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Won't pin this for a few days to ensure everyone sees it. August is a busy month so would be really good to start the season with some previews from old and new users alike. I'm sure @Rousseau will have the Prediction League up and running for the weekend and I'll also make sure we get the MotM polls in effect as well so plenty interaction for the new season.

So they all pre-selected by SFA. Hardly independent. 'Find against us and mysteriously drop off the list and lose future work...'

Since 1888, it's been an insatiable consummation. Six Irish immigrant families, mostly Publicans decide to form a football club, inspired by Edinburgh based Irish immigrants that had formed Hibernian. They found land, rented it for a few months, and filled in the quarry with over 200, 000 voluntary carts of soil/aggregate. a Football field was created, two Grandstands built(one privately owned by the Glass family), and a velodrome installed. Two successful football clubs were invited to play an exhibition match, Renton and Hibs provided the entree, subsequently divided into better halves, they became ra Sellik. The original Hibs were dissolved and Renton succumbed to Junior football. It's how it began. A club that these days claims it was open to all at it's founding, set out in the late 1880s/early 1890s to morally compromise rc players to play for the rc club. This included players originally at Rangers such as Neil McCallum and Doc Kivlichan. The opprobrium faced by the early Sellik was a result of continuous stealing of other clubs' players. Such arrogance so casually displayed was an anathema. The epitome was a priest in Falkirk smuggling a Falkirk FC player(who was rc) out of the town in a hand cart, during silent hours to meet Sellik officials in the morning. Appropriation was in with the building blocks. In my lifetime, ra Sellik have stolen Liverpool's 'You'll never walk alone' and claimed it as their own. Producers at BBC Scotland made the documentary, not telling the listenership they were BBC Producers. They told of the emotion singing the song, visualising their deceased mothers whilst belting out lyrics about suicide. Barcelona FC were next, they were more than a club. However, ra Sellik's sense of vicTIMhood was such, they were more worthy of the statement ie ra Sellik had suffered 40 years of subjugation by Franco. The support wanted to believe it, it became so, as it had for almost 100 years before. Cultural appropriation is their rite of passage. The latest sack of pysh is His Bobness of Marley was a mad, mental Sellik supporter. Yep, a born'n'bred Jamaican from the blue mountains, became hooked on ra green;n;grey hooped horrors in the early/mid sixties by tuning into the BBC World Service. Lying in his cot, he had foresaken rock steady and ska blasted by Prince Buster's sound system, to hear tales of Seezur and Jinky. They crave it, it, it's what they want, it's how it should be. Why? This well trod path of least resistance does not belong to Yahoos in exclusivity. My introduction to Bob was in 1973, he appeared with the Wailers on the Old Grey Whistle Test. I bought 'Catch a Fire' the following weekend. I was in a world of Bob, Bunny, Peter Tosh, Family Man, .....etc. It confirmed my preferred prejudice, Island Records also had Free on the label, and who amplified better tone than Paul Kossoff? My first year at Uni' in 1974 began most days in a flat in Great George Street with 'Stir it Up', first track, second side of the Wailers first Island album. In June'76, we took the Union mini-bus to Bellevue, Manchester to see, more appropriately worship at the altar of Bob. A haze of ganja enveloped the auditorium, but no mention of ra Sellik. Bob's wikipedia tells of a life long support for Santos, he loved Pele. Bob was raised catholic but converted to Rastafarianism. He played football constantly whilst in London but never journeyed 400 miles to watch ra Sellik. He passed 40 years past without mentioning the bad word. What encourages the Yahoos conviction, other than desire? I would encourage the separated entity to continue their next cultural appropriation by focusing their attention upon the Bob tribute act, 'Big Jah Knew and the Wail, Wailers'. Their A cappella rendition of Three little boys by my doorstep, singing sweet songs .... will blow your cheese. Martin Luther King Junior did lots of good things, why don't ra Sellik appropriate him?

https://twitter.com/timomouse/status/1288171120047337480

I’m not seeing it with this Zungu guy at all. We don’t need another defensive midfielder. I wouldn’t mind another centre midfielder but only if he was attack minded, sorry to say it but a centre midfielder who could contribute creatively in the way that Calum McGregor does. I really hope we sign an attacking midfielder though. We can’t go into yet another season relying on Kent. He doesn’t have the end product we need and isn’t good enough to break down deep lying defences. Very happy with Hagi, Aribo and Jack though. Those guys are at the level we need.

Croatia media claiming Mirko Maric is on way to Glasgow for talks. "A raving loon of a DUFC fan" on Twitter suggesting Shankland is at Training Centre ahead of a £2M move. Note - referred to as loon due to his description of Rangers ? Ah, missed transfer window madness.

i thought heart and thistle picked one. The SPL one and the SFA one.

Sadly, I think useless and incompetent does not even come close to covering the absolute shambles that is Rangers hospitality. As promised, season ticket holders will be provided with complimentary access to both pre-season friendlies via RangersTV as well as all SPFL Premiership home league games whilst we play behind closed doors. They missed out "Not" at the start of that, the latest in a line of failures from the hospitality staff. £6.5k for a pair of tickets and no communication re games. Do they expect us to beg for a tv code? Hopefully they get even more pissed off with us and fire us back to the ticket shed staff for service. That would be good.

As far as I know, there is a list of (about) 50 potential arbitrators, not all of them lawyers. Lord Clark restricted the choice to lawyers with a minimum of 10 years' experience, I seem to recall. So, take out the non-lawyers, take out those unavailable, for whatever reason, take out any who might have recused themselves over conflict of interest (don't laugh), take out those with less than 10 years' experience, then how many are left? who knows? But the initial choice from c50 bods, may well have been significantly narrowed.

The SFA arbitration panel was a QC picked by Thistle, another by Hearts and one picked by the authorities. Of all the things needing looked at, I'd say that's fairly low on the list.

Budge gets down with the fans; or something: A MESSAGE FROM ANN BUDGE 27 July 2020 https://www.heartsfc.co.uk/news/article/a-message-from-ann-budge-1 By now, most of you will know that the SFA Arbitration Panel has found against us in our “unfair prejudice” challenge, following the relegation of Hearts, Partick Thistle and Stranraer, as a consequence of the early termination of Season 2019/20. For those of us involved throughout this process, sadly once again, we cannot say we are totally surprised at the outcome, despite firmly believing in the power of the arguments and evidence we put forward. I want to take this opportunity to thank our legal team, who despite the result, were quite simply first-class. They acknowledged from the outset that this would be an uphill battle, but nonetheless it was a battle we felt we had to fight. We could not simply sit back and accept the unfairness that was being meted out to us. What has been allowed to happen in Scottish football, where fellow member clubs and our governing bodies have stood back and allowed totally disproportionate financial damage to be imposed on 3 of its members, can only be described as shameful… as indeed, should the SPFL’s recent self-congratulatory statement. For too long, Chairmen and Owners have stood on the sidelines bemoaning the decision-making processes, the perceived lack of leadership, the lack of commercialism; the general shortcomings, as they see it, of Scottish football. However, if they really want things to change, it will take more than words. They will have to stand-up and be counted. We tried to do just that. Unfortunately, the very fact that we tried and lost, will cause many others to be even more wary. I can hear them now... “You can’t fight the rules; you can’t fight the establishment; we must support the centre.” Sadly, I see little cause for optimism that things will improve any time soon in Scottish football. I hope I am wrong. My rant is over for now. While frustrated, disappointed and angry with much that has gone on over the last 4 months, we must now move forward. We will suffer serious financial losses as a consequence of losing this particular battle but we will survive and we will come through this stronger than ever. We have suffered a series of blows over recent months, but our spirit has never been stronger. We will continue to run our Club with honesty, transparency and integrity. These are the values we have always adhered to and we will continue to keep them front and centre of everything we do. We will also lead with strong financial management and importantly, with confidence. We look forward, once again, to celebrating a successful year, culminating in winning the Championship and getting back to where we belong. Robbie has done it before and with your support, we can make this a year to remember for the right reasons as well as the wrong. I make these statements, confident in the support I know we will have from our incredible fans and sponsors. The messages of support that I, personally, have received throughout this enormously difficult period have been absolutely amazing. Let me say “thank you” to each and every one of you. I am sorry we did not win this battle but as we all know, it is winning the war that counts. I think that Mrs Budgeand Hertz may have fought the wrong fight: “unfair prejudice” challenge... the unfairness that was being meted out to us.... totally disproportionate financial damage to be imposed on 3 of its members are the phrases that give a flavour of the case presented. Consider this, For too long, Chairmen and Owners have stood on the sidelines bemoaning the decision-making processes, the perceived lack of leadership, the lack of commercialism; the general shortcomings, as they see it, of Scottish football. The "general shortcomings"; really? It seems to me that everything -the unfairness, the prejudice to Club interests, the financial damage- flowed, and continues to flow, from this, although I would use a considerably less euphemistic phrase, and one which identified manifest fault beyond "the decision-making processes, the perceived lack of leadership, the lack of commercialism..." Consider also that Budge and Hertz only entered the lists after some misbegotten quest to restructure the Leagues. Of course, in this they were played like Sneaky Pete's pedal steel, but it never seemed self evident that their desire for reorganisation was more than self interest, and whether "honesty, transparency and integrity" were the guiding principles is at very least arguable. We are unlikely ever to know, but it does seem, and I stand, of course, to be corrected, that the Hertz, et al. case focused on the Clubs' specific narrow interests, and did not address the source of their grievances (the prejudice, the unfairness, their losses); namely, the heart of darkness governing Scottish Fitba', as a whole. A MESSAGE FROMich ANN BUDGE

Given the hit-and-miss ratio of the media and the rumour folk, I would assume that we will sign someone or -two that no-one has yet a clue about.

There must be better out there than those 3 mentioned within our budget. i remember when Morelos was mentioned as being a possible signing his goals to games ratio in Finland was impressive, and given his age and the ambition shown by leaving family behind to chase his dream it all sounded really good. It is that sort of player we are looking for, a natural and hungry goal scorer who has that winning mentality. These 3 are not anywhere near that level going by those stats. Gray is so inconsistent his photo should be beside the description of inconsistent in the dictionary. Unplayable one in 20 games, pretty good in maybe another few but utterly useless in far too many, 14 in 84 sounds about right for him. Avoid.