Off Topic Bill Nicholson Arms

My first viewing spot.Behind the boards of the Shelf.I remember some Chelsea fans (ladies) sharing their lunch with me as a 12 year old!

 

Need the GF data IMHO for that table to be meaningful and valid. dg

 

It is neither meaningful or valid and never will be. Utterly pointless!

 

With a cursory correlation of :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/top-scorers

Southgate should be starting as many friendlies as possible with
Ings / Abraham / Calvert-Lewin to see how well they front up at
that level.

 

I thought I was the one stalking footballers' wives/girlfriends on Instagram?

 

You wouldn’t say that if it had West Ham bottom of the table .

 

With Leeds promoted, the Spanners should be relegated
(according to the first Law of Vermin-amics) .

 

On this day in 1994 this man joined Spurs, I could not believe my ears when it was announced on the radio , had to stop my car and phone home so the old man could check on ceefax

 

54 years ago today England won the world cup, I was 7yrs old I can remember playing football out in the street and going into our neighbours house to watch the game as they had a bigger tv than ours and theirs didnt need to be fed with money to keep it going , 1-1 at half time and out in the street for more footie most of the kids wanted to be Hurst or Moore but I stuck with Jimmy Greaves , in for the 2nd half and 2-2, tea was served up and I can remember the adults moaning about the Germans getting the equaliser so near to full time , the rest is history and I can still remember the party spreading to the local boozer and a mass game of footie in the pub garden and the old bill turned up at closing time but they stayed for a couple ( just to be social)

 

Or to put it another way, since then the following teams have won the World Cup
Brazil - three times
Germany - three times
Argentina - twice
Italy - twice
France - twice
Spain - once

But don't worry, 2022 will be our year...

 

Why have England only staged the World Cup once?

 

I read that in 1950,England managed to lose to the USA 1-0. I believe,at that time, USA lost interest in "soccer". They thought if a tiny team like ours can beat the giants of football,why bother?

 

Because we haven't bribed FIFA where as Quatar, Brazil and Russia have bunged **** loads their way

 

I kind of agree with spreading it around a bit more. The tournaments that is, not the money. If you exclude the blatant bribery - especially in taking it to a place hotter than hell - then it's good that Africa, Americas, Asia should all get a chance. I think it used to be every other tournament was in Europe?

 

I also agree on the sharing of tournaments but we all know that it's how much not how fair

 

Because the last couple of times they proposed hosting the tournament, the entire bid consisted of "We invented football, now gimme gimme gimme"

What really stands out about the most recent England bid is just how many clubs they expected to mortgage their own futures for the sake of holding a World Cup, with the list of proposed venues including
- Plymouth expanding Home Park to a capacity of 43,000...in spite Home Park having a capacity of 17,000
- Leeds expanding Elland Road to 51,000 from 37,000
- MK Dons' stadium
- ...not enough? Okay, MK Dons' stadium expanding to 44,000 from 30,000
- Marginal increases in capacity for Villa Park and Hillsborough
- ...yet a reduced capacity expected for the Etihad
- Also, seriously, using Hillsborough is a tad problematic on its own, let's be honest here
- Liverpool's new 72,000 capacity stadium that doesn't exist
- ...or, if that wasn't built, Anfield would be used, with a reduced capacity
- Tottenham's new stadium that actually did exist...but wasn't actually finished
- Nottingham Forest's 45,000 seat stadium that doesn't exist, as they're still using the 30,000 capacity City Ground
- Bristol City's 44,000 seat stadium that doesn't exist, as they're still using the 27,000 seat Ashton Gate
- The fact that four of the venues were in London and two in Manchester, so good luck with your morning commute...

 

This is becoming a bit of recurring theme - but I am really getting fed up with Sky using blatantly biased ex-players as as co-commentators in matches. They have a large number ex-players on their roster and it must surely be possible to find someone for every match that has no connection to the 2 teams playing.

The latest example was having Danny Gabbidon on last nights play off semi-final virtually cheering them on throughout the match, I have attached the match report below and match the stats bear no resemblance to the match that he described Cardiff dominating last night. Yes they did apply pressure and they played well, but in all honesty having bought the tie to within a goal at the start of the 2nd half they didn't really force the Fulham keeper into a difficult save after that and it was Fulham who worked Smthies in the Cardiff goal harder.

Anyway moan over (until the next time), I think the play off final will be a cracker got a feelling that Scotty Parker and Fulhams greater experience may see them over the line, but thats good news for Brentford as we know that my predictions have often been wide of the mark so far this season!

One other thing - Josh Onomah was very good again last night and he has filled out some and looks a proper athlete now, gonna be a good player will be back in the top league soon for sure.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53508850

 

Very happy for Josh. I remember watching him for the England youth teams round the time he got a bit of game time for our senior team and he looked a cut above the rest, almost able to play like Dembele because of his combination of size and technical ability. Obviously he couldn’t replicate that at a senior level right then.

Now, he looks better physically and frankly just looks like he’s grown up. A season in such a demanding league as the Championship will have done him a world of good and I hope he gets a chance to show his talent at PL level.

 

He was ridiculous at youth level, head and shoulders above any player on the pitch. I do think a large part of the reason why he couldn't find his form at senior for us was because he kept shifting position, either playing CM/ CAM/ RM, we never gave him a continued run in his preferred central roles.

I'd prefer to see Brentford in the Prem but it'd also be good to see Onomah come up as well. Could show the Hemel Hempstead Messiah a thing or two