The Kraken

The keeper smashes it out of the stadium 🤣

Aside from the top bins one, these penalties have been absolutely woeful.

Our keeper seems like an absolute liability. Just doesn’t seem to have any sort of awareness of where she is.

Fairly sure the controller on the left is for a PlayStation and the controller on the right is for a Nintendo.

I believe that it immediately came out that Celtic did actually played a game on the very same day that he said he was there, and that game was indeed against Inverness. But the lineup was published online and Hooiveld wasn’t in it. After that Bullshit Pat claimed that the game that he attended was actually a behind doors friendly that he had been especially invited to, a Celtic XI vs an Inverness XI (coincidentally the same day as the other game was played), and Hooiveld did indeed play, give away a penalty, score an own goal and get sent off. Such a silly man.

It had been a nice while, to be fair.

Patred 🤣 the infamous Inverness game that was immediately exposed as complete bullshit but the silly sod carried on his lie for years. Forgot about him, what a sausage.

Definitely. I learned the hard way via the Woodford fund collapse (that HL backed to the hilt) that their recommendations are to be taken with a massive pinch of salt. Thankfully I’ve just had a small financial return on all that unsavoury business via a settled court case, but I still took a decent percentage haircut on the whole thing (thankfully it wasn’t a big amount for me overall). So, yeah, HL have their own interests in mind. As you said, there is a wealth of information out there and many many reviews of managed funds. And again as you say, past performance is no guarantee of anything, but certain fund managers and companies tend to build themselves something of a reputation. I now stick with established companies with known entities behind them, and a lower risk profile. Maybe egg is right, maybe an IFA could get me better returns, but I’m not necessarily sure. In fact I actually sat with a very good friend of my folks in the past few months who has been a financial adviser most of his life and co owns a company with around 50 staff. I showed him my HL and said I wouldn’t be averse to moving to him if there was a compelling case to do so, he was very honest and said he couldn’t guarantee it and my investments looks pretty sensible.

It’s a fair comment, but Turkish sounds like he’s got a couple of mates who know what they’re doing so he can get some good advice from them. The nature of funds is that they’re very up and down. The best IFA isn’t going to make zero mistakes, or pick the best funds all the time. Sure, they’ll avoid the big mistakes that an amateur will, but no guarantees of future performance. Finance is a personal thing, so you’re right to point out that me saying that what is good for me should be good for someone else is not a global statement to make. Fair point. But Turkish seems to be along that path of thinking already, so maybe just a bit if positive reinforcement 😉

It depends what the IFA does with the money. If, as many do, they’re just putting it into a managed fund for you and charging 1.5% for the privilege, it’s not offering great value over self investing. There’s more of a risk by doing it yourself, I suppose, but as long as you’re using well recognised managed funds, the risk is minimised. And there’s no guarantees that the funds the IFA picks for you are going to be the best out there. So long as you don’t mind keeping a track on your funds, how they’re doing, and switching up if underperforming, I think HL is the way to go personally. Admittedly I haven’t used an IFA for some time now, but when I did all they did was put my cash into managed funds and I got a review every year. Didn’t offer anything that I couldn’t do myself, and take the risk out of it by opting for well reviewed and backed funds. The I did get fucked over by the Woodford fund debacle mind. So swings and roundabouts. But I have no qualms whatsoever of my annual returns over the past decade or more.

I find it really easy to have all mine in the same place. And to feel like I’m in control of what’s happening. With managed funds you’re taking a good amount of risk out of it. It may well be that your previous investments are doing ok. But I found with one from my old work that the management fee per annum was higher than what I’d have been paying via HL and the fund(s) and the performance had been pretty shoddy, so it was well worth my while moving.

I did this with my pensions quite a few years ago. I use HL for my SIPPs and my ISAs. HL are very good but their platform fees are a bit higher than other competitors so it’s worth shopping around. The front end is super simple though. Im fairly risk averse and usually have 5 or 6 managed funds on the go at any time, I review them fairly often and end up switching if a particular one is underperforming. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to performance in the past two months. Depends what type of funds you’re in (uk only, Europe, USA, worldwide) but when Trump went tariff happy a few months ago my funds lost about 20% within a week. I’ve just about clawed that back by now. So if you looked at a two month performance chart you’d say my funds have gone up 15%-20%, but in reality the market has just reset itself somewhat.

The second link points out the very obvious fact that 15 year olds playing for an academy are likely to be stronger and faster than the women’s side. A very basic comparison is sprinting, the times that top women in the world set in the 100m these days is comparable with those set by some 14 year olds and quite a few 15 year old boys. Top women footballers *may* have a skill advantage but the speed and power disadvantage will outweigh that quickly. So it’s not really a controversial statement to point it out, it’s just biology. As the interview shows, the USA player says herself: “Haha. They should beat us. Bigger, stronger, faster! Boys always gave us a run for our money! It was great prep.”

This. It’s a bit of a reach, unless you want it to be.

I hope Still Will has been using the factor 50. Poor fucker could combust in this heat.

Assuming you pay tax and therefore HMRC have your details, and assuming you have a passport, what additional data would a national id card require you to provide? Just a personal thing yes. Personally I could give a fig about carrying ID, I always have my driving licence plus my irish passport card on me. If I had a uk passport card rather than the actual book id probably carry that too.

Labour have been poor but I’d much rather a few u turns to get to the right decision than the past ten years. Gideon and call me Dave’s austerity, we all need to tighten our belts and make shit public services much much shitter. Boris and his uncountable outright lies and ineptitude. Lettuce Liz and Quasie killing the economy in sixty days. And little Rishi just doing what the big boys (and his paymasters) told him to. Please don’t try and convince me that this iteration of Labour is worse than that. Just not gonna wash.

I may be wrong but I thought when the stadium was built that the club put rows of seats in as close as they could be per the regulations. Sure I remember something along the lines that they were the closest seats to the pitch of any new build stadium.

Those sites often don’t show the logo in their photos of the kit. I haven’t bought a kit for years now but used to get one or two every year for playing 5 a side. The quality and likeness to the actual kits was absolutely spot on every time.

Yep, that was the word at the time. £1K per seats build cost but £3k per seat extension cost according to Lowe. Up to 8000 seats on Kingsland, 4000 each on Chapel and Northam.

Q: Where did you get that figure? A: It was in the link you just posted. Lol. Couldn’t even read past a headline

How is releasing individual information like weekly wage not a massive conflict of interest and a breach of GDPR?

google AI overview of capology. Capology's Premier League salary data is generally considered to be quite accurate, with over 90% of salaries verified, especially after major transfer windows. While the figures are estimates and not official, the site employs a verification process, and the data is updated regularly. Here's a more detailed look: Verification Process: Capology has a verification system where they check and confirm the accuracy of the salary information they gather. High Verification Rate: For the Premier League, a significant portion, over 90%, of the salary data is verified, meaning it's been confirmed as accurate. Updates: Capology's data is updated, especially after major transfer periods like the summer and January windows, to reflect the latest deals and changes. Estimates: It's important to remember that while Capology strives for accuracy, the figures are estimates and not official contract details. No Distinction for Bonuses: Signing bonuses and other performance-based bonuses are not always clearly differentiated in the data, and may be presented as part of the overall salary.

Played football against Claus in a five a side competition, and played against Warren Aspinall in Sunday league (seem to recall he played centre back and was an absolute gobshite, but we spanked them anyway).

Two teams from one country is the max. I assume the table in the link is correct but it shows the clubs that miss out. Seems like winning the Champions League takes precedence, then club rankings. https://www.fotcalc.com/4-year-ranking