Gloucester Saint

MLT, Shearer and Ruddock were playing in the group behind us early 90s at Soton Muni. Very good golfers as you’d expect and had a quick chat. Nice fellas. John Burridge presented us with our Tyro League promotion medals late 1980s. Paul Telfer and Wayne Bridge on London Rd just before the 2003 Cup Final, very nice lads. Chris Nicholl at Chilworth driving range as it was then, smiled and said hello. WGS out running in Hamble on Satchell Lane. Met more cricketers than footballers over time - Sir Colin Cowdrey re-opened our local, wonderful chap, Angus Fraser, Phil Tufnell, Jimmy Anderson, Matthew Hoggard, Paul Collingwood all on Barmy Army duty. My friend in Lancashire had Brett Ormerod deliver a parcel to his house.

IFS is equally critical of all parties when they go into fantasy/denial, just like Private Eye are in exposing corruption. https://ifs.org.uk/news/response-mornings-reform-uk-policy-announcements https://ifs.org.uk/articles/spring-budget-2024-initial-ifs-response https://ifs.org.uk/articles/liberal-democrat-manifesto-reaction

50% relegation clause is the rumour, so Aribo won’t be on the rumoured £65k p/w next month for example. Galatasaray can easily afford that, they just signed Leroy Sane. So can Beskitas, Serie A most of, Bundesliga. Bednarek ditto, Roma’s bid was rejected in January for more than the £6m release fee.

All for officers being held to account, worked for SCC summers and holidays during university 1990s, but it’s the potential selling on of personal data to Reform donors and others that would be a concern for me, with the potential for fraud and identity theft.

Those players, bar Sulemana, are proven second tier/non-EPL players, Aribo starred in Rangers title win and Europa League run, scoring in the final. He has a market - perhaps Rangers again, bigger Turkish clubs, maybe Greece’s sides in European competitions. Bednarek’s release fee is only £6m - he is off. Jack has a broken wrist, AA scored 23 goals odd last time out and even Smallbone is a decent Champ midfielder in a central trio, if that’s the formation Still prefers. If he wants a two then Will probably leaves on a nominal fee but clubs at our level will want him. It’s the likes of Larios and Bazunu who will be harder to shift as they’ve been injured and/or had terrible loan spells. They’ll be wage write offs on loan I should think for the rest of their contracts. BBD is tricky to assess - three rank spells at his last three clubs, but has some track record at this level. I suspect Still wants to see him first and ideally fully fit, which he’s never looked for Saints nor his second loan spell at the Blades. Type of player who needs a WGS-style fitness regime pre-season to get the best from him I suspect, and the players didn’t seem very fit overall under Martin after the last pre-season.

The dodgy tweets are rather a problem when they are meant to be managing Leicestershire’s adult social care budget in one of the most diverse counties in the country. If you’re good enough, you’re old enough but these two are miles away from being good enough to run a bath https://basw.co.uk/about-social-work/psw-magazine/articles/reform-councillors-aged-19-and-22-charge-childrens-and It also has the serious outcome of probably being unable to scrutinise council officers properly. If you’re going to put lads that age in important positions, at least ensure they’ve got lived experience of being in care etc to draw upon. Just having a couple of random chavs with offensive posts from X isn’t good for anyone.

No beef with bringing in Boving, just hope we don’t get milked on the fee

Plenty of evidence of the chaos they’ve caused in local government already. Would you want IT people in their teens and early 20s accessing your personal information as they seemingly will be in Kent for Reform’s ‘DOGE’ programme?

The donations largely from tax havens hardly suggests Reform is interests in the working man (or woman) either https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/reform-uk-funders-nigel-farage-5-million-donations-fossil-fuels-tax-havens/ A bit too reliant on David Sainsbury but otherwise rather cleaner https://donation.watch/en/unitedkingdom/party/LIBDEMS/donors

I’m not a fan of Reeves at all and she’s not using her abacus very well. But at least she’s got one, let’s hear your views on the following from Reform https://ifs.org.uk/news/response-mornings-reform-uk-policy-announcements Do you agree with Farage or is he even more economically incompetent than Truss? (Whom he praised last week). Do clarify for us how Reform make any economic sense, if you can. To most people, they look like they haven’t got a clue economically beyond hating on immigrants. And putting 19 year old racists in charge of Leicestershire adult social care. I’ve seen enough of MAGA US to know it’s a total disaster economically and pledging to delete to diversity officers which don’t exist in councils they now lead copying the flop that is DOGE isn’t going to cut the mustard I’m afraid. Let’s see your party step up to the plate now. The government are crap, let’s hear the alternative then, But judging on the resignations and back-tracks so far, I’m not confident. You want power, pressure is on to prove yourselves. Let’s see how you lot perform in local government. We are watching. Signs are not encouraging so far.

I’m pretty shore he isn’t. Will look up Donnell McNeilly.

Hope that he gets a red card for foul language to the fourth official so that we can shout ‘you filthy Trollope!’

She did some good things - trade Union reform - and some stupid things eg privatisation of utilities (not trains though, that was Major). Like most PMs. Her and Blair are miles ahead of what we have today in terms of leadership but they didn’t have to deal with Trump, pandemics etc, and both had reliable transatlantic partners.

I know, let’s put teenagers, OK one of them is the grand old age of 22, who denies depression exists, lauded Andrew Tate and has posted very racist content that the BNP would have thought twice about, in charge of Adult Social Care. That should get some different results….you can get MPs in their early 20s, but not in positions with this responsibility level still sounding like early teenage incels waiting for their parents to clean up their bedrooms. https://www.leicester.news/reforms-deputy-leader-in-leicestershire-shared-homophobic-sexist-and-islamophobic-content/

Fall-outs over the new owner’s AI-driven player recruitment policy https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/chris-wilder-on-brink-championship-10260063?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1749736133

The Katy Perry song would be worse. Benji said met a skate not kissed to be fair…maybe he did like it though?

The inverse would be: You can never win with right-leaning people. Even if left-leaning parties brokered peace in Northern Ireland, funded huge breakthroughs in cancer research, and introduced a national minimum wage lasting 28 years to date, right wingers and their press would never give them any acknowledgement. It is a childish and myopic outlook. See, easy to write one-eyed crap isn’t it?

Their bowling attack is still top drawer though, even if they’re mid-30s and older.

Absolutely, we’ve seen where buying strikers too cheap for the division the club has been in ever since Ings left has gotten us, and we’ve bought plenty of them too. Quantity but desperate lack of quality. We will have an advantage next season but can’t assume AA will get 20+ goals again or that Stewart will be fit for 25+ starts. There’s a serious lack of a striker who can link play as well since Che.

Stewart was £8m rising to £10m, Charles was £10m rising to £15m. THB was loan with obligation to buy at £20m. Manning free. Rest were loans and some good ones.

Agree on those four, Wrexham could, they certainly seem to be focused on paying bigger wages than all bar Brum (not sure I’d adopt that policy but it answers your point) Coventry I’ve heard have given Lampard a good budget and have the ability/ownership to go north of £10m on at least one player. Norwich could if they sell Sargent, Manning won’t have left Bristol City for the same budget as he had there. Boro have in the recent past for a standout player and Carrick just got the sack for 7th. I’m not suggesting £10m for all signings, we will be boxed into a corner if we go up again, but we cannot get the centre forward position wrong again. Stewart will be a Connolly, good cameos, BBD sell if we can, Archer and AA keep, Onachu go. That leaves scope for someone with a bit extra.

Some illustration of the changes in pattern of the welfare budget. The UK is not yet an outlier within the G7 or across the EU but the projections by 2030 could make us so, hence the previous and current government trying to tame it. https://www.independent.co.uk/politics/benefits-pip-welfare-numbers-reeves-spring-statement-b2721711.html There needs to be more carrot though and less cliff edges to get people with disabilities/neurodiversities and mental health conditions back into sustained and decent work/careers. More coaching for interviews and the NI increases tapered for charities, SMEs, Education providers.

Unless we keep all of Ramsdale, Fernandes, and Dibling, just selling THB, Aribo, Onachu etc, that won’t cut the mustard. That’s Pompey, Blackburn, QPR’s market. There’s at least 7-8 clubs that will break that mark.