rallyboy

Shit, have we got to the point now where we can't even hold onto our local journalists? Has he been tapped up by Tache Monthly?

Well we've heard them now and they sound like cunts.

I'm not sure how doing Hitler salutes and throwing missiles at the police helps Henry's family, but then again this isn't really about Henry. This is the civil unrest, faux patriotism, harnessed indignation and rage that Farage and Robinson instigate to fuel their careers. Rent-a-riot is on tour, coming to any grievance with a potential racist element near you soon - you won't even have to ask Nigel or Stephen for details, they'll tell you where to riot, and if you're easily-led and confused by simple concepts, you'll go and smash up innocent neighbourhoods, wrapped in a British flag, celebrating Hitler. Perhaps instead we could bang up the killer and his family that helped him, and let Henry's family have some peace so they can get answers and change policing for the better. They don't need this shit, but Farage and Robinson do.

It wasn't spying, it was observing outside the permitted timeframe - but Gibson and his little puppet boy media circus decided that Spygate sounded more sexy and would sell better to the nationals. Had we beaten Hull, and let's be honest here, we fucking would have done, this equates to double the biggest financial penalty EVER imposed in the history of world sport, making it by far the worst case of cheating ever committed - in monetary terms twenty times worse than Lance Armstrong, two hundred times worse than Liverpool setting up an IT dept to hack into Man City's confidential scouting data, at least double the losses Juventus suffered from match-fixing. One bloke behind a tree, yes, we cheated, but no more than happens in EVERY fucking match in every country in the world every day. Football is riddled with cheating - this is not the crime of the century. Enough.

That's enough of the Premier League and the Champions' League final, let's find some more shit on Saints to fill in time before the World Cup. It's old news and 95% of football doesn't give a fuck.

He was a great player for us and lifted expectation and standards around the club. The Rank Xerox years were pretty special.

True story, they used to be lined up in the Dell gym. Was it Guy Askham?

Personal thought - it's no time to starve the club of cashflow so I'm in. All part of accepting that I'm in a toxic relationship with Saints - she promises me much and sometimes delivers amazing moments....but I also know she'll treat me with contempt and let me down. ❤️

Zero interest? He's been obsessed with Saints for weeks. He wants us weaker next season so I'd be amazed if he's drawn a line under it. And he's the one who had to create a bogeyman, to distract from his own failures and his manager totally fucking up their season.

Gibson will be running another media campaign to get Tonda a lengthy ban, this time we need to challenge it and take some control of the narrative. Boro had far too much to say, too much influence at the EFL and a hand on the tiller of the independent panel. IF we do now have a sensible legal team they need to be reminding the football authorities how things work in the real world. We tried humility and guilt, it got us royally shafted, perhaps it's time to advise them of the legal flaws in their processes, to stop listening to bitter Gibson and to wind their fucking necks in. #enoughisenough

Nah, not our team and the way they were playing. 😎 Our keeper could catch and we scored goals.

The key difference here to other expulsions was that the EFL knew about an allegation BEFORE the two games and decided that the offence was not enough to stop the games being played. They were happy with them being fair contests, right up until the hilarious moment when the clown of a Boro keeper watched a cross float right past him into the corner. Normally a mistake like that would be career-defining, but no, no, not for this fucker, he still had an even funnier moment in his locker, in fact I might watch it again in a mo to cheer me up, laughs always guaranteed. And that wheezy unfit Boro team that went about 15 hours without scoring and had a defence that should be in a circus? Apparently they only lost because a kid nearly watched them.

Any ban he serves should be backdated to the day they literally stopped him from managing us the other week. Though it would be amusing if we chose now to chuck every legal obstacle at them and they were unable to prove significant wrongdoing. That would leave the EFL in a shitstorm without a coat. But in reality, they rushed through the last one, now we just have to wait until they let us plan next season.

It's been mentioned before and I know some will disagree but the intern has been hung out to dry and deserves support. It's not the kid's fault, it seems he was pressured and put in a ridiculous situation that may even have been set up by the former Boro analyst, it's certainly interesting how quickly Boro and the Boro-led EFL board were all over it. Will, you must feel terrible right now, we're not blaming you, there are a dozen others who fucked this up, and they are paid the big bucks to behave much better than they have and to do their jobs competently. It's not your fault.

Now it's over I'd be curious to see any contact between Middlesborough staff and their former analyst as well as all messages between Gibson and the EFL board - Middlesborough being rewarded does not pass the sniff test... 37,000 Freedom of Information requests would slow them down.

What a fucking dreadful week - for us and the EFL. We cheated, we're clearly guilty, we should be punished, sack the manager now. But let's clarify, there are two different elements here, the guilt and then the punishment. Because we haven't just been punished, the EFL haven't addressed the guilty parties, they've gone nuclear and totally shafted the whole club, the business, the staff and the fanbase for years to come. And yes, I fully accept the cheating and the fact that we are guilty, but the punishment is ridiculously out of proportion to any other ever imposed, perhaps bar Luton, while the priority of the Middlesborough-driven EFL board has clearly been getting Middlesborough back in and to fuck over Hull City, who should now be promoted. But RB, cup competition, reinstated...blah blah blah... No, no, no, this isn't an ineligible player or a match revisited, the EFL had the charges before the game and said the tie could go ahead, but despite the unusual refereeing they still didn't get the result that the EFL's Steve Gibson wanted so they had to manipulate the situation to reward his club. It feels like VAR all over again, fucking over small clubs while Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool, all guilty of far worse multiple offences, carry on regardless - football looks fucked today. Maybe see you in August. #GoHull ✊

Just to clarify, we are guilty of observing outside the allowed time frame, not 'spying'. When Middlesborough's PR campaign labelled and promoted the incident as Spygate and falsely told everyone that our top analyst was caught inside their training camp using high tech espionage equipment, we lost control of the narrative. Our other offence was not acting with good faith - yep, guilty your honour. But the next time a player feigns injury, or a club fails to turn the heating on in the away dressing room or makes a team walk up the road from their coach, will they face relegation and their opposition be promoted? No, that would be insane. #consistency

Yesterday I fell a little bit more out of love with football, angry that my club has been so stupid and bemused at the bizarre way that the EFL have dealt with it. Nowhere in the rules does it say that if rules are broken another club should be rewarded, they didn't go back through Leicester's results and start dishing out points to others. The correct impact of our removal should surely be Hull straight to the Premier League, but the EFL, with their key Middlesbrough board member, have gone back in time to alter the result of a two-legged tie that they allowed to be fairly played after the offence. We're guilty, mainly of unprofessionalism and gross stupidity, but have been severely punished over TWO seasons, and more, if you take into account the effect on players, squad and management. There is no way the punishment fits the crime and I believe the appeal will revisit that aspect, unless the new panel gets the same briefing from the Middlesborough-driven EFL board as the first one clearly had. For the EFL to allow this confusion to be happening three days before a final is ridiculous and like everything around this case, it only benefits Middlesbrough.

The club has fucked us over. Then the EFL have fucked us over even more with the maddest sporting punishment ever - it's our own fault but there is no consistency in that process. As for Boro, their blatant misinformation media campaign with their own man on the EFL board was appalling - a clusterfuck of a situation from everyone involved. Apologies to Hull, but at least they get to play a bunch of players who blow out of their arses after ten minutes on a good day.

Just to clarify, Boro are demanding the biggest financial punishment ever imposed in the history of world sport... So I believe we're going to Wembley this week, anything else would be insane.

You can't alter the score of a first leg after a second leg has been played, that would be ridiculous.

Boro have clearly won the media war, we need to politely but firmly dismiss most of the crap they've been making up and the ridiculous demands they've been making. No sensible legal mind is going to look at the allegation and believe that removal from the whole season and a potential £200m loss of income is a proportionate punishment.

In the cold calm light of day, we are being charged with one offence. The evidence and defence hasn't been heard yet. Boro are not part of that process, they have no right of appeal. Everything else, the multiple instances, the clubs going to Boro with evidence, the manager's tears, the high tech spy equipment inside the training ground, the spy fleeing, the damning paper trails etc is nothing more than Boro hype to distract from the wheels coming off their season. They blew it bigtime and need someone else to blame. Football knows that Man City and Chelsea have been 'bending rules' for a decade and winning multiple trophies, to think that we would be chucked out for this, if proven, would be wildly disproportionate.

How is our legal case going against Man United for the Gabbiadini goal ruled offside at Wembley, any updates? Also the Kevin Friend performance against Liverpool, have we won back that place yet and the millions it cost us? #itsallbollocks

One of those very few occasions when Cortese is the bloke you want dealing with it. Gibson waking up with half a race horse would bring it all to a quiet end. As for chucking us out, ridiculous, the litigation from the club and fans who have booked things would drag on for years and cost the authorities millions - and the only way they could do that at the moment is breaking their own rule of 14 days to respond. As for a modest points penalty, that would probably guarantee relegation from the Premier League if we made it, and that would not be proportionate to the offence either. Surely a fine and a warning is the only way, and that's only if evidence is ever produced.