Winnersaint

FA Cup 5th Round 1974. They were in Division 3, but had some good players like Joey Jones and Arfon Griffiths along with a young Mickey Thomas on the bench. A young unheard striker called David Smallman scored the winner. I was there and easily as bad as anything served up by the current team.

Well I finally succumbed to Yellowstone hype. I watched episode 1 a few weeks back and quickly found out about the origin stories. I went straight to those. I thought 1883 was good. Gritty, violent but actually quite removed from the Yellowstone universe. The only real link was that the main characters were called Dutton. Overall it was a good yarn which finally came together with the end of Elsa's story. 1923 has spanned two seasons and has Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren in the lead roles. Timothy Dalton and Jerome Flynn make great villains with the former having a penchant for watching prostitutes engage in BSDM twenties style. There are various story arcs beyond the survival of the ranch including that of Teonna Rainwater a native American girl on the run from abuse, both sexual and physical at the hands priests and nuns at an Indian School. Ultimately this is about WW1 vet Spencer Dutton, a post war hunter in Africa suffering from PTSD and his romance with an English woman, Alexandra, who he marries. This is where it gets all a bit far fetched, with their journey back to Montana. The number of disasters that befall them stretch the boundaries of believability somewhat in my opinion. You'd have to watch it to know what I mean and I don't want to spoil it for those that do. Which brings me back to the present day and the five seasons of Yellowstone. Kevin Costner does what Kevin Costner does as the family patriarch in a western setting. Here I start comparing the series a bit to Dallas, which is unfortunate, but there's enough of a Sopranos/ Godfather vibe and violence underpinning it to put that to one side. Standout performances are by Kelly Reilly who plays Beth Dutton and Cole Hauser as Rip Wheeler. She is actually from South London not the Mid-West which makes her performance all the more remarkable. The last time I was as gobsmacked as this about a UK actor in a US series was when Stephen Graham played Al Capone in Boardwalk Empire. Anyway, I'm enjoying it as I progress to S2. Like many things that are popular it'll have its haters, simply by being popular. That said, I'm not a great watcher of TV series and it takes something to draw me in like this has done. Whether I stay the course is another matter.

Great post Francis. My late dad would have loved that. He was FAA served mainly on HMS Eagle, all three of us were born near air bases me in NI, sister in Yeovil and brother Salisbury (Boscombe Down). Remember him coming back on Eagle just before the World Cup Final in 66, went down to Plymouth to see it dock.

Is Will Still auditioning on Sky this evening?

He is indeed.

So lets get this straight we're the worst team in EPL history thus far. No confidence it'll change before the season is out, and were looking at the manager of the worst team since January in the league below. i know there are mitigating circumstances but what could possibly go wrong?

I had a dream last night where we won every game next season.

Perhaps because RM was still here last summer and as you said liked having him around the place. that said you're not wrong on his contribution last season.

Which one? This place is full of it.

Although more honest, Ivan Juric is just the Nathan Jones of the Balkans.

Only three Williams, Mills and Moran.

Prediction, we won't score. We will concede

No local bakers around here. Gail's in Wokingham that's about it and they're a chain and a rip off too. Remember the smell of baking bread when I was at school there was a bakery at the bottom of Toynbee Rd. When we moved in 1971 after the old man came out the Navy we had a village shop which meant a daily bread collection from Nicholas and Harris Bakery in Salisbury. Those Lardy Cakes were out of this world

If as some reports suggest the players aren't buying into Juric's way perhaps it would be better to part ways now. Having a manager who's a dead man walking will only add to the malaise. Rollback to March 22, we weren't doing so bad, we'd picked up 18 points since Boxing Day 2021 beaten Norwich. Ralph was nominated for February MotM along with Klopp, Arteta and Howe then sometime around beating Norwich and knocking West Ham out of the cup Ralph says he's going to leave/retire at the end of the 23/24 season. We then get 4 points from the next 36 and begin the 22/23 season sluggishly getting 12 points from 27 before the WC and RH's departure. May just be coincidence but odd how the wheels dropped off once that was out in the open.

He’s been about as effective as Felix Magath at Fulham