AMMS

I'm not sure there is any way to make those figures look good. There is real pressure on the club to qualify for next seasons Champion League now, and the need to sell someone is most certainly real.

Memo to WS - Don't buy any goalies from Championship reserve teams.... Wonder if the glamour of those surroundings might make Charlie realise just what he is throwing away. Great goal mind.

I think we have to expect poor results with no Europe in the equation. It must be a question of how bad.

Ally McCoist is still probably the highest profile sports person in this country, so getting him on board is a coup for SCIAF. He's also smarter than your average footballer and is well advised so it might be that he looked into SCIAF prior to agreeing to this and decided they were worth his support. McCoist, like most Rangers players and management, is sought after by all sorts of organisations and individuals, however McCoist more than most. That he decided to give up his time to help them should tell us he feels it is a worthwhile cause. McCoist is aware of his profile and aware of his worth to any organisation who use him and he has agreed to help this charity for a number of years now. Perhaps he thinks they aren't denominational, perhaps he thinks their work transcends our natural enmity, perhaps he hopes Rangers fans, a group he could rightly be assumed to have some influence over, would look beyond the charities name and find out what they do, where they do it and maybe agree with him that it is a cause worth supporting? On the original point, McCoist is doing this as an individual it is not connected to Rangers, it is no different from him attending church, giving his old clothes to the Salvation Army or having his children baptised. This isn't football and religion mixing in my opinion.

is lent not for catholics. Not just no. All Christian denominations recognise Lent. If you refer to the custom of 'giving something up' then Anglican/Episcopalian ones do this in a very similar way to RCs, Orthodox churches follow it almost exactly too.

Not true actually. Giggs was born in Cardiff to Welsh parents, he had no choice to make Wales was the only country he qualified for. People are confused because his family moved to Lancashire when he was 5 (his father went to play Rugby League) and he spent the rest of his life there. He represented England schoolboys because he was at school in England but was never eligible to play for England after schoolboy level. The situation with Andrew Driver at Hearts is similar.

Last time round any non-Scots were classed as foreign. Naturalisation was possible if a player had been with a club as a youth player, Gary Speed at Leeds was the test case on this I think. As someone has said though the EU might still say no, especially when you look at the make up of the bigger teams in Europe, none of the English champions league clubs (maybe Man U with naturalised players) would be able to field a team currently.

Celtic supporters are: * Over twice as likely (151% more likely) to be Catholic. * 75% more likely to have bought something from a newspaper coupon or offer in the last 3 months. * 39% more likely to agree “I don’t like to know too much about what is going on in the world these days”. * 27% more likely to agree “Credit enables me to buy the things that I want”. Why do these stats not surprise me one bit!

It's market research, it tells you at the bottom.

Part of the appeal of supporting a football club is the empowerment it gives to often otherwise disenfranchised people, mainly young males. Whether you agree or disagree with their politics the power AEK fans hold in Athens is remarkable. This exists in parts of South America too I believe. Still got a bit to go before they take over Dynamo Kievs grasp on power though.

I don't think value-for-money has ever entered my head while watching Rangers. Rangers is an emotional decision not a pragmatic one. Cost is an issue but it is simply down to being able to afford it, if I can I'll pay it, the value aspect doesn't come in to it. I'd be astonished if it did for anyone actually.

First things first. Fantastic effort from the author, well done. I don't have too much problem understanding why SDM or Walt have problems with internet forums, some really do post bile and do slander however the author is correct in his assertion that all shouldn't be tarred with the same brush. Rangers Media (sycophant hat on now) and what 'Frankie' is doing are perfect examples of what the author is getting at. I'm not as pessimistic as some on here, I still think the opportunity to communicate with the club and harness the internet is in our hands. If we challenge the 'bile' when we see it, if we challenge the slander and ask questions of those who post criticism without solution or thought then we'll be doing our job. Build it and they will come. The authors point about SDM creating the next up-wave to attract the next owner is insightful and well thought out. Reading the quote from Smith above I don't really see much to criticise in it, or feel he is being particularly critical of messageboard posters either.

The young Hearts player about half way down the list on the Scotland Under 15 Squad story on the home page. Anyone else notice him?

He hasn't been charged far less found guilty yet.

No I'm not I'm arguing that open terraces are less safe than seated ones, I've never at any point said standing is unsafe. Let me give you a hypothetical scenario. Had the City of Manchester Stadium had an open terrace I think it's fair to assume someone might have produced some forgeries for last seasons UEFA Cup Final and could easily have sold them to unsuspecting fans. 5 minutes before kick off, 5,000 guys are standing outside the ground having paid good money for a ticket to see the biggest games of their lives and are facing 6 polis and a dozen stewards who are saying they can't get in the computer says that part of the ground is full. The fans are furious, there is confusion and anger amongst them, they are brandishing tickets at an increasingly worried looking plod and a steward on minimum wage who really wishes he was somewhere else. The plod radios his boss, tells him there might be trouble, big group of guys with tickets and the turnstyle computer says the section is full, needs some reinforcements or else let them into the ground. Now if the boss says open the gate and let them in must be a problem with the computer and I don't have any reinforcements handy then we have a serious problem. We have 5,000 pissed off people forcing their way into a terrace that can't take them. That simply can't happen with seated terraces, you can see at a glance if all the seats are full or not, you can't do this with a standing terrace. You might think that scenario is unlikely but it is basically what happened at Hillsborough. As I said in my first post you need the Police and the stewards to do their job correctly every time, I don't trust them to do this. Don't give them the opportunity to kill fans again.

I insinuated nothing of the sort, you read what suited you. What did you think I was insinuating that fans would die of deep vein thrombosis or exposure through standing up? Get a grip! Open terraces are more dangerous than seated ones, that is why no one has been killed on a seated terrace through crushing, which was what killed all the people on the 3 best known, but by no means only, examples of football stadium disasters. Crash barriers collapsed through the sheer weight of humanity pushing against them, I don't care how many you put in to your proposed new stands they are still more dangerous than seated stands. If all these other factors can happen in seated stadiums as you claim then why don't they? Overcrowding is far harder in a seated stand, likewise serious crushing because the open spaces required don't exist. The dynamic of a concert is simply different, you are unlikely to get rival fans for example, and the history of these events tells us that people behave differently at them. If you've spent as much time in Germany as your pal says then you don't need me to point out the cultural differences, you'll have seen them for yourself. I'll post in any thread I feel like by the way.

Very interesting piece. Well done.

Ok, the original poster replied to my initial post by calling it 'bullshit' and then mis-representing what I said. If I'm sounding condescending then it is only because it's masking my pissed-offness. The question about his age is relevant, I'm astonished anyone who experienced Brockville, Tynecastle, Easter Road or East End Park among others would have any wish to repeat that. Someone who didn't might though. Do you really feel a visit to these grounds today isn't safer than it was in the 80s for example? Your faith in the police is commendable, my experiences tell me differently. I'm not anti-police however I don't trust them to do their job correctly when it comes to policing crowds of football supporters. Manchester being the most recent example of this. If you think it is preposterous to highlight the brutal and untimely deaths of fellow football fans to explain why I'm opposed to the reintroduction of terraces then I'm at a loss. How many people would need to die before you wouldn't think it preposterous? Why is saying Germany has a different culture from the UK absurd, it does. Germany has many differences to the UK, football culture being one of them. Football culture in the UK is unique, how many German club fans would attend the Uefa Cup Final if their team qualified, see how many came to Hampden for the Champions League Final a few years back. German society is more ordered, that isn't just a stereotype it is a fact. You can see the obvious contradiction in your post, on one hand saying the policing is worse now and on the other supporting the reintroduction of terraces?

You said the above but IMO there is no issue of safety as has been shown in Germany and lower leageue UK games. No issues last night on a terrace so where is the Safety issue. No one has died due to standning at the football. Hilsborough was an over crowding issue not standing. Lord Justice Taylor did not demand all seater stadia. He suggested it might help with crowd control. You may think it's stuiid but people stand at Scotland games, people stand at concerts but as these things most things these days are control in a safe manner there is no issues. So IMO what you said is bullshit. Sorry I thought you were going to show me where I'd said standing was dangerous? That's right I didn't. Hillsborough was not just an over crowding issue. It was a bad policing, bad stewarding (you apparently don't think we need these!) bad terracing issue. 2 of those 3 certainly haven't gone away and I'm not convinced the third has either. When are you going to provide figures for deaths or serious injuries in seated stands through crushing? Be it Ibrox, Heysel or Hillsborough the one connecting factor is open terraces. These are far more susceptible to crushing simply because of the open spaces, seats by their very presence reduce this likelihood for a number of reasons. For example forging of tickets is more difficult in a seated area becomes it becomes apparent very quickly and as such can be dealt with, that is not the case in open terraces. Likewise seats create natural walkways when leaving, you can’t simply turn and walk towards the exit, this isn’t the case on a terrace. Lastly the likelihood of panic, caused by any reason, is reduced in seated terraces. A ‘rush’ of people in any direction is very difficult because the seats get in the way, this isn’t the case in open terraces. This isn’t something that can even be debated it’s just a simple fact. Don’t talk about pop concerts or Germany they have no relevance to this, British football culture is different to both of these. I have no idea what age you are but having been treated like an animal at various grounds around Scotland in the good old days of terraces I have no interest in going back to that. It is only by the grace of God that serious accidents didn’t happen more often. Open terraces are more dangerous than seated ones, deal with it.

All of which is fair enough mate however there is still a safety issue regarding standing terraces. Whether people like it or not seated stands are safer than standing ones. I hear the Dortmund stadium being used as an example of safe standing quite a lot now however we don't live in Germany, what works there has little bearing on what will work here. It is all very well saying modern design, proper barriers, exits and build quality will improve or eliminate the previous dangers posed by terraces however you still need to rely on proper stewarding, police actually doing their jobs correctly and clubs not cutting corners or turning blind eyes. I have very little faith in those three groups. That is before you factor in actual supporters, all of who need to behave correctly all of the time. Whatever way you cut this too many people have been seriously injured or died already attending football matches, I can see little argument for increasing the chance of that number rising again.

Yeah I've read a few people raise the 'starry plough' flag however despite its obvious connotations and associations I don't believe it is illegal and it is used by organisations such as the Irish Labour party too. We all know why it was there however I doubt we'll get anywhere by complaining about it.

Excellent piece. This is really just becoming a farce now. Oh, and how can someone have been a director of both Motherwell and Thistle? He's clearly a man of principle...

Whilst not questioning the veracity of the 'boycott' the Tims had/have of the Record I'd take issue with Phoenix Honda story. The Records intransigence over costs, falling circulation, and very cosy arrangement with rival car dealer Arnold Clark was the reason Phoenix Honda took some of their advertising elsewhere. Any attempts the Tims knuckle draggers made to influence advertisers has been massively overplayed, mainly by them, in truth it made no difference at all.

DC duly voted for as it is the best goal although I definitely cheered louder and longer after Lovenkrands goal.