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29th December 2003 - Usually when a team in the SPL goes on an extended undefeated run in the SPL it means that they start climbing the table. Somehow, the Dons have managed the first bit of this equation but not the second. Still, we are poised to move up if we can cram a few more points into the festive sack, so that makes the game against Kilmarnock all the more important. They are only 4 points in front of us and indeed we are only 6 points off fifth place in the league so we mustn't let the run slip now. Having already beaten Killie at Rugger Park this season, the Redz should be confident of their chances and hopefully will be able to field a stronger team than the one against Livingston, so the Red Army needs to join in the momentum by giving massive backing at Todders. Something can still be salvaged from what has been a disastrous season so far, especially as the Cup is still to play for, so go it Dandies, prove that you're improving and cuff Killie.

23rd December 2003 - TRF normally keeps a healthy distance away from egg-chasing. For one thing we don't reckon you can make on you've invented a new sport every time you cheat at football. Graeme Souness's rangers teams could've laid claim to enough new games to extend the Olympics by several months. And the average Scot's tolerance of the game has been tested to the absolute limit by events elsewhere of late. But the recent proclamations of Scotland's new national egg-chasing coach might just have a knock-on effect on AFC, so just this once we'll give it the time of day.

Matt Williams, Australian by birth but Scottish by employment, has intimated that those players chasing foreign eggs will in future no longer be considered for selection. The problem is that there are so few professional teams in Scotland that the national egg-chasing team will have to be picked from just three clubs - only one more than the national football team has traditionally been selected from, then. However, the feeling is that a fourth pro team will have to be established to accommodate internationalists returning from abroad, and outspoken coach of Aberdeen Grammar Egg-Chasing FPs, Damien Reidy (another Aussie, wouldn't you know), is pushing the case for this new club to be based further north than the current locations of Edinburgh, Glasgow and "The Borders". To wit, Aberdeen - the only other major city in Scotland with a club in the top flight of the egg-chasing league.

Hearts' desire to play, like rangers in the 1980s, in a five-sixths empty stadium has brought to the agenda the possibility of Scottish clubs following the lead of teams like Reading, QPR, Watford, Charlton and Bristol City down south and sharing stadia with egg-chasers. The concept has never really come up in Aberdeen, where there is no great heritage of egg-chasing, but if Williams and Reidy get their way then the city may well become home to a large club looking for a pitch to play on. The current egg-chasing patch, down at Rubislaw, is hardly a vibrant symbol of Scottish sport, so they'd probably be after something a bit bigger. Not Pittodrie, obviously - the hallowed turf once graced by Willie Miller, Joe Harper, Zoltan Varga and Rod Stewart could never be devalued in such a way (I don't know - you played there, didn't you? Ed.). But if the Dons are indeed to move to a new stadium before the Main Stand falls down of its own (bon) accord, the prospect of having a high-profile egg-chasing team to fill up the days when it's not being used for proper games is an attractive and potentially decisive one.

AFC ought to be chapping the doors of the council chambers urging them to get the proposed new community stadium on the high priority list pronto. When the plans for the development at the Links were drawn up, one of the drawbacks was thought to be that there was only so much you could do with a 25,000-seater sports arena in Aberdeen, a list that realistically began and ended with the Dons. No longer is that the case. There's no way egg-chasing would draw crowds of that order up here but the mixture of chinos-wearing students, local farmers, curious city folk and English braggards keen to show off their 'Wilkinson 10' tops would probably ensure reasonably healthy attendances, particularly with the attraction of a higher standard of egg-chasing than has ever been available to the north-east public before. Whether egg-chasing went on to become integral to the city or not, involvement at such a high level would certainly heighten Aberdeen's profile and improve its reputation as a centre for sporting excellence, two of the stated aims of the Links project.

The trail on the community stadium has gone a little cold, with many seeing it as a fanciful and pricey notion. With Euro 2008 and hence Kingswells having gone up in smoke, AFC can ill afford for the progress made over the last year to be halted. Presuming we qualify for Europe again some time this side of the new millennium, Pittodrie would have Aberdeen in trouble with UEFA just as Tynecastle is currently doing to Hearts. Even domestic games might become unstageable if the safety certificates for certain parts of the ground are, as feared, withdrawn at the next inspection. The bottom line is that, much though we'd like to stay at Pittodrie, it is becoming less and less fit for the purpose, while paradoxically it represents by far the most valuable asset on the AFC balance sheet and therefore the best chance of wiping out the overdrafts. We are nearing the point, with the extinction of SPL clubs suddenly an option, where staying in business and staying at Pittodrie are becoming mutually exclusive, and the Dons need to find somewhere new to play - paid for, if possible, by someone else. We need to persuade the council that the Links is a goer, and the possible cohabitation of our egg-chasing brethren is a trump card we must play.

A commitment on behalf of the City Council to building the stadium and attendant facilities would virtually ensure that the Scottish Egg-Chasing Union would choose Aberdeen for the fourth fully professional club. In turn, the addition of these new tenants increases the viability and attractiveness of the construction, as well as having spin-off benefits for the local economy in terms of visiting egg-chasing fans spending vast swathes of their inheritance drinking booze and/or aftershave in the city's pubs, clubs and dispensing chemists.

Then everyone would be happy, especially AFC, who would get a brand spanking new stadium to play in at negligible cost, and the proceeds from selling the claustrophobic Pittodrie to service the plc debts.

Round-balled Merkie

20th December 2003 - The Red Army will be on the horns of a dilemma this weekend when endangered Dundee fans come north rattling their tins.

It is always sad when a team goes to the wall because each means as much to its supporters as the Dons do to us. Dundee FC has been around for 110 years and, relative to the majority of clubs in the country, it is a name that plays a significant role in Scottish football history. It is one of only eleven clubs to have won the league title, is currently spending its 87th season in the top division, has provided many players for the National Team and only seven months ago competed in its fourth Scottish Cup final. Dundee have been worthy opponents for Aberdeen - the meetings of the two used to be the highlight of the season - and were they to go into liquidation it would indeed be a loss.

However to donate your loose change to the Dee 4 Life campaign would be to reward DFC for the years of profligacy and mismanagement that got them here in the first place. Their descent into debt is not unique in Scottish football but the pace at which it took place is. In an environment where interest is dwindling and the old farm exercise an ever-tightening grip on income, it is not easy to avoid falling into the red. Signing players like Caballero, Nemsadze and Ravanelli doesn't help. The same fans who will arrive at Pittodrie tomorrow with collection buckets were notably silent on the financial ramifications of big-money signings like these when they were horsing us out of the Scottish Cup last season. The reason DFC is in administration is that they have spent millions paying players that nobody else in the SPL, outside the old farm, would have been irresponsible enough to sign. Yes, they were good players, and they were certainly entertaining to watch, but were they worth killing the club for?

Meanwhile Dons fans have suffered falling standards on the pitch (again, little in the way of sympathy from juteland on this score) because AFC has followed a more sensible path, refusing to commit money it doesn't have in an effort to limit the damage. Those falling standards have inevitably led to falling income via falling attendances and the absence of lengthy cup runs, while Dundee jumped the queue and landed back in Europe. Dundee's 'investment' strategy has already hurt AFC on and, therefore, off the pitch. Now we learn that Dee 4 Life is asking the other 11 clubs in the SPL to supply their club with 3,000 FREE tickets to sell for every match this season. TRF recommends they take a look at the balance sheets of those 11 clubs and figure out whether that's something they can even afford, far less something they'd want to do for a club with which they are in direct competition.

Here's a clue. NO. The suggestion is utter lunacy and whoever came up with it clearly thinks Dundee has some kind of divine right not only to exist but to do so on a higher plane than the likes of Partick Thistle and Dunfermline. We're all fighting for our own lives here and if you couldn't see the edge of the cliff coming that's unfortunate, but I'll be buggered if the rest of us are throwing ourselves off so you have something soft to land on.

TRF wouldn't criticise any Dandy who thinks it's the right thing to do to make a contribution to an ailing member of the football family this Saturday. But AFC isn't exactly booming itself. It may be Christmas, but charity begins at home.

20th December 2003 - Mike Mockery McCurry has appeared on the BBC SportScotland website railing against the idea of referees being imported from the continent to take charge of important domestic matches. He is quoted as saying "I don't think the referee's impartiality or integrity are really in question in this country" Really, he himself could have fooled those at Pittodrie in
November 2000 and all those watching on Sky when he took charge of the Dons vs rangers. A match now widely refered to as McCurrygate. Even gag man Tam Cowan affirmed that the Dons were swindled that night. No doubt under orders from the SFA he was to make sure that the gap between rangers and celtic grew no wider in an attempt to facilitate a closer title race. For as long as I have watched football, it remains the most inept, biased and incompetent display of officiating that I have ever witnessed. Further to
the air time the bbc has given McCurry to voice his opposition to these new ideas, ideas that I endorsed not long ago on the TRF website, Sportscene is going to have him on this weekend doing 'magic'. Will it be the same sort of magic that caused the red card in his pocket to disappear that cold November night when every clear sighted individual was sure it would appear after barry ferguson,as the last man, tripped Stavrum on the edge of the rangers box when he was clean through. Or perhaps it will be the sort of
magic that made fernando pricksen's kung fu kick at Darren Young seem invisible to not only his eyes but those of the two linesmen and the fourth official. We'll just have to wait and see.

Whatever happens with this proposal to bring foreign whistlers to our shores and infect the continent with some of ours, it is likely that only 'important' games will be subject to the changes. In SPL terms that means only the old firm match will have an Israeli or a Turk or a Russian reffing it in the future. It will do nothing to stop the fortnightly 86th minute penalty at iprix, or the petrov, lARSEson, or arTITa swan dying swan acts at a ground near you.

Still, maybe one day.

Captain Sweaty.

14th December 2003 - Our first back to back wins of the season merit a bit of close attention and every Rudolph must be feeling a tad happier that we have begun to pick up the pace at last. There's no room for any kind of complacency though, after all, the last three games have seen us double our points tally and very nearly double our scoring, but that is after playing sixteen matches. There is a lot to do and a lot to make up for after such a weak first third of the season, but let's revel in the thought that despite having been so terrible, we are still only nine points off fourth place and there is every incentive to get stuck into a serious attempt to claw our way up the league. As to yesterday's win, the reports in the press are making much of the fact that the scoreline hardly reflect the balance of play, but that has been true of some of the defeats that we have suffered too so they can bugger off. We won and deserved to.

One of the consequences of a couple of wins must be that the next Pittodrie crowd will be that bit bigger and if the home based Red Army takes a leaf from the traveling Red Army rules of engagement, then we could be looking for a cracking atmosphere too. Dundee are in trouble and whilst it may not be the done thing to "kick a man when he's down" that is exactly what the Dandies need to do come Saturday. Plenty of our opponents and their supporters have been happy to do it to us and this is no time for the Redz to be sympathetic. In fact, Dundee are the wake up call for every set of fans in the SPL and although AFC have been working away for some time at getting costs under control, the other side of the equation has been falling income because of lousy team performances. If Dons' fans want to be sure of their club's survival, they need to turn out in numbers at the home matches - that would be the single most constructive way of helping the Redz out of the money pit and creating a club strong enough to challenge more seriously in the future.

Yesterday's game showed yet again just how healthy the Aberdeen support is in terms of numbers, with upwards of 2000 punters swelling Partick's coffers. The home club should, however, be ashamed of they way it failed to host such numbers properly. The queues at the away turnstiles were huge and took something like fifteen minutes after kick-off before they cleared. That meant that a lot of punters missed a fair chunk of the game even though they were being asked to pay for the entire 90 minutes. Partick were well aware of the problem since their stewards kept peeking out the gate to observe the queues but they took no measures to delay kick-off nor to open extra turnstiles - which they could have done by admitting people to the main stand where half of the seating was completely empty.

10th December 2003 - Let's all chuckle at the huns

It was rather pleasing to see the huns crash out of Europe altogether. Predictably however, anyone who airs this sort of view in public will be shouted down by the self righteous, all inclusive, lets all be friends types in the press and television. But let's not get too sentimental. Within football there are rivalries some so intense and overblown that they erupt occasionally into violence both on matchdays and at other times. This is of course the sinister side of football. However, must we be so politically correct that we are bullied by the media into declaring support for teams that we despise for much of the year just because they are playing foreigners? What if I had a particular affection for Panithanikos? The media say we should support Scottish teams in Europe no matter who they are. Well then, perhaps if these teams resembled Scottish clubs on and off the pitch that plea might find some more support. Not with me however. rangers could field eleven Scots and have five more on the bench and I would still be pleased to see them dumped out of European competition in the Uefa cup qualifying rounds. It is not so much the players themselves to whom I wish failure although there are certain individuals to whom I wish nothing else, but the organisation itself. I'll support every other Scottish team outwith
the old firm when they take part in European competition proving that I'm not merely motivated by the enemy of my enemy is my friend way of thinking. For much of their history the old firm have used their position within Scottish society to influence the game's governing body, officials, the police, politicians and media to maintain their dominance over the rest of the league. Yes, their supporter base is larger than that of other clubs and from this(and trading on sectarianism) they get a lot of their money but
that alone doesn't account for the cartel that they have set up, monopolising the league and usually the cups.

I have always maintained that one of the reasons why the old firm and rangers in particular fail more often than not in Europe is that when they walk out on to the pitch they forget that the referee is not Scottish and therefore quite professional. Euro referees are not as exposed to the weegie media zoo that follows the old firm. rangers get away with murder in the spl on a regular basis. Not only do many of their fouls and displays of unsporting behaviour go unpunished but, they are treated by referees like their own children. Putting in a meaty challenge on a hun at iprix, regardless of its legality, is nowadays a bookable offence, particularly if that player is a fans favourite. Crowd reactions at iprix and kraphead are often treated as gospel. e.g. Kevin McNaughton's sending off for a mythical handball. the ref was more than 30yds away but gave a penalty and ordered Kev off nonetheless. Here's where rangers' influence with the media turns into influence on the referees. Even if refs are prepared to see an unpunished meaty challenge on a hun cause them to be the target of verbal abuse for the rest of the match, they are not prepared to see it cause them grief in the following days as phone ins, 'your view' sections in the press, and editorials lay into him. It is a thankless job, that I grant, however, it is one that is more open to undue influence today than it ever was thanks to the increase in media coverage. Therefore, my idea to help combat bias and susceptibility in officiating is for Uefa, if not Fifa, to introduce circuit refereeing. Foreign referees should be put in charge of our games and our whistlers should be inflicted upon the continent. Pay them more and pick up their travel costs if you must(Charging £6000 per second for archive footage should help Uefa cover the costs). If the laws of the game are truly universal then there should be little problem. Foreign refs are used for European games already and with the cosmopolitan nature of most top flight teams in Europe these days we can hardly use the old language barrier excuse for not doing this.

Introduce foreign referees to take charge of spl matches next season, bar them from any unsupervised contact with sfa and spl top brass, and I guarantee that the gap between 2nd and 3rd place would be reduced by around 10 points. I realise that this argument was originally crafted by paranoid tims in the nineties for old firm ties but when we have a situation where last season rangers were awarded 12 penalties whilst other teams averaged 4 we can reasonably suspect there is a foul plot afoot. Make no mistake about it, the success of the huns in Europe will do no favours to the non-old firm clubs in the spl. It won't make a new domestic tv deal appear before our eyes, it won't give us the chance of winning the league, it won't in any way increase the bank balance of any other club. Fair enough, a Canniggia or Ravanelli or some other past his best old pro might sign for your club but he'll sooner bankrupt you or hop off to join one of the old firm before he gets you anywhere near a trophy or a successful European run. Don't get me wrong, I'm not small minded. I cheered on England in the rugby world cup after Scotland were put out. I eat exotic foods, drink imported beer, take unconventional holidays, and read the broadsheet press(Not just the P&J). I just really don't like the old firm.

Captain Sweaty.

5th December 2003 - January Sales - In recent weeks we have established that the will and the effort exist
amongst the players to get results. What continues to lack is composure up front and concentration at the back. The emergence of Zander Diamond as a credible option at the back means that SP has any number of players that can play centre half. McNaughton, McGuire, Anderson, Diamond, Hart, Deloumeaux, and Rutkiewicz. We know that McNaughton and Deloumeaux are wasted on that
position, the former's dribbling ability and the latter's passing and shooting are better employed in midfield. However, that still leaves five players vying for two, sometimes three slots. If Pele is serious about bringing in a strapping centre-half bruiser then it can be argued that one of the others must go as having so many centre halves is surely to the detriment of the squad as a whole if it means that the striking or midfield departments cannot be added to for lack of funds.

But who would go if Bobby Mann or someone of his size was brought in? McGuire is out of favour at the moment but he does have at least two seasons of reliable service under his belt and has done well overall for the club, would that be forgotton in order to solve the short term problem? Hart hasn't lived up to his billing but is able to play right back (Argumentative, I hear you say). Anderson is
the pick of the bunch and would only be allowed to leave if a cash offer arose. Diamond has played well recently and Pele seems to have big plans for him. Thus, it is for Rutkiewicz that I fear if another centre half arrives. Big Kev always gives his all and provides us with some size and no lack of pace. He has been unlucky with the number of serious head knocks that he has had but that in itself bears out his commitment to the cause on the pitch. He has played in centre midfield and at right back but only on a few occasions. In an era when versatility will become a more sought after quality in a player as managers are compelled to reduce the size of their
squads, he could become a victim of his own versatility.

It is hard to see a situation arising whereby all of them can stay if another centre half arrives in January. What must happen in January though is the offloading of D'Jaffo to create room on the payroll for another forward or attacking midfielder. I would suggest punting Hinds as well if possible. Only £10K was paid for him so it would probably be acceptable to see him leave for free if he was wanted elsewhere. I have nothing against him. At one point I thought he might turn out to be a real find but every time I have seen him or listened to commentaries of his play he has failed to offer any real threat to the opposition. Despite appearing mainly on the bench
this season, he has netted only in the league cup against poor opposition. We are currently persisting with Mackie on the promise that his pace might eventually bare more fruit. We can't afford to carry another striker that isn't genuinely threatening the place of either Booth or Zdrilic.

So roll on January, the squad needs more surgery. Less dramatic surgery this time but fat must be trimmed first so that Pele can make the necessary insertions. Dundee's financial worries and Partick's managerial instability and general rubbishness may benefit us but we shouldn't rely on this as a means of buying us time. For all the games they have lost, we are only two wins ahead of them at time of writing. We play both teams in the forthcoming weeks and victory in each match is paramount to ease our worries and make us a more attractive prospect for fans as well as potential signings.

Captain Sweaty. (Currently Sweating)

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