On the eve of the biggest football match in their history, Cheltenham Town players are reeling after their training ground was burgled. The League Two side face Premier League outfit Everton tonight in the FA Cup third round. However, thieves struck on Sunday morning at the club's training ground in the Swindon Village area of Cheltenham, stealing wallets, watches and smartphones worth thousands of pounds B@STARDS......
Serious question, if Cardiff were to fail to get promoted from their current position, would Malky get sacked?
NNW - in the current climate, I'd say that would be more than likely. On another subject - I see that Sean O'Driscoll has turned down Barnsley, who have now turned their attention to Terry Butcher. I'd say they'll miss out on that one too - Inverness or Barnsley, a no brainer IMO.
I don't normally pay much attention to the League Cup, but the potential final is like a dagger through the heart. Don't begrudge either of those teams their day out of course.
The jocks seem to have got this spot on. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20969616 So basically, the first and second division will play home and away (22 matches), before splitting into three leagues of eight, the points being reset, and the teams playing home and away again. In the top split, there is an outside chance of an Aberdeen or Hibs snatching the title, whereas over 38 games that just won't happen. The middle split is a much fairer way of ensuring that well run clubs having a good season have a chance of playing Celtic (and Rangers once they're back near the top), rather than there simply being one promotion place between SPL and SFL. The bottom split makes the relegation battle relatively interesting, because the slate is wiped clean with 14 games to play. And the 18 team bottom tier seems to make sense for the little clubs, because they're playing more teams, less often. It's one thing to play The Old firm and the best of the rest four times a season, and something else to try and build up excitement for your second away league trip to Elgin.
I'm not sure that Rangers see it that way - threatening to find somewhere else to ply their trade as they see this as disadvantaging them. Good luck to them with that - they may find that they're not welcome anywhere. Throwing their hat into the Northern Ireland ring may prove to be a tad too volatile at the moment - maybe Iceland?
One thing is clear about the situation at Blackburn today and that is that absolutely nothing is clear. http://t.co/xfHm0iLO @BenSmithBBC Poor Blackburn, to think that they WERE Prem Champions.
It looks as if Blackburn are going nowhere with these chicken owners making all sorts of brave statements when they took control about what they would do, yet have done nothing but create chaos behind the scenes. Somehow it reminds me of a certain person who took control at a Herts club. As for Appleton even thinking about talking to them is beyond belief. He has only been at Blackpool for two months for heavens sake. Before that he was expressing undying love for Pompey and he would never leave them. He is making the current Liverpool manager seem to be full of the best behaviour seen in the football world.
It slightly disadvantages the Old Firm as far as the title goes, because it's possible for the other teams to have a run like Hearts did under George Burley, and in 14 games a run like that could win the title. And it gives clubs that can't sell out every week a boost, in the sense that the matches that they play will become more meaningful and will therefore presumably sell better. But I don't see that making a difference, because clubs spend beyond their means anyway. The only difference would be that they could spend the money they spend now without going bankrupt... like Rangers... That said, financially this seems like a good thing for Rangers. Surely anything that makes Scottish football more exciting will increase the TV money on offer? And Rangers will always get a significant slice of that.
Commonsense says that is true, but Rangers are spitting the dummy because the proposed change would render this season irrelevant - whichever team wins the bottom tier simply wins the right to stay in the bottom tier & they are not happy with that.
I found this earlier and thought you'd all be interested in this. Football as its supposed to be played, looks like they've been watching us play http://youtu.be/EGXZLwxP2o0
It's harsh, but fan power would kill off anything that could be seen as a pro-Rangers vote. Once Rangers are back in the SPL the opportunity for change would be lost forever.
I saw the Scottish football plan and thought that it is a quick way for Rangers to get to the top again, as it will cut out a year, but then will it? Wherever they finish this season (assuming this plan is adopted and starts for 2013-14) they will go into the third level, just as they would be next season anyway and it all probability they will win that next season whichever scheme is adopted and then second and first levels, so no difference except they will be playing the same teams next year as this, but with a few extra ones. I can see why the teams at the bottom would like this - two more bumper paydays. And it wasn't that long ago Scotland had three divisions anyway or even two, I thought four divisions was brough in to make things more interesting. No disrespect to Scottish teams is implied here but travelling from one small town to another over quite difficult terrain is not going to produce a large crowd; and it's not just Scotland, I'm sure most Norwegian, Swedish or Dutch games don't get big crowds unles it's Rosenborg, AIK, Malmo, PSV, Feyenoord, etc. Even in England you don't need to go too far down the league structure to find small crowds, of course there are anomalies but these aren't common.
No, we improved the Roman invention the chariot, by inventing & fitting them with rubber tyres. A tad chilly in winter, but boy do they eat up the miles comfortably. Quite what we will use to pull them when our wildcats are finally extinct is anyone's guess though. ;(
No good those - I thought that everyone knew that haggis can only run around in circles. On the Rangers problem, I think that English clubs should start to worry - it seems 'Arry Redknapp and Arsene Wenger have come out in support of Rangers (and Celtic) joining the EPL. Where would that leave the promotion aspirations of Championship teams, not to mention the aspirations of those all the way down the divisions?
