bloo_toon_red

I've been keeping reasonably up to date on this by following @alextomo and of course, the skulduggery of huns ought not to be too much of a surprise. However, one thing with this has now come to my mind. It might seem like a bit OTT, but if so many neanderthals can come together to threaten a national newspaper, the biggest selling paper in Scotland and the UK, it is not actually inconceivable that their hate-filled half brains can concoct something altogether more sinister in the near future. It wouldn't surprise me at all if MI5 have an extensive watchlist over a very sizeable number of Rangers fans and supporters groups due to their increasingly erratic, aggressive and threatening behaviour. The more I think of it, it doesn't actually seem that far-fetched.

Incredible

Will we get these puns over and done with this afternoon, or will it turn into a 3-day-event?

I can accept that taken in isolation, it appears to be a small over-reaction, I alluded as much to it in my response to Padre to be fair. Padre, you know that I think you're a top bloke but on this occasion you've made this personal and divisive so I wont let it go by. Have you ever been somewhere and thought, "this is fucking shite, I've paid £x for the privelige, I'd much rather be somewhere else?" If you haven't, you're either a liar or have lived a very sheltered life. So this is where I'm coming from, I'm choosing to pay £23 to go to a game, see no goals, see no victory, see no satisfaction (and it is for me to decide what satisfies me, not anyone else) at the expense of spending time with my daughter, or doing something more productive than "please" myself at a football match. This is the "attitude" of so many guys who have decided to do other things with their Saturday afternoons over the past 15 years of underachievement at AFC. Not ridiculous and not pathetic. Not even close. Not even on the same planet. When you (and that is the collective "you" before anyone turns into a whiny bitch) grow up, you see football, especially shite football, isn't that important in the grand scale of life. Look at the crowd on Saturday. Is every fan who decided not to attend in the wrong in your opinion? Or is it just me who's wrong, because I've chosen to post it here? You've used the sentiment of luck when referring to AFC's profligacy in front of goal. I'll tell you what's lucky, or maybe more accurate, miraculous, is that 9,200 fans are still loyal enough to turn up at a club that has let them down time and time again over a prolonged period of time. I have always said that I do not criticise anyone who chooses not to go to a game for whatever reason, why waste the energy? So, what makes you the authority to suggest that the club wont miss my money? By that logic, if the club doesn't miss my money, then they wont miss the money of the other 11,000 empty seats every week. In which case, the irony is, you are "riled", or maybe more pertinently given your posts on the subject over the past few years, you've a chip on your shoulder about something that, in your opinion, the club isn't bothered about. So why get your knickers in a twist about it? Why waste your breath? What is it that riles you so much? Completely contradictory I'd say, or is there something else? Being apathetic about results in a performance related industry definitely isn't helpful either. Which is it to be? In which case the mantra "be careful what you wish for" has never been so relevant. It's up to us all as individuals what constitutes entertainment or maybe more accurately, satisfaction and for me this is results. Results come first, performances second. As I've said, I am pleased that we've played well, and there are things to be positive about, but I'd rather we were scoring goals and getting results. I have no problem whatsoever with anyone disagreeing with me if they want to debate it fairly and respectfully rather than judgementally and divisively. We can't all be the same otherwise it'd be pretty boring, but we all want the same for AFC and that is for us to be successful. If they can be successful without my £23 for a few weeks, nobody will be happier about it than me. Stand Free.

Fairweather! Meanwhile back in the real world, with far more important things to be thinking about than football I'm not really minded to take much notice of such sweeping statements other than to say that it's disappointed me that you would disrespect the thinking behind it. As a football fan i'm pretty passionate as you well know and the glaring inaccuracy of your comment is as over-reactionary as my own post-match state of mind, which seems to have completely gone over your head. Now you've made it personal, you've also made it divisive. I cannot be criticized for being hacked off that my team isn't scoring. That's just completely fucked up. Yes, there are things to be positive about but acceptance of our impotence is not in my nature at all. My final word on it - and it really is nae other cunt's business, but seeing as the issue has been brought up - with a child due in 3wks, one salary coming in and limited free time on weekends, no reasonably minded person would consider that my not being entertained and choosing to step back for a while is representative of a but feel free to stereotype all you like. No apology needed, your assumed embarrassment is enough. Stand free

It's just fucking shite. We can play like Brazil all we fucking like but putting the ball in the net is what this is all about. No more of my money will go across the turnstile until we start scoring goals. I'm really, really fed up with AFC.

Undeniably the best centre forward in Europe, the sign of a top CF is how easy he makes it look. His 1st touch to kill ivanovic for 3rd goal was perfection, ivanovic's positioning was spot on but no defender in the world can counter forward play like that. Really like the way atletico play, deadly counter-attacking. Arda Turan's nae bad as well.

Absolutely. Rangers at Pittodrie please.

Qpr signed Julio Cesar from Inter only weeks after signing Rob Green. Ryan Stevenson leaving Ipswich with hearts and st Johnstone interested. Worth a look?

Ha, have you read Levein's quote? "being able not to pick commons is a sign of how far we've come"

Apologies for the double post but don't want to keep putting in really long-winded ones! Can't really comment on the other stands as I wasn't personally involved, but they were developed over a period of time, possibly before building standards were tightened up as a result of the Green Guide. I think though that it is possible that the stands may be compartmented (certainly the South Stand/away end), that is to say that if a fire breaks out, it can be contained in one area of the building, and would allow a safe passage of escape in more than one direction. If you look closely next time you're in the RDS, in the upper level concourse where the kiosks are, the large double doors that are almost always open on a matchday, are fire doors and in the event of an evacuation these would be closed to compartmentalise one area of the stand from the other. All really riveting and exciting stuff I know...

The answer is in there ST, and after you read it you'll see it's pretty straightforward. Have a read, it'll be worth it. I'll also add that in keeping Pittodrie as it is, and doing piecemeal alterations like a new roof here, an extra set of toilets there is simply a sink in the club's already depleted resources. It's like living in an old dilapidated house versus a new-build. It's a money pit that we can't afford. Yes, moving is a risk, but it's a risk that will modernise the club.

Make no mistake, I too would much, much prefer that we stay at Pittodrie. But working in the industry and profession that I do, as well as Tom and manc_don, I'm able to take an objective view based upon the facts relating to this particular development which supersedes that of my own desire to stay at Pittodrie. That's not us being patronising, condescending or vitriolic, it's just a basic fact - face it mizer I hold my hands up to the fact that you know much much more about drawing graphs than anyone else here! Plain and simple, it's pretty obvious that there's an absolute ton of stuff that you and many on here don't know about the issues of modern stadia and you really just need to accept that you're wrong. If someone was to build a new shopping centre in the middle of town for example, people would be pretty happy to accept (or at the very least they wouldn't question) that there needs to be a big car park, lifts, sprinkler systems, fire escapes and evacuation procedures for large volumes of people. It's no different in a stadium. If you go to any modern stadium you probably wont notice that there are emergency escapes everywhere, that there are sprinkler systems, that there are service risers, but because you have something here to compare it to, in this case a run down stadium on a constrained site, you are emotionally attached and you don't realise that if there was a fire in the south stand that the only way you can evacuate 6,000 people is on to the pitch and then shoehorn them out through the gate between the main stand and the merkland. You probably don't know that in a modern stadium there are restrictions on how many seats can discharge onto an external stair and then into a vomitory and then into an escape stair. You probably also don't realise that a tiered stand allows larger sections of seats and slightley less vomiotories per tier but that it puts an extra strain on the internal escape stairs, resultantly taking up more internal space within the stand and concourse. These were issues that were raised when I did some work on Hibernian FC's new East Stand which changed halfway through the design process from a two-tiered stand with executive boxes into a single tiered "Kop-style" stand. And I can also tell you that building regulations changed midway through the design process which meant that we needed to re-design the whole thing. If it's difficult for building professionals to keep up, what hope have lay people? Comparitively speaking, it isn't. If for example you were putting a 4m x 4m (or 13ft x 13ft ) it might cost you about £30k. About 25% of that cost is associated with getting stuff onto the site, altering the existing building to prepare for it (knocking down walls, protecting fittings etc) and then making everything good at the end again. But if you bought a house off plan and went to the builder and said you wanted a 4m x 4m sunroom on the back of it, it might cost you £20k, much less because the infrastructure issues are not the same. Using the same logic, if Loirston Stadium is to cost £24m, the cost of completely redeveloping Pittodrie would be in the region of £35m-£40m. Using mortgage speak, with no cash in the bank and no assets to pay for it, this would require a 100%mortgage. Above and beyond the fact that the stadium cannot be redeveloped on the existing site on an economic scale, there's not much in the way of additional land to allow the club to provide extra facilities to generate more income. I think the club were hoping for in the region of £14m - £18m for the land that Pittodrie sits on which would represent a massive "deposit" for the works. They did receive bids, I've seen the drawings for one of them but I have no idea at all as to the financial level the bids went in at. I haven't seen a business plan for the new facilities but I would imagine as part of the feasibility study that there is one relating to the Calder Park/Loirston scheme and that it would show that with these shiny new state of the art facilities the club/Talltray Ltd intends to make £Xm profit per year from it, be that conferencing, events etc. This of course would allow the banks to be in a position to lend the club/Talltray Ltd the extra money it needs to build it. I'm absolutely certain that the feasibility study would show that all of these issues being raised by all here (tunnel under main stand, access to and from South Stand, turning the stadium 90degrees) have been looked at, costed, considered and rejected. If the document was made public then it might put these doubts to rest.

Red shorts FTW!

Took the words right out of my mouth there. There's none so blind as them that wont see. There are no stadiums in the UK that have a capacity of c20,000 that have been built recently (in the last 5 years), that are "hemmed-in", and in accordance with the Green Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds. Let's make this overwhelmingly simple: Who would be happy with a Pittodrie Stadium capacity of around 10,000 people? Because (again...) that's what you'll get in order to meet current regulations. Most of you will be aware of the Hillsborough Disaster and the subsequent Taylor Report. The recommendations which are generally enforced through Building Standards are contained within the Green Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds. Anyone who wants to read this, I have a copy and I can email it to you. It is a weighty document, but only if and when you've read it, and/or worked within a technical discipline within the town planning or construction industry, can you really hold any sort of respected opinion on it, so to be blunt, stop greetin like bairns and accept we have to move. Anyway, I got some info this morning from someone intimately involved in the Calder Park situation relating to the planning decision. Penfold touched upon the issue earlier and it seems to have been pretty much glossed over, but the upshot of it is that the club are not blameless in this situation at all and that there is presently a very strong likelihood that they will re-visit the Loirston scheme again.

City and Shire councils are very keen to push areas of land to the north of the city to kick-start the Energetica project. City council very recently put to market a very large site in Bridge of Don, I think the desire is that it is related to Energetica and AECC. The location of it is pretty good in terms of accessibility, and particularly if and when the bypass is built. There are plans to ditch some retail element at Denmore (B&Q/General George/CarpetRight) in favour of a large supermarket (Sainsburys has been mentioned) in a concerted effort to stimulate the gateway site coming into the city on the A90 at Murcar - the idea is for a new Arnhall-type set-up. Relatively minor infrastructure upgrades would be needed here to accommodate a stadium and it would be another box ticked in terms of reasoning for the AWPR.

And there's nothing more positive than wanting to score goals. What's negative and miserable is accepting mediocrity.

Using the self same logic of those who reckon one day we'll come good with goals, if we go through to December with the same goalscoring form of the past 24 months without Craig Brown having signed a decent recognised striker, the finger of blame will be pointed in his direction. He has taken a gamble with McGinn, because he isn't a recognised striker. The flipside of course is that it could be a great bit of business if he does start banging them in. But I have zero confidence that magennis, Fallon or paton can step up and if Vernon goes thru a lean spell, there's nobody lighting a fire under him. There definitely are green shoots in this team, absolutely. But these need to be converted to points on the league table, not in the bad luck cup.

He could'vescored a hat trick last week and we still would've failed to score in 4 of 5 games. We know Vernon can and will score goals, but no other striker is capable of the same. So, we need another. Couldn't give a toss about keepers and full-backs, if we don't score, we don't win.

If celtic's forays in Europe meant they spent their prize money in scotland on Scottish players and keeping money in Scots game, maybe then we could give them some credit. They're not interested in contributing to the Scottish football economy so fuck 'em.

Ok Broon. It's time for you to sign a striker capable of scoring goals. Five games in and on four occasions failed to score in ninety minutes which I find deeply worrying. That's three or four transfer windows now and he hasn't signed a striker worthy of the name. Seems to be plenty of effort with no end result. It won't wash for much longer before the crowds drop off again.

1 who pays for this redevelopment? 2 the main stand cannot be redeveloped to meet building standards or UEFA regulations without a) buying the east end of pittodrie street, or b) redeveloping the entire stadium to accommodate the facilities that currently exist in the bowels of the main stand elsewhere in the stadium. 3 had the separate stadium company not been set up, there is an extremely high likelihood the club would've been placed in administration at some point. As it is, AFC does not own high value assets and manages to live within its means to all intents and purposes. Talltray takes on the risk and is better placed to cover debts. I know of a company who owned their premises selling it recently not to raise cash, but to shed assets to stop the banks calling in debts, and this is happening everywhere. 4 no part of pittodrie stadium is listed to the best of my knowledge

The feasibility studies carried out by professional organizations with more knowledge than 95% of AFC supporters have proved pittodrie isn't viable. End of. It's been documented countless times by the club much though we don't like it, we have to move.

No Dave. But in fairness, I think the Morton thing happened just before he turned down the Dundee move. I seem to remember he was accused of sulking in not going to Dundee cos he didn't get to "go home to Greenock" or some such thing.