lady-isobel-barnett

Great to hear it's selling well. It's a good initiative and a decent turnout will be reassuring to David Beattie & Co. Both the January get together & the season ticket holder hospitality day didn't attract large attendances and Beattie must have been concerned about supporter apathy. This current initiative won't be, if at all, a huge commercial success but I'm certain that was never the intention. As a goodwill gesture and a tool for highlighting the Centenary Fund it's surely hit the mark.

Can't say I know too much about Falkirk's financial plight but from what I hear there's a certain similarity with our own problems. It looks like they're also prepared to scale down next season. In relative terms to get to our level it should be drastically more than we have to do. Their major problem is cash flow so as they can even reach a situation where they can scale down. We apparently have that side of things now under control. To keep the wage bill low enough there'll be an emphasis on youth players getting first team starts. We're probably well ahead of them with that. Altho' a similarity with us I get the impression that Falkirk are working to a bigger scale than us. They certainly have less time to steady things. Not that a ten team league is in any way appetising but next season is starting to look very even stevens compared to recent seasons. Unless some club goes against the grain (and there'll be at least two with previous) or McDonald at Accies blows the parachute payment on player wages, it could be a very tight league indeed. That may be no bad thing for us.

That man is billow contempt. Falkirk would be a swell rid of him.

Now if they charged £15.32 then I could definitely see problems arising at the turnstiles Anyway we'll certainly be hearing a lot about Falkirk's financial plight in the next few days and quite likely for a lot longer. Despite paying more than the odd daft wage I have a wee bit of sympathy for Falkirk. Most clubs dropping down from the SPL to our division are caught between a rock and a hard place, tho' I suspect Accies will be an exception to the rule and will adjust easily enough. I also suspect that game Falkirk played against Killie at the end of last season that there was far more than just relegation at stake.

If it was at Dens Pk, where they already charge us £19, I'd agree. But how can we grumble when they charge us less, even after their surcharge, than we'll charge their fans back at Firhill? VAT is after all aimed entirely at the end user. Just because other clubs have chosen to absorb a tax increase doesn't make Falkirk in any way culpable for passing it on. Besides I tend to blame tax increases more at the door of those who are supposed to run the country than those who place an inflated value on the worth of Burton O'Brien.

If I read things right Dundee have a four point advantage on both Ross Co & Cowdenbeath. County have a game in hand over the other two. Of Dundee's four remaining games three are away from home and their one home game is against none other than us. The double whammy of us condemning Dundee to a play off place and a couple of weeks later young Bannigan scoring the winning goal against them for Ayr is I'll grant you an unlikely scenario. All the same we can but dream.

That's a bit cruel. Falkirk, like everybody else, have every right to pass on the VAT increase. If they've enough change at the turnstliles to anticipate any confusion then I can't see how an average away crowd can be inconvenienced.

That's a very clever word on plays.

ESPN Soccernet brings home the urgency for us to get Boyle re-signed pronto. "Patrick continued to dominate" and "The hosts continued to plug away and Carl Finnigan narrowed the deficit further with five minutes remaining, but Patrick held on for the three points".

It's like some sort of pun virus spreading from one thread to the next.

Surprisingly no hangover today. So forget about all these cure alls like alka seltzer, raw eggs & honey or drinking pints of water before you go to bed. Just watch a good Jags away win and find a generous Fifer (albeit both very rare) and voilà .

He yacht to have known better. Crackin' photos, Jim

That may be true but they'll still act less skint. Their debts are largely of the soft loan variety, which helps. Putting that aside their turnover gate/season ticket/hospitality & other initiatives is noticeably higher than ours and that would make them the one team in next season's league that would pay significantly more in player wages. One good thing tho' from our point of view tho' is there'll be no money spinning Raith/Pars Fife derbies next season. As a fair minded Jags fan I'd like to see Raith win the league but if Dunfermline win it I'll take solace in knowing that there'll be no relatively lucrative Falkirk/Pars derbies either. On the subject of rivalries/derbies, how much better off would we have been this season had Killie come down instead of Falkirk?

I suspect so Anyone who was at Livingston last May to see the young lads win the cup will have witnessed how good team spirit is that the youngsters have. In no small way will that be down to Ian Cameron. As a coach Ian evidently is far more interested in performance than actual results. He doesn't set his team up in a win at all costs mode. Witness the young Livi players (a team that went thru the season almost unbeaten) after that game when a handful got red carded for arguing with the ref while others were just about fighting with themselves and you'll see the opposite to what Cameron's been trying to achieve.

McCall is gently slating him by saying he's so laid back. He certainly didn't look that way just after the third goal. I wonder if that's been what's been holding the lad back . Perhaps coming from a part time environment, where you don't need to take the game quite so seriously, is the one aspect he's been slow to adjust to. He certainly has adjusted to the rigours of full time football from both the physical and stamina point of view so maybe it's been the mental attitude side of things that's held him back. Grehan's best games imo have been at Palmerston (2nd game) & yesterday. On both occasions few could argue he wouldn't have made a worthy MotM. He also put in a decent showing at McDiarmid Pk in the Cup. It's a pity in a way that these performances were away from home.

A pie there costs £1.90 edited to add... I don't know if that's in any way relevant.

Mmmmm Forgot what I was going to say.

No real problems with any club adding the vat increase on, even if their increase is slightly above true level. Agree tho' that not having prices rounded up or down to an exact £ could, if the away crowd was larger, cause hold ups at the gate. Sorry for the selective quote, Armand2, from a post that was otherwise mainly my view of things as well. I thought the ref actually penalised Campbell for the foul an instant or so before Balatoni got involved. In other words he was playing advantage rule at the time of Balatoni's challenge.

You'll also find LIB has been ploughed with alcohol tonight. A Dunfermline supporter was most insistent on buying me drinks. Who amongst us would refuse drink from a Fifer?

The first goal we lost came from a quick free kick, something that non televised refs at our level rarely allow. I can only remember one in recent seasons (from Donnelly earlier this season) that we've benefited from. As it was far from the first time Falkirk had taken a quickie we should have been. The second goal looked as we didn't play to the whistle ( today's ref made some eccentric decisions). I wouldn't be surprised if any video shows up a Falkirk infringement. Right, that's the negatives out the way the rest of our play was largely sublime

I just can't fathom out why that is.

According to STV online Flannigan will miss out thru injury. Even if not correct it's been touch and go this week whether he'll make it or not. Could see Cairney start for either of those reasons and not just because he's available again. Bit concerned that guys like Erskine & Cairney with no real form will start. Grehan's border line on that count as well. On the other hand a feature of the second part of this season is that players who've played poorly in in their previous matches are often in contention for MotM in a following game. So we're certainly due a stormer from Erskine today

Even so, we might be well advised to ditch that song in the next season or so. By my reckoning we'll be playing in the Champions League season 2013/14 and the wording could easily be misinterpreted abroad. I'll maybe have a word with David Taylor (the Eufa fella) who sits behind me in the JH Stand. Even better, next time the song is being aired at Firhill I'll check if his missus is singing along and I'll report back

Just recalling the day we played them at their new ground. For those who weren't there we were wearing the jester outfit and they were playing in a yellow top with a largely black sleeve. In the first half we were playing right to left (looking from the one and only stand) so every time we attacked it looked like twenty guys in the same team chasing the ball. Needless to say the ref ordered a change of tops at half time .

If Ryan did just that it could be quite a battle for midfield places. To me it looks like Campbell will be in the frame for a start and I'd anticipate the experience Bannigan has had this season will mean he'll push on too. Also McCall was saying that McGeough's future could be as a wide right midfielder. Maybe we'll be playing an attacking version of 4-5-1 next season