RicoS321

That's the team I'd go with KFP. I wouldn't be averse to seeing Considine ahead of Lowe depending on how they set up. Lowe has been a great asset going forward, but he's seriously lacking in defence. If McGinn's on his side of the pitch though, he'll have decent support so I'd go with him. That midfield is weak though. Ferguson is a great prospect, but his workrate isn't close to what we got from KM. Shinnie's workrate has been phenomenal so far this season, but he's doing the work of two players (Ball not got the coverage either) and that's meant that at times he's playing like someone who's just played 45 minutes in a kick about before the game has begun, with tired passing and poor decision making. It's like he's playing purely on adrenaline constantly. Get Wright on the ball quickly and early and hope to fuck he turns up. Similarly GMS. We're way off the pace this season, we just couldn't afford the mistakes made in the transfer window. We're relying on a solid back 4, but Devlin was honking against Hearts, so he needs to get his head back in it again too. We need a massive performance as this is one of the few opportunities we're going to get this season.

Avoid the fitba threads on here then, they'll send you into freefall. Make sure you're eating well and getting some fresh air and all that. Could indeed be the change in seasons.

You're missing the point. Nobody is greeting about it. They're just simply saying that they're not going. That is our current position as a club. We've got 10-12K or so supporters who will go because that's what they always do, whether at Pittodrie or away. The things I listed aren't people's complaints or excuses, they are just little things that add up to ensure people aren't attracted to the fixture. We're (on this thread) making the mistake of assuming that all people that class themselves as dons fans want to go to the game as a default but are being persuaded not to by various factors. That's not what's happening. Those who go as a default (me!) are all going. Those that can take it or leave it simply aren't going - no excuses required. The point being that if we want more people going, we actually have to attract them to it not just assume that it's their duty as AFC supporters to attend because we get tickets. All of the above reasons I gave (I missed the major factor of cost too, which is exhorbitant at £30 - plus seven fucking quid for recorded delivery) make the fixture more and more unattractive. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that it's a pretty unattractive fixture all in. My "blood red line" for non-attendance would simply have been having a shite seat. I'm there to watch the game, won't be getting pished as I have work the next day, so it's a no brainer that I wouldn't attend had I got a better view at home. No greeting, no excuses, just simply saying "I'm not buying the shite you're selling".

That has to come from the club though, surely?

Aye, I see what you're saying. Finals are bigger events than semi finals? We've been dicked about with kick off times so often that it's taking it's toll? Rocket's points about us not being likely to win are definitely a really big factor. I think we could compare to the hibs game a couple of seasons back, although it was on a Saturday. The Sunday 16:30 kick off is a real barrier too (we should have insisted on the 13:30 kick off). With the kids back to school the following day, is anybody going to take them along with a post 22:00 return to Aberdeen? Remember, we've sold 10K ish. That's about the level of our support who'll go to any game regardless of the difficulties in getting there/back and who we're playing. That's the saturation point of our go-at-all-cost fans. That's about the level of our season ticket holders (who won't all be going of course). Once you're beyond that point then you're into the fans who need to be sold to, the ones who need a reason to go. At that point your looking at (in no particular order): 1. Location/easy of access 2. Kick off time/day of game 3. Are we going to win/current form? 4. Seat allocation process 5. Available seats 6. Importance of fixture 7. Recent appearances at Hampden/familiarity of the experience All these things have been lessened to the extent that we're left with a nominal number of our hard-core support. In order to prise those other folk from in front of the telly, it's no longer acceptable to just treat them like shite and say "turn up, you're a dons fan, it's your duty". We needed to do absolutely everything to make it a good experience, because all the other factors work against us. If I, as donstalk's biggest and most important super fan, with my trips to Burnley and my 1,683 amassed superfan points am saying that I wouldn't have dragged my arse down to Hampden if I couldn't have got a proper seat, then how can I/we expect those folks that don't go to every game to do it?

We'll tank the hun cunts.

Nobody, apologies, it was badly phrased. The question should have been: at what point does supporting the club become more important than actually being able to see the game? For me, it occurs when you have to sit a fucking mile away*. I think the expectation on fans just to turn up regardless is a little bit like telling them to "get behind" the move to Westhill. Rather appropriately we're asking fans to behave like sheep and eschew all thinking. That's what I pretty much do as a rule, but I'm saying that my line is drawn at about section "I" at Hampden as given it's a Sunday then I won't be boozing I want to enjoy a good game of fitba. It's about watching the game for me, not just turning up because of my faith. tlg, I have a lot of sympathy for that view, but I disagree that the club have acted brilliantly. I think they've tried their best (like they did with the Devlin case, and the recent statements), but I suspect that they've gone into the meeting asking for the wrong thing again. We should have had that whole North stand, or half of it with the option to leave an end empty. *"The two end stands are up to 140 metres away from the pitch, due to Hampden retaining its bowl shape after it was redeveloped" (from Wikipedia - seems a little incorrect, but it's still miles).

It's the notion that you should forego being treated fairly to provide that support. Does being a great supporter trump understanding when you're getting the piss taken out of you? It's always been shite, so we should continue going? tlg, unless you were a camera man, then you weren't right behind the goal, you were about 40 metres away.

So people should just accept a fucking awful seat just to ensure that other fans get their good seats? You wouldn't keep returning to a restaurant that gave you shite food just because you know the owner. At some point you have to question the notion that you should just turn up at all costs. A shite time, a shite day, a shite location and we're expected just to sit down in our shite seats and watch just so that we can do our duty as fans. At what point does having the piss taken out of you as a customer get taken too far? I think we've found our saturation point. As I said earlier, if I'd gone onto the website and seen only those shite tickets left there's no way on earth I'd be going. Why is it that you think people should just keep on allowing themselves to be made a fool of? Just so we can say that we've got a great support?

Is he supposed to be back like? Was wondering if he'd return. Happy to save him for the semi, ready to give the hun a roasting. Maybe give him 10 minutes when we're two up at the weekend.

9,000 is about the number of acceptable view seats. It's not bad. We'll probably get another few thousand before the game, especially if we do well on Saturday.

Aye, looks that way. Probably means Wilson is out unless we're dropping May again (hopefully). Cosgrove was excellent against Burnley at Pittodrie and worked his airse off in the away game too (they doubled up on him, which really helped us). It's easy to forget he's still a young loon playing his first season. You can see the areas in which he can improve given the opportunity; he's definitely got a lot of potential.

Exactly. We got a near full house the few times the hun have visited, so the evidence is there that if the stadium was in Aberdeen we'd easily sell our allocation. That teams should be punished due to their location is certainly something worth discussing. It certainly isn't neutral.

That sounds like fear to me! Do you think they might teach our daughters how to turn themselves into fine young men? Or d'ye reckon they'd stick to the maths curriculum? I had a teacher at school with a serious hygene problem (he stank of shite and definitely didn't wash). It was abnormal. He was good at teaching like. Much better at teaching than his cleanly colleague who was clearly thick as fuck. Some abnormal people are good at things that their abnormality has no bearing on.

It's nothing to do with my opinion. I haven't given one. You're either speaking shite or you're not. Given that you've provided zero evidence to back up your claim then you're speaking shite until proven otherwise. You've made the claim that we're instituting "ridiculous equality laws that always seem to advantage minority groups over the general public" so back it up. It's been in place for 8 years, show us the litigant's paradise. I'm very open to evidence. This is basically the way politics is going in this country. Some fucker makes a strongly voiced argument that sounds like it might be right and the public get behind it without checking the evidence. That to me is far more dangerous than whether or not a handful of transgender folk get treated the same as me or not, that's why I'm annoyed by it. I'm broadly in agreement with the argument being put forward about the transgender athelete is basically cheating, although if we're frightened by the normalisation of transgenderists then setting up a new gender grouping for them would be the quickest way to do it; imagine the BBC when Britain's fastest tranny wins gold in the 2020 Olympic TG 100M race?

Yep, that's certainly what the Hun statement said happened.

Yes we can. They have 15K of tickets in seats with an actual view. More than double. They've fucked us.

Snowflake is such a cunt-word. When the fuck did that word become a thing? Fucking yanks and their wanker terminology copied by fuckwits. I'm not being pedantic, I'm asking you which part of the equality act advantages minority groups over the general public? I've read it and none of it does. Your mistaking pedantry with me saying that you're talking shite.

You're just naming laws. Which part of the Equality Act 2010 does this: " ridiculous equality laws that always seem to advantage minority groups over the general public" refer to?

No they haven't. Two thirds of our allocation are for seats that have an unacceptably awful view. They should have insisted that we either be given half the North stand or all of it. We're now just cutting our nose off to spite our faces (correctly) without a public statement of why we're doing so. It's a fucking mess, and we'll be left with a smaller support as a result of it. We should be making a public statement to say why we're not selling the tickets block by block and slating the SFA/SFPL on our allocation in the process. It's fucking obvious that the seats that are closer to the sides have the best view, and that they would sell before those in the centre of the ends. This could all have been avoided, and we could still hand back some tickets to der Hun so that the overall semis pot could be higher. This is not an AFC issue, and the club should be making that very clear.

With the announcement of the latest royal baby, what are your thoughts on pro-creation between black and ginger people?

Which laws are they? I reckon you've got about 40. We'll use future technology to keep people like you alive for much longer. Obviously you won't be able to move as you'll be so decrepit. For the final 15 years of your life, ladyboys will bum you daily and wave their lady cocks in your face, brushing your cheek now and then*. It's no exaggeration at all to suggest that's the way things are going. PC gone mad I'd say. *with their cocks.

The reason I suggested the whole of the North stand for us is because it's smaller than the South. We basically split the 50-50 North-East v South-West (or North-West v South-East if preferred). I sympathise with the idea that there might not be a full dons support and I think that the additional hun should be catered for if we send back tickets. We get the good view of the North and one of the ends and the tickets we don't sell in the ends get given back to the hun with appropriate segregation. The problem with splitting down the middle is that you end up with an empty part of the stadium between the dons fans in the South and those in the North and we should be amicable to a full stadium (just as ICT were at Parkhead). So it has to be one full wing each as those are the stands that are available. I accept that point of view, and I do think that there's a large element of our support who would only have attended if we were likely to win (see ICT). However there is still a signifcant number who won't be going because of the second class seat allocation. Put it this way - and bearing in mind how much of a superfan I am - if Tamzarian had text (whatsapp ken, it's the 21st century) me to say that he could only get tickets to the right of section I-1 below, I'd have told him not to bother. I just wouldn't have bought tickets for such a shite seat. Anyone going online to purchase would be faced with that too, and I would say it is a lot to ask folk to look past.

Bullshit. Have you seen our allocation of tickets? We get nothing in the North stand, we get half of a stand that has a decent view, plus 13K tickets in a stand with a shite view that no-one should be buying in. We're being sold substandard tickets in a venue fucking miles away. The huns get about 16K of tickets with a prime view and lo and behold they get sold immediately. Somebody earlier in the thread compared Hertz at Murrayfield, but we'd have sold much more than our Hampden sales by now if we were playing there. Sounds to me like we've sold our tickets for the good area and not for the shite area. A fair allocation would have seen huns in the South and West and us in the East and North. We'd have had 12K or so of good seats and 10-12K of shite seats. The shite seats unsold could be given back to the hun SFA for sale to the hun huns. It really is as simple as saying we're being offered a second class seat - still at a shite time for travel - and expecting people to attend. If we can take 13-14K, that would be a great achievement. Our final ticket allocation - unlikely as it is to be required - should not be affected by that. It's like giving a kid a mouldy carrot for main course and then denying them pudding because they didnae finish it.

Basically, all the seats with an actual view of the pitch have been sold then? The seats with a binoculars-only view of the pitch have not been.