Gloucester Saint

One of the broadsheets printed a rumour after we moved to the Rose Bowl that the Hedge End restaurant would get a call coming up to the lunch break if Hampshire were at home with order for two buns, fries and no burgers. Shane’s lunch was allegedly a chip butty. 🥪 No idea if true or not. Same article said that during the difficult first season when we were relegated at Northlands Rd, there was a drinking club called Australia & USA = Warne, Udal, Smith and Aymes. When you’re THAT good, it doesn’t matter and what a brilliant player.

Having met him, I can confirm that Sir Steve Redgrave is a) an excellent bloke and b) an absolute mountain of a bloke. Gus Fraser was our tour guide in Barbados for the Test in 2004 - top fella, always liked him as bowler. Not much smaller a mountain than Redgrave. Told us over dinner that Shane Warne used to pay for his own flights to play for Hampshire and that Bransgrove had said Shane was an unbelievable fella as well as cricketer. So lucky to have him play for and captain the county. Met and talked with Sir Colin Cowdrey for about an hour when our local pub re-opened. Asked him about what it was like to face Lillee and Thomson at the WACA having come out of retirement in winter of 1974 in his 40s. Aussies thought he was still a class player and was a world class, stylish batsman in the 1950s and 60s.

Hmmm, someone who never stood or sat on the Chicken Run at Upton Park. Got plenty of Hammers friends, and their club has made huge efforts but to say they don’t have a significant element even still (but less than Millwall or Chelsea’s tbf) doesn’t stack up. We’ve got morons too (see Sala plane chant v Cardiff) plus https://www.thejc.com/news/southampton-football-fans-banned-over-antisemitic-abuse-directed-at-tottenham-supporters-flk7rwov https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-63134381 https://www.itv.com/news/2019-04-14/west-ham-anti-semitic-video-fans-life-time-ban-racist-chant-manchester-united-tottenham https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/59197801 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47144113

Quite, and West Ham are the Essex team by and large, apart from Colchester and the usual City/Utd/Arsenal plastics.

Fair point, might be time for Tonda to take a break if the case is playing on his mind. Still-like square pegs in round holes today and can’t afford it on -4.

Quite, whereas Dobbin played liked he’d been on the lash pre-match. Was useless at L2 Colchester too. Doesn’t look anywhere good enough to be a Southampton player.

Looked useless, joined by Captain Crap, Matsuki, Bragg and Scienza. Although that’s better from Bragg for Larin’s goal. Big Cyle clearly gives a shit.

Skate alert - it’s Corporate Ho 😉😜

Have a day off. Seriously. I didn’t agree with Jason’s professional and personal conduct but his two kids now grow up without a dad. When one of my close friends took his own life, I saw what it did to his kids and still does. And at least they didn’t have to see him ridiculed nationally.

Anthony Taylor retiring this week and moaning that the press, fans and especially ex-refs create a pressured and hostile environment. Referees so it to themselves in English football. Dozens of horror mistakes every weekend. They wouldn’t get away with their standards in any other industry or sectors.

Because he prefers Rhossli Bay to the Darwen monument.

More than a touch of the Spy who loved Me there, from Bach in 1977.

A skinhead in a West Ham shirt, covered in swastika tattoos and holding a can of Stella would have got at least 22k and north of 60% of the vote in that seat. Even Rupert Lowe could. Parliamentary enquiry is still ongoing, Nigel had another stropsie and a bin won 27% of the vote against him.

Context is key. You could argue if your family took up the right to buy scheme in the 1980s that Margaret Thatcher did - there’s a counter argument that the lack of re-investment into social housing has created the current crisis. Tony Blair’s government introduced the national minimum wage despite broadsheet claims it would cost 1.7m jobs (it didn’t) and the successful Sure Start centres, but many other policies carried on the Thatcher legacy of benefitting the middle classes and wealthy. So if you’re looking for politicians who really focused on the lowest paid and took a universal approach, you’re looking at Attlee/Bevan, and the consensus period up to 1976 when economic policies emphasised full employment and economics ran to the Keynesian model. Callaghan and Healey shifted to monetarism and public sector cuts to the role of the state to jump start an economy stagnating after the oil shocks, energy crisis and militant unions, and Thatcher accelerated that where you get to Lawson as CoE and the quote about unemployment being a price worth paying and the opening up of a north-south divide with de-industrialisation and shift to a heavily service-based economy.

I think Clement Attlee and Nye Bevan might have a claim there.