgrove but he's certainly shown enough that we are right to play him and give him a chance.

I remember a manager who was also working on a strict AFC budget. He didn't fancy much in the market, certainly not older fat pig lazy cunts like Greg Stewart, a perennial journeyman destined to win fuck all his whole career so he went for youth and got into their minds and got them inspired and motivated to work their bollocks off. If you can't buy winners, you have no option but to create your own.

A good manager doesn't sign "reasonable" back up players. An ambitious manager signs only players that he likes. The goal is to have a squad full of good players. Every winning manager knows this. But there are very few managers who win of course. The vast majority are looking to hold on to a wage thus thinking in terms of "reasonable" back-ups. It's when the fans let him off with it when we're really fucked.

If I was McInnes I would sue the Sun for libel. We have had a close look at him. For a whole season. We couldn't possibly be retarded enough to want to sign the useless cunt.

Good question LA, one that the governing bodies are asking too late. I don't think they can do anything quite frankly. It's the people who have changed. The game was always thus.

The column inches is newspapers are telling. Yeah yeah I know, no intelligent people read newspapers these days but I do see them every so often... like tonight in fact. On my way back from day one of the Scottish Amateur at Blairgowrie, and it was looking magnificent by the way, I popped into a pub for one. The P & J had golf coverage, as it always majored on on Tuesdays but if you look at golf inches in the mainstream printed press these days, including the Sunday Times, golf has already been marginalised.

In 1975, the school I had just moved to, Hazlehead Academy, with 1,000 pupils, located next door to a golf course, one of the best in the world, designed by probably THE best golf course architect in history, couldn't raise a 4 man team for the De Beers national school championship because only 3 of us played golf. Golf exploded in the second half of the 70's and it was COLOUR television, that new innovation that helped to boost popularity. It was never a mainstream sport before then but the decline over the last 25/30 years has been steady and consistent, so much so that it will become a marginal sport again unless the governing bodies have the courage to look in the mirror and confront the truth.

Sedentary lifestyles was my principal point, computer games merely one example I gave. You make a good point about green land. We got thrown off every available bit of grass in the city (playing football and golf) but in golf, all the municipal courses are underused and they could get on there. Season passes for kids are still affordable. It's the will to get off their fat obese arses that's preventing them and I totally agree that shite lazy parenting is another contributory factor. We are now seeing the evidence of the slow decline of Scottish golf in the professional ranks just as we are seeing in football of course and both for the exact same reason.

This is particularly relevant. In the 70's when I grew up, kids were actively discouraged by these small men in big committees. There was pressure on use of the course back then because kids wanted to play at the same times as the adults so on Saturdays we had to wait until mid to late afternoon to get on to Hazlehead. Some of the more enterprising of us got out of our beds at 4 am to queue for a time for the mannies when the box opened, for which we got a fiver, an absolute fortune back then. Even the fact that many more kids were playing golf in the 70's and 80's and that they were seen as a nuisance by the golf wanks doesn't touch the problem. Kids will always find a way to scratch their itches. The biggest influencing factor on less kids participating in golf and football has been sedentary lifestyles and the introduction of computer games, the internet and smartphones.

The word "disaster" was mine. That is was a failure is a fact, one acknowledged by the governing body, particularly as the CEO who implemented it is now long gone. That article was published by the implementing party. You know how politics work, right? Participation levels by schoolchildren is now at critcally low levels. The only clubs that have robust junior memberships - and they are very few in Scotland - have so because of the enthusiasm and dedication of local volunteers, often including parents. Plastic oversized clubs in primary school hands for less than half an hour was a box ticking exercise, it cost us (not just golf members but tax-payers too) seven figures and it failed to attract business.