A few suggestions.
Ballboys
Ballboys don't really have much to do with the game do they? They perform the trivial task of fetching the ball when it goes out of play. That doesn't sound too hard does it?
However being a ballboy at Fir Park isn't that easy. This isn't intended to be critical of our ballboys but to point out the obvious to whoever is in charge of them.
For a start we only have four ballboys while most other Premier teams have squads of eight to twelve who seem to perform strange dance rituals before the team come out. Our ballboys are amongst the youngest and smallest in the league and as a result are not as quick at getting the ball back. They also stand right behind the net which means they have to run ten to twenty yards which they wouldn't have to if they were properly positioned. During the game our ballboys stand at the wall and chat to the fans. Nothing wrong with this but they are reluctant to suspend their conversations to retrieve Micky Weir's latest goal attempt.
These are just a few points fans around me have said and I do not wish to criticise the ballboys as they are just doing as they are told. These points are more directed at the person in charge of the MFC ballboys.
Foreign Freebies
The beginning of the season always means a lot of transfer activity. This season was not any different with it being the first pre-season with the Bosman ruling in effect.
The only players we lost for nothing were Alex Burns and Scott Howie. I'm not surprised at Howie going. He was never going to get the £1500 a week he (reportedly) asked for. I didn't think Burns would impress a new club as he didn't always give 100% but good luck to him anyway.
In came two Austrians, Franz Reusch and Mario Dorner. Both look impressive and I'm sure they will be assets to the club. What's more interesting is the trialists we had. In friendlies and reserves all of the following players turned out for us: Pegguy Arphxad, David Nouma, Frank Rolling, Roger Boli, Eliphas Shivute, Vladimir Makoviski, Constantine Etot and Wayne Riley. Out of all of these freebie players only one will sign for us (pending a work permit). I was very surprised by this as McLeish continually complains about our lack of squad depth. It should be noted that none of the above are bad players so why don't we take advantage of the ruling that has gave us a £1.5million disadvantage?
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