Mountains, lochs, moors...back to The Highlands (The Lisbon Lions Challenge)

[glamdring]

Match report from the Dingwall Times on Saturday September 4th 2004

County win away league match for the first time in over a year!

Hamish Brodie reports:

In a shock result today, St. Johnstone, the team many consider the favourites for promotion this season were comprehensively beaten by Ross County. County had failed to win away in the league since last August and despite starting the season unbeaten in their first 3 games with St. Johnstone taking just 3 points so far, many expected the Perth side to recover their form and comfortably see off County.

Despite being the better side for most of the match with better passing and more efforts on goal, St. Johnstone were taken apart by the clinical finishing and resolute defending of the away team. Dingwall youngster John MacDonald netted his first senior goal having only been promoted from the club's youth ranks this summer as he headed in David Winters' accurate corner. An excellent strike from the edge of the area by David McGuire appeared to have sealed the points for County and an injury time 3rd from Keith Robertson made it a thoroughly miserable day for the home fans and a joyous one for the away fans as they return up the A9.

Now, everyone at the club will be hoping this is a sign of things to come rather than a flash in the pan result.

FT: St. Johnstone 0-3 Ross County (4117 Attendance)

[glamdring]

Saturday October 23rd 2004

With a quarter of the season gone, Ross County find themselves again out of both cups played so far, although at least they made the 2nd round of the league cup this time before a 3-0 defeat at Alloa. In the league we have started even better than last season and bizarrely it is our away record that is our strong point this season, together with the defence. Unbeaten away, we lost our unbeaten home record which had stretched in the league all the way from when I joined.

At Victoria Park we saw off Greenock Morton on the opening day of the season with goals from Steven McGarry and Keith Robertson before recording draws away to relegated Partick Thistle away and Falkirk at home. Unfortunately we lost Steven McGarry for 3 months with a torn calf muscle, but he is recovering now.

We followed up on our 0-3 win at St. Johnstone with a 2-0 home win over Stenhousemuir with goals from McGuire and Robertson, before making it 3 away wins in a row, with McGuire and Robertson again on target in the 1-2 win at Brechin where David Winters unusually missed a penalty. Our long trip to Dumfries resulted in a highly unexpected 0-5 win as Ross O'Donoghue scored a brace to set us on our way, Robertson, Winters and McGuire completing the rout.

Our top of the table clash with Clyde at Victoria Park was a huge disappointment as our defence fell apart in a 2 minute spell just after the hour mark conceding twice before Jim Hamilton headed home a consolation goal. Another big match followed as we travelled to 2nd placed Raith Rovers. David Winters gave us a first half lead, but the sending off of influential striker John Sutton didn't stop the home side equalising. We threw everything at Raith in a desperate bid to take advantage of our man advantage and in the 93rd minute Winters was again on hand to steal all 3 points for us.

As we head into the second quarter of the season, things are looking good. Promotion would be good, but I want to bring some more youth players through from next Summer's crop so that might be better done with another season in Division 1. The financial situation is worrying though. We lost £100,000 last month with "Other" costs racking up to an alarming £90k so promotion is needed within the next 2 seasons ideally.

[This message was edited by glamdring on 11 February 2004 at 0:04.]

[glamdring]

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Ayr

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | | Clyde | | 9 | 7 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 9 | +12 | 22 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Ross County | | 9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 18 | 5 | +13 | 20 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Falkirk | | 9 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 16 | 11 | +5 | 19 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Raith Rovers | | 9 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 23 | 16 | +7 | 18 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 5th | | Morton | | 9 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 14 | 13 | +1 | 13 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 6th | | Partick Thistle | | 9 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 13 | 12 | +1 | 10 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | Queen of Sth. | | 9 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 11 | 20 | -9 | 10 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 8th | | Stenhousemuir | | 9 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 12 | 18 | -6 | 7 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 9th | | Brechin | | 9 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 13 | 26 | -13 | 6 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 10th | | St. Johnstone | | 9 | 1 | 2 | 6 | 11 | 22 | -11 | 5 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

</pre>

[glamdring]

Saturday 1st January 2005

Well, it's that time of year again. Teams all around scrambling to get Bosman free transfers to sign pre-contract agreements or pick up players for the January transfer window to help their season challenge.

It's highly unlikely anyone will be heading into Victoria Park this January or on a bosman in summer, but there will be players leaving whom we no longer require. Hopes are high that we'll get a good crop of youth players through this summer to augment those through last summer.

The aim is to keep the core of the side and fill in the rest of the positions with youth team products. Craig Samson (GK), Jamie McCunnie (D RC), Ross O'Donoghue (MC), David Winters (AM/F R) are the core that I want to build the team around. Our 4 strikers are all very good so there is no hurry to move them on in favour of youth team players despite the disppointing goalscoring records of Steven McGarry and Jim Hamilton.

It's the halfway point of the season now and we're hopeful of a successful season. 0-4, 0-5 and 0-2 wins at Greenock Morton, Falkirk and Stenhousemuir extended our away record to 7 unbeaten and 6 wins in a row, much to our surprise. Unfortunately a trip to Clyde for our next away game brought us back down to earth as they did the double over us for the first half of the season.

On the plus side, Clyde are the only team to beat us in the league so far. Our home form isn't anywhere near as good as last season with both St. Johnstone and Queen of the South holding us to disappointing draws. Wins over Partick Thistle (November) and Brechin and Raith Rovers in our last two matches of the year have seen us take a 6 point lead into 2005 though and with it a good chance of promotion.

Financially we really need this promotion. We are losing almost £100,000 every month now and the money from last season's cup run is vanishing rapidly. If we can have another cup run this year it will help, but an away draw at Falkirk for the 3rd round isn't too promising despite our 0-5 win there in the league.

We'll probably give young Nick James a debut soon - he's been developing steadily in the U19s and is looking like he could fulfill the high expectations on him having slotted in very well as a centre-back despite his original midfield preference. In the senior team, Keith Robertson is again leading the line well with 13 goals so far. Our 6 goal midfielder Ross O'Donoghue is wanted by Gillingham, but they can look elsewhere because I have no intention of letting him go.

[This message was edited by glamdring on 12 February 2004 at 19:35.]

[This message was edited by glamdring on 12 February 2004 at 19:36.]

[glamdring]

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Ayr

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | | Ross County | | 18 | 12 | 4 | 2 | 40 | 14 | +26 | 40 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Clyde | | 18 | 10 | 4 | 4 | 36 | 26 | +10 | 34 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Raith Rovers | | 18 | 11 | 1 | 6 | 40 | 31 | +9 | 34 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Falkirk | | 18 | 8 | 3 | 7 | 24 | 28 | -4 | 27 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 5th | | Morton | | 18 | 8 | 1 | 9 | 30 | 31 | -1 | 25 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 6th | | Queen of Sth. | | 18 | 7 | 3 | 8 | 26 | 30 | -4 | 24 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | St. Johnstone | | 18 | 6 | 4 | 8 | 31 | 35 | -4 | 22 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 8th | | Partick Thistle | | 18 | 6 | 1 | 11 | 24 | 37 | -13 | 19 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 9th | | Brechin | | 18 | 6 | 0 | 12 | 35 | 44 | -9 | 18 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 10th | | Stenhousemuir | | 18 | 4 | 3 | 11 | 24 | 34 | -10 | 15 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

</pre>

[glamdring]

Match report from the Dingwall Times on Saturday January 15th 2005

McGuire saves the day as 'keepers blunder

Falkirk and Ross County will have to meet again on Wednesday for a place in the 4th round of the Scottish FA Cup after a tale of two goalkeeping blunders at The Falkirk Stadium today.

A quiet first half ended 0-0 with the visitors having slightly the better of the play, but neither side creating too many chances. The second half was developing in much the same way into the 69th minute when the usually reliable County 'keeper Craig Samson dropped a shot from Falkirk's Derek Holmes at the feet of the striker who followed in to tap the loose ball into the net.

Ross County pushed forward in vain with David McGuire coming on as a late substitute with 10 minutes remaining. With some fans having already left the stadium, the game headed into the 93rd minute with Falkirk seemingly comfortable with their 1-0 lead. Then came the amazing finale which gives County a chance at another cup run after last season's heroics.

Craig Samson scooped up a backpass and rapidly spread the ball wide to left-back Bobby Duncan who punted a seemingly aimless long ball forward. Falkirk 'keeper Darren Hill rushed out of his area to clear the ball, but completely missed his clearance as team-mate John Anderson got in his way, allowing Duncan's long ball to roll on towards an empty net. The Falkirk players could only watch as County's David McGuire followed up to tap in from 2 yards out and send both teams into tomorrow's 4th round draw.

FT: Falkirk 1-1 Ross County (10,617 Attendance)

With a home replay on Wednesday, County will now be confident of progressing to the next round for the second season running.

[glamdring]

Match report from the Dingwall Times on Wednesday January 19th 2005

County crash out after 8 goal thriller

In a truly superb game of football with both sides showing huge commitment there had to be a winner and a loser eventually, and with the prize being a home tie against either Dumbarton or Berwick from the 3rd Division, both sides knew that a win here would see them favourites to head into the Quarter-finals.

In an action packed first half, Danny Invincibile opened the scoring as Derek Holmes intercepted a David Winters' pass to set the Australian clear for a one on one with the County 'keeper on 18 minutes. Within 6 minutes County were level after persistance from Winters paid off to win the ball on the right wing and square superbly to lay the ball on a plate for County's top scorer Keith Robertson who duly scored. With just over half an hour gone, Falkirk took the lead again with a well worked and original corner routine ending with a back post header across goal from Davie Nicholls.

With the score at 2-1 to Falkirk at half time, County came out attacking in the second half and on 57 minutes won a freekick in a dangerous position on the right wing. David Winters stepped up and swung in a pinpoint cross for Robertson to glance in his 2nd of the game. Despite chances from both teams, the score remained locked at 2-2 after 90 minutes sending the game into a frenetic period of extra time.

Just 2 minutes into the extra time, Ross County turned on the style with an exquisite one touch passing move involving McCallion, Rankin, McGuire and O'Donoghue before the midfielder's fierce shot was spilled by Falkirk 'keeper David Hills - Keith Robertson reacting fastest to tap in for his hat-trick. Falkirk were far from out of it though and a defensive error from Martin Canning let in substitute Ian MacSween who slotted coolly past Craig Samson for 3-3.

It was Canning who then turned from villain to hero as he rose at the near post to head in a David Winters corner on 108 minutes to put County back in front. With time almost running out, Falkirk put together a superb passing move which culminated with a perfect cross from John O'Neil for Ian MacSween to head in unmarked at the far post. 4-4 and there was no time for either side to snatch a winner as the game headed to a penalty shootout.

The hero of the day was undoubtably Falkirk 'keeper Darren Hill who pulled off two crucial saves to deny John Rankin and Kerr Dodds from the spot after Winters and Samson for County and MacSween and Invincibile for Falkirk had converted the opening 4 penalties. John O'Neil kept his nerve to give the away side a crucial 3-2 lead in the shootout which was enough to send them through despite John Anderson's miss as Martin Canning ballooned County's 5th penalty high over the bar.

FT: Ross County 4-4 Falkirk a.e.t (5545 Attendance)

Falkirk win 3-2 on penalties

It was perhaps the most entertaining game of the season at Victoria Park, but for the home fans heading away from the ground on a wet and miserable night, that was little consolation. For the away fans, a home tie against Dumbarton awaits in the 4th round with the strong likelihood of a quarter-final berth to follow. The two teams meet again at Victoria Park in the league in a week's time when County will be looking to cement their promotion push and put their cup disappointment behind them.

[glamdring]

Match report from the Dingwall Times on Wednesday January 26th 2005

Sweet Revenge as Winters torments hapless Falkirk

Hamish Brodie reports:

If Ross County are to turn their promotion dream into reality, they need their top players to perform and carry the younger players forward in the big games. Today, County's star player David Winters was in inspirational form as County ripped into the Falkirk side who only a week ago dumped them out of the cup. Unusually for a winger, Winters is an excellent header of the ball and used his aerial prowess to devastating effect today together with his pinpoint corner taking.

With just 7 minutes on the clock, Winters won a header on the right, cushioning the ball down for young right-back Kerr Dodds to blast in from 25 yards out. Within 20 minutes County were 2-0 up as David McGuire steered home a Winters cross at the far post. 5 minutes later and Winters again displayed his aerial ability with a 25-yard bullet header from a Sergei Baltacha long ball, the Ukrainian-born Scot making his debut at the back after his £20,000 move from Bristol Rovers.

Heading into stoppage time, it appeared County would go in 3-0 up at the break, but Winters had other ideas and took 2 perfect injury time corners for Nick James and Keith Robertson to head home and send County in 5-0 up. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the second half couldn't match the first and with Falkirk providing no threat upfront, County passed the ball around confidently, but failed to add to their 5 goal haul.

FT: Ross County 5-0 Falkirk (5513 Attendance)

With their game in hand now duly won, Ross County find themselves in a commanding position 9 points clear at the top of Division 1, but players and manager know full well that the title is not won yet and they must continue to battle for every point with Clyde and Raith Rovers still in touching distance.

[glamdring]

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Ayr

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | | Ross County | | 27 | 16 | 7 | 4 | 65 | 31 | +34 | 55 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Clyde | | 27 | 15 | 6 | 6 | 56 | 37 | +19 | 51 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Raith Rovers | | 27 | 15 | 4 | 8 | 56 | 44 | +12 | 49 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Morton | | 27 | 13 | 3 | 11 | 48 | 41 | +7 | 42 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 5th | | St. Johnstone | | 27 | 9 | 8 | 10 | 42 | 43 | -1 | 35 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 6th | | Queen of Sth. | | 27 | 9 | 7 | 11 | 35 | 45 | -10 | 34 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | Falkirk | | 27 | 9 | 5 | 13 | 33 | 48 | -15 | 32 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 8th | | Partick Thistle | | 27 | 10 | 1 | 16 | 34 | 53 | -19 | 31 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 9th | | Brechin | | 27 | 8 | 3 | 16 | 46 | 58 | -12 | 27 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 10th | | Stenhousemuir | | 27 | 7 | 4 | 16 | 37 | 52 | -15 | 25 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

</pre>

[glamdring]

Saturday 5th March 2005

We're heading to the business end of the season now and it's getting tense. Our lead at the top of the division has ebbed and flowed as one week we win and Clyde lose and the next week the reverse happens. We were 9 points clear at one point but despite a great 4-3 win over Clyde in recent weeks our lead is now down to 4 points.

We scored lots of goals in the last 2 months, but our previously rock solid defence has also looked creaky. The amazing 4-4 cup match against Falkirk, the 2-4 defeat away to Queen of the South, the 4-3 win over Clyde and our recent 3-5 defeat at Raith Rovers having come from 2-0 and 3-1 down to draw level at 3-3 were no doubt great entertainment for the neutral, but for me as manager it was a frustrating time stood on the touchline. I twice criticised Jamie McCunnie in recent months which is something I very rarely do, but it is because he is one of my key players and a big favourite of mine that I'm being hard on him since he hasn't been performing well enough.

We had some good home wins since the turn of the year with Falkirk beaten 5-0 and Stenhousemuir 4-1 as well as a very good 0-3 win at Partick Thistle who were pre-season joint favourites for the division. We still have the best away record in the league, but it is no longer better than our home record, despite the fact that we are only 5th on home form alone. We can be justifiably proud though to be the only team with a positive goal difference on our travels and not just a small difference...+17, largely thanks to a few 0-5 wins!

Contrary to my previous diary entry, Victoria Park has seen 2 new faces arrive as well as a few depart in January. 6 of our youngsters who we feel won't make the grade have been allowed to pursue their careers elsewhere including one of the two English lads who were at the club when I joined.

On the incoming front, David Anderson arrived from St. Johnstone in a part exchange deal as they offered him with £12,000 for our midfield player Mark McCulloch.

Mark is a good player and we wish him all the best, but he wasn't seeing first team action so we felt we ought to cash in on him and youngster Anderson is a good target-man, albeit of limited technical ability.

The big signing of the month however came as we renewed our Summer interest in Bristol Rovers' Ukrainian-born, but officially Scottish centre-back Sergei Baltacha whom we had also tried to sign when I first joined the club. He had been transfer-listed in the summer, but at that time we couldn't agree terms. We offered him a large contract of £1,000 p/w for 3½ years so we hope he performs because it represents a very big investment for a club in our position. He is an excellent defender though as well as being able to play a defensive midfield role.

With no cup run this year, it looks like we'll finish the season in the red, which is a worry with the monthly losses showing no sign of letting up. That side of the club is Archie's problem of course, but as manager I can't ignore it - I'm well below the wage budget Archie has set and there's nothing I can do about Ground maintenance costs and all the other accumulated expenses. When I can, I sell a player or two who I feel we don't need, but transfer fees are low at this level and the sale of 1 player doesn't even cover the loss for a single month.

Fingers crossed for the last 9 games of the season. This promotion would mean a huge amount to the club and the town if we can pull it off - the first Highland club ever to make it into the SPL.

One very pleasing aspect of our play so far this season is that we have scored 13 goals from corners and 7 from indirect freekicks in the league. Those 20 goals have been crucial to our success and so long as we continue to be strong on set pieces the future is bright for us.

[glamdring]

Saturday 14th May 2005

I sit here now writing this and looking at the league table and today's results and can hardly believe it still. We had a 9 point lead over Clyde at one point of the season, it was cut to 4 points, back up to 6 before we lost 2-0 at Clyde in our last away game of the season. The fixture list had been kind to us and we found ourselves 3 points clear with 3 home games remaining and a far superior goal difference. Surely we could pull off the promotion...

Nerves were setting in though and as Brechin came and defended stoutly we failed to break them down and had to settle for a 0-0 draw. Clyde also had their trouble and had to come from a goal down to snatch a draw at home to St. Johnstone. 2 games left and still the 3 point gap. With Clyde away to Stenhousemuir and ourselves at home to Queen of the South it was looking good, but the nerves struck again and again we fired blanks and drew 0-0. Clyde however had their shooting boots on and we heard after the match they had won 0-2.

Into the final day of the season and our lead was down to just 1 point. We had a tough home time against 3rd place Raith Rovers with their 45 goal strike partnership of Martin Hugo Prest and John Sutton, while Clyde had to travel to Queen of the South who themselves had a lethal striker in Emilio Jaconelli. The stage was set for a grand finale and the two main protagonists playing at opposite ends of the country were feeling the pressure as the day unfolded:

3 minutes: cheers go up around Victoria Park as Queen of the South take the lead against Clyde.

Queen of the South 1-0 Clyde

8 minutes: mass cheers again...Jaconelli has netted his second of the game for Queen of the South.

Queen of the South 2-0 Clyde

12 minutes: our defence crumbles allowing John Sutton a free shot on goal. Craig Samson parries the shot, but Martin Hugo Prest follows in and Raith are a goal up - fans and players alike are nervous again.

Ross County 0-1 Raith Rovers

17 minutes: groans from the crowd - Clyde have pulled one back and are piling on the pressure for an equaliser down in Dumfries

Queen of the South 2-1 Clyde

32 minutes: County attack down the left and Kevin McCallion drives a shot against the post as the 'keeper palms the ball out to the feet of David Winters who lashes the ball into the Raith Rovers net!!

Ross County 1-1 Raith Rovers

47 minutes: It's a freekick on the right wing for Ross County. McGarry swings it in, Winters wins the header and knocks it on for Roberston who swivels beautifully eluding the defender, turns and fires the ball across the box as Sergei Baltacha arrives to fire home at the far post!! One of the best worked goals I've ever seen in my short managerial career and before - exquisite stuff from the moment the freekick was taken to the moment the ball hit the back of the net. The crowd are going wild and the players know it's there for the taking.

Ross County 2-1 Raith Rovers

67 minutes: News filters through that John Fraser has scored for Clyde down in Dumfries. The crowd are jittery and the County players are picking up on it.

Queen of the South 2-2 Clyde

68 minutes: Disaster for County as Martin Hugo Prest strikes again to bring Raith Rovers level. Another goal for Clyde now and the title is theirs - we need to score again to relieve the pressure - if we win, Clyde's result is irrelevent.

Ross County 2-2 Raith Rovers

89 minutes: The 4th official holds up the board - 5 minutes of injury time!! Clyde are apparently still 2-2 at Queen of the South, but who knows what is happening down there? They could score with the last kick of the game and the title will be theirs...

95 minutes: The full time whistle blows as news filters through that Clyde have been held to a 2-2 draw. We've done it!! We're in the SPL after an amazing final day that we really should have avoided!!

FT: Queen of the South 2-2 Clyde

FT: Ross County 2-2 Raith Rovers

I don't know what else to say yet, while it all sinks in. We lead the division for most of the season, but at times looked so jittery as Clyde kept coming back at us and those last 3 home games of the season...3 draws and we staggered across the finishing line when a win in any of them would have made it so much easier!!

Well, I guess we'll have a good well-earned break before returning for pre-season and planning our assault on the SPL - it'll be an exciting journey and it won't be easy, but we're there!!!!

[glamdring]

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Ross County

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | C | Ross County | | 36 | 20 | 10 | 6 | 80 | 40 | +40 | 70 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Clyde | | 36 | 20 | 9 | 7 | 71 | 45 | +26 | 69 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Raith Rovers | | 36 | 17 | 7 | 12 | 73 | 64 | +9 | 58 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Morton | | 36 | 17 | 3 | 16 | 62 | 55 | +7 | 54 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 5th | | Queen of Sth. | | 36 | 13 | 11 | 12 | 53 | 54 | -1 | 50 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 6th | | St. Johnstone | | 36 | 12 | 10 | 14 | 57 | 66 | -9 | 46 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | Falkirk | | 36 | 12 | 9 | 15 | 54 | 66 | -12 | 45 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 8th | | Partick Thistle | | 36 | 13 | 2 | 21 | 50 | 76 | -26 | 41 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 9th | R | Brechin | | 36 | 11 | 5 | 20 | 59 | 67 | -8 | 38 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 10th | R | Stenhousemuir | | 36 | 10 | 4 | 22 | 51 | 77 | -26 | 34 |

| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

</pre>

[glamdring]

Ross County Season Preview from the Dingwall Times on Wednesday 10th August 2005

David Winters speaks excusively to Dingwall Times on new season

Hamish Brodie reports:

With just 3 days to go until the new season kicks off Ross County fans are cautiously optimistic that their team can stay in the SPL this season rather than follow Ayr United who cashed in their return ticket to Division 1 at the first opportunity.

Title odds released by Skybet see Celtic named 4-5 favourites for the SPL, with Rangers at 6-4, Hearts at 10-1 and Hibernian at 20-1. Ross County have been given odds of 100-1 and are clear favourites for relegation with the bookies. The lack of any major signings at Victoria Park leads the outside world to believe the club stand little chance. Manager Adam Eckersley however is a firm believer in his club's young players and has a number of promising players coming through the youth ranks.

On the transfer front, Summer saw the signings of Ian MacSween from Falkirk for £75,000 and Keith Gibson from Raith Rovers for £85,000 - both fees to be paid mostly in instalments and with future additional fees based on performance.

MacSween is is a quick young striker with excellent on the ball running and finishing ability and came to the attention of Ross County fans by scoring Falkirk's 2 extra time goals in the 4-4 cup draw at Victoria Park last season. Gibson is more of an unknown factor, but manager Adam Eckersley commented on announcing the signing that he is a highly creative midfielder with good dribbling skills and an eye for goal.

With a big reliance on the club's young players this season, a huge responsibility will fall on the shoulders of the club's more experienced players to guide these youngsters through the season. Of those experienced players, a lot will be expected of star winger David Winters whose goals and assists, many from pinpoint corners were a major feature of County's successful promotion season. I spoke to David at the Ross County training ground yesterday to get his opinions on the new season:

Hamish: David, most of the national media are giving Ross County no chance this season. Do you feel the squad has enough quality to stay in the SPL?

David: To be honest Hamish, we would expect the media to write us off as the newly promoted side, but we take no notice of that. We're confident that we will surprise a lot of people this season. We have more quality than peole think and a lot of good young players coming through.

Hamish: A lot of responsibility will be on your shoulders this season having been the main provider of goals in the last 2 seasons as well as scoring a fair few. How do you see your role this season?

David: I don't think we should focus too much on individuals Hamish. Of course people will expect me to continue my form of the last 2 seasons and my own expectations and standards are probably even higher than what others expect of me, but we are a team and everyone plays their part. I'm only 23 so still relatively young, but I know I will be expected to act as an inspiration for our younger players and I will do so.

Hamish: What are your thoughts on the club's 2 new signings?

David: They'll be good. The gaffer doesn't like spending money so when he does you know that he thinks highly of the players he signs!

Hamish: Who do you think will be the younger players to look out for at the club this season?

David: I don't want to put pressure on our younger players by naming individuals so you'll have to wait to see who performs well or go and watch the under 19s more often Hamish ;-) It's no surprise though that Nick James established himself as a key player last season so I imagine he'll feature and continue to improve this year too.

Hamish: Well, good luck for the season David and keep those corners fizzing in! Any score prediction for us for the season opener against your old club Dundee Utd?

David: Thanks Hamish. So long as the gaffer allows me to keep taking the corners and penalties I'll do my best with them. As for Dundee United...I'd like to beat my old club of course, but we'll see how it goes!

[glamdring]

Match report from the Dingwall Times on Saturday August 13th 2005

Bitter-sweet victory for County in SPL opener

Hamish Brodie reports:

Jubilant Ross County fans today celebrated as their club won it's first ever SPL match at the first attempt, but they had to come from behind and got a sharp introduction to SPL football.

With just 3 minutes on the clock, Danny Griffin thundered in a left-footed freekick to give visitors Dundee United the lead. United continued to look lively as the first half progressed and County 'keeper Craig Samson had to be at his absolute best to deny Colin Samuel and send County in just 1 goal down at half time.

County manager Adam Eckersley clearly wasn't happy with what he saw in the first half and brought on John Rankin at the start of the second half in place of the ineffectual Sergei Baltacha. Both teams were creating chances and the second goal would be crucial to the outcome. County won a corner in the 59th minute which was whipped in by debutant David Dunne, a 16 year old product of the club's youth system from the summer, John Rankin rising at the near post to head home the equaliser.

County continued to play positively, not satisfied with a single point, but had to rely on Craig Samson on far too many occasions to keep them from going behind again. It was the home side who made the next breakthrough though as David Winters swung in a testing cross. With Dunne and debutant Gibson seemed unwilling to take responsibility the ball fell to right-back Kerr Dodds who smashed in a trade-mark goal from the edge of the area to give Ross County this first ever victory in the SPL.

FT: Ross County 2-1 Dundee United (5380 Attendance)

There was disappointing news for County though after the match as manager Adam Eckersley confirmed that winger David Winters was likely to be out for 2 months with a groin strain. With no obvious replacement for Winters on the right wing it remains to be seen who Eckersley calls on to fill the role which David McGuire occasionally deputised in last season. Rumours suggest that Eckersley will continue with his policy of blooding products of the youth system and give 16 year old Simon Williams, who has been capped for his country at schoolboy level, a debut.

[glamdring]

Wednesday 2nd November 2005

The step from Division 1 to the SPL has been very tough - rather more so than I had hoped. We began well, coming from behind to record an opening day victory over Dundee United, losing narrowly 2-1 at Dunfirmline and drawing 2-2 at home to Motherwell. Not brilliant, but comfortably enough to see us mid table amongst the pack.

It would be too simplistic to blame the collapse after that on the injury to David Winters, but undoubtably the loss of such a key player was a big blow. We replaced him with a 16 year old from the youth academy to begin with - a bold and ultimately a bad move. I have high hopes for young Simon Williams for the future, but to throw him into a struggling side as a 16 year old and ask him to replace Winters was too much for the lad and after a couple of good performances including a goal and 2 assists he found it hard to make an impact.

Defeats, 3-0 at Hibs, 1-5 at home to Rangers and 3-1 at Dundee followed and any early season optimism around the club had been well and truly flushed away - this is going to be a tough season. On the touchline I was tearing my hair out at some of our play. When I asked the players to close down constantly they stood off and allowed the opposition to run at them, when I asked them to tackle hard and do everything to win the ball, they just didn't throw themselves in there and when they had the ball they gave it away far too often.

I even considered resigning after that 3rd defeat in a row. Not because our league position warranted it, just because our play was so appalling that I just couldn't see any way I could take the team forward if they just wouldn't show some commitment for the cause and try to win and keep the ball. Of course, when I woke up the next morning, the thoughts of resigning were replaced by a gritty determination to turn the situation around so I switched tactics to a 5-2-1-2 formation for the visit of Livingston.

It didn't look like a good plan though as Burton O'Brien gave Livi a second half lead, but with an equaliser from young left full-back David Dunne on 66 minutes, the team began to believe again. That was Dunne's first career goal and I was delighted for him - the crowd love him since he's a product of our youth system. I can't remember ever celebrating a goal as much as substitute Ian MacSween's first for the club though - with 92 minutes on the clock I'd accepted a draw, but Martin Canning played a sensational 45-yard pass through the Livi defence to put MacSween clear and the ex-Falkirk striker showed all the clinical finishing he had against us last season. I was punching the air and jumping up with delight on the touchline. I'd hope none of the fans ever questioned my commitment, but if they did, they could see how much that goal meant to me.

Our variations of the 5-3-2 formation didn't prove very successful after that though as Forfar came and dumped us out of the league cup on our own ground before visits to Kilmarnock and Aberdeen yielded no goals as we crashed 3-0 and 1-0 in truly abysmal performances. The cup defeat really disappointed me - we keep losing cup games we should win. Last season's Falkirk match is a perfect example - had we won, our route to the final against Celtic would have been Dumbarton (h), Raith Rovers (h), Albion Rovers (n)...if only!

David Winters returned from injury for the trip to Aberdeen and I played him upfront in that formation, but he had a shocker. He needs to regain match fitness really and it was a lot to ask of him to play in a slightly unusual position after 2 months out. I reverted to 4-4-2 for the home match against Hearts with Winters back on the right wing. After a shocking start when Mark de Vries scored within 3 minutes, we took control and goals from Steven McGarry, David Winters and man of the match Nick James saw us to a well-deserved 3-1 win. Celtic at Celtic Park was next and we were always going to lose...much to the shock of the 50,000+ in the stadium however, Jamie McCunnie sent us in a goal up at the break, but an equaliser from Larsson and a heart-breaking injury time winner from Stilian Petrov meant we went away with a lot of credit, but with 0 points.

On a positive note, our Reserves and U19 teams are 4th and 3rd in their respective leagues and some of our youngsters look promising for the future. No doubt many won't make the grade, but if a few do then we'll be doing well. Nick James from my first crop of youngsters has firmly established himself in the first team now and won young player of the month for October as he also signed his first professional contract on his 17th birthday. He is improving rapidly with every match and is a undoubtably a star in the making. Of our other youth team products, David Dunne is featuring regularly as mentioned while Simon Williams and John MacDonald have returned to the U19s to develop further.

Financially, the club is in a worrying position. With expenditures of ~£225,000 last month matched by income of only £40,000 Archie is very concerned about the club's future.

[glamdring]

Hmm, oh yeah I forgot the league table...shame I've played another game since then - I was 11th

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Celtic

Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag G.D. Pts

1st Celtic 11 9 2 0 27 6 +21 29

2nd Rangers 12 9 1 2 24 10 +14 28

3rd Dundee 12 5 3 4 17 14 +3 18

4th Motherwell 12 5 3 4 20 20 0 18

5th Aberdeen 11 4 5 2 13 11 +2 17

6th Dunfermline 12 5 2 5 15 15 0 17

7th Dundee Utd 12 5 1 6 14 14 0 16

8th Hibs 12 4 3 5 13 18 -5 15

9th Livingston 12 3 2 7 14 20 -6 11

10th Hearts 12 3 2 7 18 26 -8 11

11th Kilmarnock 12 3 1 8 18 27 -9 10

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12th Ross County 12 3 1 8 13 25 -12 10

</pre>

[glamdring]

Saturday 28th January 2006

It's been a very busy couple of months up at Ross County and the fact that I'm sitting here now feeling so irritated that we just drew with Celtic might give some indication as to the change in our fortunes.

I haven't put a 'keeper on the bench all season which is always a risk of course, but it's one I've tended to take, but today it blew up big time as Craig Samson was stretchered off with us leading Celtic 2-0. 16 year old Paul Harris, another product of our youth system who has played very well since getting his chance had put us in front with a crisp volley from a delicious passing move and with Ian MacSween heading in at the near post from a Dunne corner I had high hopes that we could inflict the first defeat of the season on the mighty Celtic. But then the big blow - Samson off and we had to bring on Steven McGarry to play in goal. He's a good striker, but between the sticks...our only chance was to pour forward and keep trying to score because I knew Celtic would score if they got a sight of goal and they did. Petrov fed Sutton who crossed for Larsson to put away...maybe Samson wouldn't have saved it, but it's acadamic now. We held on and created chances until the 93rd minute when Celtic broke upfield and Larsson was sent clear, one on one with McGarry. 2-2 was a good result in itself, extending an unbeaten run, but we were so close to a magnificent 3 points

But I've continued the story from the end, as it were, I must now return to early November as we sat bottom of the SPL, albeit in a very tight division after a late defeat at Dundee United. We were only 8 points off 3rd despite being bottom, but the way we were playing we might as well have been 80 points behind. A disappointing 1-1 home draw with Dunfirmline was followed by a gutsy 2-2 at Motherwell which at least saw us off the bottom of the table thanks to Jim Hamilton scoring an 89th minute penalty with our 2nd shot of the game - so far it's his only contribution to the season, but form-wise and confidence-wise it was perhaps pivotal.

An excellent 3-0 win over Hibs followed in a very even match with Robertson and MacSween joined on the scoresheet by Kerr Dodds who side-stepped the 'keeper with great compusure for a right-back!

It was an unhappy Christmas in Dingwall though (in footballing terms of course!) as a 4-0 thumping at Ibrox was followed by a damaging 2-3 home defeat by Dundee. There was still time to pull out of it of course and the division was amazingly close with just a handful of points covering the bottom half of the table, but when all was said and done, it was us that were bottom and if we were there come the end of the season, we'd be down, however close we were on points to 7th place!

New Year brought hope with it as a Keith Robertson brace saw us to our first away win of the season in our last game of 2005 at Livingston - it was a match that Livi dominated, but Robertson's cool finishing won us the day. We didn't know it at the time, but that was the first of a run of 4 straight wins that was to take us from 12th up into 6th place with a chance to go 5th had we beaten Celtic.

MacSween (twice), Winters and Robertson saw us to our biggest win of the season, 4-1 at home to Kilmarnock before Aberdeen were sent packing 3-0 with goals from 3 less likely scorers. Paul Harris scored his first ever senior goal with a sensational half-volley from outside the area as he settled into a midfield role on promotion from the U19s, Kevin McCallion, recently recalled on the left wing after our experiments with Callum Kane and John Rankine there hadn't been too successful, added a second and Kerr Dodds fired in another superb 25-yarder.

We were drawn away to Celtic in the FA Cup which was a huge disappointment and though we really took the game to them, winning 2 corners in the opening minute and playing them off the park for parts of the second half, their clinical finishing proved decisive and we went out 3-1. On the plus side, we gained ~£500k in gate receipts.

Next up was a trip to Hearts with us eager to maintain our form and move into the top 6 with another away win. 1-0 down at half time to a Mark de Vries strike though it looked as though our win at Livi was a one-off. However, Steven McGarry came on for the injured David Winters as we pushed forward with a 4-2-4 formation and after scoring the first with a 30-yard freekick, McGarry then headed on for Ian MacSween to fire home before Andy Kirk turned the ball into his own net from a County corner as we ran out 1-3 winners.

2-0 up against Celtic and we were heading into a remarkable 5th place...as it is we are still 6th which is a great achievement so far, but we must maintain our good form and make sure we push on from here - we could still end up in a relegation battle, but we could also squeeze into a top 6 finish come the all important split if we can keep going.

With 3 home games from our next 4, we are hopeful that our progress can be continued. The side looks a lot more assured now than we did earlier in the season. Nick James gets better with every game and is brilliant at the back. Our other youngsters are acquitting themselves well too and Ian MacSween and Keith Robertson are developing a good partnership upfront. The Reserves are down to 6th in their league, but more importantly, the U19s are 2nd to Celtic in their championship which bodes well for the future.

The Celtic cup match gave a welcome injection to our finances which should see us through the season still in the black, but our small ground capacity and support is really causing us problems, allied to high travel costs and other expenses.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Celtic

Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag G.D. Pts

1st Rangers 22 17 2 3 49 18 +31 53

2nd Celtic 22 14 8 0 46 13 +33 50

3rd Dundee 22 10 5 7 31 29 +2 35

4th Dunfermline 22 9 6 7 34 25 +9 33

5th Aberdeen 22 7 9 6 20 24 -4 30

6th Ross County 22 8 4 10 35 40 -5 28

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7th Dundee Utd 22 7 5 10 26 33 -7 26

8th Livingston 22 6 5 11 32 34 -2 23

9th Motherwell 22 5 8 9 35 42 -7 23

10th Hibs 22 6 5 11 24 39 -15 23

11th Kilmarnock 22 5 6 11 35 45 -10 21

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12th Hearts 22 4 5 13 25 50 -25 17

</pre>

[This message was edited by glamdring on 15 February 2004 at 20:29.]

[This message was edited by glamdring on 15 February 2004 at 20:30.]

[This message was edited by glamdring on 15 February 2004 at 20:30.]

[glamdring]

Saturday 22nd April 2006

Our form over the last couple of months has been somewhat up and down, with unexpected results, both good and bad, popping up out of nowhere.

We followed up on our draw with Celtic by extending our unbeaten league run with a comfortable 3-1 win over Dundee United, 20 shots on goal in total and goals from Robertson, O'Donoghue and MacSween, before the wheels fell off a little.

In a tight match away to Dunfirmline, Ian MacSween cancelled out Derek Young's opener before half time, but Young stuck again in the second half to end our unbeaten run. We then welcomed league leaders Glasgow Rangers to Victoria Park and the difference between a big team and a small team showed - we played them off the park with superb passing and 14 shots on goal in the match, but they had 4 shots on target and netted 3 of them while we took none of our chances.

Motherwell were the next visitors to Victoria Park and we really needed to get back on our feet and win this if we were to entertain any hopes of a top 6 finish. Young Paul Harris gave us the perfect start on 6 minutes when he scrambled the ball home from a scrappy corner. 12 minutes before the break, Steven McGarry swung a freekick into the box which Motherwell struggled to clear. Ross O'Donoghue collected and shielded the ball before turning and firing a shot through a ruck of bodies past the unsighted 'keeper for a 2-0 win.

Our trips to Hibernian and Dundee showed the difference between those teams at the top and those at the bottom. Hibs competed well, but County looked composed and assured as they passed the ball around, creating numerous chances. Morten Hyldegaard saved a penalty from Nick James early on, but 10 minutes later David Winters collected a brilliant cross-field pass from David Dunne to run clear and shoot past Hyldegaard in the Hibs' goal. A second half penalty by Nick James made up for his first half miss and gave us the 3 crucial points. A week later in Dundee we played an excellent game, but were undone by an injury time winner by Caballero for 3rd placed Dundee.

With a top 6 place there for the taking, the players rose to the challenge, knowing also that 4th and 5th places were also up for grabs and even 3rd if Dundee were to slip up. 3 goals in the last 10 minutes gave us victory over a Livingston side who came to defend and precious little else. At the end of March we visited Rugby Park where we had been beaten 3-0 earlier in the season. The change in our fortunes was very clear as this time we ran out 0-4 winners with all the goals and the points wrapped up in the first half.

First match in April was to be a crucial encounter. Aberdeen in 4th were 3 points above us and with a slightly better goal difference and we had to visit Pittodrie as Aberdeen sat top of the current form table. We were second in that same form table though and bouyed by our big win at Kilmarnock. By half time we were 0-2 up and playing well - Dodds rampaging down the right, feeding Winters who crossed for Ian MacSween to tap in followed by a measured far post finish by Winters from a floating cross by McCallion. Paul Sheerin struck a brilliant freekick in the second half before a Nick James penalty restored our two goal lead only for Leigh Hinds to tuck away a Kevin Harper cross to make it 2-3, but we held on for the last 10 minutes and a vital win that saw us move above the Dons on goals scored.

With a home match against bottom of the table Hearts up next we were hopeful of cementing our hold on 4th with Aberdeen away at Kilmarnock and Dunfirmline away at Rangers. In the end we were thankful Aberdeen only got a point as we fell apart spectacularly conceding a hat-trick to journeyman midfielder Trond Anderson, giving Hearts faint hope of staying in the SPL and seriously denting our hopes. David Winters had twice put us in front, but we had no answer to Anderson's 3rd 7 minutes from time.

The last round of matches before the split saw Aberdeen travel to Hearts and us travel to Celtic with hopes of 4th place falling away a little. Hearts though were clearly in no mood to give up yet and after going a goal down roared back to win 3-1 as we played out an entertaining 0-0 draw at Celtic Park with both sets of fans wondering quite how their team had failed to take any of their numerous chances.

Just 5 games to go now, but against the other teams in the top 6 so it'll be tough. A 6th placed finish would represent a great achievement for us though and might even get us a UEFA Cup spot so we'll just do our best and see how it goes.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Celtic

Pos Team Pld Won Drn Lst For Ag G.D. Pts

1st Celtic 33 20 11 2 59 19 +40 71

2nd Rangers 33 22 5 6 67 32 +35 71

3rd Dundee 33 15 8 10 50 39 +11 53

4th Ross County 33 14 5 14 55 52 +3 47

5th Aberdeen 33 11 14 8 38 36 +2 47

6th Dunfermline 33 12 7 14 44 45 -1 43

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7th Dundee Utd 33 10 10 13 40 48 -8 40

8th Kilmarnock 33 10 8 15 45 58 -13 38

9th Hibs 33 9 8 16 42 58 -16 35

10th Livingston 32 8 9 15 44 48 -4 33

11th Motherwell 32 7 11 14 44 64 -20 32

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12th Hearts 33 7 8 18 43 72 -29 29

</pre>

[This message was edited by glamdring on 16 February 2004 at 0:58.]

[This message was edited by glamdring on 16 February 2004 at 1:00.]

[This message was edited by glamdring on 16 February 2004 at 1:00.]

[glamdring]

End of season review to come tomorrow Final table:

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Celtic

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | C | Celtic | | 38 | 23 | 13 | 2 | 69 | 23 | +46 | 82 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Rangers | | 38 | 22 | 7 | 9 | 72 | 43 | +29 | 73 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Ross County | | 38 | 17 | 6 | 15 | 68 | 58 | +10 | 57 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Dundee | | 38 | 16 | 9 | 13 | 55 | 47 | +8 | 57 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 5th | | Aberdeen | | 38 | 13 | 14 | 11 | 48 | 49 | -1 | 53 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 6th | | Dunfermline | | 38 | 14 | 9 | 15 | 55 | 57 | -2 | 51 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | Dundee Utd | | 38 | 14 | 11 | 13 | 50 | 53 | -3 | 53 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 8th | | Livingston | | 38 | 10 | 12 | 16 | 54 | 55 | -1 | 42 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 9th | | Motherwell | | 38 | 10 | 12 | 16 | 58 | 76 | -18 | 42 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 10th | | Hibs | | 38 | 10 | 10 | 18 | 50 | 67 | -17 | 40 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 11th | | Kilmarnock | | 38 | 10 | 10 | 18 | 54 | 73 | -19 | 40 |

| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 12th | R | Hearts | | 38 | 7 | 11 | 20 | 57 | 89 | -32 | 32 |

</pre>

[glamdring]

Saturday 27th May 2006

It has been an amazing season for us, exceeding my expectations completely. Before the season started I was quietly confident that we would surprise a few people and stay in the division without too much trouble, but 12 games in with us sitting bottom of the table and playing some appalling football I would have been happy to just finish the season 11th and stay in the division. We were lucky to a certain extent that the division was so close...in fact our rise off the bottom after week 12 was a false dawn and we were back there after week 17, but it was our next win that set us off, moving us up 4 places in 1 week and we never looked back, rising into the top half of the table just 3 matches after we were bottom!

Our finish to the season was the stuff of dreams. I had modified my aspirations to try and hold on to a top 6 place for the split, but the players had other ideas. Dunfirmline and Aberdeen were in their sights and even Dundee who seemed safe in 3rd! It's a tremendous credit to our young players that they finished so strongly - many others would have settled for securing our SPL status, but not these lads. They pushed all the way and a second 2-3 win at Aberdeen in a month, a 3-1 home win over Rangers and a 6-1 home win over Dunfirmline in those last 5 games were soured only by a 1-0 defeat at Dundee. Surely that was the nail in our coffin for finishing 3rd? Not at all, Dundee were wobbling badly and in fact that win over us was their only one after the split.

We went into the final day of the season a point behind Dundee. We were at home to Celtic, they were at home to Aberdeen. Amazingly Aberdeen beat them and we put in a gutsy performance to draw 1-1 with Celtic and claim that coveted 3rd place - the best of the rest - behind the Old Firm.

I still find it hard to believe - we had 3-4 16/17 year olds in the side throughout the season and our oldest regular player was Steven McGarry who, at 26, himself only started 10 games with 12 substitute appearances. I could no doubt be accused of ageism as well as nationalism for my all-Scottish youngsters policy, but I firmly believe in youth. It's not that I don't respect the more experienced players - just that when we have a talented youngster I like to throw them in if they perform.

In the past 3 seasons, David Hannah, Hugh Robertson, Andy Morrison and Mark McCulloch have all been allowed to move on with John O'Neill and Gary Bowman out of contract and not being offered new deals this summer. Kevin Christie is also unlikley to feature next season leaving Jim Hamilton as our only player over 26 and he has disappointed hugely since I arrived, but will still feature next season. He has scored just 8 goals in 3 seasons at the club, but I have a soft spot for Jim and as a good target-man he will still be useful as a squad player for backup to Keith Robertson.

[glamdring]

End of season player review

We used a total of 25 players in the first team last season. Craig Devlin, John O'Neill, David McGuire, Martin Canning, Calum McHattie, Kevin Christie, Simon Williams and Bobby Duncan all played fewer than 5 games and apart from Williams who is a player for the future, they are unlikely to feature heavily in the next season either.

Jim Hamilton was again a bit of an enigma. For whatever reason he just hasn't scored the goals for us and last season he only made 5 starts and 4 sub apperances scoring 1 goal, but it was a crucial goal - the 89th minute penalty equaliser at Motherwell as we battled to turn our form around - the importance of that point and the boost it gave us to push on from there cannot be under-estimated.

Callum Kane and John Rankin were both tried on the left wing in the early season, but without a great deal of success. Rankin also played a few games in central midfield, but spent most of his time on the bench and is a good substitute to have available.

Keith Gibson failed to make much of an impact as one of only 2 pre-season signings and was perhaps not a good buy. Having said that though, he did fill in on the right wing and in the centre on a a fair few occasions and will likely fill the same role next season. Sergei Baltacha also featured sporadically and was a disappointment after the impact he made at the end of last season. He did have injury troubles though and is a good backup player for defence or midfield.

Steven McGarry is one of the fans' favourites and also another player I have a lot of time for. Whilst not being first choice for most of last season, Steven was a very useful substitute player as well as playing a number of games in the troublesome left-sided attacking role. Steven will be looking to make one of the two striking berths his own for the new season.

Off all those we tried on the left wing, Kevin McCallion, recalled mid-season, was the most successful and weighed in with a number of important assists and goals. Depending on our youth players coming through this summer, Kevin will probably begin next season as our first choice left winger.

On the right wing, David Winters was again a crucial player and it was no coincidence that our struggle in the early season came as David was out injured for 2 months. With 9 goals and 11 assists from 27 games, David came back strongly to help in our late season drive for success and will be a key player as we begin our assault on Europe next season. At still only 24 he is one of our most experienced players and still says the best is yet to come.

Our midfield was one of our strong points last season. O'Neill, Baltacha and Rankin all featured from time to time there, but our 2 first choice midfielders for most of the season were Ross O'Donoghue and Paul Harris. Both are superb passers of the ball and give us a great basis to build from midfield. Ross, at 23, is really beginning to blossom and played all bar 1 league games last season scoring 7 goals and claiming 4 assists, but it was his link-up play and passing around the midfield that really made us tick. Paul was one of our finds of the season as he soon pushed for a place in our team having come through the summer youth ranks. Another excellent passer with bags of pace who can run all day, Paul scored an impressive 4 goals from his defensive midfield role in his first season and is yet to turn 17 and sign his first professional contract. These two will continue their excellent partnership next season, but will be pushed by a number of promising young players.

In goal, Craig Samson had a tough early season and made a few errors throughout the season, but on the whole I was very pleased with his performances in difficult circumstances. At just 22 he will improve season on season and will again be our first choice next season.

In defence we had an up and down season, but Jamie McCunnie performed consistently in the centre and is a crucial player for us. Far too good for the 1st Division when he dropped a league to join Ross County before I arrived he is now back where he belongs and will be looking to pit himself against the best in Europe next season.

Alongside Jamie was our star of the season. The most consistent player in the entire division, it was a traversty that Nick James was overlooked for player of the season and finished just 3rd in the young player of the season award. Having come through our youth ranks 2 years ago, Nick is now firmly established in our first team at 17 and has already made 4 appearances for the Scotland U21s, scoring on his debut. Though originally a midfielder he has converted very successfully to a defensive role whilst still being highly capable when required in midfield. If we can produce more stars through our youth ranks of his quality we could yet end up with 11 Dingwall-born players winning the European Cup! Nick missed just 2 league games last season and scored 7 goals (mostly from the spot) and will look to press on to even better achievements next season.

Our two full-backs were highly consistent last season, missing just 3 league games between them and giving us excellent wide options. Kerr Dodds was slightly disappointed with just 4 assists last season, but his play down the right yielded far more goals than that would suggest. He also scored 4 goals which was a pleasant surprise, especially since all 4 were of the highest qualty. At left-back David Dunne displaced Bobby Duncan who had played the last 2 seasons and on his first season out from the youth team, acquitted himself extremely well claiming 8 assists and a goal. Both Kerr and David will start next season as first choice full-backs and I am hopeful that they will be even better than this season.

Finally, but not the least, our strikers. Steven McGarry did well when called upon, but it was Keith Robertson and Ian MacSween who quickly established themselves as our first choice partnership. Robertson is an excellent pacey target-man and has been great value since signing for just £1,000 from Peterhead reserves, passing the 50 goals mark for County as the season drew to a close. The raw numbers show that he only scored 10 this season with 8 assists, but his direct approach caused trouble for many defences. Ian MacSween was our other Summer signing and he made a huge impact, weighing in with 17 goals and 6 assists and finishing as our top scorer. MacSween is the perfect foil for Robertson with his great finishing and dribbling ability allied to lightening pace.

MacSween will be looking to move onto the next level in the coming season, by firing us to glory in Europe and to knock on the door of the Scottish national squad.

[This message was edited by glamdring on 16 February 2004 at 21:44.]

[glamdring]

Match report from the Dingwall Times on Saturday August 26th 2006

County crush Hibs to go top of SPL

Hamish Brodie reports:

Those fans who took the gamble of 33-1 pre-season odds on Ross County to win the SPL will have been encouraged by what they have seen so far. Undoubtably, Celtic and Rangers are still hot favourites for the title and with only 3 games gone it is far too early to make any predictions. Nonetheless, fans of Ross County are tonight delighted to see their team top of the Scottish Premier League for the first time in their history after a very confident performance away to Hibernian.

County went into the match sitting in 4th place after a 2-2 draw at Livingston and a 3-0 win over Kilmarnock with Hibs in 3rd after 2 wins. With just 7 minutes on the clock, Mathias Doumbe pushed Ian MacSween in the box and Nick James put away the penalty to give County an early lead. Into the second half though, Hibs were coming on strong and after just 3 minutes Richard Barr rose at the near post to head in a Kenny Lunt corner.

Hibs fans will point the the 76th minute sending off of Johnathan Baillie as the turning point of the game and few can argue that it was a crucial moment with the score still at 1-1. Just 4 minutes later, Ross County had the points wrapped up as first Ian MacSween and then new Summer signing Mark McColl found the back of the Hibs net. McColl is Ross County's record signing at £700,000 and has a lot of pressure on him to perform, but he has made an assured start to his career after moving from Ayr United and appears to be forming a great understanding with Ian MacSween upfront. It was MacSween who ran clear and side-stepped the Hibs' 'keeper in the 88th minute to score County's 4th and finish off a dominant performance from the away side, albeit against 10 men for the last 15 minutes.

FT: Hibernian 1-4 Ross County (13,037 Attendance)

Elsewhere in the SPL, Celtic were held to a goalless draw at Livingston whilst Rangers surprisingly went down 0-2 at home to Aberdeen, leaving Ross County top of the SPL on goal difference from the mighty Glasgow Celtic. It may not last, but tonight, manager Adam Eckersley won't care about that. After the match he hailed the players who had put in so much effort and made sure they took ruthless advantage of the 10 men of Hibs. With a home tie against newly promoted St. Johnstone next week, County fans will be hoping they can stay on top a little longer yet.

[glamdring]

Interview from the Dingwall Times on Saturday September 2nd 2006

Ross County manager Adam Eckersley speaks exclusively to Hamish Brodie

Hamish: Hi, Adam. It's just over 3 years since I first interviewed you after that 5-0 defeat at Gretna in your first match. A lot has happened since then!

Adam: Hi Hamish. Yes, it's been almost like a dream really. That defeat at Gretna in my opening games was undoubtably the lowest point of my career. I guess it's a good thing to have my lowest point after my first match, but I just stood there at the end thinking that everyone was right - it was ridiculous to think that I could manage a football team. It's over 500 miles round trip from Dingwall to Gretna and I felt I really let down the loyal fans who had made that trip! Now though, well, it's different

Hamish: First, I must ask about today's match. A good 2-0 win over St. Johnstone and still top of the SPL. You must be very happy so far?

Adam: Of course! We were probably favourites for today's match, but you can never take anything for granted and we were without Ian (MacSween) today who has scored 5 goals in our first 3 games, but Steven (McGarry) really impressed me stepping in for him today and gives me a selection headache for next week! His lob for the second goal was superbly done.

Hamish: What are your hopes and expectations for this season? Last season was a magnificent achievement so I guess expectations will be high?

Adam Last season far exceeded my expectations and was truly brilliant for us, but it might have been better had we just finished 6th or 5th because expectations are that much higher now and the pressure is on us to repeat that achievement. I believe we can do so and I would love to challenge Rangers and Celtic for the top 2 spots, but we'll have to see - 3rd again would be excellent for us.

Hamish: And Europe? Do you think we can go very far or is it just a learning experience?

Adam A lot depends on the luck of the draw. We have KF Tirana from Albania in the 1st round so I am hopeful we can get through, but we can't underestimate anyone. I'd love to have a good run, but you're right - it is a learning experience for us. I have to give great credit to Celtic though - they're the team we all love to hate domestically, but their efforts in Europe over recent seasons have put Scotland 6th in the UEFA co-efficients narrowly ahead of a number of other leagues which gives us 3 Champions League spots for next season. If we can grab one of those I would be delighted.

Hamish: You signed just 2 players again this summer, but for rather more money than last summer. Do you feel you have the mix of players you want now?

Adam Well, as you know Hamish, we don't have a lot of money, but Archie said I could spend up to almost £2 million on transfers if I wanted, but I don't intend to spend that much - we have to be financially prudent. I wanted another striker and I'm delighted to have signed Mark McColl from Ayr because he's a player I've long admired. Of course the £700,000 price tag will put pressure on him, but we shouldn't expect too much too fast. Mark McGlynn is a really talented 16 year old who was at Aberdeen and was very receptive to my enquiry as to whether he wanted to join us. I'm surprised Aberdeen didn't try harder to keep him, but I think £375,000 is a bargain - he can play in defence or midfield, centre or right so he'll add good depth to our squad.

Hamish: You mentioned finances, is that something you are always having to consider at Ross County?

Adam: Of course. We are a small club and as you know, the population of Dingwall is only ~3000 and the surrounding area is sparsely populated so we have to rely on fans from arond the Highlands. Realistically I don't see us needing a bigger stadium than our 6000 capacity because of that, however successful we can become. I'd love to see more fans coming, but we have to be realistic - we have the lowest attendances in the SPL and with it a low income and high expenses because of our location. We rely heavily on the TV money and prize money from the SPL and Europe will help.

Hamish: You've certainly won the fans around with your style. I think they really appreciate youngsters from the town getting a chance in the first team.

Adam: Yes, it's very rewarding for us to watch the youngsters come through. We have a squad of 69 currently, but our player wage bill is still under £15,000. Only 19 of our players are over 21 and with 39 coming through the youth ranks since I arrived the future looks bright. Of course some don't make it and 9 or so have already left, but I'm happy to have a large U19 squad to see how they develop. It's a very self-perpetuating policy though - if the local kids see that it's possible to break into the team they'll be more enthusiastic to take up football and as more and more come through we can have a strong team and without having to pay large transfer fees that we just can't afford.

Hamish: What's your view on the state of Scottish football at the moment?

Adam: I think in the future, if we are successful many clubs will look at us and hopefully use our success as a blueprint for how to run a club in Scotland. The finances are always strained in Scotland and many clubs have been run badly in the past and are struggling - I won't let Ross County follow that trend and neither will Archie. I've heard rumours, although you can never trust them, that Dundee are paying Jari Litmanen over £40,000 per week which is just staggering and cannot be sustained. I think many clubs are starting to learn the hard way as they try to challenge Celtic.

Hamish: Finally Adam, what about your future at the club? We all hope you'll stay a long time, but you were widely reported to be interested in the Hibernian job last season.

Adam: (laughs) I have to say, I made an ill-judged comment at a bad moment to a national reporter last season. You know what these national reporters are like - they take whatever you say and make a story out of it. People know I'm a Hibernian fan and I just commented that of course I'd be flattered if I was offered the Hibs job, but I'm happy at Ross County and I believe strongly in loyalty. Archie and I are good friends and I have a lot still to achieve here. I can promise that as long as Archie and the fans want me here I'll stay.

[This message was edited by glamdring on 17 February 2004 at 18:07.]

[glamdring]

View from the terraces: A fanzine editor's view - Wednesday 18th October 2006

County European odyssey in Tirana

Nicky Young reports on a trip to Albania:

For the first time ever, Ross County were in Europe. The club who only entered the football league 12 years ago have progressed beyond belief in that decade from being elected into the Scottish 3rd Division to now travelling into Europe for a UEFA Cup tie sitting atop the SPL. We had to pinch ourselves to believe it was true.

The first leg of our European odyssey would be to Tirana in Albania, somewhere I knew very little about so it was time to head to the library and travel agents to gather information. The club organised an official package which I and my husband took advantage of rather than having to book our own accommodation. All in all there were 254 intrepid Ross County fans jetting off into the unknown to follow their club's European dream. None of us knew where it was going to lead, but for now, it was to Tirana.

I should say that this wasn't actually our first taste of European football as the small matter of the first leg of the match had taken place at Victoria Park back on the 27th of September...I say the "small matter" in the sense that it wasn't quite the same experience as travelling across Europe, but in footballing terms it was massive. A near-capacity crowd of 5984 had packed into Victoria Park in eager anticipation of the club's first ever UEFA Cup match and what a night it was! A full match report was presented in View from the terraces on the following Friday, but the bare facts can stand being repeated.

Fans had barely got bums on seats when Ian MacSween continued his terrific scoring run to score from a McColl knock-on after just 18 seconds!! By half time the atmosphere was electric as County turned on the style with further goals from Mark McGlynn and David Winters sending us in 3-0 up. It wasn't until the 73rd minute that the match erupted again as Nick James got himself sent-off - a disappointment for the youngster who missed the return leg in Tirana, but he'll learn. After that, County went wild with Mark McColl, Keith Gibson and Steven McGarry all scoring to give us an amazing 6-0 lead into the away leg!!

That was 3 weeks ago though and as we headed out of Aberdeen airport for Albania we were unsure as to what to expect in Tirana. Albania is a poor country economically and after a succession of corrupt governments is finally trying to emerge and embrace the 21st century as a European country. As a tourist destination, Albania is yet to truly develop, but has some very beautiful country and coastal scenery. On this visit we wouldn't be seeing much of this, but the city of Tirana itself has many museums and historical buildings to keep the visitor occupied.

KF Tirana had brought just 36 fans with them to Dingwall and it must have been quite a culture shock. We had got in touch with the club beforehand and offered to meet the fans on their official club package at Aberdeen aiport which we did and they were a truly charming set of people. They were polite, intelligent and with a slightly pessimistic outlook on life, but very interested in our culture and national heritage. We had laden them with gifts as they left and were truly happy that our club's entry in the UEFA Cup had allowed us to meet people from such different backgrounds to ours.

As we landed at Tirana airport yesterday, we were met by Petro who had promised to show us around Tirana and take us out for a meal that night with the match being played today. There were 26 of us in our group and Petro had gathered together 17 of the fans who had travelled with him to Dingwall and we all went for a meal and drinks and talked long into the night of Albania, of Scotland, of world politics, of football and anything that came to mind. Not all of the Albanians could speak English, but Petro translated for us and the time flew by. This was our first taste of foreign travel as football fans and we were warming to it fast.

There had been tight security at the airport and a lot of procedural stuff, but a lot of the rumours that people hear of the Eastern block of countries were totally unfounded. We were treated excellently throughout our stay, in the hotel, at the ground and out in the city. It was approaching 4 am before we returned to our hotel for a good night's sleep, but it was well worth it - meeting these people had given me a whole different slant on life and made me realise how lucky I was to live in a relatively advanced country.

We arrived at the ground early to take in the atmosphere and find our seats. The away fans had a little corner of the ground to ourselves and draped our tartan army and Scottish flags around as we began to get into the swing of things. Some of the Ross County club officials had joined us down in the stands which was added to the feeling of supporting a truly local, "family" club. The ground appeared to be about 90% full with an attendance of somewhere just over 10,000.

Nick James was suspended for us, but with a 6-0 lead from the first leg that wouldn't be a huge loss and gave Jamie McCunnie who had been dropped to the bench so far in favour of new signing Mark McGlynn a chance to shine. The match itself was a lot less open than in Dingwall, but Tirana missed a few good chances early on. Paul Harris got himself a yellow card, Ian MacSween hit the post and we went in 0-0 at the break. Worrying news came on the stroke of half time as David Winters was stretchered off. Fingers crossed that it isn't anything serious.

The second half was as disappointing as the first, but that wasn't surprising with neither side having much to play for with County already through after their home leg performance and Tirana having nothing but pride to play for against a clearly better side. The final whistle eventually blew and we were through to the 2nd round with a 0-0 on the night and 6-0 aggregate. The 4 yellow cards we picked up will be a concern for the manager, but on the whole, it was a solid performance away from home.

We fly back home tomorrow and whilst it will be good to get back to Scotland I've thoroughly enjoyed our first away trip of the season to Europe and especially the people we have met. We met up with Petro again after the match for drinks and the Albanians gave us each a present from their country for us to remember them by. There wasn't much danger of us forgetting the experience, but it was a nice touch. They wished us good luck for the rest of the tournament and we parted from them with a tinge of regret. Maybe we'd be back here again some time in the future, but as for the next round, who knows where we'll be heading to next?

[glamdring]

Saturday 4th November 2006

When I first took charge of Ross County a little over 3 years ago and lost 5-0 to Gretna, it seemed like mine and Archie's dream of conquering Europe with a team of young Scots was exactly that: a dream. In the cold light of day, we had an average 1st division squad, with a couple of star players who had just been thrashed! Today as I headed off the pitch at Tannadice though, the feelings were so different. This was possible, the dream was achievable and it was coming true faster than I had ever dared hope. We still have a long way to go yet and no mistake. It may well be that we never achieve our goal, but on the domestic front we are really starting to look like the finished article now.

The Summer sigings of Mark McGlynn at the back and Mark McColl upfront have slotted in like the lost pieces of a jigsaw and perhaps best of all, we have unearthed another great talent in the one troublesome position - the left wing. Again I tried two players there initially, giving youth player Tim Dobson a debut as well as again using Kevin McCallion. Dobson scored on his debut and claimed 2 assists in following matches and looks good for the future, but still I decided it was time to give Richard Rhodes his first taste of first team action and his debut was the stuff of dreams - 2-0 down after 9 minutes at Motherwell and then with 30 minutes left, Rhodes scored a superb goal before following up with the eqauliser 11 minutes from time and putting in a perfect cross for MacSween to net an 87th minute winner!! From there he has gone from strength to strength with 3 goals and 4 assists from 5 league games so far and he's still only 16!

Our league form has been totally different to the start of last season and rather than wax lyrical about each game in detail, the bare results will paint the picture well enough:

Livingston 2-2 Ross County

MacSween, Winters, McCunnie s/o

Ross County 3-0 Kilmarnock

MacSween (2), Dobson

Hibernian 1-4 Ross County

James (pen), MacSween (2), McColl

Ross County 2-0 St. Johnstone

McGarry (2)

Dundee 0-1 Ross County

McColl, James m/pen

Ross County 2-2 Rangers

MacSween (2)

Motherwell 2-3 Ross County

Rhodes (2), MacSween

Ross County 3-0 Dunfirmline

McColl, Winters, MacSween

Ross County 5-1 Celtic

MacSween (2), McColl, James (pen), O'Donoghue

Ross County 3-1 Aberdeen

Rankin, Gibson, McGarry

Dundee United 1-3 Ross County

MacSween, Rhodes, McColl

In between times was our first ever European tie as we put FK Tirana out of the UEFA Cup on a 6-0 aggregate with the 2nd round draw pitting us against Feyenoord in a very tough tie with the first leg at Victoria Park this coming Thursday. If we can perform as we have been doing of late, who knows what we can achieve? Common sense says Feyenoord will be too strong for us over 2 legs, but I don't like common sense!

Elsewhere, a team comprised almost entirely from my U19 squad beat Greenock Morton 1-0 in the League Cup 3rd Round to give us a home tie against Rangers in the Quarter finals.

[glamdring]

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Celtic

Pos Team | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1st Ross County | 11 | 9 | 2 | 0 | 31 | 10 | +21 | 29

2nd Dundee Utd | 11 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 17 | 12 | +5 | 23

3rd Rangers | 11 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 17 | 11 | +6 | 19

4th Celtic | 11 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 16 | 10 | +6 | 18

5th Kilmarnock | 11 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 17 | 14 | +3 | 17

6th Aberdeen | 11 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 9 | 11 | -2 | 15

7th Dunfermline | 11 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 14 | 14 | 0 | 14

8th Hibs | 11 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 15 | 18 | -3 | 13

9th Motherwell | 11 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 11 | 22 | -11 | 12

10th St. Johnstone | 11 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 12 | 17 | -5 | 11

11th Livingston | 11 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 12 | 20 | -8 | 7

12th Dundee | 11 | 2 | 0 | 9 | 7 | 19 | -12 | 6

</pre>

[glamdring]

View from the terraces: A fanzine editor's view - Thursday 30th November 2006

Ross County head for Rotterdam

Nicky Young reports on a trip to Holland:

We had listened excitedly to the UEFA Cup draw after our return from Tirana, wondering were we would be sent off to next. It was a long tense wait as all manner of teams, some who I admit I've never heard of, were drawn, but at last there we were. We would be at home again for the first leg and our opponents were to be Feyenoord. This would be a lot tougher than KF Tirana, but with the team top of the SPL still we were quietly confident of an upset.

The first match took place at the start of November and was full of both encouraging and discouraging signs. We totally dominated the first half, pouring forward in wave after wave of attacks, passing the ball neatly around the midfield and creating numerous chances, but the shooting boots had been left in the changing rooms and Ross O'Donoghue flashed at least 6 attempts wide from > 25 yards out as we went in 0-0 at half time. On the plus side, Feyenoord had rarely ventured into our third of the pitch and hadn't had a sight of goal.

The second half was totally different though. Our manager was clearly unhappy about our inability to take any of our chances and on 61 minutes we were punished - Feyenoord's first attack of the game was about as direct as it could be - a goal kick, flick on from Lazovic and Dirk Kuijt gave us a lesson in clinical finishing. At last, County got their act together though and a superb cross from David Winters found Ross O'Donoghue in the box to equalise from our 17th attempt on goal. 72 minutes on the clock and we were turning up the pressure as Zoetebier spilled a Richard Rhodes shot and O'Donoghue was again in the right place at the right time to put us 2-1 up. Feyenoord are veterans of many European campaigns however and have honed their away tactics over a number of years - within 2 minutes they were level again - 2 shots on goal, both scored by Feyenoord - a cruel lesson in taking your chances at this level. To our delight, County showed no sign of giving up though and just carried on pouring forward and now the eye for goal really was returning as a stunning freekick from O'Donoghue curled into the box confusing everyone except David Winters who rose to head in at the far post. 5 minutes to go and we knew 3-2 would make the second leg very difficult...no problem, we weren't finished yet! David Dunne found Ian MacSween, MacSween found Richard Rhodes and the youngster found the net. We would take a 4-2 lead to Rotterdam after a topsy turvy tie!

That was then and the euphoria had died down somewhat as our group headed off down through England to get a ferry to Rotterdam. Unlike our last trip, this was far less of a journey into the unknown as some of us had been to Holland previously, just not to support Ross County. Quite the opposite of the Tirana expedition, it was on the field that we had by far the most interest this time so it is on the match that I will concentrate. The hotel was nice, the restaurants and bars were excellent and the city had many sights for the tourist, but they were all forgotten as we headed into the De Kuip stadium - a massive 50,000+ seater arena. Disappointingly it was only just over half full, but I guess Ross County aren't that big a draw for the Feyenoord fans! It was an imposing arena though and as we got off the bus at the Stadium we gaped in awe at the massive Arena before us. We'd been to Hampden and Celtic Park on numerous occasions of course, but this was Europe and somehow that made it all the more impressive, despite its slightly smaller size than either of those Scottish venues.

It was a truly awful day, weather-wise. The wind was howling around the stadium as the rain sheeted down and the temperature, said to be around 3 degrees felt more like -10 as we huddled in the away end of the ground, again waving our Scottish flags around and doing our best to out-sing the ~27,500 home fans as the match kicked off. Maybe, a few years ago the strong wind would have been a problem as we often resorted to longball football in our attempts to escape the Scottish First Division, but now we play a pleasing blend of short and direct passing and are quite comfortable with building up slowly with a neat passing move on the ground. Whether we could out-pass Feyenoord or not though remained to be seen - they came to defend in Scotland, but today they would be attacking.

Our young lads seem not to care whether they are at home in front of 6,000 supportive fans or away in front of 28,000 hostile fans though and with just 15 minutes on the clock, John Rankin collected the ball and set up a fast break, sending Ian MacSween clear to charge at the 'keeper and fire us into the lead on the night. We were already soaking wet as the roof over our stand did little to stop the at times horizontal rain from drenching us, but that didn't stop us leaping around in celebration and bursting into an impromptu rendition of Flower of Scotland. Well, we did our best, but we were drowned out by the home fans and the rain so we soon gave up!

7 minutes before half time, Feyenoord broke upfield decisively and our defence failed to pick up Shinji Ono as he received the ball and shot from 25 yards out to equalise. 1-1 at half time and we were going well, matching our more illustrious opponents comfortably - we just had to keep it that way and not concede any sloppy goals. Concede sloppy goals? How could I think such a thing? The Ross County players clearly had no such thoughts as they took the game to Feyenoord in the second half. 10 minutes in and David Dunne fed the ball down the left for Richard Rhodes to slide on to Ian MacSween and our top scorer again showed just how good a finisher he is, putting us 1-2 infront and 3-6 ahead on aggregate. Surely that would be enough?

Well, it was enough for the victory in the tie, but not for the players! Steven McGarry, on as a substitute clearly wanted to stake his claim for a starting place next match and did his cause no harm with a fierce finish from outside the area. The last word had to go to our star striker though. Brilliant throughout, Ian MacSween sent us into heaven as a deflected David Winters cross arrived at his feet 2 yards out for the young striker's first European hat-trick.

Beyond all expectations we had not only gone and protected our 2 goal lead from the first leg, we had arrived in Rotterdam with the clear intent of playing good football and attacking and had ripped the Dutch side apart. I had to look twice as the final score flashed on the scoreboard at the end of the match:

Feyenoord 1-4 Ross County (3-8)

Phew!! That was good...the journey continues and who knows how far we can go after this. Feyenoord may not be the team they once were and are no Ajax or PSV, but neither are they a bad side and this win will give us confidence and belief that we can beat almost anyone if we play well. Now we have to wait for the Champions League failures to get their second bite at the European cherry with the stupid UEFA rules doing their best to make the rich richer and the poor poorer by allowing teams who have already lost numerous European games this season to have a chance at the "lesser" trophy. Money talks though and Europe's big clubs don't like being out of European competition outright when the Champions League group stage finishes despite them having failed.

[This message was edited by glamdring on 18 February 2004 at 18:08.]

[This message was edited by glamdring on 18 February 2004 at 18:08.]

[glamdring]

Saturday 20th January 2007

It's been a bad Christmas for Ross County, excepting the Boxing Day win at Dunfirmline. We are still top of the table, but only thanks to Aberdeen winning 2-3 at Dundee United in midweek while we frustratingly went down 3-4 at Celtic having played really well and come from behind to lead with 3 goals from corners, but ultimately it wasn't enough.

On Boxing Day we had scored all 4 of our goals at East End Park from corners, although one involved a bit of a stromash in the box before it was finally poked home. It's clearly one of our biggest strengths and is a potent weapon to have, but we need to sort out our defence which has been getting leaky of late.

November saw our first defeat of the season after 4-2 and 2-0 wins over Feyenoord and Livingston respectively, we headed to Rugby Park to face Kilmarnock for whom Paul Di Giacomo scored the winner in a 2-1 victory. We bounced back well though with 5 straight wins to follow - 5-2 over Hibs, 1-4 away to Feyenoord, 3-4 away to St. Johnstone in a match riddled with errors where Ian MacSween kept digging us out of trouble, 2-1 over Rangers to make the League Cup semi-final and a 3-1 victory over Dunfirmline.

The loss to injury for over a month of top scorer Ian MacSween has really shown. Steven McGarry has come in and done a very good job, but the results haven't flowed of late. To be fair though, that is more to do with the defence than the attacking play, but we could have done with more goals as we lost 3 of our last 4 league games in December - Motherwell came and ended our unbeaten home record, Rangers avenged our cup victory and Aberdeen put us to the sowrd with 2 goals in the last 7 minutes at Pittodrie.

Our lack of form coupled with a very strong run by Dundee United sees the title race very much open with Celtic still not out of it yet, given their pedigree and our current form! Dundee Utd scored a crucial injury time equaliser in our top of the table clash at Victoria Park to stop us re-opening a gap there, but to be honest it was the least their play deserved.

Gretna were sent packing in the FA Cup as I rested a few key players and we should be able to progress through the next round witha home tie against Greenock Morton due next month. The UEFA Cup restarts at the beginning of March with a trip to Auxerre so I'm hoping our form will have picked up again by then otherwise I can't see us progressing any further!

On the player front, Mark McGlynn has continued to perform to a consistently high standard despite the leaky defence and Steven McGarry has been in amongst the goals for us of late. Mark McColl is frustratingly inconsistent though and I might need to look for some more firepower as we look a bit lightweight without MacSween.

[glamdring]

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Celtic

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | | Ross County | | 22 | 14 | 3 | 5 | 57 | 32 | +25 | 45 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Dundee Utd | | 22 | 13 | 5 | 4 | 39 | 21 | +18 | 44 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Celtic | | 22 | 10 | 5 | 7 | 32 | 26 | +6 | 35 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Rangers | | 21 | 9 | 5 | 7 | 33 | 24 | +9 | 32 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 5th | | Aberdeen | | 22 | 8 | 8 | 6 | 25 | 23 | +2 | 32 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 6th | | Kilmarnock | | 21 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 30 | 26 | +4 | 31 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | Motherwell | | 21 | 9 | 2 | 10 | 25 | 33 | -8 | 29 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 8th | | Dunfermline | | 22 | 8 | 4 | 10 | 26 | 32 | -6 | 28 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 9th | | St. Johnstone | | 21 | 5 | 9 | 7 | 28 | 35 | -7 | 24 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 10th | | Hibs | | 21 | 6 | 6 | 9 | 27 | 35 | -8 | 24 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 11th | | Livingston | | 22 | 5 | 5 | 12 | 22 | 34 | -12 | 20 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 12th | | Dundee | | 21 | 4 | 1 | 16 | 15 | 38 | -23 | 13 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

</pre>

[Terk]

doing well glamdring hopefully you can hold dundee utd off

[glamdring]

Thanks I'm still more worried about Celtic than Dundee United - they've won it for the last 3 seasons and in my non-story game with Hibs, Celtic just always come from behind and grind everyone down to take the title so I won't count my chickens with them until they are needing snookers

[Tyrone the Magazine]

c'mon county! good stuff. You've com far in a short time hope you get that title

[glamdring]

Saturday 21st April 2007

If Gretna at 16:45 on Saturday 2nd August 2003 was a huge low point in my embrionic career then March 2007 surely has to be the nadir so far. So many hopes, so many expectations, so many dreams...and just a bunch of young lads trying their best to fulfill them all, but ultimately March transpired against us like a Tornado sweeps through an unsuspecting village. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong and the team that had wowed Scotland with it's free-flowing creative football and had moved 7 points clear at the top of the SPL were suddenly falling apart, losing confidence and struggling to hold anything together from this season. Yet oft, out of darkness and despair springs hope and as we moved into April fortunes began to change and the team began to believe again. But I should deal with events chronologically and continue were I last left off...

At the end of January, we were purring. We were good and we knew it. As Dundee United began to fall apart, we marched on imperious at the top of the table. There were alarm bells ringing of course, Rangers were embarking on a magnificent run of 10 wins in a row and strolled through February and March without conceding a goal in the league as they brushed all-comers aside. Celtic were gathering pace and at last starting to hit form also. The big 2 were moving and we were the target, like a hare being relentlessly chased by a pair of greyhounds.

As January drew to a close, we recorded wins over Livingston and Kilmarnock (6-1), whilst Dundee Utd crashed 3-0 at Celtic and narrowly beat Livingston. The performance from David Winters against Kilmarnock was outstanding and it is a traversty that he hasn't been called up for Scotland, but more on that later perhaps - suffice to say Winters netted 4 and setup 1 for MacSween. On into February and we moved 7 points clear with a 3-1 win over St. Johnstone as Dundee United went down 0-4 at home to Hibernian. Celtic and Rangers marched on relentlessly though and Dundee Utd could withstand them no longer as they crumbled into 4th. We knew we had to keep going and we did, Dens Park next up and a 2-4 win at Dundee followed by a 0-4 win at Hibernian as Celtic dropped 2 points at Livingston. The title was certainly ours to lose now...and so began the decline on the 24th of February as David Winters saw red and Rangers came, saw and took 3 points from Victoria Park. The gap was down to 7 points.

I would always strenuously deny that we are a team who rely on individuals - we play as a unit with goals and assists from all areas of the pitch, but to deny the importance of Ross O'Donoghue (out for most of the month injured) and in particular David Winters to our cause would be to ignore a simple fact - when Winters is missing or not performing, Ross County are a shadow of the team we can be and the 4 match ban that resulted from his sending off against Rangers hung over us throughout that dreaded month of March into which we now headed - a month which would seem like a comedy of errors and misfortunes were I not involved, living every minute of it, marching up and down the touchline getting progressively more and more irate, coaxing, cajoling and screaming at the players during half-times, swearing at referees from afar and generally looking like a man who was becoming delerious with the pressures of top flight football and the big two bearing down relentlessly...

So it was that on March 1st we headed to France for the first leg of our cup tie with Auxerre, a team who I felt were on a similar level to Feyenoord in European terms. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't - we were not the team that had trounced Feyenoord 1-4 in Rotterdam though so who can truly compare. We never looked like scoring and Auxerre ran out comfortable 2-0 winners. We were still in it though if we could really put on a show at Victoria Park. OK, so we weren't. Maybe his upcoming domestic ban was weighing heavily on David Winters' mind, but whatever the reason, he wasn't himself and neither were we, but Auxerre gave us a brilliant lesson in how to play away from home in Europe - we thought Feyenoord were good in scoring 2 goals from just 2 attempts to briefly hold us 2-2, but Feyenoord couldn't defend. Auxerre could and in the most boring and uneventful match Victoria Park has seen all season, they came, defended and left, sauntering through to the 4th round with a 2-0 aggregate win and our European dream was over.

Between legs, we went to Fir Park and went 2-0 down in 8 minutes. There was some of that old fighting spirit still there though and we came back to 2-2, only to fall 3-2 behind to the now 10 men of Motherwell. Steven McGarry bagged an 85th minute equaliser and we had a point, but Rangers had 3 as they beat Dundee United and the gap was down to 5 points.

Saturday the 10th of March and we were already playing our 4th game of the month and in the 3rd different competition as Celtic came to Victoria Park in the Quarter-final of the Scottish Cup and the comedy continued. David Winters was suspended, Ross O'Donoghue injured and John Rankin picked up a yellow that would see him suspended too. Young left winger Richard Rhodes had a superb match though, scoring County's only goal and going close on a number of occasions. Unfortunately for him and us, Craig Samson and Nick James had a farcical breakdown in communications as the defender passed the ball back to his 'keeper who just stood transfixed as it slid into the back of our net for Celtic's equaliser...as if they really need our help! So we would have to head to Celtic Park to finish this one.

Dunfirmline were dispatched 3-0 in midweek before, just for a change, we met Celtic in the league cup final - a match with just showed the difference between them and us. We played them off the park, creating 14 shots on goal, they created 1, in the 2nd minute and Chris Sutton put it away clinically. The players were distraught at the end and I could say little to console them. We had done all we could, but on the day we just couldn't defeat the mighty, and very lucky, Celtic. I feel so sorry for David Winters - he has played his heart out for this club and was cruelly kept out of our first cup final by suspension - we'll never know what would have happened had he played - he didn't.

3 days later and it was off to Celtic Park. We were sick of the sight of bl**dy Celtic now and the lads were not in the best of spirits. O'Donoghue and Winters were back, but the defence couldn't handle Chris Sutton and within 13 minutes we were 2-0 down, demoralised and heading out of our 3rd cup in the space of a month. Mark McColl found an outlet for his frustrations by kicking out at Jamie Smith leaving us a man down with an hour to play. To their credit, the rest of the lads dug in and managed to escape with a 3-0 defeat, but it was a long coach journey home that Wednesday night. Motivation is one of the key aspects of being a football manager, but I was as drained and gutted as the players and couldn't say anything. 21 days of March - 4 competitions, 7 games and we were out of 3 cups and falling apart in the league.

March finally came to an end as we played our 8th match of the month away to out of form Dundee Utd - we led twice, but they equalised twice, our nemesis Collin Samuel again scoring in injury time. Rangers and Celtic weren't in action so at least the pressure temporarily lifted as we moved a point further clear albeit from a game more. Celtic trounced Dunfirmline at the start of April as they continued on the creat of a wave having dumped us out of both domestic cups and beaten Bayern Munich 2-0 in the firstleg of the Champions League QF.

So it was, that for the 4th time in the space of a month we played Celtic, but this time it was in the league - our one remaining hope for the season and with Celtic and Rangers getting stronger and stronger this was make or break - lose this and we would crumble under the intense pressure and the Old Firm would sidle past yet again. Cometh the hour, cometh the man and 16 year old Richard Rhodes evidently relishes playing Celtic. With less than a minute on the clock, he setup Ian MacSween and we were 1-0 up. 35 minutes later and Rhodes had himself twice found the net and we were looking stylish 3-0 to the good. No-one really cared about Sam Dalla Bona's late consolation, especially not as news filtered through that Rangers' 10 game winning streak had come to an end as lowly Hibernian mounted a smash and grab raid on Ibrox, weathering a storm of 16 shots on goal to score both of their 2 chances. In one pivotal day our fortunes had suddenly changed and we had daylight again and belief - all thanks to a 16 year old kid, still too young to sign his first professional contract, fresh out of our youth system in the summer and now with 10 goals and 14 assists from the left wing in his debut season. Suddenly life was good and I loved football again!

Celtic beat Rangers 3-0 in midweek and won 0-2 at Motherwell on the following Saturday as the Gers bounced back with a 3-2 win over Livingston. And us? Well, we were back fighting and Aberdeen left Victoria Park on the end of a 2-0 defeat leaving us 8 points clear as we head into the split and the last 5 games of the season. Unfortunately, Jamie McCunnie must serve another suspension and influential players Ross O'Donoghue and Kerr Dodds are both out injured for much of the rest of the season - I guess it gives 2 more players a chance to shine though!

I should put things into context I suppose. Martin O'Neill took me aside after their Cup replay win over us at Celtic Park, gave me some sound advice, told me I was doing an excellent job and that it is a pressure sport and I would get used to it and go on to be a great manager one day. Maybe it was just words, but despite my passionate hatred of Celtic, I have a grudging admiration for the way the club grinds out results and keeps winning and I have a huge respect and admiration for O'Neill. Celtic are a massive club, the knocked Bayern Munic out of the Champions League and face Arsenal in the last 4 - to lose to them, even in 2 competitions is no shame at all. Auxerre went on to beat Levski Sofia before dumping Barcelona out of the UEFA Cup so we're in good company there too!

And I should end on a high note. I mentioned earlier that I think it is a traversty that David Winters hasn't been called up for Scotland, and it is - he is undoubtably the best, most consistent right winger in Scotland at the moment and neither the media nor the Scotland management give him or any of our lads the credit they deserve. Happily though 5 of our players are now in the U21 squad - Kerr Dodds, Mark McGlynn, David Dunne, Paul Harris and Richard Rhodes and Nick James and Ian MacSween have been rewarded for excellent performances to be called into the full sqaud - quite an accolade for Nick who is still only 18.

[This message was edited by glamdring on 19 February 2004 at 22:47.]

[glamdring]

Stop Press: David Winters joins Kerr Dodds and Ross O'Donoghue on the sidelines with a groin strain

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Celtic

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | | Ross County | | 33 | 22 | 5 | 6 | 89 | 44 | +45 | 71 |

| 2nd | | Celtic | | 33 | 19 | 6 | 8 | 58 | 33 | +25 | 63 |

| 3rd | | Rangers | | 33 | 19 | 5 | 9 | 55 | 32 | +23 | 62 |

| 4th | | Dundee Utd | | 33 | 15 | 8 | 10 | 52 | 43 | +9 | 53 |

| 5th | | Motherwell | | 33 | 14 | 5 | 14 | 45 | 54 | -9 | 47 |

| 6th | | Aberdeen | | 33 | 11 | 11 | 11 | 35 | 41 | -6 | 44 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | Kilmarnock | | 33 | 11 | 8 | 14 | 41 | 47 | -6 | 41 |

| 8th | | Dunfermline | | 33 | 11 | 8 | 14 | 43 | 51 | -8 | 41 |

| 9th | | Hibs | | 33 | 10 | 8 | 15 | 41 | 56 | -15 | 38 |

| 10th | | St. Johnstone | | 33 | 7 | 13 | 13 | 42 | 53 | -11 | 34 |

| 11th | | Livingston | | 33 | 7 | 10 | 16 | 36 | 47 | -11 | 31 |

| 12th | | Dundee | | 33 | 7 | 3 | 23 | 29 | 65 | -36 | 24 |

</pre>

[glamdring]

Saturday 28th April 2007

It's a while since I did a diary update so soon after the last one, and with that being such a ridulously long one at that, but as the fates continue to transpire against us, or attempt to, I look to my diary as an outlet to keep my nerves calmed!

I guess I might have to look at our training regimes...they have done very well at bringing the players through, but now are yielding injuries at an alarming rate. With O'Donoghue, Winters and Dodds already on the treatment table, news comes today that our 30-goal top scorer Ian MacSween is out for the rest of the season with a groin strain. Arguably our 3 top players out and a 4th who has been 1st choice right-back and hardly missed a game for the last 3 seasons...well, I guess this is why I have a massive squad of kids in my U19s!

The fixture list for the last 5 games has not been too kind to us either with home ties against Dundee United and Celtic followed by a triple away finish to the season - Motherwell, Aberdeen and on the last day of the season, Rangers at Ibrox.

We beat Dundee United 2-0 today, whilst Rangers beat Celtic 3-1 so if we can win that home game against Celtic we will be oh so close to the title and could have it wrapped up. If it is still alive on the last day of the season I think we'll have had it. On the plus side, Celtic are all but mathematically out of the hunt now

[glamdring]

Match report from the Dingwall Times on Saturday May 5th 2007

We Are The Champions!!!!

Hamish Brodie reports on the biggest day in Ross County's history:

It was all but certain last week, as Ross County finished the day 9 points clear of Glasgow Rangers with 3 games left and a goal difference 22 better off than their Glasgow rivals, but we couldn't quite celebrate. We had to wait until it was mathematically sure and today, at Fir Park in front of 12,084 fans, a fair proportion of whom had headed down from Dingwall, County put on a performance worthy of champions.

Up at Pittodrie, Rangers were 1-0 down, 1-2 up, level at 2-2 and ultimately lost 3-2, but that didn't matter. This was Ross County's day and the 11 players out there on the pitch, shorn of 4 key players, had no intention of having the title decided by Rangers losing.

Big Keith Robertson has been unlucky this season with the arrival of Mark McColl and re-emergence of Steven McGarry pushing him down to 4th choice striker, but he has never let County down and despite a lack of match fitness, making only his second start of the season he wasn't about to let us down today either.

Being honest, Keith will admit that he's a target man, albeit a target man with pace, but he's better in the air than on the deck. Imagine everyone's surprise then when he cracked in an unstoppable 30-yard strike on 14 minutes! The away fans went wild and by half time were singing Queen's "We Are the Champions" as Steven McGarry fired in the second after having one disallowed.

It was left to big Keith to finish proceedings off though as he volleyed in from a stromash in the Motherwell area. It has been a season of fairy tales, but perhaps the biggest fairy tale of them all is Keith Robertson - 3½ years ago he was in 3rd Division Peterhead's reserves before making a £1,000 move to Ross County. Today, having spent most of the season on the bench, he returned to scored the goals that give Ross County their first ever SPL title. The champagne will be flowing well into tonight up in Dingwall - a magnificent achievement for Adam Eckersley's team of young Scots after their March crisis of confidence. There are still 2 games left, but I doubt anyone up North of the Moray Firth will care if County lose 10-0!

FT: Motherwell 0-3 Ross County

[Tyrone the Magazine]

Oh well at least thats one of them out of it, im sure you'll be able to stave off rangers.

[glamdring]

[glamdring]

I guess I'd have tried harder at Aberdeen if I'd remembered we were on 96 goals...4 goals at Ibrox was a bit too many to get

Holders - Ross County

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | C | Ross County | | 38 | 25 | 5 | 8 | 98 | 51 | +47 | 80 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Rangers | | 38 | 23 | 5 | 10 | 67 | 39 | +28 | 74 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Celtic | | 38 | 20 | 7 | 11 | 63 | 40 | +23 | 67 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Dundee Utd | | 38 | 16 | 10 | 12 | 58 | 51 | +7 | 58 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 5th | | Aberdeen | | 38 | 15 | 12 | 11 | 47 | 45 | +2 | 57 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 6th | | Motherwell | | 38 | 14 | 5 | 19 | 48 | 68 | -20 | 47 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | Kilmarnock | | 38 | 12 | 11 | 15 | 47 | 52 | -5 | 47 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 8th | | Dunfermline | | 38 | 12 | 10 | 16 | 48 | 58 | -10 | 46 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 9th | | Hibs | | 38 | 12 | 10 | 16 | 52 | 64 | -12 | 46 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 10th | | St. Johnstone | | 38 | 10 | 15 | 13 | 56 | 62 | -6 | 45 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 11th | | Livingston | | 38 | 8 | 10 | 20 | 39 | 55 | -16 | 34 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 12th | R | Dundee | | 38 | 9 | 4 | 25 | 35 | 73 | -38 | 31 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

</pre>

[Tyrone the Magazine]

im sure I posted that before you put the result of the league up

Well done anyway

[glamdring]

Pre-season ramblings of a becalmed manager

So we are the Scottish Premier League Champions...it sounds good. It is good. I'm happy! But that was last season and now the new season is upon us and we need to progress. I don't necessarily expect us to improve season on season in terms of achievements because that gets a bit difficult after you win the SPL, but I want to see a progression on the pitch and amongst the young players we have. Of course I want to win the SPL again and we will do our best to do so - the bookies again make Celtic and Rangers favourites, but at 2-1 they clearly don't intend to underestimate us again this year!

With the season starting tomorrow at Dunfirmline, our transfer kitty has remained untouched this summer. 15 players were released at the end of last season - the hardest part of my job when I have to tell an enthusiastic young local lad that he isn't good enough. Some will no doubt manage to find a new club and continue their careers, for others their football career is over and they must return to the big wide world and ponder a new career direction. It's tough, but we can't keep a vast squad of players who aren't going to make it - we needed room to bring through more youngsters from our youth team.

Amongst those we are again disappointed by a total lack of strikers, but 3 players stand out instantly as being very promising at right-back, left-back and centre-back. Whether they'll be able to break into our now quite settled first team this season is debateable, but we can never see what will happen, if someone key gets injured or doesn't play well.

I am still looking at bringing in some more players to add depth, but I will only buy players who I think will really add something to our squad. If I think one of our youngsters can fill a role then I won't buy a journeyman older player for no reason. To that end though, with no promising strikers through the youth ranks in any of my 4 seasons I am looking at bringing in another striker. Jim Hamilton retired in the summer, but he didn't really figure last season anyhow. We have successfully (I think) trained Mark McGlynn to be able to play as a forward as well as in defense or defensive midfield to add versitility. I feel his talents could be used very effectively further forward, but he'll likely start the season in his usual DC role alongside Nick James.

David Dunne and Kerr Dodds will likely continue as our first choice full-backs, but with pressure from our impressive young kids they'll be pushed hard to perform well. On the wings it is likely that Richard Rhodes will begin the season on the left-wing, but he will need to be nurtured. He hasn't turned 17 yet and I expect a long season if we can stay in the cups so he'll need some rests. On the right wing David Winters will be first choice as ever, but with McGlynn now providing another option, Winters can't rest on his laurels.

Ross O'Donoghue, having eventually signed a new contract towards the end of last season will again be our midfield linchpin, alongside either John Rankin or Paul Harris, but we have a large number of midfield options so I'll keep a close eye on the younger upcoming talents. Up front so far we have Mark McColl, Ian MacSween, Keith Robertson and Steven McGarry with McGlynn also an option. There might be news on the transfer front soon, but for now I'll keep quiet on that.

Pre-season went well and after last year's week-long tour to Iceland just before the season began giving us ~9 pre-season matches I decided to take the team to the warmer climate of Austria for a relaxed week in the Alps this year, though we did fit in 4 matches too, winning all of them quite impressively. Of course pre-season means little and the more suspicious among my backroom staff say a good pre-season indicates a dodgy season ahead, but I prefer to win every match we play, competitive or not

Well, it's off to pick the team for the trip to Dunfirmline now. The usual suspects probably - I'll throw in more kids for the domestic cup matches if we get a favourable draw.

[This message was edited by glamdring on 20 February 2004 at 17:54.]

[glamdring]

Wednesday 11th November 2007

If any of the players were under the illusion that defending our SPL title would be in any way easy, they were given a rude awakening as the season kicked off at East End Park. Richard Rhodes set up Ian MacSween to open his account for the season, but goals from Barry Nicholson and Andrius Skerla saw Dunfirmline take the 3 points in a game we had the better of, but couldn't convert our chances.

3-0 and 4-0 wins at home to St. Johnstone and Hibernian sandwiched a lively 2-2 draw away to Motherwell for whom Keith Lasley scored twice before going on to hit a hat-trick in their next home match against Hearts! The trip to Celtic Park was again a disappointment. We played decently, but weren't at our best as Eduardo Costa scored a fantastic 30-yarder for the home side. Mark Burchill was making his Ross County debut after a £475,000 move from Rushden and Diamonds and should add some firepower to our forward line. It was Burchill who equalised against his former club to send us in 1-1 at half time, but the unfortunate Nick James scored his second own goal of the calendar year against (or for rather!) Celtic to give them a 2-1 win.

Dundee and Livingston were both dispatched 3-0 at home, but we still weren't looking too impressive and a stubborn performance from Kilmarnock saw them take a point from Victoria Park in a 0-0 whilst Phil McGuire missed a penalty for Aberdeen as we drew 1-1 at Pittodrie.

We were going ok in the league and still well in touch with the leaders, but our home match against Hearts was a disaster. Mark de Vries gave the visitors the lead before Kerr Dodds and Tim Dobson both conceded penalties, Ryan Shawcross confidently putting both away to give Hearts an easy 0-3 victory. Our trip to Ibrox saw us test out a variation of a 4-5-1 formation, but Rangers shreaded us and the 4-2 scoreline somewhat flattered us. As the dust settled we found ourselves sitting 7th in the league. Not at all what I had hoped for, but it is still tight and a few wins can rocket us back up the table, but we need to move soon before Celtic really get going. Inbetween times we sent out a team of kids in the league cup to face Queens Park who scored equalisers in the 93rd minute of normal time and the 121st minute for a 3-3 draw and then went on to beat us on penalties. Oh well, it's one competition out of the way!

[glamdring]

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Ross County

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | | Celtic | | 11 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 18 | 12 | +6 | 21 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Dundee Utd | | 11 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 17 | 11 | +6 | 21 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Rangers | | 11 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 19 | 11 | +8 | 19 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Hearts | | 11 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 15 | 11 | +4 | 18 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 5th | | Hibs | | 11 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 14 | 13 | +1 | 17 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 6th | | Dunfermline | | 11 | 5 | 1 | 5 | 13 | 15 | -2 | 16 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | Ross County | | 11 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 20 | 14 | +6 | 15 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 8th | | Kilmarnock | | 11 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 10 | 11 | -1 | 15 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 9th | | Livingston | | 11 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 13 | -6 | 14 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 10th | | Motherwell | | 11 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 13 | 17 | -4 | 11 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 11th | | St. Johnstone | | 11 | 3 | 0 | 8 | 13 | 18 | -5 | 9 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 12th | | Aberdeen | | 11 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 22 | -13 | 7 |

</pre>

[glamdring]

Article from the Dingwall Times on Wednesday 12th December 2007

Ross County in the Champions League: the highs, the lows, the joy and heartbreak

Hamish Brodie reviews County's Champions League campaign (Part 1):

It began with the odds being published for the European Champions League and Ross County being quoted as 200-1 outsiders. Who could argue? This was our first ever season in the Champions League, we have a 6000 capacity stadium and only 2800 seats in that, we only came into the Scottish league in the last 15 years. We were the wide-eyed child invited to join the top table at a highly exclusive meeting. But we have spirit and we have tenacity and a young team who won't give up!

The draw saw us in a group with Lokomotiv Moskow, Deportivo La Coruna and Bayern Munich so from the off we were hot favourites to go out. Bayern and Deportivo are worldclass teams and Lokomotiv are a highly efficient outfit with vast amounts of European experience and an intimidating home crowd.

And so the action began on the 19th of September - an historic day for Ross County football club as we travelled to Moscow.

Lokomotov Moscow vs Ross County

County approached their first Champions League match with caution, getting men behind the ball and relying on counter-attacks to create any opportunities. In a howling gale in Russia neither side was able to play the kind of football they are used to, but Lokomotiv were clearly the better side, carving out numerous chances with Jorge Wagner and Dimitri Los'kov being guilty of wasting most of them. County had a few efforts on goal, but in the end happily settled for a 0-0 with Craig Samson man of the match.

FT: Lokomotiv Moscow 0-0 Ross County (11,257 Attendance)

Meanwhile, in La Coruna, a Diego Tristan brace gave Deportivo an opening 2-0 victory over Bayern Munich to go top of the group. Deportivo would be the first visitors to Victoria Park 2 weeks later as Lokomotiv travelled to Munich.

Ross County vs Deportivo La Coruna

County had slightly the better of a goal-less first half after Lionel Scaloni had a 9th minute goal ruled out for offside with County taking chances attacking more than their first match. From the kick off for the second half, County moved the ball around neatly before Mark McGlynn lofted a ball over the top for Ian MacSween to put away after just 16 seconds! Our first goal in the Champions League, beautifully created and neatly put away. 7 minutes later, the capacity crowd were on their feet as Paul Harris found Richard Rhodes who crossed for MacSween to drive home the second. At 2-0 down, Deportivo began to press forward exploiting the gaps in County's 3-5-2 formation and pulled a goal back on 83 minutes through Djibrill Cissé, but County hung on for a famous 2-1 win.

FT: Ross County 2-1 Deportivo (5,986 Attendance)

In Munich, Roy Makaay spared Bayern's blushes with a late equaliser for a 2-2 draw with Lokomotiv. Next up the Russians hosted Deportivo whilst Bayern came to Victoria Park.

Ross County vs Bayern Munich

Sticking surprisingly with 3-5-2, County manager Adam Eckersley played David Winters up front with MacSween while Simon Williams came in on the right and Keith Gibson in the attacking midfield role. When the first goal came in the 24th minute, it was surely a contender for goal of the tournament - a simple finish, but an exquisite build-up. Bayern won a corner which Ze Roberto swung in. Nick James headed clear towards David Winters who collected the ball and turned with no-one ahead of him. Ross O'Donoghue steamed forward and played a delicious one-two with Winters to keep the ball moving forward before Winters pulled wide right and crossed, with the aid of a deflection for O'Donoghue to steer home. 10 minutes later and Bayern were level as Claudio Pizarro fired in from Ze Roberto's cross. Bayern pushed forward in the second half, keeping the home side at bay, but neither team was able to find a further breakthrough. A deserved Man of the Match award for County's star man this season, Ross O'Donoghue

FT: Ross County 1-1 Bayern Munich (5,978 Attendance)

Vladimir Maminov scored the only goal in a tight encounter in Russia to give Lokomotiv 3 points over Deportivo leaving the group very tight at the half way stage.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | | Lokomotiv Moscow | | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | +1 | 5 |

| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Ross County | | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 2 | +1 | 5 |

| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Deportivo | | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 |

| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | FC Bayern | | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5 | -2 | 2 |

| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

</pre>

[glamdring]

Hamish Brodie reviews County's Champions League campaign (Part 2):

The return fixtures of the Champions League group stage would see Ross County head to Munich to face Bayern and Lokomotiv to La Coruna to face Deportivo.

Bayern Munich vs Ross County

County have clearly learned a fast lesson in European football from their season and a half so far. In particular, Auxerre's performance at Victoria Park last season provided an excellent display in the art of defending resolutely away from home and County took pointers from that match to completely close down the first half of their tie in Munich for an extremely dull, but effective 0-0. Trying to defend for 90 minutes away to Bayern is always liable to unravel however and on the hour Ze Roberto beat David Winters and Kerr Dodds to set up Paraguayan striker Roque Santa Cruz whose clinical finish put Bayern 1-0 up. County had no answer to going a goal down and the players and fans alike knew it was over - whether Bayern won 1-0 or 4-0 would make little difference - a win of any kind would give Bayern the advantage on head to head having drawn at Victoria Park. And so it was, Bayern won 1-0 with Ross County having just one effort on goal, saved by Oliver Kahn. It was an excellent result on the face of it, but still meant 0 points for County and 3 for Bayern.

FT: Bayern Munich 1-0 Ross County (65,986 Attendance)

With Lokomotiv pulling off a shock 1-3 win in La Coruna, County's next fixture at home to the Russians would be pivotal to the outcome of the group with Bayern looking to profit from Deportivo's lack of form in Munich.

Ross County vs Lokomotiv Moscow

Playing down the flanks with an attacking 4-4-2 formation, Ross County did all they could on a cold wet night in Dingwall, but if Auxerre had frustrated County here last season, this was to be even more disappointing. County had 14 shots on goal with most of them coming from the two lively wingers, but Man of the match Ruslan Nigmatullin denied all comers to keep a crucial clean sheet. Perhaps the lack of scoring form of County's strikers of late was to blame, but they tried their best. Manager Adam Eckersley has certainly been concerned of late that only Ian MacSween has been finding the net regularly of his strikers, with the midfield engine room of Ross O'Donoghue and John Rankin stepping into to fill the breach, but relying on midfielders to score is a risky business and this night County really needed a clinical finish from one of their strikers. As it was the 0-0 scoreline left them facing the Champions League exit door and with a very difficult task in their last game to even get a UEFA Cup place.

FT: Ross County 0-0 Lokomitiv Moscow (5982 Attendance)

In an entertaining match in Munich, Bayern crucially held on to beat Deportivo 3-2 leaving the group in the kind of position football fans without a degree in mathematics hate heading into the final game of the group stage. The simple facts where that Lokomotiv Moscow had 9 points, Bayern 8, Ross County 6 and Deportivo 3. The final round of games would see Ross County travel to Deportivo and Lokomotiv play host to Bayern. The potential combinations were endless, but perhaps most tellingly, Bayern and Lokomotiv knew that a draw would send both sides through. Ross County meanwhile were looking to avoid a defeat by more than a single goal in La Coruna to squeeze into the UEFA Cup ahead of the Spaniards.

Deportivo La Coruna vs Ross County

This match will go down in history as one of the greatest performances ever by Ross County in any competition. Deportivo were somewhat rudderless having lost their last 4 Champions League matches and having just sacked their manager, but the quality in their squad remained for all to see. On a mild night at the Riazor stadium however, Ross County put on a performance that made the whole of the European football world sit up and take note. They had performed well in their past group matches, but this match was to take them onto another level. Manager Adam Eckersley kept an attacking 4-4-2 formation, but played with a counter-attacking style which devastated the Spaniards.

With just 6 minutes on the clock, David Winters took a corner, John Rankin headed down to Ian MacSween who got crowded out of it by 5 defenders and the ball squirted to Rankin who blasted it in to give County their first away goal of the campaign. 8 minutes later, County put together a lovely passing move with Ross O'Donoghue, pulling the strings in midfield, swivelling to lay the ball wide to Rankin who flicked on for Richard Rhodes. The young winger showing a maturity well beyond his years strode forward and planted a shot firmly past the despairing Deportivo 'keeper for 0-2. Just before the half hour mark, Mark McGlynn headed the ball upfield for Mark Burchill to chase down and slot County's 3rd into the net. County were in 7th heaven and those of us in the press room were frantically waiting for news of the other match as we studied the group table again. If there was a positive result either way in the match between Lokomotiv and Bayern, County could yet go through - goal difference would come into play if Bayern were to win, but for now it was 0-0 in Russia.

And so the second half began, with Deportivo desperately trying to rescue some pride from the game with a 2 goal win now looking unlikely to send them into the UEFA Cup. The Spaniards laid seige to the County goal and manager Adam Eckersley took off Ian MacSween in favour of Paul Harris to sit in midfield infront of the back 4. With 65 minutes gone, Deportivo won a penalty, Craig Samson saved from Jorge Andrade and Alberto Luque reacted first to sweep home the rebound for 1-3. County defended stoutly until the 85th minute when Victor rose majestically to head in a Manuel Pablo corner. It was a tense last 5 minutes at the Riazor and made even more tense for us frantically trying to gather news of the match in Russia.

FT: Deportivo La Coruna 2-3 Ross County (34,593 Attendance)

As the final whistle blew, we celebrated a brilliant victory, but heartbreak followed with the news that Lokomotiv and Bayern had drawn 0-0. It would perhaps be harsh and unfair to say that Bayern and Lokomotiv didn't even try to win their match, both knowing that a draw was enough while defeat could send the losing side out, but from a Ross County perspective it is hard not to take the cynical view. Ultimately though we would have to settle for the booby prize of dropping into the UEFA Cup as Bayern squeezed through with Lokomitiv. On a positive note for us, Rangers and Celtic both gathered just 5 points in their groups, enough to put Celtic in the UEFA Cup also, but Rangers' European campaign was over until next season.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | Q | Lokomotiv Moscow | | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 6 | 3 | +3 | 10 |

| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | Q | FC Bayern | | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 7 | 7 | 0 | 9 |

| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Ross County | | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 5 | +1 | 9 |

| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Deportivo | | 6 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 8 | 12 | -4 | 3 |

| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

</pre>

[Tyrone the Magazine]

Ross County, Champions of Europe would have had a nice ring to it. Neva mind there's always next year

[glamdring]

Aye! We'll be back - we're fast learners

[glamdring]

New Year musings of a mischievous manager!

Oooh yeah! A Happy New Year from everyone at Ross County and welcome to 2008!! Personally I'm more than happy with the old year and hope the new one won't herald a change in fortunes for the club, but since it's here anyway...

Hmm, yes, mischievous...well, not really - just in a good mood and plotting the downfall of my nemesis Celtic, and Rangers too for good measure! And of course, lest we forget (I haven't!), we have another score to settle as we have been drawn away to Gretna (yes, I remember them too ) in the Scottish FA Cup so it's about time we showed them what real football is all about.

Going out of the Champions League in the manner we did was a big disappointment for everyone at the club - if it was decided on goal difference we'd have gone through, but I've always been in favour of head to head results counting before goal difference and I don't change that opinion now - Bayern deserved the place and we did ourselves proud to lose just 1 out of 6 matches in such illustrious company. The UEFA Cup 3rd round draw pitted us against Sparta Prague so hopefully we can go a little further than last season. Much to my pleasure, the lads didn't let the European disappointment affect their domestic form and we have been red hot in the league since we slipped to 7th in early November.

Indeed, we reeled off 6 wins on the trot, ending only when Kilmarnock held us 0-0 at Rugby Park, but our unbeaten run is now up to 8 games as we head into the new year with Glasgow Rangers firmly in our sights after their city neighbours Celtic brought their 14 or so game unbeaten run to and end.

To summarise -

St. Johnstone were beaten 2-4 at their place with 2 each for MacSween and O'Donoghue.

Motherwell came to Victoria Park and went down 3-0 to goals from MacSween, Rankin and O'Donoghue.

Derek Riordan netted twice, but Kevin Thomson's own goal sandwiched between strikes from Richard Rhodes and John Rankin saw us win 2-3 at Easter Road.

After the Deportivo highs and lows we went to Tannadice Park and were extremely lucky to not only escape without defeat, but grab an injury time winner from MacSween after Burchill had equalised Craig Easton's penalty.

Kilmarnock saw the petulent James Fowler sent off after he argued with the referee who had given him a warning, then argued some more after he was yellow carded for arguing, then left the pitch as he was red carded for arguing some more...hmm - if he was my player I'd give him a royal roasting! Umm, yeah, and the score - 0-0

Aberdeen came to Victoria Park and defended well, but were undone by Ross O'Donoghue who followed in a Paul Harris shot, before Dennis Wyness equalised with 10 minutes to go. Just a minute later though and O'Donoghue fired in what was either a cross or a shot - I'm not sure which, he claims it was a shot, but then he would! - it cannoned off Russell Anderson and looped up over Aberdeen 'keeper Lenny Pidgeley to put us infront. O'Donoghue then decided to sidestep the 'keeper for a 3rd just to make sure in the dying minutes.

So that was us for the last couple of months...well, almost...I almost forgot...ok, so I didn't, I was just feeling mischievous...Celtic came to town before we played Kilmarnock. We don't like Celtic much. They knocked us out of both cup competitions last season. It was time for some revenge! Nick James headed in a perfect cross on 4 minutes, Ian MacSween fired in from a badly "cleared" corner on 19 minutes and then we went mad in the last 10 minutes! Keith Robertson fired in a Winters cross before Winters headed in a Rhodes cross and a stunning floated cross from David Dunne. 5 goals against Celtic - delicious! Oh yeah, Celtic did score one, but that was only a rebound from a penalty - they couldn't even put that away first time though

Here's to a profitable New Year and some more old firm bashing!

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | | Rangers | | 19 | 11 | 5 | 3 | 36 | 19 | +17 | 38 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Ross County | | 19 | 11 | 4 | 4 | 43 | 22 | +21 | 37 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Celtic | | 19 | 10 | 4 | 5 | 31 | 25 | +6 | 34 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Livingston | | 19 | 10 | 3 | 6 | 22 | 16 | +6 | 33 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 5th | | Dundee Utd | | 19 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 27 | 22 | +5 | 30 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 6th | | Hearts | | 19 | 7 | 4 | 8 | 26 | 35 | -9 | 25 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | Hibs | | 19 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 24 | 23 | +1 | 24 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 8th | | Kilmarnock | | 19 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 20 | 22 | -2 | 23 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 9th | | Dunfermline | | 19 | 7 | 2 | 10 | 23 | 31 | -8 | 23 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 10th | | Motherwell | | 19 | 6 | 3 | 10 | 23 | 29 | -6 | 21 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 11th | | St. Johnstone | | 19 | 5 | 1 | 13 | 23 | 35 | -12 | 16 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 12th | | Aberdeen | | 19 | 2 | 6 | 11 | 16 | 35 | -19 | 12 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

</pre>

[glamdring]

Saturday 19th April 2008

Looks like we're set up for a tense finish to the SPL again. We'll be giving everything we have to retain our title and as the only competition left for us this season we should be completely focused.

Yet again Gretna caused us problems and dumped us out of the FA Cup in an appalling match from our perspective. At least I see, looking back at past fixtures, that we did knock them out in the same round last year so we avenged their first victory over us - now we just have to avenge this one next year!

That was the start of a worrying loss of form away from home as we lost 4 on the bounce away from Victoria Park in the league - Livingston, Dunfirmline, Motherwell and Celtic all beat us in January and February. On the plus side, our home form was still very good and before that loss in away form we had put ourselves 5 points clear. Home wins over Rangers (4-2), St. Johnstone (4-0), Hibernian (4-1) and Dundee United (5-1) kept us in the hunt at the top before Kilmarnock came to Dingwall and scored 2 late goals to run for the hills with a 2-2 draw.

We managed to end our run of away defeats after that, but had to come from 3-1 down for a 3-3 draw at Aberdeen, before disposing of Hearts 3-0 at home and getting a good 1-1 draw at Ibrox which contributed hugely to Rangers falling off the title race. A narrow 2-1 win at home to Livingston today sends us into the split and the last 5 games with a 1 point advantage over Celtic. We begin thse games with Livingston again (away this time) followed by Dundee United at Tannadice. Perhaps most importantly, we finish with 3 home games, Rangers and Dunfirmline visiting Victoria Park before what coould be an explosive finale to the season with Celtic arriving on the final day!

The UEFA Cup was a huge disappointment as Sparta Prague scored in the 94th minute to take a 2-1 lead from their home leg. Nick James gave us the lead early on at Victoria Park before netting a late penalty, but Sparta went up the other end for an equaliser to send us into extra time. Neither side could score though and I knew we wouldn't win the shootout and I was right. Oh well, I have to admit I wasn't overly excited by the UEFA Cup anyway after the Champions League - I think it's stupid that teams who fail in the Champions League get a second chance. That said though, we should have beaten Sparta and I was fuming at the way we capitulated to them!

5 of our players were called up to the recent Scotland sqaud for the friendly in Hungary. Mark McGlynn and Nick James both started again while Ross O'Donoghue finally received the callup he deserves with 17 goals from midfield this season, but didn't come on from the bench and John Rankin and Kerr Dodds also made the bench, but didn't see any action.

<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">

Holders - Ross County

| Pos | Inf | Team | | Pld | Won | Drn | Lst | For | Ag | G.D. | Pts |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 1st | | Ross County | | 33 | 18 | 7 | 8 | 76 | 42 | +34 | 61 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 2nd | | Celtic | | 33 | 17 | 9 | 7 | 61 | 39 | +22 | 60 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 3rd | | Livingston | | 33 | 16 | 6 | 11 | 40 | 33 | +7 | 54 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 4th | | Rangers | | 33 | 14 | 11 | 8 | 59 | 43 | +16 | 53 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 5th | | Dundee Utd | | 33 | 13 | 8 | 12 | 45 | 48 | -3 | 47 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 6th | | Dunfermline | | 33 | 12 | 8 | 13 | 45 | 49 | -4 | 44 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 7th | | Hibs | | 33 | 11 | 10 | 12 | 47 | 47 | 0 | 43 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 8th | | Kilmarnock | | 33 | 9 | 13 | 11 | 39 | 46 | -7 | 40 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 9th | | Motherwell | | 33 | 10 | 10 | 13 | 44 | 56 | -12 | 40 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 10th | | Aberdeen | | 33 | 9 | 10 | 14 | 44 | 51 | -7 | 37 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 11th | | Hearts | | 33 | 9 | 8 | 16 | 41 | 64 | -23 | 35 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

| 12th | | St. Johnstone | | 33 | 8 | 4 | 21 | 41 | 64 | -23 | 28 |

| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|

</pre>

[Tyrone the Magazine]

its gonna be close