Fearchar

Not to mention some inaccurate labelling: "Taiwan ROC" (meaning "Republic of China") might be more accurate, whereas "China" really should be "The People's Republic of China". After all, it's a pity to let slip the opportunity to display the gulf between political claims and reality. As a matter of interest, which source was used to compile these country names?

Correct - the blond is Simon Donnelly. The blonde, on the other hand, is someone else. Perhaps it's time for a visit to the optometrist, Willjag?

I'd prefer to see a PUN ALERT notice for the first few, say 5, and then relegation of a thread to the sin bin of the general forum.

That's obvious - you haven't been offered a Playstation 3, but just the dated 2.

HJ's view surprises me too. Does anyone have a note of what Doolan's goal to starts ratio is? My impression of the season overall is that for long stretches Doolan was being kept on the bench by a non-scoring strike partnership of Buchanan and Donnelly. Given that he only began starting regularly (as opposed to coming off the bench for the last 20 minutes or so) this year, becoming top scorer in the division suggests very prolific scoring.

Brazil, surely?

OH, I don't know - I thought they'd been extended massive amounts of credit, although admittedly very little of it ended up being repaid.

That thought did strike me too: is there no professional oversight at all for administrators?

Read Private Eye's take on the potential new owner, and it doesn't look beyond the bounds of possibility.

The oracle has spoken - almost. It just left out the possibility of Gardner Speirs, also mentioned earlier on by Alan Murray and Gordie: as the latter said, there was a decline in form after GS left.

It looks to me as if Dunfermline Athletic is living on borrowed time financially, while if Raith Rovers go up it would increase the financial pressure on SPL clubs. We could yet see an outbreak of realism in the boardrooms of Scottish football. On the other hand, of course, we could see more Done-Dees.

Anyone not aware that you have to creep round the back of the park to get in would naturally gravitate to the main front door, facing the main road at the back of the Main Stand. So it makes sense to specify the door.

It does seem to me that many of us fans seem to expect that players like Paddy Boyle share the same feelings about our club as we do, but it's not at all fair to expect that. We saw this with Jonny Tuffy, too - as soon as it was known he'd be going, there was massive grumbling on here. These young men don't get paid much at all, and if they're to make use of the very limited time they have for a football career, then they have to take all the opportunities offered to them - and good luck to them.

Seems a fair summary to me.

The club which reneged on the bulk of its debts, and apparently still owes salaries and redundancy payments to former employees, but remains in the same division and able to play a multitude of players despite a transfer ban; and the club which has amassed similar huge debts, despite having no substantial assets, but continues to buy more and more players within the division. Sadly, it seems unlikely that the SFL will sort out the snowballing financial and ethical problems.

He's certainly welcome, but I do wonder at all this talk of us needing another striker when we have the joint top scorer in the division on our books; that's despite Doolan starting many games on the bench. If I thought that McCall were sneaky enough, I'd say this is an attempt to motivate Doolan to scoring even more often. (I don't think that McCall is doing that.)

I'm a little surprised that all this discussion has focussed on playing without taking into account the side of the current team which has let them down - the psychological side. The number of draws and the failure to win after going behind indicate a "soft centre" that is a weakness in a competitive environment. It's obvious that McCall is not the type of manager that fires players up (or makes them fear him more than the opposition), and that isn't necessarily a fault; however, in that case someone on the field has to take on the function of encouraging and even, if necessary, bullying players, especially when they're in danger of losing confidence. In the past we've seen "Boab" do that, and more recently it looked as if Martin Hardie was doing it. At the moment, Archie, although captain, isn't. So here's the $64,000 question: who will lead the team next season? That question hasn't been answered this season.

That was attractive, but that's now been and gone, like all the other debt, since HMRC no longer has preferred creditor status. In practice, taxes owed but never paid are just another debt to be shrugged off by the unscrupulous. Unless HMRC becomes concerned about sly tax evasion schemes like this, it's very unlikely that Dundee FC's former directors will suffer any consequences - and that goes for the Administrator too. (I would question whether any of them could be regarded as a "fit and proper person" to become a director of any company.)

No link, I'm afraid.

What is interesting about the Dundee fiasco is that they have shown how it is possible to amass debts in order to gain promotion, shrug off those debts with minimal payment and then go on to benefit from the assets (in this case, players) paid for with other people's money - all this at minimal cost to the club. If the SFA doesn't sort this out, before long many clubs will see this as the route to winning promotion. Provided that most of the debt is at least notionally held by supporters of the club who don't want to see it go to the wall, then it's easy to wield enough votes to ensure that the debt is more or less written off. There is every appearance that Dundee is not the only club in the First Division which might benefit from this strategy. What puzzles me, apart from the ability of all of the clubs at our level to be extended credit by suppliers, is why any of the clubs think it's worthwhile: is there really a crock of gold awaiting once a club reaches the SPL?

5-3-2 is bad enough against part-timers, but replacing it with 5-4-1 after going a goal down is just gobsmacking. This Jags team has no heart: against better teams, it ups its game, but against poor teams it just lets them dictate play. There is no effective leader on the park. That's why the type of play in the second half was dictated by Cowdenbeath. Once we had gone behind, not one Jags player was prepared to stamp his mark on the game and push his teammates on. Will McCall learn the (oft-repeated) lesson, and appoint another captain? Going by experience, this seems unlikely.

It was a turgid game. For much of the game our double line of defenders didn't really know what to do when they did eventually get the ball. For much of the time, defensively-minded midfielders just stood off the opposition player in possession. Later on, both sides decided it was just easier to punt the ball up the park and hope one of their own players would get on the end of it. It didn't look as if either team would have scored if they'd played on until the floodlights had to be switched on. Tactically, we deserved to have points deducted. Fox and Rowson get pass marks. An in-depth defence was put on the park to deal with an opposition that hardly ever scores, and then the youngsters who can provide the pace to supply our forwards were excluded, not to mention playing only one out-and-out goalscorer: this is just playing for a defeat or a draw, at a time when we need points to stay clear of the relegation zone. As has been pointed out, using older players who are about to go out of contract doesn't make much sense either. Since points are unlikely to come from next week's match, the league position is being threatened by poor decision-making. Oh, and to add to the lack of strategic thinking, we are still to re-sign Boyle but the after-match summary effectively tells him that he's essential to the team. If he doesn't have an agent, he can afford to splash out on one now, since his Thistle contract is assured.

The Kelvindale Jags Supporters' Car will be on the road to Dingwall tomorrow, but with a slightly reduced payload freeload for family reasons.

Radio nan Gaidheal has proper sound quality - well, apart from the Leodhasach accents of course. No Rankgers songs could be heard.