Sweetchuck

I guess that overall, the point which I'm trying to make is that during all the time that we were getting gubbed under Aitken, Skovdahl and Paterson, there was a feeling that things could - if not necessarily would - improve in some way, shape or form. There was always a sense that a corner could be turned. Under JC, what has developed is a sense of futility in two key senses. Firstly, the sense that no matter how long we persist with him, he'll still be unable to learn the kind of lessons which would stop us getting humiliated in the cups and frustrated so easily in crucial league games. He simply doesn't have any answers to the questions which are asked of him in management. Secondly, there is an ever-growing sense of futility in terms of the fans' ability to effect change. Calderwood is constantly bleating about how nobody dares approach him in the street, but when he is tackled (eg. EE fans' forum, Scotland match in the Netherlands) he simply acts like a spoilt kid and refuses to acknowledge even constructive criticism. Worse still - from my point of view, although I accept that it is not a view shared by everybody on here - is the fact that no matter how bad things get, there is a feeling that so much executive footballing power has been has vested in Willie Miller (which he, in turn, has entrusted in Calderwood by making it clear that if JC goes, WM goes too) that nothing will ever change. I simply do not believe that Calderwood and - albeit to a lesser extent - Miller have the club's best interests at heart, and consequently, I don't believe that renewing my ST would be in the club's best interests either. That - and the resultant sense of abject futility and angry exasperation on my part - means that I simply can't bear to let the club think all of the fans are prepared to let them continue in this vein.

Heard about this from someone who was at the game. When I saw our lineup I thought it was due to the age of the lads (most are under-19s) but was then told that the Hearts team was exactly the same: a load of young lads being blooded at reserve level. Thank God Willie Miller's 5 years of 'overhauling' the youth setup are finally paying dividends. Still, at least this latest embarrassment can't be covered up by massaging figures about how many youth internationals we have, as is the usual practice.

No. They all offered something which Calderwood's reign does not. In the case of Aitken, we competed for (and won) silverware. In the case of Skovdahl, we got to cup finals, got back into Europe and were treated to some wildly entertaining football (albeit also a few outrageous gubbings). In the case of Paterson, there was a degree of understanding as the budget with which he was told to work was a pittance, particularly in comparison with that lavished on Calderwood since he took over, which has subsequently been pished away on useless nobodies like Derek Young, Tommy Wright, Stuart Duff, Neil MacFarlane and Lee Mair. Under Calderwood, there is no entertainment, no anticipation before a match, no humility, no sense that he has any clue as to his deficiencies or how to address them, and no sense that it is ever going to get anything other than worse under his stewardship. Sometimes the easy and obvious thing to do is not the right thing to do. My opinion is that by renewing my ST, I'm explicitly endorsing JC's reign for yet another year of tedium, frustration and outright anger, and as I said, it's as much for the good of my own health as it is for that of AFC. Because I love the club so much, I find it exceptionally difficult to tolerate the kind of football and rampant egocentrism which Calderwood represents.

No chance whatsoever of me renewing mine unless significant managerial/boardroom changes take place this summer. I still love the club and always will, but supporting Calderwood's tenure is in the long-term interests neither of AFC nor of my blood pressure. I'll be back when we have someone in the dugout who is capable of putting club ahead of ego in his list of priorities. Being able to string a sentence together without sounding like a total fucking arsepipe would also be a significant improvement.

Fair enough - should have read more closely. Like you, I seriously doubt that Charlie Allan will bring any intelligent perspective to bear upon the matter. He'd be hard pushed to read it, let alone spell it himself. The other points - about the financing and the pathetic attempt to make the report sound meaningful and important by quoting the shit-for-brains consultantspeak - still stand, though.

So this report - on which AFC has spunked the best part of £1m due to the Council's refusal to pay - has now confirmed what an earlier, equally expensive report told us? It's full of meaningless consultant wankspeak ("enabling opportunities") and says nothing which previous studies and common sense haven't already shown to be the case. The most important section - which Charlie Allan (why break the habit of a scab lifetime) fails to address - is this: "Potential" funding from "prospective" partners? In other words, we still can't afford it, and are basing our plans on assumed contributions during the worst economic downturn in almost a century. The Council has already ruled itself out. We won't get central funding because there are no plans to host a European Championship. Our debt stands at around £6-7m, which would gobble up around 2/3 of the proceeds of Pittodrie's sale, and possibly even more, given the commercial property slump. I would be delighted to hear which organisations the club thinks will be prepared to piss away £30 million on a community stadium. This report from the EE - if not the full report itself (haven't read it yet) - is full of smoke and mirrors and doesn't say anything noteworthy which we didn't already know or suspect. The bottom line is that without local authority funding, how on earth do we seriously expect to fund this?

The Batistuta one took place in August. I remember because I was on holiday when I saw it. That was back when we all used to chat on the forum at afc.co.uk (now sadly defunct) and one guy who logged in was inadvertently logged in as AFC Admin and decided to have a bit of fun.

Robert Fik? Think it was his wife who vetoed the deal as she couldn't stand the way Aberdeen looked. Robert Fleck was a permed, mulleted Hun wank striker from the 80s; uncle of current Hun wank-protege striker, John Fleck. As with most dyed-in-the-wool Huns, he had the kind of smug, perma-cunt, 'awrightbigmanmoanraglesgaraynjurs' face a good claw hammer would never tire of kissing:

Hreidarsson was at Pittodrie for a trial in 1997. We offered him a derisory contract; he told us to stuff it and went back home. Crystal Palace then became interested and offered him a deal which we could almost certainly have matched back then (think Hignett), if we'd had the foresight to realise he would have become the kind of player who would one day command a £4m transfer fee. The Thierry Henry story is the same old nugget that gets trotted out once every few years about how AS Monaco were pimping Henry and Trezeguet around Europe as youngsters. The story goes that the pair of them were available for £500k, but Alex Miller decided they would never amount to anything and weren't worth the outlay. Very little substance to the story, of course, even if the Alex Miller claim is entirely believable.

I am so fucking sick of these idiots from outwith Aberdeen FC telling us that our unhappiness is hasty and that this is some sort of snap protest being made on the back of the Dunfermline defeat alone. It's not. From my point of view, it's the eruption of a syndrome which has been percolating for years now. For the benefit of incoherent arseholes like Alex Smith, that simply means that we've been putting up with this for quite some time now, but it's reached breaking point in much the same way our patience snapped with you in 1992 when you progressively undid all of the good work done (presumably by Jocky Scott) up to the final day of season 90/91, taking us to mid-table ignominy and the start of our slide into European humiliation. Since the end of JC's first season, we've endured persistently bad results in the domestic cups. As a result of this, we have already lost out on enormous revenue (the QoTS game costing us European qualification this season, for example). We've achieved mediocre league positions despite (relative) enormous investment in the playing squad and JC being allowed to spunk transfer fees that the likes of Steve Paterson could only have dreamt of in the grip of a vodka-induced delirium (and subsequently free transfer practically the lot of 'em). We've played atrociously unentertaining football and then been told that our expectations are too high when we get gubbed home and away by Hamilton. HAMILTON, for fuck sake. We've had to put up with a litany of excuses, and JC's constant repetition that "I would never make excuses, but...". We've had to put up with favouritism and cronyism which would make the freemasons blush. We've had to put up with JC persistently refusing to accept any responsibility whatsoever for our lack of footballing savvy and off-the-pitch squad direction, not to mention responsibility for treating the fans as the people whose enormous investment of time, love and money are what gives him the phenomenally privileged position he currently occupies, rather than thinking that we exist merely as a means to satisfy his ego. Oh, and if Alex Smith is to be quoted as an authoritative voice on matters related to Scottish football, let's just take a sneaky peek at his CV: Stenhousemuir: sacked Stirling: did nothing of note St Mirren: sacked Aberdeen: sacked Clyde: sacked Scotland U21: sacked Dundee Utd: sacked Ross County: sacked Why the fuck does this perennial failure think his opinion matters a jot to us or Aberdeen FC? Fuck off back to your career's worth of jotters, you incoherent, mumbling prick; and don't even dare to think that you know better than us what would be best for Aberdeen FC.

Always happy to oblige, gents. Incidentally, a mate has just told me that Hateley is guest of honour at some function for the pond scum bigots in Peterhead this weekend. The level of support which the Govan filth commands along the NE coast is absolutely shameful.

Farina's perhaps not the worst shout, but getting Australia to qualify for the World Cup really isn't any great achievement. Plus, they had already qualified at least once before: back in 1974, if I remember correctly. Anyway, back to qualification: have you seen their qualifying groups? For the 2006 World Cup, the Oceania qualifying pool was made up of the Solomon Islands, Tahiti, New Caledonia, Tonga, Cook Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, American Samoa, New Zealand and - of course - Australia. From now on, after topping that group, you play the 5th best team from the Asian Federation (which was Bahrain in qualification for 2006) and hey presto; Bruce is your father's brother, mate. Seems like even less of a challenge on paper than our Cup draws have been in recent years, and yet Farina actually managed to get his team not to qualify for the 2002 World Cup.

He's definitely a son of Ibrox, Reekie. However, he's one of a rare breed who can actually be referred to as a "Rangers fan" as opposed to a "Hun". It's pretty hard to support a club like Rangers without legitimising all the nonsense that they stand for, but Speirs' attacks on the hierarchy at Ibrox (not to mention on the froth-mouthed FTP brigade in the stands) show that it is in fact possible to support Rangers without being a total, utter, cunt about it. A rare breed, right enough. The fact that the Huns have disowned him for his exposing of what they are and what they stand for says far, far more about them than it does about Speirs, and means that even as a Rangers fan, he's gone up in my estimation. Graham Speirs:

I can only presume that this is because the only possible public response to this is: "Er... Yes, but... Um... Top 6... Ahhh... UEFA... Ehhhh... Hold on; you're right; this guy has exhausted the patience of the fans, who are an infinitely more valuable resource to this club than Jimmy Calderwood ever has been or ever will be to anyone other than his own ego". Or something along those lines.

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