THE STIFFMEISTER

Here’s my tuppence , I’m from the Scottish border . If I was in London you could probably say I was in immigrant as my family aren’t English . I’m basically a jock ,all my grandparents were jocks , my wife is also much the same as are the majority of my town. I hate This term but I’ve read it online and I can’t think of anything easy or more appropriate. “Kilted English” it’s a fantastic area , from Preston to Glasgow and York to Edinburgh is probably my fave 400 sq miles in the uk I’ve driven up the a1 for nearly half my life and spent most of the other half in the m6 / A74 /A75 as a kid . For the majority of people like us , outdoors minded , the hills of Lanarkshire , the dark Galloway forests , the Cheviots , the border towns are a dream. game, salmon , phezzies lol if shooting fishing and hunting , mountain biking , motorcycling , running Photography is your thing you can go and end your days there and it’s cheap , see the house prices of these gorgeous townhouses built in marble or a country cottage that a single parent can actually afford to run and live in. But scratch the surface and it’s a postcard over a gunshot wound . A while back on border telly there was a feature on the heroin addiction in Stranraer, there was 1200 people on methadone programmes there , in a town of under 15000 people that’s a nightmare of hell. Go to towns like Langholm , Hawick ,Selkirk, Galashiels , Annan , Dumfries and you’ll see these gorgeous Georgian townhouses in absolute state. Town centres dead. The mills and industry are gone. Non existant . No jobs . The much vaunted technology rise in circuit boards in the 90s has disappeared. There is nothing from Carlisle to Glasgow , an absolute wasteland of opportunity, employment, no high end jobs , just secondary industry. It’s an absolute tragedy. The snp do not give a f**k about from Glasgow below. They think Scotland is Glasgow , embra , Perth , Inverness and Aberdeen. Go to Dunoon , Ayr, ardrossan , Irvine . That’s the Scotland of the here and now. And these clowns wanted independence. Let them have it. And when it goes wrong , f**k them .

Used to like her when she came on mtv ...

Nice to see men talking about football like well , men. Astanley , I see your points all the time with some of the lads at work. Interestingly I would say every scouse lad I work with is an evertonian . Most of them are actually sensible who know the crack about being in Liverpool’s shadow. Most don’t care either to be honest. However I do find that “people’s club mentality” nonsense. West Ham , from looking in , seem to be happy if the football is right. No arguments here as that’s a good attitude to have. Everton are happy floating in and around the top ten. That’s about right for me and I would argue those two and Newcastle are the three teams that the support identify with most. Now here is my point , Everton especially seem to have little support from outside their immediate area. To stay in or around that coveted next 5 positions , you need money , now weather that’s gained via bigger gates or a more shrewd merchandise plan is by the by . The crux is that you need to be up there and getting that serious tv money to compete and stay there. In a usual season you could say liverpool , city , United , Arsenal , Chelsea , spurs are the defined big six with the next four interchangeable. But you’d likely say West Ham , everton , Newcastle would be in or about there. Now it’s well and good doing this season after season etc al , but would you not be a little frustrated in never breaking top six ? Never doing a Leicester style run for glory ? Never saying we’ll come on let’s have a shot for one of the cups? Is it never worth trying to better your lot ?

Just to add , we had one shot in target today gets better every time I see that penalty

I normally don’t give it big licks about beating rangers as I’ve always historically ended on my arse when I’ve said there awful but today was pretty good in the plethora of trophy wins we’ve been lucky with in recent years i grew up as a Celtic fan and was going when we were more total shite than total football . When your boyhood bedroom posters up are anton rogan and Stuart slater you know it’s grim. In the heady days of 2003 under O’Neill , my mates grandad was getting on , he didn’t get to many games and he urged us to get to as many as we can as “these times won’t last boys , they’ll be back and remember this is Celtic “ true to form no club is ran as a shite as mine. We’re a disgrace at times . When I had my boy , I swore that I’d never make him be a celt , that I couldn’t do it to him . That went out the window today at the final whistle when I tore round the living room like a lunatic with him on my shoulders . Theres two ways to win a derby , you can hammer a shite team and really rub it in . I don’t like that . Or like today you can be second best all over the park to a team managed by Steven Gerard , scuff in a totally against the run of play goal with three offside players get sent down to ten men , seconds later and watch their 50 million rated forward Sky the penalty right into your keepers hands then proceed to act like he’s never kicked a ball in his life . Carlsberg don’t do old firm cup finals . Days that football is meant for .

That was some game today at hampden

I don’t confess to be a huge boxing fan these days , I not really paid much interest in it lately other than fury but if that’s what boxing looks like in the heavyweight division from the press conference to the post fight analysis when fury isn’t involved then I’ll stick to watching ufc the entire thing just felt flat and boring imho what a fall from grace the sport is having you could also say that at least the likes of fury , billy joe try to be interesting

Worth it to see their little faces though

They are going for double on eBay etc nearer Xmas

If anyone can make lol omg dolls get in touch ASAP i stand to lose a hefty percentage of the presents budget to these c**ts ...... Ive tried putting my old he man figures into shoe boxes but it just won’t fly

f**k that !! Ive told my kids that if they even contemplate bringing one of those home they’ll be straight to doctor Barnados

I had exactly the same choice as you Jon Jon so I made a few errors on the voting paper and put it in the wrong envelope oh dear

A bigger dog is just a bigger meal , these cats will just go and pull a baboon or a gazelle up a tree for tea the average Great Dane would be a toothpick

My favourite wild animal , the only big cat that we are actively on the prey list for . Amazing animals

Just to add thAt some of Liverpool’s phases were completely sublime tonight. Those little into feet balls are so cute and teasing it’s so difficult for centrehalfs not to come and challenge out. There was a moment that summed Everton up tonight for me with Richarlison doing an obvious give and go but not receiving the return. He bent his run back and you could see he was skipping in frustration at not getting it back. The trouble with that is that that liverpool team hunt in packs and with pressure of space it takes a very calm detached player to get anywhere into feet in the channel between the mid shielding and the defence . You do your damage there against teams and it was basically non existant there tonight. For a team like Barca last year , they were crowded out massively in those same channels at Anfield . Think of the team as a swan in a river , the head is the forwards but that midfield and the centre half’s are doing a lot of legwork under the water to kill the space and stretch the team . An absolute testement to the quality of what’s happening in melwood with interval training etc to allow squad players to come in and make it happen seamlessly regardless of the 11 on the pitch a joy to watch