oxfordshire_saint

When I watch England I want them to do well and I'm proud to be English, but I never get as excited or as passionate as I do with Saints, nor as dissapointed if we lose. International tournaments are brilliant, but I generally get excited because it means multiple weeks of constant footie, rather than because it means England have another chance to let the country down. I went to Germany 2006, saw two games, neither of them England, it was brilliant. I think it's something to do with the attitude of the England players (a few apart, most look like they don't give a toss) rather than my feelings for my country, because I get far more fired up for an England rugby game than an England footie game.

Alix Perez - 1984

I'm watching Saving Private Ryan on CH4+1, forgot just how brutal the opening scenes are. Really must get round to buying it on DVD, brilliantly made film.

Exactly, fools the lot of them! I'm betting that a whole heap of them only bought the scarves because it's flavour of the month up there at the moment, rather than having any deep desire to oppose their current regime. They'll all be renewing their season tickets next year, buying their yearly replica shirts and pumping even more money into the Glazer coffers.

I tend to spend between £5-£10 a week on accumulators (golden rule, only bet what you can afford to lose!) I'll do £1 or £2 bets on stuff that's likely to give a return of £30-£50 and then have a long shot punt with one bet that's usually worth thousands from a quid or so. The long shot ones are always unlikely to come in, but you never know (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2870870/94th-min-goal-by-Norwich-supersub-Oli-Johnson-wins-100k-bet.html)

Worst accy experience I ever had was earlier in the season, did a whole day of League One fixtures, the only 2 that didn't come in were us failing to beat Colchester at home when we were all over them and Norwich drawing at home with Walsall, again when they should have won. If it had came in, it would've been worth thousands!

I think Rochdale vs Rotherham will be a draw, we'll beat Huddersfield, Netherlands will win and so will Notts County.

A quality centre-half to play with Fonte and with Seaborne being their understudy. Can't see Perry or Jaidi lasting past this season. Jaidi maybe, but he won't be able to play all the games.

Arsene Wenger is a massive hypocrite and should know better

Anyone see the banner at the Aldershot game that said "Forza Shots"? That combined with the fact that a Swindon fan let off a flare during their game with Leyton Orient, what's with fans of grubby little clubs trying to act like Ultras? Or have Swindon and Aldershot suddenly opened Roman and Milanese supporters clubs?

It's just a very unfortunate coincidence that it's happened to an Arsenal player again. Wenger's bleating and the Arsenal players berating Shawcross is highly hypocritical though, I was at a pre-season game at The Emirates the other year between Arsenal and Real Madrid where Abou Diaby absolutely nailed Wesley Sneijder and put him out for quite a few months. Lest we forget the days under Wenger a few years ago when Arsenal had quite possibly one of the worst disciplinary records of any Prem side.

I've never really understood the idea of almost certainly giving the ball away from the off. A former manager of mine at non-league level used to justify it by asking us to hit it into a corner from the centre and let the wingers chase the full back down, hopefully resulting in a throw in deep in their half, as we had a lad with a long throw and could put teams under instant pressure, but rarely did it actually work out like that. I don't see what's so wrong with passing back to the defence and moving up the field as a unit with the ball, pushing the opposition back into their own half whilst retaining possession? That said, you argue that if you pass it backwards then lose it, you could potentially put yourself under pressure.

A bad pitch doesn't mean you can't play decent footie. We seemed to assume this against Brentford at Griffin Park and played long ball all night. Their players were used to the pitch and seemed to pass it around just fine. If we're due to play a team who's pitch we know is garbage, why doesn't Pards take the players out for a training session on a local sunday-league pitch? (and don't give the injury argument, I've played on naff pitches all season and not seen an injury caused by the pitch itself)

Fatboy Slim - Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars I'd forgotten what a genius piece of work this is, some great examples of how to sample well, especially the Bill Withers influence on "Demons"

Best of luck to them, I've done the Oxfam Trailwalker which is 100km non-stop, so I know they've got a tough trek ahead of them. From experience of long walks though, anticipating doing it with only 30 mins to spare before kickoff is gonna be a big gamble!!!!!

Kid ourselves that we're the "best fans in the world" without any foundation or reasoning.

To maximise our slim playoff hopes we need to be winning nearly all our games. Rickie wins games, therefore he should play in all of them unless he starts to look knackered or picks up a knock.

Also, despite the fact that it was a horrible tackle (albeit on Robbie Savage, which lessens the crime somewhat), Stephen Bywater's reaction in the shoving match that ensued was typical. He didn't care about his downed teammate, he just wanted to cause some aggro because he's a prize ****.

Anyone see Scott Loach's (Watford keeper) pathetic efforts at kicking the ball away after Gary Hooper scored a late penalty for S****horpe? If you missed it, watch it on the BBC website when they put the highlights up, what a chump!

Nice to hear Paul Lambert state after that they deserved nothing rather than attibuting all the blame on the red card.

Sending off doesn't mean game over, let's get a 2nd before we even consider shutting up shop.

Indeed, you're trophy laden.......... So now it's gonna be taking pride in being the biggest ever English club to go to the wall? Congrats

As good as the freekick sounds, I hope it goes to Barnard, will hopefully give him the confidence to go on a scoring run.

Yyyyyyyyyeeeeessss barney!

another Charlie Austin strike for Swindon, the boy's a goal machine