kyle04

Don't agree with walking off, England carried on playing with dignity and professionalism and handed out a humiliating defeat, although AFAIK none of the players heard the monkey chanting at the time, but the crowd were clearly very hostile. The sort of following some of these countries get is quite disturbing, and where Hungary is concerned, the culture of racism starts at government level who are quite hostile to ethnic minorities and immigration in general. The world's new found enlightenment isn't going to engulf countries like Hungary any time soon, so we can just content ourselves that we are better than them, on the pitch and as a nation.

That's right, I vaguely remember a James May programme that featured the Allegro, apparently it was the heater matrix or similar that BL had millions in the parts bin that it wanted to get rid of. The original design was far sleeker but to accommodate the heater it had to be made taller so to speak, hence the end product. Says it all really...

I don't think Djanepo's 2 chances were "sitters". The first one the ball was played slightly behind him at pace by Liv and he couldn't adjust his feet, sometimes those bobble in but not then. 2nd chance he had 2 shots that were blocked by last ditch (heroic?) defending. Yes he might have done better but overall not a disastrous performance by any means. I thought Armstrong was perhaps as wasteful with too many speculative shots, not that you can fault the intent but needs to be a little more selective. Pleased we got something from the game - two positive results now and I feel the team will only improve with time.

As yes , the Vanden Plas - show your neighbour's you're successful with a cheap grille and some wood on the door cappings. A perfect symbol of Britains decline post WW2.

Not sure about that, I watched in on the wireless.

Confused by the 7-2 quote, still big Ron was immense for both games.

Yep, I think it was 6-3 though?

Not quite adhering to the topic description as it was bad in the beginning, but this must be the winner (the car that was going to save BL) :

An intelligent and well presented summary I thought. Even though I voted for him back in the day, I'm no fan of the Butcher but he knows a shit load more about world politics than any cunt on here that's for sure (no offense).

The official line seems to be that he was busy making/taking other calls so delegated to an underling

Perhaps, the British in the Malayan peninsula were outnumbered and ill equipped, and the conditions were pretty horrendous. Also the leadership fell way short tactically. The Japanese were a formidable fighting force, something the British were certainly not used to. I think the Aghanistan "surrender" was pretty much pre-ordained though. Good point, air power in that sort of terrain would have been a game changer.

Our armed forces would have done though.

Didn't take to him at first, but he grew on me. It's an art to make comedy look off the cuff, and his mildly eccentric style was very British. RIP Sean, will be sadly missed.

The Taliban have said they'll be good this time though, so it may not be as bad as some think, they're even on twitter apparently. The timing of their advances coincided with the NATO withdrawal, hence the chaos, maybe if they had waited until the infidel had all gone the "transition" may have been more orderly. I'm not trying to be glib, they were always going to take over at some point, and the NATO forces couldn't just vanish into the night. I think if the UN are allowed reasonable access to monitor the situation in the future the country may have a chance of some progress. I hope the Taliban have learnt that they cannot harbor terrorists who would pose a threat to the West, or risk another 20 year occupation, although in reality I don't think the US in particular have the stomach for another foreign adventure anytime soon. Ironically, thanks to the US, they are probably now better armed than the British Army.

May have been a crucial weapon in their arsenal, if we capture a Taliban, we will bum him. Badly. War over in a week.

A bit harsh, this is not a Dunkirk situation when the BEF were almost driven into the sea by a superior force. All NATO member soldiers in Afghanistan were there as a support to the main US presence, militarily but mainly politically. Again, the Western powers had built a well equipped native army of 300,000, to put that into perspective that's twice as many personel as the entire UK armed forces. They all fled in the face of the "enemy" with no resistance. As a nation we've given that country 20 years, lost 454 dead and many more mentally scarred by the experience. Maybe another 10 or 20 years might have seen another outcome, but I doubt it.

It does look bad, I don't think the US could have imagined such a capitulation by the Govt forces though. Billions of $$ spent on training & state of the art equipment for 300,000 men , they can't be accused of leaving them without a paddle. If the Afghans haven't the will or the courage to stand up for their country given that, they never will. This was a once in a millenium opportunity for them to drag the country out of the dark ages, but I suppose the psychological spectre of the Taliban was not realized. From a purely Western POV, all those British, NATO and US troops killed, ultimately for absolutely nothing. What a fucking pointless waste.

Probably afraid of being beheaded, or worse. Who can blame them? Now the Russians will effectively have the major influence in the region, as planned many years ago no doubt.

Just what we need , a real 'orrible cunt what takes no messin' wiv players taking diabolical liberties. Kenny Jacket?

I think Ralph hasn't got a fucking clue. Baffling player selections (again) and a complete inability to make changes in time when the tide turns against us (yet again). From the middle of last season it's looked like he's only just turned up at the club. Defensively a shambles and no attacking threat whatsoever. A club with so many shit players needs a manager with a bit of savvy to have any chance in this division, and Ralph certainly hasn't got it. Little wonder players wanted to leave (aside form the greedy cunt factor). Can anyone honestly say we have improved since Puel left the club?

Echos of Vietnam when the US fled...

I remember Lee Rigby being "picked on", that's for sure, all forgotten now though, where's his mural..? My point , I thought, was quite clear - namely the comparison between the UK and US regarding racism, now and perhaps historically, if you really want to go down that road. I respect your passion for the subject, and I'm not being facetious, but the point here is perspective. "Hate crime figures are on the rise", a result of the most discredited and flawed legislation in the history of this country, please read the definition of a "hate crime", a purely subjective and very dangerous PC fudge that the police are spending far too much time "investigating". So you go on "speaking out" against racism, I'm sure it makes you feel a little more worthy, see you made me into Turkish junior with just 1 post (no offense Turkish but you seem to be the bad guy on this topic...)

Colin Kaepernick took the knee in 2016 as a protest against the murders of black people by the police. It had genuine shock value as it went against all tradition when the US anthem is heard at public events. Although not all shootings by the police on blacks were primarily racially motivated, as much due to the ridiculous gun culture in that country, which perhaps is a far more disturbing issue, never to be resolved it seems. For all its wealth and power, America remains an uncivilized and deeply divided country. Importing a gesture/movement from that kind of culture, although well meaning, was never going to seamlessly fit the relatively minor "problem" in the UK. The sometimes bitter arguments on this forum alone are testimony to that. This isn't the 1970's, young black men are not being targeted by the police, the NF are no more, Nick Griffin has had his day on Question Time and disappeared, ridiculed and humiliated. Non-white people are if anything over-represented in many sports, on merit alone, and also in other areas such as advertising, as a patronizing knee-jerk panic by big business to appear all inclusive, although their board rooms are still stuffed with white men. The reported examples of racism in this country seem be be largely confined to a few nasty social media posts. Really, is that it ? The US has routine death at the hands of public servants, we have name calling....