With the Olympics looming ever closer, understandably security will be a main concern for the London 2012 organizing committee. It looks as though they are on top of things in this respect, having carried out a security test in Scotland recently. The rehearsal took place at the semi-final of the Scottish Communities League Cup between Ayr and Kilmarnock, which the latter won in extra time, and involved fans.

Falkirk face Celtic in a semi-final knowing that Kilmarnock lie in wait in the final.
It's the 1997 Scottish Cup all over again. History doesn't repeat itself, does it?
Mind you, Falkirk don't have the best of records in the league cup. They qualified for the second final back in 1947/48 and promptly lost 4-1 in a replay against Second Division East Fife.

"No, we're the underdogs."
Ayr v Kilmarnock. An Ayrshire derby in a league cup semi final and nobody wants to be favourites.
No surprise there. Derby games are different. Derby games in cups carry an extra weight. Make it a semi final and you've got a hell of a game on your hands.

A few drinks this evening and the chat got round to the Ayrshire derby being played out at Hampden tomorrow.
Ayr United v Kilmarnock.
An outing of Ayrshire's dirty linen at the national stadium. The Jerry Springer "I Married A Horse" episode writ large. An incestuous family feud settled in a national competition.

A January weekend to cast off the shackles of league pressure and revel in the romance of what is, at this stage, the most egalitarian of our competitions.
A Scottish Cup weekend. Breathe in the fresh air of potential shocks and brace yourself butchers, bakers and candlestick makers making SPL defences look like part-time amateurs.

Dunfermline vs Celtic Highlights 0-3 Goals Video 2012 Stokes Wanyama Mulgrew is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter

Dunfermline vs Celtic Highlights 0-3 Goals Video 2012 Stokes Wanyama Mulgrew is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter Dunfermline v Celtic 2012 ( Dunfermline Celtic video below) Final score and result:- Dunfermline v Celtic 0-3 ( Stokes, Wanyama, Mulgrew) 2nd January, 2012- Scottish Premier League Celtic retain their two point lead [.

Celtic vs Kilmarnock 2-1 Highlights Goals Samaras Racchi December 24 2011 is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter

Celtic vs Kilmarnock 2-1 Highlights Goals Samaras Racchi December 24 2011 is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter Celtic v Kilmarnock 2011 ( Celtic Kilmarnock video below) Final score and result:- Celtic vs Kilmarnock 2-1 ( Giorgios Samaras*2/ Racchi) Celtic Park, Glasgow- 24 December, 2011 Greek forward Samaras scores a brace [.

We're so close now you can almost smell the reindeer dung. We reach the final window in the SPL Advent calendar. Fling open the curtains and have a nosy at St Mirren.
One thing you can say about St Mirren is that Danny Lennon will do what's best for St Mirren Football Club and what's best for Danny Lennon.

We tend to be quick to condemn the managerial merry-go-round as propelled by the Largs mafia.
But we're also too often suspicious of incomers who come into the SPL with their odd ways and their funny accents.
We should embrace them. Especially if they're such a delightful puzzle as Kenny Shiels.

It seems like ages since I tickled the malnourished belly of the SPL with a wildly inaccurate prediction post.
I think the last time I Nostradamus-ed the weekend action Rangers had won the title and Motherwell were about to take the Champion's League by storm.
What a difference an eight point swing makes.

Pat Fenlon finds himself in the Hibernian trenches for the first time this evening.
Another SPL Friday night experiment as Hibs take a trip to Motherwell.
Perhaps I'm guilty of misreading his intent but my impression was that Henry McLeish had suggested Friday night football as a way of reinvigorating the lower leagues.

By JOEY SAMUEL

When he took the job as head coach of the US national team, Jurgen Klinsmann urged players in Major League Soccer to keep playing at a high level throughout the offseason.

It appears as though they are listening.

Amobi Okugo became the latest American to earn a training stint at a European club on Monday when he joined SC Freiburg, sources told SBI.

With Carlos Bocanegra injured, Rangers played to a shocking defeat against Kilmarnock while Dominic Cervi and Greenock Morton drew Queen of the South

Here it is then. The end.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed here and on Twitter.
Thanks to everyone who had donated to Alzheimer Scotland and/or the Homeless World Cup.
OK.
It's been quite a 24 hours. I've confused myself with some of the debating angles I've taken.

The blogathon continues. Alzheimer Scotland and the Homeless World Cup still need your help. So if you've enjoyed any of this please give anything you can.
It's a pleasure to say a massive hello to Jay Mansfield, also know as @leftmidfielder, for this hour of polite argument. Jay blogs here
Here's Jay on why Scottish football won't change:
Browsing Alzheimer Scotland's Football Memories site, I began to reminisce about the times I would discuss the latest calamity to befall Scottish football (among other things) with my much-missed grandfather.

The International Soccer League's modest but successful start in 1960 had made waves in the American soccer community. Its twelve team league eleven of them imported from overseas, alongside the New York Americans (who weren't really American at all) saw Brazil's Bangu beat Scotland's Kilmarnock in a final of impressive quality, 25,440 fans attending the game at the Polo Grounds in Harlem, New York City, broadcast on network television.

There exists no such concept of the comfortable silence when it comes to football in Edinburgh. One week, noises out of Tynecastle note the length of time it has been since senior squad players last saw pounds deposited into their bank accounts, and the next week these same players are finally paid but rumours of a January firesale for them run rampant.

Four games in the SPL today.
But I'm distracted by Sir Alex Ferguson's upcoming 25th anniversary as manager of Manchester United. A phenomena. From Govan.
The SPL didn't even exist 25 years ago. We must have had football though, whatever they try and tell us.
Must have had it because I'm sure Alex Ferguson left a top flight Scottish club to take over a top flight English club 25 years ago.

Celtic v Rennes Goals 3-1 Highlights 2011 Video Stokes Europa League is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter

Celtic v Rennes Goals 3-1 Highlights 2011 Video Stokes Europa League is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter Celtic v Rennes 2011 ( Celtic vs Stade Rennais 2011) ( Video Below) Final score:- Celtic vs Rennes 3-1 ( Stokes*2, Hooper/ Kader Mangane) Celtic Park, Glasgow- 3 November, 2011- Europa League Rennes [.

Celtic's Anthony Stokes will have nightmares after this ridiculous miss on Saturday against Kilmarnock, from all of 50cm max.

By Chris Wright

We got an awful lot of requests flooding in for this howler to get a mention on Pies after Paul Heffernan's horror miss from the same game got a nod so, due to popular demand and for your viewing pleasure, here's Celtic striker Anthony Stokes' ridiculously rubbish miss from all of 40cm against Kilmarnock at the weekend.

Six SPL games on a Saturday afternoon? A fixture list that makes me feel dizzy. The past is an unfamiliar place and all that.
A full house. A lunchtime kick off in Ayrshire is the only nod to modernity, the joker in the pack reminding us that we're so totally not, like, living in the last century or something.

Making a reference to Greek philosophy when discussing Glasgow Rangers probably sounds far too distorted to be credible. It likely is, but it was difficult not to consider Plato's Allegory of the Cave when hearing owner Craig Whyte talk of reviving the Atlantic League idea or somehow getting Rangers accepted into the English league system.

Airtricity XI vs Celtic Highlights 0-5 Goals Video Dublin Super Cup Score 2011 is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter

Airtricity XI vs Celtic Highlights 0-5 Goals Video Dublin Super Cup Score 2011 is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter Airtricity XI vs Celtic 2011 ( League of Ireland XI v Celtic) Dublin Super Cup- 31st July, 2011- Aviva Stadium, Dublin Final score and result:- Airtricity XI vs Celtic 0-5 ( [.

Aaaaah. That's better. Football. And none of your EPL fancy-dans with their high wages and their their temperemental wayward forwards. No. Proper football. Sendings off. High winds. Goalkeeping errors. The lot. Brilliant. Now, I don't know which team you support dear reader, but I'll come clean. I support Aberdeen.

The second of today's two opening Sunday fixtures and look at what's going on with Dundee United and Kilmarnock.
The GameLet's quickly gloss over any jokes about how much the early start to the SPL helped Dundee United's European campaign.
After starting with a flurry on Thursday they eventually slipped out of the competition by the narrowest of margins.

Part two of a completely scattergun selection of a dozen players whose progress I'm keen to track in 2010/11 SPL. St Mirren and Dunfermline will follow tomorrow.
Sean O'Hanlon, HibernianThe returning Ivan Sproule and Garry O'Connor have left Sean O'Hanlon's arrival at Easter Road somewhat overshadowed.

Scottish Premier League 2011-12: Season Preview is a post from: Just Football

Barely has the dust settled on our 2010/11 SPL team of the season when Scotland is up and ready to do it all over again! William Heaney reports:

The whole of Europe is eagerly awaiting the new Scottish Premier League season which kicks-off on 23rd July.

Scottish Premier League 2011-12: Season Preview is a post from: Just Football

Barely has the dust settled on our 2010/11 SPL team of the season when Scotland is up and ready to do it all over again! William Heaney reports:

The whole of Europe is eagerly awaiting the new Scottish Premier League season which kicks-off on 23rd July.

Ally McCoist (right) has now taken over predecessor Walter Smith at Rangers

The Scottish Premier League (SPL) returns to action earlier than usual having been brought forward by three weeks. The feeling is that an earlier start to the season will help those clubs who are to represent Scotland in UEFA club competition be more prepared from a fitness point of view as well as make fixture congestion less likely to occur later on in the campaign.

In the not too dim and distant past I used to work for a health charity in Midlothian.
I'll admit I wasn't straight from central casting. The only way I become a poster boy for health and fitness is if you need someone to pose for the "before" section of your "before and after" pictures.
I'm not one of life's joggers, teetotallers or carrot chompers.

Maurice Edu and Rangers were crowned Champions of Scotland after a 5-1 demolition of Kilmarnock in Scottish Premier League action.

Glasgow Rangers clinched three in a row after a quickfire demolition of Kilmarnock on Sunday. Walter Smith's men were three-nil up inside 6 minutes as they clinched the SPL Trophy as the perfect parting gift to their outgoing manager in what may very well be his last game in charge.

What a difference a month makes!

Maurice Edu leads the National Teamers Abroad news, taking his usual place in Rangers' starting eleven for a 5-1 win over Kilmarnock on the last day of the Scottish Premier League season. The win clinched the title for Rangers, in manager Walter Smith's final game with the club. "Yes, there will be a regret but I still think it's the right thing," Smith told the club's official site.

Kilmarnock v Rangers 2011 Rugby Park, Kilmarnock @ Home, Saturday -15/5/11 Final score:- Kilmarnock v Rangers 1-5 ( Dayton/Kyle Lafferty*3, Nikica Jelavic, Steven Naismith) Kyle Lafferty scores a hat trick as Rangers beat Kilmarnock 5-1 and win the Scottish Premier League title on the final day of the season.

Maurice Edu and Rangers can clinch their third straight Scottish Premier League title on Sunday with a win over Kilmarnock at Kilmarnock's Rugby Park.

Kilmarnock v Celtic 2011 20 April, 2011- 20/4/11 Final score:- Kilmarnock v Celtic 0-4 ( Kris Commons*2, Gary Hooper, Anthony Stokes) Celtic emulate Rangers' 4-0 win over Dundee United by thrashing Kilmarnock 4-0 away from home in the SPL. A brace from Kris Commons along with a goal each for Gary Hooper and Anthony Stokes.

The nominations for the Scottish PFA Player of the Year 2011 Award have been announced. The PFA Player of the Year Award for 2010 was won by Rangers midfielder Steven Davis. This years' SPFA Player of the Year nominations has two Celtic players, one Kilmarnock player and one Rangers player. The Celtic duo are Gary [.

Rangers v Dundee United 2011 2nd April, 2011- Ibrox Park, Glasgow Final score:- Rangers v Dundee United 2-3 ( Jelavic, Naismith/ Robertson, Russell, Goodwillie) Dundee United take advantage of Rangers' defensive frailties to shock Walter Smith's side 3-2 at Ibrox after trailing 2-1 at one point of time in the game.

Rangers v PSV 2011 Europa League Knockout Stage- Second Leg- 17/3/11 Ibrox Stadium, Glasgow Final score:- Rangers v PSV 0-1 ( Jeremain Lens) ( PSV win 1-0 on aggregate) Controversy at Ibrox as PSV Eindhoven knock Rangers out of the Europa League. A handball from PSV's Atiba Hutchinson on the line was not noticed as [.