Madness is Tangerine in Colour

It’s the 23rd of December 2016 and I’m on my works end of term Christmas night out. There’s about a dozen of us squeezed into a couple of tables in the Phoenix and in amongst trying to listen to umpteen conversations at the same time I look up and notice someone sitting across the packed pub. To everyone else in my group it’s just a normal looking guy in his late 50’s. Someone notices me looking across and I’m a bit star struck. “Who’s that Scott?” “That’s John Holt. He’s a Dundee United legend.” “He was a footballer?” “Yeah, he played when we won the league. Great player. Hang on… there’s a photo.” “Are you sure that’s him? Where’s his moustache?” “You should go and ask him for a photo.” “Na, he’s in company.” “Ach go on, I’ll come with you and take the picture.” “I don’t know…” After about half an hour of humming and hawing I worked up the courage to slowly go across the busy pub to ask for a photo. Why was I so nervous? Well basically not wanting to embarrass John. I had a long hist...

Was at the game last night against Aberdeen. Our performance can best be summed up as low tempo tippy-tappy pish. For about 15-20 mins of the 2nd half it actually looked like we were happy to just take a 1-0 defeat, such was the lack of urgency and fight. It got better after the subs but for all the nice wee triangles of passing, it's far too ineffectual. Tbh only the chance where Harkes was through and cut the ball back behind the striker can be classed as more than half chance (which Fletcher's header and Ross Graham's shot were). Teams in a relegation struggle won't stay up playing that way, especially away from home where our record is abysmal. For a team which appears to be trying to implement a possession-based style we don't half give the ball away cheaply an awful lot. And it's happening throughout the team even with our supposedly 'better', more technical players, witness Middleton's 'pass' at their goal last night. Meanwhile, Levitt...

  You were all warned what would happen when United went cashless and Neighbours was cancelled... The chaos engine has been turned on and the chain reaction is now spiralling out of control: pumped out of Europe before boys could get their knobs washed, hammered for fun in the league, a centre half pairing who appear to have been caught in the headlights of a runaway train and two keepers who look like they turned up on the same lorry as Ant and Dec in Phoenix Nights... Corporate Bailout So the Tam Courts era ended in much the same way that it started: with weeks of rumours circulating about him. Just like his appointment being the worst kept secret in Dundee, his departure was pretty much common knowledge for about 3 weeks. Disappointingly, it didn't seem to take much persuasion either. I was talking to an old BB officer last Sunday who was always a big United fan but surprised me by saying that he'd stopped going a few years ago. He was pretty disillusioned with football in g...