Ancipital

from Stoke official website

Can't think what a Chinese businessman would want with a big plot of land in a city with an ever increasing amount of Chinese students and student flats going up everywhere else in the west end. Of course there will be a shiny new stadium in the offing, just a couple of technical difficulties to sort out first...

Guess you'd need to ask him what nationality he is, he was born in England and sounds as Lancashire as they come. As much as I'd love him to be this good, I doubt he's got a chance of being capped at senior level by either England or Wales so getting called into a Wales under 19 squad (not sure if he even played) probably doesn't count. Dan Jefferies was at least Welsh born which I hoped would put an end to the Sean / Steve Welsh gags regarding Welsh players at Firhill but apparently not.

We also siigned Williamson and re signed Cardle and Gordon straight away. Wouldn't wholly surprise me if Mansell had agreed in principle to join straight away but wasn't officially confirmed until paperwork signed when he came up for the start of pre season. Dunfermline have signed some kids plus Paul Paton and Morton have signed some English non league guys plus Aiden Nesbitt. I wouldn't be shocked if we were waiting on an answer from Kris Boyd which we've now received and other targets will now move up the list.

Hibs become the 5th team to pull out of the reserve league for the coming season.

Think Dundee will be far closer to replicating our season just gone rather than that of Ross County, huge turnover of players and a new manager coming in. Since 2000 only ICT (2009), Hearts (2015), and County (2019) have come straight back up. Since the promotion playoffs have come in, St Mirren, ICT, and ourselves all missed those playoffs as well in the first season down too. United will start as favourites I'd think, as much as yesterday was a good laugh it would probably have been better for us if St Mirren had come down for the same reasons as Dundee above (and to limit the amount of trips to Dundee). ICT and Dunfermline cutting back, Morton an unknown quantity, Ayr I think could be candidates to go down, they're losing all their best players and recouping next to nothing. the two part time teams won't be a gimme but neither of them are finishing top 4.

Craigen, McGuigan, Bradley Halsman, Doolan, Bannigan, Muirhead. Pre-season friendly vs an Everton XI whose goalscorer was a young Ross Barkley

ATS had a horrendous knee injury at Doncaster, missed an entire season and has never been the same player since.

We, erm "relegated" Hearts by losing 4-2 to them in 2014 but other results (St Mirren I think) went against them . Fortunately they returned the result a few weeks later at tynecastle and we were safe.

Since the start of the transfer window we've taken 1.58 points per game which is 4th in the league, it's also the biggest improvement of any team compared to their season long PPG. I still don't think that excuses Caldwell from the desperate performances between him taking over and the transfer window opening, if we'd even steadied the ship in that period we'd be at least where Dunfermline are now rather than still in the shit . Ayr / Morton and QoS all have a PPG of 0.92 since the transfer window opened (the lowest in the league), obviously we don't have to play Morton again but Ayr's drop off means they're at the other end of that table about relative performance since January which is encouraging given we have to play them twice.

McCall was actually getting worse as time went on, he started in 2007-08 and peaked in 2008-09 when we finished 2nd, we then sold Harkins and Twaddle, Mark Roberts declined, Liam Buchanan stayed injured and Doolan and Erskine had yet to find their feet. The 2010-11 season was a really grim start, pumped 4-0 at Kirkcaldy on day 1 , back to back losses vs Cowdenbeath and Stirling in the league, pumped 4-2 in Stirling to go bottom of the league in October. We pulled away but were floating about in mid table when he left in April.

I've been going to football for about 30 years and in every cup game that goes to a replay the ref is also the same.

At the very latest it was the 0-6 vs Celtic in 2014. Think the last time I can remember us losing from 2-0 up was against... Ross County in the 2001/02 season, we were 2-0 up after about 5 minutes as well. Might have been a more recent one though.

I've said this for ages, it's not pretty but it can be effective, and how hard can it be to train a professional athlete who you would think would have decent upper body strength and flexibility to begin with. Doesn't have to be Stoke / Rory Delap levels but it surely gives an advantage compared to a regular throw in. Both goals yesterday came from throws into the box on the little toytown park which is probably the equivalent of a long throw on a normal pitch.

Daily Express reporting we're trying to get Scott Mcdonald out of retirement again. If he's fitter than Coulibaly then there definitely is a fitness issue for Coulibaly.

Does anyone think if we restrict hearts to the main stand only that a) there won't be loads of them in the home end and b) the police and stewards will do anything about it?

When was the last time a team put us out of two national cups in the same season? Hopefully not adding to it this weekend. edit: I know Rangers, Dundee United,and Celtic have done it to us in the same calendar year (2008, 2016, 2018) but those were across 2 seasons @The Jukebox Rebel

Fitzpatrick must be our youngest league goalscorer in a few years. Think the last time we were 2-0 up at HT away from home in the league, Steven Anderson was playing for the opposition 3 years ago.

No, because that was Stephen Simmons. He did score a hat trick against us at Firhill though, but I won't hold that against him as long as he scores more than that in the rest of the season.

From p&b . A full list of double relegations: 1974-1976 - Dunfermline (1-3), Clyde (1-3) 1983-1985 - St Johnstone (1-3) 1992-1994 - Cowdenbeath (2-4) 1995-1997 - Dumbarton (2-4) 2000-2002 - Morton (2-4) 2004-2006 - Partick Thistle (1-3) 2005-2007 - Stranraer (2-4) 2008-2010 - Clyde (2-4) 2010-2012 - Stirling Albion (2-4) 2011-2013 - Dunfermline (1-3) 2014-2016 - Cowdenbeath (2-4)

Jack Storer (away) would be one away fixture I'd be confident we could win.

Higginbotham was suspended yesterday, if he wasn't then there was a good chance it would have been 4.

The only players contracted for next season are Bell, Penrice, Fiztpatrick, McGinty and O'Ware

I've remembered a more recent one, Thistle lost 3-1 at Dunfermline at the same time Scotland were losing 3-0 to Wales in Burley's last game, I was at the Scotland game that day but the Thistle one when we played Gretna.

When was the last time a Thistle first team and Scotland played on the same day? Edit : Scotland football team before any smart arse points out the rugby team played on Saturday.