lady-isobel-barnett

That's not what I'm saying. What possible benefit to Rangers would it be to loan out a 41year old?

Hearts as a football club don't know what they're doing one day from the next so I very much doubt they've made any binding decision with Balatoni. They did tho' allow us to cup tie him up at Culter. (more's the pity some may say) and that would normally suggest Hearts have little interest in him this season at least. But then it's Hearts we're talking about.

Why would any club loan out a 41 year old?

I think from attendance point of view Boxing Day will be the better option tho' I don't really know why. I'm not sure that 3pm tho' is the right time to kick off. I imagine a lot of folk will be going out socially on Monday night. Think an earlier kick off would've been preferable but again it's just gut feeling.

Shirley Knott

Partick Thistle Ladies Team Nobody been in touch with me

Midgies or red back spiders? Tennents or Castlemaine? Susan Boyle or Kylie? Fresh water crocs or Alex Salmond? Lot's of things to be weighed up before such a move.

Not really. That was payback for the Dundee "penalty" at Firhill. So by my reckoning we're due further payback for this latest outrage against our poor wee souls.

Something I've said on a couple of occasions before. Conrad turned up for the Firhill Day in May, when he was effectively no longer on loan, and he also attended the '71 Night in October. Too often we've had guys on loan I've suspected have had attitude problems. Clearly Conrad isn't afflicted with that.

If there's enough interest then we should anticipate a healthy enough return. If it's only one club doing the bidding I'd be very surprised if we get as much as £175K. What we don't know is firstly what Montrose are due (flat rate/percentage/zilch) and is the reported interest in Aaron been followed up by competitive bids. I quite like the idea of us netting a sufficient sum to match one year of the Warriors input with a few bob left over to cover a decent quality loan signing. All conjecture of course but regardless of what happens in January us signing Sinclair was an excellent piece of business.

Generalising I know but Divisions 2 & 3 are largely made up of part time clubs with a part time attitude. They appear to be comfortable with the status quo of playing each other four times a season and more to the point a league system that disallows relegation and promotion to their second tier. If I wanted to be ultra cynical it's also in the interest of the majority of SFL clubs to have full time clubs struggling for existence with one or two brought down to their level an annual bonus perhaps. For all the many faults of the SPL I don't think not serving their member clubs is one of them. With the SFL it can easily be argued that they pander to I grant you a majority, but a majority who have little ambition and have an obvious minority of fan support. Nothing will happen in positive change not just because of the self interest of the SPL but because of the relative petty self interest of the majority within the SFL. Hypothetically say the SPL said they'd introduce a straight 2 up to 2 down (or expand their league to 16 clubs) on the understanding that the SFL allow promotion & relegation to and from the 3rd Div, how would the SFL vote? I think I know the answer would be "no thanks we'll keep our closed shop". I hate with a passion these small leagues with their monotonous repetitive fixtures but that aside I feel the only way forward for clubs in our league would be an SPL2. Put another way the status quo within the SFL has no positive future for clubs like ours.

It depends what paper you've read. I've certainly picked up conflicting reports. I'd imagine the situation at Tyncastle is rather fluid to say the least. A lot could depend on how many 1st team players depart in January. Given Vlad's latest passion they'll probably keep only the tall ones or those that can jump.

One for Brian Cox methinks but maybe someone on here can do the maths.......If it takes the average server about two minutes to serve the average punter a half heated pie how long would it take to pour and then serve the average punter a half hearted pint of lager? And a subsequent question....Would the queue for lager be longer than the faces of those who currently serve pies to the average punter?

If we were to lose both matches it would be the Cup game that would upset me more. I hate when we're out the Cup and the draw is made for the next round. The chances are, had we progressed, we'd be playing in either a winnable tie or miss out on a money spinner. With a league game there's always next week. That's just my own feelings that won't alter. The league game could of course turn out to be far more crucial.

I heard Mr Gilmour at St Mirren isn't too happy with the idea. Something along the lines of converting areas that they've just forked out good money on for seating. My short term memory is fading fast but I can still recall comments from the same chappie seven or eight years ago.so I'll play my greater good for Scottish football card to trump him.

If it 's paying respectful reference to the 1952 model and a certain Red Molly it's an excellent alias

Our inconsistency may well be down to our youthful squad. Take Falkirk's striker out the equation and there's another youthful team who would I'm sure be just as inconsistent. Biggest worry is not being equipped with the battling journeymen type to see us out of a relegation fight. Biggest hope would be that with increasing experience we become less inconsistent from a positive point of view. At a guess having spoken with quite a few fans a mid table finish is a likely outcome. I'm not even sure that a top four finish with Cup exemption till the January round is that much of a plus point if indeed it's of benefit at all.

Last three paras here http://www.theglaswegian.co.uk/football/partick-thistle-fc/partick-thistle-news/2011/12/15/partick-thistle-urge-parliament-to-allow-them-to-sell-booze-during-matches-102692-23636914/? show you what we could expect in way of support from our own feckin' useless organisation. For the record I think serving alcohol at games should be permitted for 40 of the 42 clubs in senior football. There's two clubs I can think of that aren't ready for change. By sheer coincidence those two clubs were the very ones instrumental in introducing the alcohol ban..

Well, this time at least.

Storming down the wing to about 10 yards inside the opposition half then releasing a pass/cross that will unlock a defence? I certainly take your point about Paton's limited ability in unlocking a defence from midfield but I do think he reads the game very well from a defensive point of view. I grant you regardless of where Paton plays he won't contribute positively to our current failure to provide killer passes to our forwards but providing such decent defensive cover in midfield that Paul currently does should provide more latitude for other midfielders to be more incisive. It's hard to be critical of guys like Cairney & Rowson given their standard of performances this season but the fact remains our forwards are getting starved of the service they need to score a suitable amount of goals. I thought the diamond shape with Rowson & Hutton in front of Paton with Cairney pushed up looked promising. Trouble may well be that replacing Hutton with Erskine or pulling back Cairney to partner Rowson will prove insufficient. I can only hope that from somewhere within the squad namely Bannigan, MacBeth, Flannigan & possibly Campbell one of those guys will provide the answer.

All above is undeniable. It would've taken an exceptional striker, way above our present level, to have scored many goals for us this season so far.

Long been an advocate of no points for a goalless draw, so even if Raith's goal had been chalked off we still, in my mind at least, didn't deserve anything from yesterday. Then again Raith didn't deserve anything either and for them to walk away with three points when they were only ever playing for a single point in the first place should really make me angry. Normally speaking I'd be seething at refereeing like yon clown's yesterday but a combination of in reality it only costing us a single point and the opposition being Raith Rovers and not the likes of a hateful team such as Dundee seem to have tempered my mood. I don't know if I'm that angry with our lot either and I'm not questioning commitment. Think I'm more concerned that a team like Raith can come to Firhill play a very poor variety of negative football and we can't score a single goal. Even if we'd missed a handful of sitters I'd be less concerned (law of averages and all that) but for all we can control midfield and push forward reasonably well we just can't produce enough clear cut chances. Even when we're playing a side that's trying to win the game we struggle but when we face the likes of Raith the problem's magnified many times over.

OK for you, I or any fan to feel that way but very dangerous for that feeling to creep into the team/squad. It's fair to assume that a new young manager like McNamara won't be the greatest of motivators and we're certainly not staffed by players who'd relish a bottom of the table struggle. Anyway we're only a point further off the top of the league after today

Don't recall any errors and I thought he was quite positive.

Perhaps they were gambling that it wouldn't be necessary but it's usually the rule that the cost of use is less than the drop in revenue that a mid winter midweek game accrues,. Anyway game is on. Gamble came off?