As the fixtures for season 2009-10 are released at 10am this morning and some teams are reportedly starting pre-season training tonight it seems as good a time as any to start off the thread for Scottish football in 2009-10.

As ever we start a season with Livingston owned by a complete cock who seems determined to run the club into administration in a flurry of court cases and in-fighting amongst the supporters. Paul Hegarty is still under suspension as the manager of Livingston and many of the best players have left whilst complaining about unpaid wages Although stangely their most sellable asset, Leigh Griffiths, seems to have been paid on time each month. Angelo Massone has intimated on the official site that he will make an announcement today as to the future staff structure of the club, but it will in all likelihood be as fanciful as many of his past announcements. West Lothian Council have set a deadline of the end of this month for Livingston to pay the rent that they owe them, and there is still a court case ongoing between Livi Dreams (the legal entity the club was purchased through) and previous owner uber-cunt Pearse Flynn.

Stirling Albion supporters and trust have launched a campaign to buy the club whilst their owner continues to buy players for next season that they can't really afford.

On more positive note Stranraer seem to be on more solid footing financially and are bringing back many of the players who have been a success with them in the past. Several third division defenders will be looking forward to coming off the pitch battered and bruised upon hearing the news that they have once again signed up Michael Moore.

In the first division Dundee seem to have magically made all of their debt disappear and Jocky Scott seems to be following the Livingston (of several years ago) model of winning the first division by buying the best players of all the teams around you. I imagine the wiser heads amongst the Dundee support are looking upon their current spending spree with some scepticism and wondering just how such a large amount of can simply disappear.

For my own club, Alloa, we have come off a dreadful season where we were looking to win promotion but ended up fighting against relegation instead. Allan Maitland has acted early to boost our squad and has already signed up Scott Walker, Stuart Noble, David Crawford and Scott Agnew for next season. The signing of Scott Walker is clothed in a bit of controversy as he was pretty universally disliked by our fans following a previous spell here, where his commitment to the team was questioned by the fans. Walker was largely seen as doing his best to avoid injury while he waited for a move down to England to materialise, this culminated in our Scottish Cup defeat to non-league Spartans where Scott Walker had an absolute nightmare. Unless we can manage a season where we are challenging for the promotion play-offs then mailands jacket will be on the proverbial shoogly peg.

Roll on our first pre-season fixture on 4 July.

While we're waiting for the league fixtures, I may as well point out that the CIS cup draw was made recently:


news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/scot_cups/8083066.stm

I think that's probably the most "blah" cup draw I've ever seen.

I asked about Dundee's suspicious new-found wealth on the 08/9 thread when they started treating division 1 as an episode of "Supermarket Sweep". Apparently they've got a new sugar daddy who has paid the debts and given them some readies to spend. So no possibility of that going wrong then...

edit: it's practically written into Franchise's DNA that they must be owned by a complete arsehole. From Bill "Mr.Blobby" Hunter to Pearse Flynn to the current bailiff-dodging wanker.

So, that's the fixtures out and they are on the SFL site. We've started with our usual first game of the season away to a newly promoted team, this time champions Dumbarton.

Killie at home to Accies first up (Setanta situation permitting). That could've been worse.

We don't have much in the way of a pre-season lined up yet, just a home game with Burnley on 6 August.

Full SPL fixtures here

http://www.scotprem.com/

On a slightly moaning note (with vaguely optimistic overtones as it involves us winning some cup games) if we progress through the cups and get away draws we could end up with 8 out of our first 9 games being away from home. With two Scotland games at Hampden also on then that could be one hell of an expensive month.

Hmm, looks like it could be either Ross County v Raith Rovers or Montrose v Forfar Athletic. Unfortunately I can't find either Ross or Raith on a map...

Tony Mowbray begins his tenure as Celtic boss with a trip to Aberdeen, followed by a home game against St Johnstone, then another away match at Hibs.

Ooh, away to the scorned Mark McGee as your first game, that should go well for you, then the newly promoted, full of confidence, scared of nothing yet St Johnstone followed by an away trip to total football playing, still on a new manager high Hibs. Mowbury might not last as manager to the first old Firm game in October.
We've Falkirk at home, we'll probably draw.

Interesting times at Fir Park this close season. the latest name to be linked with the managerial position post-McGhee is former player and cup winning hero Luc Nijholt. His last gig was as assistant to Co Adrianese at Salzburg,winning the Austrian Bundesliga. Others linked include Gary McAllister and Davie Hay.

Our fist game is two weeks tomorrow and at the moment we only have 13 under contract players and a load of (promising youngsters). At least our pitch repairs appera to be progressing.

Does anybody know much about this Melville character at Dundee? He seems to have wiped out the debt in exchange for control over the stadium,which was previously owned by Dundee Utd fan and board member John Bennett. He has been making noises about avoiding Gretna's example and re-uniting the club and stadium.

I've not seen it confirmed anywhere yet but it seems that Livingston have had the electricity cut off at Almondvale for non-payment of bills. Things really are looking pretty dire for franchise at the moment.

Can I just mention my total shitfest in tipping Queens Park for last year? No? OK then.

Is this the thread for the anti Tony Mowbray thing? No? Even better.

Celtic are a pub team, and have a pub manager. Except... I think he may be perfect for them. Good luck to Aberdeen, as (I think) Celtic will have played 3 real games by then? (and probably gone out of Europe against some Lithuanian village 11.

or indeed some emergent nation team with some sort of electrical device name.

My nonsense aside, I can see Dundee winning their league (and about time for a cup run?) and Falkirk to go down.

Rangers to win a very close league.

Both cups to Celtic.

The latest rumour has Steve Staunton taking over at Fir Park...

taking what over at Fir Park?

The vacant managers position

Dundee or Inverness probably to win first division. Though Dundee having money gives them an advantage over the other 9 teams. Dunfermline to finish a disappointing 4th/5th, taking a tanning from Raith Rovers on 3 occassions during the season.

As much as I'd like to see Falkirk or St.Mirren go down, my bet is on St.Johnstone. They don't have many players that look 'Premier League' class though that is open to debate I'm sure given how bad the SPL is.

Nah, ICT won't win the division (the relegated SPL club never does), they'll finish mid-table and get a couple of embarrassing doings from the Staggies.

I really can't see past Dundee, as they're the only team in the division to have both money and a manager who knows what he's doing.

And Franchise will be relegated (if they last that long).

Angelo Massone really is raving fucking lunatic. He is claiming that the electricity getting turned off at Livingston was a deliberate ploy to teach the fans how much they need him. It's surely only a matter of time until the club are put into administration and consequently relegated to the third division, they've been a financial basket case ever since they were moved from Meadowbank.

Oh dear. That sort of posturing narcissism is considered bad form even in Italy - in Scotland it'll get you driven out of town by a pitchfork-and-burning-torch-wielding mob.

In fact, the only thing working in his favour is that Franchise have a small, weak and complacent fanbase.

Yeah, and when you're also supposed to be paying the electricity bill for the offices next door (who have paid you their share of the bill) I would also imagine it gets you sued pretty damn sharpish. Not that Massone will care, I wouldn't be too surprised to see him jetting back to Italy with a lot of income having gone through the Livi Dreams company, a lot of debt having been put onto the football club and Angelo Massone having wangled a nice little profit for himself.