This Charming Man

How is sitting on a train/coach/minibus for a few hours "too much effort"?

And West Ham are taking 3,000 to Doncaster and I imagine Brentford will have over 500 at Sheff Utd tomorrow. Makes our support look very poor.

Not really. He makes a very valid point. As we've shown in the past, people are willing to travel... just not that far. We've taken 4k to Orient and 5k to Reading for games with nothing riding on them. Yet as soon as we play north of Birmingham, it seems nobody can be bothered. As Sour Mash said, we take hardly any independent coaches or mini-buses, there seems to be no get up and go with our support. Just lots of families and odd-balls from the New Forest who are happy to watch us at home and that's that. We even struggled to sell our full allocation for Derby away in the play-offs. The last time we took a few thousand up North for a meaningless game was Man City when we had £5 tickets and cheap or free travel (after they wrongly cut our allocation for the last game at Maine Rd). I know being where we are geographically we're not in an ideal place but that doesn't stop Sunderland travelling in large numbers (wouldn't be fair to compare us to Newcastle, they're a massive, massive club). Even Plymouth's away support is decent when you compare it percentage wise to their home crowds. A lot of people on here look at Saints with rose-tinted glasses on and aren't able to take a step back and look at us from a neutral point of view. I use the England forum quite a bit and there are many threads on there about away support, who brings the most and who makes the most racket and trust me, we've never been mentioned, not once. Our away support on a whole is pretty poor. Not the worst but could be and should be so much better. Last season, when comparing home and away attendances, percentage wise, Bournemouth's away support was better than ours. That says it all for me... P.s. I am going.

Bothams is a good read as is Trescothicks. I always thought he was a bit of wimp, what with him not being able to leave the country for more than 10 minutes without breaking down but his book sure showed how naive I was to his illness. Anthony Kiedis (Red Hot Chilli Peppers lead singer) is also a great read. You don't need to be a fan of them, most of it is about his wild lifestyle and spectacular drug binges as a youngster. Great read.

Has anyone got a student ticket? If so, does it just have student written on it?

What utter rubbish. Deals can take months to complete for whatever reasons and I'm sure if need be, it would go down to the final day of the transfer window if Adkins wants him that much.

Always enjoy reading things like that after we've just signed someone.

Ah right. I was getting confused.

He's got a fairly decent success rate so far.

Pretty strong rumour now. Let's hope it's true.

I don't think Harding or Dickson are up to it at Championship level. Remember Leeds also got rid of Harding when they were promoted back up. I've been saying all summer we needed a left back, centre back, centre midfielder, striker and a winger if AOC left. We've ticked nearly all of them off the list and sounds as if it's just a matter of time before a CB and striker are added. So I'm more than happy with this signing and all the other deals we've done this summer.

Do you get a tracking number with recorded? If so, demand that from the TO.

I was just walking around Manchester city centre and walked passed two blokes who looked like they'd been badly beaten up and set on fire in the riots. Then I realised it was just Carlos Tevez and Joleon Lescott.

But at the time, that's the only way NC could implement his strategy. Where as, if the rules were to be changed and agreed upon by all, he'd be able to do as the FL are proposing it to be done now. He would've had to of come to an individual agreement with every media outlet to allow their photographers into the ground. Not much point in doing that when you can take the pictures yourself and sell them on to whoever would be interested. Though if there was a general rule put in place, like they're suggesting now, things would be far more simple. I don't agree with the whole thing anyway. Surely any publicity the games get are good? The clubs down here aren't exactly publicity magnets like Man Utd or Chelsea. How are they going to stop the live updates? People in the ground will still tweet and Facebook important moments in the game (not me personally, you have to be a bit of a berk to do stuff like that).

Cortese wanted to stop the use of free content like photos, so do the FL.

Why be a follower when you can be a leader? I imagine half those simpletons didn't even think of it until Cortese tried it last year.

You sound like that most of the time, so I wouldn't worry too much... My tickets have been at the sorting office for the last 3 days, should probably go and collect them this evening.

I did the exact same thing when I was that age. Good on him.

It's up North, so of course it is.

Bournemouth mate of mine says he's alright but thinks he's a lot better than he actually is. He'd be over the moon if we signed him for £500k or so.

"If" is the key problem, I don't think we can take that gamble. If he was to breakdown again, we'd be left with 3 strikers. I think another striker is essential and someone like Ebanks-Blake would be perfect. Strong, fast, athletic - the exact kind of striker we're crying out for. Wolves wouldn't sell to another club in the Prem as it would only be their relegation rivals who are interested. Imagine Leicester will be sniffing around if he is available. Could have some legs, but he is a decent player, IMO and I'd be surprised if they let him go.

Thought as much. The media quite frankly have to have a picture of Rooney or Lampard on the back of their rag after a big game. But when there is a tiny square tucked away on the 3rd page in with a 5 line write up of Doncaster v Watford, a picture just isn't as essential.

That it does. He said he is going to more than enjoy his retirement.

I'd swap De Ridder for Guly. Away from home we'll be looking to hit them on the break a bit more. Though after last weeks performance, I fully expect us to be unchanged. Barnsley got a decent point at Forest at the weekend so it won't be easy but if we're serious about mounting a push for the play-offs this season, winning games like this is a must. We can't just rely on our home form as that won't be enough.

A girl I work with, her old man won £1m on the lottery the other day. He is in his 40's and has said he can't really afford to retire. As mad as that sounds. He did the sums and it wouldn't last as long as you think it would. Anyway, all of this is rather pointless as none of us have a clue about his financial situation. Ha.