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HONK! You lose at football fan. Please try again.

That I can get behind, obviously.

Maradona is a one off and you can't compare Carroll to him tbf. Yes, that's exactly what I was doing. Care to debate the rest of that post then? Or are you just gonna make smart arse comments? Only carrying on what you started tbh. How can any of us know what any player would become without their upbringing or the way they behave as young adults, least of all those with immensely difficult backgrounds like a Maradona or a Garrincha? If they didn't have that dark side to their personalities then they might have faded into mediocrity as adults, never been driven towards sport in the first place, not achieved a fraction of what they did on the field of play. Or they might have done exactly that anyway. Nobody knows, least of all the likes of us, though I suppose this thread shows we've both made up our minds to one extent or another. It just seems incredibly churlish to puncture the balloon of a young lad whose career is on a positive trajectory by damning him before he's even had the chance to properly damn himself.

If only Bush had actually written it. Sad state of affairs like, most ex-presidents are intelligent enough to commit their own thoughts to paper. Probably hasn't even read it. It's no "The Pet Goat".

Its not really stupid to write someone off at 21... history would show that most players who are in and out of trouble and enjoy a boozy trouble strewed lifestyle dont go on to become top top players. Yeah people can reform their characters, but usually they are the ones who weren't so off the rails to begin with. Yeah Barton may have turned it round a lot but he missed out on a lot of football and his development has suffered... are you telling me he is the player he could have been? What do i know about Carrolls personality? Well I dont know the guy but its clear to see he's hardly a shrinking violet... there's a reason he's in the papers and court and its not some sort of journalisitc vendetta against him. 3 assualts, booze and coke fuelled parties... regardless of whether he's dabbled in drugs is irrelevant... trouble follows the lad... this isn't the behaviour of a professional athlete, its the behaviour of someone who thinks he's made it already, and that my freidn spells trouble ahead. A call up to the England squad now would just further fuel his own self worth and ego... it certainly wouldnt do him any favours thats for sure! Stop on

Maradona is a one off and you can't compare Carroll to him tbf. Yes, that's exactly what I was doing.

Well no, he won't, because you just said he won't in the previous paragraph. Or do you not consider yourself to be a reliable enough source?

When I think of Maradona, I think of his charity work tbh.

Excellent wind-up by ajax_andy there. You got us, you kerrrraaaaaazy fool.

You want to see my impression of made-up Elvis tbh

I really don't.

And Maradonna didn't handle the ball in '86, it was an "enhanced goalscoring technique". Bush is within his rights to refer to it as 'enhanced interrogation techniques', as that is what waterboarding has been legally defined as - despite quite obviously being torture - after Mr. Yoo's sterling work for the Bush administration. It's a shame that more of an effort wasn't made at the time to rebuke Yoo's manipulation of history to justify this practice. The namby-pambys were probably too busy running around with flailing arms, crying about some endangered species of tree-ants that the oil companies are killing to make a proper legal case against the clear abuses of power that the Bush administration made. It's a hard life being a namby-pamby, opposing kneejerk anti-Muslim war while approving kneejerk anti-Muslim torture.

Posted this about five pages ago but I don't care, it's just made me die all over again.

I think you've inadvertently gone and said something mildly witty. Good on you http://shop.abc.net.au/browse/product.asp?productid=599821 Great book from a legend of Australian football (RIP) dealing with the changes in attitude to the round ball game down under. And Martin before you rush out and buy it can I just let you know as great as the man, Johnny Warren was, the book is shockingly edited and will leave you, one who works with words, feeling dirty and in need of disinfectant! That's fine by me.

Either way, I think it's entirely appropriate to be having a debate about Australian football in a thread about poofs.

With every respect, it's not exactly half their grade-A squad for the last 20 years, is it?

Can I borrow him for a few weeks? I know an excellent Monroe Transfer specialist who could help us out.

I'm going to give manc-mag 2/10. He didn't even make his own bechamel.

This week's a bit of a swine I'm afraid, theatre on Wednesday then we're blessed with visitors for a few days. Definitely do something curryish before the month's out though. And obviously maybe see you over here on Saturday for the party you said yes to on Facebook and have probably completely forgotten about in the meantime, since that's how it always works for me.

About 1 metre 85 and 90kg. I don't do imperial. (Somewhere around 6 ft 1 and 14 st 2 apparently...)

Ahh, those enlightened Balkan types... http://www.croatiantimes.com/news/Sports/2...ation_president

Aye exactly, they're two different things. I don't wear a poppy because of various reasons, including the huge advertising budget they feel the need to spend on something surely everyone is fully aware of already and the way it's been hijacked by the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns recently when that shouldn't be its main focus (imho). I'll have a strop on Facebook about it and argue the toss with anyone who says not wearing a poppy is tantamount to disrespecting our troops, past or present, but there's absolutely no need for the kind of orchestrated scenes above.

Ended up there tonight as it happens, my old man was in town so it seemed like a good chance to try it out with someone else picking up the tab. Canny enough - the standard stuff is comparable in quality to Masala Zone and a bit more expensive, but they have some really interesting unusual dishes and twists that I'd say make it worth checking out some time. Apologies for the thread hijack, CT.

Aye, there's hardly anyone holding up that massive set of banners like.

Especially since playing two big lads up front gives us more height for defending set pieces than sticking Guthrie or Smith in there anyway.