Dave-IRL

Dons goals.

Barring the free kick, they were all preventable, the first goal was atrocious though, free header well saved then un challenged rebound...

Yeah the Evening is becoming less and less local.

Last week for example, I was part of the group who organised the Wizard Summer Showcase in Peterhead. OK, it wasnt in Aberdeen, but the EE is still sold in Peterhead and covers stories there quite often. Given that the EE is a major sponsor of the festival, we felt that it would be given reasonably high significance and perhaps feature in the Whats On Guide on the Thursday, which we had met their given deadline for.

Imagine my dismay to open the paper and find a short 2 paragraph summary of the press release, minus photograph on page 10 or something, and a two page, full colour spread about JLS in the Whats On Section. What made it even worse, was that JLS arent even playing in Aberdeen at any point soon, it was merely coverage and guff about their new single.

WHY?!

What was he supposed to change it to? Did you see his bench?

Subs Not Used: Nelson, Crawford, Holm, Megginson, Ross.

All he had on the bench was a bunch of kids, had he had a right back and a centre back he wouldn't have played Duff and Young at the back in the first place.

As has been covered since - Mulgrew and Duff have enough experience between them to play in the full back roles easily, and Ricky Foster has played at Centre Half before as well, there was absolutely no need to deploy Duff at Centre Half and Young at Right Back.

Furthermore he's had more than enough time to address the fact that he didnt have cover if one of his centre backs got injured. Putting all his eggs in one basket over the Johnson signing was a dreadful error. McGhee should know better than that. For what its worth, I have the same opinion on my own teams manager at the moment - we have Mair and Potter and thats it! Haining, Cuthbert and MacAusland have all left and we're desperately short at the back. Having said that we've had 3 centre halves on trial over the summer so at least Gus looks like he's trying to address the problem.

Oh, and McGhee's a cock. Its never his fault. You'll find that out soon enough!

Jesus wept. Some Aberdeen fans are absolutely impossible... one game and there are already people jumping on McGhee's back. Of course he shouldn't be immune from criticism, but what kind of a team was he supposed to put out last night with the players at his disposal? The squad is ridiculously thin and the players haven't played enough pre-season games to be up to full match sharpness. I've been as bemused as everyone else re: the lack of signings, but come on, it's one game against a technically better side who were quite clearly more together as a squad. Sigma are not the "tiny minnows" that everyone's made them out to be.

Most of the reasons you give there Murrr can be traced directly back to McGhee. The squad is thin - he has known that for a month. They never played enough pre-season games - managers fault, should've organised more. Players unfit - managers fault.

Other things McGhee was at fault for last night: Derek Young at Right back, Staurt Duff and Centre Half. Thats how it started AND finished. why did he not change it when it clearly wasnt working? Brian Irvine mentioned it after about 15 minutes on the radio, said Young looks way out his depth etc.

Anyway, I dont really care, I hate Mark McGhee and by association, Aberdeen have dropped dramtically in estimations. I said at the time that they woudl regret sacking Calderwood. They will.

Oh aye, and if Muttley hadnt stalled on the offer to see if he could get his beloved Celtic job he would've had another 2 weeks in the job to sort out the mess.

Ohhhhhh JIMMY JIMMY...!

Bring back JC - I told y'all McGhee was shite. Calderwood would never have let his squad get into such a dire position whereby Stuart Duff played at centre half. JC might have been gung ho, but never from the start with 2 midfielders in untried positions at the back.

Yeah last night was pretty decent.

Steve was great, a far better guitar player solo than he comes accross with Little Kicks.

Winter In Siberia - thought they had a few timing issues at the start of the 2nd track but overall it was pretty good. Think if they really work at it they oculd have a good thing going on. One thing that struck me though was that the style of music would benefit from some harmony work between the vocals, but I'm sure they've thought of that themselves.

Katerwaul - cracking. Loud as fuck!

Indian Red Lopez - chronic. major sound issues at the start and throughout marred the night for all of us and we were pretty deflated by the end of it. Roll on Saturday and we can get it out of our system.

Cheers to Sam for the slot though, and was quite impressed with the turnout overall.

I have a vague recollection from last night ouside tunnels that the poster on the door had their name wrong?? Pretty sure it said Tim and Sams Tim and The Sam Band with Tim and Sam...

On a sad note, ex-Motherwell & Falkirk striker Paul McGrillen died last night. Aged 37

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now...

I for one am delighted at Saints being able to snaffle Mair, Higdon and Gallacher, but when you take into account that we've lost Cuthbert, Haining and MacAusland from last year, signing Lee Mair is really the minimum we could expect, and unfortunately is all we have acquired. We've lost 3 of the 4 CB's we had in the squad, leaving us with Mair and Potter so far which isnt great. Higdon replaces Jim Hamilton, which is an improvement, but his scoring record isnt great and adds merely hope rather than expectation to the forward line of Mehmet, Wyness and Darg0. Gallacher is an improvement on Smith, but had Smith not been ruled out for up to a year I doubt we would have brought him in.

Yet again, we seem to be preparing for a new season without a riecognised Right Mid, and with the loss of Miranda, very few options on the left hand side (No Camara, Stevie 'ouch' Robb and Tom Brighton dont inspire confidence!)

Dont worry - the Dons arent the only ones with problems!

He was an utter donkey of the higest order!

We have just signed Marc Corcoran. Dave IRL?

Corcky, Corco, Coco.... fuck me - what a player on his day. The only player I've seen in a St Mirren strip who single handedly destroyed another team. And never did it ever again. Sporting Life - Football News | Live Football Scores, Football Transfer News & Gossip, Pre-season He seemed to like cup games as well, remember him having a stormer v United in a live Sky game 2 seasons ago, my mate even text me after demanding that we sell him to United!

Biggest disappointment of MacPherson's tenure has to be not getting this guy to play to his potential on a regular basis. The guy has bags of skill and a not bad wee turn of pace, and that unquantifiable quality that makes you think "This time he will do what I hope he's gonna do"

Sadly the last time I saw him in the flesh he seemed to have forgotten that he used to be able to go past players at will, and spent most of Scottish Cup tie v St Johnstone trying to get out of Gary Irvine's pocket. Which was a right shame.

Good bloke all the same, I was at the end of season awards dinner a few days after we signed him and ended up sitting with him and his bird most of the night in the bar!

EDIT: That match report doesnt do his performance that day justice... he was immense. We thought he was going to be a superstar after that!

EDIT EDIT: Ever since he left us I have always had a wee feeling that he might be one of the players who blossoms late, in a Paul Hartley sorta way, kicks around the lower leagues until something clicks and he realises he's only got one shot at it...

How come all the teams around us, who we are told are in worse financial shape than us, are managing to sign decent players and all we've managed is Norwich City's reserve keeper?

I think thats a slight exaggeration - Hamilton have signed Marvin Andrews and Izzy Iriekpen, St Johnstone have signed gash and everyone else is mainly just bodies to fill gaps in squads (other than Hearts). Don't really see anyone really strengthening their side, most of the signings are patchwork!

Think I'm right in saying it's two young lads who graduated with business degrees from RGU and just had the balls to go for it, and it seems to have paid off.

/rant.

Nah Martin Dickie did a degree in Distillery, and is the chemical brains behind the beers as far as I know. My girlfiends brother (his childhood bestest friend) regularly tells a story about how our legendary Chemistry teacher 'Doc Sav' blew his top and totally fell out with Martin over his choice of degree course on leaving school...

Something along the lines of "You'll never go anywhere with a degree in that..."

Leigh Hinds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leigh Hinds! WOuld have forgotten that guy ever existed were it no for that post! Catford Cricket FC now apparently - only 31 as well! FallFromGrace.com

This may sound simplistic - but have you tried adjusting the intonation to sort the 12th fret sound?

Aye, my old man is a luthier in his spare time these days and basically spends all his onshore time sorting guitars for folk (just fixed up Elphi's Casino for him) and he's tried most of the obvious things. We're pretty stumped on it to be honest! First stab at it found that someone had been mucking about wiht it previously and refitted the bridge upside down which we thoght would cure the problem, but nada! the problem gets worse the longer strings are on it too, so I'm having to change them like once every 2 or three uses, which is a pain in the arse with the bigsby on it!

Indeed a fine series of gigs over the weekend!

The Battle of the Bands was desrvedly won by Lynne Taylor, who topped both the judges votes and the audience votes. Cheers to all the bands who took part! apart from the sound system problems, it was a pretty good night.

Friday night was a cracking gig despite the low turnout early on. Its a shame the majority of Velvet Audio fans didnt turn up till they were about to play, they missed out on seeing Stanleys cracking set and a rather enjoyable Steve Milne set as well, despite his body telling him that Benicassim - Peterhead wasn't a favourable climate change!

Saturday afternoon in the marquee was good fun as well, a fairly relaxed atmosphere, everyone got involved and it was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. Saturday nights gig was great as well, Cast of the Capital was their usual top notch selves, and we had a riot playing in our hometown!

Cheers to everyone who was involved in this, the guys/gals from Wizard for being so enthusiastic, helping out on the door etc, Mambos for accomodating us, Floortom for the prize and vouchers, Atmosphere for the Sound and to all the bands/acts who played!

Yaass!!!

I've got ten pounds sterling on Owen finishing Premier League top scorer, at 24/1. Chanced my arm when rumours were about that he was signing for United, so fingers crossed Philip is correct!

Also, Joleon Lescott:

I've got 10 on Newcastle getting relegated to League One @ 20/1.

Just because I'd be raging if they did and I didnt...

I found various tactics worked a treat last season at different times, but the real key to this game is working the free transfers and being jammy enough to have the guy that scores a hat trick as your captain.

Or Arshavin when he scores 4! I did have Vidic as my captain during Man U's epic spell of clean sheets last season tho, which is worth 12 points a week, and I had Lampard for a bit as well, who would sometimes only earn 2 points for playing one week, then score 1, set up 2 and get man of the match the next week and be worth 30 odd points as a captain.

To be fair though, last nights Real line-up didnt have too many new faces in it and the system they employed first half looked pretty well suited to their squad.

From the middle > front they lined up

--------Diarra : Gago---------

Ronaldo : Guti : Higuain

---------------Raul---------------

Using that system I can easily see Kaka in for Guti and Benzema for Raul, which would seem to be a pretty balanced formation.

Don't see Schneider or Van Der Vaart getting a look in at the moment, quite surprised they havent been snapped up already by any of the Top 6 in England, surely Citeh must be sniffing around at least one of them? Schneider would be a great buy for United or Liverpool as well in my book

I'm having a fair few problems capo wise at the moment too, although its also linked into an inherent tuning problem on my guitar as well. I'm playing a '62 re-issue telecaster c/w Bigsby and find I'm having to retune my guitar every time I use a capo. The guitar has some major tuning issues as well at the mo, whereby an open E is almost sounding an F at the 12th fret, which obviously doesnt help when a capo is thrown into the mix...

I have a variety of skill-compensators (my old mans nickname for the wonderful capo) including a Shubb, G7th Performance (pretty crap for the money!) and a couple of trigger style capos (my preferred capos) as well, but none seem to be curing my problem on the telecaster (not that I'm expecting them to sort the tuning issue at the 12th, but even putting the capo on at the first involves a retune). Never had a problem using a capo on an acoustic guitar, although I generally use a trigger one for the higher tension.

So, thats probably not helped a lot, but I'd steer clear of the G7th 'performance' capos, they may look pretty but I find them awkward to use and pretty ineffective. My old man just bought one the the G7th 'Nashville' ones that look almost sculptural in their styling, but they're not really sized for a pair of jeans pocket!

wee bump

anyone coming along?

Is that Dargoals goal quota for the season used up now?

Not at all Ross, he'll be due at least another 2 by the end of pre season.

Then its used up...

Thursday July 23rd

Battle of the Bands @ Mambos

Free Entry

Friday July 24th

Wizard Showcase @ Mambos

Velvet Audio

Stanley

Little Kicks

3

Saturday July 25th

Wizard Showcase @ Mambos

Indian Red Lopez

Cast of the Capital

Battle of the Bands Winners TBC

3

Also on Saturday there will be an Acoustic showcase at the Lido marquee featuring Indian Red Lopez, Grant Davidson, Lynne Taylor, Kyle Jernslett and Chris Forman - Free Entry. Followed by The Unknown for a couple of hours to round off the afternoon and get everyone in the mood for the gig at night!!

Dumbarton 0-3 St Mirren

O'Donnell, Dargo and Mehmet scored. We scored from a CORNER AGAIN! twice in 2 games. Relative stroll last night by all accounts, 3 trialists played, 2 looked decent but nothing outstanding.