BowenBoys

This terrific thread reaches it's one hundredth page. Great photos, reminiscences good & bad, Holmesian detective work and long term memory capacity that puts mine to shame. Brilliant

Thank you digger.

Thank you German Jag. And Willjag, ThickAs Thieves, jagaloon & sb1876 too, of course.

Three pounds for a chance to win Declan McDaid's top. Join the festive fun. Sign up now and receive a free 'Thank You' from me* * limited to next forty six entrants.

Thanks Will. Great pics.

Also, if we get 50 entries (surely we will) there will be enough money in the kitty for another top. Therefore, once the Last Man Standing gets down to around 15 players left, those players will go into a prediction competition for the 14th top.

Thanks to lady-isobel-barnett I now have Declan McDaid's home top to give away. Well, I say give away but you don't seriously believe I would do that, do you? The whole point of this is raising money for our club. So, for a change, the game is Last (Wo)Man Standing. Each week simply post whether Thistle will WIN, LOSE or DRAW. If correct you stay in. Can you let your head rule your heart? Last person standing wins Declan's top. I'll go into (think up) the details later. For now I just need to know that you're in. I want as many as possible in this (almost) festive game therefore entry fee is a mere £3. I know a lot of people don't use paypal so I will be in the Aitken Suite before the Inverness game and will collect cash. If you want to use paypal make sure you use'Send money to family & friends' option so that I don't get charged by Paypal. My email address is [email protected]. Make sure you include a note of your forum name. Let's get involved in this guys. A small outlay for a bit of fun ensuring that Santa is good to Archie.

I don't buy this 'meaningless game' thing. Remember when we lost to Ross County on the last day of the season? Was that a meaningless game? I remember a lot of folk on here complaining about how much prize money we missed out on. All games actually matter.

I don't like the idea of summer football either. Probably stuck in my ways. I do want major change though, so why not try it. Norge is right, something has to happen.

lady-isobel-barnett has generously donated the top that she won here today to the fundraising cause. More on that later. Just want to pass on my grateful thanks. Onwards and upwards wearethistle.

But you're only one point behind the leader, sort of.

Yes, commiserations TAT, that was tough. So close. Want to kick us off for a fourteenth top so you can have another shot?

Positions after 3 rounds. jaggy still ahead. Will they catch him?

Congratulations lady-isobel-barnett. A fine last-gasp victory.

Would be nice to see a picture of that, CD.

Well, well, well. Advantage lady-isobel-barnett.

And then there were two. Ross County goal means adios Norgethistle.

Now, this is interesting...

Fairly quiet afternoon at Player Sponsorship HQ. Had to wake the Spreadsheet Operations Manager to stick a 1 in the away column. All still to play for but ThickAsThieves has probably put the champagne in the fridge.

Do you actually like watching the same teams over and over again?

When the leagues were restructured to 10/10/10/10 in the 90s, it was supposed to help Scottish football teams improve by ensuring only the very best teams were in the league. 'Scottish football teams' in this context means, of course, 'Celtic and Rangers'. That's gone well then. They created a situation where half of the teams in the leagues spend the whole season looking over their shoulder in fear of relegation. Hardly a recipe for stability and growth. A twenty year experiment that has clearly failed. There are many teams like us who would benefit from a period of stability. It is difficult to attract players when there is so much uncertainty. We have recently lost players to teams around us. Killie and Ross Co. possibly being thought to have a better chance of staying up. As we know, it is hard to get players to commit to more than one season. Is this related also? I'm sure we are not the only team who start the season with one eye on relegation as a business plan. Larger leagues would alleviate the situation and allow smaller teams to, slowly, improve. This is a very unhealth situation. Twenty years have been wasted. Scottish football, as a 'product', has not improved. Let's have some forward planning and radical thinking from our administrators. Yes, I know. Silly idea.

How did this come about, has it been set up by the club or is it a volunteer initiative that the club are backing?

So we move on to the final game. If it finishes 0 - 4 Norgethistle will win. 1 - 4 and it's lady-isobel-barnett. Any other result and our current leader, ThickAsThieves, will get Declan's top. Sort of Helicopter Sunday.

Agree. Very good listen. Great to have an atmosphere.

Sounded as though we did well. Unfortunate to concede an equaliser but credit due for coming on strong afterwards and not crumbling. After last week, good result. All the other games went our way too.