Leaderboard

I'm off to Scratby in a couple of weeks to recharge my batteries...

SHABBA!

You're right, it wasn't a fair deal; if you hid your ignorance you couldn't post anymore.

Its been quite a journey. Band ----> Football Club----> City named after them.

VAR is the single worst thing to ever happen to football.

Tbf, we’d have taken that this season over “you score, we won’t score”

Apologies if this has been raised already, but I cannot be bothered to read 14 pages. It's a bit ironic that the Stade de France is used every year to host 2/3 of the Six Nations Rugby Union matches without (so far as I am aware) any trouble. The stadium is generally full for these matches and, for those against the nations from the British Isles at least, there is a sizeable contingent of 'away' fans, if you want to call them that. I imagine that a large number of the French supporters at those games are from the provinces too. The stadium doesn't relocate for this, so is still in the same 'dangerous' neighbourhood of Saint-Denis. Although presumably there is never the same issue with forged tickets. Maybe there is trouble and it just goes unreported, as rugby doesn't attract the same news interest or whatever. It just seems that sometimes, trouble follows football around like a bad smell.

Well that’s a load of old pony. PLM got banned from the Bell for smoking a Gauloises in the downstairs disabled toilet. 100% a Glass House man now.

The problem with all the debates over matters such as this is that there never seems to be roomfor any nuanced debate. It either has to be the fans fault, or it has to be the authorities fault. Truth is its nearly always the result of a combination of factors, as was the case with Hillsborough (the ultimate perfect storm of decaying infrastructure, incompetence, panic and years of hostility between authorities and fans) and also Heysel (primary cause rioting fans but also a stadium not fit for purpose). in each case there will be primary causes but there will also be contributory factors. Here, a/the primary cause seems to have been poor organisation and the French police responding in an entirely predicatible way that will come as no surprise to those who have encountered them but clearly the influence of local youths was a contributory factor as was the tendancy of liverpool fans to travel in large numbers without tickets and for some within their number to try to blag their way into grounds. They did it in Athens for one of the previous finals. They still do this and indeed whilst I have no idea if its still the case, a couple of years ago someone I know who worked at Carrow Road said that there are 2 games a year where they put extra staff on the turnstiles to stop fans jumping over them (due to past experience) and those games are Liverpool and Everton. Its not black and white and shouldn't be completely ignored as a factor, even if the authorities responded to it in a way that was well below the standard one might expect.

If Aarons goes he goes with my blessing. He gives everything to the team and he’s been such a great servant for us and advert for our youth development. I just hope he gets a move that fits his ability and potential. He’s not a Bournemouth or a Forest with respect. He deserves a larger move and he won’t let that larger club down

Max’ work ethic is phenomenal, I hope he’s being used as an example for our other young players. Top bloke and hard worker!

Nobody claims Ukraine was ever 'corruption free'. I would say that it's corruption free relative to Russia. Neither would I say Ukraine's democracy was perfect. It is infinitely superious to Russia's though, which is basically non-existent in reality now. Curious then that you are so determined to excuse Putin's illegal war of conquest. Ukraine is not 'losing the war badly'; if it was 'losing the war badly' it would be over by now instead of Russian forces having had to have given up on many of their original ambitions on account of their own tremendous losses. Negotiated peace is great; I'm all in favour of Putin delivering this by a complete withdrawal from Ukraine instead of pursuing his illegal war. As Horsefly says, Ukranians are fully entitled to fight for their own country and I'm fully behind making sure they are as well armed as possible in pursuing that endeavour in order to ensure that Putin's attempted genocide fails. As to debating how the horror could been avoided, that's easy: a bullet in Putin's brain.

If that is true then it makes me think the people at the club are pretty thick then. Were they expecting nobody would notice? Or were they hoping they could convince the local press to sit on it for a period? If so they might want to start giving them interviews again...

Yeah, they're named after the band... Sarah cracknell fancied a bit of a side hussle.

This. For sure.

Someone beat me to their message board, but here are a few of their responses when asked what to expect if Attanasio invests/buys: There are 28 owners of MLB teams that aren't corporations. Of the other 27 owners I'd really only want to trade Attanasio for 6. He's clearly a better owner than half the other teams. He seems to be a smart guy and appears to be committed to owning the team for a long time. I would think you could do worse. I don't know anything about football in England. I doubt he's going to spend a crazy ton of money to improve the team but he probably won't be a penny pinched either. He's generally a smart guy. I assume he will hire smart people. And while it's easy to be skeptical, I will say that under Attanasio's run, the Brewers have been pretty successful, especially recently. Maybe the most important role of an owner is to choose the right people to run the organization and Mark Attanasio seems to be, at minimum, pretty good at that job. I think the Brewers franchise is one of the most well-run professional sports teams in the United States. Attanasio has continued to invest in the organization in a responsible, long-term outlook. Throughout his time as owner of the Brewers he has earned the admiration of the employees of the organization as well as continued to center the importance of fan experience. I think the only reason Brewers fans would like more from him, is that they would like him to spend more money on free agents. The Brewers organization is in a much better place than it was when Attanasio bought the team. They have more engagement with the community than just about any club in the sport. They're successful on the field. He seems like a nice man with a good family. He said he wanted to be competitive every year, and the Brewers are just that. That the Brewers aren't players for the top of the free agent classes hasn't hurt them in putting together competitive rosters. And the only reason he isn't listed as the best is because they haven't won the WS yet. If he can pull that off than I'd have zero complaints at all. That's a big mountain to climb for a small market franchise like ours.

I think it depends doesn't it? On the one hand we have an interview that most people accept was posed, in which Webber states some exciting news will come to NCFC fans in 2-3 weeks. If this does relate to the investment, then it suggests that we are further down the line and things are pretty certain in terms of the investment. So far, that's all we know it is. Now. When you make a statement like that, you know people are going to get super curious. People are going to run over every detail they can claw at with a fine toothcomb. And no doubt, people will look to the usual hotels where prospective players are put up, keep an eye on comings and goings from Carrow Road or Colney, or the airport. It'd only need one employee at the club to find out and tell a friend etc. They may not have looked for it to be out there, but they hardly hid their guests either. And they sat, we assume, all of the main players out in the air, rather than in a more secretive box. I don't think they have tried to hide anything particularly. Might be a way of gauging the response to investment from such a group perhaps?

A lot in here chimes with what Field said! 😉

Its been a zombie party ever sine 2019 and the great misguided purge.

Those areas have largely been populated by Russians since the Russian genocide by famine against the Ukranian farmers that lived there if you really want to go back, but even so the points about the population of ethnic Russians is wholly irrelevant to the quesion of sovereignty; Russia never put any allegations or case for intervention based on mistreatment by Ukraine of Russian speakers to the UN because the invasion is based entirely on lies. Russia has embarked on an illegal war of conquest and nothing more. Doubtless the historians will have a great time raking over it, but that's of no consequence to those on the receiving end of daily Russian war crimes in the sovereign state of Ukraine.

Instability in Dobresk and Luhansk has been purposely fomented by Russia as a justification for invasion following the initial annexation of Crimea in 2014. Pointing to that to excuse Putin's invasion is like saying a cop's right to arrest you for not having a roadworthy vehicle after he has smashed your tail lights. As to repetition of the same old, pots and kettles spring to mind when you say that. Russia is a permanent member of the UN security council. If there was any merit to any of its claims then it could have taken them to the UN in a bid to get a resolution for a UN mission. If it presented the evidence then it could have carried a motion of the security council, and if any of the permanent members vetoed then they would have had to answer questions over why and Russia's unilateral actions would have had some legitimacy. It didn't even make an attempt because all of it is lies. Putin's whole invasion is based on fabrication. The fact you enable it so enthusiastically makes you either complicit or a fool.

You mean about some people not being happy? 🙂 I've led medium sized organisations in the past, the aim was always to have a harmonious working environment with everyone on message, but such is human nature a very rare beast to attain. But you tries your best (to be the best you can be, natch). I now restrict myself to leading small charities where such harmony is usually easier to maintain. 😉

Eamon Dunphy made Roy Keane look like Desmond Tutu. I remember being in the Barclay and the Police had sent the Drug Squad along to mingle in the crowd for when the inevitable trouble happened. And from what I remember a few of the local hard boys like Joey Sharpe and ray Pace turned up to sort out the Millwall lot. Spilled over as far as Rosary Road from what I remember. We had parked outside my Brother's house on St Leonards Road (opposite side of the road to the Nest) and were worried about the car with bottles flying about.

Really? If they were that bothered then would they have paraded them in the Director's Box on Sunday? It's not like he's not a recognisable figure what with owning an MLB franchise. It was always likely to be picked up by someone.

That's nothing to do with strategy; that's everything to do with insufficient capital to simultaneously improve chances of securing a foothold in the Premier League and to safeguard the club's financial situation in the event that safety in the Premier League is not achieved. Overall, given we have now got yo-yoing down to a fine art, this puts the club in a position where it can potentially secure a foothold in the Premier League in time with patience, persistence, learning from mistakes, and some long-overdue luck, or potentially our excellent track record for being capable of being promoted into the Premier League of late will attract investment on good terms for the club to move onto the next level.

Can you please identity the strategic actions taken by Webber that brought about the quickfire relegations to follow ?

One lump or two 😂

I have done so many times before, but you merely repeat the same rubbish so there's no way I'm going to waste my time boosting your fragile ego. The Ukrainian people wish to fight to protect their sovereign land from an illegal invasion, and it is absolutely right that democratic law-abiding countries support them in doing so. You have to be a fool of extraordinary proportions to think that Putin would stop at annexing the Donbass region. He has stated very clearly that he considers Ukraine to be a non-country that belongs to the Russian empire. Other countries are clearly also on his list for invasions, such as Moldova. The REALITY is that appeasing Putin would guarantee many more horrors to come. Your analysis doesn't even reach shallow in its lack of depth.

What!? Saint Etienne is a football team? 🙂

For the Wordle guys.

Arena development would be cool. It's a completely different topic I know but Norwich has been crying out for a bigger gig venue as long as I can remember. Not massive. But maybe 4-5000.

It’s getting drunk in a tent outside the venue pretending to watch the cricket because it’s so boring is what it is

Of course it should go. It should be there to correct wrong decisions but they don't do it, so if you're a Huddersfield fan today you can't put it down to poor refereeing, instead you put it down to corruption, what else is left? You'd be more distraught as a Huddersfield fan knowing VAR was in place today than if it wasn't. You can't celebrate goals properly, it's a complete farce, the refereeing is inept and i've just heard Jon f*cking Moss is going to be Manager of PL refereeing, which tells you all you need to know. Closed club.

I wasn't excited by Cullum, he always came across as a chancer, Delia & Michael made the correct decision as far as he was concerned.

Who organised this crap stag weekend?

Get yourself some Katsu curry dirty fries from the kiosk next to the bingo/arcade Nutty.😄 My personal recommendation.😆

Can we leave our front doors unlocked again, and all pop round next door for a cup of sugar? 🤣 Apples

Yup, have said a few times that if Cantwell had Aarons's mentality, he'd already have had such a move and gone with his position in the graces of us as fans well and truly guaranteed.

😂 My socks have been laughed off my feet.

To be fair that's the first thread he has started in several hours. Suffering severe withdrawal symptons, eased now by a pointless thread start up. I was in Dubai in January, he didn't mention that though. 💚💛

You make me laugh, of all the countries cities, I find Liverpool interesting, a great weekend destination, and the people friendly. Together with United they seems to have a very strong belief that they are entitled to be one of the top teams in the country. To be fair their management structure has done a great job for a number of years.

Read that wrong!

Honestly, I don't remember anyone being excited about it. Mainly because it became pretty clear, very quickly, that it was an almost impossible deal. For someone supposedly so well versed in financial affairs, Cullum's offer was... well, quite frankly, pathetic. He literally wanted a controlling stake in the club in return for putting £20m into the playing squad. That was it. Essentially valuing the club at £00.00. That was back in 2007. It just needs to be left there really. It was a huge non-event. It was essentially a huge con and pretty much an insult to the club to be valued at nothing. What we are seeing at the moment, if the reports are accurate, is entirely different. It is exactly what our current owners have said they were looking for previously. Someone willing to invest into the club, to show their commitment and intention first. Am I excited, not just yet. Once this investment deal is done, and we get the detail and we find out more. Then I'll get excited. It looks good, it feels good - so you can't really blame anyone for getting a bit excited about it. This isn't just some person with money and a vague interest in football/soccer. This is someone who is part of a business that has nearly 20yrs worth of experience running sports teams.

I think we are both coming from a similar standing so don't want to get into a disagreement here, but just to clarify, she has recouped her loans but has still invested other money in the club, in the past it has been quoted as low millions. The nephew tom thing, whilst he is a director I thought she had recently rescinded the idea of passing the club onto him, but I may be wrong as I'm just going on what has been said on here and it's about as reliable and contradictory as Twitter so it's not a hill I'd die on...

God, I hope we do - loans give you access to players you can’t otherwise afford to sign. Just because they don’t always completely work isn’t a reason not to use them, otherwise you’d not do transfers at all after last summer!! I’ll go with anything that gives an advantage over the rest.

Some disgraceful comments and absolute ****e being written in here. Have a word with yourselves.

Of course they have and yes FCC you know you were being sarcastic. Funny how 60,000 Rangers fans managed to avoid such scenes in Seville for their euro final.