A schoolmate of mine was a big Sheff Wed fan inspite of living in Rochdale. His dad was quite wealthy and had managed to get him a match worn shirt that had been worn by his hero Tony Kay, the Sheff Wed captain. Then over the Xmas holidays Kay was unexpectedly signed by Everton and when we came back to school my pal was now an Everton fan ! He gave me the Sheff Wed shirt, saying “ You might has well have this, my dad will get me an Everton one this season. “ I wore it for training for years until it wore out. It was a really good shirt with the blue and white stripes sewn in and a red No 6 sewn on the back. I lost touch with my pal for decades. One day I was reading our local paper and I saw he had died. So I attended the funeral. During the eulogy the vicar mentioned what a staunch Man Utd fan my old pal had been !

Nino Tempo And April Stevens - Deep Purple

Bessie Banks - Go Now

That and giving Weimann another season tells me all I need to know about our lack of ambition.

I’ve got a couple of Rovers shirts but I’ve also got about a dozen Rugby League shirts from the team I support. When you sponsor a player you get to keep their match shirt at the end of the season. Next time I need to sponsor one of the prop forwards as the shirts of the guys who we sponsor are too small given RL shirts are a shrink fit to prevent the player being grabbed by the loose shirt.

Moon Martin - Bad Case Of Loving You

Willie Tee - Walking Up A One Way Sreet

It wasn’t a game for Wharton to shine in. There was hardly anybody in front of him to pass to. Having said the thst he showed another side of his game. He defended diligently with good discipline like the rest of the Palace team. Another thing I don’t like about City is this tactic where if they are beaten by an opponent who’s breaking away their first reaction is pull the opponent back by the shirt/arm etc. They were at it again yesterday throughout the game. It’s creeping in to other teams as well.

That O’Reilly had the best chance in the second half but by the time he’d switched the ball from being a right foot shot onto his “ favoured “ left foot the chance had gone ! I despair of modern footballers that are so one footed. What do the do in training ?

I was thinking that. It was definitely outside the box and it was a definite handball.

Bobby Charles - Small Town Talk

Otis Redding - These Arms Of Mine

City bore me. Pass, pass, pass. Side to side and back again. No end product.

It depends who’s doing the recognising. Even as a kid at Rovers he was at a Tugay level of passing. That was pretty obvious.

That’s not what I called him, but how we could do with him now.

The Righteous Brothers- ( You’re My) Soul And Inspiration

The “ B” side of “ Shop Around “ .I used have that on a “ London “ label 45. The Essex - A Walkin’ Miracle

Liverpool team that day. Furnell Byrne, Yeats, Moran Milne, Leishman Lewis, Hunt, St John, Melia, A’Court Rovers team - Else Taylor, Woods, Bray Clayton, Newton Douglas, Craig, Lawther, Ferguson, Haverty Dougie scored our 89th minute winner in front of a crowd of 21,700.

Yeah The Don played at the back also. He was class act, he could play anywhere. All those players you named played at both ends of the pitch. The one player who looked completely at ease in both positions was Paul Warhurst. He really could play anywhere at top level.

Yes I think you’re right about that however he soon reverted to the position he played most of his career in at centre half. Terry Eccles was another one that played in both positions. I wasn’t at the Fulham game but we could have played an embryonic wing back line up with Hird and Bailey as wing backs and Faz, Keeley and Hawkins as the three centre backs. I wouldn’t mind that back 5 playing for us today !

Nowhere near as good a defender as Nyambe was but probably a lot better going forward. That’s a very low bar though.

Wharton was a once in a generation level talent. Duru isn’t as good as Nyambe was when he first broke into the team. He needs another loan, he’s not a championship level player at the moment.

In the Rochdale game he did nothing. He should have been a level above everybody else on the pitch. As it was he looked really ordinary. He didn’t look interested to be honest. Plus - he’s not very big. I know Alan Wright wasn’t very big either but he turned out to be top class, however players like him don’t come along very often.

It ended up a 1-1 draw in front of 9,406 fans. Rovers - Bradshaw Fazackerly, Keeley, Hawkins, Bailey Hird, Parkes, Taylor, Wagstaffe, Mitchell, Waddington No subs. Mitchell scored. A strange line up, 4 centre halves out there.

Bobby Mitchell I think.