Dave-IRL

you bet on berwick? you are a brave man

Willie Hills online 'weekend bankers' section had Montrose to beat Elgin, I almost clicked 'add to coupon' but on a whim plumped for the wee gers.

Lawro is ace. He'd be in my football punditry panel dream team no doubt.

Football is back. Fuck off Football. 2-2 draw at home against Barnsley. 2-0, and we let it slide, as usual, all the time. Dick off. Score draws are probably going to keep us afloat in our mid table mediocrity inbetween the weeks where we play a playoff hopeful and get trounced. As long as we finish in on the first page of the table that shows on Teletext, then that will be okay.

Did me out of a 50 acca

Had a fiver of Dundee, Leeds, Wrexham, Berwick Rangers and Sheff Wed. Argh!

"Aberdeen boss Mark McGhee plans to run the rule over Rohan Ricketts and Craig Rocastle in Sunday's Dean Windass testimonial at Hull."

McGhee to run the rule over duo | Scottish Premier League | Football News from TEAMtalk

Trialists I've actually heard of! Tho Ricketts has as worse record than Mackie. "Ricketts spent last season in the MLS with Toronto, scoring four goals in 39 appearances, but the 26-year-old was released and has returned to the UK."

We had Rocastle on trial last pre-season, didn't even last until the first friendly before Gus dumped him. Wasn't deemed good enough for Hibs either, and if memory serves I think he also had a spell on trial at ICT? Wouldn't hold out much hope for him.

Ricketts might be an alright shout tho, pretty nippy and has a reasonable pedigree.

Rumour on skysports.com that St Mirren face a 'huge battle' to keep hot-shot striker Billy Mehmet, with various Championship/League One clubs and even a few Turkish clubs rumoured to be interested.

Complete lack of source/naming of clubs suggests that his agent is 'at it' and trying to engineer a move on the back of Billy hitting 5 goals in one game at the weekend. He's in the last year of his deal as well so I'm smelling a fair waft of the brown stuff. He has been linked with clubs in the past but nothing ever concrete enough to suggest a move was imminent. Plus, he's average at best - I like him as a player but I'm a realistic enough Saints fan to know that he's not ever going to be a superstar. He's not even half the player that Barry Lavety was. Basher should have played for Scotland, but just made some terrible choices in his life.

I always suspected that Afonso Alves was sold for 12m on a similar basis, basically cause he couldnt hit a barn door with a beach ball at Boro and nobody had ever heard of him before his one match scoring spree for Heerenveen.

If ever there was a time to introduce a pyramid system in the Scottish League set up its now. With teams going out of business at an alarming rate (4 since 2002 - Clydebank, Airdrieonians, Gretna, Livingston) this nonsense of having to elect clubs to the set-up is starting to look ridiculous, especially when you consider the amount of well run teams in the semi-pro leagues below the senior game.

A structured, regional divisional system would not only bring a fantastic opportunity for smaller clubs (ambitious, well run and deserving clubs) but also create a far more competetive environment in the lower leagues in Scotland.

The only downside I can see for it is that it might put the fear of death up some 3rd division clubs, causing them to try and spend beyond their means to preserve league status, which of course could create further losses of clubs.

The whoel system needs a complete and utter revamp from top to bottom, starting with the creation of a single governing body.

Unfortunately, I doubt it will ever happen, too many old blazers with cushty numbers who'll never relax their grip on their corporate hospitality freebies!

Yes that's the one. I've eaten in both branches. The Union Street one is more of a restuarant than a cafe, it sells steaks and wine and frogs legs etc! While the other one is just a little cafe. The crepes are fucking great, they are just enormous and loaded with toppings (or whatever you call them). It's like eating a duvet. That's full of chicken. The only bad part is the salad dressing. It tastes like ass.

Kinda worried about the one on Union Street like, I've been in a few times and it's been completely empty. And I don't mean quiet, I mean literally empty. One time I could hear the manager on the phone to the waiters and kitchen staff telling them not to bother coming in that night.

Fillings??

Here to help

I've only done Pittodrie, Tannadice, Ibrox, Balmoor and Hampden. Pretty poor really. Unless you count Highland League, then you can also add Fraserburgh, Huntly, Keith and Cove Rangers. I've been in the Molineux and the Nou Camp but there wasn't a match on at the time so I don't think they count. I wish I'd gone to some games when I was in Switzerland, especially as it was only an hour and a half on the train to Milan or Turin, and only about half an hour to Lyon.

Highland League definitely counts. I've done all of the above plus Loco's, Deveronvale, Formartine (ok it was a Junior ground at the time!)

Think in Senior terms in Scotland I've probably done about half of them.

England I've done Stamford Bridge, Highbury, Old Trafford, Eastlands and Goodison.

Goodison is probably my favourite stadium though, cracking atmosphere. Everton 2-2 Villa, Phil Neville shinned one in via defelction from about 25 yards and ran the length of the pitch!

Here's the google translated article from a Skied (pronounced Shide!) website...

Google Translate

Looking forward to it.

The first four stadiums i'll have been to this season are ones that i've never been to before (Lyn Oslo/Norway's Skied's, Yokohama Marinos/Japan's and Brechin's Glebe Park). Always good to tick new ones off the list.

A man after my own heart Ross!

Trips to other places should always include a visit to a stadium, regardless of a game or not, but preferrably when theres some action to be had!

Last season I managed to shoehorn in Brondby v Deportivo on my jaunt to Roskilde Festival, Nou Camp and my long awaited Hampden debut thanks to Saints finally making it to Hampden!

Unbelievably, I've yet to visit St Mirren Park, both through circumstance and a gut feeling that it will never be the same as Love Street, but I have Saints v United pencilled in on Aug 22nd!

PS First trip to Glebe Park?! Thats shocking! I've done the Glebe upwards of 5 or 6 times now. Love the soup

-----------------Alexander--------------------

Hutton-----G.Caldwell--Berra----Whittaker

------Fletcher-----Brown-----Rae---------

---Commons----Fletcher----McCormack

Please No.

Just No.

I hate Paul Hartley, but I'd far rather he played than Gavin Fucking Rae. He was shite at Dundee. He was shite at Rangers. He's shite at Cardiff.

Can I re-iterate that I hate Paul Hartley to the point that my top five most hated players of all time is:

1. Former Morton Player Paul Hartley

2. Former St Johnstone Player Paul Hartley

3. Former Hearts Player Paul Hartley

4. Paul Hartley of Bristol Rovers

5. Ross Tokely.

If by homemade you mean they came in a food delivery from Belhaven's central kitchen then you're right.

The Belhaven pubs (Ma Camerons, Blackfriars, The Globe) are solid enough for food. Better than the foundry anyway, but it's still all the same menu pre-made and shipped to each pub for heating up.

Well by home-made I mean they were advertised as being home-made and certainly didnt appear to be bog standard pub grub or chip shop fishcakes - a good 2 inches thick and topped with a creamy cheese and mustard sauce.

I bow down to your superior knowledge mr opinion police.

The worst was Blackfriars

I was reading this thread thinking - I can't believe nobody has mentioned Blackfriars yet, the food in there is magic... o_O

Last time I was in I had the fishcakes which were home made and absolutely top notch.

Would also recommend La Stella for lunch, any time they have the French Onion soup on! Its a winner.

I'm going to Cyprus for a wedding in September.

The stag do is in Cyprus on September 9th.

Scotland play Holland on September 9th.

Cyprus is 3 hours ahead of Glasgow.

Basically I'm going to be wrecked by the time that game kicks off.

Winner.

Delighted to be on the bill for this!

Cannae wait!

I had 9.72 (The balance of my Hills account) on The Fakes, Plastic Whistle, Dund and Dunfermline at the weekend.

All ramped in 5 goals, 47 back.

Yum.

Del - whats going on?

Ling resigns after 9 days?!

Your Wizard gig is reviewed in todays EE by the way.

Not really sure you could call it a review, but at least its a start... Shame they used an old stock photo instead of one of the live ones the photographer took on the night but ah well!

Worst: First gig we played there, supporting some band I've never heard of since (The Harrisons?) - maybe 12 people turned up, despite our shameless flyering/gate crashing session at Woolmanhill the night before.

Best: Walking down the stairs when some blonde lassie came tumbling down arse over tit behind me and nearly sent me flying. We live together now

Wizard fest should've made sure that one band at least had a song about Donald Trump being murdered by Mark McGhee because of his involvement in Princess Di's murder. This would have ensured coverage

I'm on it! We're playing the Snafu Stage at 1pm on the Saturday if anyone wants to hear it...

It's called "Trumpey Murdered Muttley Cause he Poisoned Henri Paul"

Thank you Mehmet and St Mirren! Maxi's bet paid off

Does Mehmet still do that terrible dance whenever he scores?

Starting to get excited about the Norway v. Scotland game now, a week today we fly out.

Unfortunately yes.

Goal Machine tho

i'm sorry to say that this is absolute cobblers

I'm sorry you feel like that but clearly you havent really understood what I'm saying.

I completely understand that covering local bands isnt going to transform the distribution figures, and nobody should be so naive as to think it will. However, it is a local paper and if local music is covered, it will sell more copies than just covering mind-numbing pop. It may only be a small figure, but over a period local bands will generate more sales over and above the regular buyers than what is currently covered. Clearly it doesnt make enough of a difference for the EE to justify having a dedicated local band section so maybe I'm misguided but I feel my logic is pretty sound.

However my biggest gripe has already been touched on earlier. They are sponsoring Wizard festival; we were running a Wizard event; we wrote the article and took all the photographs etc for them. But they STILL published a story about JLS rather than the local artists. Had our event featured a signed act or anyone remotely famous, it would have received full bifter coverage of that I have no doubt. Shambles.

I see Billy Mehmet got his goal allocation for the season today...

Its traditional for Billy to bang them in in this competition early doors. 4 last season v Dumbarton as well

WIllie Hills unbelievably were offering 9/4 on Saints winning both halves this morning... lumped on it and nearly shat myself when they came back from 3-0 to 3-3! Thankfully Billy got my text and nicked one before half time!

Off to see Yokohoma Marinos in about 5 hours. This will be the biggest capacity stadium i've ever been in, at 72,000 odd.

Then when I get back to the flat about 11pm the Inverness Caley v. Annan game will be kicking off; so i'll be watching the text updates online with a few beers. Much more confident of a good performance after our 2 new signings and improvement last tuesday against Dundee United.

You went all the way to Japan to watch Caley v Annan via text updates? o_O

Get out and about Ross - theres heaps of Asian chicks in Japan!!

Asian chicks are hot...

You seem to be thinking that the Evening Express is some kind of public service for Aberdeen, where as it is in fact a business. The demographic who buy the paper are not interested in the slightest about a review of a local clubnight/band, so why should the EE waste their time covering such things? The readers of the EE are far more interested in reading about bands such as JLS rather than *insert local band name here*.

I agree exactly with what you say - this is how the Evening Express is run.

I disagree entirely with how the Evening Express is run however. Surely, surely, the Evening Express can see that they are much more likely to sell more copies of their newspapers if they take more an interest in local artists? Lets face it, if they have an article about JLS in the paper, not even little teeny bopper girls are going to tell all their pals to go buy it cause theres a thing about JLS in it. <insert token blurb about internet/modern technology/unprecedented coverage etc> In essesence what I'm saying is that the demographic you talk about may be more interested in JLS, but they wont buy the paper JUST because JLS are in it, they'll buy the paper regardless.

If they were to cover a local gig every week with different bands, it could be worth 50-100 extra sales a week to them (taking an average of 4 bands per gig, mates buying it to see the photos/read the stories/previews/reviews) At the bottom end of that scale thats 2500 extra sales a year, topping out at 5000 odd.

Maybe I'm thinking too much about it, but the JLS/other thing is covered in other newspapers and magazines constantly. People wont stop buying the evening cause its not in there. More people will buy it if local acts are.

if a touring band was to come up to aberdeen, fair enough, big preview/review of the gig. But if they have no relevance to the area, they should not favour them over local interest articles.

Fuck me, we even wrote the article and took the photos for them, for an event they are sponsoring!

I've got a Scottish Cup Winners Medal from my time playing for Aberdeenshire Schools. Its by far the most beautiful thing I have, in a velvet case and a big lion rampant in the centre.

Its fucking lovely and by far and away the most prized thing I have, purely because there's only 16 other people have one from that game and we were the first team from Aberdeenshire to win it at Senior level.