madras

World Cup is always proper no matter where it's played. It's the fuckign World Cup, biggest sporting event in the world. Once every four years, I don't care if it's played in Siberia, Alaska, Fiji or w/e. It's great and the best thing about the sport. Yep. Nah. 2010 was almost ruined by the f***ing vuvuzelas. The shitty weather, ball and pitches didn't help either. I think Russia can pull something decent off, at least. what was wrong with the weather ? It was cold and dull, WC is much better in warm weather just down to aesthetics, let alone it affecting play what gubbins! why is the world cup better in warm weather ? why not have it in a northern europe autumn or winter for a change, after all europe is the power house, and in europe it's a winter sport and makes it fairer to have it in a variety of conditions, wouldn't you agree ? No. It was just not as fun to watch while the play was in cold weather. Especially when it's the bright and sunny where I was. I'll always associate the World Cup with warm, summer weather and that always added something to it for me. it wasn't fun to watch because the pitches were poor and there were no really stand out teams, that had nothing to do with the weather. even if it did shouldn't we have a colder weather world cup now and again to make it fair ? why should Northern European teams always have to play in the heat ? why can't the others play in a Northern European winter or autumn for a tournament once ?

World Cup is always proper no matter where it's played. It's the fuckign World Cup, biggest sporting event in the world. Once every four years, I don't care if it's played in Siberia, Alaska, Fiji or w/e. It's great and the best thing about the sport. Yep. Nah. 2010 was almost ruined by the f***ing vuvuzelas. The shitty weather, ball and pitches didn't help either. I think Russia can pull something decent off, at least. what was wrong with the weather ? It was cold and dull, WC is much better in warm weather just down to aesthetics, let alone it affecting play what gubbins! why is the world cup better in warm weather ? why not have it in a northern europe autumn or winter for a change, after all europe is the power house, and in europe it's a winter sport and makes it fairer to have it in a variety of conditions, wouldn't you agree ?

World Cup is always proper no matter where it's played. It's the fuckign World Cup, biggest sporting event in the world. Once every four years, I don't care if it's played in Siberia, Alaska, Fiji or w/e. It's great and the best thing about the sport. Yep. Nah. 2010 was almost ruined by the f***ing vuvuzelas. The shitty weather, ball and pitches didn't help either. I think Russia can pull something decent off, at least. what was wrong with the weather ?

Not as funny as you guys never giving a s*** about England until they qualified. some of you guys, surely ?

Decent read that, wasn't anything we didn't already know like Disco said. But seeing opposition fan take much interest in the opposition for an in depth piece is rare to me. Oh maybe i just don't read enough of these type of pieces, but in any case it was enjoyable to read. I just don't know why Pardew persists on having two wing-forwards with little work rate and have two fullbacks who bomb on.... its a disaster waiting to happen. Now i support the idea of leaving Remy and Ben Arfa high up the pitch but the fullbacks need to be a little more balanced in their play we can't afford to be having them so high up the pitch all the time.... 1. Because we don't dominate the possession 2. We don't win the ball back quick enough when we lose it. I hope he sees this at some point and gets the fullbacks to be less enterprising in their offensive duties, by all means get forward when you can and pick your moment but this state of practically having 4 wingers on the pitch has to be dumbed down a bit.... or we will continue to concede 3+ in a game. unless we employ a very deep lying def mid who almost becomes a third centre half, or even, dare I say it, utilise a 3rd centre half.

Ahh one of them was claiming they owuld have more fans if it wasn't for people dying or summik. Serious? yeah im pretty sure. Tt was in the same discussion about the north sea being a barrier to them. Its in one of the old sunderland threads. one of them claimed that 3 or 4 people in his block had died,he then went on to claim if this was an average carried on throughout the ground it could account for whatever amount of empty seats.

then we'll accuse them of sitting back and trying to contain them.

could mean he looks better when he gets forward more, when needed to defend more he doesn't look as good ?

really didn't care what happened to England tonight. after the european championships in austria/switzerland I found I enjoyed it more without the press/media BS over the England team.

Chapel House always had a good team but you were crap at Cricket. Can you remember Pete Kirby 1974-81 chapel house weren't very good 78 tom 80, chapel park on the other hand were our main competition and they started to really pull away from us in the final year of middle school. well we only had about 35 lads to pick from. When I was there Claremont and Throckley middle schools rivalled us for crap teams whereas the Gosforth schools (was there 3 of them back in 85?) always absolutely trounced us. the gosforths (east,west and central) weren't that good in our time. we won the newburn league and cup first time round, semi of city and county cups. year later we won the newburn cup, chapel park the league, year later chapel park done the double (the league decider at their place, gravel pit of a pitch being a bit of a grudge match after their cheat of a ref started by giving them a pen for a foul on the egde of the "D", they had the entire school lined up on the touchlines and we ended up just braying the ball into them...........remember it as if it were yesterday) there was often trouble at games with throckley for some reason, punches and kicks at school gates and they also had the most mental pitch with about a 10ft slope running from one wing to the other. Can you remember the West Denton Pitch. They had put so much white lines (mixed with lime) that it burned a trench down the 2 touchlines and they developed wingers who kicked the ball down the wing, ran around the outside of the full back and caught up with the ball 20 yards later.........brilliant tactics. don't remember that, I do remember your school had a crossbar that wasn't firmly bolted on and would fall off when hit, so we went 2 up very quickly and spent the rest of the game trying to hit the bar. at kings school tynemouth we played in rugby posts, as we got there some bloke was nailing another bar about a foot underneath the horizontal bar already on the posts, westerhope became a quagmire if you spat in the goalmouth and there was one of the gosforths that had odd sized halves, one half was a bout 40yds the other about 25.

when was that ?, we (simonside middle) played against claremont in football and rugby, they were notoriously poor at both. I remember beating them 11-0 at their place, that was at footballscore,not rugby, be about 79-80ish. I was at Claremont 1974-79, was Dave ? (forgot surname) head of PE then. If not, John Angus definately was. Friday night staff football, we had staff from all the middle schools to make up the team.we called ourselves the Newburn Gnomes. Don't suppose you played,did you??? dave raynor you're thinking of. he left for walker central (?) about 78 or 79. John Angus (great teacher and mackem to boot) and Gordon Lowery (another great teacher) were mainly in charge of our football till Tim Seward came along. I saw John the other day, a regular in a local pub and he hasn't changed a jot (don't think he recognised me as he last saw me when I was 13). I remember going to watch some of those staff games as one or two were played on our (simonside) school field and it was a good excuse to have a laugh at our teachers and what possibly turned out to be, well, you I used to share a flat with John Angus! The original Middle School Teachers team mainly consisted of Simonside staff, Dave Rayner, John Angus, Gordon Lowery,Colin Jacques and a splintering of players from Cheviot,Chapel House,Chapel Park, Claremont, Dumpling Hall, West Denton, Throckley and Westerhope. Virtually unbeatable on a good day! It was surprising how many ex professionals we came across from other schools. Players who had retired and gone into teaching. I always thought ex footballers in the 60's and 70's became Pub managers! don't remember a Mr Jacques but can remember a Mr Jakes, better known for playing hockey. quite possibly the same person, quite wirey with a tache. dave raynor was an ex england schoolboy and his replacement, tim seward, was ex england universitiies GK.

Chapel House always had a good team but you were crap at Cricket. Can you remember Pete Kirby 1974-81 chapel house weren't very good 78 tom 80, chapel park on the other hand were our main competition and they started to really pull away from us in the final year of middle school. well we only had about 35 lads to pick from. When I was there Claremont and Throckley middle schools rivalled us for crap teams whereas the Gosforth schools (was there 3 of them back in 85?) always absolutely trounced us. the gosforths (east,west and central) weren't that good in our time. we won the newburn league and cup first time round, semi of city and county cups. year later we won the newburn cup, chapel park the league, year later chapel park done the double (the league decider at their place, gravel pit of a pitch being a bit of a grudge match after their cheat of a ref started by giving them a pen for a foul on the egde of the "D", they had the entire school lined up on the touchlines and we ended up just braying the ball into them...........remember it as if it were yesterday) there was often trouble at games with throckley for some reason, punches and kicks at school gates and they also had the most mental pitch with about a 10ft slope running from one wing to the other.

Chapel House always had a good team but you were crap at Cricket. Can you remember Pete Kirby 1974-81 chapel house weren't very good 78 tom 80, chapel park on the other hand were our main competition and they started to really pull away from us in the final year of middle school. well we only had about 35 lads to pick from.

when was that ?, we (simonside middle) played against claremont in football and rugby, they were notoriously poor at both. I remember beating them 11-0 at their place, that was at footballscore,not rugby, be about 79-80ish. I was at Claremont 1974-79, was Dave ? (forgot surname) head of PE then. If not, John Angus definately was. Friday night staff football, we had staff from all the middle schools to make up the team.we called ourselves the Newburn Gnomes. Don't suppose you played,did you??? dave raynor you're thinking of. he left for walker central (?) about 78 or 79. John Angus (great teacher and mackem to boot) and Gordon Lowery (another great teacher) were mainly in charge of our football till Tim Seward came along. I saw John the other day, a regular in a local pub and he hasn't changed a jot (don't think he recognised me as he last saw me when I was 13). I remember going to watch some of those staff games as one or two were played on our (simonside) school field and it was a good excuse to have a laugh at our teachers and what possibly turned out to be, well, you

when was that ?, we (simonside middle) played against claremont in football and rugby, they were notoriously poor at both. I remember beating them 11-0 at their place, that was at footballscore,not rugby, be about 79-80ish.

I wonder if leaving home was a problem? I know Shearer flourished but not everybody is the same and what makes some people can break others. A different choice may have gave him a different career. possibly. I put some of it down to his always playing against his peers, I was probabaly as old as he played against (a year or two older than him) so he didn't really get anything really to fear physically. he didn't really play much non-organised football to sort of toughen him up. at 14 we were playing against 20yr olds who'd spent the afternoon in the club, he was playing against other 14 or 15 yr olds in organised games. I was in the a wing paddock quite close to the pitch when he played for pompey, i was shouting at ray ranson "kick him, kick him, he doesn't like getting kicked", a couple of minutes later ranson took the ball but took shaun out with the follow through, couldn't help but shout "sorry shaun" as he slowly got up. neither probably heard me but it made me feel like I had had an effect.

Didn't he score a hat-trick for England Schoolboys at Wembley ? I seem to remember it was on TV for some reason. don't know if it was a hat trick but he did get one from about 25-30yds. back then end of season under 16/schoolboy internationals were regularly on the tele.

The Chronicle massively hyped Murray who couldn't live up to expectations and was eventually a nobody in comparison. he was great in amongst his peers, when it came to getting kicked off blokes and he was still just a lad (like we were brought up, he'd been shielded from it) it seemed like he couldn't take it.

played a bit in kids knock about games with shaun murray (once just about the most sought after schoolboy footballer in the country), went to spurs straight from school, then to pompey, for whom he played at SJP, then drifted to scarbrough, blackpool, notts county I think, real nice lad. chris basham when he was about 14 or 15 for his dads works team, he was probably the best on the pitch even at that age.

which they are, what else did you think I meant ?

would he have said he didn't see shearer as he was stood next to the fridge ?

pretty much my thinking on it.

you drink from the cup of mediocrity whilst awaiting the chance to quench yourself from the chalice of glory.

same for any dead ball, the person taking it can't touch it again till someone else has, free kicks, corners, throw ins, even kick offs (at which the ball also has to move at least it's own circumference before someone else touches it, or so it used to be)

I wonder if anita would've got the nod over tiote had saturdays game been at home ?