MatthewStiles

The OP a troll? you're having a laugh aren't you? Never mind. I would have liked to have seen a stronger side but considering we got Boro on Saturday I'll forgive the manager. It reminds me when the League Cup was sponsored by Worthington, people called it The Worthless Cup. Another point is that as far as I can tell most Euro leagues only have one cup competition and even then it tends to have a very low priority eg Copa del Rey in Spain.

Palace's last League Cup against Boro was attended by 5,448 so I would say it's a safe bet that we'll get more tickets.

Good article in the Guardian about Tariq Jahan. And I loved this comment, just for the EDL: "So it turns out that the one man who spoke for Britain this week, who defended the essential decency that George Orwell saw as the defining characteristic of Britain, is a Muslim. That should give us all pause for serious and humble thought."

Boris is the Mayor of London, he is responsible for the Met police. Tottenham blew up on Saturday Boris was on holiday. Enfield and Brixton blew on Sunday, Boris still on holiday. Monday, the Met Police gets overwhelmed, Boris is still on holiday. A joke. And this from The Guardian: "In the mid-to-late 80s, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson – not to mention David Cameron and his now chancellor George Osborne – were members of the notorious Bullingdon Club, the Oxford university "dining" clique that smashed their way through restaurant crockery, car windscreens and antique violins all over the city of knowledge....In his and Cameron's day, the Bullingdon was most notorious for heaving a weighty flowerpot through the window of a distinguished Oxford eaterie. Cameron, it is said, had already left the scene, but Johnson was so proud that for a time he claimed he was arrested for his part in these exploits. In fact, he simply hid in the shrubbery at the city's botanical gardens."

I think the post from EricB was satirising the reaction that sometimes comes from far-rightists when muslim extremists carry out atrocities.

Well on Radio 5 last night, they prefaced any speculation about those responsible by saying that it was just speculation and that there was as yet no real indication about who was responsible. Dune writes "A convert no doubt." There is a big difference there. By the way, the first edition of The Sun carried this on its front page http://twicsy.com/i/Cp6YK Yet another triumph for investigative journalism Murdoch style

I'm with you on this, Xavi is a class player with great taste and of course Messi is a force of wonder.

Mike's impressions weren't in the Rory Bremner class by a long way but it did get quite funny at the end when he interrupted his own impressions to tell people who he was supposed to be. Anyway, fair play to Mike for reminding Andy Gray of the row he had with him before the Newcastle game in 1993 (amazingly Sky had a policy of inviting comedians to be on their panel of pundits so Mike was on Sky for this one). Andy Gray had called Le Tiss a "luxury player". Matt comes on and scores 2 great goals, no make that 1 great goal and 1 one of the greatest goals ever. To be fair to Andy Gray I do remember an article by him before the 1998 World Cup that said Le Tiss should have been in the England squad. Keys then said that (more predictably) Phil Thompson went off on a rant about Matt being a luxury player before a match and rowing with Osman and then in the game Matt scored a hattrick in 20 minutes.

Actually, it's Lawrie and Mike Osman. Mike doing some pretty rough impressions, a few of the old memories from Lawrie eg about Alf Ramsey and Alan Ball

Just heard that Mick and Lawrie are guests on Keys and Grays show, starting now till 1pm

"So let me get this straight, the chairman sacks a manager 3 games into the season, ....... Just what will it take for some people on here to question the chairman? " Totally agree with you Daren. Living up here in London, I have loads of fans of other clubs coming up to me asking what on earth is going on.

I agree, definitely one of the best posters on this forum.

If you're reading Dunc, all the best and good luck. In solidarity

Ever heard of Suez and the invasion in 1956? At least Labour opposed that stupidity. The Tories organised Suez and supported the Iraq war. In fact, far more Labour MP's voted against the Iraq war than Tories.

I agree it was a shambles - overpriced, too loud music, not enough beer etc but I met some good mates there who I hadn't seen for years so was actually pleased I went there. However, reviews from other clubs fans are a bit mixed about the place. Doing a bit of googling I found that Bristol City fans had a great time there. See http://www.otib.co.uk/index.php?/topic/124452-silverspoons-at-wembley/ but a Villa fan warned it was a dump http://www.astonvilla.vitalfootball.co.uk/article.asp?a=7504013 Some Pompey fans are also warning it's a dump.

Hawksby and Jacobs can be pretty good as can Danny Kelly. Parry, Brazil etc are almost unbearable and Durham is a wind-up merchant. When Thierrry Henry didn't move to Barcelona a few years back, he said he was a bottler, cue indignant calls from Arsenal fans.

To shut up shop at 0-0 in a home game in the cup would have been pathetic. Saints put in a great performance today. Might as well be hanged for a sheep than a lamb

I always thought it was total rubbish too. Similarly, there is a story saying that West Ham fans hate Millwall partly because the Millwall docks carried on working in the 1926 general strike. I have never seen any evidence to support this story whatsoever but it has been repeated in papers like the Mail and the Times.

That incident is in the book. If I remember rightly, Matty was asked by Dave M to play a holding midfield type role which meant that he had to make more tackles than normal. Not being the greatest of tacklers, some of those tackles went in late hence the bookings. Luckily the press isn't making too much of this story really. I would be gutted for Matt if he lost his job with Sky Sports News.

They've been talking about this on TalkSport. Mike Parry is making a song and dance of it. Andy Townsend is saying that Matt was foolish but keeping it a bit more in perspective, pointing out that it was a common tactic to boot the ball out of play and then pressure the other team up in their half and that he was sure that a lot of this spread betting was going on. IMO Matt was out of order and I was very surprised to see it in the book. By the way, in the book you will see that it was Gordon Watson who organised the scam.

I thought it was a pretty good book and an entertaining read. It's also quite balanced in that, for example, he can see the reasoning behind Venables not fancying him for England as he had Gazza but Hoddle went to France in 98 without either Matt or Gazza. In fact, Hoddle gets a right slating for his time as Saints manager too for his lack of man-management skills. Other points of interest include Matty also understands why people feel he wasn't ambitious enough but points to his Guernsey background. His brothers had opportunities to become pro-footballers but couldn't face leaving the island. There are loads of funny anecdotes and Matty's laid back personality really does come through. It's quite a contrast with one of the first football auto-biogs I read "Ball of Fire" written by Alan Ball just after 1966. Bally came across as absolutely obsessed about football and about winning. Practising kicking a ball against the back wall until it was ptich black, getting upset about losing tiddley-winks etc. Of course 19c doesn't like it, I guess mainly because Lord Lowe comes out very badly in the book. As for lacking depth and insight, I'm not too sure. I read the Tony Adams book which has been hailed as a great work but apart from it being very honest about his alcoholism it was quite a typical footballers book I thought.

That was quite a bizarre ending. I was in the West Ham end as I couldn't get a ticket for the Saints end and I have a strong suspicion that Monkou deliberately scored the own goal that turned a 2-3 win into a 3-3 draw. The game had already been interrupted because of a pitch invasion and so when the match was restarted Saints already knew that they were staying up with just a draw. As soon as the goal was scored by Monkou the ref blew the whistle and all the players ran to the tunnel as the fans came on. I remember Monkou rising up above all the other players and not under much of a challenge (if any) he gently nodded the ball into the corner.

Ted was a bit before my time as well so I was tempted to vote for Lawrie on the basis that on getting back to Division 1 we finished 14th in 1979, the next season 8th, then 6th, 7th, 12th, 2nd, and 5th. However, the case for Ted though has been well put so I await further contributions before casting a vote.

Voteforpedro If your ticket is still available I would like to buy it. Sorry, can't find the pm function here.

Any answer to this as I am in the same boat as Hatch? Cheers in advance