hughieslastminutegoal

Ah, now you get criticised you blame other people. Now I can see why your avatar has a prize pr*ck.

I think many people dismiss the importance of having good fullbacks, it seems to stem from schoolboy attitudes about them not being glamorous or spectacular positions. However even at this level you need them to be able to defend against speedy wingers, cover across for CDs, protect the back and front posts, support wingers, join in triangles with midfield, deliver good set pieces, be good tacklers and headers, etc etc. You can't skimp at fullback if you really want to suceed as a team. Oh and yes, I used to play as a fullback, but I'm not biased, honest!

So taking a penalties when your club need miracles to stay in the top division isn't pressure? Whatever you or anyone else thinks of MLT, you are just being silly if you say that isn't pressure. And as for sports psychologists, do you know any who have taken penalties themselves in that situation? Thought not. You sound like the sort of person who believes he can teach himself mountaineering by reading a book by Paul McKenna.

I heard him on the phone to his dad the other day, when I bumped into him with his GF, and before I went off with her I heard him say distinctly "Papa, why go?"

I was collecting autographs behind the Dell's West Stand in the 60s. Tony Godfrey, Ted Bates, Tony Knapp and George Kirby all signed. And then another bloke grabbed my book and signed it. "Who the eff's that bloke?" I asked my mate. We eventually deciphered his signature as "Richard Davies", a journo from Southern Television. Yep, the one and the same who later became an ITV Saturday Sport legend known as "Dickie Davies" , and well before the bleached badger hair stripe made an appearance. No limit to how far up their rear orifice some local journos' heads can be, he practically turned himself into a Gordian Knot.

Surely a traffic jam wasn't going anywhere.

I got kicked by Martin Chivers on a No.3 bus to The Dell when he got on at The Polygon. He said "Sorry". It's not in his autobiography though. Still, you can't expect a demi-god to remember every significant event in his life.

Yep, at Fratton Park, well Fratton Dark actually, they only could afford a couple of lamps per floodlight pylon, so I can remember struggling to see what was happening in the gloom. But SW brightened things up.

All together now "Always look on the bright side of life..."

He's lucky having such a good-looking God Father. Did you fancy him? Is that why you both went off? He's wierd going around Xmas shopping with his God Father, that's what I think. Walking around, too!! Surely he ought to at least be coming down to earth in a winged chariot of fire.

With such a display of journalistic talent, you should easily get a job with the Pink.

Yes, the viewers have to like the contestant. But if she's finding it pure agony I'm sure the great British Public will find it in their hearts to make sure she stays in for as long as possible. I can't wait for her partner to do the "head banger" with her, just to see how well the leg is connected.

What if you squeeze all the football you do watch into the first half of the season without going to the bar, then spend the whole of the second half of the season in the pub. You could then give me your season ticket for the last 11 or so games, and I can pass it on to the wife... It would cost you nothing ... oh but then I'd have to give the missus a lift in... so on second thoughts you can keep it.

Nah, just average.

The difference being that C & L can actually play together.

Not just football fans is it? You can't hear the dialogue in a film at the cinema for the constant rummaging in popcorn buckets.

That seems to be the way 1st/2nd phase is being interpreted. The trouble is it makes a defender's job a bit of a lottery. He doesn't know whether to try to play it (with the consequent risk that he might mess it up and hand the phase 2 advantage to the guy who was in an offside position) or just leave it (and find another player who was far away but not offside at phase 1) running in behind him. The phase 1/phase 2 stuff is great for attackers, but for a defender it makes decision-making ridiculously difficult. So what happens in this scenario? Attacker 1 hangs offside. The last defender, pressured by attacker 2 who isn't offside, has to go for the ball and messes up, but is the last to play it, and player 1 streaks on to score. The claim is that it is phase 2, but he was offside and gaining an advantage at phase 1. The way the current offside rule is being interpreted is completely unpredictable, is being applied very inconsistently and should be reassessed, IMO. Actually it is a re-statement in techno-speak of the very old-fashioned interpretation which used to be "offside UNLESS the ball was last played by or was last touched by a [defender]", which years ago was felt to be too uncertain.

Maybe the Echo has a overblown view of it's investigative journalism credentials. It ain't Watergate for heaven's sake. It was a planning application. They could have waited for the PC and worked with the club in a spirit of cooperation and getting the details right. Instead they seem to think they can win an award for undercover work with every fart-arsin little jumble sale and planning application story. Their journos (and editorial staff) need to G R O W U P, and act like the low-circulation, parochial little rag they really are.

...your post's what, exactly?

Why was he still afraid? Didn't we lose the pattot-shoot payment a few years ago?

What? It is exactly a case of ok then, it was a draw but we'll let Southamptom through I suppose cuz they scored more penalties. Like, that's what really happened, man, just put brackets around the "I suppose cuz" bit.

There speaks a true English football supporter.

...before he later reluctantly takes the manager's job......

Markus L gives a small role at the club to one of the Gnomes of Zurich. ML comments that "he had a little experience at Grasshoppers, but was regularly out-jumped, so I asked AP if he could let him do a little dribbling at St Mary's - after all that's what a player of this age is probably best at".