TheGunnShow

Nothing wrong with that statue, it's tastefully done.

If Forest take legal action I'd hope they get nailed. They pretty much brought the game into disrepute without providing a shred of evidence. It would set a dreadful precedent not just across football, but indeed sport in general if it were to go to court where clubs with even a justified grievance would kick off over any egregious refereeing error.

What I want to know is "what in the Kentucky Fried F*cking hell was @The Great Mass Debater on to come with that as a dream?". I mean, when I was taking ZMP capsules as a supplement I'd have some seriously wacky and incoherent/inconsistent shizz flying around in my dreams, but this????

Lettuce pray for a series of heart attacks then.

Ipswich? Total losers. Lock them up! I love birds. I love big yellow birds. I have the best yellow birds. Vlad tells me what wonderful yellow birdies I have.

Never been drunk in my life. Wouldn't be hard to get me drunk though as I pretty much am teetotal. But it might not be the best thing they could do as my mouth's a loose enough cannon when sober.

Herodotus famously wrote that the Persians would discuss weighty matters twice, initially when soused and usually under the influence of wine, then sober the next day. If they still were in agreement after being sober, they'd go ahead. There's not much evidence to say this is really the case, but it's a jolly amusing story if nothing else.

I'm sure Herodotus and the Persians would have some fun with this. 😉

A historic day on German land where a split country was finally reunified on October 3rd, so understandable (as opposed to November 9th when the Berlin Wall fell down, as that coincided with quite a few events that were anything but glorious in German history, such as the defeat of the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 or indeed the start of Kristallnacht in 1938). As said, St George's Day and St. Andrew's Day are bewildering from my perspective as their patron saints didn't seem to have anything to do with the country in question. At least you can say the Day of German Unity is a pretty seminal (and indeed somewhat unique as reunification of a country is a rare event worldwide) date in German history.

Yeah, using historic old battles is not a bad idea, and I'd say the summer and winter solstice should be worth considering as bank holidays too. I'd also make any election day a bank holiday too.

Does it really have any meaning? We're talking about a "patron saint" who lived two thousand miles away whose name adorns another country entirely. Saint David was Welsh. Saint Andrew baffles me a bit, considering he's also managed to be the patron saint of Romania as well, and Saint Patrick was in Ireland for plenty of time and died there. So personally I understand two of them, but find Saints Andrew and George odd.

How is it not fun? You've got a day scheduled for rest and recreation - how on earth can it not be fun?

Then why not just scatter bank holidays relatively evenly throughout the year? Maybe we should change the colours on it? That should trigger a few of them into action. 😉

Agree that all patron saints should be treated equally. Not sure why we celebrate any of the feckers, to be honest.

Both the handball and offside rules are absolutely FUBAR as they currently stand and need to go back to earlier editions of said Laws, but I actually think VAR causes a different problem no-one seems to have mentioned yet, namely the proclivity to referee by freeze-frame instead of taking a holistic look at the incident again, especially when it comes to tackles and handballs. In plenty of the times where a handball is given in the box due to the arm moving towards the ball it's been due to running or bracing/standing still rather than any remotely deliberate attempt to play the ball with the hand or arm. And in some tackling cases (the obvious one with us was Giannoulis against Bournemouth with the red card on Pearson) any tackle that's landed slightly over the ball has been instantly given as a red card even if it's just mistimed or the opponent knocked the ball away. For me, that's way too strict an application of law as it's instantly considering malice on what are often just committed challenges, so they're letting the micro overrule the macro in the application of VAR.

*starts randomly singing Sachsen-Anhalt by Rainald Grebe upon seeing this thread*

Think my favourite stat there, regardless of club, was when German side Energie Cottbus fielded a starting eleven in the Bundesliga with no Germans in it (home against VfL Wolfsburg in April 2001).

I'm Hungary for country-related spelling errors but there's Norway you got that right. 😉

Portugal - Ivo Pinto France - Cedric Anselin Germany - Marco Stiepermann Spain - Borja Sainz Netherlands - Fernando Derveld Belgium - Ritchie De Laet Poland - Przemyslaw Placheta Norway - Erik Fuglestad Sweden - Martin Olsson Finland - Teemu Pukki Brazil - Gabriel Sara Argentina - Emi Buendia

The Knut that invented the hissing swear filter can funking rot in hello. 😉

Crikey, I know Bolton's not the wealthiest of places but now you mention it... 😉

Can't fault the character of this lot, even if the execution can be patchy on occasion.

Considering the size of the town/urban area, I'd think Grimsby Town (yes, I know it's in Cleethorpes) is one that's struggling a bit compared to the days when Alan Buckley was in charge. On a similar scale, someone mentioned Plymouth but I'd also throw Exeter City in there - they've never made it into the Championship / the old Division Two despite being a fairly populous area. I know this next one is in a part of the country that's not short of clubs at all, but considering its location and ownership, you'd think Salford City would have pushed further up the leagues than they have done so far. Considering that Morecambe are pretty established in the Football League now, you'd have to say Lancaster City are a long way behind.

Similar for the whole of the EU, that. Remarkable is that devoutly Catholic Poland and Italy have two of the lowest rates (although the Faroes have the highest, which isn't that surprising - it's pretty religious by Scandi standards). Even in largely Muslim Albania their rate is at the bottom end of the table too. Total fertility rate Europe by country 2023 | Statista Difficult to look past increased retirement ages and learning how to manage economies with decreasing populations. The likes of Iran show that even when you have a theocratic ****hole, women are still thankfully loathe to give their reproductive freedom up. Have heard unfortunately that in Iran (and also in Hungary and italy) governments are pushing hard to get women into having kids again, so let's hope those who don't want them stick to their guns. Back to Africa and the Third World though, as this chart shows, they are slowly getting there. Total Fertility Rate of Africa 1950-2024 & Future Projections (database.earth)

Considering that for the first time in history, as many countries worldwide have a birth rate below 2.1 as do those above it (and pleasingly, birth rates are continuing to fall in practically all countries), the notion of replacement may not be all that accurate and on top of this, belief systems are not genetic. To put into perspective, in 1950 the average woman worldwide had 4.7 children, but now it's at around half of that - and as most of this is due to the education of women as well as advances in contraception, meaning women can better choose if they want kids or not. Even a theocratic hellhole like Iran is still below replacement rate. The real difference is that in the First World, said birth rates have fallen quicker than in the Third World since the end of WW2 - but even there, they're still making some progress in practically all cases. You may be unwittingly making a very cogent argument for further foreign aid that focuses on the education and emancipation of women in Third World countries, as well as further increasing access to contraception and quality sex education in those countries. As much as I tend to agree with Dambisa Moyo more often than not, local-level charities that focus on these would be very deserving of support. Fertility Rate - Our World in Data (Incidentally, it's an absolute disgrace IMO that it is so difficult for adult women to get sterilised on request, as the likes of Holly Brockwell and Faith Roswell intelligently noted when they wrote about their travails).