Lord Duckhunter

My mate the Skate reckons that Kitson was happy to sign but that Lawerence didn't want to. Pulis told him, he would not be in the 25 and would have to move to get first team action. Lawernce wanted to go to Skates on loan, but that would have meant Pulis missing out on Wilson as there were other Clubs interested in him. In the end Lawerence insisted on a get out clause,my mate claims this was the hold up. The get out clause is so one sided that he reckons Lawernece will be off next summer. His source is his Dad who used to play for the Skates and still knows a few up there.However he did also say that Brown was going to Celtic, and that turned out to be wrong.

Paddy Power was on Talksport last night, he said of all the UK markets you can bet on, the next manager is the hardest to win money on. He was talking about the Villa job, but he said people are basically clueless but just lump on rumours. The bookies then have to shorten the odds just in case, meaning more money is lumped on. Most of the time the favourite never gets the job. Nobody posted that Pardew was getting the boot, nobody was ITK before it happened, and yet there seems to be plenty of people who know why he went and who is taking over.

If the news broke without naming the Country involved 99.9% of cricket fans would have guessed Pakistan. They're the Harry Redknapp of world cricket, everyone knows they're corrupt, but it's sort of swept under the carpet. The differance to this than MLT's unwise action is huge. Firstly once the bookies are into you, they're into you. First bowling no balls, next it'll be throwing wickets away. I believe Hansie Cronje started by passing pitch information, and team selection, this then grew to giving info about what he'd do after winning the toss, and then became match fixing. Once they paid him for the small stuff, they ramped up the pressure. Matt's although misguided was him and his mates, not a major ring where a middleman was paid £150,000. This will be swept under the carpet, with a couple of players sacrificed, but the ICC will not act as they should. The Asia bloc are too powerful and whether it's this, ball tampering, chucking from MM or any other event that tars the game, they will not act against it.If they will do this in a test match at Lords, god knows what happens at meaningless ODI's.

He looked to me like a lower league Chicken George. May have been useful to have around the squad at the right price, but like Papa he seems to get better the less we see him play. Surely holding on to Lambert, Lallana, Fonte and Kelvin this summer should make us happy, without moaning about not resigning a squad player. The group of players we have, should gain promotion, if they're managed correctly.

Instead of sniping on the sidelines perhaps some of the lefties will give us some practical policies that would pay off the deficit in a way that doesn't effect the poor.If taxing the rich at 80% was the answer, then we wouldn't have needed Mrs Thatcher to repair the economy after the previous Labour Govt ran out of money as well.

Until anyone knows the reason for the filming, then nobody can really say if it was justified or not.

Like Matt Oakley he had become stale at the Club, he needed a move to kick start his career. Fat Sam seemed to turn him into a slightly different sort of player than he was for us. Good luck to Kevin, one of the good guys,in my opinion.

Politically, this was a good election to lose. Whoever was in charge would have to face up to cuts that would make even make Thatcher's eyes water. The fact that the Torys are able to do this with the Lib/Dem's in tow could work out better for them in the long run. Everybody knows there needs to be cuts but nobody wants any cuts that will impact on them.Labour seem incapable of "grown up" opposition, they oppose every cut,every penny that is saved, offering no alternative solution. God knows how they were going to halve the deficit. The Labour leadership contest has to be the most boring in history, with the people who've been running the Country seeing who can put the most distance between themselves and the last Labour Govt's policies. As for the Coalition there's been a bit too much spin for my liking, too much announced in the press rather than to Parliament, but that's the modern way and it looks like we're stuck with it. Osbourne's done better than expected, Cameron's shown himself to be a bit clumsy around foregin policy. Ken Clarke is too wet for the job he's in and Vince Cable looks a bit confussed (I think opossition suits him better). Eric Pickles,and IDS have been the best performers in my opinion, and the worst Chris Huhne, his U turn on nuculear energy was just plain embarressing. The Lib/Dems slip in the polls should surprise nobody. Their share of the vote was always bouyed by Labour supporters voting against the Tories in seats Labour couldn't win. There's no point in that now, if the Lib/Dems spend 5 years attached to the Tories, they'll lose those Anti Tory votes for a generation.

Matt said in his book that they practised it in training after seeing a foregin player do it.

I find the whole modern approach to death and bit unnerving to be honest. God knows how our generation would have coped with the war. I guess it started with Elvis and then reached a peak with Lady Di, when the whole Country went right OTT. I was sad when Ted, Bally and Ossie died, when George Harrison passed and will be very sad when Lawrie takes his last freebe. However sad I am, I see no reason to lay a wreath, shirt or scarf outside SMS. A minutes silance, black armbands and a full house each week in the house that ML saved, will do me. The rest of it is too OTT for my taste.

Beckham at his best lasted for pretty much 8 years, Le Tiss' whole career was pretty patchy. Dont get me wrong I'd rather watch Le Tiss any day of the week and he's given me some of my greatest memories, but Beckham played for Man U, Real Madrid AC Milan and won over 100 caps, you dont get a career like that being a mug. I wouldn't swap 10 years of Beckham for the snatches of genius we saw from Le Tiss (stuff that Beckham can only dream of) but Beckham deserved pretty much 80 odd of his caps, whereas even the most die hard one eyed Saint would have to confess that Matt wasn't at his peak long enough to gain anywhere near that amount. Using Le Tiss as a stick to beat Beckham with is wrong. The question should be Gazza post cup final injury or Le Tiss, and Le Tiss wins that one hands down. I would be interested in how many caps Gazza got after '91, because most of those should have been Matt's

Perhaps I'm a bit old fashioned, but the creeping Lady Di'isms of every death is not really to my taste. A minutes silance and then the Saints players and supporters getting behind the Club and winning 3 points at MK, is the way I prefer.Dont get me wrong, I'm grateful for what he did and feel sorry for his family,he also appears to be a top top bloke and I'm glad he came to my club, but I didn't know the guy.Talk of renaming the stadium and stands is OTT in my opinion, but that's just my view. Perhaps if I lost someone close to me I may feel differently. If this offends anyone I'm sorry, it wasn't meant to.

I thought LoM started well, but I just got the feeling that the BBC were surprised at its sucsess and the writers or powers that be changed the feel of it through the second one. I just felt that the ending was too contrived and that they also changed the main story to Gene Hunt, when he became so popular. It's not the first time that's happened ,Minder springs to mind, with Arthur taking over from Terry. I just felt that whilst Minder did it in a subtle way LoM/A2A made it too obvious. I believe the original idea was for a show which showed how the modern cop was so much better than the dinosaurs from the 70's. What happened was people loved the dinosaurs and therefore the show tried too hard and changed direction. I felt the A2A was poor and Gene Hunt was just not believable in that one.I also felt the bird in A2A was a pretty poor charactor and was poorly acted. Gene hunt was a good charactor and acted well, but if you want to see a great portrayal of an old fashioned copper Denis Franz's Andy Sipowicz in NYPD Blue beats it hands down.

I would think it's a control thing. They're proberly worried that the big clubs will do the same but charge a hell of a lot more.If Man U are paying Rooney for his image rights, then it makes sense for them to own and sell photos of him playing at OT to the media.

My mate has a very nice house in Poole, he got it by being a freelance photographer. He takes photos of events (including football matches) and sells them on to the nationals and other media outlets. Sometimes The Sun will contact him with a quirky or strange story (man bites dog ect) and ask him to go along and take a photo. After he's done so, they then pay him for this photo. When you go to the game there are not employees of The Mirror, The Star, The Sun, The Telegraph, The Express and so on, all there snapping away for photos exclusively for their paper. From now on if The Sun want a picture of the action at SMS they wont be able to pay someone like my mate for the photos, but will have to pay our own in house photographer for the photos.And this is a major story???????

I do tend to agree with that. I think the most misunderstood people of the devoloped world are the American South, they are protrayed either as hillbillies or racists. I found them to be neither and amongst the nicest people I've ever met. Then again I find the French pretty friendly as a whole, so perhaps I'm a bit strange.

There must be a reason why the rules don't allow the ball to be chucked, or at least they didn't until these "tests" came along. Jim Laker would have been called every time, if he tried to propel the ball towards the batsmen like MM does. Cricket is being kept alive by the money generated in Asia and the make up of the ICC reflects this. Bangladesh would never have been given test match status had they been an European Country, they are just not good enough. They are now an extra vote in a bloc against England, The Aussies and New Zealand. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but the "legalisation" of MM's action needs to be placed in the context of Cricket politics at this time. There is no doubt that any time before 1990, his action would have been outlawed.

Cameron had a better education than 99.9% of the British population, so this was a pathetic mistake to make.Personally I'm fed up with the whole "special relationship", "Lapdog" "Junior parner" pony that British politicans seem to have indulged in since Mrs T and RR, our whole Foregin affairs policies for the past 30 years have been measured against our closeness to the US.The French,Germans and the rest of Europe owe us & the Americans their freedom (along with countless brave people from the world over) and yet they still speak out when we're wrong and look after their own interests. Our Foregin policy should not be based on WW2 alliances and the cold war. Broadening the discussion slightly, there is a anti American feeling in this Country and some of it is down to the approach our Senior officals take to them. I've lived and worked there and met some lovely people, there are also plenty of arseholes (much like most other countries). I'm convinced that our leaders sucking up to them contributes to the hatred some people feel for the Country.America was built up by millions of poor immigrants, I just fail to understand the left's, and it is mainly the left's, hatred of it.

In the Championship I paid £15 for me and my oldest and £12 for my nipper.£42.00, but worth it to ensure we got tickets to pretty much any game and felt part of the club.Not sure what the price will be this time and will proberly get one, but feel slightly uneasy that the club can afford to do away with shirt sponsors, and then charging a lot for membership (if that's the case). Getting rid of the £3 booking fee for members would go a long way in terms of customer service in my view.

Generous pension provisions used to balance out lower pay in the public sector but this pay difference has gone nowadays.I doubt if any Private Company will be offering anything other than money purchase schemes in 10 years time. Unfortunatly it can only be right that Public sector pension's suffer the same fate, as it is workers in defined benefit plans that will be largely financing them. Do not blame the new Govt for the mess our pensions are in, before 1997 our pension provisions were amongst the best in the world.

Had MM been English, Aussie or from New Zealand, he'd never have got away with it. Had he been playing in Jim Lakers day, he'd have been called every ball, and never have taken the wickets he did. Therefore people are not comparing like for like. Granted, he has taken more wickets than any other chucker, but that's not too hard as the others were not allowed to continue. The ICC pandering to the Asia block and fear of a breakaway and loss of the main revenue earner, India, mean he's been allowed to continue to chuck the ball. Warne on the other hand is one of the all time greats, leg spin was a dead art in test matches 20 years ago and he changed that completely.You can not compare the two. Warne would have taken wickets 50 years ago, MM would not have been allowed to chuck the ball. I dread to think the damage Lillie and Thompson or the West Indian quicks would have done to the batsmen, if they'd chucked it.

Come on, he's made under 30 appearances in the whole of his professional career. The only Manager apart from his Dad that's ever signed him is Jan P/Rupert Lowe.He's been on loan 5 times, 3 of which the loans been cut short, the only 2 loans that weren't cut short were Lincolns and one at Plymouth, who was Plymouth's Maanger at the time, one T Pulis.He's a midfield player, but has yet to score a goal in 7 years for 8 different clubs, although I cant believe Daddy didn't make him the Peno taker. We had the same problem with my lads side, the Manager kept picking his son when he clearly wasn't good enough, only difference was it was under 10's and they weren't earning £1000 a week under false pretences. Now I know I've never seen him play, but I'm pretty confident that his record proves if his name wasn't Pulis, he wouldn't have a career in the professional game.

Perhaps we should follow the Israeli's approach to this sort of thing and organise a hit in Libya, afterall he was supposed to near to death and has lasted a year.

I think the whole NHS needs a revolution which only the Labour party will be allowed to deliver, unforutunatly they have not got the will to do so and therefore it'll just go along stumbling from crisis to crisis, from top down target to top down target. For a "free at the point of delivery" service it is fantastic , howver you pay for what you get. There's always going to be strains on the service and problems with it. I've laways beleived the more people that use private health care, the less strain and more money available for everyone else. Firms should be encouraged to offer private provision to work alongside the NHS. People have Company pensions and a work pension. Insurance should be offered to cover certain treatments and Doctors visits. In Ireland, if you're not entittled to a medical card (which is held by the elderly and the poorest 30% approx) then you have to pay for certain things, GP's visit ect. My friends wfe works in a supermarket, the company pay for her to have 6 visits a year under an insurance scheme (not sure if she has to contribute). Surely this is the most sensible way to go. As I pay into my Company pension, my emplyer makes a contribution, we could extend this (through a seris of incentives) so that a similar insurance scheme could help fund some of my NHS treatment. I find it bizzare that we have ab obsession with free visits to the GP's and yet when prescribed a remedy, go next door to the Chemist and hand over £6 ish. Thta's hardly "Free at the point of delivery". Most prescriptions I've ever had could have been prescribed by the pharacist (as in many foregin countries) further freeing up GP's time and finances. Sex changes, Boob jobs and other such treatments should not be funded out of general taxation. People who can afford it should be encouraged to take out private provision, emploees should be encouraged to offer it and provided Govt funding is not cut in line with the number opting out we may get a better service for the people who really need it.

Agreed. Since Sir Alf we've had; Don Revie-Great Club Manager, paid great attention to detail with dossiers ect Ron Greenwood-Gentleman who liked football played the proper way Bobby Robson-One of the best at club level. Graham Taylor-Played a "British" style Terry Venables-Redknapp like figure loved by the players Glenn Hoddle-Great player, bright tactically aware Manager Keegan-Enthusiastic, passionate, loves England Sven-Good club record, foregin, relaxed regime around the players Maclearn-Good coach,English Cappello-Great Club record, foregin and runs a tight ship. Therefore we've basically had every type of Manager that it's possible to have, we've had great club managers, English and Foregin and we've reached the grand total of 2 semi finals. One on home soil (I truely believe we should have won Euro '96) and one after pretty ropey performances to get there. Yet, we keep blaming the Managers, we keep sacking them. It's all the Managers fault, The Turnip, The wally with the Brolley, Keegan wasn't up to it, Sven let the players run riot, Cappello was too strict on them. When are the media and the general public going to stop blaming Managers and start looking where the real blame lies, players and the people who run the game.