Whitey Grandad

Hmm, that’s a thought. Some players might see relegation as their main chance of escape. It dawned on me years ago in one o& our previous relegation fights that the best players, such as Alan Shearer, were never going to get relegated because they would be straight off to another club.

Good point, but Man Utd have had a lot more practice at selling tickets for Wembley than we have Or maybe our second visit in two years meant that we were a bit more blasé about it.

A lot of that muddle comes from not having a settled team.

I was and I did, but haven’t been active for a while. After several tries I downloaded the latest version of Laws Of Association Football (LOAF) from the FIFA website last night, I’m that sad. Fook me, they get more complicated every year. There’s nothing in there about goalkeepers in particular apart from challenging him/her once they have the ball under their control., and this can mean anything between having both hand tightly grasping the ball to having one outstretched finger pressing on top of it when it’s on the ground. In my day it was ‘two hands good, one hand bad’ but things change with time. Clearly Caballero never had the ball under control because Austin backed into him ever so slightly causing him to mishandle it. A very soft decision but one that most top level referees would also have given. Somebody ought to explain all this to the players. We are left to wonder whether McCarthy would have received the same benefit. A lot of these ‘interpretations’ come from a separate guidance of the International Board of Referees (can’t remember proper name) but most of those have now been written into the LOAF. http://www.fifa.com/mm/Document/FootballDevelopment/Refereeing/02/90/11/67/Lawsofthegame2017-2018-EN_Neutral.pdf

I saw Hughes’s quote but he doesn’t know what went on between the referees. There was quite a discussion about this incident on the BT Sport coverage with Graham Poll explaining that any touch on the keeper whilst he is in the air is a foul and the three ex-professionals saying that this was a stupid rule. They also said the the review referee saw nothing wrong with the decision either. My beef is with Morata’s goal. There was an obvious push on Hoedt but this didn’t figure in any replay on any camera angle. Atkinson had a long discussion with the VAR about the goal but if there’s no evidence of the foul it won’t be given.

Autocorrect, I expect. I have actually been to Ottawa. I drove there on business from Toronto in the early 1980s.

Our present squad is unbalanced but unfortunately it’s not going to get a drastic overhaul very quickly. Too many long term contracts (Thanks, Les) and selling and buying in a short summer window will not change more than a few. Don’t forget that not much happens until after the World Cup finishes.

I checked and our tickets were a nominal £70. Yes, last year we were up in the gods and had a better view but I wanted to be lower down and nearer the pitch but in row 43 at the top of the lower tier we were the corporates were overhanging us and there was a TV structure blocking our view of the Saints fans behind the goal. We could see the whole pitch (unless somebody stood up) but couldn’t get a sweeping panoramic view of the whole arena. Before kickoff I went to choose our seats for a The Final but the lower you got you didn’t seem to get any closer to the action. I’d been to the old Wembley on many occasions since the mid 1960s and the views were much better.

I agree except for one thing. I (68) was there with my grandson (15) and our tickets cost £70 each. Our coach arrived at 10:30 and after nearly four hours of walking around I appreciated a chance to sit down. What is it about standing up? We were at the back of 126 and there were several individuals around who had no idea that there was a football match going on. They were too busy going for a píss, coming back from a píss, looking for their mates, standing up and looking for their mates, banging the roof panels above them. I don’t think they watched the game once. And another thing. They were the first to leave before the end of the game. Are these real ‘fans’?

Cherries to you NewWorlders.

You youngsters make me laugh, you think history started when you stopped wearing nappies. Pokesdown station was originally called Boscombe. It’s name was changed to Pokesdown when the newer Boscombe station opened. Boscombe is a place in its own right and hasn’t always been a suburb of Bournemouth. Besides, if the fans of AFC Bournemouth (1972) want to also refer to it as Boscombe who are we to argue?

As an OAP myself I say “thank you”, the feeling is mutual[emoji4] Let’s not forget that some of these OAPs take their grandchildren to games and these grandchildren will one day be OAPs themselves.

Nope. They are in Boscombe. You might consider that to be a suburb or Bournemouth today but definitely in Boscombe. Their ground is a lot closer to Boscombe Pier than Bournemouth Pier and a common chant amongst their fa is is “Boscombe, Boscombe”

Boogger. Things just go from bad to worse.

We don’t have to win the next three, we just have to win the next one. Then when we’ve won that we just need to win the next one...

They were originally called Boscombe then later Bournemouth and Boscombe and then AFC Bournemouth and their ground is actually in Boscombe. Old habits die hard.

All home games. I might do Cardiff’s new ground.

This is the first reference I have seen to Hoedt being pushed yet at the game I clearly thought I saw Morata’s arm shove him in the back. Mind you, I was at the other end of the ground and 150 metres away. No players complained and none of the camera angles seemed to cover it so VAR was of no use. Atkinson was clearly conferring with them on his way back to the centre line.

It was checked. Why do you think it wasn’t?

Too many flicks today. Doesn’t hold the ball and hold off the opposition as well as Redmond, for example.

Average for the Premier League is a good player.

I stumbled upon the Swansea site recently. Their season tickets for the next season have been up for renewal since 1st December last year. Take a look at these prices and weep in despair. https://www.swanseacity.com/tickets-membership/season-tickets

A lot of good individual players but unfortunately they don’t make a good team.

Slowly filling up https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xIuF2Uq6r3fP9X1QDACfpNNhrrAoH9M9/view?usp=drivesdk

This game is going to be a stroll for them.