´óÏó´«Ã½

I thought I'd do something a little bit different this week and try to rack your brains for an insight in to your knowledge of junior football and, in particular, compensation fees.

I've got a couple of friends playing in the juniors and one who finds himself in limbo due to his former club being entitled to money even though he is out of contract.

I won't give any names but it's a frustrating time for him and I can understand why. He has been training with another club throughout the summer and they are very keen to sign him but, as it stands just now, are unwilling to meet his former club's "asking price".

Read the rest of this entry

All the hard work of the last six weeks will finally be put to the test this weekend when we travel to face Stenhousemuir in the .

This is what the lads have been working towards all summer and a run similar to last year's when we lost out to Dundee in the semi-final would do nicely.

However, we're certainly not taking anything for granted and we face a very difficult task in even reaching the second round.

All four matches against Stenny in our SFL debut season were tight affairs with two draws at Ochilview and I'm sure Saturday will be similar.

Our pre-season matches have possibly gone better than expected with our only defeat coming against our First Division neighbours Queen of the South.

We wrapped things up over the weekend with victories over Ayr United (4-0) and Airdrie (4-3) to finish the tough schedule on a very positive note.

We played two very different teams in the games and I'm sure the performances pleased the manager considering the amount of changes that were made. I wasn't involved on Sunday but I think Saturday would have been enough for most of us anyway; it's not that often you will see three red cards in a pre-season friendly!

Read the rest of this entry

Well, the has come to an end and has been and gone.

I'm not a keen lover of cricket so I'm trying very hard to keep off my television screen while I wait for the new football season to begin.

I'm sure we'll be talking about this World Cup until the next one in Brazil in four years time; and it certainly ended with just a little bit of controversy.

For what it's worth, I found the tournament disappointing overall and there were several games I completely switched off from despite keeping it on in the background.

A lot of the top players were a let down and I certainly hope we don't see the in the SFL.

Oh, and did I mention that I finished joint bottom of the dream team fantasy World Cup?

Despite all that, there were definitely positives, none more so than it being the third highest attended World Cup since the competition began.

While the football may have disappointed at times, I think the organisation of the event must be praised and the new stadiums looked fantastic. If only the security could have stopped those vuvuzelas from getting inside!

And when Ronaldo and Rooney didn't live up to expectation, we had the likes of Mueller, Ozil and Gyan making their names on the world stage.

Read the rest of this entry

That's now three pre-season games under our belts and the aches and pains are most definitely kicking in.

I've started all three matches and overall I've been pleased how things have gone on a personal level but as a team we have a lot to work on before the real stuff begins.

I'm sure we were expected to win our first two games and we did just that with comfortable victories over Dalbeattie Star (3-1) and Penrith (6-2) away from home.

It's normal for teams to begin pre-season games against "lesser" opposition and I mean no disrespect to either of the sides we faced. From there it's a progressive build up against tougher opposition and we certainly got that against at Palmerston on Wednesday night.

Unfortunately, we lost 4-1 but I felt that might have been a little harsh on us and didn't really reflect the game before both teams made the inevitable raft of changes.

Pre-season games can be a bit frustrating at times. It's all about getting match fitness and that means using a lot of players over the course of a match but the substitutions obviously disrupt the team and it certainly upset our performance.

Read the rest of this entry