bloo_toon_red

Waste of time. Interesting for me that I was 1 of only 21 to say no to that question. Really is an "idiot's guide to making a polll". Are DST run by idiots?

Delighted for young Smith. Got a really good feeling about him, think he can maybe kick on and give Broon something serious to think about.

Hmm, the definition of "causing" in that quote is extremely dubious in the respect that the crush obviously led to the disaster, but wasn't the only ingredient in the mix. There's little doubt that letting them in resulted in a crush, but that crush wasn't subsequently attenuated as a result of the anti-invasion perimeter fencing which in turn led to people dying, and therefore the bigger disaster. That's to say without the crush there wouldn't have been a disaster, but the crush alone didn't actually cause the disaster, ergo the police didn't directly cause the disaster. They were certainly negligent and perhaps reckless, but in light of the measures and cultural conditions of the day, they weren't solely to blame. I'm being picky I know, but I think it's dangerous to point fingers. I've read a fair bit about crowd safety over the years and I'm separating the actual disaster here from the events of yesterday, though I'm genuinely as repulsed by the lies as the next person (well so long as that person isn't a friend or relative of the 96), but to suggest that the disaster - not the lies - was the police's fault is just plain inaccurate in my view.

Are there any hard and fast quotes that suggest that the disaster was caused by the police and emergency services? Because I'm quite astonished if that is the case. The Taylor Report already went through all of this 20 years ago. The disaster, while exacerbated by the poor response and cover-up by the police and emergency services, was absolutely not the sole or root cause of it. The poor crowd control measures implemented at the time in tandem with the barbaric perimeter fencing preventing overspill was the exact root cause of it. Thankfully now sports stadia are safe and a disaster like this can never happen again. You can't apply the rule of law now to the cultural circumstances that existed 23 years ago, but the families can take comfort from the fact that they have been vindicated in the admittance of the poor response/cover-up, which is quite disgusting.

Hear about the thalidomide porn star? Had an arm like a baby's cock.

I have to say I didn't share those high hopes. But for a couple of third-placed finishes with Hearts back in 2003 and 2004, he has achieved very little as a manager to warrant the attention he got. His Hearts and Dundee Utd teams were bruising pug ugly long ball cloggers who made opposing fan's eyes bleed. It seems those same fans looked at Levein the man rather than Levein the footballer and manager. I made the point to whoever would listen at the time of his appointment that in his time as Dundee Utd manager, he didn't once finish above Jimmy Calderwood's Aberdeen and yet Calderwood was derided as a daft option for Scotland manager. Not that I ever touted JC for the job, but what in fact was the criteria for CL's appointment as manager? Because he "appears" to be intelligent? Because Dundee Utd were a bogey team for Rangers during his time there? Or perhaps more likely because he "fits the bill" of the hard-nosed-in-the-face-of-criticism-presbyterian-Scot-type that the outdated SFA institution likes.

I don't think the team aspect is strong enough to take away the individual achievement, the TdF is among the most gruelling sporting events around and no UK sportsman has ever won it. Wiggins also won the Olympic Road Race on top of all the other championships and medals he has won over the years. I would love Murray to win it (and I think that he will) but at this moment in time my vote would go for Wiggins. That might change if Murray goes on to with the World Tour Finals in November.

Competitive is all that matters and with 3 single-goal victories against minnows, Levein's record is on a par, and arguably worse, than George Burley's.

The players really appear unmotivated, it's just very painful to watch.

He is now public enema #1

Stephen Hendry Kenny Dalglish Jocky Wilson Jackie Stewart ?

In my opinion, with the exception perhaps of Kenny Miller, I didn't have any axe to grind with the team selection, nor even the way we were set up to play at the outset. Snodgrass and Naismith were managing to get in about to support Miller in the first half-hour or so and it seemed that there was some kind of a game plan. BUT as the game wore on it became obvious that our players had very little creative freedom. Morrison seemed to be very restricted to performing a particular task he didn't look comfortable about yet he is a player who thrives on getting into good positions. Adam was just utterly dreadful and his delivery from set plays was abysmal - it was all just so obvious. Caldwell played well in the anchorman role but in all the midfield "3" were just far too wooden. I do like the look of Jamie Mackie I have to say and I hope he and Rhodes get a chance to start tonight in place of Miller and Adam. I think he's got that bit of physical presence that we need. Miller's number really has to be up now. I would probably also sacrifice Webster in place of Maloney who's been playing very well for Wigan in the past few months, and Hutton deserves to be benched after a pretty miserable performance as well.

How hard would it be to get in excess of 10,000 non-Rangers fans inside Ibrox on a matchday? Serious question.

Anyone get wind of Derek Riordan's incessant winding up of the huns on twitter yesterday? #PennilessArcade Was actually quite humourous.

Resilience, staying power and less emotion. Now is his time to really break the dominance of the Djoker-Fed-Nadal triumverate. Best player in the world at this precise moment, needs to look at what Djokovic in the early part of last year and use that as inspiration. Pwoud, vewy pwoud!

Despite the result there's alot of positives from this U-21 campaign. Some good players have really grown up playing at this level, we need look no further than our own Ryan Jack who seems to have really kicked on since his early involvement with the U-21s. Billy Stark doing a good job with them, it's now a case of getting them top make the next step, Jordan Rhodes seems to have done it. We know about Danny Wilson, Gregg Wylde, Johnny Russell, and now Tony Watt looks like he could be a bit of a player as well.

Fair enough. Well in light of some of the tombola tactics we've had in recent years I've thought the same. But McGinn does appear the most likely candidate for the second striker role. The proof of the pudding for Broon (and for me) will be whether he is satisfied the 4-5-1 cum 4-3-3 is working, or if he changes it in pursuit of goals, which will be a fairly obvious admission that the present system isn't working.

If you can quote me on when I've said anything like that, I'm genuinely happy to clarify any misunderstanding, but because I don't recall ever having said that, then I don't imagine I'll need to. I've made reference within this thread to the fact that AFC are playing in a positive manner, and you yourself have alluded to the fact that: Which is much and such where I'm coming from and is pretty much the same thinking as: So to my mind, you appear to be on the same page as to where my own frustrations are coming from and yet you seem happy to take the above cheap-shot. If McGinn has been signed to play as a striker, can we expect to see a return to something resembling 4-4-2, or will he simply be a straight swap for Fraser in a 4-3-3?

Different in that we are hard to beat, yes. But take the Hearts game where we battered them for the entire second half, and then Andy Driver goes and smacks the post in the last seconds of injury time. Despite our superiority, we make life hard for ourselves by being on the brink - we could just as easily have lost that game as won it. If we had lost that game, it could arguably have been harder to take than if Hearts had dominated, for the simple fact that it's no point dominating a game if you can't do the business. AFC just now are like the John Holmes of the SPL. We've got a massive raging hard-on but we've got AIDS and can't use it, so instead we'll fantasise about what might be and have a good big wank about it.

This is precisely what I fear. The season when we didn't score in the first 6 games is still very very fresh in my mind. We finished in a pretty lowly position that season. Neither. It's all been communicated in my posts but sadly they're being misunderstood despite me taking a bit of time to try and make sure that they wouldn't be. I asked you a bunch of questions in one of my posts and you never made any effort to acknowledge them, instead seizing upon a particular part rather than engaging in the bigger issue of why my own situation is symptomatic of a huge swathe of the Aberdeen support that you appear hell-bent on criticising at every turn. As I say, I don't want to waste any more time on this, it's not too important for me to be able to convince people of my point of view, we should agree that we don't understand each other and move on.

This is getting really old now Padre, get over it. The bit in bold there doesn't actually equate to anything I've said. It doesn't seem that any of my last two posts here has registered with you so I'm wasting my time in trying to make it any more clear and you're now just spamming the board by turning this into Godwin's Law. I even sent a PM to you to alleviate the tension but that's gone over your head as well. Pity. Let's move on.

Yes. Promising young Scottish left-back. So no chance of ever playing for Craig Levein. Always liked him and Tam Scobbie who signed for St Johnstone in the summer.

Typical, as soon as you move down south, yer shergar-anteed to be picked in one of Levein's squads.

Careful now, don't want to laugh yourself horse before the anthems have even started.

Correct. Irony is though that the huns have only served to publicise the book even more. I probably wouldn't have paid any notice to it before but now I'm inclined to give it a whirl. And another thing, I'll bet we'd all here be willing to wager that if the author's name was Phil McGeelavan and not Phil Mac Gioll Bhain, that the sectarian brain donors wouldn't be half as vexed about it.