FRIENDLIES, yes they are all about fitness, getting to know your teammates and generally getting the pre-season cobwebs finetuned, well that was definitely true about the Alloa and Annan games but certainly was not the case for almost 3,500 Renfrewshire fans on Saturday.

When we travelled to the previous pre-season games there was certainly no major expectations from us supporters and unfortunately the trip to Annan will be remembered for the fact the game had to be abandoned thus making the four hour round trip a bit of a waste of time.

Thankfully the next game was against St Mirren where perhaps not many of us expected to win but were hoping for a certain level of performance to enable us to have some level of expectation for the season ahead.

Boy did we get that as the game and subsequent victory was played in an excellent atmosphere befitting a much more important game than a friendly.

There is a general hatred amongst both sets of supporters towards each other no matter where it a league game, cup tie or pre-season friendly and from a purely selfish personal point of view as I work in Erskine I took major satisfaction in watching the Ton win on Saturday and can't wait to take the bragging rights when I meet some of my St Mirren supporting colleagues.

JOHN GISBEY