TheLip69

If I remember correctly we were sitting pretty round about Christmas time that season and we fell away badly towards the end of the season. The League Cup semi-final defeat to St Johnstone was particularly sore because we'd put 4 past them at Fir Park a few weeks earlier.

Killie got their own back when they beat us in the Cup that season 1-0 at Fir Park, I think it was Ross Mathie that scored for them. I never missed a home game that season, my mother was always wary of allowing me to go to football on my own but as I had just started secondary school in Motherwell and was travelling there every day anyway she couldn't really say no. So that was the season when I really became a hardcore fan. At that particular game I was behind the goals where the Cooper Stand is now and I remember Tommy McLean breaking through, the whistle went, but he fired off a shot anyway and Big Peter just stretched his right arm up and caught it with one hand. You were right about the weather, it was absolutely boiling that day.

of course you'd much rather I'd be hypocritical about it anmd claimed I liked it when I don't. twat.

Can't say I'm impressed the pinstripes waste it for me. It seems to be cyclical a few years back, late 70's early 80's everybody had pinstripes on their shirts and now they seem to be creeping back in everywhere. Worse than the pinstripes though are those damn kiwi's.

RIP Brian. The one thing I always remembered about Brian, is Jock Stein saying he was better than Dalglish at a similar age. Stein also said the injury that halted Brian's career was the worst he'd ever seen. I'm pretty sure he was out for over a year and, not long after he came back, Celtic sold him to Ayr United and we took him from them about a year or so later. He was terrific for us especially when we won the First Division in 1982, a team that also included Alfie Conn, John Gahagan, Ian Clinging, Brian McClair, Stevie McClelland, Willie Irvine, Tommy O'Hara, and a young Gary McAllister knocking on the first team door. Sadly missed.

I think this one is too close to call, first game of the season against a newly promoted side is always difficult to predict. They'll either come out the blocks all fired up and going for it or they'll sit back and play it tight until they feel their way into the game. For once I'd like to see us come out all gung ho and fired up, keep going at them and don't let them settle. Just don't know if we have the players who can do that and keep it up for 90 minutes. I'm more nervous about this match than I have been for years. Weird.

I'm a fan of Fitzpatrick, I like him he does the simple things well and would be an asset to any team, I just hope it's us. He hasn't had any sort of run in the side in a steady position, ostensibly a midfielder he's filled in just about anywhere on the park for us and his attitude is spot on. His goal in the League Cup semi against the jambo's is one of my favourite moments of recent years. There may vwery well be others further up the pecking order than he is, but none with his versatility surely.

I'm not too sure, however I think we will be a wee bit better prepared for the league than some others thanks to our Europa League adventures. I dont think there's a better way of getting young lads to gel together than taking them away for a few days, and this team has done that and included competitive matches in their as well. This free weekend has also meant that Gannon has had them a wee bit longer to really put them through their paces and let them know exactly what he expects of them when they cross that touchline. So build up wise I think the pre-season has been excellent and I only hope the forthcoming League campaign is not a huge anti-climax. I reckon if we show the kind of form we've showed in flashes so far a top six spot is the least we can expect.

Penalties don't come much softer.

There was never any real danger of us going to the wall, mainly because of the fans. As long as they were still prepared to buy tickets then the club was still a going concern. I had a chat with Brian Jackson at the time and he said that, while we remained in the SPL we would have to cut back a great deal but the extra revenue from TV and OF matches meant we would be able to come out of administration in a reasonable space of time. His fear though, was relegation, as he said, It wouldn't have killed the club but the cutbacks would have been a whole lot harsher and it would have taken us a lot longer to come out of administration, and a great deal longer than that to get back into the SPL.

http://www.rsssf.com/tablest/texaco.html Here's a link to the scores and winners. In the early years clubs like Spurs, Wolves, and Newcastle took part in it, but the longer it went on England began sending the likes of Oldham, Notts County, and Bristol City from the lower leagues and Scotland took exception to this so we withdrew but not before Rangers had been put out by Chesterfield. I was at both of those games and to be fair the best team won.

It was a British Cup for the teams that just missed out on qualifying for Europe, when Texaco stopped sponsoring it the Irish teams dropped out and it became the Anglo-Scottish Cup. We had some cracking games with English clubs, I particularly remember the ties against Stoke, Coventry, Fulham, and that Tottenham match. It was the nearest we got to big European nights in those days, and the games seemed to attract pretty good crowds if memory serves. A lot of the highlights of my early days watching Motherwell came in the Texaco Cup.

Gannon's abrasive style might seem worse to the players after McGhee's laid back attitude.

Extremely funny, I thought it was Bury.

I think Gannon might be biding his time before signing anyone, if, by some miracle, we get through on Thursday then he may be able to attract a better player. No-one he signs at the moment can play on Thursday anyway so any signings will be for the SPL and at the moment he has enough to worry about with the Steau match. I reckon we'll see some movement over next weekend, I hope so anyway.

In the words Graham Taylor used to succinctly describe Paul Gascoigne the guy has "refuelling problems" A few years ago he may have been worth a punt, the likes of Celtic, Man City, and Blackburn were all looking at him then, and each of them walked away without even making an offer.

Yep that's exactly as I remembered it, and big Jackie McInally is just in front of Joe Wark. If we're talking Motherwell moustaches you must have Sergeant Major Quirke in the running.

Listen mate, those of us who've supported Motherwell for any length of time are used to things going wrong, it's almost become a way of life for us. So when someone supposedly "in the know" sticks a phrase like that in the middle of a sentence alarm bells ring. If it hadn't been there I would have thought no more about it and then if something did go wrong and I'd be back to thinking "Well that's how it is with Motherwell, we're used to it".

Then make yourself clearer, if you stick a phrase like "all going well" in the middle of a sentence it leads people to wonder what can go wrong and that all is not well.

Whose writing this fucking book, us or you? Going by the state of your posts it's no wonder you need us to write the bloody thing. Capital letters at the start of a sentence, punctuation throughout, capital I in I've, there are two 'p's in scrapped, a gap after a full stop, capital E in European, there is no such word as yous and there is an e on the end of please. The only writing you do is your name when you sign on, unless your carer does that for you. Jeffrey Archer must be worried sick with another cretin picking up a pen.

All going well, of course, don't forget that bit, it's there for a reason.

I remember Davie Whiteford suddenly appearing with a kind of Mexican moustache at one point, and big Jackie McInally definitely had a growth under his hooter for a while, and Ian Clinging had a silly wee tache as well. I have to agree with a previous poster though, with all due respect to Shug, Sam Goodwin's was a topper.

I'm not too worried about what the score will be, but I'm hoping for a deent performance. I would hope Gannon would say to the lads go out and show these Motherwell fans what they've got to look forward to when the season starts, give them a bit of hope, and show them what they can expect in Perth. I see no reason why we shouldn't just go for it, we have nothing to lose, if we lose 5-2 in an attemppt at winning 5-1 I'll be happy. For me it's all about the McDairmid a week on Saturday. I hope Gannon is sensible enough to be preparing for that rather than trying to work out how to score 4 without reply against Steau.

Willie McVie against Rangers a bullet header into the back of the net, an absolute screamer of an OG.

I was at a charity sports function about 15 years ago and on the panel was Emlyn Hughes, someone in the audience asked him who had scored the most goals against Liverpool in his time at the club and he kind of waffled on naming certain strikers from his time but ultimately admitted he hadn't a clue. The questioner then said "Well actually Emlyn it's you " No striker had scored as many goals against Liverpool as the 12 og's he had scored in his time there. Weird, but as Emlyn said "Most strikers only played against Liverpool twice a season I played against them every week"