James

You see, I find it impossible to believe that a Newcastle fan would join a Newcastle fan with the explicit purpose of talking about Massimo Maccarone. If you are a fan, you should have no problem answering the following three questions: 1)Who is Sir John's son? 2) What was the last trophy Newcastle won? 3) Who were the last club to beat us in Europe?

Probably the strongest link so far. May have been recommended by Martins, and I'm sure Mancini would prefer to send him off to a club where Andreolli has a friend about to help him settle. As for homing the player, Andreolli could live in Mancini's house for six months.

Someone claiming to be a real Newcastle fan wouldn't really care about Middlesborough team selection and what a Middlesborough fan on the radio has to say about it. Are you actually a fan of Massimo Maccarone? Rather that a Newcastle fan?

Few teething troubles going on at the moment as you can see. When you get onto the error screen, try pressing the back button, and then click on refresh. You should be logged in hopefully. Also, try doing the same when you want to post something.

Warnock is OK, but I think he is shot of confidence right now.

I think you really do have to listen to your heart over your head as to who to support. Sounds like you never really had much passion for football when younger so chose a team to fit in. Would sound like you are a kind of reversed version of Lee Stewart. Lee Stewart is a guy who was a Newcastle fan, but switched to Manchester United when his head decided that newcastle were never going to win anything. I think if you switch allegiances to Newcastle for the right reasons, ie you never had any real passion for those clubs which you claimed to support, and you then feel much more passionate about following Newcastle United. Sounds from your description of your Grandad, you are a Newcastle fan at heart, but perhaps this feeling was supressed a few years back to try and fit with the 'in' crowd. In the end of the day, it is up to you who you support, and not down to us Newcastle fans.

Watching the match at the stadium then going home to watch the highlights is my preference.

Still don't know what you're on about. I do know athletes from all over the world failed drugs tests at the last Olympics though and not (as you suggested) only ones from the US, China and Britain. Don't know why when I pointed that out you said the ones who weren't from those countries only came from poor countries (they don't btw) with high stakes. Don't see how any of that supports your previous assertion drug testing is useless either. It is all a very complex issue, and if you keep dragging the issue of drugs in sport in one particular direction, arguments become less and less plausible. Give me a second and I'll try to summarise it all. 1) There is circumstantial evidence that footballers are taking performance enhancing drugs, and this has not been investigated into by FIFA. 2) It is possible that FIFA and the Spanish police are not acting on this evidence because a prosecution cannot be obtained without either a positive drugs test, a confession, or by discovering that athletes are keeping drugs in there house/car/hotel. It is highly probable that the big sporting figures involved could sue in retaliation. 3) New variants of drugs are always being created. These drugs are undetectable until the authorities gain a specimen of these new drugs. 4) By the time the authorities have discovered a new testing procedure, the athletes are all on different drugs. Frozen samples can sometimes provide evidence, but sporting lawyers can usually find a loophole here to get the sportsmen off the hook. It could now be said that drugs testing is useless. 5) However people do get caught testing positive for drugs. 6) In the US an UK, people get caught because the authorities are highly competent and technologically advanced, and most positive tests are discovered by the US and UK authorities while the international authorities have either not tested these individuals thoroughly enough due to technological constraints, or have failed to prosecute due to their less efficient or competent systems have left several loopholes for the lawyers to exploit. 7) Countries containing poorer individuals, but with high stakes and rewards such as China, Greece, Iran and Eastern European countries, have athletes who will take risks and use drugs which more widely available and therefore easier to discover during testing. 8 ) Meanwhile, it is generally the Spanish, French, and Italians who find themselves free from prosecution as they prefer to support the less competent international authorites rather than invest heavily on their own domestic testing procedures. And at the same time, the athletes from these countries are able to afford these undetectable drugs. That is why drug doctors from all over the world move to the Western european countries - to make lots of money with a much smaller chance of being caught.

Most of the UK and US like I just said fail drugs tests carried out by the world class drug testing facilities used by UK and US authorities.

http://www.myspace.com/davidmaysuperstar

At the last Olympics there were people from all over the world who failed drugs tests tbh - from Eastern Europe, Iran, Greece, etc. etc. (easily the worst games ever for it). See here if you don't believe me: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/olympics_2004/3610830.stm ie poor countries with high stakes.

FourFourTwo seemed pretty insistent that all except Taylor's were real.

Reading the full article, the Taylor one was put in there as a fake one, but the rest are real.

the US, the UK, and China. The first two because their drugs testing (especially for Olympic disciplines) is world class, while the athletes in the latter because the athletes cant afford the undetectable drugs and the stakes are very high in Chinese athletics at the moment.

Don't you want to answer my question? tongue.gif bluewink.gif Only just saw it your question. I would say that it is funny that it is only athletes from certain nations that ever get caught.

Nobby, why did you PM me to ask me to merge some threads. I'm not even a mod! Also, other people you sent this message to were not mods either!

Been sidetracked slightly. I'm saying that several sporting organisations could be covering up problems with performance enhancing drugs because they are unable to prosecute.

The athletes, having discovered that the authorities have discoved Drug X will move onto undiscovered Drug Y. The authorities will try to use past samples to get a conviction, but lawyers will get anyone testing positive off the hook by claiming that the samples have been tampered with during storage.

Drug testing is useless to be honest. Unless you are stupid enough to take a recreational drug you will get away with it as the drugs are always one step ahead of the testers, while specialisty drugs and lawyers can get you off the hook for most substances anyway. How come people frequently get caught in cycling, athletics, etc. then? And lawyers don't come into it if the governing bodies lay down the rules properly - i.e. you're caught so you're banned for x amount of time. Cycling and athletics use retrospective testing, ie they freeze several samples of blood and urine, and then whenever a new drug is discovered, they test for it in the old samples. Since customs authorities accidentally stumbled across half of Columbia in a team doctor's car in 1998, the UCI have frequently requested that French and Spanish police search cyclists properties under warrant. This is what leads to the most prosecution, while interrogation usually leads to the searching of someone elses premises. It is also worth mentioning people in many sports get caught especially cyclists and track sprinters, but unless you are caught with the drug in your possession, you are unlikely to be prosecuted if you can pay for a good enough lawyer. Aye and in those sports athletes are banned which proves those tests aren't useless and those methods could be introduced into football. Cheers for saving me the bother of pointing out your previous post, i.e. "Drug testing is useless" was bollocks though tongue.gif Only about 25% of cyclists are banned, the rest are suspended by their own teams pending investigation, and are usually back riding 3 months later. Source? Also, cycling is probably an extreme case as it has always been riddled with drugs/corruption. I'd follow the athletics model for drug-testing in football where you have lists of banned substances, random testing and fixed penalties. I'm not sure how you've shown drug-testing is useless though and in football it is a joke. Players/clubs are given advance warning of tests. Designer drugs cannot be recognised by standard drug tests. The drugs have to be discovered first by the authorities, and the only way of doing this is to randomly raid cyclists homes/team headquarters. Therefore drug testing is useless unless this is being done.

Drug testing is useless to be honest. Unless you are stupid enough to take a recreational drug you will get away with it as the drugs are always one step ahead of the testers, while specialisty drugs and lawyers can get you off the hook for most substances anyway. How come people frequently get caught in cycling, athletics, etc. then? And lawyers don't come into it if the governing bodies lay down the rules properly - i.e. you're caught so you're banned for x amount of time. Cycling and athletics use retrospective testing, ie they freeze several samples of blood and urine, and then whenever a new drug is discovered, they test for it in the old samples. Since customs authorities accidentally stumbled across half of Columbia in a team doctor's car in 1998, the UCI have frequently requested that French and Spanish police search cyclists properties under warrant. This is what leads to the most prosecution, while interrogation usually leads to the searching of someone elses premises. It is also worth mentioning people in many sports get caught especially cyclists and track sprinters, but unless you are caught with the drug in your possession, you are unlikely to be prosecuted if you can pay for a good enough lawyer. Aye and in those sports athletes are banned which proves those tests aren't useless and those methods could be introduced into football. Cheers for saving me the bother of pointing out your previous post, i.e. "Drug testing is useless" was bollocks though tongue.gif Only about 25% of cyclists are banned, the rest are suspended by their own teams pending investigation, and are usually back riding 3 months later.

Drug testing is useless to be honest. Unless you are stupid enough to take a recreational drug you will get away with it as the drugs are always one step ahead of the testers, while specialisty drugs and lawyers can get you off the hook for most substances anyway. How come people frequently get caught in cycling, athletics, etc. then? And lawyers don't come into it if the governing bodies lay down the rules properly - i.e. you're caught so you're banned for x amount of time. Cycling and athletics use retrospective testing, ie they freeze several samples of blood and urine, and then whenever a new drug is discovered, they test for it in the old samples. Since customs authorities accidentally stumbled across half of Columbia in a team doctor's car in 1998, the UCI have frequently requested that French and Spanish police search cyclists properties under warrant. This is what leads to the most prosecution, while interrogation usually leads to the searching of someone elses premises. It is also worth mentioning people in many sports get caught especially cyclists and track sprinters, but unless you are caught with the drug in your possession, you are unlikely to be prosecuted if you can pay for a good enough lawyer.

Drug testing is useless to be honest. Unless you are stupid enough to take a recreational drug you will get away with it as the drugs are always one step ahead of the testers, while specialisty drugs and lawyers can get you off the hook for most substances anyway.

Also Gemmill, football accounts for the reason a majority of people buy British newspapers. Reduced following of football leads to the reduced circulation in newspapers.

Is in the Spanish and French papers pretty often actually.

A huge dent in income from merchandise, plus the fact that the Spanish police would get sued by some very very very rich people.