The View Fae The Red Bar - Smurn 1 Dismal Duns 1

Last updated : 21 August 2006 By Stand Free Ed
As usual it all started off so well…a beautiful late summer's morning in Aberdonia had the fug o' Friday night session melting away...then the game kicked off and once again the Reds went and f*cked it up.

I ken I should've been there (Real Reds etc etc) but 12.30 on a Saturday morning is a feckin daft kick-off time and for an away game yer havin a fookin giraffe...that and the fact this was our third away game in a month probably accounted for what was, by the high standards we've set oursels in recent years, a pretty shitey away support.

Anyway, as to be expected St Mirren came out the traps flying. Well, they had a shot in the first minute, which I suppose by their standards is ‘flying'.

However St Mirren are First Division heifers and even with our patched-up defence we comfortably saw out their initial flurry and began calmly to take control of the game.

Well I say ‘take control' but in reality we cut out the minimal threat they posed and their comic cuts defending gave us the main chances from that point on but in reality the game was drifting into obscurity from about the 10th minute.

That is until Kirk Broadfoot put in a best cross we had all day and Crawford nicked it over the keeper and volleyed it home from 3 feet…have to admit until the net bulged I half expected my favourite scapegoat to do a Ronnie Rosenthal.

Then of course there was Mackie's ‘goal', perfectly legitimate as the linesman only raised his flag AFTER Mackie had touched the ball. I suppose if we were more paranoid we'd be blaming some dark West Coast Masonic conspiracy but the same linesman also got a similar St Mirren decision in the second half wrong so the truth is he was just another crap official.

The second half was, as has become depressingly typical of this season, a complete non event.

And what does our tactical genius of a manger do…same as he did vs. Caley…one up front and sit further and further back. Quelle surprise! The same result! The fat f*ckin idiot.

Now personally, if it had been me in charge I would have gone looking for the killer second goal, as they posed no threat whatsoever and whenever we could be arsed we cut through them like the old knife and hot butter scenario.

Rickaldinho in particular was burning them with his pace. Though with it being Rickaldinho naturally he blew all the good work by blazing over when Mackie was open for a tap in.

We also had a very soft second half penalty claim correctly turned down by Mike Mockery, though being Mockery he awarded a foul and booked Zander for an almost identical foul on Broadfoot a minute or so later…the second time in the game he awarded free kicks against us as Broadfoot threw himself somewhat theatrically to the ground.

Alas, petty quibbles about Mockery's performance aside, the oh-too-depressing truth was that on Saturday we made a VERY VERY poor side look average and deserved nothing more than we got.

There is growing if still muted dissatisfaction with the current regime, but it's not got to the point where we'll be demanding heads.

After all we're a savvy enough support to know no game in August can ever be described as ‘crucial' and once the misery of Saturday's performance dissipates we'll still only be 2 points off of first place.

But perhaps more worrying and dangerous for Tango is that most Reds (well most of the ones I was boozing wi on Saturday afternoon anyway) would be ambivalent if some Championship side (like Derby last year) came in for him, which is a huge sea change from 12 months ago.

I think this ambivalence is being fuelled by the fact that according to Tango we've had the best pre-season ever, we've certainly been given our easiest start in recent memory, and yet we've made a pig's ear of it.

And the main reason we've made a pig's ear of it in the eyes of many Reds I know is down to the tactics and tactical changes made by our manager.

It's not the players' fault Jimmy and it's sure as f*ck not the fans' fault…it's YOURS. Accept some responsibility for once for the dross YOUR side has fed us in the last month.

History shows us it would only take a couple of bad performances to fan this ambivalence into full scale revolt and on what we've seen so far (which is no very much) our September fixture list may be a very dangerous one for Calderwood.

Dangerous in terms of results, though perhaps more importantly for the board dangerous in terms of crowds.

With our new corporate structure, the financial results for this season will be important and if crowds at Todders start to dip below 10K (and let's face it, Saturday's performance was unlikely to have had a positive effect on those thinking of paying £21 a skull for the Pars game) then the board may react quicker than anyone currently thinks…return of the Eck anyone?

Anyway next Saturday as I said is not crucial or a must win but anything less than two victories this week and the reaction of both board and the Red Army could be interesting.


The Red Avenger