Government Health Warning!

Welcome to the new fan's column in the Kilmarnock Standard, we certainly hope that we can entertain and inform all you Killie fans on a weekly basis. By way of introduction - I'm Sandy Armour and I'm the one that looks like Tam Cowan, well we have the same number of chins!

I'm responsible for editing and writing the Killie Hippo fanzine and given the standard of grammar and spelling in the fanzine I've no idea how I ended being asked to write for the local newspaper!

My partner in crime is Barry Richmond, or baz to his friends, and he and Allan Auld in Arizona run the hugely successful unofficial fan's website killiefc.com. Baz was also involved with the

"Kissin' the Squirrels" magazine that was so

popular with Killie fans (so popular it folded!).

We are also responsible, along with Iain McEwan and Dougie Stevenson, for running the Killie 125 campaign that I'm sure you have read about somewhere in recent months. We had the "big" meeting with Killie Chief Exec. David Heath last Friday and to say the season ticket offer the club has made took our breath away would be an understatement.

This really could be history in the making and I'd urge every single person with any feeling for Killie to purchase a ticket for next season. We can help bring thousands back to Rugby Park and show other clubs that the way ahead for Scottish football is to look after the fans.

As for this column, we want to hear the views and opinions of all Killie fans, and in the coming weeks we'll be letting you know how to contact us with your thoughts. We would also like to act as a liaison between the fans and the club and we will try and resolve any issues that you may have. Finally I'd like to thank Alan Woodison and Clair Robertson of the Kilmarnock Standard for offering us this opportunity to give the club and it's fans more publicity, we hope this is the beginning of a long and happy relationship.

Hippo 22 Now On Sale

You didn't think I was going to miss a chance at plugging the old fanzine did you? Issue number 22 will be on sale this weekend and includes articles relating to the 125 campaign, the Supporters Trust idea and a competition to win £25 worth of gift vouchers for Killie Connections. We'll be running a competition at the end of the season to win two season tickets and they are being sponsored by none other than former Killie supremo Bobby Fleeting.


Boom Boom Boydie!

Just call me a jinx but the other week there I did a '"One to Watch" article for the Livingston Programme all about Sean Dillon, and sure as fate he was dropped from the team that very week and never even made the bench at Tynecastle. So with 'Slim' doing the introductory piece this week, I reluctantly went to interview young strike sensation Kris Boyd about his second Bank of Scotland Young Player of the Month award this season.

I was there with all the other 'hacks' that normally go and was very interested to see what they printed, and how much it differed from what was actually said. For those who are interested, this is what Boydie really said: "It's more important that the team are playing well at the moment rather than just me, I mean it's great to get this award but I'm not going to get carried away with it. Scoring goals is obviously good for a striker and it gives me more confidence to keep scoring, but as long as the teams doing well to create chances, I'll do my best to put them away. I'm not sure why I won this award, I may well have deserved the first one but I'm not sure what I've done to deserve this one!"

It's quite an achievement for one so young to score 9 goals at this level with half the season still to go, Kris said: "I'm pleased about that and as long as the defenders, midfielders and other strikers keep making the plays then I'll hopefully score a few more. At Livingston I looked across the park and saw that there was no one there, so I just hit it before I ran too far the wrong way! I just watched it go in, and I don't think I will score another goal like that again, but I'll be glad if I do."

Despite the youngster's sparkling form, he was left out of the Scotland Under 21 team that took on the Republic of Ireland at Rugby Park on Tuesday, a despondent Kris said: "It's been a major disappointment but I'll just need to knuckle down and get on with things and hopefully I'll get back in. You always hope that you are going to get picked but maybe they saw me last Saturday and didn't think I did too well, and in the cup game against Motherwell I knew myself that I hadn't performed the way I should have."

He went on: "I've had one cap in Belgium and went with the squad to Portugal. That was good meeting all the other lads for a few days away and getting to know them. A lot of those boys will be the ones to replace the Under 21's who are getting too old now and hopefully we will be able to do something for Scotland in the future. I'm only 19 so I still have a couple of years left at that level and I want to be involved in as many squads as I can. There are a lot of good strikers in the team just now but you have to have the confidence in yourself that you are good enough to take them on."

Despite having a lot of first team starts under his belt this season, Kris still does not see himself as established. He said: "I was in and out of the team last season and I'd be willing to bet that if it wasn't for injuries that it would have been very similar this year. Hopefully next year or the year after that I will be able to get in there and really establish myself as a first team regular. If I keep going the way that I'm going just now then hopefully I should be alright. Nine goals just after Christmas isn't too bad, but hopefully I'll be able to get a few more before the seasons end."

Killie 2 - Yahoos* 0

So who are the yahoos you ask? Who other than our nearest neighbours (*See Gulliver's Travels) who have struggled for years but never won anything worth singing about! In the very week we got tanked by the team above us in the league it was gratifying to see us dumping the plebs out of cup competitions at two different levels.

First the plaudits have to go to the Killie Girls Under 17 team who beat them 8-2 and progressed to the next round of the cup in some style, but, seeing as I was there, the result of the week has to be the Killie internet team dumping their counterparts out of the British IFA Cup. It was as always a tough fixture, but Ian Cowan's 25 yard screamer from a wide right position proved to be a fitting winner and the Killie boys now face Watford away from home in the quarter finals, the second year running that they have progressed that far.

Read the B&H column in the Kilmarnock Standard every week