November Rivet

suggested other folk do this sort o thing...but do ye volenteer? Do ye f*ck (continues in a primadonna

they-don't-deserve-me style for another 3000 words...)

Anyway what a strange dislocated month it was...with everything really revolving around events at Hampden on the 17th.

It began with a surprising outbreak of fitba at Pittodrie...I was meant to be goin to this one but well...call me Steve

Paterson but I kinda got involved in a major sesh watching Arsenal-Man U, and then having watched premium quality

fitba I really didnae fancy spend £21 watching the SPL Heath Robinson variety...well that and the fact I was snug as the

bug in the proverbial rug in the boozer....but oh how wrong I was.

RedLineRed did the 'View fae' honours in my absence (see it's nae that hard ye lazy shower o c*nts)...of course, naturally

it wisnae as good as mines but then again I'm a genius and he's fae Inverurie ye ken! Anyway the Inverurie disco fiend

was gye happy wi what he saw wi Aluko standing oot a mile.

Then on the Thursday we entertained Inverurie's feeder team (see what I did there? Genius so it is, to be sure etc). It was

yer stereotypical clash of Euro fitba cultures...their passing and movement made us look like Frankenstein's monster trying

to do a polka, but we caused them as many problem in our ain way and Zander was particularily impressive, the silly

pointless fouls around that marked our Athens performance were cut out and we didnae look out of place.

Alas as with all our Euro games to date it was another of those 'if only' moments that ultimately cost us, in this case 'if only

we'd stayed switched on for another 10 seconds at the end of the first half'.

Fae the sublime to the absolutely dreadful. Calderwood has transformed us defensively in his time here but every so often

it's as if our defence suddenly have spasm which takes us back to the sort of 'after you Claude' defending that made

Pele's reign such a disaster.

For the opening 15 minutes Mickey, Bonnie and co looked like the proverbial strangers who's just been introduced and it

cost us badly. We did come back into it briefly and 4-1 flattered Hearts but those 15 minutes of madness are what cost

us.

Then everybody focused on Hampden. Listen, yeah it was a bad decision at the death which ultimately eliminated us...but

if the match was 'fixed' then it was the most incompetant fixing ever with the ref ruling out a perfectly good 2nd Italian goal

before we scored.

That Eck decided the Brum job was more attractive than the Scotland gig is a combination of the economic reality and

him being mercenary Judas...how much of each element is up to you and, lets be honest, the sort of stuff message boards

thrive on. As for replacements...God help us if it's Billy Davies...I'm sorry but winning the Division 1 play off is NOT

International management material especially as he was shown to be out of his depth in the Premiership.

As for the other candidates...nae real objection to any of them but not sold on any of them either: Souness, Burley...hell

even Keegan would bring something to the job at least.

We'll keep Celtic 3 Aberdeen 0 to just that, as a dire non-performance like that isnae even worth moaning about.

And then to Madrid. I'll say nothing on the incident outside as I wasnae there other than this has happened before and it

will happen again and depressingly there is nothing other than empty platitudes can change that.

UEFA and the British Government can't change the way the Spanish Police operate, a fans boycott wouldnae work as

the Spanish clubs will hardly go bust is we didnae show up and I doubt anyone has the time or even more importantly

wallet to take the Guardia Civil to court on human rights charges.

And let be honest, being indiscriminately batoned by the very people there to protect you is as flagrant a breach of human

rights as it gets.

As for the game...well I suppose this is as close as we'll ever get to experiencing how a small club feels in a cup tie.

We actually created little of note but like most Reds (McDimmie aside) I was exceptionally proud of the way the Reds

played...and Karim Touzani was flawless. Hell Calderwood even got the tactics spot on too though it does appear we used up our entire season of good luck in Dnipro...on another day Mickey disnae make that challenge and Langfield's body disnae deflect the second in.

Anyway I could do the Hibs game here but I'll cheat and put that in the Annual Stand Free Advent Calender thingy...cheating I know but sod it.

Stand Free


The Red Avenger