I think last nights awful attendance v Birmingham proves that I was right all along. The only difference that cheap tickets make is in reduced revenue for the club. I do admit that it's nice to watch 2 games within a week for £15 but it's bloody awful from a business point of view! As I have said many times Blackburn neither deserves nor can support a top level football team.

Whats this 'cant afford it' rubbish? ........ If he were to be true to MU's business model shouldn't he just go and borrow some....

He wouldn't go if the dressing room doors were locked.

Just thought I'd point out at this juncture that but for Foersters nose 'Yorke Mk2' would have opened the scoring with a superb piece of individual skill. Maybe the tone of the posts would then have been slightly different.

Wooooooo...... you must have bought the biggest keyboard in the shop! The fact is that it really is true! Everybody had em in those days.... all down to Enid Blyton you know. btw Whats it like to live a totally humourless existence PB?

Cos it's probably true! 'Tell the truth and spite the Devil' my mum used to say when I was an infant ...... as she tucked me into bed at night with my teddy bear and my golliwog on either side .

Sod that Wiggy! Lets buy em all!

Never off me I can assure you! No one can ask any more than a player give 100% to the team and Dickov did that and more () after Sparky came to the obvious conclusion that continuing at 4-4-2 with an out of form Jon Stead up front would see us relegated. All that squad was capable of then was to defend like mad and hope Dickov could win us a free kick or two around the opponents pen area. Lets face it Dickov was hardly equipped to be a target man and cope physically with the close attentions of two bloody great centre halves was he? But he never shirked his responsibility at all.

Very talented lad like Francis Jeffers to an extent ... all their brains were in their feet.

Sorry you are quite correct. I have now amended the word 'racist' to the more accurate and relevent term 'colour prejudiced'. I thank you for pointing out my error. It's not easy writing that depth of post so late at night without making the odd unenforced error you know.

Yeah but carrying 15 stones on dodgy knees does give him something of an excuse. To his credit I rem he certainly wasn't lazy as a kid at Luton Town.

Coming from our very own Walter Mitty and accepting the standards set in your own posting history, as well as the obvious lack of constructive criticism I can do little else but take that as a compliment eddie. I thank you.

Lot of hot air on here imo. 'In some schools' as Big Ron once opined whilst talking about a lifeless performance for Chelsea by Desailley, the colour prejudice in the 'lazy' issue is somewhat based in accurate perception. It's a %age thing. Of course not all black players are lazy, the likes of Pele, Eusabio, Vierra, Gullitt, Henry, Ince and very many more totally and completely disprove that that, as do the more recent examples of SWP, Essien and Samba etc. But imo there is a greater %age of black players accused of appearing lazy than the %age of non blacks who are accused of the same lack of effort. I'm sure that the intention of some black players is to appear to be laid back or languid rather than lazy (btw can anybody rem Cole or Yorke running wide right or left as a certain Alan Shearer frequently did to make themselves available for the ball very often? I certainly can't.). To appear to be able to 'do the business' without breaking sweat is predominantly part of the Caribbean / cool / black / reggae / ganja culture as characterised by many fictional examples on TV, music and film, so it's small wonder it manifests itself so starkly on a Prem football pitch where in stark contrats to everybody else endeavouring to do the complete opposite is it? A strange comment on our attitudes as a crowd toward players occurred a few years ago when Andy Cole in a rage after losing the ball chased the ball back 40 yards a 3 opposition passes before winning it back on the edge of our area. Superb tenacity that won loud and prolonged applause from 3 sides of the ground. Why though? The likes of Sav, Dickov and Speedie do/did that all the time but to nothing more than appreciative ripples of applause at best! I suggest that it is down to some of the players themselves to lay the 'lazy' perception to rest rather than seek to justify the criticism. If Cole had done that on a few more occasions he would be remembered far better by the supporters than he is now. Dwight Yorke too could have enhanced his reputation no end. The impression given was that breaking sweat was beneath them.... not something that either got away with for long at OT btw! Now before anybody jumps to conclusions and blows their self-righteous, highly indignant fuses compare this to the equally colour prejudiced attitude towards red heads. Just as black people get tagged lazy, then ginners are usually stereotyped as being quick tempered and fiery despite very many being the opposite. btw anybody name any ginner players who appear lazy? Are all Arabs thieves? Are all Germans arrogant? Are all latins shifty? Japanese inscrutable / cruel etc etc? They are all simply the results of the general observations by human beings of other human beings belonging to a certain genetic trait. Its an ancient and imo defensive human instinct. Question is do the %ages stack up behind this basic instinct? We should never underestimate this 'attribute', after all we all share it to some level no matter how superior or civilised we consider ourselves, to do so would be misguided in the extreme. It's been developed and honed deep within the human sub-concious over millions of years.... a lot longer than the time since the race relations act was passed through parliament and the 'Kick racism out' campaign was applied to the game of football! I suggest that there is obviously some basic accuracy in the various perceptions we hold but never enough to generalise on individuals, and only the foolish, naive or ignorant would do so completely, just as only the similarly foolish, naive or ignorant from the other side of the coin would pretend to deny the existence and influence of such instincts within themselves. btw lazy strikers at BRFC? Anybody rem John Radford?

I seem to rem being a 'No'. I didn't like the way that he was apparently the players choice as indicated in a Craig Short interview at the time.... shades of a 'popular' dressing room choice like Brian Kidd. Obviously very glad to be proven wrong.

I believe it's referred to around here as a 'through train' Simon. In essence it turnes a weekend into 2 Friday nights.

I rather aggresively challenged one bloke who cited that as a reason for not renewing his ST this year. It turned out after a bit of interrogation that it was not the main reason at all but simply an excuse. The guy and his Dad after many years of support have simply altered their priorities but that didn't stop em using the Sat 3.00pm jobby as a convenient get-out. Tell the truth and shame the Devil was my advice at the time. Speaking personally I much prefer the 5.15 slot to any but desperately hate the midday ones.

No wonder it collapsed then eh?

Imagine the claims that would be flying in now if the Bury bridge collapse happened now in our claim ridden culture. There'd prob be twice as many claims than people in the crowd at Gigg Lane.

I have a mate from Tredegar who hates any success in Welsh football whatsoever because in his opinion it detracts emphasis away from their national sport. There are many like him in that neck of the woods too.

Footballers books are simply to make money from Joe 'stupid' Public simple as that. They seek to highlight controversy cos thats the only interesting thing after the footballing exploits. All footballers inc G le Saux should let their actions on the pitch do the talking cos everything else hardly matters. He was a fine player (best full back we've had since Keith Newton) if a little stroppy and thats all there is to it. Why cut down half of Scandanavia to add unimportant irrelevancies to that basic fact?

This quote from that that article in the Times suggests that he has......... "(Bentley).... left Wembley without talking to the media, saying that he had been “told not to”.

How fortunate for Maclaren, the FA and the nation that injury robbed him of the players that he should have dropped if only he had had the balls to do it. The England team manager must realise that there is only one place for Gerrard and Lampard and let the best man win. Lets hope that he has learned the hard lesson not to let the press pick his teams for him.... He needed to. Needless to say I'm not holding my breath. SWP had a cracking game even if his full back was not up to much. Micah Richards looks passable at centre half but awesome at full back. Gary Neville is still a decent fb but is now well back in 2nd place for the shirt. Gareth Barry should have many more caps than he has. Both fb's and wingers attacked well down the flanks. The only real area for concern is the two front men. Neither are toip quality are they? BUT Israel are a weak team. Goodness knows how they have fared so well recently. I hope the ranks of the press and media are happy at the grief that they have collectively and unfairly stoked up amongst the massed ranks of the nations beer swilling, red top reading slum dwellers against David Bentley. Lets hope that Bentley learns well from it! btw Anybody think the previously 'uncontactable' but imo spineless Agbonlahore will have similar crap levelled at him?

Abromovich can certainly carry a grudge can't he? Reminds me of David Browns obvious instructions to GS when we were in the 1st Div. It appeared to be that there was £40m worth of 'talent' on the team photograph with wages to match and that if he wanted a new player he had to generate his own funds from within. It worked too.

"Reading boss Steve Coppell says the top sides are treated more leniently by referees, with his side already having players sent off against Manchester United and Chelsea this season (Express). " Hot on the heels of Wenger priming the officials for todays match it seems Alex Ferguson is adopting similar tactics ahead of the Manc derby by accusing City of being 'cloggers'. imo this is an increasingly obvious tactic used by big clubs to pressurise and influence the refs. 'Stop any tigerish tackling, stop the opposition putting in 110% effort and closing us down before we can put a foot on the ball, and our expensive collection of Carlos Kickaball mercenaries will win.' seems to the case. Now I'm quite sure that the referees assoc and the FA are aware of it...... but I'm also quite sure that it is a tactic that bloody well works.

--> QUOTE(Ste B @ Aug 18 2007, 17:54 ) 538901[/snapback] Are you saying the woodlands are showing live away games... 7 day posting ban it is then No?....... Seven Trees Ste