Crazy Diamond

Atmosphere can always be better, but this '12th man' rubbish is the type of cliche the blue few live for.

Bear-baiting used to be very popular back around the time of the industrial revolution, if I recall my GCSE history correctly.

There certainly were. Off the top of my head... - Prutton missing that open goal at West Brom - Imploding at 2 - 0 up to lose 3 - 2 at home to Villa - Crouch getting sent off at Palace - Being 2 - 0 up against Middlesbrough with a minute to play and drawing 2 - 2 (R*dknapp's first game in charge) - The defeat at Fratton - Getting done over 4 - 0 by United in the FA Cup quarter-final (my 16th birthday, cheers guys...) - The abysmal display at Watford in the Carling Cup - The appointment of Steve Wigley Probably the worst I can remember. Administration was less painful.

He had a very good game against Liverpool that season, late '04? He scored and set up Crouch, I seem to remember him superbly robbing Pellegrino in midfield, in a 2 - 0 win.

Remember hearing the news. Such a shame.

Don't think I've seen it posted here, apologies if I'm wrong, but there's a couple of good audio interviews with MLT and Beattie by Barry Glendenning. I think there are videos somewhere too. Beattie is still looking for a coaching role, he opens his interview by talking about a trip to coach in the States he's recently bee on, and along with the usual MLT stuff he talks about Soccer Saturday which he describes as a dream job. http://acast.com/guardianfootballmeets/guardian-football-meets-matt-le-tissier http://acast.com/guardianfootballmeets/guardian-football-meets-james-beattie Dean Windass' interview is also very good, discussing his battle with depression.

I was best mates with the journo's brother. Had no idea she had gone into journalism!

Advise him that his team need to repeat their opening day performance from last season

Think you've spoken too soon unfortunately.

Enjoy the game tonight mack rill, particularly looking forward to hearing about how both teams get on in the centre of the pitch by the dugouts!

Signalling problem. Given they were doing engineering works in the area the weekend before, I think someone f*cked up... I was travelling to London on Monday to have a go at doing some freelance work. £100 a day and it cost me £70 for a return. Wow. Stupidly enough a one day return costs £70 but a weekly ticket is £120. Job was crap anyway so I'm not doing it anymore! Can't say I missed that commute but one observation I do have is that there are loads more passengers for my old train at Shawford. Seems the rising fares aren't putting anyone off.

Andy Awful's stock rises then - fantastic! Some news coming in about someone closely connected to the club putting a £3000 bet on the match...

I mentioned it a few posts ago - the disease of delusion down there is strong. Should have stayed at Wimbledon.

Time must fly by down at the station PC Lou!

Good for him. Better make himself worth buying.

F*cking hell, who's that lard arse on the right?

The disease of delusion has grabbed Matt Tubbs. He's told Solent that he thinks they can get into the play-offs.

According to Mark Warburton they want to rely on stats, because the Brentford Chairman owns a football statistics company. Whilst there is something to be said about stats in football, I'm pretty sure it'll never go the way of sabermetrics, Billy Beane and the Oakland A's. Apart from anything else it seems ridiculous that a manager that could well deliver promotion has had his nose put so out of joint that he wants to leave come what may. I have to say on a personal level I find stats incredibly boring thanks to their massive over-use in football. If you have 99% possession and don't score, the other team score with their 1%, what's the point? As for heat maps... Jesus wept.

Three years on but the future is bright at Portsmouth. Look at their youth team in action tonight, approaching half time they're only 3 - 0 down to Wimbledon!

I've just seen the 'UKIP: The First 100 Days' programme, and I watched it because the number of complaints made me curious. Something tells me that there in lies the problem. It was deliberately inflammatory so as to get complaints and get people talking about it, thereby increasing the number of viewers. I did wonder to myself what would happen should we exit the EU and the part where Airbus pull out of the UK made my blood run a tad colder I must say. I'm Euro-sceptic but not to the extent where I think full withdrawal from the EU is a good idea. Apart from that I thought it was a very badly disguised attack on UKIP and not a lot more, but what should have I expected from a programme that calls itself a 'fictional documentary' - an oxymoron if ever there was such a thing. I'm not a UKIP voter. I never have been and I never will be. I can however understand why people are so ****ed off with it. I don't think any broadcaster other than Channel Four would have even dreamt of it that's for sure.

I was only there the other week, looks a lot different.

MLG

Contrafibularities.

It's an explosive subject.

My thoughts are as follows: - What the f*ck is the point? - Have people nothing better to do? - Why can't we just concentrate on supporting our team and trying to get into the Champions League? - It makes us look bitter when the reality is we're doing better without Adam Lallana I'm not a great philosopher but then again better than anyone who would think this rubbish up or support it.