QUOTE:
a Buckfast free zone

I don't know, blameless. I wouldn't be so quick to write off Raith. My Airdrie-supporting (and non Buckfast drinking) mate was very pessimistic despite the 2-0 lead.

I'm kinda split over this one. I want Airdrie to win because of my mate, but I'd like Raith to win because I love Stark's Park and have always had a soft spot for them.

Other than that - Mon the Angus teams!

Clyde 5 Alloa 3 (6-5 on aggregate)

Jesus, that must have been some game. Commiserations, Dink.

Airdrie 2 Raith 2 (4-2 on aggregate)

According to my mate, it was bad defending that gave Airdrie all four goals. Commiserations to Smallweed when he appears again.

So, Clyde v Airdrie for the right to play in the world famous Irn-Bru Division 1. Contrary to the prevailing opinion on this thread - Mon the Diamonds!

Clyde 5-3 Alloa (aet) (6-5 on aggregate)


Fucking hell - three goals in front on aggregate, less than 45 minutes to go, and your first goal of the game was a shot from 30 yards that was beautiful to behold. It really should be time to sit back and savour the moment as the players on the pitch play out the remainder of the game with nary a worry in their hearts. Unfortunately what actually happened was Brown Ferguson got injured, our midfield dropped out of the game, Gary Mcswegan began to cause our defence problems, Clyde pulled a goal back, our players visibly wilted as the difference in fitness between part-time and full-time teams really began to show and going into extra-time it really looked as though defeat was inevitable.

Looking back on the game now that a few days have passed Clyde were much the better team, probably deserved to go through over the two legs and our failure to deal with Masterton's corners was our downfall. But that doesn't make it any easier to take when you've somehow scrambled into a three goal aggregate lead. I know that we probably weren't good enough to go up and it could be that another season in the second division to strengthen the team is just what we need but, by fuck, that still doesn't stop it from feeling like a massive kick in the guts.

Oh well, roll on next year.

Condolences, Dink. Clyde winning at all is never a good thing, but Clyde in their current guise (The John Brown Bluenose Retirement Home Loyal) coming from 3 goals behind against a decent mob like Alloa is a real sickener.

Airdrie vs Clyde in the final. Ugh.

And if this weekend hadn't been shite enough already, Thistle's increasingly cunty board have restarted their campaign of victimising the people who run ptfc.net. Fucking bastards.

Looking increasingly likely that Clyde will reverse the recent trend and escape relegation via the play-offs (both previous 9th placed teams have gone down). A 1-0 win at NewBroomfieldShyberryExcelsiorWhateverItsNameIsTheseDays Stadium in the first leg of the final means they're most of the way there.

And it looks like the division 2/3 play-offs are going to supply this year's "unfair" promotion. Arbroath - who finished in 4th place in division 3, thirteen points behind 2nd-placed Stranraer and thirty-six points behind champions East Fife - won the first leg of the play-off final last night, beating the aforementioned Stranraer 2-0.

Oh aye, and Rangers maintain their crawl to the SPL title, scuffing a 1-0 win over Motherwell at Ibrox.

Blameless, if you've a minute can you drop me a PM with the story behind the ptfc.net harassment? Or send an e-mail to: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Cheers.

imp - will do, either this evening or tomorrow morning. There's a couple of points I want to check first (make sure I've got my facts straight).

As I watched last night's fiasco from Ibrox on Setanta, I realised that David Murray was right when he said Scottish football is a laughing stock. I hope Murray will speak up in defence of Craig Levein when he appears in front of the tribunal to explain his post match commemts.

If Mike McCurry isn't biased, then he should obviously be suspended for not knowing how to do his job.

Ooh, feel that conspiracy.

I look forward to seeing Dundee United's appeal. What will they demand? All Baptist refs to be burnt at the stake? Replacement officials from those epitomes of footballing non-corruption, Italy and Germany? Celtgers and Rangtic to start every game handicapped with a one-footed kickboxer?

McCurry- like every ref in the SPL- is assessed after every game, by both the clubs involved and independently. No doubt MA and all the deranged Old Firm fans on here will claim and counter-claim some ingrained bias at HQ, either to fix games or hide incompetent officials. But they should remember that once Levein and Lorraine Kelly calm down, someone from Tannadice will score McCurry out of ten. As they do every week. With a higher mark than most of his peers.

You never take Gibraltar wrote:

QUOTE:
someone from Tannadice will score McCurry out of ten. As they do every week. With a higher mark than most of his peers.

I think that's highly unlikely.

I don't believe "conspiracy" comes into it. McCurry's performance yesterday is easily explained - he was scared shitless. Until supporters of the Mickey Mouse teams can intimidate like the Gruesome Twosome nothing is likely to change. What we saw yesterday was just a bit more blatant than usual.

The highlights I saw last night were an absolute disgrace...surely to god Cousin will be punished for the headbutt on video evidence? neat the way the United player hardly flinches :-)
The ref's performance yesterday will go down in history as one of the most blatant.
is it true he's retiring and asked for that game as his last at Ibrox?

A more likely explanation for such refereeing decisions is the most simple - he bottled it. Referees at this stage of the season are conscious of the impact their decisions have. Giving a decision against a side challenging for the title has serious consequences, and no ref wants to give a decision that might be deemed crucial or decisive in the outcome. Hence you get decisions like yesterdays.

I wouldn't call it conspiratorial, but I find it to be no surprise that when critical incidents arise we see the decision going for the 'big' club.

I would hazard a guess that Impact Substitute and You Never Take Gibraltar haven't watched an awful lot of Scottish league football in the past eight or nine years if they reckon that what happened at Ibrox on Saturday was merely the product of honest human error. This is Mike McCurry that we are talking about.

McCurry has been a long-standing joke in the SPL (see below), and Craig Levein deserves a lot of praise for going public with this and spelling out what everyone has been able to see for a long time.

Yesterday, a clear-cut penalty when David Weir chopped Noel Hunt's legs from behind was not given. No red card for the attendant professional foul was given either.

Another red card for a punch in the face (Kirk Clubfoot on Noel Hunt) was not given.

An own goal by David Weir (with a Dundee United player offside but running away from the play at the time, and clearly not interfering with play, given that Neil Alexander was diving the other way, in the direction of the original shot!) was not given.

A red card for Daniel Cousin headbutting Lee Wilkie was not given. Instead McCurry brandished a yellow card, which means that he saw the incident but didn't want to send Cousin off.

Four big decisions and they all just happen to benefit Rangers. Mike McCurry cannot even be bothered to make it look good or semi-plausible. Dundee United have lost a place in Europe next season because of this guy.

All this "he's scared of being intimidated" stuff is a neat way of dodging the issue. This is not a case of an honest broker shitting himself in stressful times. And it does not involve Celtic in any way either, despite certain other posters' valiant attempts to drag them in with the usual "old firm" shite. What we have here is a biased referee who is consistently favouring one team again and again.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2000/11/15/sfnabe15.xml http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_prem/2438919.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/d/dundee/4088257.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/motherwell/6226555.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_cups/7215941.stm

Today, Dougie McDonald was in a similar situation to McCurry yesterday. He was reffing Celtic-Hibs, a game with one side chasing the title and another going for a European place, just like Saturday's match. It was a very eventful game, with a lot of good football played by each side. He did an excellent job apart from refusing a penalty to the home team when Ian Murray got Gary Caldwell in a headlock and wrestled him at a set-piece. That's okay -- these things happen, and any ref can make a mistake. McDonald didn't get anything else wrong today.

Mike McCurry is a different kettle of fish altogether. The whole of Scottish football knows what he's about. That is why Craig Levein went mental yesterday and screamed at McCurry: "Why don't you just blow the whistle cause we won't get anything?"

Here's Levein's radio interview on Saturday evening. Have a listen.
http://media.putfile.com/Craig-Levein-post-match-interview

The interesting thing about the disallowed goal was McCurry's positioning - he could not have been better placed. The linesman may have mistakenly thought that Robertson, not Weir, scored the goal (and then tried to cover himself by claiming that Robertson was blocking the keepers view 25 yards out from goal) but McCurry was just 5 yards away. He couldn't possibly have missed that it was Weir who diverted the ball into the net. Weir, of course, then put his head in his hands knowing he'd scored an own goal. There were no protests at all from Weir or any other Rangers player that Robertson was offside.

QUOTE:
I think that's highly unlikely

In the Melbourne Sunday leagues, like all grass-roots leagues everywhere, all refs get marks from both teams. Any refs seeking to progress to higher leagues get further marks from independent assessors. So of course the same system, writ large, applies in the SPL. The refs with the highest marks get the most games in the highest division, as you would expect. And usually, such refs would expect to do a disproportionate number of games involving the leading teams in the top division. (Perhaps someone familiar with the SPL's app