The9

It's going to take a little while for the usual suspects to gain Mr Pardew's confidence, I should think.

Just don't post mine, I'm moving on Friday !

There's been no "break away" European League because the big European clubs have stitched up the CL revenue between them as a result of their collective meetings despite Platini's reforms, and they know they still need their national leagues for exposure and additional tv revenue and can't afford to leave their national leagues behind for credibility. This way they get money from both. No Premier League 2 "split" because Phil Gartside of Bolton only mooted the idea last year, clubs haven't yet worked out if they'll be better or worse off, and it's not really in the interests of the successful sides to protect the ones who would be better placed to challenge them with a few transfer gambles if their revenues were guaranteed even on relegation. However, it may yet happen, just like match 39 might. No "tearing up" of Sky contract and individual bargaining, because all Prem Lge motions have to be carried by more than the 4 or so clubs who would obviously benefit from that, and because legislation prevents a single broadcaster monopolising coverage... not to mention that contracts are legally binding and the tv companies would sue for billions. And there's still pressure from UEFA to shrink leagues to 18 due to Internationals and more specifically the effect the use of top club players in Internationals has on their performance and the brand value of their Champions League cash cow - and to counter your vague "one European league has expanded", I'll raise you a "one European league is shrinking to 10 teams from 18 next season" (Wales, presumably to raise the overall standard, which was bad enough in 1995/6 that I got named in a Welsh Premier League squad for a team that was in the UEFA Cup that season - true story). So rather than none of it happening, the money-rich clubs have found ways to get themselves a big share of the pie without having to go down that route, and there's still an ongoing power struggle between the erstwhile G-14 (this is q. funny : http://www.runofplay.com/2007/11/08/uefa-v-the-g-14-the-short-history-of-a-pointless-disagreement/). Everything else is still, as it were, a political football. Anyway, where was I ? Oh yeah, football will eat itself.

Seeing as I've been going to various major tournaments without an affiliation for 15 years I'm glad international football exists about once every two years, but being not-English, no longer living near enough to Cardiff to bother going to see Wales play for £10-£15 when they had decent opponents, and there not being a GB football team, its Saints all the way for me. I'd rather see Saints win a recognised competition than Wales qualify for a major tournament OR England win one.

Wrong again !

I think you're the only one who didn't realise he wasn't being serious. But that ref bloke, I honestly can't tell if he's taking the rise or not. Either he's way too subtle for me, or he genuinely believes that being a ref makes him better at knowing who should be assigned to marking whom, or how best to break down a 5-3-2, or transfer policies or something. Personally I assume knowing the laws as a given, and though I am constantly surprised at how few people actually do know them, I doubt it makes the slightest bit of difference to someone's ability to coach or manage a team except in exceptionally technical moments (like Allardyce exploiting 2005's daft interfering interpretation). Mostly, knowing the detail of the laws *is* just for refs and pedantic trivia-headed gets like me - as you see every time half the stadium appeals for a free kick from a chested or thighed-back pass, or celebrates the world's most offside goal when the flag's been up for 30 seconds, because they don't check and don't understand what the flag means anyway. We know that stuff, but that doesn't mean we know anything about tactics, or transfers, or coaching, or agents' fees for that matter. And the B licence fella can't spell, is in no position to be telling other people to take GCSE English, and is certainly talking to interesting people and coming away with some half-formed ideas, but I am strangely jealous of his spawny badge-doing experiences. The whole "transfers now" rant at the start of this thread is a load of gubbins and irrelevant to his badge, if not the people who were trying to explain it to him, but I'm not expecting anyone who can't differentiate "could have" from "could of" to be good at analysing the nuances of a debate. Oh, and you don't want to know about Chez's genitals... so I've heard.

We would have walked the old man's competition. Ignoring for the moment that I qualify to play in it

When we left at 1pm they were about to play their second round knockout match - as I didn't get a text about traffic from Minty until half 3 I suspect they won 2 before losing in the third game - which may have been a semi or quarter final.

I've just had a text which says that Bradford, who we nearly dragged to penalties (after "parking the bus" until 3 minutes from the end of Golden Goal extra time), went on to lose in the Final to the team that won the season-long national IFC Cup final on Friday night. There's also some doubt that their GG was onside, seeing as it was tapped in from the goalline... So actually we didn't do badly, considering.

Bit late for that... We've had someone stationed at the airport with a limo for two days now.

Veterans teams, yes.

To answer the OP's question, there's no all seated requirement in League One or League Two (or lower) but obviously some of the grounds in this League are for teams who've been in the CCC and Prem and they'll already be all seater.

I'd rather he drifted in than drifted up or out, at least he's defending the box then rather than out of the game... OS says he set up Rasiak's first from a free kick too?

Despite some people being out til 4am and our first kickoff being 9:20, we were 3-0 up at half time in our first match. Seasoned Worldnet performers! No-one drinks on Sundays after Sat night in Leeds and the drive home, Snday is all about getting up late - Man U may have an 8:30am kick off!!!

Sitting here alll sweaty in my Saints kit after our 3x 30 minute matches, I'd just like to point out that due to an hilarious quirk of fixtures and results, we actually knocked Man U out on goals scored despite them wiping the floor with us. Very very funny indeed, as the difference between 1st and 3rd was 1 goal, Man U only beat Kiddie (B) by 2 and us and Exeter stuffed them. Anyway, best bit about getting through to the cup is a lie-in til 10am. Nice to see the pros putting in a performance too

Oh, Tw*tter.

Given that most of Baird's "part in where we ended up" was to get us into the Play-Offs in 2007 after having the season of his life when he was Player of the Season, and we got over £3m for him when he left, I can't say I hold it against him. And seeing as the relegation squad from 2005 would probably get us out of League One at the first opportunity NOW, even considering the retirements of Niemi, Svensson, Lundekvam, Le Saux, Bernard (I hope), Telfer and Redknapp, I think it's a pretty stupid statement to wash your hands of the past entirely. Hell, even Mikael Nilsson would look like a pretty good player 2 leagues down, and some combination of Crouch/Beattie and Phillips we'd kill for. But ooh, they played a part in our relegation, we can't have that...

I mentioned this a while back, he'd be a good signing based on what he did with us in a few games, though I do wonder what's going on there...

Kevin Phillips ?

I'd definitely have Holmes in the team if he was match fit. Which of course was the problem last season. And Gobern and Thomson will both come good and are at least squad-worthy. I'd keep Wotton too, though not for anything he does on the pitch, but he does seem to be the kind of pro that would pass on helpful advice and scare some of them into performing. Lloyd James and McLaggon as well... Doble and Saville based on preseason and Boyle on preseason and reserve performances. So there's 9 more. And I'm pretty confident a fit Thomas would be good at this level. So there's your 10. Plus Rasiak and/or John are possibles though not here last season, so 12. And now you can start looking for players to sign to improve that squad.

With the assistance of Soccerbase, Excel and me chucking in the unlisted players : Bart being number 1 instead of Ossie Ardiles isn't anything like as much fun though, though Kelvin in the number 3 shirt is quite stupid enough. Bit rubbish when we sign someone and they either amend everyone else's number or get bolted on the end though - not a problem in a fixed size World Cup squad. PS I think Holland did it too (except for Cruyff) and I thought we were avoiding all Dutchness ? 1 Bartosz Bialkowski (G) 2 Jack Boyle (M) 3 Kelvin Davis (G) 4 Ryan Doble (M) 5 Tommy Forecast (G) 6 Simon Gillett (M) 7 Oscar Gobern (M) 8 Dan Harding (D) 9 Lee Holmes (M) 10 Lloyd James (M) 11 Stern John (F) 12 Adam Lallana (F) 13 Oliver Lancashire (D) 14 Kayne McLaggon (F) 15 Callum McNish (M) 16 Joseph Mills (D) 17 Lee Molyneux (D) 18 Matthew Paterson (F) 19 Andrej Pernecky (G) 20 Chris Perry (D) 21 Michael Poke (G) 22 Anthony Pulis (M) 23 Grzegorz Rasiak (F) 24 Marek Saganowski (F) 25 Jack Saville (D) 26 Morgan Schneiderlin (M) 27 Wayne Thomas (D) 28 Jake Thomson (M) 29 Jamie White (F) 30 Paul Wotton (D)

Now Tomasz Hajto, THERE'S a worthy recipient.

Saga wears 4 cos it was the only 1-11 unallocated when he signed. As he's a striker and lots of people had his number on their shirt he didn't change it. Didn't seem to bother us with Svensson, Baird, Skacel, Viafara, Idiakez, Bialkowski, Gillett, etc. though.

No, he was number 2.

As the newly allocated squad list isn't allowed to have any gaps in it - they're SUPPOSED to be sequential - I'd suggest that isn't going to be the final list we send to the Football League - and the most telling empty number at the moment is "Stern John's" previously-worn number 14. 6,7,12,14 and 16 are all empty, the rest are sequential.