sadoldgit

That is a fair point Mr. T, but it is true. I really don’t give a stuff about teams checking each other out. As has been said plenty of times on here, there are hours of videos of all of the teams, the full team is known an hour before the match, it is very clear after a few minutes how a team has been set up. Unless someone has come up with a unique cunning plan there isn’t a great deal that you can learn a few days before a game that you don’t know already. “Why do it,” I hear you say? Analyists are gonna analyse I guess. Eckert seems a bit obsessive with details. I’d expect other teams to be all over our stuff like a rash too. Whether that extended to spying who knows, but I have seen enough this season to tell me that playing 4 at the back, getting in a decent goalkeeper, getting Bree back and having two effective CFs has made the biggest difference to our performances this season no matter what Will Salt has managed to discover on his missions.

I hope that you called him a cheat?

We have taken an emotional hit but SR have taken a massive financial and reputational hit. I’m not surprised they are taking their time. Any response needs to be very carefully considered. I’d rather they took their time to come to the right way forward than to rush a response and add to the shit show we already have.

I didn’t think that the club would be thrown out of the competition and look how that turned out! What if Spors is the SpyMaster and it was his agenda? Does Eckert take the rap or does the man who (possibly) instigated it? Even if he didn’t sanction it, as Eckert’s boss, does the buck stop with him? Widening the argument a bit, if it had been going on all season should Will Still have to face charges too?

If we had lost to Hull today I’m wondering just how many players would want to stay next season anyway? There must be some who fancy their chances of getting a bigger club rather than another year slogging away in the Championship. Ok, I have climbed down off the fence and joined the no camp, depending on what happens with the FA of course. It seems very harsh for banning someone for doing something 72 hours before a match that that it is absolutely fine to do 72 hours and five minutes before a match. He broke a law, yes, but it is a bloody stupid law and that needs to be taken into account.

It seems that the definition of bullying has changed. Tough love is now bullying. Asking someone to do their job better is bullying apparently. I don’t know if Eckert had actually properly bullied staff and if he has that is clearly unacceptable. When I was a kid there was a boy in my class who fancied himself as the school bully. He used to push people through hedges. On one occasion he asked me if I wanted a sweet and to hold out my hand. He then stabbed my palm with a freshly sharpened pencil. I still have the mark in my palm over 60 years later. Now that is what I call bullying. So, are we talking Full Metal Jacket mode here or just “Tonda, you can’t talk to staff like that these days. You need to think about their feelings?”

If Gibbo had sent someone to check us out in the same circumstances I wouldn’t have given a toss. As Eckert said, the game is all about what happens between 22 players on the pitch when it comes down to it. Middlesbrough had enough chances to go through comfortably but blew it. Again, if the situations were reversed I would be blaming us for our own ineptitude, not screaming for a bye to the final because of some half baked attempt at “spying.” As said earlier, it is all a bit hollow for Middlesbrough today. They haven’t made the final through merit, they are there through a courtroom. Hardly a great sporting achievement!

If the attitude within the club is that checking other teams out is no big deal this is hardly surprising. I’m more interested in what other teams do now. Are they all “at it” in some way or other? Also, if we were doing it when Will Still was here it just goes to show how ineffectual it was so begs the question, why do it?

Do you think he was doing it when coaching the U21s? Seems a bit over the top at that level, but who knows?

Isn’t it all about the intent? We know that we broke the rules even if there was no material gain. We were charged with breaking the rules. The importance of the game was not the issue, the intent was.

That wasn’t even filled with any water.

Sorry to hear that. I hope that you can get something better moving forward. I keep thinking I have finally reached acceptance but then I read something again that makes me angry. It has been and continues to be a farcical situation which will continue to haunt us for sometime to come. On the plus side I have preferred us being competitive in the Championship rather than cannon fodder in the EPL and we don’t have VAR next season either. Let’s go one step further. Win the Championship and the FA Cup with Middlesbrough being relegated with the lowest points total ever. 😇

Although I know I should have moved on by now…. A player runs into the box with the intention of diving to win a penalty. As it happens the opposition are aware of his intention so do not give him the opportunity and he stays on his feet and doesn’t actually appeal for a penalty. Despite this, the opposing team surround the referee and claim that he intended to dive anyway. The referee succumbs to the claims and shows the would be diver the red card. The player intended to cheat, didn’t get the opportunity but gets sent off anyway. Sound familiar? I’m looking forward to Middlesbrough getting knocked about by a bit of shithousery from Hull this afternoon.

I’m not sure about the negative effect on sponsors. Zeiss Binoculars will be knocking the door down at St Mary’s.

How the mighty are fallen. A couple of weeks we were worried that a bigger club would come in for him. I’m on the fence with this one but I think the players’ opinions should be taken into account If they also think that this has been blown out of all proportion him staying could help build a siege mentality where everyone pulls together and we actually become stronger next season. Alternatively they might be pissed off with what has happened, blame him totally and have lost faith in him. In reality I expect opinions are split, as on this forum, so God knows where that leaves us! I’m glad I don’t have to make the decision.

If we think we are hated now could you imagine the vitriol if we tried to pull off this stunt?

He spied on opponents before their matches which seems to be the big issue here. Apparently it is a heinous sin.

Some thoughts now the dust has started to settle. 1. I can’t believe that something as innocuous as checking out the opposition before a match has been blown up to be the sporting crime of the century. 2. How such a minor infringement of such a stupid rule has led to not only expulsion from a major game but the utter turmoil within SFC. 3. The club could not have handled the situation any worse than they have done and have been played by Gibson like a cheap fiddle. 4. We now live in an age where the answer to everything is to sack everyone in sight as if that is the answer to all of our problems rather than rehabilitation and education to change behaviour.

Modern life has buggered up the operating model for superheroes. The iPhone has a lot to answer for after Spygate in more ways than one.

So you are ok with us getting the book thrown at us for breaking the rules but when I posted about running an average speed check in our village you had a right old whinge at me for spoiling the drivers “fun” No problem with people driving faster than the speed limit through a village with young children and no pavements. Some rules can be broken then depending on what suits?

The first time ever the words “Duck” and “the voice of reason” have been used in the same sentence.

Just reflecting on how ludicrous this particular rule is along with how it played out. Scout the opposition 72 hours five minutes before a match, fine. Do so five minutes later and the same activity is becomes spying. All clubs have access to videos of every game that their opposition play. If Middlesbrough go up this season, every team that they play in the league will able to go and spy on them any time they want with no repercussion It sounds like no other league in the world sees fit to have a similar rule, including the English Premier League. If it such a heinous crime, why didn’t the EFL make it perfectly clear that breaking this particular rule could result in the most serious sanctions ever given to a football club? There is absolutely no precedent for expulsion of a football club from the final of a competition for being in breach of such a rule. Waving a pretend red card in order to get another player sent off is seen as cheating. Sending out press releases putting pressure on an independent panel to not only find a club guilty, but to get them kicked out of a competition for being in breach of this particular law, knock yourselves out. You have a rule that gives the accused 14 days to respond to the charges but fold when the accuser puts pressure on to hold the case earlier. A precedent has been set in response to cheating. Seeking to gain an advantage by breaking rules now gives clubs the opportunity to progress in a competition if they get beaten by using any form of cheating as a reason to award the game to them. For example, diving to win a penalty ticks all of the boxes in Steve Gibson’s higher morality check list. I’m sure I could think of more, but the dog needs feeding. What a crock of shit.

So do you throw everyone who cheats out of football? I doubt if there would be many left. When you hear senior pros saying that it isn’t that big a deal it should give some perspective.

If Dragan has any nous he will take some time and some soundings from others as to the best way to deal with the fall out. I expect there are meetings going on all day and he will want to get the reaction from the players. Do they want him gone or do they back him?

And are we to believe that a junior analyst watching a team 72 hours before a match has a greater effect on match planning than watching as many of the opposition’s matches as you like on video?