Scottish Football Forums

Craig, Laurie and Krys discuss the fifth round in the Scottish Cup and look ahead to ties in the quarter final. We make our predictions for the upcoming SPL midweek games, as well as the full card on Saturday. Following Laurie’s impression of Kenny Shiels last week, he gives us another impression, which reminds us why he isn’t a professional impressionist. Last week’s Paul Band Charity Bet didnt come up, so Paul give us this weeks selections, with odds of over 70/1 up for grabs.

Craig, Laurie and Greig run through the League Cup semi finals and SPL games from the weekend, focusing on the main events during the games. The transfer window closes at 11pm on the 31st of January, so we discuss the latest rumours and predictions for the final day. We also take a look at Hearts, who escaped punishment from the SPL following their latest wages saga. With the new look Paul Band Charity Bet in mind, we look ahead to the weekends Scottish Cup games and build our £5 accumulator.

Greig makes a return to the podcast, joining Craig and Laurie “the sidekick”. Krys couldn’t make this weeks show, because he was enjoying a spa day with his wife. Following Johnny Hayes and Richie Foran’s handbags in the Scottish Cup, we discuss refereeing consistency. Following a look at the Scottish Cup replays, we look at the weekend’s SPL games, which threw up a couple of surprise results. Aberdeen winning a point at Ibrox and Dunfermline beating Killie 3-0 being particular standouts. At the weekend, Griffiths and Higdon made gestures towards the crowd, which leads to us discussing whether it is serious enough to warrant a two match ban. The podcast finishes with our attempts at predicting the score in the upcoming SPL games, as well as the Scottish Cup semi finals.

Craig, Laurie and Krys discuss the weekends SPL games, with Laurie reading out comments from forum members. Recording took place on Monday evening and the latest news was that Hearts had paid, or were about to pay, their players on time, so that led to discussion on the situation. Laurie recently wrote an article on Rudi Skácel and during the podcast recording, he received an email notification that Rudi was following him on Twitter. As you can imagine, Laurie was chuffed. We preview the three Scottish Cup fourth round replays and attempt to make our predictions. We take a different slant to the Paul Band Charity Bet after a barren spell, with an accumulator on the SPL games coming up at the weekend. The games themselves are picked following our own personal SPL score predictions. To discuss the podcast, please join us on Scottish Football Forums to discuss the SFF podcast, as well as discussing the latest events in Scottish football.

Krys and Greig join Laurie and Craig for the first podcast of 2012. We review the SPL games from the 2nd of January, including the Edinburgh Derby. We cover the Scottish Cup 4th round games that took place this weekend, with a focus on the Ross County, Motherwell, Hearts, Celtic and Rangers games. Greig and Laurie also take a less than positive look at the 5th round draw. We finish by making our usual attempt at predicting the upcoming weekend’s SPL games, with Laurie on a bit of a run going on previous weeks.

To celebrate the landmark 25th episode, we have two guests on the show – Scott, fromthefootyblog.net, and regular guest, Krys. We look back at our best footballing moments of 2011, as well as the worst. Laurie created a number of highlight clips, including one specifically for me (Craig) and one for Laurie. After hearing my “best bits”, it’s fair to say that I should really try to cut back on the mentions of alcohol and Sandaza. We also look at the SPL games that were played on the 28th, including the second old firm of the season, and look ahead to the first round of games in 2012, including the new year Edinburgh derby.

With the hectic Christmas schedule, this week’s podcast doesn’t include a guest, with Craig and Laurie doing the show on our own. We discuss Christmas Eve’s SPL fixtures, as well as looking forward to the midweek games, which include the second Old Firm of the season.

Krys joins Laurie and craig for this weeks SFF podcast. The weekend seen two goal of the month/season contenders, as well as some less positive aspects such as diving and violence, so we discuss these as part of our SPL review. Since Christmas is just around the corner, we decided to record a special version of Merry Christmas Everyone. Johnarob from the forum wrote the song, with various podcast guests  providing the singing talent. The singers, if you can call them that, are (in order of appearnce), Craig, Johnarob, Krys, Greig, Laurie, Marc and Laurie again. Merry Christmas from everyone from the SFF podcast.

Greig joins Craig and Laurie on this weeks podcast. Aberdeen drawing despite leading by two goals after seventeen minutes, Dundee United coming from two goals behind to win three two, Scott Brown’s handbags and Wanyama’s superb strike are just some of the weekend’s incidents that are covered in our SPL review. Following the penalty miss/save in the Celtic vs Hearts game, we discuss the gamesmanship involved and give our views on it. This also leads onto discussing who our ideal penalty taker would be, with Laurie counting down. Greig steps in to pick the Paul Band Charity Bet for one week only and insisted it be renamed the OneManClapping Charity Bet, but I declined. On the forum Camshy started a thread titled Christmas Poems, with forum members getting their poetry caps on. In honour of that thread, I read out Camshy’s poem. If you want to read more poems, they are also available in the collection of Christmas poems 2011 virtual hardback book

Laurie and I are joined by Krys on this weeks podcast. Sone Aluko’s penalty claim is discussed in detail, as well as how simulation is dealt with and how it could be dealt with better. With Aberdeen suffering another loss, which takes them to the foot of the table, we discuss how Craig Brown is faring at Aberdeen. The SPL games of the weekend are reviewed and we predict the scores of the upcoming games. I also explain the issues that the forum suffered last week.

On a landmark episode, Laurie and I, are joined by John, who is a season ticket holder at Celtic Park. Following the tragic events at the weekend, we start the podcast with a tribute to Gary Speed. Following his win over Rangers, Kenny Shiels described fans who support their local team, as “real” fans. We discuss whether he is right with his assessment. We also review the SPL games from the weekend and attempt to predict the scores of the upcoming Europa League and SPL games. Unfortunately I could not get in touch with Paul Band this week, so I take on the challenge of predicting this weeks 0-0 in our weekly Paul Band Charity Bet.

The usual suspects, Craig and Laurie, are joined by Greig this week. In addition to our usual SPL review and preview, we discuss jobsworth stewards and Laurie and Greig give their personal experiences of how they have seen unfair treatment. Despite last week’s Paul Band Charity Bet losing out, Paul makes his prediction for this weekend’s 0-0 game. Hopefully we can improve on the already impressive £45 that is in the pot so far. We also give Tom’s blogathon a plug and if you haven’t donated already, then please do. For full details, please visit http://www.scottishfootballblog.co.uk/p/blogathon.html.

Krys is this weeks guest, as he joins Craig and Laurie. His appearance follows his first article for the site, which was titled Scottish Football On Life Support. Scotland’s 2-1 friendly victory over Cyprus is reviewed and we discuss whether we can take any benefits from narrowly beating a team, who are nearly 60 places behind us in the FIFA rankings. Following Falkirk’s defeat to Ross County, Steven Pressley mentioned the benefits of a larger SPL, so we discuss whether this would be a good thing. Next weekend sees the return of the SPL, which means it’s time for us to make our predictions for the upcoming games. It also allows us to reflect on our standings in the SFF SPL predictor. Following Paul Band’s narrow miss last week (only 8 goals out), he returns by predicting that St Mirren will draw 0-0 with Dunfermline. Hopefully the prediction comes true, as we have our standard £5 bet on the result, with any winnings going to charity at the end of the season.

Tom from The Scottish Football Blog is this weeks guest. You can follow him on Twitter@ScotFootBlog. Since Tom is a Hibs fan, and considering the recent sacking of Colin Calderwood, we discuss who we see taking over at Easter Road. Laurie brings up the recent goings on at Hearts and we discuss Romanov’s recent comments on his position at the club, as well as the recent speculation on a new stadium. Paul Band’s charity bet last week was for St Mirren to draw 0-0 with Hearts and he was correct, so we have £45 in the charity pot already. We also cover the weekends SPL games, as well as looking ahead to the Scotland game on Friday. Tom is doing a charity blogathon, in aid of Alzheimer Scotland and the Homeless World Cup, which involves writing one blog an hour over a 24 hour period. Please visit his site and donate to the good causes.

Greig makes a return as the podcast guest. With his team, Motherwell, still flying high in the SPL, we discuss whether they can maintain the challenge for the title. With the league cup quarter finals during the week, we discuss those games and how the competition might pan out. Laurie’s dad picks me up on my delivery of the predictions, so I stumble through all predictions from that point onwards, as I try to watch my words. We launch a new weekly feature, titled “The Paul Band Charity Bet”. Each week Paul Band will predict an SPL or SFL game that will finish 0-0 (known as the Paul Band) and we will put £5 on at the bookies. Come the end of the season, we will donate the winnings to a charity(to be decided at a later date). Greig revealed on the podcast that he requires some followers on Twitter, so please give him a follow. You can also follow the official SFF Twitter account at http://twitter.com/#!/sfootballforums

Danny1888, joins us this week to bring a Celtic viewpoint to the podcast. We take a look at last weeks Europa League tie between Rennes and Celtic and also the weekends SPL games. Following on from Ryan Jack’s booking against Celtic, we discuss whether a player should be booked for approaching the crowd, or taking their shirt off, after scoring a goal. We discuss the potential candidates for the recent managerial vacancy at St. Johnstone. The highlight of the discussion is Laurie mistakenly calling them St Mirren, not once, but three times! We conclude the podcast by predicting the outcome of the league cup quarter finals and the weekends SPL games.

John/jaybee makes a return as this weeks guest as he joins Craig and Laurie in our weekly discussion on Scottish football. Our defeat to Spain and failure to qualify for the European Championships gets the initial focus of the podcast. We also review the weekends SPL games and find out if Laurie really did compare Hearts to Barcelona while in the forums chat room. We finish by predicting Celtic’s Europa League game against Rennes, as well as the weekends SPL games.

Iain McGill joins us this week to discuss Scotland’s 1-0 victory over Lichtenstein and looks ahead to Tuesday’s game against Spain. The main topic of discussion is standing at football and how we all agree that its time that it was reintroduced in our top division.

Craig and Laurie are joined this week by Motherwell fan, Greig. Celtic drew 1-1 with Udinese and we discuss their chances of progressing from the group and how the FC Sion situation affected their chances. We review the SPL games during the week, as well as the weekend games and compare the results to our previous predictions. Friday’s SPL game between Aberdeen and Dunfermline game brings up the topic of Friday night football and we discuss the pros and cons. Lennon’s future at Celtic has been called into question after their 2-0 defeat against Hearts, so we look at whether he should stay or go. With Scotland’s qualification campaign nearing its conclusion, we take a less than positive look at our chances.

John makes a return as this weeks guest and the first topic on the agenda is the league cup shocks, with Aberdeen, Rangers and Hearts all going out to lower league opponents. The SPL once again gets out focus, with the weekends games being reviewed. We attempt to predict the outcome of the midweek and weekends SPL games, as well as Celtic’s Europa League match against Udinese. Laurie plays an interview from Craig Brown, with some very interesting noises in the background.