Holyjoe

I'm going to be back in Scotland for a couple of weeks at the end of September, and as luck would have it, given the timing of flights and whatnot, I will only be able to get to one Dons league game. That game will be against bloody Gretna at Pittodrie, and I'm already not too keen on the prospect of shelling out silly money just to get to it. I watched the Hearts game for free at the weekend via the net and that wasn't even really value for money. I'm might end up doing the "gloryhunting" thing and hope we're drawn at home for the second leg of the UEFA Cup tie and go to that instead...

Error by Considine, supposedly. Bollocks.

Tombola time...

Seemingly Soutar made a cracking save in the first half and has looked good so far.

Wow I'm impressed, BBC have forgotten to cut off my commentary.

Christ, has someone not told him he's not signed for the huns and thus doesn't have to pretend to be injured before playing any games?

I somehow got myself involved in the discussions for selecting teams for the 2007 Peace Cup, an international club tournament organised by the Moonies here in Korea. They were having trouble attracting big name sides over (they wanted a Real Madrid or Inter Milan to go up against Manchester United's Asian Tour, but the big name Euro sides were demanding ridiculous appearance fees), and yours truly pushed for them giving Aberdeen an invite. Unfortunately the idea was dismissed pretty much out of hand as they indicated that Celtic were the only Scottish side they'd consider, and they didn't want Scottish teams anyway... their loss.

I forget how these things work... but we may (or may not?) be seeded, and thus will face one of these sides? Otelul Galati (Romania) v Lokomotiv Sofia (Bulgaria) CFR Cluj (Romania) v Anorthosis (Cyprus) Rabotnicki (Macedonia) v Partizan Belgrade (Serbia)/Zrinjski Mostar (Bosnia) * Slaven (Croatia) v Galatasaray (Turkey) Uniao Leiria (Portugal) v Maccabi Netanya (Israel) Hajduk Split (Croatia) v Sampdoria (Italy) Besa Kavaje (Albania) v Litex Lovech (Bulgaria) Maccabi Tel Aviv (Israel) v Kayserispor (Turkey) Atletico Madrid (Spain) v Vojvodina (Serbia) Siroki Brijeg (Bosnia) v Hapoel Tel Aviv (Israel) Omonia Nicosia (Cyprus) v CSKA Sofia (Bulgaria) Basel (Switzerland) v Mattersburg (Austria) Ried (Austria) v FC Sion (Switzerland) MIKA (Armenia) v Artmedia (Slovakia) Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk (Ukraine) v Belchatow (Poland) Honved (Hungary) v Hamburg SV (Germany) Young Boys (Switzerland) v Racing Lens (France) Tobol Kostanai (Kazakhstan) v Groclin (Poland) Austria Vienna (Austria) v Jablonc (Czech Republic) Zlate Moravce (Slovakia) v Zenit St Petersburg (Russia) Rapid Vienna (Austria) v Dinamo Tbilisi (Georgia) MyPa Myllykoski (Finland) v Blackburn Rovers Drogheda United (Ireland) v Helsingborg (Sweden) Metalurgs (Latvia) v AIK (Sweden) HJK Helsinki (Finland) v AaB Aalborg (Denmark) Ekranas (Lithuania) v Valerenga (Norway) Dunfermline Athletic (Scotland) v Haecken (Sweden) Brann Bergen (Norway) v Suduva (Lithuania) Haka Valkeakoski (Finland) v Midtjylland (Denmark) Dinamo Minsk (Belarus) v Odense (Denmark) Kaerjeng (Luxembourg) v Standard Liege (Belgium) Fredrikstad FK (Norway) v Hammarby (Sweden) Not sure what to make of Dunfermline's chances... they're facing a recently-relegated Swedish outfit who only qualified via the UEFA Fair Play table. They'll both be happy with their draw.

It's an 11pm kick-off for me so I'll be bouncing along nicely by the time the game starts How about the rest of us unfortunate souls not able to make the game?

"Sod this goalkeeping lark, I'm off to tend to my potatoes..."

Bolton's Nicky Hunt got a straight red card in their first match of the Peace Cup tournament here in Korea two weeks ago - despite them still having two more group games to play (and, as it turned out, the final too), he was set to be suspended for the first couple of Premiership matches until the tournament organisers allowed him to pay a 500 quid fine and get the red card nullified. Would certainly be worth it for us if we could do something like that...

http://www.rsssf.com/tablese/egy2-07.html Aluminium Naq Hammadi clinched promotion to the Egyptian top flight, only losing one of their 20 matches on the way. They were dumped out of the Egyptian cup in the first round to Tanta, who were eventually relegated from the first division. RSSSF is great. Anyway lower-league and non-league African and Asian sides have some cracking team names.

I know that Zdrilic turned down a far more lucrative move to Korea when Ian Porterfield was in charge of Busan I'cons here in order to sign for Aberdeen - he said he wanted to join the Dons in order to have a better chance of getting noticed and back into the international set-up, so in theory he joined us for the right reasons. Don't think I ever saw him play for us other than via the internet...

I remember being at Mike's debut against the Arabs and he scored a cracking goal (fourth in a 4-0 or 4-1 win, I think) which made me think we'd signed a decent player. I still believe that back then (perhaps a similar case of blurry vision) we were actually a reasonable wee side, and it all went downhill when I moved to Korea a month or two later and we went down the Paterson, Sheerin, McQuilken road.. glad I wasn't around for that period Incidentally, since we're reminiscing on players who were a bit shit, I turned up this player profile yesterday, now playing down in the French fourth division... where's Cooney when you need him? http://www.allezredstar.com/fr_penp.php?nom=FABIANO&prenom=Nicolas&add_photo=images2006/a91_fabiano01.jpg&periode=2006-&position=3&birthday=1981-02-08&birth_place=Courbevoie%20(92)&clubs=

They'll be a plethora of escape clauses, then

I hope to christ our home tie (assuming we're in the 1st round ) is on October 4th as I'll be back in Scotland at that time... dunno if I'll be able to persuade the missus that travelling to an away leg on that date is an essential part of our trip.

A magic number for a magic day

None of those today (for those of you who remember that end of season post-fest from a few years ago...) Well done, lads. ;D ;D

RedTV were distinctly less than impressed with him...