Very upsetting stuff AESF, depression is a major illness in this country and crosses all walks of life-it knows no boundaries.

A Teal is a type of duck. Not quite as fatty.

I Was A Teenage Armchair Honved Fan is an early Half Man Half Biscuit track, I guess the title was (as usual with HMHB) an homage to an existing cultural reference, in this case a 50's shlock movie I Was A Teenage Werewolf. HMHB are from the Wirral (God I sound like AESF now) and are well known Tranmere Rovers fans, football playing a recurring role in themes in their music. E.G. Friday Night (And the gates are low)-a reference to Tranmeres habit of playing on Friday night. All I Want For Christmas Is A Dukla Prague Away Kit And my own favourite football/HMHB reference, Even Men with Steel Hearts, which has the line "Even Men with Steel Hearts Love to see a Dog On The Pitch"

Makes a change for us when a top player leaves us for being bad, not good. I would be gutted to see him go, I really rate him. Some of the football he has played in front of me in the last few years was breathtaking, and I suppose I just want to see more of it before the inevitable happens. Looks like I won't.

Your musical tastes appear increasingly eclectic, and similar to mine.

Not keen then Bob? If Di Danto bogs off in the New Year, I would play the same system with Dunn behind Benni. A motivated McCarthy playing with Dunn close to him should in theory be as good as what we have now, if not better. If he stays, and we are paying him wages then why not?

How bizarre! Benni has to play well and score goals in his International team to earn his place in his club side!

Indeed

Lyon won 2-1 at Anfield, so they only needed another goal at 1-0 in Lyon to give them a better head to head record, which makes Babels late miss even worse.

‘There is a price to be met if someone wants to buy Benni McCarthy. But we would have to have a replacement for him to allow it to develop.’ There Is a Price To be met... Very disappointed if we sell Benni.

Many thanks WB.

Made a late decision to watch Rev and the Makers Thursday night at Manchester Academy, but no chance of getting tickets in advance. the telephone number is permanently engaged, anyone remember what chance of paying on the door there is like.

£400k ish as I recall Paul.

"got to the quarter-finals of the Uefa Cup"? He must have still been ###### from when Rooney clobbered him.

Next match-The Notorious home game against Portsmouth. Pompey were one of the several teams still in the hunt for promotion to the top flight-Oxford I think were up by now, as were Birmingham City too. Realistically third spot was up for grabs between Man City, Portsmouth, Rovers, Brighton and Leeds. Portsmouth had a very tough side back then, some say dirty. I include myself in the latter group. The match was a crucial one, the winners giving them selves an excellent chance of third spot, with only two games left after this. I'm sure Bob Fleming won't mind, below is his recollection of events that afternoon, from a preview Bob wrote many moons ago... There was plenty of off field activity that day too, the malevolence was all over the top tier of the Riverside stand, and the Nuttall Street enclosures too. To this day the atmosphere has rarely been matched at Ewood. Defeat left us in poor shape as Bob says, with two games left-Sheff Utd away and Wolves at home.

Not Local, but I visited The Ubiquitus Chip, in Glasgow's West End last week. Winner of Scotland's Good Food Guide restaurant of the year award, I have to say it was very average. I had the haggis, neeps and tatties starters, which was OK, but very bland. Then a fillet steak, which was rather tasteless for the price charged. The service was sniffy and brusque, and atmosphere stilted. And this was on a Friday evening, 7.30pm! £105 for three people-deserves better for me. Anyone else been lately?

I wonder how Barry found his first `Big City` Derby at a less than sold out St Andrews?

Someone keep an eye on cocker-Oasis have split!

Even now, several weeks after Sir Bobby's death, I am yet to hear or read one single sick joke about his passing, which serves as a great testament to the man.

Home Office banning Order Stats 2007-08. Lies, damn lies and statistics!

After the midweek loss at home to one set of South Londoners, the following Saturday we set off to play another. It was Charltons last year at the Valley, a ground which Rovers had played in an epic 5-4 game many years ago to win promotion, and had held 76,000 odd at one point in the past. It had a massive slab of terrace along one side, quite steep which dwarfed the rest of the ground. The away end was behind a goal, was seated in 1985 and had a roof, which compared to some of the grounds I had been to that season was luxury. Went down on the service train, without paying and hid in the bogs when ever a ticket inspector turned up. Managed to get to Euston for free, then 40 odd pence for tubes etc across town to the Charlton. A decent away following turned up, only to see us surrender 1-0, fairly meekly I recall. Before the match I had a sneaky walk up to the top of the historic side terrace, and I can tell you it was massive. After the match, had a slight bit of banter/verbals/slapping with a few locals on the station platform, before heading off on the Rovers special, which I managed to blag my way back on all the way home. Not bad London and back for nish! Paid for it in depressing football though. We were still 4th now, with only three games left. Incidentally, the above image is one of a whole set from the BBC archive of the old ground, taken soon after Charlton had left, see more Here. They are superb, wish there were more of the old grounds like it. The old away end-perfect view from the top of the big east terrace.

Cheers Mick-How could I forget Micky Droy! Sounds reasonable WB.

23rd April, a Tuesday night saw us play our game in hand. The opposition were Crystal Palace at Ewood. Parked on Dawlish Close, as you could do in them days and walked down the back of the Mill, that is now a frozen foods vendor and a MacDonalds. Don't recall much of the game, and have no info on the scorer of Palaces winner, maybe it was that big centre half, who cares but we lost one nil. I seem to remember us loosing to Palace a lot in important games round them days, so I may be mistaken in recalling us peppering their goal to no avail. But that could have been another depressing home defeat of the Londoners. As we walked back up the hill to the car, there were a few Palace fans taunting us, and we were so ###### off couldn't be bothered to react to them. To me , the game was up that night, I felt we had blown it, if we had won this game in hand we would have been in second spot with four games left, two of which were against lowly sides. A really bad night.