Jay

That's good to know, cheers for that mate.

As has already been pointed out, population plays a huge part. Scotland's attendances aren't by any means terrible when you consider the population of the country compared to nations like England, Germany & Italy.

Nae need to keep shouting.

Old Firm fans are allowed to do what the hell they want at Fir Park. Someone near us was told by a steward to put a Scotland flag away, the steward was promptly told to beat it. Another steward also tried to get Motherwell fans to sit down, despite about 3/4 of the entire top tier in the South Stand standing for the whole 90 minutes. It's an absolute disgrace that "our" stewards treat Motherwell fans like second class citizens, but allow the Scum to do what the hell they want, and one of these days a steward is genuinely going to start a full-scale riot. Although there seemed to be a fair number of coppers wading into the Cooper Stand during the second half which was good to see - I assume some of the Timothies up the back had been smacking the windows of the boxes?

Happy with a point today! We may have only had one shot on goal all game, but it went in and that's all that mattered. The effort from the players was fantastic and I thought we thoroughly deserved a share of the points. Delighted we didn't go with just one up front also, as I think that could have been a disaster. Instead we tried to play football and, although we didn't create anything clear cut, we still looked like a goal was always possible - and were rewarded! Thought Jim O'Brien could have taken a quick throw-in at the very end with Murphy only a few yards away and Boruc about 25 yards off his line, but perhaps I'm just being greedy!

With regards to Sheridan, McGhee has said: John Sutton of 2009 must be awful. Was originally looking forward to today, but reading that has pissed me off (though probably no where near how much it will have rightly pissed Sutton off). Looks like we'll be going one up front today and when it all goes tits up, we'll all hear from McGhee about how it was actually a cunningly disguised 4-3-3. Anyway, with that bit of team news I reckon the team will be: Smith Quinn --- Reynolds --- Craigan --- Hammell Klimpl O'Brien --- Hughes --- Lasley --- Fitzpatrick Clarkson If we went with two up front I could see us snatching a draw, but with one up we'll fail to score and end up losing about 3-0 IMO. Although if I'm having to come home and admit I was wrong I will obviously be delighted!

Agreed. If Fitzpatrick made half the bad passes or missed interceptions Klimpl did he'd have been utterly crucified. If folk fancy abusing our own players for misplacing passes or losing headers, then batter in - it's not my own interpretation of "supporting" your team, but each to their own. But when the abuse is entirely based on who the player is, it's an absolute joke. The double standards shown by Motherwell fans both in the stands and on here is laughable most of the time. Last night - Fitzpatrick was gash, Klimpl was gash, Hughes was gash. Funny how only one gets singled out though. A few weeks ago I posted that the reason Fizzy gets abused is because of his surname - I was actually just fishing and hoping someone would get wound up by that remark. But I'm beginning to seriously wonder if there's actually something in it. The worst part is when I read folk claiming they want rid of Fitzpatrick, I don't actually believe they do. There seems to be some bizarre kick that a lot of Motherwell fans get out of abusing a scapegoat, and I don't believe they would genuinely want to do without that little opportunity to make themselves feel better by abusing a Motherwell player on a regular basis. Although when Fizzy does leave, someone else will just fall into his place as normal.

To be fair, I think you'll find the first thing I posted on here when I got back from the game last night was: I don't actually know if it's physically possible to just eat a shoe, so there may have to be some recipes involved. I'm currently thinking about a nice shoe soup to start, with grilled trainer with a pasta sauce and a light dusting of grating heel for a main course, followed by laces encased in jelly and all washed down with a shoe smoothy! The possibilities are endless!

On a side note, obviously most folk will be looking at St Mirren's stadium with the view that we might move to something similiar in the future - if we can get half as good transport links as that ground we'll be absolutely jamming! Out the train, into the ground, out the ground, onto the train - superb!

Ach well, preparations for the shoe-eating have begun - started by sounding out a camera capable of capturing the meal! Anyway, just in from the game as we had to stop for a jar in town in attempt to recover from a very poor night. As for the game - woeful. Shite football match, shite result, shite atmosphere. The myth that we're a good football side was totally blown away tonight, we won't play on a better surface for the rest of the season and yet we were dreadful. Thought big Cillian was our best player, but overall a very disappointing performance. Once Fizzy went off it changed the game, we no longer had a defensive minded player in midfield and it's no surprise their goal came from the side Fizzy had previously been covering. Special mention for the Roy Walker lookalike in the 'Well support, I've never heard such a moaning-faced bastard in all my life, absolutely no idea what you actually get out of going to Motherwell games. Believe it or not, if a Motherwell player does well to block a shot, it's a bit ridiculous to then get on his back because the ball didn't then deflect to his own player. It was quite evident on numerous occasions that this guy has never played organised football at any level in his life. The guy was basically the epitome of everything that is wrong with the Motherwell support. But aye, disappointing evening all round.

Suits me fine!

Aye, I reckon that'll be what guarantees him a ticket. Not too many folk are going to think at the last minute "I'll scrap the couch and the beers in front of Sky and head to Paisley!" We'll be getting to Paisley St James station at 20 past 7 as well, so should be enough time to get sorted. Just wanted someone else to agree with me so if it all goes tits up, he has more than just me to blame!!

Anyone know how many tickets will be on sale at the ground tonight? Myself and Panda nipped over at lunchtime and got ours, but one of my mates has decided to tag along. He hasn't got a ticket yet, but he phoned Fir Park after half 3 and was told that there would be a small number on sale at the ground. Think it'll sell out?!

I propose that all Scottish males with two working legs are awarded with a full international cap on their 14th birthday, just in case.

Don't want to sidetrack from the subject of the thread, but I don't know anyone who took particular offence to Boyle giving them the fingers (and it wasn't in response to him being abused, it was in response to the gathering of fans outside the Main Stand wanting Malpas out) - the problem was when he was then in the press denying it and basically suggesting the 'Well support outside Fir Park that day were liars. I don't have a problem with Boyle giving the fingers to fans outside FP, Fagan giving fingers to the Main Stand, or McGhee having a go at fans. But you don't win any respect for deflecting attention or just totally denying it.

It doesn't actually matter whether you think McCarthy, McGeady and O'Brien are Scottish or not, the fact of the matter is they are. Football isn't actually that important, representing Ireland at a game of football doesn't suddenly make you Irish. They can respesent Ireland, Northern Ireland, France or Swaziland at anything they want, from football to chess. They are still Scottish. I don't think anyone is naive enough to suggest that there won't be some folk who boo him because he chose Ireland, rather than because he didn't choose Scotland - but claiming there would be no criticism if it was any other country other than Ireland is utterly ridiculous. If Brian McLean was good enough to play for Scotland had he chose to, he'd also get abuse from those of us who would feel he had denied his national side his ability and don't try and pretend otherwise. I spend a large sum of money travelling Europe every year supporting my national side - if I wish to abuse some wee ned for denying my national side his potential talent (though as I said earlier, I'm fast coming to the conclusion he's over-rated and mediocre) in favour of a typical west of Scotland identity crisis, and potentially put him off his game against my club side, then I will - and for reasons that I am happy with, regardless if some folk on the internet try to pretend it's something more sinister. In summary, fuck him.

If you genuinely wanted to play for Scotland you wouldn't have jumped ship at such a ridiculously young age.

Agree 100% Bert. I couldn't believe what I was reading yesterday - there's not a chance in hell it was a 4-3-3 last week. I don't mind the fact that McGhee attempted something different and fucked it up, but at least treat the supporters with a little bit of respect by admitting you got it wrong and had to change it at half-time, instead of spitting the dummy and trying to deflect the attention onto the fans. Davie Clarkson was a lone striker last week and it almost sent us out of the cup until McGhee realised he had to put a second forward on during the break, and that's what earned us a second crack at it. Mark McGhee is a very good football manager but, basically, he's also a bit of a c**t.

Nae team on earth could play football on our pitch, so to grind out a 1-0 win over a side that's won six on the trot has to be a very good result. No one overly impressed but sometimes you need to just battle away and get the points. In other news, we quite obviously played one up front against St Mirren last week and no amount of greeting or deflecting from McGhee in the programme is going to change that. It wasn't the tactics apparently, it was the pitch. Haha, lies.

With every Motherwell v Accies game that passes, I find myself hating McCarthy less and less. Orginally I hated him because I was under the impression that he was denying Scotland his talent, or at least his potential talent. But the more I see him the more I come to conclusion that he's by far the most over-rated player in the SPL, and find myself not particularly caring if he doesn't want to play for Scotland becauase, at the end of the day, he's just not that good.

Not old enough to have any memories of Pettigrew's playing career, but I'll always remember him from owning the Lifestyle shop on High Blantyre Main Street around the mid-90's! I mind going round once with one of da's old programmes from the 70's and getting him to sign his photo in it - tap man!

I'd go with: Smith Quinn --- Reynolds --- Craigan --- Hammell O'Brien --- Hughes --- Klimpl --- Fitzpatrick Clarkson --- Sheridan If we start with one up front again, I'll have left by the 2 minute mark.

Never actually knew whether or not Don Hutchison was brought up to support Scotland so that's good to hear! Graham Alexander is Scotland through and through though.

Hope the 'Well Boys have added "Oh Wullie Wullie" to the song list for Saturday!