ARu-Strathbungo

The Firhill area was known as 'fairhill' back in the 1820's. It could have been modified over time to firhill simply because of dialect …. or more likely a spelling error on later maps

Mind you it would be funny [IMO] if Sellik donated to a Rangers survival fund!! I wonder would that heal any of the bad feeling, or just make it worse?

Unfortunately, Christie Elliot's contract was extended by Dundee recently. [when I say unfortunately, I mean unfortunate for PTFC]

Yesterdays papers were making the point that players commanding big transfer fees can be ignored and instead the smart move for teams trying to recruit new players might be to find your best team from released players and free transfers. Will Lawless be unaffordable? Would he price himself out of a job just because he has to take a rate cut? Agreed on Erskine, he's 33, but he is the clever type who looks after himself, I think he would do well for another 2 years at League 1 / Championship level.

Todays papers had an excerpt of a European list of 'vulnerable' football teams and the article noted Rangers FC is number one in that list due to it dependence of match day revenue to run the club, it could be that Hearts might find there is a place in the SPL for them after all if RFC need to go into another phase of 'administration'? The link attached shows some of the massive disparity levels within European football. Have a look at page 66 to see the country that depends on match day revenue the most, this more than anything else makes me think C-19 is going to have a disproportionate impact on the Scottish game https://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/OfficialDocument/uefaorg/Clublicensing/02/63/79/75/2637975_DOWNLOAD.pdf

As long as Scottish football is controlled by Rangers FC, Celtic FC and Sky / BT TV networks it is compromised as a 'sporting association'. With those three entities, Scottish football is moving towards an advertising facility for betting shops ..... nothing more

When all the data is analysed I think there will be direct causality between our catastrophic death rate and:- the delay in stopping flights into major hub airports [London and Manchester], allowing mass gatherings like the Cheltenham festival, Rangers V some team from Germany [a country that was already suffering badly in the virus spread], Liverpool V some team from Spain [another country that was already suffering badly in the virus spread] ….. and then the punting of old folk from hospitals into care homes without checking to see if they were infected with C-19, all to ensure there would be no capacity issues within the NHS. All of them avoidable if we had had the right sort of politicians in Westminster. As they say, hindsight is easy, but all of these issues regarding mass gatherings / virus spread R numbers etc were known by the UK scientific community. The UK governments inaction / misguided policy of herd immunity and 'keep the fingers crossed' that the mortality rate was going to be low, were our undoing. We have a government that are good at creating 'buzz word' slogans, but are not so good at governance ...….. and we have these people for another 5 years!!

I remember this one being mentioned back in February / March as it had been used for some Ebola outbreak? I think Remdesivir is effective in some cases where the patient is already very sick and on a ventilator …. I don't think using this drug is part of preventive healthcare, therefore I'm not sure this is really going to save us getting this virus, and getting back to watching football unfortunately.

Dominic's stories have a wiff of Prince Andrews 'Woking Pizza Express' bullshyte about them. Could half of the JH stand ST holders use the Main Stand as an alternative? Have gaps of 2 empty rows between occupied ones?

liam buchanan

The problem with this scenario is without cases you cant trial the vaccine effectively so it could be we have to adapt the a different way of living ….. perhaps in years to come seated football grounds will disappear to be replaced by terracing with safe standing areas, [this is something I could live with] Although it's a nice thought that the virus will disappear completely, I think that is a sort of 'Trump / Unicorns and Rainbows' way of thinking, more likely it is a virus we just learn to live with.

Don't we need to be in a situation where the virus has been so heavily suppressed and the R number below 0.5 ? [I'm not sure of what the R number has to be for the virus to be classed as 'suppressed'] I think the footballing authorities will be looking for these tests to be a confirmation that the players are clear rather than being a part of the 'test , trace, isolate' procedure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennent_Caledonian_Cup

I thought it's main aim was the welfare of the population? But to football matters ..... Has the Norwegian Football authorities decided on whether it can open up?

No, I think the plan is to 'encourage' a 4 day week, as I read it is an aspirational piece of policy, not something the Scottish Government will or even could 'impose'. Personally I agree with what you say, I normally worked 60 or 65 hours a week [normal for oil and gas work] and it worked well for me.

I would take anything YouGov says with a big pinch of salt …. they also have Ed Balls as the most popular Labour politician, and that [I would guess] is on the basis of his performance during a dancing competition? If I am honest, I don't want politician to win popularity competitions, I want them to do the job of leading a country to the best of their ability, especially in times of crisis …. something that can make you very unpopular!

All this, 'who did what, when?' is very good, but will we see social distancing and live football sometime during 2020? Another body blow for sports like football is the advice that singing in a choir will spread the virus, even if you are the full 2 meters apart! Tragic for our JL choir!! Could we be looking at putting the Championship, League 1 and League 2 football clubs into a sort of 'care and maintenance only' stasis?

A I said earlier … in a few years there will be a book explaining the statistics of the various countries. Factors like … (i) slow to shutdown (ii) population density (iii) age demographics (iv) people with health issues etc etc etc I don't think anyone expects an accurate assessment now, and it is more likely the longer the statisticians and the medical experts in this field study the data, the more accurate the findings. Scotland seemed to me to have run the whole lockdown scenario better than England, the message has been clearer and they have not obfuscated the facts. Scotland have been notably better in managing this crisis …. but that is just my personal opinion. I really didn't mean to bring politics into the discussion, but when you have a populist hard right government, which lied to get into power in the first place, it is really hard to ignore the fact they have made some dreadful errors in handling this pandemic. Plus it is worth asking why the NHS was so poorly prepared to handle a crisis like this!

Yes, it's like they were quick to impose a lockdown simply because they could not afford to contemplate any other methods. I think South Korea also did well because they had previous experience of dealing with virus control. I guess we should be looking at countries like Greece to see how they propose to start playing football again?

To be honest, there is going to be a best selling book about statistics on this virus in a few years from now, just an explanation of what we have gone through … maybe they will call it, ' WTF just happened?' Why did Greece do so well>, did China do as well as they say they did?, why did right wing 'populist governments' do so badly? [America, England and Brazil] Were the Swedish Governments tactics the best in the long run? One thing that is a worry in the UK, is the assumption that the virus has been 'beaten', or it has 'gone away' …. that may hurt us in the months to come.

Well we will have to agree to disagree. I think the politician / political group that has not made a mistake in dealing with this virus does not exist. I'm sure there will be scrutiny of every politician of every county in the months and years to come. But again I ask the question …. knowing what you knew in January this year about this virus, could you have done a better job? There is every chance we may see another wave of Covid-19 later this year, or early next year, hopefully what we have learned to date in 2020 will help in the control of the virus if and when it has a resurgence With regards the timing of raising the lockdown, it follows that the virus impacted on Scotland later than it did in Italy, France or England, a difference in the timings of raising the lockdowns is logical. Politicians don't set the agenda, the virus does.

I think you are wrong in your assessment, but rather an me trying to argue the case either way, this article explains the vaccine process better [apologies, it is from the Telegraph !!]:- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/covid-19-coronavirus-vaccine-news-us-uk-trials/

no good reason, I wish there was

Would you have handled it a different way? have no temporary hospitals and running the possibility of having treatments in the corridors of overwhelmed facilities? Easy to criticise, but have you ever set up a country in the best way to control a virus that is completely novel? Politicians are dammed if they do and dammed if they don't, but what they have to do is 1) Protect human life, the economy is important of course, but the first priority to ensure the safety of the population. The politicians in Scotland did as good job as they could, they did better than the English [but it was the English boastfulness, more than anything else, that let them down … you can be sure that somewhere in England, as we speak, there is a tory politician looking for something to 'ramp up'] they didn't do as good as the Germans [a relatively rich country], and nowhere near as good as the Greeks [a relatively poor country] figure that one?? The Track and Trace app works best the more people use it, but some people will choose not to use it as they feel it is an infringement on their human rights.

I agree with this …. it is short term greed versus long term satisfaction. I personally don't think the clubs will vote to change the status quo anytime soon, but at some point in the future when RFC and CFC win the league year after year, and all the available cup tournaments year after year, there will be a tipping point where fans will simply lose interest. Once the fans lose interest, the advertising revenue drops, and soon after the cable / satellite TV people will scurry off to find another sport to manipulate to their own objectives and ambitions. The real problem with getting rid of the sisters [and their fans] is their toxicity. One is a supporter of the IRA and has an inbred hatred for the UK, the other supports the UDA, is more English than the English and dreams of the annihilation of the Irish state! ……………………… That sort of a background is not easy to sell to the English Football League [or even an Atlantic League?] You simply cannot polish these two turds.