Imagine hearing your side has gone 4-0 down before half-time as you are about to embark on a 13-hour flight.
Craig Anderson (@craig_killie)
I decided to make a brief trip back home to glorious Ayrshire to coincide with two of my friends getting married next Saturday, so I spent my weekend flying from Sydney to Glasgow. I landed at Singapore airport for a short stopover, and when I got into the airport I realised it was just about 3pm Scottish time. After a little scrambling around, I was able to find some WiFi within the airport and managed to check the Killie score. We were 2-0 down. At 3:05pm. I then had to make my way through security and into the departure gate. We got called for boarding, and before I got on the plane I quickly checked the score again. We were now 4-0 down. At 3:35pm.
13 hours, and about 235 episodes of Big Bang Theory later*, I arrived in Heathrow. Once I was inside the terminal, I rather tentatively connected to the WiFi, filled in some fake details (Mr Assd Pjdsjgshg with the email address abc@hotmail.com seems to love using airport WiFi, eh?) and opened my live score app of choice. My finger hovered over the “Scottish Premiership” link. Did I dare to click? Eventually, like ripping off a massive plaster from a particularly unpleasant location, I took the plunge. “Kilmarnock 0-4 Ross County FT”. Jim McIntyre and my big pal Jackson Irvine had taken pity on us. Seeing that “0-4”, rather than “0-7” or “1-9” was my moment of the weekend. Small victories and all that.
*Incidentally, why are there such disproportionate amounts of that particular programme on in-flight entertainment systems? One episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, two episodes of Frasier, two episodes of Friends and two episodes of New Girl, but then enough weak science based banter to see you perform an entire circumnavigation of the earth and still have some left to spare.
Gary Cocker (@gary_cocker)
Sometimes, one incident in a game can act as a perfect metaphor for the current fate of one of the clubs involved. Poor Mark Durnan’s unfortunate own goal encapsulates just how frustrating a season it’s been so far this season for the tangerine half of Dundee.
United hadn’t made the best start to the game, admittedly, and even with Celtic resting nine players they never really looked like troubling the champions. After Griffiths opened the scoring with a trademark run behind the defence to finish from a tight angle, they looked like they were already begging for the final whistle to sound.
Things only got worse when Celtic broke forward with United short at the back. Commons’ poor attempted pass to Griffiths ended up slapping off Durnan’s shin just as Zwick had set himself the other way, leaving the goalie stranded as the ball bobbled into the back of the net.
It wasn’t the only slice of poor luck United had – Ryan McGowan is probably the last player they’d want in a one-on-one situation at 1-0 down – but it perfectly summed up what has been an utter shiter of a season so far. Had McLean’s opening day header not gone in off the bar, or had Murray’s last minute strike not been miraculously saved onto the bar in the Derby to set up a last gasp break and equaliser, United could be sitting pretty. However, the footballing Gods have not been smiling down on them this season, and have instead seemed to torture them with a multitude of calamities from disappearing players to 4-0 humpings in Lanarkshire.
As Stuart Milne explored in a recent article for this august organ, those who have seen United on a regular basis know that this is as much to do with tactics, team selection and relative unrest between the board and the fans as it is with the fine margins of luck working against them. Whatever it is, Arabs will be hoping this hoodoo doesn’t last much longer.
Kris Jack (@krisjack85)
Peter Crouch, Roger Milla and the South African National team are all purveyors of some of the (arguably) best dance style celebrations that football has ever seen. However, it’s rare to see someone cut shapes in quite a trolling fashion as Liam Boyce did against Kilmarnock.
To celebrate the first of Ross County’s four first half goals at Rugby Park, the Northern Irishman paid homage to The Office, by busting out the part-robot-part-disco-all-shite moves that Ricky Gervais performed in the famous Comic Relief episode of the sitcom.
It may very well be the case that that Boyce was just ecstatic to hear the Gervais had picked up an Emmy award nomination for his portrayal of mawkish care home “worker” Derek, and felt the need to pay a fitting tribute to his comedy hero. I’d like to think though, that the Brent dance was something more simple and just an absolutely belting rib on how poor a manager Gary Locke has been at Kilmarnock.
As points disappear, performances dwindle and players faith in him crumbles, Rugby Park is looking more and more like Wernham Hogg, where jobs are on shaky pegs all over the shop, filled with characters that are definitely less than the sum of their parts.
After Boyce’s mockery (intentional or otherwise) I half expected GL to appear in the post match interviews wearing an Ostrich costume, grimly pecking at journos as they ask him about his future, before quoting Dolly Parton and mugging for the camera.
Craig Cairns (@craigcairns001)
Though I wish no ill will on anyone at Kilmarnock FC, it was particularly funny to hear that Lee McCulloch had been withdrawn before half-time, on his first start for the club and just minutes after going 4-0 down for the second consecutive home match. Unfortunately for Killie, this meant they had also used up their full allotment of substitutions before the break, after injuries sustained by two of their backline. With luck that bad, it gets to the stage where you have to just laugh it off.
McCulloch struggled in a poor Rangers side and was brought to Kilmarnock where he’d prioritise coaching over playing. Until Saturday, Kilmarnock’s defence had been leaky, the two holding midfielders soft and uninspiring. After different combinations involving Connolly, Findlay, Ashcroft, O’Hara, Hamill and Robinson in the four defensive central positions, McCulloch was finally brought in to solidify a team conceding almost three goals per game on average.
He didn’t. In fact, they recorded their worst result going into half-time this season, their joint-worst defeat of the season and their worst performance of the season. The goals stopped coming for Ross County after he departed. Of course, McCulloch is not the sole culprit from the starting XI and himself was forced off due to injury, but this must have been a reminder to him that he is not the player he once was.
Still, he may be replacing Gary Locke as manager soon.
Craig Fowler (@craigfowler86)
There used to be a series of blogs when this website first began churning out content every week day. It was posted every Friday or Saturday and highlighted the best goals scored in the Scottish lower leagues. Now, this was at a time when a lot more ‘hit counting’ was done by myself as I was ambitious and naive enough to think there’s actually a monetary difference between an article getting 15 hits and 1500 – there only is if you’re posting at least 30 articles a day and the latter of those figures is your average – so, after a few weeks, I ditched the blog as it attracted the lowest numbers.
That’s a sad reflection on the Scottish attitude to the lower divisions. One which we hoped would change when Rangers went down to the old Third Division and then when Hearts and Hibs went into the Championship, but the more things change the more they stay the same. Very few, particularly in the mainstream media, care about anything other than games involving Hibs or Rangers, which is a shame. There’s lots of great players capable of doing any number of wonderful things.
Of course, part of the problem is lack of highlights. But it’s not really a valid excuse as around 90 per cent of the lower league games are covered each week by the club’s own highlights packages that either appear on YouTube or Vimeo. Check it out and I’m sure you’ll find something worthwhile, because James Tavernier’s “Oh my god!” free-kick against Hibs wasn’t the only stunner this past weekend.
