I only saw that Thomas play in a game at the end of last season. He looked a very handy player to me. Definitely a future regular top level player. But that was only off one game. Magloire looked equally good in that friendly against Leicester. Any player can get injured at any time, even the ones with no previous history. Having said that I'd rather we didn't sign players who have already had their share of time laid on the treatment table. I can't say I'd be overjoyed if we signed Cunningham, too much of a risk for me. We'll already have Dack and Travis coming back from pretty bad injuries.

Exactly, I live facing a big common. It can get full of wind blown rubbish. Every week or so Mrs Shoelaces and myself spend 3/4hr walking over it picking up bottles, can's, chip papers etc. Sometimes another bloke does it. The council provided us with strong rubbish sacks and a plastic hoop to hold the sacks open. When we've done we leave the sacks by a council rubbish bin and council workmen take them away. How hard is it, especially nowadays when we've got time on our hands ?

Did I hear that right that Trippier is now suspended because of allegations of betting ?

I see Robbie Savage and Paul Dickov are involved with the " new " Macclesfield team.

Me and my pal Alec queued up all night for tickets for that game. We nearly froze to death.

Great chest control from Speedie, put it right were he wanted it for a right foot shot.

In my paper today - " It's the equivalent of giving a drowning man a lifejacket in exchange for his right to vote ".

I remember that game well, we lost 2-1 to Bury. Two things stick in my mind, their centre forward Steve Johnson ? got two really good goals. Also the pitch was really dusty and it was a very swirlingly windy day. As a consequence the referee had to keep stopping the game to get his hankie out to remove grit from the players eyes. The game at Bury a day or two earlier was the real celebration. The promotion celebration match under Gordon Lee was a 0-0 draw with Wrexham, not the greatest game I ever went to !

Before anybody accuse me of being a glory hunter I get loads of pleasure from the little snippets that Herbie posts. I still enjoy watching Rovers from that era. I suppose we're back in the same position now but we weren't £200 million in debt then. Even when we hadn't got a pot to pee in I never lost faith that we would be back in the big time. There was something about Rovers then that has been almost completely lost in my opinion. Sorry about the font, my lap top fancied a change. Yesterday it came out with a new one, when I was editing a post it just started deleting the letter in front of the one I was correcting ! Try writing when that happens !

If we've now got a more commanding aerial presence in Ayala we could always play Nyambe in central defence. I can't think of a quicker centre half at our level apart from maybe Magloire. He's got pace and he can tackle etc, it's just his lack of heading ability that goes against him.

I find it really difficult to watch film of Rovers back in our recent heyday. It just reminds me of how far we've fallen.The Chicken Chokers have robbed me of that pleasure.

I can't think of another example of were a player that had been sent off and actually left the pitch was brought back on again by the ref. The sending off could only have been for verbal abuse of the officials and that hadn't gone away had it ? Just because the disallowing of the goal was an error didn't mean the sending off was. It was total chaos for about ten minutes until it all got sorted out. I think we lost that game.

Is that you Tony ? Give my regards to Mrs Mowbray.

He'll definitely want to start off by getting a result to stop the rot. I'd expect him to be happy with an away draw and I'm expecting Forest to be set up to get one. If they can pinch a win all the better from his point of view. He's had long enough to put a bit of his stamp on the team.

More hours in the day ?

Me too now. I used to be football daft until the last ten years. The Chicken Chokers have to be partly to blame for that but there are plenty of other reasons why I've lost interest massively.

Great cross from Richard Brown there. I thought their keeper should have done better with Speedie's shot, it was more or less right at him.

Until the minute the PL clubs decide they don't want to pay the 25% anymore - then what happens ?

Yeah I was there, chaos reigned for about 10 minutes. I remember being at a Rochdale v Brighton table topping Div 4 game, just think about that now. Early on in the game there was an almighty goal mouth scramble at the far end from me. The ball ended up in the net and the Rochdale players were celebrating a goal. The Brighton players went mad and drew the refs attention to the fact that part of the net wasn't attached to the cross bar and the ball had actually fallen into the goal through the gap ! So he disallowed the goal, cue the Rochdale players going mad. In all the chaos somebody notice the linesman was still flagging. The ref goes over, has a chat, comes back and awards ---- a penalty ! Apparently a Brighton player had handled the ball in the goal mouth scramble. Cue Brighton going mad again. Eventually Rochdale take the pen and score. It was a really feisty game, in the second half the Brighton centre half and Rochdale's centre forward had a stand up fight / come wrestling match and ended falling over the boundary wall and into the crowd. Anybody else at that Bolton V Rovers game were the ref got the time wrong and took everybody off about 15 minutes early ? This was in spite of that big clock on the main stand at Burnden Park. We were all stood about wondering what was going on when after about five minutes or so the players came back out putting their kit on. Some had obviously jumped in the shower because their hair was soaking wet ! We were losing 2-1 at the time so I thought we might get a draw when we got started again but it stayed 2-1.

I was complaining about Walker back then, he's got a serious goal conceding mistake in him every game.

Coldest I've ever been was at a Rugby League Challenge Cup years ago at York. It'd snowed on the Saturday night but Sunday morning was cold and bright. We'd phoned the York club up and the game was definitely on so the coaches set off over the Pennines for York. The ground was packed but about 2-00 it started snowing heavily again. If it hadn't have been a cup game it would have been called off. I was only wearing a suit with a collar and tie on an open terrace ! I was absolutely frozen. The only thing that saved my life was my mate shared a hip flask of whiskey at half time. We lost a game we should have won and to cap it all the bloody coach broke down on the way back. What people today don't realise is that fans back in the 1960's and earlier didn't have the access to casual sporting clothes like anoraks and cagoules or quilted jackets like we have today. Look at photos of the crowds then and most of the blokes will be in a suit wearing a collar and tie. If you were lucky you had an overcoat or a raincoat.

How do they plan to reduce the League to 18 clubs ?

That is a defensive line up. Obviously Southgate doesn't fancy going toe to toe with Belgium.

There was an article in my paper years ago asking fans of various teams what their worst football experience had been. A QPR fan wrote in about a visit he'd had to that open terrace in the opening shot. Conditions were similar to that only cold and sleeting. He'd just got over a dose of flu that week. Half way through the second half he collapsed and had to be taken to the nearby A&E at Oldham Royal just over the road. He was in hospital for a week with pneumonia after that ! If you think Boundary Park was cold you should have gone watching the Rugby League in Oldham. Their ground was called " Watersheddings " ! The clue is in the name. It had an eco-climate all of it's own, it could be really bloody cold in Summer there.

I haven't got sky so I won't be watching it.