Dr Who?

Great read…. Much better than the England game. Crime & Punishment by Tom Williams - When Saturday Comes. On May 20th, Southampton, lost their appeal against being thrown out of the Championship play-off final for illegally spying on a Middlesbrough training session a couple of days before the first leg of the play-off semi-final between the two teams. The club have been denied the opportunity to compete in "the richest game in football" (a horribly vulgar tag, and of a piece with much of the coverage of professional men's football in England) and hobbled ahead of another attempt at promotion next season through being docked four points. The sanction - particularly in the context of the crimes and punishments of other English clubs over the last 15 years - must be among the most draconian meted out, especially relative to the offence. When Marcelo Bielsa admitted to having spied on every opponent his Leeds United team had faced in 2018-19, Leeds were fined £200,000, an amount which seemed to reflect how seriously the transgression was taken. It was seen as poor form and a bit cheeky. It led though to a rule being introduced specifically to legislate against spying. It is typical of the various bodies who administer English football that the punishment for spying was not clear. EFL Regulation 127 stipulates that the punishment for observing another club's training session could be more or less anything. Given that the whole point of rules like this should be to dissuade people from breaking them, you'd think the EFL might make it a bit more obvious that espionage is punished with a sporting penalty, but there can be little doubt that everyone knows the score now. Chelsea's years of illegal payments- during which they won eight major domestic trophies - cost them just £10 million. Manchester City's 115 charges, announced by the Premier League in February 2023, seem more like a spectre that swirls around them than a set of alleged crimes for which they might eventually be punished. Practices like changing the dimensions of the playing area, mowing or not mowing, watering or not watering the grass and moving advertising hoardings to interfere with throw-ins are probably as or more impactful than spying. It's just that all of this stuff is either within the rules or is just tacitly accepted. It is hard to avoid the sense that throwing the book at Saints is a pious performance of moral seriousness in response to the authorities' toothlessness in other cases. Nonetheless, Southampton, and in particular their manager Tonda Eckert, have behaved in a way that is classless, snide, and above all embarrassing. "The most embarrassing week in our 141-year history," some have said. Southampton CEO Phil Parsons has apologised, and the club have vowed to "respond with humility, accountability and determination to put things right". Given that Parsons this season brought back repeatedly disgraced club legend and conspiracy theorist Matt Le Tissier to advise on football matters, it seems unlikely that this will be the last public relations disaster on his watch. Eckert, meanwhile, has done something much worse than the spying itself. The young and clearly ambitious German coach bullied junior staffers into carrying out the grubby reconnaissance missions (Eckert has admitted to having had Ipswich and Oxford watched as well), leading to performance analysis intern Will Salt's young career acquiring a taint that will be hard to expunge. Salt has now been given a full-time, permanent contract by the club, but the photograph of him doing Eckert's bidding on a golf course next to Middlesbrough's training ground will be plastered across football media for weeks to come. The unscrupulousness, slyness and ineptitude of Eckert and his staff have cost the club its chance of returning to the Premier League and set fire to thousands of pounds of loyal supporters' cash. I say ineptitude because the attempts at covert surveillance prior to games against Ipswich and Oxford as well as Boro yielded just one point, and as such were about as effective as Brighton's alleged attempt to gain a sporting advantage by leaving excrement on the floor of the away changing room prior to a play-off semi-final against Crystal Palace. Eckert eventually recorded a typically robotic, eight-minute long, straight-to-camera video in which he apologised with unblinking eyes to fans, players and opponents. This was never going to be enough for a football media whose coverage of this melodrama has been embarrassing in itself. Reporters who have praised Newcastle United's ownership have clutched their pearls and carried on as if a bloke hiding behind a tree with a phone determined the outcome of 210 minutes of football. There is a sense that on some level, conscious of the moral cowardice on City, Newcastle and Chelsea, football writers have scented an opportunity to present themselves as principled and virtuous. After Southampton owner Dragan Solak asserted that he didn't want to sack Eckert and felt the sanctions imposed on the club were excessive, the press responded as if they were discussing mass doping or match-fixing. On X, Henry Winter made the patently absurd claim that the issue of whether to ban Eckert is "almost an existential" challenge to the FA, an organisation that deemed the murderous Saudi regime to be fit and proper persons for owning a Premier League football club. The Times strongly implied that Eckert's father was a German spy. The EFL have allowed two sets of supporters to spend their money on attending two games of football that ended up not counting - and actually increased Southampton's Wembley ticket allocation hours before fans found out that Saints wouldn't be playing. While match tickets have been refunded, other costly outlays for the thousands who planned to attend - train fares, hotels, flights, parking, babysitters- will not have been. Middlesbrough's highly effective, ruthless comms campaign to get themselves a bye to the final - having ultimately suffered no detriment - added another layer of tawdriness to the whole unedifying saga. Boro promptly lost the final to a Hull City team who were there on merit and are the only party to emerge from the events of the last few weeks with their dignity intact. Saints, on the other hand, now have a tattered reputation to add to the ignominy of two relegations in three seasons. Even the team's impressive FA Cup run, which saw them knock Arsenal out to reach the semi-final, now has an asterisk next to it. The fans dressing up as trees and singing "We are Southampton, we spy when we want" are fairly typical of football fandom now, with fans actively encouraging gamesmanship and celebrating players who taunt opposition players and supporters. Disgraced, debased and betraying those for whom football is not mere entertainment but a way of life, Southampton have come to mirror the game itself.

Keep it it different. Almost carton like compared to a lot of the modern ones. We have done well to keep it as it is since 1974… the year I was born! Oh I quite like the Stoke one. Cambridge United changed theirs last season it is terrible!

Iran & USA.

Not just a program for Matty fans, but a great insight to football and the tactics.

Hi all, I am taking part in a 50k Ultra in the lakes this September 19th and raising money for Alzheimer’s. This is going to be extra challenging for me as I have had a dodgy knee since November and have had X-rays and MRI along with physio but I still cannot run outside for long distance without paying for it the next day and not being able to straighten my right leg properly without pain for a week. This Ultra 50k takes in over 9,500ft of climbing fells on the Lake District and takes in 4 Wainwrights along the way. It will be a tough old day and the pain afterwards will be insane for me, but still nothing compared to the pain the person that has Alzheimer’s and those around them suffer. Please give where you can. https://www.justgiving.com/page/kevin-sim-5?utm_medium=FA&utm_source=CL Thank you Kev

Is he up for grabs?

What a OG that was!

Belgium are not the team they used to be. Egypt 🇪🇬 look pretty handy on the break.

They have some top players for sure on high wages and long contracts. If he can get them onboard to play in league one or offload (but who will want them). They were a disgrace last season some of their players. Also they are in financial world of shite and the wages above do not help. I listen to the 2nd Tier podcast it is really worth a listen and they do not have much confidence in them bouncing back. But of course they will not be talking about them anymore! It will be a fascinating watch for sure. 👍

Bad Tuesday?

A 10 second countdown to the start of football, sorry soccer matches.

I will for sure keep an interested eye on this one.

Are the FA actually doing anything about Tonda, is there an investigation going on?

Talented/quality has nothing to do with injury prone. He 100% could play in the premier league, but yes might be injured most of the time, but he could play and score a few, but a huge gamble.

We do lag behind others when releasing shirts, I remember when they were paraded around the pitch during the last home game of the season before!