Subject: [NT] Dandy

Here I go again, I would the chance to manage Scotland into another World Cup. The initial aim will be get out the group stage and take a decent scalp, then maybe go further than we have before. If that gets achieved then I'll be going for the shiny gold thing.

The qualifying went reasonably well after a horrendous start against Italy. After that winning 7 of the next 8 games. Notably 2 wins against Greece. We picked up 1 draw against Sweden, those two teams were a decent challenge.

But there are tougher challenges ahead. Against Italy in the last game we started well, taking the lead but then after going down to 10 men after 10 minutes we were always going to struggle and lost 3-1.

We have a knew dimension of height to deal will soon, 'smaller' Nations will struggle most with this. In both senses of the word.

Cheers.

whats your thoughts on the height issue. say for example your 2 main strikers end up 7ft giants how would you play it. OR your 2 main strikers end up 4ft 8" what would you do then?

Don't tell him dandy. He'll take that knowledge away with him to the Danish U21's :)

Voted btw, although Dale isn't best pleased with you. Ruining his career he said :)

lol tell me tell me

Well the obvious thing if your using tall strikers would be use wingers in conjunction to capitalise on crossed balls.

Shorter (faster) John Roberston style striker, you'd be looking at through balls from midfield.

Best case scenario is we have a few of each type so you can change tactics based on the opposition. or hedge your bets with a Hatley & McCoist set-up.

Real life preference is 1 tall, 1 short. But what works best in this game, and what we have available, we shall see.

Ive skmailed you some inside info.

Its likely we will have most middle of the range strikers, but we might get 1 or 2 extremes that are worth using.
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right i have devised a question which will be sent to all candidates (including NT ones).

Over the past 3 seasons the scottish I and the community has embarked on the following items to try to improve Sokker Scotland for the best.

1. Spammed loads of forums and got our userbase up to 200+ I think it was.
2. Printed details of up & coming U21 fixtures with guess the score to get a chosen player to play in the next friendly.
3. Formed a massive 4 mentors to try to keep people interested.
4. Mailed every single new user to give advice and direction at the beginning of the game.


ALL of the above failed to spark any life into this community. To the extent that we are now spiralling towards our lowest ever userbase as far as i can remember.
There are no dedicated trainers in scotland as there are in England.
The NT games go by with hardly a mention from the community.
The weekly games go by with hardly a break of glass (apart from Stevies bottle).

WHAT would you do to solve any of the above issues?

1. Spammed loads of forums and got our userbase up to 200+ I think it was.

Spamming doesn't really work. I find the people you can speak to directly about sokker are more likely to join and stay in the game rather than people responding to a forum post from essential a random to them.

But spamming could work if sokker's intro was better. Maybe by some sort of tutorial style entry. Which leads you through what sokker has to offer slowly. Can we create our own via a forum or something? We have most of the info there, but maybe we need to create an order to it, with maybe pointers to e.g. example matches, example player stats from when they were juniors to what they are now after x seasons training to show what can be done. Willberry was telling me the other day he has a divine, double brilliant striker, Age 23 soon. When he arrived from the juniors at 17 he had tragic! striker, average technique and I he thinks around solid pace. So pretty naff to start with but with a very good talent he kept him as a long term trainee. I think its a great example.


2. Printed details of up & coming U21 fixtures with guess the score to get a chosen player to play in the next friendly.

Not done this for the NT games before. If there is a demand and people think it will keep them motivated to train Scottish players then I could be easily persuaded to do something like that.

3. Formed a massive 4 mentors to try to keep people interested.

Mentors are a good thing, some people appreciated and make good use of mentors. Most of users who have received mentoring are capable of becoming mentors now.

4. Mailed every single new user to give advice and direction at the beginning of the game.

I have done this aswell in the past, but not convinced it works or is a worthwhile idea. If we had a tutorial that could provide the info in the right order. We could have mentor links for people requiring extra info. Sometimes I guess people get put off by info being thrown at them. Sometimes they never even log in.


Sometimes, and I think Scotland is a decent example of it. Quality counts more than Quantity. Id rather have even 2 or 3 more quality trainers than 200, 300 users who train poorly, that includes training well but with non Scots!

We have the correct number of leagues to suite all now. Some easy leagues in division 2 or 3 for people who like to train long term before trying to move up the leagues. We have a decent premier and division 1 leagues for people who enjoy the competition.

By user number we shouldn't be in the top 50. But both our National Teams are comfortably in there.


Together, we can improve things.
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thanks for the answer. Now for the silly question.

Put these items in your personal preference.

1. Kicking sutties ass and winning the league.
2. Beating England at anything.
3. Winning the WC with Scotland NT
4. Scotland Real Team beating England.
5. Scotland winning the world cup
6. Someone outside the OF winning the league.
7. Celtic & Rangers to get tae feck out the Scottish League.
8. Mr Peat to get tae feck out the SFA
9. Stevie to setup a piss up

4. Scotland Real Team beating England.
2. Beating England at anything.
5. Scotland winning the world cup
9. Stevie to setup a piss up
3. Winning the WC with Scotland NT
1. Kicking sutties ass and winning the league.
6. Someone outside the OF winning the league.
7. Celtic & Rangers to get tae feck out the Scottish League.
8. Mr Peat to get tae feck out the SFA


No.9 could go down. Depending on how good a Stevie piss is up. Need more info.

Not in favour of no.7 - regarding that they should wise-up and recognise that they are actually first and foremost Scottish Football Teams. Not English, Irish, Atlantic or European.
However Im a realist and realise that greed, ignorance, division and stupidity drives a lot of human decisions.
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dandy , ive voted for you again

all the best !

Cheers.

You know you guys should really forget the past history...how can beating us be above winning the actual World Cup?

I mean the gloating rights from that are surely absolutely huge......no matter how unlikely it is. ;)

I personally support all the home nations teams, I find it a bit puzzling all of this..........

Of the countries close by only France get my goat. Therefore beating them 8-1 at theirs and knocking them out of the u21 WC was sweet last time around. :)

I've never understood the whole "victim" mentality up here either.

I also despise the way hating England is seen as jovial and acceptable, but singing a few bad words at a Rangers game is "Scotland's secret shame" (1 in 4 kids in this country living below the poverty line - what's our secret shame?).

I support Scotland over anyone else when it comes to international football, rugby etc., but I'm not a fan of putting up borders and creating issues that are long beyond parody.

There is a difference from beating England and singing anti-English abusive songs. I don't agree with that. And have actually discouraged and stopped groups from doing it on various Scotland trips.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying beating your oldest enemy or rival. I don't see it as we are victims, its rivalry.

I remember once, narrowly missing out on a place to play for Scotland at pool. That season they beat England on the way to final. Which was such a huge buzz. In the final a lot of the players were flat in comparison and lost out to France. Even though it was a World Final it wasn't as big as beating England in round 2. Thats just the way it is, for the majority in my experience.

Im not anti all things English or England. I work right next to an Englishman, he gets banter thrown his way when there is an event on, doesn't usually cross any lines.
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exactly - its friendly rivalry. I worked in England for 2 years and had a great time.

what DOES really get up my goat tho is John Motson. Im sure even English people are saying "FFS shut up about 66 its decades ago you old fodder"

1 week gone - bump