Gloucester Saint

Mind you, the ‘Donkey Dowie, Deadly Dixon’ chants from the opening day v Spurs soon turned around those players’ names….

Boat issue does need sorting and annoys me as much as you. There isn’t a panacea though, as Reform would find out. Making it far harder to employee illegals by shutting down firms and much bigger penalties for boards of large companies would help more than smashing the gangs or Rwanda though. SMEs are getting some heavier penalties but drop in the ocean compared to the fast food firms.

If I type how much I love spending time at the Hoe, I suspect it may be misinterpreted on this forum….

Many groups do but some generations have a disproportionate armada of non-dom owned newspaper outlets to push for theirs, whilst also decimating the economy. It is democracy, yes, but I struggle to sympathise when the same people moan constantly about winter fuel allowance, WASPI etc when they overwhelmingly voted leave.

As long as they don’t want lots of freebies from an economy 6% smaller as a result of a hard Brexit. Nobody can fix that properly.

Not to mention severely restricting our trade access to our by far our biggest trade partner on our doorstep.

August is a time to avoid Devon and Cornwall.

Sunderland only just signed him permanently in January after being on loan. Unless they don’t think he’s quite PL-ready and he’s on a low wage even given promotion, I can’t see how it works? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Isidor Mind you, Downs just won promotion to the Bundesliga albeit he wasn’t originally on loan to Koln!

Could be awaiting visa and clearance? Some clubs announce subject to that but not always with Saints.

I liked Taylor a lot but slightly harsh on Paul Jones IMHO. POTS 97/98, not quite at that level afterwards but still made one of the best saves seen in a Saints shirt at Old Trafford in the 3-3, which was on a par with Kelvin at Leeds. Only displaced by Niemi, one of our best ever after Shilts, and Liverpool took him on loan. Other than not getting shots quite far enough from the central area of his box when parrying, not many obvious flaws and since he left, only Niemi, Wright, Boruc and Ramsdale are better than Paul Jones for me. I wouldn’t have displaced Maik Taylor, yes, but Paul Jones was value for money and miles better than McCarthy or Bazunu, that’s for sure. Wales and Finland played each other when they were competing for the #1 jersey under WGS and it was the most lively 0-0 since Saints v Everton and the Southall/Flowers masterclass. Paul and Antti matched each other with top drawer save after save with Litmanen and Bellamy astonished at certain goals kept out acrobatically.

Although part of me does want to see Reform voting areas experience their policies directly and the penny drop for some.

Is this another game with the Kookaburra? Probably a draw as long as we bat as well as Chelmsford.

Expensive, made of glass. Been there, done that.

Three promoted clubs linked as expected https://www.goodisonnews.com/2025/06/29/dominic-calvert-lewins-potential-next-club-named-as-he-says-goodbye-to-everton/

Agreed, not the quickest but decent player. Ended his career colliding with a goalpost for their reserves v ours ironically. On FT’s list agree on Speedie (ugh) and Dixon, although if you’ve read his book he was a professional gambler by that stage. Lee Todd hopelessly out of his depth. Moody good league one player, scored last minute vs us for Oxford later on in the cup. Can’t agree with him on Telfer, JWP or Wotton, all good pros giving their best and ok for level we were at. Franny - can see both sides, and 1997 onwards he was much more solid and far less errors. Decent PL defender by then. Terrible early-mid 90s though. Top bloke and really admire what he’s done with the iron man. Amazing to think he was an England schools striker and prolific partner to Shearer in our youth side!

Also, let’s see how Reform do when their acne-clad 18 year olds start cutting SEND budgets as Farage wants to do as part of the DOGE tribute act. It’ll make the winter fuel allowance and welfare uproar look tiny by comparison. And the fallout with Zia Yusuf will be permanent this time.

Before my time as a player but I heard he was known as Lady Chatterley by the Milton and Archers in the early 70s?

100% all of that and the UK needs to move closer still to the EU on trade to regain a bit more of the 6% economic pie we lost. Some of the Red Wall won’t like that but they voted Leave in 2016 because they didn’t see the pie as theirs anyway, in spite of the fact they’ve made themselves even poorer. Let them vote Reform and wallow in it, but get the rest of the country motoring again to help pull their pants up and fund their key services even if they’re too ignorant to see it.

Handy start with Fuller getting rid of NZ Test star Henry Nicholls for 0. Worcs 9/1.

The classic is Farage in order to make inroads in the Welsh elections next year stating that he wants to re-start blast furnaces - bit of a technical issue there Nigel! - and re-industrialise Wales. It’s reheated Trump, he has no ideas of his own. Lowe is a cunt but at least he had some ideas. And what has happened in states like Pennsylvania where Trump promised to get coal mining going again? Zero mines but he has cut all of the miners with COPD conditions Medicaid. Stupidity costs lives.

This we agree on. If you try to ape Reform and are perceived not to deliver on much of your programme in an everyday way, what are Red Wall voters then going to do in 2029?

It’s no different to what most clubs do to build up some base match fitness and build on early pre-season. Cheltenham usually start at Bishops Cleeve, Skates at H&W etc.

Looks like Carl Martin’s brother coming over from Cambridge Utd and specific to the OP, Tonda Eckert, Genoa’s assistant manager set to join as u21’s head coach.

And then there’s Reform. 18 year olds overseeing key services such as social care and transport in some of the biggest county councils (Warwickshire, Leicestershire) because Reform councillors keep quitting within a month of being elected. And the only reason they were selected to stand is because of Islamophobic and other tweets. Their own Chair said it would be a waste of his time campaigning for a Reform government. God help us if they get anywhere near power.

IIRC Gasmi was a signing in his own right, a former wonder kid who had been highly sought after but become injury-prone and made of glass. The club thought they could turn him around in their bankrupt state but he really was a jellyfish, as demonstrated by pulling out of a tackle in halfway for Forest’s second goal and disappeared after that.