Andy_P

I don't know about that but I do know underboyle has probably mentioned it more times than we've scored so far this season!!

Give it bye chaps eh.

Your thoughts and votes please...

It's difficult to know what to say about that today. A whole mixture of ill fortune, some self-inflicted wounds, some utterly awful refereeing and it has to be said some decent stuff from Caley contributed to a result that I don't think reflected the pattern of the game at all. I thought Caley started the brighter and it looked like they might have had a case for a penalty earlier than the one they did get. I'm totally convinced that there was a measure of righting wrongs going on in Thomson's head when he gave the handball. I've yet to see a replay of the goal so I don't know if there was any encroaching but even if there was it routinely goes on up and down the country week in, week out so for us to be picked up on it, feels like we've been hard done by, even if it may be the letter of the law. Good response though. Thought Moult may have done better with the two headers but well on top even if we weren't creating a huge amount. The second was a sickener given how much on top we'd been. Two up at the break with a re-taken penalty and a deflected goal. Very harsh but you look back earlier to when possession was given back to Caley and you wonder if the clearance could have been more decisive. Further bad luck with Grimshaw's effort that rebounded off the bar that could have changed the complexion of the second hald completely. The curse of the former player worked its magic. Could Johnson have done more to put Vigurs off? Certainly at first glance it appeared a bit of a lazy attempt by Marvin to win the ball in the air. A special strike though all the same. Again though a good response and I'm sure McGhee will take heart from a group of players who went to the end and didn't chuck it. The quality wasn't perhaps there on the day, we had a lot that went against us but they didn't throw in the towel. It didn't go our way today and it's especially disappointing that it was a great opportunity passed up to move up the table and inflict a bit of misery on another side around us in the table but far from despondent. Not setting the bar particularly high possibly but more to take from that today than a number of games over the past season and a half. And I'm not even touching Craig Thomson's overall display....

I recall similar words from Vigurs a few months after he arrived at Fir Park too where he talked about time taking to settle, still to find his best form and so on. And he did actually have a pretty decent few months, arguably the only decent spell during his two years, in the months after that, Whether the remarks were totally genuine or an attempt to placate supporters and buy a little more time to win them over, who knows, but you would take him at his word. I thought Vigurs could offer something in a creative sense but that was often heavily offset with questions marks over fitness, application and endeavour. No question though he has the ability to make things tricky for us today if he has the correct mindset.

At the risk of upsetting Superward by still talking about Chic Young you only need to see how much was in the pockets of the higher profile Old Firm bosses in days gone by having a look again at that video in the tunnel at Ibrox where Walter Smith reduces him to the squawking blubbering idiot he is, with Archie Knox heaping on some abuse for good measure. He is all about stoking things that aren't there like trying to create stories about racist remarks during a game against Hearts at Fir Park that were never said or trying to portray minor incidents off the park in the crowd as full scale riots. Sensationalist pish that's usually miles off being accurate is his forte. Sportsound actually lost something when Jim Traynor left and instead of routinely tearing his arguments to shreds the rest of them just began to treat him like a sad old pet dog that can't help pissing on the carpet but is tolerated because he's been there for the last however many years. I seem to remember him making a fool of himself on Sportscene's Friday evening preview show - something else which has come, gone and illustrates how far that "brand" has gone backwards - years ago by insisting a top player, Gordon Durie I think it was, was holed up in Glasgow completing his move to Rangers. Durie was something like 400 miles away and didn't sign for them for months, possibly even years down the line.

Glasgow have built up their crowds from around 2000 when they moved from Firhill and as they have grown as a team they are now close to selling out each week at Scotstoun which is around 6600 currently. Only this week though they have announced they are going to introduce some terracing sections between stands to try up the capacity a little to help meet demand. The thing with the pro rugby teams in Scotland is that a lot of people who go and watch Glasgow and Edinburgh also have connections to club rugby sides like Dalziel or Waysiders/Drumpellier etc. so when games clash it's going to knock some of the potential attendees. Glasgow try to do as many Friday night games as they can to avoid clashes where they can. I'd suggest you give the Warriors a go even just as one off and see what you think. There's lots of the rules I still don't get but I've really got into following them over the past few years. Not to the point I would ever miss a 'Well game of course but if you picked a Friday night say you could have a few beers in town then get the train to Scotsounhill or even taxi it up from the West End. If you buy your ticket in advance you'll save a fiver and you can print it off at work or in the house and save queuing. Once you're there, you've the chance to buy (overpriced granted) a beer or two whilst you watch the game. Glasgow won the PRO12 last season and reached the Final the year before that and the Semis the season before that again so they are pretty decent. There's quite a bond between the players and the Warriors supporters too so whatever the score you'll see them go around the pitch after the game thanking supporters, stopping for photos and autographs and they have a clubhouse next door (effectively a gym with flags and posters) where some of the players not involved go in and speak to fans and afterwards you'll get one of the coaching staff and a couple of players discuss the game. It's different, but it's good.

In terms of the regression of the coverage provided by the BBC let's not forget that the likes of Andy Dow, Karl Ready and David Kelly were still playing for Motherwell when the BBC provided live coverage of each top flight game on the internet. That was in something like 2001!!! Given that few of our games tend to be selected for live radio commentary coverage of your standard Motherwell game consists of little more than grunts and wails of the likes of "urrgh" "oooooah" "wooooahhh"and the very occasional "gooowall" through their painful attempts at re-creating Soccer Saturday through Open All Mics. It's hardly expansive coverage.

Fine work digging that one up. Nice one! And truth be told I also remember seeing Paul Wright, George McCluskey and Tommy Burns against us for Killie so you aren't alone there. Happily I don't remember putting the ball in the net in the last couple of minutes quite so much as Boyd and Nish did!

Sportscene directly and indirectly irritates me on a number of levels. As for what is currently served up, it's actually poorer coverage than what we were getting in the late 1980's. At least in the 80's you actually got your highlights on Sportscene on a Saturday night rather than after 10pm on a Sunday. The excuse was at one stage in the shambolic history of TV deals agreed by the SPL they somehow incredibly allowed themselves to be tied in to a contract where they had to wait until after 6pm on a Sunday to broadcast internet highlights of games - which in itself almost rendered Sportscene completely pointless - with no TV highlights until a Monday. I mean honest to fuck! if you had a midweek fixture on a Tuesday by Monday you were focused on that and Saturday was long since forgotten about. That we can now get highlights on a Sunday night after 10pm - whoop-de-fucking-do!! When goals are now on Sky Sports News within an hour of full-time, when club internet highlights packages blow Sportscene's 5 minute internet highlights packages completely out of the water by mid-Saturday evening it's still a day too late night. Between the SPL as it was and the BBC they allowed what was an anchor of the Saturday night TV schedule in this country to be marginalised and tarnished to the point it's arguably an irrelevance. The schedule in Scotland on a Saturday night should be Sportscene as was - not Match of the Day. End of. You can show your Match of the Day after it, you can show it on your red button, watch the re-run on a Sunday morning (we've paid so much to produce it we have to show it twice) cut to it after Sportscene as they sometimes did in years gone by but, if Sportscene is to have any real credibility and to try re-establish Scottish football on the public service broadcaster in Scotland on a Saturday when it comes to any highlights show it should be Sportscene. Match of the Day itself is a huge part of the issue in that the budget devoted to Sportscene for a full season is probably the equivalent to about 3 Match of the Day shows.There I do have some sympathy for Sportscene as what they have to play with clearly isn't sufficient. But that sympathy is only slight when you see what can be done in terms of coverage of live Scottish sport by Alba with their Scottish football coverage and excellent coverage of Glasgow and Edinburgh rugby. I'm probably just getting old, bitter and twisted but to me it is a nonsense and total irritation when you see things like English FA Cup draws or English womans football getting airtime on BBC Scotland schedules when you don't even have a highlights package of Scottish Cup games on TV until the "big" teams come in. I don't give a shit if they are village or junior teams in Scotland I care more about East Kilbride or Forres Mechanics than I do about Braintree Town or Canvey fucking Island. Piss off with your live coverage of English non and lower league sides on BBC Scotland when you can't even show highlights of your fucking national team or Scottish top flight before weans are in their beds for school on a Sunday night, But back to the show itself for me it does now rank with the likes of your Clyde One phone in and Daily Record. It annoys me that I get so annoyed when people get annoyed each Sunday at Sportscene. It's like putting on Clyde and expecting balance and insight, or picking up the Daily Record and being surprised at the shite journalism you find. It gets shown up and has been getting shown up by other shows devoted to the game in the UK and beyond for years. There is clearly no will to change this when you see how amatuerish a show and how piecemeal the coverage is in comparison. You want a good highlights show of Scottish football? You're certainly not going to find it in the tired pale imitation of what was a much loved and anticipated staple of a Saturday evening until attitudes and budgets change at BBC Scotland, the SPFL and at the risk of being a little over-dramatic dare I say the governance and direction of Scotland as a nation in general.

Indeed Scottish football at it's finest. Queues because people were going to the wrong turnstile because it wasn't made clear which ones were ticket and which ones were pay at the gate, tickets not scanning, fans hemmed together into tight sections of a stand when there's a whole stand there all to watch an overpriced game on an artificial surface played out by two bang average sides in front of less than 4000 folk. It's afternoon's like yesterday that are made so so much better when the Bois do what they do best. Rightly or wrongly the general view is that the Bois made a mistake with the alignment with the Green Brigade recently, and at times they, or those who have latched on to them, have overstepped the perceived mark but I get the impression that there are some who seem to be quietly enjoying the criticism they are currently getting. Don't get me wrong the first priority for me when going to see Motherwell without question is to see the team win, but the enjoyment of the day has been regularly enhanced or in some cases salvaged by the atmosphere created by the Bois. In my eyes a matchday is all the poorer without their vocal encouragement of the team.

That was quite a satisfying three points. I'm long enough in the tooth to remember the likes of Kris Boyd and Colin Nish nick late winners against us what seemed at least once a season for a spell so very pleasing to repay the compliment yesterday. I don't think our performance was as good as against Aberdeen and whilst I wouldn't say we stole three points, I'd have to agree with Locke that the result was quite harsh on Kilmarnock. First half I didn't think there was much in it. Second I thought they were the better team and we were fortunate that they were so toothless upfront. That said we were well pretty well set up defensively and whilst there weren't that many efforts on goal from Killie, when they came, they were generally from distance. You got the impression from early on that one goal was likely to nick it for someone and so it proved with Moult's instinctive and clinical finish. More encouraging words from McGhee after the game. I was particularly interested in his references to building trust and belief. He made a similar remark on Thursday about building up trust in his players to carry out his instructions. He built on that further by remarking along the lines that it cuts both ways and by following his instructions the players build trust in him also. I think this was one of the key hurdles, if you can call it that, about his appointment. Would they approach things like his last Motherwell team approached his appointment or would they go the way of Aberdeen? Happily it seems the former, at least so far. He also touched on the support network at the club off the park which was nice to hear likening it to the vibe of old at Fir Park. I remember he was caught out by a journalist after Aberdeen (the contents of the interview is probably hidden away on a thread in General Football actually) where he contrasted the support he got at Motherwell to the lack of it at Aberdeen and how it makes that bit easier and more likely to work. Now I still have my lingering doubts that if and when his plans with the squad come to fruition and when we reach that mini-peak point (like end of season 1 last time) he won't get itchy feet and have the dilemma about wondering if he has it within him to do the same with a bigger team, but as it stand the early stages of the rebuild job under McGhee seem to be going along the right lines. And my last thought on the game. Killie fans? "Boooo Boooo Boooo Boooo fuckin' Booooooooooooooooooo".

Your thoughts and votes please...

I actually thought his interview was pretty amusing. Ask me a pretty lame question and I'll fire a polite but equally lame reply right back at you. Half the questions he was asked answered themselves.

What age group was it? We had some pretty decent youth teams around that time. The Scottish Youth Cup was known as the BP Youth Cup at that time and I think we got to a Final, perhaps two, and certainly a couple of Semi-Finals. These were the days when perhaps my obsession with MFC was at its greatest and it was nothing out of the ordinary to head to places like Greenock or Dundee with the old man to watch these Cup games. I could be completely off the mark but as well as the obvious ones like Paul McGrillen and Phil O'Donnell who progressed into the first team I remember names like Mark Burke, Scott Kinross, Jamie Picken. Prior to that there were guys like Mark Reilly, Martin Melvin, Stevie Cadden (Chrissy Cadden's old man if I remember rightly), Jamie Dolan involved but I think that year's group would be too old for the match you are referring to. Certainly there used to be match programmes produced for some of the Semi Finals and Finals of the BP Youth tournament. If you were somehow able to get your hands on one of those from around 1990/1991 it might give an idea of who was involved.

You can't simply put it down to one incident but I always felt a turning point in Forbes Motherwell career was the missed penalty/penalty save at Accies around the November of the season he broke through. His confidence seemed to be dented by that and whilst he was far from finished at that stage he never reached the same heights at Fir Park again.

What BBC highlights? Sportscene or Alba? Watching it again on Alba again I did kind of feel they had managed to include every time Aberdeen ventured into our half.

I'd contest that Gardner has a fair deal to thank McLean. He might have had one of two outings beforehand but he had the faith on him to throw him into the Cup winning team and be involved in Europe. Gardner had pace to burn but at times he looked like a frightened rabbit when possession of it. I agree there was unfulfilled potential there but would argue Jim didn't make the most of his opportunities.

To be honest I can't remember the sums offered or demanded. I mind final fee of something like £285,000 left McLean fizzing.

Whilst the club were certainly unhappy with the fee they got from Wishart's transfer, if I remember rightly the fee was set by a transfer tribunal.

A really encouraging display and certainly one of the most enjoyable games I've seen so far this season. It was obvious from fairly early on that we looked a cut above what we'd seen for much of the campaign. There was a shape about us yet at the same time a pleasing fluidity that saw Moult and Fletcher alternate sides back and forth with both Pearson and Lasley appearing to take turns at being the most offensively minded of the central midfielders. Even Marvin Johnson was getting involved in defensive duties for crying out loud! It was also a refreshing change to see players seemingly not scared to have a pop at goal from distance too. Okay you could perhaps argue that we got punished for not being as accurate with our finishing as we might have been but I recollect Johnson, Law and Lasley all having a go from at best the edge of the box which in itself is progress. So it was all the more gutting then to go in behind at the break. I haven't seen the highlights back to see what the murmurings of discontent from the management have been about but it was frustrating to see the traditional ball across goal end up in the back of the net. Very very harsh on us after the first half display. Second half we rode our luck a little early on. We were being stretched and it looked more like Aberdeen would get a second rather than us equalising. But it changed, helped in part by the substitutions. As the half wore on it actually became a really exciting and entertaining game. We got our equaliser and really began to get on top of things. They were still creating chances too, a lot on the break and forcing corners. The last five-ten minutes was just mental. Almost akin to a cup tie where you are desperately seeking a goal to stay in the tie with both teams going for it. Again another positive was that we retained our ambition to win the game. It would have been so easy just to settle for what we had given where we are, away from home and all. So lots to be positive about. Some excellent performances, a much needed show of togetherness from all concerned. The position we're in remains worrying, it is but one game but if we are able to replicate this display more often than not then the focus will surely soon be looking up the table rather then below us.

Your thoughts and votes please...

It would be Fraser Wishart for me. You might argue that playing the bulk of his senior career in the top flight and having spells at both Rangers and Hearts he did pretty well but there was always a feeling that his career never reached the heights it should have. His crossroads came when he decided to move on from Fir Park in 1989 after two or three excellent seasons at Motherwell, when he was reckoned to be one of the most promising full-backs in the country. As I recall there were rumours that a move to Celtic was being lined up as his contract wore down but when that didn't materialise he was left in something of an awkward situation. His way out was a face-moving move to St Mirren. Aye! St Mirren!! Instead of the talked of Scotland caps he suffered relegation with both St Mirren and Falkirk. He did well to get a gig at Ibrox for a spell and then Tynecastle but I recall him as being a bit-part player with both and he was never the same player he had been when he returned to Motherwell for a season towards the back end of his career.

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. Just as shame as has been said already that the turnout wasn't greater, the chat and panel was deserving of a bigger audience. On that score as Busta says I don't recall reading anything about the event in the programme or on the website which might created more awareness of the event and encouraged more people to attend. I've also read a few people note their dissatisfaction with the Well Society currently and wondered if that might have been a contributory factor also. Whatever the case it was interesting to hear the former players talk at some length and it is obvious the affinity they still hold for the club. There was an obvious glee about them reminiscing and recalling games, players and incidents. Hopefully there will be another at some stage in the future.

Looking forward to it. If it's been anything like the podcasts the panel should make great listening. Some fine servants of the club in amongst them so fingers crossed the turnout is decent.