Ken Tone

Frighteningly, this seems almost plausible. I've just seen the future and it's horrible. I wouldn't be too suprised to see something like this at some grounds soon, as yet another way of ripping off fans to pay players' ridiculous wages. Fans could pay premium rates to send a message to appear on the big screen during a game. Hundreds could text Steeeve so it comes up on the screen every time De ridder gets the ball. In fact why stop there, why not pictures too? Dalek could send pictures of Hoddle, Dune of Thatcher, etc. Shudder.....and I thought drums would be the last straw.

IMO Guly was caught by the defender, but tried to stay up, and ran on a few paces, unbalanced, before falling. So the actual foul was maybe earlier than you realised.

Exactly ...plus the announcer said "minute's silence" just before the ref's first whistle, so most people did indeed think that was the start, even though the players were still running to get in position. The ref was stupid to blow that first time. It was unnecessary and caused the confusion.

I used to be quite rude to cold callers on the phone when I got a lot years ago, but the BT telephone preference service does at least keep the number down. Now when one does ring I just get rid of them politely and very quickly. No one likes working in a call centre ... it's a really lousy job .... but in the current jobs climate many have no choice, other than the dole, and at least they've chosen to work rather than live off the state. So to be rude to the poor sods, or to play them along with silly games, is unnecessarily cruel. Put yourself in their shoes. That said, someone who comes to a door that has a sign saying 'no cold callers' is just asking for trouble.

Well to be fair, lots of us, including me, were pretty damning of Wright-Phillips and Dyer. If you're referring to Barnard and Seaborne, personally I'm reserving judgment till I know more about what happened.

Quite. Trouble is, if they have enough talent there will always be some club willing to pay such players a fortune, regardless of how big a **** they are. Viz Barton, King etc. Unless they do smething serious enough to go to prison, they are effectively above the law. No fine really matters when players' wages are so high.

Exactly....as indeed Adkins has said himself. I confess to occasionally shouting for 'God's sake clear it' when we mess up passing in our own half and give the ball away, but the point of that style of play is to suck the opposition forward, to they leave space at the back, which either our passes eventually reach, or occasionally a ball over the top can exploit. I didn't think we played signficantly differently against Boro.... just a variation on the theme. I'm really tickled by how many posters on here are now saying how pleased they were when Adkins was appointed. I don't recall such public bucketloads of enthusiasm at the time. An awful lot of 20-20 hindsight! Personally I thought ..."Hmmm, not the big name (O'Neill etc) that was talked of, so obviously we didn't sack Pardew with such a person lined up as some speculated. Don't know much about Adkins, but well, let's see how he does." Pretty damn well seems to be the answer!

The possibilty of Scotland having its own time zone is the 'elephant in the room' issue. No politician dares suggest it. Uk government doesn't want to do anything that encourages talk of Scottish independence , and the SNP etc daren't push for it, as in reality if it happened, many Scots would simply have to change their work hours to fit with European/rest of UK time, regardless of what their clocks said. Scotland couldn't afford to be out of step with the rest of the UK. Scottish bankers, call centres, tourism sites, pretty much any firm that exports, etc., etc, would end up working at English office day times anyway .. and in turn many service industries, shops etc would too, to meet the needs of those workers. Personally I'd call the SNP's bluff and suggest it, but Cameron is presumably too scared. Given how unpopular the Tories already are in Scotland, it might just wipe them off the map completely.

It's a Dune thread ..started by a man who's posted over 13,000 times in a little over 2 years .. almost 500 times a month, ie 16 or 17 times a day, every day. Presumably sooner or later it will get round to slagging off ' loony lefties' and praising UKIP. Don't expect to take these threads too seriously. Think of it as being like Care in the Community.

As you say an interesitng article , but actually I think the second division (by whatever name) of the english league has been the 4th biggest in the world for attendances for quite some time. It annoys me that English TV and newspaper commentators etc give so much weight to, for example, the Italian league, when it is actually has fewer spectators. There may well be a high standard of football in Italy's Serie A, but who in England really cares about their results? Read many newspapers though and you're as likely to see reports about Italian teams as you are about the championship. Of course the reporters may just prefer a trip to Rome , to one to Cardiff I suppose! And as for Scottish teams, why is the SPL reported on before the championship, in England?

Fair point! You had gas boilers when you were a kid? Blimey. We'd only just done away with gas lighting when I was a kid! (and I'm only exaggerating a bit). More seriously there always were, and still are, tragedies with CO poisoning and Uncle Ken says everyone should have an alarm.

There's some lovely countryside in Lancashire within easy driving distance of Wigan, and you'd get a lot more house for your money there than you would in Hampshire. Or if you are a stereotypical footballer you could live in central Manchester or its Cheshire suburbs, and mix it in the high life with the big boys from United and City. All nearly always, it will be the wages that really matter in any transfer bid, much more than the fee. Our best chance of signing a really good, established, player this January is that, if we are still top or thereabouts, we may negotiate a contract that guarantees a wage rise if/when we go up.

Nice cartoon on there

It will be very cost ineffective and probably even less safe than using your unserviced boiler. I hope you've got a carbon monoxide alarm!

That argument is on par with people who say "I know someone who smoked 20 a day and lived till they were 90, so smoking can't be dangerous." The science is pretty conclusive that global warming/climate change is happening. In fact global warming may well actually cause our Uk climate to become more exteme both ways -- hotter summers and colder winters --especially if the Gulf Stream/Atlantic Drift is affected. It is that that keeps our climate so temperate compared with other places that are just as close or far from the poles and equator. What is still open to debate is the extent to which mankind's actions are causing this. That is where the vested interests come into play, from both sides. However, regardless of what you believe is the underlying cause of it, our actions can accelerate or slow it ... and there are even plans around that would have beeen silly science fiction only a few years back that could actually stop it -- from thousands of tiny mirror satellites to cloud seeding, etc.

Please explain. Surely a verdict is public information?

But I thought you were a UKIP supporter Dune? Are you paid to spout this stuff? It seems to be pretty much all you do, all day.

Ditto. 96.1 received well North of Winchester. Hampshire DAB - no chance.

He defnitely said 'record' , nothing to do with 'season', and he also definitely said 32,150, which isn't a record! But that had miraculously become 32,152 later, which is a record by 1.

And Solent as we drove home seemed to be saying 32,352 ...several times!

Given how ridiculously biased fans usually are, I thought this report on a West Ham forum was surpisingly fair. http://kumb.com/story.php?id=125757

I agree. Silly time to announce it last night, and why have they stopped announcing it routinely at the end of each game as they used to?

I think if you lose a loved family member it is a natural reaction to want to know exactly how and why. As a I understand it ,all the familes want is to see all the details. I do not believe they are seeking any financial gain, ut they might want to see certain individuals accept blame if they were at fault and that was covered up. Wouldn't you feel the same? Thee have been pages and pages of analysis and speculation over this tragedy. The consensus view eventually came to be that -- a) Lots of Liverpool fans turned up late because of road works on the route, and therefore lots were trying to get into the gound in a rush as the game kicked off. b) Ironically the police decided the situation outside the ground was therefore dangerous, with a risk of crushing, so opened the turnstiles/gates. c) However those entering the ground were all funnelled into a couple of pens in the middle of the stand, so although the numbers were below the capacity of the stand, many were squashed together in a few cages. d) As the tragedy unfolded the police response was still to treat it as a crowd control problem didn't open any gates in the fences and indeed may even have prevented some fans from climbing out to safety. This to menay epole is the main area in which the police were to blame -- treating victims as hooligans. There is no evidence as far as I am aware, that large numbers of Liverpool fans were there without tickets, any more than happens at any other game, nor that large numbers were drunk, any more than at any other game. In any event as I say the number inside the ground was below capacity. Those of you who are too young, will not realise the extent to which many grounds were a series of cages. It was not just a matter of perimeter fences. There were also fences running down the stands, diving the stand up into smaller pens.

Actually that's a self-fuliflling prophecy. I no longer go to away games because I got fed up with boorish fans standing , often on the seats, in front of me and my children. So, it;s hardly a surpris that the majority of away fans now want to stand . Those of us that don't want to, stop going. It's fine at St. Mary's of course. you can choose where to buy your 'seat'. Away... you're stuck with luck of the draw.

if you allow any legality in Argentina's claim to the Falklands based on the then pope giving all the western hemisphere to Spain and Portugal in 1480 something, then there are fair few other countries that owe Spain and Portugal a few bob. But since I suspect there's only you and me on here that give a damn, I think we'd better just agree to differ. The UN has ruled on this after all.