PaddockLad

If you were there when we were I think you'd have noticed us, we were there around 6ish but got on the train around 2ish, so we were a tiny bit beyond the stage of sitting quietly supping a pint... I did have a good look round but didn't think you were there tbh. There was 5 or 6 of us sat at the table right across from the door to the bar.. We saw a lad smack his head off the door frame as he came through the door, were you with him? Or were you the lad with the bucket hat in the colours of the Spanish flag on a push bike?...

From wiki... The Scottish commenwealth games officials didn't pick a former Olympic champion for the team in his home city...... I remember the outcry well, and the press campaigns to get him there. All to no avail, the "village hall committee members" didn't budge Think the sane happened with Coe in the run up to Seoul in 1988?

Missing the glaring point that Euro 2000 was indisputably the best football tournament ever to take place I've always enjoyed the Olympics, as Alex says the first one I remember is Moscow 1980 when Alan Wells won the 100m. We'd just moved to Scotland and to say he returned a national hero is something of an understatement. The US and others boycotted that year (Thatcher made shot putting budgie breeder Geoff Capes stay at home though, because he was in the police ) but it's a fact that Wells beat every single one of his main rivals over the course of that summer, he went to the US in the September to take on the main yank contender and beat him too. I think there's the whiff of doping about Wells's achievements now though, which is a shame. Also Daley Thomson wearing a t shirt with " is the worlds second greatest athlete gay?" On the podium at the LA games in 84 after Carl Lewis won four golds

It may have been dismissed but I do get the feeling Rafa doesn't trust him. They may have invented the whole thing on that basis but you don't drop your fully fit best striker during a relegation fight without good reason. If anyone wants to suggest another reason am open to anything but it doesn't bode well if Mitrovich feels that he's not trusted. I agree he's a talent and I agree he should find the drop down in quality an easier environment to get goals in but he's got a short fuse and looks a permanently a stone overweight for top division football. Andy Carroll ruled this division in 09/10 so we'll see how Mitrovich goes, we should give him a fair bit of leeway as he's young and foreign but if he doesn't get what's in his head sorted pretty quick he'll never produce what his talent suggests he is capable of.

That's what I was thinking.....but there's no "buying" club mentioned, just that Rafa wants rid, which is the only part of article that is properly beleiveable for me. Rafa dropped him for last seasons run in, picked him when we were already relegated v Spurs and he still got sent off. Keeping a player that's blatantly untrustworthy regardless of his talent (which he has, but always looks overweight to me) doesn't strike me as the actions of a top class manager. He had Bellamy for a season then told him to find a new club. He's maybe told Mitrovich the same...

Did you get gas in your pint?

Well what a parcel of fuckin shit that was Their goal was predictably from a set piece, we let lots in pre season like that. Bit toothless up front too, I think there was a slight change straight after half time where Anita and Ritchie swapped sides and we had a big of pressure but Fulham soon snuffed all that out, looked like Jokanovich knew more tha Rafa last night. Thought Hayden had some good touches but faded, as did Gayle and Perez, who for all his apparent talent is becoming a bit of a red herring. Early days though. Went to Bricklayers Arms for the big TT meet up but @@The Fish failed to show up.....or if he was one of the dreary looking locals loafing around the beer garden then I wouldn't have wanted to talk to him anyway

I'm sticking by my previous prediction of him going on loan to Leicester around 11-47pm on 31st August, when the penny finally drops in his tiny deluded mind that f he'd showed some fuckin effort last season bigs clubs wouldn't view him the same way we do, as a massive fuckin fraud.

I can understand the positivity but can't bring myself to join with it for all these same reasons I've gone 2-2 for today, but that was before they sold McCormack. Think we might nick it now but it'll all be a bit disappointing, I think things may take time to gel, we've a lot of new players and last time we still had the core of the team from the previous season. Am off for the train soon, the suns out in the south and it's all looking good for a great Friday night in that London....just watch some fuckin footballers spoil it

Is he ok then?...

https://mobile.twitter.com/gallowgateflags Am I just being a miserable old bastard in saying that I don't think this is, traditionally speaking, appropriate for our club?.... I don't think it's appropriate for English football supporters in general tbh. We're not flag wavers, until someone sells a gazillion of them outside an FA final or something....it's just not us iyam. The only club I can think of that have any tradition of a few flags in the crowd are Liverpool. To me it's more a continental thing, specifically Italian, you always see a fair few flags in the Curva Nord etc being waved around by the ultras. It's not really in our supporting culture and trying to suddenly introduce it smacks of just starting a gimmick or fad, bit like man city and inflatable bananas. Maybe I'm wrong and it will be a marvellous spectacle, people will do it at appropriate times and they will definitely NOT, in any way shape or form, wave a flag and prevent those sitting behind them from seeing what's happening on the pitch...Just a thought but I remember when Ashley closed the L7 singing section and a large number of folk moved from there to join us in the south east corner, where some persisted in standing throughout the first game v Arsenal, and a fair few others pre Christmas that season. The ill feeling and indeed physical confrontations that caused were, to say the absolute least, regrettable. I wouldn't want to see some over exuberant youngster being threatened with having his flag shoved up his arse by some of our more volatile comrades. We'll see how it goes I suppose but it's not really for me.

Go on then mate, am all ears... Iyam it's to do with the prem lges abundance of riches....the market has gone through the roof for average players.

On the face of it that's a fair point, but we've got a coach in the same league as Sir Bob now who actually has the ability motivate and to actually improve players as the season goes on. The vast majority of our squad won't have played for someone with Bentez's ability before, a lot of his ex players say he's the best they've worked with. Of course we're all allowed an opinion on who's coming in, but trying to play FM in our own heads doesn't allow for what might happen with the players during the season and how they might develop.

I used to visit friends in Earlsfield in the 90s and drank in and around Clapaham a fair bit, Lavender Hill etc, it was fully gentrified even back then. Putney high street was still quite rough round the edges so I liked that better but it's gone the same way now. Just looked on trip advisor about the Bricklayers, first review: "don't tell anyone about this place!"

We're going through Clapham Junction on the train, that's a good shout, cheers. That Brickies looks canny enough too, may see you in there... If you see a fellah who looks like a Geordie inspirational speaker/life coach/property dealer buying huge rounds of pre match sambucca I'll be with him

Can't be arsed with that place, too small, last time I was there pre match they had fuckin stewards marshalling the pre match piss up wearing pink hi viz vests. Fuck that, although we did bizarrely have a post match pint with Nobby Solano's brother in there, bloke was the spitting image of him and was stood their in the 8 bells wearing the wet, mud splattered shirt Nobby had just taken off There's a boozer on the way to the ground not far from there called The Temperance which is a good spot, but as you say with 7k of our lot on the rampage in west London on a Friday its best to get in somewhere early.

If you all want a laugh, I could post a picture of the bamboo needle tattoo (think Mel Gibson in the film Mutiny) I got on koh phi phi in Thailand but frankly I'm too ashamed The biggest traveller cliche going; go to a tropical island with your missus and get matching tattoos The current Mrs PL has a few smallish, discreet and tasteful inkings and talked me into it. Now I'm hooked, im going to get something like this which belongs to a mate of mine... Taken on the train coming back from one of our cup defeats by Brighton a few years back...he won the "best NUCF tattoo" contest by some distance, as you can imagine

There's thousands of those fuckers on the north island, one of them informed us he wasn't keen on dear old Nelson getting the president gig and shipped out round then, the NZ goverment loved all these farmers coming over and did a deal for them. As you say they just sound bizzare, one of them we met sounded fairly normal SA, but he littered his speech with kiwi colloquialisms, "Kia ora bro!" In the accent of FW Botha

I can confirm that I'm in attendance, representing the TT massive Any part time cockneys ( I'm thinking you, @@The Fish )care to suggest a riverside pub that doesn't want to serve us braised pigs ear with a side of bone marrow jelly, rather than a pint of fuckin beer? we're arriving early and all I can find is gastro pubs or boozers where you may have to be wearing the right rowing club colours to get in. The weathers supposed to be half decent so we're looking for a decent hostlery near the river in Fulham or Putney that will let a desperate company of General Benitez's foot soldiers in

While that is undoubtedly true, can't think of too many "old pals acts" such as this that really work tbh...happy to be proved wrong though...

29 years ago today apparently... https://youtu.be/rBxjZXIWj5I Chuffed as nuts with Gazzas late goal we bombed straight out on to Gorgie Road to find Hibs CCS mob waiting for us

That's great Noelie, thanks for sharing. There's a few names you mention I remember from 70s football stickers, Clyde Best is definetly the most famous though, apart from "Mick Mahoney super goalie na na na na" Try scanning the photo if you've got one, or maybe taking a photo of the photo?..

How do you know Clyde Best?...even for you Noelie, that's random....

Happy birthday Rents......saw this and thought of you

Agreed. I think he liked going to watch them after he finally retired, he just liked watching football and being among football folk without any real prejudice, and Niall Quinn treated him brilliantly from what I gather. Niall Quinn who was gobbed on by a mackem outside Roker in 1996...according to Niall Quinn's own book that is. Obviously Shepherd undermining then sacking Sir Bob made visits to SJP a tiny bit awkward too after 2004. In Sir Bob's own book, he was on about when Shearer scored five v Sheffield Weds in Sir Bob's first home game in charge. He said that it was also there the last time a player scored that many for NUFC with his dad, v Newport County in 1946 Len Shackleton scored six http://www.11v11.com/matches/newcastle-united-v-newport-county-05-october-1946-103750/ He also talks about getting the bus with his old man from Langley Park to Chester Le Street, then another to Haymarket, just to watch us every other week. He also talks about how he'd ask "how have Newcastle got on?" regardless of where he was working in the world, every Saturday at 4-45 pm. He also said that when he looked out at a full house at SJP from the dugout he saw his dad sitting in every single seat and accordingly wanted to please us all as much as he could. Am almost certain he doesn't mention Sunderland once in the entire book, but seeing as I can remember all that off the top of my head, I think it's a good bet I'm right. Regardless of how a few morons treated him when he was England manager 35 years ago, he was and remained a Newcastle United supporter until the day he died. I'll tell you who did go and watch the mackems as kids from time to time, Bobby and Jackie Charlton, it says so in Bob's book abut his career at Manu. Tbh, I wouldn't be surprised if It turned out that Sir Bob went to Roker too in his younger day, hundreds of his and the Charltons' generation would watch both clubs week about, whoever was at home. But Sir Bob was a Mag to his bootstraps, just because he'd probably get something from any game of football he watched across his entire life doesn't alter that. Them down the road should really stop trying to rewrite history on this because the facts don't bare out what they say.