Richie J

Carlos Queiroz for the West Ham job - just a hunch.

It was a Hamleys. Not sure what it was before that. Might have been built for that actually. Nice one, It didnt last very long did it? Hamley's was there in 1990 I know that much, cos I remember it being there during the 1990 World Cup. I tell you how I remember, a ridiculous amount of kids from schools all over the city would descend on McDonalds on Northumberland Street during the World Cup, because they had these scratch cards, and I think it was no purchase necessary. You'd scratch the question at the top and they were piss easy for me, cos football was my life, "who was top scorer in the 78 World Cup", well every fucka knows it's Kempes, once you'd done that, you scratched your prize at the bottom and the worst it ever was, was chips, so it was always mobbed that summer, and Hamley's was next door. Speaking of free things from Food and drink type stuff, can you remember coca cola/fanta/sprite yo-yos? Aye I could never get the hang of the fuckers everyone else doing these impressive tricks and I could hardly get it to come back up. Ooh that sounds rude. Ha, totally forgot about them, I had a fanta one with a blue rim. I remember you could get a little booklet with all the tricks in... never managed owt fancier than a "breakaway" I think, but must have had a million tellings of my mam about not trying the "round the world" in the front room. As for Hamleys that was class but very short lived if I remember correctly. Used to sell more fancy stuff than you could find in Fenwicks I think - I remember my da getting me one of them balsa wood planes with the elastic band running inside the length of it for the propeller. Smashed it to smithereens on its maiden flight on Beacon's Field down in Cullercoats. Them were the days...

Christ I remember the pencils being absolutely massive but they seem tiny on that photo. I know everything seems bigger when you're a bairn but still, that photo is a big disappointment! Aye, messing around on them used to be the highlight of all those saturday afternoons in town, along with Fenwicks toy fair on the top floor and a vanilla ice cream from the Patio in the basement.

OK no bother mate.

Nah you must have me mixed up with someone - I dunno any Karl's. I'm just relaying what I've been told by a Scouse lad I play with - he's always well informed about Merseyside goings on. No doubt in my mind that it's true.

This is a pity. For me the NRL is a great competition with loads of top quality players. I know there are loads of scandals in australian rugby league, but the competition is still worth watching. The Aussie team in the early to mid 2000s is one of the best sprts teams I,ve ever watched, and I reckon the State of Origin is the best spectacle in world rugby, including six nations and world cup union, and Andrew Johns is just one of the best sprtsmen I,ve ever seen (only on TV unfortunately).

This is definitely true. He's been in court all week trying to gt an injunction out to stop the press publishing it. Been living in a hotel in Southport for a month after his wife booted him out when she found out. naughty boy...

Looked deliberate to me as well. It is the most cowardly way to go into a tackle and very dangerous. Anyone can go into a tackle studs up - there is absolutely no risk to him and a very serious risk to the other player. Definitely worth more than 2 match ban cos it's a potential career ender.

I'm going to Alberfera for the first week of the World Cup so I'll let you know....we did the same for the Euros a couple of years back and it was really good, little sign of real bother, just the usual drunken daftness, which continental types look down upon. Can't say I blame them, but its much the same attitiude as we have about the Poles etc...nothing new under the sun Oh I'm not saying there's owt wrong with the Brits who go to the Alrgarve - been there myself in fact. I just find it funny that they assume for some reason that the people there aren't representative of Brits as a whole... no idea where the assumption comes from, like. I think the French work in the opposite way - they refuse to believe that there are any reasonably behaved people in England at all. I think it just helps them to feel better about themselves.

Aye that's because we've won more wars for them than we have the French. That's definitely a part of it. England-Portugal is apparently the oldest inter-country allliance - something to do with conquering bits of Africa I think.

From my experience, the Malaysian, Philipino and Indian upper classes have a strange reverence for us, and wish they could be as civilised as we must appear to be to them... Obviously the Yanks often have a soft spot for us and wish they could speak like Hugh Grant. Portuguese seem to think that we only send the dreggs of our society to the Algarve, and assume that most of the country are much better behaved, and hence give us a lot of respect. If only they knew...

My brother has see him a few times and reckons he's got tons of ability. Potentially a real class creative player... If that's the case then there's no sense in selling him now - he's totally unproven so we'd likely not get much for him. We are supposed to be building - to do that you don't sell your most promising young player in years. If Ashley sells him for 1 or 2 million to a big club that has spotted his promise that will confirm for me that he's learned nowt and is still just trying to run the club like sports direct, with no ambition regarding league success. Having said all that, the article is clearly pap so it's really a moot point at the mo.

Aye, never gave the ball away much on a shocking pitch, as you say. Lovely weight on that ball to Routledge for the second goal as well. The build up to the goal was lovely too. They didn't show it in the replays, but he was very tidy just before playing the 1-2 with Guthrie. Yep, great build up - probably my goal of the season.

He was poor last year, and this year he's not done much in general play for long periods of a lot of matches... but midfielders with a goal scoring knack are few and far between. I think against the top teams next year he'll be anonymous - he just needs far more time on the ball than he'll get against those sides - but I'd like to think that he'll be able to weigh in with a fair few goals against the bottom half teams as he has done this year against Championship teams. That might be optimistic, but I can't see Hughton dropping him, so I reckon it'll be 4-5-1 with him, Barton (if fit/available) and HOPEFULLY an atheltic, strong, ball winning midfielder alongside them, and Jonas and Routledge out wide. Whether or not we get that quality centre midfielder will decide whether or not we can get away with carrying Nolan for most of the match and hopefully allowing him to spend his time getting on the end of things in the box as he has done this year.

Aye, never gave the ball away much on a shocking pitch, as you say. Lovely weight on that ball to Routledge for the second goal as well.

Sad news, Big Star has been one of my favourite bands for years. Back in the days before internet and youtube and that hardly anyone used to know about them. Three great, great albums. He was a bit of a troubled soul though, I think. Definitely one of the great unsung songwriters though, and a good singer too.

You put those names up giving the impression they were home grown talent, costing peanuts yet they were virtually £40m for the two! Aye, there's no doubting that Man U reaped the rewards of a great crop of players that graduated from their youth system in the early 90s (Scholes et al), but they can't claim all the credit for Ronaldo and Rooney. Ronaldo was the product of Sporting's renowned academy and Rooney was a wonderkid at Everton. Their's also no doubting Ferguson did wonders for both those players, nobody would argue with that, but they've got nowt to do with Man U's youth academy/system. Taggart just saw two of the most promising young players in the world and paid what he needed to get them, then managed them properly... not rocket science... Bobby tried the same with Jenas and Viana, for example, but unfortunately for us the results were somewhat less spectacular!

Definitely, he's a good player to watch, especially in this division.

Seems to me that a big drawback of joining the Euro now would be a loss of face. Imagine how happy the Frogs would be if we came with our tail between our legs, saying actually we'd like to join up after all. It really used to wind them up that we thought we were too good to be part of it, as they saw it.

Fair enough... I used to support England when I was a bairn - when it was WC or Euro time I remember the excitement would be as much as for the Toon, but just can't get excited about it now, haven't for a few years. When KK was manager and Shearer was captain I always wanted England to do win cos I wanted glory for those two - I was proud of them - but thats the last time I really felt any connection. I'm not anti English by any means, but I just can't get worked up when I watch the England football team. Lived in the South for nearly 9 years and watching England matches in the pub during those years, I just never used to feel much connection either to the team or most of the other blokes cheering for England. As for Terry, he's just like most of the other top players now, isn't he. Wouldn't like to have a pint with any of them, but might as well be him captain as one of the others... another little victory for the tabloid scum, thats all.

For some reason I always imagine these BNP meetings/rallies being full of dysfunctional trainspotter types, skinny, ugly, bad teeth and dreadful clothes, ill informed Nazi obsession, full of anger at the realisation they will never get their end away with any remotely normal bird, too cowardly to express that anger in any way than in a big crowd of similar spackers, directing it at whatever target is easiest (minorty groups)... anybody who's been to one care to confirm/dispel this lazy caricature?

What a div. Anti obesity? Surely it can't hard to keep the weight off if you're a professional footballer... although Kevin Nolan would no doubt beg to differ. I thought Mutut has/had a lot of ability... haven't seen him play much since he left Chelsea mind.

Nice thought if true... would be good to think one of our players is so bothered about the club. Big IF mind, and he'd still be a cack player.

Sounds belter... I reckon it's be great to be part of a start up business like that. you won't be needing a thermal engineer by any chance, will you?!

At the start fo the season I thought Guthrie would be one of our best players this season. I liked the look of him at the start of last season - he looked like he had a good attitude and rarely gave the ball away. Never looked like providing a telling pass or setting up many goals like, but I was hoping that might be a question of not having the confidence to try something out of the ordinary... he was always going to start struggling when the team started bombing. I thought he was just the kind of player that could move up a few notches thanks to the KK effect... anyway, when it all went bollock shaped I was still hoping a season pulling the strings in the championship might give him that confidence to run the show. Should have known better - since when did we develop a talent.... To be fair though I can't really blame Hughton for erring on the side of caution - he's not a manager and was always going to play it safe a the start, to make sure we didn't get off to a stinker and wreck our chances of going up. Can't really drop Nolan either, cos the goals he's scored are priceless.