Reekie_Red

Scorers of that game? Duff, Diamond (x2) and McDonald. What no strikers scoring?! So not being to Pittodrie in three years completely nullifies any argument I have about the way the game of football should be played? Whilst there is no doubt that Miller adds another dimension to our attack with his buildup play, I would rather have Miller sitting up the park doing fuckall if it meant he was putting the ball in the back of the net more often than he is. Lets face it, all the buildup play in the world means fuckall if you don't have someone at the end of it to put the ball in the net. I don't need to see Aberdeen play to understand this crucial part of the game of football. If I remember rightly, Stavrum was hardly the most gifted "player" to pull on the red of Aberdeen. But WOW did he know how to hit the back of the net. Head, foot, knee, arse ... sometimes Stavrum didn't even know which part of his body was putting the ball in the back of the net. All he knew was that the ball WAS in the back of the net. That's something our current crop of strikers (Miller included, if you think about the past month and a half) have sadly failed to realise.

As entertaining as these soccer skool videos are, I know for a fact that I would fuckin hate to meet any of these irritating kids out on the town. As calm as I am on nights out, I don't think I would be able to hold myself back from lamping one of these kids. That's how fuckin annoying they are.

Judging by the reaction of the Aberdeen fans at Tannadice in November 2002, you were in a minority with your standpoint on Skovdahl.

Reckon we'll take the points against Killie and Helen. At best a draw against Hamilton. Just to clarify ... what's the deal with 4th place? I read somewhere that 4th place will be good enough to get into the Europa League, albeit at a very early stage that'll see our players have a 2 week break for summer. Am I reading right?

Blind Guardian - Mirror Mirror (ooooooh another doublepointer for the Reekster, yeehaw!)

That was my point! The rest of the players should be there to supply the buildup work. But if there's no player there that you can rely on to put those opportunities away, then all that buildup work is for nothing ... hence why we get so pissed off at Mackie and Maguire ... and now Miller! No goals in over a month is not exactly what you'd expect from "Scotland's on-form striker".

Don't agree with that. He was not the best defender to wear the red of Aberdeen, granted! But he was probably the best defender we had at the club at the time. Beside him were an up-and-coming Russell Anderson who struggled to get back into his stride in the 01/02 season following a year out with a leg-break, Kevin Rutkiepish who was .... pish, Phil McGuire who was consistent but nothing fancy, McNaughton who was more cold than hot, and Solberg who was an extreme liability. Of that bunch, Whyte was probably the best.

I see your point Ajja. But isn't the number 1 priority in football to score more goals than your opposition? The other nine or ten players are supposed to be there to ensure the ball keeps moving up the park and to keep it away from your own goal for as long as possible. If there's nobody up there who can put these opportunities away, then it's pretty pointless having the rest of the squad. Didn't Dunfermline get relegated one season because they'd had something like 20 draws? Proof that, whilst they were keeping opposition out, they just didn't have anyone upfront who was putting the ball away. I'd much rather have a Kris Boyd type player who does very little else but CAN put the ball away time and time again than someone who does a lot of work in the buildup but scores once a month

I'm not blaming the bean counters for the 7-0 drubbings. I'm saying the bean-counters were the ones who didnt do enough to keep our top scorers (Winters & Stavrum) and couldnae even keep our captain Derek Whyte who (despite the ribbings he gets from us these days) was a bloody good defender and captain in the 2001-02 season! That 2001/02 squad should've been developed and enhanced. Instead Ebbe was forced to let most of that squad go, and had to replace it with cheaper and inferior options ... which ultimately saw the end of his reign the following season.

Aberdeen had the worst losing streak, the worst defensive record and the worst goal-scoring record of all top-flight clubs in Europe. Still, Ebbe still took us into Europe twice in the three-and-a-half seasons he was with us. I believe that's more European ventures than the Calderwood-Nicholl regime has seen in the same timeframe. A lot of folk bag Skovdahl. I liked the man. He was a good soul with his heart in the right place. He tried his bloody hardest for the club. The fact that 5000 Aberdeen fans packed into Tannadice to give him a real farewell when we all knew he was on his way was testament to just how many people believed in him. But he got screwed by the bean-counters at Pittodrie.

If Simmie wins (which he will), he should get to smear a kebab in Durrant's face. Goram vs Leighton - so that the rest of the world can see who really is Scotland's number 1

I think SPL2 may just be a working-title for the new league. With the SPL governing chaps running the two leagues, there's big scope for a return to either relegation playoffs or even two automatic relegation spots from the SPL1. Now THAT would fuck with the likes of Motherwell, Kilmarnock and Falkirk! Scottish football needs a shakeup, in my opinion. It's stale. It's boring. It's predictable. Gradually easing one of the governing bodies away from a position of power is only going to do the game good. And for that body to be the SFL, it's got to be good for the future of the game. On a side note, I can't see what the creation of an SPL2 is going to do to benefit the Old Firm, so don't really see any problem with it.

Yes I do. I think his response was perfect too ... "I was just doing my job!" But I do think the yanks are very quick off the mark when it comes to handing out medals and awards for the most insignificant thing, especially when it comes to their soldiers!

It's just not worth it! Why do these idiots put so many colleagues' lives at risk?

Jinx

I didn't mind Doddsy. But I agree with BB to a certain extent that he was given way more praise than he earned. He was an okay goalscorer. He could turn it on when he wanted to. Shearer and Windass, though, were a different class. I loved the fact that we had both Shearer and Windass on the subs bench. If Aitken or Miller wheeled either of them off the subs bench with five minutes to go, you could put yer mortgage on them scoring in regulation time. It's been a long long time since we've had out-and-out finishers like Windass or Shearer. I doubt a club like Aberdeen will see this sort of player again, unfortunately.

Probably not. Americans get awards for farting. It would be nice for the pilots/rescue workers to get some sort of recognition though

Not sure what Italian magazine it's from ... or even if it's a legit interview. Grabbed it from the bottom of another footy news article on The Scotsman's website the other day. It's either a legit interview, or some wanky tim writing a bogus interview just to kick the huns in the teeth. Hope it does have an element of truth in there, cos it's pretty interesting reading.

http://www.afc.premiumtv.co.uk/javaImages/a5/c3/0,,10284~5358501,00.jpg[/img] This photo here. A fraction of a second before this photo, Doddsy and Deano were looking straight at the other camera (the one Doddsy is still looking at in the above photo). Does anybody have a copy of this photo? It was taken by one of my old lecturers Rory Raitt, who was one of the Pittodrie official matchday photographers. Be buggered if I can find that photo though

Hats off to the crew, passengers and rescue staff. A helicopter ditches in one of the most unforgiving seas in the world, and everyone comes out either unscathed or walking-wounded. Bravo!

Surely a team bus would be better than making the team travel around on scramblers!

Beatles - Don't Let Me Down

From an Italian Football magazine, an interview with Marco Negri, about Rangers, and life in Scotland. LB- Luigi Bruno (Interviewer) MN- Marco Negri LB- Marco, you left Rangers under very strange circumstances, why was that? MN- Strange? There was nothing strange in anything that happened there, they simply did not want me there any longer. LB- Why was that? MN- The honest answer is that I didn't know then and I still don't know even today. Nobody ever explained why I had fallen out of favour. LB- Your goal record at Rangers was fantastic and when fit and available you were scoring for fun. I, and many others still do not understand why you left under a cloud. MN- Let's just say you are getting very close to why I think that I was frozen out. Scotland is a very claustrophobic place where everything is examined and analyzed endlessly. Scottish society is in many ways a backward place. LB- What do you mean by that? MN- The culture, the underlying culture of Rangers was not good. The first team players had a habit of drinking vast amounts of alcohol during the week. As you know here in Italy we have a different culture as professional footballers. We know that it is our duty to keep ourselves fit and healthy. Some of the players there like Paul Gascoigne and Andy Goram would turn up smelling of drink BEFORE training. I could not understand why such behaviour was tolerated by Walter Smith who was manager then". LB- Marco we are well aware of Paul Gascoigne's problems and it is sad to see his decline, we saw it earlier at Lazio. Are you saying that the players were out of control? MN- Absolutely, I tried to point this out to Walter Smith several times but he became very defensive and said that I needed to understand Scottish footballing culture. He would hear no criticism of Goram and especially Gascoigne who could literally do anything he wanted to and still get away with it! It wasn't just their drinking however, they had some really extreme political and religious views. LB- Could you elaborate on this please? MN- Of course. They hated Catholics. All of them. I never understood why they were so filled with hatred. Several of us who were Catholic players and all foreigners were told upon arrival, never to bless ourselves at Ibrox as it could cause problems for us. I began to understand that Rangers was an extreme club very similar to Lazio here in Italy. You know, a right wing club with right wing supporters. I personally am not a practicing Catholic but my wife Anna Maria is, and it used to cause me pain when I heard what they said about my fellow Catholics. Lorenzo Amoruso and Jorg Albertz, just kept quiet and kept their heads down. LB- What finally brought things to a head? MN- I was rapidly disillusioned by Rangers and especially their supporters. As part of my professional duties I was strongly encouraged to attend social functions which meant going to several Rangers supporters clubs. The last one I attended really brought home to me the fact that I had nothing in common with these people. The anti-Catholic feeling was venomous and the songs they sang that evening filled me with disgust. It was at that point I decided not to give my all for a club that condoned such behaviour. I went sick. Walter Smith knew the real reason for my 'illness' and he just ignored it. But I wasn't lying, I was sick, sick of Rangers and sick of what they stood for and that is the truth.

Remind your mate to go for an HIV test

Usual story. He's back in training on Monday. He'll make a cameo 22 minute appearance against East Fife on Tuesday, and by Saturday he'll be back to "Long term absentee Jamie Smith" that we have all come to know him as.