The Football.....

[AndyRM]

I'm only having a wind up! Fair play to Newcastle, they deserve a trophy and were the best team on the day! It was good to see Rangers beat that lot at their own place. Especially on a certain weekend they celebrate the patron saint of their homeland!

Other than the novelty of following Scotland's youngest professional club who enjoyed a meteoric rise through the leagues (albeit not as good as Gretna's) I'm curious as to why you follow them?

 

[Accy cyclist]

Other than the novelty of following Scotland's youngest professional club who enjoyed a meteoric rise through the leagues (albeit not as good as Gretna's) I'm curious as to why you follow them?

That business of Rangers not being the original Rangers is long forgotten. You're the first one I've heard mention it in must be 5 years, since Rangers last won the SPL. I have mentioned on this thread before about my following of Rangers. It started when my grandma used to buy the Sunday Post. When I went to her house in the 1960's I'd see her reading the held up paper and see the back page of football reports which was always about Rangers and Celtic I found, after reading the paper after she'd read it. I was only 5, 6,7, so I seemed to think that both teams were somehow important to the town of Blackburn where she lived. Blackburn Rovers were unknown to me, but Rangers and Celtic seemed important. Moving forward to my secondary school days, we had a rivalry between Blackburn and Burnley fans, being closer in distance to Blackburn, but Rovers were in division 3 then while Burnley were in the first division, so they had a fair support in school. Not following the crowd I started watching Blackburn. I bought a blue, white and red Rovers scarf similar to a Rangers one. That scarf rekindled my back page Sunday Post days and I've followed them ever since, albeit it in spirit rather than in person. I remember an old bloke I knew who died a few years ago in his late 80's, supporting Bury FC and Queens Park Rangers. He was born in Bury and liked QPR as he told me he wrote to many clubs once about a certain thing, with only QPR replying to him, so he followed them from him receiving a reply to his letter in the late 1960's to his death a few years ago, watching QPR on quite a few occasions when they played at Blackburn, Burnley, Preston, Blackpool and Bolton and especially at Bury once, he told me.

 

[AndyRM]

That business of Rangers not being the original Rangers is long forgotten. You're the first one I've heard mention it in must be 5 years, since Rangers last won the SPL. I have mentioned on this thread before about my following of Rangers. It started when my grandma used to buy the Sunday Post. When I went to her house in the 1960's I'd see her reading the held up paper and see the back page of football reports which was always about Rangers and Celtic I found, after reading the paper after she'd read it. I was only 5, 6,7, so I seemed to think that both teams were somehow important to the town of Blackburn where she lived. Blackburn Rovers were unknown to me, but Rangers and Celtic seemed important. Moving forward to my secondary school days, we had a rivalry between Blackburn and Burnley fans, being closer in distance to Blackburn, but Rovers were in division 3 then while Burnley were in the first division, so they had a fair support in school. Not following the crowd I started watching Blackburn. I bought a blue, white and red Rovers scarf similar to a Rangers one. That scarf rekindled my back page Sunday Post days and I've followed them ever since, albeit it in spirit rather than in person. I remember an old bloke I knew who died a few years ago in his late 80's, supporting Bury FC and Queens Park Rangers. He was born in Bury and liked QPR as he told me he wrote to many clubs once about a certain thing, with only QPR replying to him, so he followed them from him receiving a reply to his letter in the late 1960's to his death a few years ago, watching QPR on quite a few occasions when they played at Blackburn, Burnley, Preston, Blackpool and Bolton and especially at Bury once, he told me.

I like that, particularly the QPR thing. A mate of mine (from Boro) is a Villa fan because they were playing at the Riverside and kids in the away end got in for a quid, so being skint he went with them and it's stuck since, and that was back in the ridiculous days when they had Ravanelli.

You've probably not heard Rangers chat like that because everyone wants to pretend it didn't happen. I forget who it was, but one club lost out on their place in the Third Division to accommodate Rangers. The whole thing was a total fiasco but everyone agreed that punting them to the juniors would have been stupid and potentially dangerous.

 

[PaulB]

I think we saw yesterday the enormous gulf between women footballers and their male counterparts. This was in a game at Anfield between a team of Liverpool legends against Chelsea legends and both teams played with a female although not for the whole game. Now bear in mind these were older male players (at least 2 were 58 years old) and some - Jimmy Floyd and Eider Gudjohnson in particular - didn't look like they'd restrained themselves in the dining room! The females are current players so should be fitter and huge portions of the 58,000 crowd gave the women a massive welcome when they were introduced. It was obvious from the first minute that they are miles and miles off the men on the pitch even though they were bigger than some of them, Jay Spearing, Yossi Benayoun and Dennis Wise in particular and younger than all of them. In the end, it was two goals from that gangly awkward player Liverpool brought on that was the difference between the two teams in a disappointing game, a player who even at 44 years old could probably do a better job than their current front two of Nunez and Diaz. Come back, Peter Crouch, all is forgiven.

 

[Accy cyclist]

So Gillingham part company with ex Accy long term boss John Coleman after only 2 wins in 14 games and replace him with Gareth Ainsworth who only managed 5 wins in 22 games at Shrewsbury! 🤔 It seems Gareth Ainsworth wasn't sacked, instead he resigned to move to Gillingham, dropping down a division in the process!! 🤔

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cr42y3wlrnko

 

[Accy cyclist]

Something tells me John and Jimmy will be back at Stanley before the start of next season!! 🤔

 

[Lightning CycleQueen]

International break is over. Back to the football

 

[No Ta Doctor]

International break is over. Back to the football

International break? Some of us enjoyed a Champions League quarter final comeback V Real Madrid yesterday 😉

 

[AndyRM]

Incredible scenes in Newcastle today as an estimated 300k folk brought the city to a standstill to celebrate their League Cup triumph.

My personal favourite moment was Howe highlighting and naming the backroom staff on stage at the Town Moor. A classy gesture from an incredible manager.

His departure at some point is inevitable, but I hope that he and the players in the side currently have felt the love from the Geordie faithful and stick around for a good few seasons to see where this particular journey takes them.

There have been many great players and managers at the club since I moved here in 2003, and they've come close to glory a few times, but this genuinely feels like the start of something rather than another false dawn.

 

[PaulSB]

I don't really know what to say about my lot, Rovers.

John Eustace left for Derby, who are giving themselves a fighting chance of staying up. They have a game in hand and could be out of the bottom three on Wednesday night.

Rovers have dropped from 5th to 11th under Valerien Ismael with four defeats and a draw, 1 point from 15.

There was suspicion amongst the support, including myself, that Ismael was employed because he would fail. It appears the club doesn't want promotion and he will be the fall guy. In his first, unscripted, TV interview when asked about his three year contract Ismael responded he only expects to be at Ewood for 8 - 9 months.

We have Boro at home on Friday night. They have everything to play for. Ismael has lost the dressing room and the support already. A joint statement by fan groups was made calling for the board to stay away from games to avoid conflict. The club issued a statement saying they would be at Ewood on Friday.

When Rovers go a goal down it will turn toxic. The whole management team, on or off field, will be targeted.

After all the ownership turmoil of the past 15 years, Ismael's appointment is the last straw for many fans, including me.

 

[StuAff]

I don't really know what to say about my lot, Rovers.

John Eustace left for Derby, who are giving themselves a fighting chance of staying up. They have a game in hand and could be out of the bottom three on Wednesday night.

Rovers have dropped from 5th to 11th under Valerien Ismael with four defeats and a draw, 1 point from 15.

There was suspicion amongst the support, including myself, that Ismael was employed because he would fail. It appears the club doesn't want promotion and he will be the fall guy. In his first, unscripted, TV interview when asked about his three year contract Ismael responded he only expects to be at Ewood for 8 - 9 months.

We have Boro at home on Friday night. They have everything to play for. Ismael has lost the dressing room and the support already. A joint statement by fan groups was made calling for the board to stay away from games to avoid conflict. The club issued a statement saying they would be at Ewood on Friday.

When Rovers go a goal down it will turn toxic. The whole management team, on or off field, will be targeted.

After all the ownership turmoil of the past 15 years, Ismael's appointment is the last straw for many fans, including me.

It's hard to see what Venky's actually want with the club. There are all kinds of bad owners- we've had a few at Pompey, as is well documented- but they're just mystifying. Not a con job, not megalomanical, not impoverished nor impoverishing, without actually investing in club or personnel, not seemingly clueless nor seemingly having one. What do they want? When do they want it? They don't know, neither does anybody else. Some in the Pompey fan base have been frustrated by the Eisners, how long it took to get back into the Championship…well, given the state of so many clubs (that lot down the road currently a prime example, and poor old Reading might go under), slow and steady remains rather attractive to my eyes. Michael Eisner and family actually seem to give a toss about doing club ownership properly. Relegation wouldn't throw us under the bus, and we're not going to get burnt reaching for the Premier League. Shame others haven't caught on.

 

[YMFB]

As a villain I’m very happy, still in the Champions League and FA cup at the beginning of April. Obviously we would like to finish the prem in a champions league spot, but that’s going to be a stretch.

UTV

 

[Accy cyclist]

We have Boro at home on Friday night. They have everything to play for. Ismael has lost the dressing room and the support already. A joint statement by fan groups was made calling for the board to stay away from games to avoid conflict. The club issued a statement saying they would be at Ewood on Friday.

When Rovers go a goal down it will turn toxic. The whole management team, on or off field, will be targeted.

The Burnley fans around here are referring to Ismael as 'agent Ismael', joking that he's a Dingle who's wangled his way into Ewood Park to destroy Rover's hopes of promotion this season and beyond, if they're stupid enough to not sack him. Obviously he isn't, but you can't blame them for mocking Rovers relegation form since the useless idiot took over! There's something fishy about why they didn't keep that 'interim' manager on ( I can't remember his name) seeing as he was doing ok and instead decided to employ this useless bozo, knowing that he was a useless bozo from his previous records. 🤔

 

[Dave7]

I must mention the Merseyside Derby and THAT dreadful tackle that didn't get a straight red.
Everyone and all the pundits say it was a red. Blimey, even Duncan Ferguson said "it was a red all day long".
A typical Derby and Lpool, although having 74% posession only managed one goal after a moment of Jota magic.

 

[AndyRM]

I dunno if I'm just watching this differently, but I don't see it as a red? 50/50 which he wins cleanly, and sure his follow through is a bit hefty but I've seen worse go unpunished.

A yellow seems about right to me.