To appear in the finals all players must have been under the age of twenty-one years old at the beginning of the qualifying rounds, and therefore could be as old as twenty-three for the finals.

This is a bit "know what I mean Gary" but still a bit interesting here this is better

Did someone mention "Arcadia Fire's" "Neon Bible ?" Seems slightly pompous at first but it's definately a winner. BTW Simon Cowell is a bishop-basher of the first water. He probably has a very large mirror in every room in each of his many houses and he looks at himself in them every day and says "My God Simon. you are nothing less than gorgeous."

Tom Holt's "Barking" At the risk of sounding like an extract from a review selectively edited & put on a book jacket, it is "hugely entertaining" http://www.tom-holt.com/

It's a ploy to make "The New Wembley" look good.

I was wondering what had happened to him

Brilliant book - lighthearted and very funny. It's all about cricket & I don't particularly like cricket.

Interseting comment from Richard Williams in today's Guardian re David Bentley Here's the link http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/03/...should_try.html I hope it's OK to copy the gist: "Risk-averse McClaren should try giving Bentley a spin Steve McClaren should have responded to Saturday's near-debacle by picking up the phone and dialling David Bentley's number. Richard WilliamsMarch 27, 2007 12:55 AM "We'll see, we'll see," Steve McClaren said yesterday when asked if he had it in mind to shake his team up by making a couple of big changes for tomorrow's meeting with Andorra, or if he planned to tell the players who made up Saturday's starting line-up that it was now their job to go out again and redeem the drab effort against Israel. Even after being kept waiting for two hours for the England head coach to turn up at yesterday's scheduled press conference, I had not expected much of an answer. From a Mourinho or a Wenger, of course, and also from a Scolari or a Hiddink, even such an unthreatening question would have provoked some sort of quotable and probably even enlightening response. That is all we want, after all: enlightenment from a man who, holding his job on behalf of a nation, is supposed to know what is going on. But only seven months after accepting a promotion that virtually all observers saw as ill advised, Sven-Goran Eriksson's former No2 is either afraid or incapable of saying anything interesting. Or of doing such a thing, come to that. In my dreams, I would like to have seen McClaren responding to Saturday's near-debacle by picking up the phone and dialling David Bentley's number. Bentley, after all, was England's outstanding performer in the Under-21 match at the new Wembley, scoring the opening goal and otherwise inspiring an effective offensive performance a few hours before the senior team stumbled to a barren draw, their fourth goalless effort in their last five matches. Bentley is talented and ambitious. He has confidence to burn. At 15, playing in the Arsenal academy's Under-17 side, he looked fully the equal of the young Glenn Hoddle or Joe Cole. Since then he has made his mistakes and paid his dues. Now, at 22, he might just be capable of transforming the only remotely interesting suggestion to fall from McClaren's lips yesterday - "Can we take a little bit more risk in the final third? Can we get more bodies into the box? Can we get better decisions? Can we be a little bit more positive?" - into something more than panicky rhetoric. Of course the Blackburn midfielder will stay at home, at a time when his immediate insertion into the team for tomorrow, at the expense of Frank Lampard, could have given the squad the most abrupt of wake-up calls before a match in which, with respect to Andorra's footballers, selection is hardly critical. Nothing, it seems, must be allowed to disturb the self-esteem of England's established stars, whose performance is currently so far removed from the expectations of their supporters. Unrealistic expectations have surrounded the England team since 1950, when the FA finally deigned to enter the World Cup. Curiously, the lack of perspective so marked in fans and media alike probably has its origins in that snobbish delay, mirrored in the Football League's subsequent refusal to allow English clubs to enter the European Cup until Sir Matt Busby finally took matters into his own hands. Successive humiliations at international level, starting with the 1-0 defeat in Belo Horizonte by the United States, have never quite dispelled that assumption of superiority, wholly unjustified save for a single day in the most helpful circumstances 41 years ago. It would be stupid to suggest that the emergency inclusion of one player might be enough to solve the ills that afflict McClaren's England as they face the prospect of failing to qualify for the finals of Euro 2008, with all its dreadful financial implications. As he watches the gap between expectation and achievement widen at an alarming rate, however, the head coach needs to take his own mention of "risk" at face value and to make a few bold decisions. We'll see, indeed. But we should be careful with our expectations."

Nick Cave's side project "Grinderman" has a certain sonic ear-shattering quality about it. I like it.

Absolutely agree 100% with that. But who was it who ridiculed and insulted Galileo & Darwin? Those bastions of scientific knowledge & self-serving entities known as the established churches. The former was under house arrest from 1633 to his death in 1642 because of his theories. The latter was reviled and insulted and caricatured as a monkey by the establishment It doesn't take much of a leap to see who are the non-scientific detractors of GW in 2007. Established churches Big power & industry. BTW I saw the Al Gore film "An Inconvenient Truth" recently. It did help that I actually watched the film, of course.........

Phil, No I didn't watch the programme. But may I suggest that it screened as a "shocker" just to attract an audience. Hey viewing figures and all that. But completely apart from that you have used words & phrases such as "bandwagon," "hysterics" " an unholy alliance" and you've even introduced Dr Goebbels into the discusion. Oh for goodness sake! The point of my post was not whether or not GW exists but to simply ask: how so many scientists throughout the world have been duped or conned or bribed or threatened to say that GW is real and is a threat when they don't really beleive it. I'm quite happy to admit that there are dissenting voices. Are you content to admit that the majority of the scientific community has an accord that GW is real?

I'm a bit confused by all of this. If we are to beleive your average scientist, who presumably has the intelligence, training, experience & knowledge to comment on GW then why is that just about every article in the highly respected New Scientist Magazine accepts that GW is a fact. here Tap in "global warning" into the search engine and see what appears. Now I don't know many scientists, so I can't really comment, but I do find it difficult to beleive that so many of them are in cahoots with some kind of international conspiracy to mislead the whole world about something that is not happening. Has Greenpeace got large enough coffers to bribe the lot of them? I think we should be told about the details of this? Of course there are some dissenting voices, there always are. But to my mind the overwhelming scientific evidence is that it's here.

Football, injured player, Laurel & Hardy carrying the stretcher, short & sweet

Just another crappy track from MES. We've had them before, we'll have them again. No doubt you can live with it. I think I can. Any LP that gives a name-check to Ramsbottom is OK by me

At the threat of making myself very unpopular you lot are all talking rubbish. The Refs are there to give decisions as they see them. Not as Alan Shearer makes up on "Match Of The Day" that someone was "entitled to go down for a penalty" according to the "rules." There are the "laws of the game." If you cant even get the basics right then you have no place commenting on them. If the ref doesn't see a foul then he can't give it. Fact. Given that your average player will dive, cheat, feign injury, roll over screaming blue murder, hobble off to the side only to come on three seconds later then it's not much of a challenge for the Referee. The average premiership player is a cheating git and has his full backing from his manager (Ronalfdo & RFW anyone?) Over & out

Maybe you haven't noticed, but he rarely takes dead-ball kicks in the opposition's half, and only takes quick short free kicks in our half. He prefers the ball when it's moving. So pay more attention in the future and stop posting sillyness.

Just playing the new The Fall CD That's all. Colin happy.

The game was played on 5th January 1991 Were were lower league & playing against The (then) Mighty Liverpool We went ahead after 46 minutes thanks to a Simon Garner goal & I was still in the cue for the six-foot wide trough/cesspitt which was then apologising for the male toilets at the Blackburn End. You can imagine my complete horror when the Blackburn End exploded and all of those pointing at the trough jumped up and down and turned round to hug their mates. Super Atko went missing after the game for a week or two. He was so upset at plinking in the own goal in the 90th minute.

very schoolboy

Now this is where Hughes' managerial skills have to come into play. Given that My Little Pony is now long term crocked, he has to get Fat Boy to snort a couple of lines of amphatimine sulphate, do a couple of laps up and down Pendle Hill, get some sleep and then be ready for the next big game. No pies. That's my solution

No. We're not that bad, we gave him a round of applause.

Sorry T4E but that point (which I fully realise has been made before by many other people) really gets on my wick. Any professional footballer (and in fact any sportsman/woman) starts off knowing that they have a short career and that they are not going to be doing it until retirement age. So they should get themselves ready for another career or job once they are too old to play sport. In what other job does anyone expect to retire at about 33 and then to expect to lounge around playing golf for 30 years until the pension kicks in? Bah humbug!

I just hope MH & the backroom staff can keep him off the pies and the nights out. I'll really look forward to a slimline Dunn turning out for us again.

I really can't see Rovers doing some serious bidding for Dunn just because he is local. It just really doesn't make sense in these days of bringing in players from all four corners of the globe. The fact that he is from Great Harwood and supports Rovers is completely irrelevant. He's a bit of a crock and far too prone to injury. OK, if MH thinks he can recouperate from 24 starts in nearly 4 years for Big Club then that's fine by me. Well, actually no. I've just changed my mind. Dunn is injury prone, better get some whippet from Croatia.

That's most unlike you Eddie, I didn't think you could be so hateful. However I do agree with you.