The Fish

Can you see the point Rayvin was making?

Yeah that wasn't the point Rayvin was making. Can you tell us what point you think he was making?

... Give me my money back.

End of the day Wolfy my man, you dismiss claims that have proof and evidence unless you see it with your own eyes, and yet you believe in something that has no proof or evidence. If you can't see the hypocrisy, I think it's best you hold your tongue.

Perhaps it's better to say a facet of latent intelligence is the apparatus to make decisions. A facet that needs nurturing and exploring.

I've decided to retire from International football to concentrate on my club career.

I'm sure the nurse can help you identify it's source.

Hey, I was happy calling him a stupid bellend, you're the one diverting this into a treatise on the nature of free will

It gives us the apparatus to make decisions. Someone with a genetic intelligence can still make bad choices, and someone without can make good choices.

Yep, that and "Mother of God"

We actually don't. Also, PROOOOOOOOOVE IT

Just got back from getting coffee and some bread from Hale, christ alive the man who invented yoga pants deserves a knighthood. Every yummy mummy/footballers lass is wearing them, and wearing them well.

Christ alive..

No we don't. That's another lie Wolfy.

Is the right answer.

Yeah, that's what I believe.

I do, but it's a component. It's a kernel of intelligence that needs nurturing.

Poor education, poor application, poor choices.

I can argue that were there no free will at all, there would be no examples of kids from deprived and/or destructive foundations making anything of their lives. I don't disagree that formative years can limit or broaden one's horizons, but to say that if you're born into X you will forever behave that way is, imo, patently untrue. There's a slither of individuality that decides a path, each choice will obviously be made based on prior choices, but there remains, at it's core, a choice.

I don't agree that we're on rails. We have different starting points and of course we're influenced and socialised to behave in certain ways, but we can choose to stay the course or change tack. I mean, this is a man who has been removed from those apparent negative influences while still a young man. Once in an environment that rewards professionalism to such an extent, it behoves the individual to accept this fresh influence. He must have seen kids who behaved badly binned off. He must have seen the crushing devastation when a kid's dream is snatched away from him. As I've said, football accepts kids largely from lower socioeconomic groups where, perhaps, the right messages haven't got through. Why have the majority of these other kids, starting from similar backgrounds who get a professional football career, changed their ways but Ranger can't? Were his formative instructions that much more entrenched than others? Was he particularly less privileged than everyone else? I don't buy it. Some people are just wrong'uns and choose to remain so. He's seen the same signposts everyone else has, but he's chosen to remain on a path that is ruining his life. He's done that because he arrogantly believes he'll get another chance, that his talent is enough. When all he's heard from managers, fans and the media that he'd be great if he could just sort that side of his life out. And he must hear it because after every infraction he trots out the same "This is my last chance and I know I have to sort that side of my life out" bullshit. I'm all for consideration of the broader picture, but Ranger isn't some victim of his environment any more because it's not his environment anymore. He's the arbiter of his fate and as such need to take responsibility. He's a grown man who's had more chances, more opportunities than any of the kids he grew up with and every time he fucks up it's a slap in the face to those kids who, despite coming from the same neighbourhoods, would likely behave better than he has.

Sorry like, but he wouldn't. His environment may have limited his appreciation, but he's been playing the game for at least 8 years as a professional. In that time he's beaten up his lass, he's broken and entered, he's committed bank fraud and I'm sure he's done more. Every time someone tries to blame his background or whatever I can't understand it. Troy Deeney went to jail and he's turned it round. Carroll was apparently a right little toerag when he was a kid, now he's not. Defoe was an arsehole growing up, wasn't he? These lads haven't come from Eton or anything. There's plenty of examples of footballer who've used the opportunities the game provides to turn their life around, Ranger is just a cunt.

Middlesbrough?

Yeah it's different, the kid won the fucking lottery and has pissed it away because he's thick as shit. There's plenty examples of other professional footballers who've come from rough backgrounds who've gone on to have great careers. There's plenty who've made a stupid mistake early in their career and pulled themselves back. There's some who've made a couple of mistakes and eventually pulled themselves together. Ranger has had chance after chance and fucked himself over time and again. Get no sympathy from me, I don't care if he grew up in a Gulag or Rotherham.

Aye, but I was a child.