February 10th, 2010
As most of you probably already know, the draw for the quarter finals of the Scottish Cup takes place at Hampden this afternoon, quite possibly behind closed doors, and right in the middle of Bargain Hunt.
With only eight teams left in the competition – including a healthy smattering of First division sides – the ‘Big Boys’ of Scottish football will be hoping to avoid a tricky away-day to some far-flung corner of the empire, where the chances of things going horribly wrong make for an exciting evening in front of the wireless. Read the rest of this entry »
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February 10th, 2010
Aberdeen manager Mark McGhee is beginning to feel the strain of the turgid display his sides have put on for the paying punters since taking over from Jimmy Calderwood at the start of this season.
The former Motherwell manager spoke out over the behaviour of some in the Aberdeen support who booed the team off the park on Saturday following their near exit from the Scottish Cup at the hands of Division One side Raith Rovers.
With realistically only the Scottish Cup to play for (assuming they beat Raith Rovers in the replay next Tuesday) and currently in seventh place in the league, trailing some way behind the European places, Aberdeen face a tricky away tie against Hibernian tomorrow evening, with a defeat leaving the Dons trailing fourth-placed Dundee United by 12 points – a gap too big for some supporters.
This season has not been one to savour for McGhee, a member of Aberdeen’s ‘83 Cup Winners Cup team. Since taking over at Pittodrie, Aberdeen have lurched from some remarkable highs to spectacular lows – and pretty much everything in between. Frustration amongst the Red Army over the teams inconsistent form has been growing in light of recent defeats to Motherwell and Falkirk. That frustration came to a head on Saturday as the Dons needed a 95th minute equalizer to force a replay against Raith Rovers in this seasons Scottish Cup, prompting McGhee to appeal to fans to end the abuse. [→ BBC]
Posted in Media, Opinion | Comments Off
February 10th, 2010
The big news of the week has been Scotland’s group of near-death for the upcoming European Championship Qualifying odyssey.
Spain (by that time quite possibly Word Cup Winners) are just another Holland, so we fear the worst. We’ve actually performed better against Spain, statistically, than against the Czech Republic (or Czechoslovakia, for those of you born before 1989), so you may want to hedge your bets. Personally, I fear for our game against Lithuania and the prospect of playing Lichtenstein keeps me awake at night – the scope for things to go wrong know no earthly bounds.
» [Pie and Bovril] does a grand job of summing up the draw, as does [The Scottish football blog]
» In preparation, Scotland get their man [Unprofessional Foul]
» … but Barry Ferguson is not the only one having second thoughts about playing for Scotland [BBC]
Meanwhile back at the coalface,
» life at the arse-end of Division One ain’t all that and a bag of chips [Scotzine]
» Mark McGhee resorts to bad language [We Know SFA] and then goes all out to win over the hearts and minds of Aberdeen supporters [BBC]
» and all is not lost for Stirling Albion, as Scotland’s top sports surgeon Gordon Mackay says his bid to buy-out Stirling Albion owner Peter McKenzie is “not dead”. [Daily Record]
Finally: a new template. What do you think? Does my bum look big in it? (don’t bother, changed my mind).
Posted in Mince and Tatties | Comments Off
February 7th, 2010
So there I was, up the town, being slightly distracted by what’s going on around me as I’m trying to find out by how many goals Aberdeen are leading Raith Rovers. Checking the Sky Sports Score Center for the Aberdeen score on my phone, it was hard getting a signal, and the score took forever to appear. I believe I was halfway down the frozen food section of my local superstore when I finally got a connection. Raith 1, Aberdeen 0, it said. “Fuck” I said. Rather loudly.
Within three minutes of the final whistle having gone at Stark’s Park and the score still seemingly at 1-0 to Raith, I had an article written in my head, the title of which compared manager Mark McGhee to one of those things you find at the top of women’s legs and the rest of the squad to an assortment of items you’d find in books about reproductive gynaecology. But I calmed down when someone told me via Twitter that Gary McDonald had equalized for Aberdeen in the 95th minute. So I calmed down, came home and wrote this article instead. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Match Day, Opinion, Weekend Roundup | Comments Off
February 5th, 2010
Back in the day when an Aberdeen appearance in a Scottish Cup final was a reasonably regular occurrence, the prospect of playing some lower Division canon-fodder was generally greeted in the same manner that the owner of an abattoir welcomes another delivery of mangy cows and sheep to his premises. We’d hack and slice our way through our hapless opponents in a determined, if not always pretty fashion, to emerge victorious and quite often blood stained at the end of it all. Yes, football was a man’s game in them days…
But oh, how the ravages of time have made a seemingly innocuous game against a team that’s fourth from the bottom of the First division the sort of affair that would have you watching the highlights from behind the sofa through the fingers of your hands, your buttocks clenched so tight that not even the most perfectly formed gaseous excretions could get out, and cramp sets in after the first five minutes.
I realise I am being rather hard on my beloved AFC of late (ref: our previous posting), but fuck it, I feel like a right spanner walking around IKEA on a Saturday morning in my replica top being pointed and laughed at by small children; the parents are generally not much better either. Things have got to change, starting tomorrow. So, back the meat wagon up against the doorway at Stark’s Park and herd those Raith Rovers players into the whirling knives of our killer attack.
Oh, there are some other games on as well, by the way. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Match Day, Match Programme | 2 Comments »
