Obituary

Robert Miller - Rab (The Puddock) - Bus Convener of the Travel Club, died last Sunday, 1 June 2003, after taking ill at his work on Saturday morning. He was first taken to Crosshouse Hospital and then transferred to the Southern General, where he lost his fight for life on Sunday morning. He is survived by his son James, daughter Christine, grandchildren Taylor & Kaitlin, sister Jean and brother Brian. Rab followed Killie for over 40 years, first travelling with his father, grandpa, and Jim and Willie Jamieson on a motor bike and sidecar! By the mid-60s, he was a member of the Irvine Valley Club which, at that time left from The Jolly Farmer in Langlands Street, where Rab and the rest of the younger members were always well looked after, a custom and practice that Rab carried on during his stewardship of the Travel Club.

In the early 70s when the fortunes of KFC were on the slide and it was becoming more difficult to get organised transport to away games, a Public Meeting was held to form a club that would get its members to all of Killie's away games. The Travel Club was formed and Rab became a founder member. He was 1 of only 3 who have been members every season since its foundation. Two weeks ago the Club held its 29th Player of the Year Presentation. Rab had been the Travel Club Bus Convener for more than 15 years. He could take buses anywhere, to any venue. He knew routes that no one else did, shortcuts through back streets that weren't on maps, found pubs and clubs that folk had heard of but didn't know where they were. We relied on him getting use from Killie to the match and back (as did the drivers who were happy to let him co-pilot the bus!).

Rab supported and followed Killie through the good times and bad, through thick and thin, relegations and promotions, humpins and victories, Cup defeats and Cup winning. In the past 25 years, he missed less than a handful of games - a true fan who always found positive things to say about his beloved team. His funeral service took place at the Co-op last Friday, conducted by Joe Hughes of the Humanist Society of Scotland. The high esteem in which Rab was held was reflected by the numbers in attendance at the Co-op and by those who attended to pay their last respects at Kilmarnock Cemetery. Rab was laid to rest in his Killie strip - a Killie scarf, Killie tie and a Killie bonnet went with him.

The Puddock was given a traditional send-off in the Pyramid Club. Those who knew him will never forget him. Characters like Rab don't just happen every day - they're a once in a lifetime event, and we in "auld Killie toun" got him. Rab, in our hearts, minds and memories, "you will aye be leevin'."- Danny Coffey

Strip Launch

The official launch of the new strip was last Thursday night in the Caprington Suite at the Park Hotel. The night in question was well attended and the strips themselves were going like hot cakes with a queue reaching the doors for a few hours. Season tickets were also on sale and going well and the pie and a pint 'buy one get one free' deal was well taken on. The strips and season tickets were being sold at one end of the large hall while Killie videos were being played on the huge screen at the other. A few players were on hand for publicity purposes and happily posed with people for photographs and signed autographs as well. Kris Boyd and Gary McDonald were the main attractions. Majority shareholder Jamie Moffat, assistant manager Billy Brown and the new representative for the Youth Trust Dylan Kerr then staged a question and answer session.

Faced with a variety of questions Billy Brown said: "Freddie Dindeleux is still in contract and we have had no offers or bids for him. We are pleased that he did extremely well towards the end of the season after a bad start due to injuries. Freddie himself decided that his game would benefit if he wasn't the captain any more and since he gave it up his performances have become more relaxed. He's a quiet guy and he just wasn't comfortable being captain."

"We wont be bringing in a new goalkeeper. Colin Meldrum will be the number one and he will be backed up by Graeme Smith. The decision to let Gordon Marshall go was a financial one, we would rather have kept him but it just wasn't possible to do that within the budget we had. It's a disgrace that Motherwell can afford to give him a contract and we can't with them being in administration. They put 19 players on the dole but are allowed to sign players, there is something far wrong there. What kind of example is that setting to other clubs?"

"Andy McLaren has left the club to find out if he can get a better offer elsewhere...fair play to him for that, he's quite entitled to. We didn't want to lose him but we now need to get on with it. There will be very few signings next season unless we unload some players first, but we are not too worried about it as we have some excellent youngsters coming through. We are well covered in most areas but we will be keeping a close eye on the central defence."

"Gary McDonald and Sean Dillon broke into the team last season and it was unfortunate for Sean that Freddie came back from injury and found his form when he was suspended or he would have got a longer run in the team. Jim and I will give the youth players their chance if they warrant it. We have Liam McGuinness, Greg Gilroy, Neil McGregor and Colin Samson to name but four who have a good chance of being involved next season, and we wont hesitate to use them if we need to."

"We prefer to play with a flat back four where possible but after a bad run of results last season, two points out of twenty one I think, we were forced to change things by swapping Greg Shields into the middle and fortunately that worked out. I agree that we have not been scoring barrow loads of goals but we have equalled our record for goals scored in the SPL so it's not been all that bad. The main thing is that we stopped leaking goals and that helped us finish up the league a bit."

"Stevie Murray is a smashing wee player and I think I'm right in saying that he started every game on the bench for us this season barring the odd one or two. He always does a job for us when he comes on but he has suffered due to the 352 formation we have been playing. If we played him against Celtic for instance, he wold be up against the bigger, faster Agathe and what chance would he have? As I've stated previously, we had to make decisions to get results and playing a 352 system was a consequence of that."

"Our aim for next season is to improve on fourth place and hopefully get into Europe. We also want to make sure that we are playing attractive football like we were in the latter part of this season. We also need to drastically improve our performances at Ibrox and Parkhead. We tried three at the back at Ibrox and got humped. They played Lovenkrands and De Boer wide on both wings and our central defenders were getting pulled all over the place. We then tried four at the back and got humped again. It's been a source of great disappointment to Jim and I and we hope to find an answer sooner rather than later."

"It's not just a psychological thing against the old firm at their grounds, it's a physical thing as well. You can't really compare our situation to that of Aberdeen and Dundee United when they were dominant in Scottish football. They not only had a physical presence but they had some cracking players as well, and the old firm were not out of reach in financial terms back then like they are now. When we were at Bradford and watched Killie on the telly the lack of height was obvious and we resolved that we have to do something to combat that."

"It's a disgrace that Kris Boyd has not been picked to play in the Scotland Under 21 game on Friday night. I don't see many other Scottish players out there who have achieved what he has with so few starts under his belt. Kilmarnock must just be an unfashionable club at the moment! When Greg Shields was having a purple patch recently I spoke to Berti Vogts about him up at Dundee. Berti didn't even know who he was and couldn't pronounce his name! It's time some of the players at this club got the recognition that they deserve, we didn't finish fourth in the league with a team full of Scottish players by accident."

Association A.G.M.

This Saturday sees the AGM of the Kilmarnock Supporters Association in the Park Suite at 2pm. Chairman Colin Hargreaves and his committee will be going over the business of the past year, and attempting to strengthen the membership of the KFCSA. All supporters are welcome.

Killie Trust - Onwards & Upwards

The latest meeting of the "Killie Trust" was held last week in the Killie Club. It's taken us a bit of time to get things organised but the meeting was very positive and there's a real feeling that everything is beginning to fall into place. All the legal stuff has been finalised and I'm delighted to announce we are now officially registered as a Supporters Trust. There is still plenty of work to be done but the official launch will be in the Park Suite on Friday 22nd August. More details will be announced nearer the time.

Everyone on the committee has their own area of responsibility and some excellent work is being undertaken to make sure the trust is a professional and well-run operation. Stevie Lockhart is the interim chairman and he has already proposed some excellent ideas that he's picked up from other established Supporters Trusts. Colin Hargreaves has done as much work as anyone to get the Trust off the ground and he's currently contacting some "weel kent" Killie faces to lend their weight to the official launch.

Dougie McCrone is currently working hard on drawing up a detailed business plan that will set us targets and will keep us focused at the Trust gets bigger and better. Chris Osborne is developing a database that will be the envy of most other Trusts and has already drawn praise from Supporters Direct who oversee the setting up of Supporter's Trusts. Myself and Baz will be publicising the Trust as much as possible and we're currently working on the launch leaflet that will be distributed in the weeks leading up to the official launch.

Everyone else on the committee is working just as hard to make it successful and we seem to have a bunch of people who genuinely want to succeed. We're all very much aware that as the Trust grows we'll need business expertise on board and we'll be contacting local businesses in the near future. If any local companies are interested in getting involved from the outset then give us a call on the number below. The Killie Trust will also be in a position to sign-up members very shortly and we'll give further details in the coming weeks.

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