PaddockLad

What the fuck is a wing forward in Association Football you ludicrous fucking viking twat???!! Sort it out. A striker is a striker, a forward is a forward and a winger is a winger. Thats the way it is. Stop trying to fuckin confuse things/me

Being honest,theres only a hardcore from any club who go on a 4 hour flight to a european footballing backwater for a relatively meaningless game, especially at short notice and 400 quid a pop for the flights from London. Trust me I looked, and then youve got to get to heathrow/gatwick etc, in the middle of the peak holiday season in the UK, when the kids are still off school. There well be a bit of a "walk up" from Mags already in Greece on their holidays. Sunderland supporters haven't had to worry about anything like that, ever

FTAO lovethebobby and j2j..... if you can, get a bootleg of Saturday at V fest Hylands Park......Squire fucking loses it in a brilliant way on Fools Gold, completely overshadows I am the resurrection at the end......still cant beleive how brilliant they were, been grinning like a twat all week

If Stevie's appearing in your dreams mate I'd seek professional help if I were you

Howman have you missed your flight?

Its waffle in that its his opinion about the games....heres some facts in the "legacy" thread about what the true sporting legacy is likely to be: David Conn guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 August 2012 19.30 BST Will London 2012 inspire a generation to do more sport? Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA It was the key pledge supporting London's bid to host the Olympics, made winningly by Lord Coe and the then-prime minister Tony Blair: that a British Games would "inspire a generation" to become more involved in sport. A nation still heady with the glories it has witnessed now expects greater sporting opportunities as a legacy of the Games and their £9.3bn cost, but the Olympic torch has not burned away the stubborn realities dragging people the other way. Modern life for most besides those few full-time athletes is increasingly sedentary; Britain's sports facilities are old, tired and seriously underfunded, and being further depleted by swingeing government cuts to local authority budgets. The slashing of the £162m funding of school sport partnerships imposed by the education secretary, Michael Gove, in 2010, has received most criticism in the context of developing a genuine sporting legacy, but encouraging adults to be more active is a greater challenge. Critics say in the seven years since the Games were awarded to London, no sufficiently coherent plan, backed by will and resources, has been developed by the government to capitalise on the post-Olympic rush of enthusiasm. Hugh Robertson, the sports minister, while pointing to the £1bn which Sport England, the grant-giving agency, has to invest over four years from 2013-17, acknowledges that driving up participation is "very difficult," and a major advance is unlikely to come quickly. "I think we will see an improvement," he said. "The Olympics have been marvellous, and generated huge interest. But none of the things that made this difficult have been lessened. We are talking about societal change. If participation increases, it is likely to be on a long-term, incremental basis." Some say the prospect of even gradual improvement is being damaged by the government's cuts to local authorities, which own and run public sports facilities, but have no statutory duty to do so. In Sheffield, home of gold medal-winning heptathlete and "face of the Olympics" Jessica Ennis, the council is seeking a 20% reduction in its swimming pool, leisure centre and facilities budget, including that of the Don Valley Stadium, where Ennis trains, as it wrestles with a reduction to its government grant of at least £170m over three years. The council has already "drastically reduced" its maintenance of parks, including playing fields, according to its leader, Julie Dore. "The chance of an Olympic legacy is being undermined," she said, "and the situation is only going to get worse. We believe in all the benefits of sport, and do not want to close any facilities, but when we are forced to cut on this scale, our statutory responsibilities mean that sport, leisure and parks become an easy target." Councils are being forced to implement cuts of £6.25bn, 28% of their grants from the government, between 2010-11 and 2014-15, according to the Local Government Association. Playing fields, sports centres and swimming pools, and the staff to run them, are under threat and many budgets are being cut. The LGA warned earlier this year that by 2020 funding of discretionary services, including sport, faces a 66% reduction, and could disappear, due to the mounting cost of adult social care, which councils must provide. A survey of councils by the Chief Cultural and Leisure Officers Association (CLOA) earlier this year found that services, including arts and culture as well as sport, are suffering reductions of around 10% on average, with further cuts to come. So far, the CLOA estimated, 2,800 jobs have been lost in the sector. "The sheer scale of ongoing cuts to local government funding represents the biggest single threat to a participation legacy for London 2012," said Andy Burnham, the shadow health minister. The £1bn government and lottery funding of Sport England is the prime national vehicle now for encouraging participation, distributed to the governing sports bodies, which have targets to meet. A central aspect of the strategy is to link local sports clubs with schools, which often have an area's best facilities, and to staunch the huge drop in people taking part in sport after they leave education. Jennie Price, Sport England's chief executive, is optimistic for a post-Olympics increase in participation, but acknowledged many governing bodies, whose role has traditionally been focused on running clubs and competitions, were not equipped for the new development drive. She cited hockey, netball and cycling as examples. "We have a reasonable chance," Price said. "Around half the governing bodies have a good understanding of what motivates participation and are evolving different models of their sports to make them attractive." The challenge of helping people to be more active has grown into a major public health issue, although there remains limited co-operation across government departments responsible for different aspects of the problem. Sport England's survey in April 2012 found 15.3m people, 35.7% of the population, participated in at least 30 minutes of moderately intensive sport once a week, the recommended minimum. Department of Health guidelines for people to be active, which include brisk walking for at least half an hour five times a week, is met by only 37% of British adults, according to research published last month in the medical journal, the Lancet. So, the nation still hugging itself with pride at the prowess of Team GB athletes has 64% of its adults not playing sport once a week, and 63% not even walking often enough to be physically healthy. The mental and physical health consequences of inactivity are the subject of persistent official warnings; the latest NHS health survey for England found that in 2010 68% of adults were obese or overweight, a growing tendency in recent times, and 16% of children were obese. The economic cost of obesity is estimated at £50bn a year by 2050, £9.7bn to the NHS. Yet despite the warnings, progress towards increasing participation has been slow, and several ambitious targets have been abandoned. Sport England's figures show there was a jump of almost 1m in 2007-08, but since then, only around 400,000 more people have been drawn into playing sport. Given the stubborn factors pulling people to inactivity, it was always controversial for Coe and Blair to claim that hosting the Olympics would inspire a generation to do more. Surprising as it sounds, while inspirational feats still feature vividly in the national mind, no previous Games has led to a general increase. Blair made the claim even though his Downing St strategy unit had stated in a 2002 report, Game Plan, that the links are tenuous between watching top athletes perform and being motivated to do sport. "There is little evidence that hosting events has a significant influence on participation," Game Plan concluded. It advised that hosting events such as the Olympics would produce surging national pride, but for a huge cost: "It would seem that hosting events is not an effective, value for money method of achieving a sustained increase in mass participation." Nevertheless, three years later, Blair pledged to the International Olympic Committee in Singapore that a London Games would do exactly that. Coe later admitted the claim was not supported by research or a strategy for how participation would be increased. Then the £2.4bn budget presented by Coe's bid team, supported by the government, rocketed to £9.3bn, a golden pot of public money which was protected even as government funding was slashed around it. That huge expense, vindicated by the sparkling and brilliantly-organised success of the Games, dwarfs the money available to build and maintain sports facilities, and run sport development programmes, across the country. Chris Gratton, professor of sport economics at Sheffield Hallam University, explains that Britain's limited public sporting stock dates from two phases: late Victorian and early 20th century philanthropy when swimming pools were built, then leisure centres, the fruits of sudden local authority financial surpluses, in the 1970s. "Our commercial facilities, such as private gyms, are relatively good," Gratton said, "but since the 1970s, comparatively few public facilities have been built." Under the previous Conservative government, cuts to local authority budgets saw many facilities decline, and thousands of playing fields sold off. A review for Blair's government by Baron Carter of Coles in March 2005 found that rebuilding sports facilities to modern standards would cost around £4.5bn. Yet no major rebuilding programme has taken place, and just over twice that figure was spent building the Olympic facilities. Gratton said all research into sports participation shows poverty and inequality lead to people being less active. Finland, which has Europe's highest rates of sports participation, thanks to a strong public health message and making facilities available locally, is a more equal society than Britain. "Poorer people suffer social exclusion," Gratton said, "which, by definition, applies to exclusion from sport, too." Robertson agrees, and accepts the cuts to councils will not help. "I do recognise that poverty and inequality affect participation," he said. "And it would be dishonest not to recognise that local authorities cutting budgets will have an impact." He pointed in compensation to changes in lottery distributions which he championed, increasing the proportion of the lottery total going to sport from 13.7%, to 20%, enabling Sport England's £1bn four-year funding. He identified too a specific Olympic legacy programme, Places People Play, targeted at making small grants to facilities in poorer areas – the initiative's budget is £135m over three years. Robertson said that while the Games were a huge success, and had given sport "a tremendous boost," the afterglow is unlikely to translate into a great upsurge in participation. "We have held an Olympics which surpassed expectations; it has produced an amazing stimulus, and a new generation of sporting heroes. However anybody who remotely pretends it will be easy to increase general participation in sport is kidding themselves." So, the claim that a London Games would inspire a generation to do more sport, is in danger of being an over-promise. After the euphoria, the battle is against sedentary culture, junk food, haggard sports facilities, too few opportunities, local authority cuts, and, for young people, inequality between private and state schools. If this landscape undergoes no post-Olympic transformation, Britons who supported the Games so wholeheartedly may come to feel short-changed by its legacy

How much left back has he played?....

lack of shame and humiliation for me, but that does come from the parents...I think shame kept the nations morals intact in the past. Nowadays you dont have to be ashamed of anything. You can take that attitiude to extremes, and "honour killings" among ethnic minorities are a perfect example of that. But a bit of gentle brainwashing of your children is how they acheived it in the past. A lot more difficult nowadays when sex is everywhere and used to sell and promote a lfestyle which some teenagers aspire to. I'm 43 narly and my parents never had a convrsation with me about contraception but when I started having sex I knew I had to put a bag on it.

Voted 3, it would appear hes been a naughty boy and has charges against him for sexual assault. He seems to want to hold the entire world to account, but when somebody wants to treat him the same he's a tad reluctant... Unless its a set up by "the powers that be" to frame him for his exposure of the inner workings of world governments...over to you Parky/Wolfy

Seeing as he's "English" he'll also be phenomenally expensive for the standard of player he is. I tell you who he reminds me of...John Stead

That good enough Gem?

Michael Chopra's early record at NUFC: In the 2000–01 season, he scored 28 goals for the Newcastle Academy side that reached the FA Premier League Academy Under-17 playoff final. In December 2000 he signed his professional contract with Newcastle. The next season, playing for the Academy Under-19 team, he scored 14 goals in the first nine games of the season, prompting a promotion to the Senior Reserves. He went on to score in the Northumberland Senior Cup final victory over Bedlington Terriers in September 2001. Then in October, Newcastle gave him a squad number. By the end of the season, he had made 17 appearances for the Reserves, scoring seven goals. The 2002–03 season started well, with Chopra scoring nine goals in his first five games for the Under-19s and Reserves. In November he signed a new three-year deal with the club, and on 6 November, he made his senior debut against Everton in the League Cup, substituting Lomana LuaLua. The game ended 3–3 but Newcastle lost the penalty shootout, with Chopra missing his spot kick. Chopra was born in 83 so was 17-18 when he got 28 goals for the academy in a season. Adam Campbell's figures for last season played 15, 8 goals, he's roughly the same age as Chopra was when he had his great season for the u18s. Proves nothing but we all know how Chopra turned out. I know there were great hopes for Chopra, a lot of us were wondering when he was going to get his chance. He got it but didnt kick on though, at a guess I'd assume it was his lack of pace that was the telling factor in why he's not a premier league standard striker. Difficult to say about Campbell, no ones really seen him play, unless there are some closet u18 watchers among us. Point is, hype is a guarantee of nothing when it comes to youth players.

"am not going to beleive it till I see him running round SJP in a black and white Shirt" Good news tbh, seems a class player by all accounts.

I think if he was coming we'd have heard by now. Champions league football and more money are likely on offer somewhere else.

That is generally how things happen iyam. Roy Jenkins was home secretary in the 60s, he abolished hanging and leagalised homosexulality and abortion.He did it becaue he thought the country would be a better place to live if he did. Thatcher crushed the unions for the same reasons. They were elected, but its their level in society who impose their decisons on us, elected or not. Very little comes from ordinary people that changes other's lives funadamentally.

Funding for elite atheletes will be maintained at its present level, but grass roots money is likely to be cut. Anyone wanting to play handball or volleyball is fucked as because its unlikely that team GB will qualify for Rio theyre not going to be given as much funding as they received for London. The Dutch Volleyball coach of team GB at the Olympics has already left his post, as per his contract. The "legacy" crowd talk fine words, but follow it up with fuck all.

He didnt need to do adverts before major championships he appeared in, that may have kept him out of the public eye....developing a stable of horses and inviting skysports to a tour around it to publicise it may have been a bad move for the shy, retiring Michael too. Plenty of brilliant footballers are virtually anonamous...Paul Scholes springs to mind, and a lot of the foreign players seem well balanced people too, but honestly, if self delusion was an Olympic sport Owen would be in the Michael Phelps category.

Ask Owen if he's proud of how he played Jan-May 2009 and he may get a moment of enlightenment. What a fuckin cunt.

Pompey days from liquidation....Chainrai withdraws his offer...the administrators gave all the parachute money to Kanu,Liam Lawrence and Greg Halford http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/portsmouth/9476549/Portsmouth-on-the-brink-of-liquidation-after-Balu-Chainrai-withdraws-bid-to-buy-club.html

Having a bit of charisma,a loud voice and a hugo boss outfit counts as genius?.....he was the biggest confidence trickster in history iyam. I've no doubt he beleived the shite espoused but to get an entire nation to go along with it for 10 years or so was nowt more than a trick. Clever-ish, but genius?....naah.

Is "evil" better known as narcissitic personality disorder?

Fuck me your missus hit the jackpot when she landed you CT

tell her to take a freekin holiday!

Whats wrong mate?