Goggles & Flippers

"Jay likes this", he's now a signed up member .... WS blazer getting altered at the tailors mate? Make sure its got big pockets so you can swipe a few and feed your mates in the electric after the game

Steelboy, you seeing this? The King is dead .... long live the King

I must admit I've always been in the give people time camp, mainly because I see that it bore fruit at Manchester United when it took incredible faith from a chairman and board that Fergie would turn good. It's easy to call for a P45 when you have no idea of the financial implications to the club to server a contract. For that reason I took a lot of the Baraclough and McCall out chat with a pinch of salt and put it down to knee jerk critics on here. With hindsight to hold up my hands and say I was wrong, they went at least when they should have and to those I was critical of myself, I'm sorry you did call it right earlier than I did. In the run in to the summer last season, despite dismal performances I justified it with words to the effect of "it'll all turn good in the summer, he'll get them among the fittest in the league like he did in his first spell and get guys he wants rather than another mans team". Unfortunately for whatever reasons that didn't happen at all. I appreciate that Marvin behaved like a dick and he lost what I imagine was a key part of his plans when McHugh got his head knock. However I am increasingly fed up with his attitude in the media, talking of improvement and "turning corners in the following week" or "our season starts tomorrow" b/s. The post match interviews, the attitude, his demeanour, the substitutions or lack of, the downright petulance, the continual approach of setting up to limit damage opposed to inflicting it now means I'm done. The king is dead, let's find a new king

You would expect to see a big drive to maximise this .... expect being the defining word here. Comes as no surprise when I go onto the WS website the tier benefits info has been taken down yet again with a deadline of Jan 2017 for a reworking and that update which is still blank. How can you hope to attract people when a defining part of contributing for many is unclear, not populated and you've missed your own deadline even with a full time employee to manage things. Since the launch of the WS, the benefits have been altered three times, only once bringing it to the membership in advance of change.

Just surprised Well fans read the Daily Record unless it was wrapping a poke of chips

In a bad situation I agree that the club (Flow) has came out of this well. A realisation that throwing the toys out the pram was going to achieve nothing but add to the bar tab at Mar Hall, the club has essentially put the emphasis on the SFA to address out the anomalies in refereeing in a mature and conciliatory way. No doubt subconsciously reinforcing in any referees officiating us between now and the end of the season that we are all over this so they best get it right. Just out of interest, how many of those citing that the OF are treated differently by referees and rolling their eyes/accepting it as part and parcel of the game in Scotland, voted that Sevco and the Unwashed should not be treated any differently in the fixture list planning in the poll I started?

I'd echo Andy that Melvin's post posed some decent talking points. What stood out from yours Andy was this right at the end, can't tell you how that statement (albeit true) was a little sad to read. I think there's a healthy number of our fans who now can look at the demise of St. Mirren recently and the likes of Dunfermline 15 years ago and think ourselves lucky we aren't where they are. It's not a million miles from that tipping point and where we bob along in Scottish football. Maybe it's endemic of the basket case that football now is, that we now find our primary reason for being is to start a campaign thinking that our league games should be blooding and fitness preparation for an assault on two cups, of course ideally, ticking along in 8th or above in the league would be a bonus and doesn't cause too much of a distraction. All this project brave, super academies, let's target grass roots, performance directors stuff .... just feels like that one scene in every war film ever watched where the medic won't give up giving CPR until he's dragged off. I must admit my interest is waning, my attendance at FP is on the slide, I don't look to join up with friends for a Scotland match on the TV or pub.

AreJimmy Calderwood, Tony Fitzpatrick or Jimmy Nicholl available? ....

I think there's definitely a breakdown in relationship where he is being overlooked on purpose. I suppose everyone can cite an incident in their own lives either with a school teacher, boss, friend or parent who have pulled a wideo on someone because they hoped the replacement could do just as good a job. Ainsworth is a prime example here. To think that McGhee is doing anything other than trying to justify his position can't see the wood for the trees. McGhee will justify that he doesn't track back and offers little when we defend (which seems to be our modus operandi at present). This time last year I didn't want to see him in the team any longer as I felt he tapped out, however the only player I felt offered guile and spirit if not ability was Josh Law. I was happy to exclaim on here I never wanted to see him in the C&A again. But I felt his attitude changed towards the run in and he looked genuinely upset when McGhee poured scorn on him rather than a number of his colleagues who equally performed chronically in a defeat. It's evident that he's the dog that can be kicked in that dressing room by McGhee.

May as well get them to help fund O'Halloran's wages .... for a second time.

Wouldn't the current top U20's league show you that immediately? Doubt there would be many in that without an academy to justify a U20 squad.

I'd agree ropy, in the 90's I felt confident we'd take at least 4 from 12 from the OF every season. The one stat that has got me scratching my head is how we've played them 18x more than St Johnstone. Needed a wikipedia search to convince me they were in the second tier at the start of CoF's period. Good work though, love a wee stat

I suspect you mean Kilpatrick however the three I saw were Tom Feely, Jim McMahon and Les' daughter. It's essentially a first foot and it would have been churlish to insist on not taking part. Some people need to get over that part. It did look like a blend and not a single malt so their financial troubles are not over yet.

Considering up until 5 years ago, the first game after Ne'erday every second year would have been against a certain Glasgow club from the East end. That must have stuck in their craw.

Sad that on the 21st of January best I can hope for is Euro qualification or avoiding the drop. Not the most exciting of seasons. Shame none of the signing targets could be in place for today, seems like we could have done with a few.

Said for years (even during the top 2 and 3 finishes in the league under McCall with an undoubtedly better squad) that when we decide to put up the barricades then it's always hearts in the mouth stuff. Sitting deep, every cross followed by a muttered swear word and a shaky clearance or stramash. Conversely, when we are doing the pressing, it's being held at the halfway line, stupid mistakes and loose passes. You could argue that McGhee's game plan pretty much worked for 85 mins, however that is also down to ineffective the currants were. In a cup tie I want to see my team go out at them from the off (the same way that St Johnstone of late and ICT for the past 10 years have when playing the OF). Don't get me wrong, if we had held out, I'd be sitting here toasting McGhee's tactical nouse and the stoic professionalism of our players.

Andy Walker .... "last time Motherwell made it to the cup final was 1991" ...... that right ya walloper?

The human Chinese fortune cookie speaks again

As I understand it Fir Park was zoned as Parks/Recreational either by Motherwell District Council or NLC back in the 90's. There was also a planning law passed that the existing designations were not allowed to change their use and it was perhaps set in stone. Therefore Fir Park can't change from that status and it would take the council to reverse their earlier decision, potentially opening the door to new or retrospective claims. That would then scupper the supermarket/fancy house market quite a lot of Well fans seem to think is on the horizon. Also, if we were to move for whatever reason, it's safe to say that the new stadium would borrow a lot from that of Aalesund in Norway. Club officials who visited were very impressed with the setup there.

Tangent thread

Didn't he say he wasn't going to do an Erwin? If so, does he think he'd walk straight into that Rangers side and command a starting place every week. I think most will agree that while Rangers don't have players of top quality they have a number who outrank most in the league outside Celtic, the issue with them this season has been competing coherently as a team and underperforming.

FFS aye right you are then, one and half hours then for the sake of being argumentative

I'm just talking about when games have to be played midweek and also at this sensitive time of year, something could be done to avoid a ICT vs Kilmarnock or Hearts vs Ross County. I thought the whole strategy we were discussing was about improving things for fans. While not the easiest, I'm sure Ross County and their fans would have preferred to go to or host Aberdeen on the 28th opposed to Parkhead. That way Mrs McTeuchter from Dingwall gets to see her son who lives in London opposed to him being out the door from 8am till 10pm

SPFA scheduling really should be held to account next summer. The 3 home OF games reduced to two resulted in a 50-50 split among our fans, add together a shocking December run where we play Aberdeen twice in a fortnight, and head to Inverness on the one fixture you'd hope to keep local-ish. Aberdeen v Motherwell Tue 13 Dec 19:45 St Johnstone v Motherwell Sat 17 Dec 15:00 Motherwell v Aberdeen Fri 23 Dec 19:45 Inverness Caledonian Thistle v Motherwell Wed 28 Dec 19:45 Hamilton Academical v Motherwell Sat 31 Dec 13:00 I know ICT and Ross County have far to travel every second week, however nothing to stop them being given St. Johnstone and Aberdeen to mitigate the travel. At Hogmanay, ICT vs RC, St Johnstone vs Dundee and Aberdeen vs Hearts would keep most pretty happy at all clubs involved. This time of year is bumper revenue gathering when the family diaspora returns home and our league governing body seems to be oblivious. Now over two weeks we're looking at 3x 12pm kickoffs after no domestic football for 3 weeks. And I'm going to refrain from mentioning Currants vs the Unwashed on Hogmanay, as if A&E's aren't full of eejits already at this time of year.

2-0 up to this, feel like I've been raped by an elephant