And a sleetly rainy one from early afternoon.

If Northern continue their Saturday strikes into 2019 then the last train from Newcastle to Carlisle might well be on Friday night.

Fair enough but I think there’s a bit of a difference between International cricket and the County Championship 2nd division.

5 hours ago, gumboots said:

Doesn't actually live in Middlesbrough I wouldn't think. But on Teesside, yes. Nobody much lives in Middlesbrough unless they have to. 

And it's Middlesbrough not Middlesborough although they're known as the Boro with that extra o in there. ?

He was off to a Ball at a school in Yarm last Saturday so I assume he lives there or thereabouts.

Depends whether Northern extend their Saturday strikes or not. If not, to Preston, up to Carlisle and across is probably the best. If they do, then you will need to get into Manchester and a TPE train north. How you do that depends where you're starting from, as there may be no trains at all in Blackburn.

Boro have managed a grand total of 3 goals in their last 6 home games - 1 win, 3 draws and 2 defeats. In contrast their away form is 3 wins and 3 draws.

Lancashire have signed Glenn Maxwell for all formats next Summer and Joe Burns for Championship games.

4 hours ago, Scratch Andy said:

Yarm great place for a beer similar to Clitheroe and you would often see footballers past and present (Gary Pallister last time there)

Including Tony Mowbray. He was off to a school Ball in Yarm last Saturday after the game.

I can remember a game at Ayresome Park on Boxing Day I think. We drew 1-1 but should have won and we were around the top of Div 2 at the time, before our customary slide down after Christmas.

After getting back home I’ve just had an enjoyable 10 minutes reading the posts before kick-off. As I understand it the collective wisdom from braces experts was that:-

Williams should be nowhere near the team, at least at full back.

Downing isn’t good enough for the Championship

Smallwod isn’t good enough for the Championship

Conway’s legs have gone

Reed can’t play out wide and needs to be in the middle

Dack is out of form and needs resting

Grham can’t last more than 60 minutes

Have I got that right?

Fair enough Mark. My general point applies but obviously they have sensibly blocked out bank holidays.

Whilst out walking just now I was thinking Sky would be challenged to show them all on one day anyway. I assume the fact that midweek games are now split between Tuesday and Wednesday is for Sky's benefit, so they only need 6 crews rather than 12. On Boxing Day they will have the added resource needed to cover 3 live Premier League games as well as 12 Championship games so I assume they would not have shown them all even if they were allowed to.

That "loophole" has been there all season. The only games they can't show via the red button are those games they select for live TV anyway and any game on a Saturday afternoon at 3pm.

Just now, bluebruce said:

The question that needs to be asked isn't about why Graham gets dropped, which is what I suspect Sharpe will ask or accept for an answer...what needs asking is the thinking behind who he brings in to replace him. Why Dack or Palmer and not Armstrong or Brereton?

You missed the tweet from Sharpe above that said that Graham had not trained for most of the two weeks.

I haven't read most of the posts above but I have had a good chat to some North End fans on the bus coming home. They were a bit perplexed as to how they had managed to win that game 4-1 given we had most of the play.

In truth for all the whinging about the starting format we played considerably better in the first half than the second. We gave two stupid goals away very early on but for the rest of the half controlled the game through midfield and made a number of chances. Rudd made a couple of crisp saves, missed a cross and dropped another, Williams had a free header and Dack missed what looked like a sitter from 100 yards away . You can hardly blame whoever the front line is for the first two goals.

I thought Reed had a decent first half and that Smallwood was outstanding. What was wrong about the half time substitution was not that Graham came on but that Smallwood went off.  Second half we had much less of the ball - Bennett was poor there and to add to it he wasn't wide on the right exploiting the space with Nyambe that they did in the first half. For me this kills the argument from fans that we should have a different central midfield than Evans and Smallwood.

Anyway I've managed two away games so far this season and we've lost them both 4-1. The bad news is I'm off to Wigan. The good news is that I haven't seen them lose a home game for well over a year now - I was on holiday for the Sheff Utd game.

4 hours ago, arbitro said:

Love the law firms name - Slaughter & May ?.

If they've engaged Slaughter & May that's £1m gone already.

I heard lots of tales from my grandad and uncle, both Rovers fans, about how huge numbers would go from Bamber Bridge to Deepdale every other week just to see Finney. Like others I was told by many that Finney was the most complete footballer they ever saw.

I wasn't quite old enough to see him play but I did meet him a few times over the years at various charity dos. If you asked him to open anything bigger than a bag of crisps for charity he would be there - a quite wonderful human being as well as footballer.

Is there a surcharge if you log in after 12?

There's a full two page interview with Lenny in today's i.

I did debate walking and I might still if its a nice day, but I figured an hour each way walking with two hours + stood up might be a bit painful. Might do it one way though.

No idea - I'll be on the 3 coming from Penwortham!

To be honest for anyone coming from Blackburn to Preston the bus is just as good an option as the train anyway. The bus station is a 10 minute walk from the ground and the train station about 20 minutes,.

On 17/11/2018 at 13:30, blueboy3333 said:

It is indeed. There's even  a pie and ale shop opening just off Winkley Square this month. Butter Pie and beer. It's the future.

 

The Otter's Pocket is now open.

Whilst there is plenty of street parking near the ground, if you don't know the area and therefore the quicker ways out, it's a lot easier to park in the city centre and take a 10 minute walk. The bus station car park is as good as any and it will be easy to get out after the game.

3 minutes ago, Oldgregg86 said:

It's the same outcome worded differently

Of course it is, but maybe it might help some.

Of course some of the 800 buying match tickets are on the database, but clearly many are not.

Some information from the Fans Forum meeting which was held on Monday. Bear in mind I'm just the messenger.

Half Season ticket sales have started strongly and the club are still hopeful they will get to their 10,500 target. They need 859 sales so I personally think that will be a tall order.

The Sky red button is a hot topic amongst all Football League clubs and plenty of discussion happening, but no outcomes yet.

On the £3 surcharge this is what Mike Cheston said - MC said that the club wanted fans to buy tickets in advance for two reasons – to reduce congestion at the ticket office immediately before the game and to capture details of fans purchasing tickets for the database so that club offers could be sent to them. i.e. they want to get at as many of those buying match tickets to sell them season tickets. If people turn up at the last minute that information is not collected.

One thing that I was surprised about was that we are averaging 2,000 match tickets a time for home games and 40% of those are sold with the £3 surcharge - that's an average of 800 a game. That's way more than I would have expected. Of course what we don't know is how many more might have come without the £3 surcharge. I suspect it's a relatively small number but still one is too many. We did suggest turning the policy on it's head i.e. advertising tickets at say £30 but with a £3 discount for purchase in advance.

We brought up the coaches idea at the September meeting. Steve Waggott was quite taken with the idea then and he is still planning to do something on this (he wasn't there on Monday having been called to a FL meeting in London at short notice).

The club are currently replacing all the tills in the ground over the international break (95 of them) and the new ones will all have contactless technology. This should be live for the Sheff Weds game on 1/12. It may or may not also be possible to put cash on your ST card to make contactless payments at that game (not clear yet). That will happen in the New Year if not on 1/12 but anyway regular debit and credit cards will work. This should significantly speed up service at the kiosks on match days.

You would be better going down Deepdale Road............