Tyrone Shoelaces

Weather forecast for this weekend is terrible. I hope we don’t have another game abandoned or postponed.

Yes it was. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be paying that much though.

Belated and brief review of the 12 course taster menu at “ The French “ at “The Midland Hotel “ in Manchester. We were led to a private room at the side of the main lounge. The room would probably seat about 40 people. Most of the other diners were couples. It was nicely quiet with some smooth jazz playing in the background. The four of us were seated in a horse shoe shaped sitting area. Not particularly comfortable with our legs sort of colliding in the middle. Each course was brought to your table and described in detail by the particular chief that created it. All beautifully presented and set out. Every dish was possibly about two or three mouthfuls. The pudding was especially delicious. The service was very attentive without being intrusive. After sitting down at 7-30pm we finally left the Midland at just after 11.00 pm. So it’s a full evening of a job. I really enjoyed the evening and I wasn’t bloated at the end. However according to my wife the price of the 12 course taster meal is around £180 per head ! Plus drinks plus tip of course.

What an awful away strip that was. I can’t ever remember seeing them play in that. That snatch of film of the corner was interesting , only the forwards involved and no holding on to an opponent. Interesting the number of blokes wearing a collar and tie and a flat cap. The game was played in April 1960 incidentally.

The Music Explosion - Little Bit O Soul

The Seeds - Pushing Too Hard

The best news I’ve had all day. Get in there Sir Gareth.

The FourTops - It’s The Same Old Song

Anybody see the try that St. Helen’s got last night in the game against Leeds ? Sensational, Rugby Union eat your heart out for handling like that.

Me too. I wonder what it cost back then ?

Same at my local club. If you didn’t get down there an hour before start of play you’d be lucky to get a seat. Becoming a member was really difficult. Ten years later they were begging people to become members.

Would you prefer the red card Greaves got to be wrote off as well then ?

You can’t make jokes like that mate. We all know they are capable of anything.

Fascinating bit of film. It’s another game altogether now. Rogers was a class act as were Summerbee, Hunt and Woodruff.

You’re joking surely. Hedges as playmaker ? Ribeiro on the left wing ?

Many years ago my local rugby league club banned the Rochdale Observer RL reporter for similar reasons. He still attended - in a disguise ! False moustache, the lot.

I just wonder wghy it took so long to come up with a decision in the first place ?

I’ve played on some really bad pitches. One in particular was a pitch where there were pools of water ( ie large puddles ) but given the un-evenness of the pitch other areas of the pitch were dry and quite playable. However I’ve never played on a pitch like the one at Ewood last Saturday. By the time the game was called off there was standing water all over pitch and there was no way the ball would run along the ground or bounce when dropped. I saw one of the blokes with a pitchfork sweeping large amounts of water away with his boot. You might have been ok playing rugby on it but playing football was impossible.

No, true apparently.

Mm, that’s a much more sophisticated valve than any I ever worked on. Basically the ones I worked on were designed just to prevent water flowing back up the out flow pipe.

Yeah, I was mixing the two up. I thought they were both equally ineffectual to be honest.

I’m not an authority on non return valves but I’ve fitted a few. How would yours work. If it shut’s off when the height of the river reaches the out let pipe where does the water on the pitch go ?

There’s all sorts of ways you can get injured on pitches like that. How many long distance sliding tackles did we see ? No way to control those. You go flying after a ball near the touch line and going sliding headlong into the boundary walls. You take an almighty swipe at where you think the ball is going to be and it isn’t there = muscle injuries etc. I would imagine most of the players were glad to get off. Plus the fact the non - swimmers among them could have been in danger of drowning.

That bit of the pitch where play broke down at the end of play was more or less in front of me and you could see the ball was stopping dead because of the water on the pitch. It had obviously become dangerous.

Re Gally, maybe that’s why they’re doing well ? I thought Vale played in midweek ?