Benwell Lad

Very common in the clubs too. Half of Fed best and half of ordinary.

Can understand why people in the east of Germany hanker for the old days of the DDR, and other misplaced sentimentality, but why anyone would want to drink that mass produced piss that S&N and the other monopoly breweries produced back then is beyond me

In these current days of there never having been a better time to be a beer drinker, choice, variety and quality, much of it from breweries on our doorsteps, and the town and north east in general having so many brilliant pubs, a reminder of how bad it was for the generation who's choice was the abysmal Ex, Scotch or something called lager. Beer drinkers of today, never take for granted or fail to appreciate how fortunate you are.

Just imagine what's on offer from a team who qualified for Europe with a negative goal difference and bottom three xg stat

Osula's goal vs Man U deserves it's landslide, it was an amazing effort and to seal an unlikely last minute win win with ten men gave it all the drama and emotion too. Some absolutely brilliant goals amongst the others too mind.

See Fickle Teddy Mackem has been back on

As soon as he arrived, even though his debut was a disappointing result, it was so obvious that Trippier had the type of quality and presence we hadn't seen in a while and along with Bruno became the main reason we escaped almost certain relegation. Also provided the assist for my favourite Newcastle goal of all time. Legend.

Possibly the shittest pre season friendly ever for a whole bunch of reasons.

Interesting because I've heard he was well liked and down to earth. Just shows how it can be

Supporting Gateshead must be about as depressing as it gets as a football fan. Got to admire those who follow them through thin and thin.

Losing our most effective attacking player in the opposition half for a second year running carries the obvious big risks. I'm sure someone knows what they're doing but it wasn't addressed properly last time, mainly due to the protracted nature of things and the constraints on time it led to, of course. We absolutely have to get it right this time, our summer recruitment has to be bang on.

You really couldn't go a full season without a red card or conceding a penalty in today's PL even if you were the most flowing, perfect, total football team ever. Doing it with Arsenal's grappling, aggressive style and a manager who plays as a winger most games is, well, nigh on impossible. I'd struggle to give a fuck about who wins the league if it's not Newcastle or some other underdog, but I get the feeling their victory is pretty universally despised.

Yeah probably but that's quite different to the statement I was replying to, which was " it's completely ruined the experience for match going fans and even those watching on the telly". Personally I'd rather go to a game with a 3pm Saturday kick off and VAR than a Wednesday 20.15 kick off without VAR if we're talking about making the football experience worse

Probably because the latter have the advantage of multiple replays and angles, versus a real time split second decision.and so should always get it right even if they sometimes fail to do so even with that advantage.

Fair enough, but at the games I've been at goals are still celebrated properly even if VAR is in the back of our minds. If as you say " it's completely ruined the experience for match going fans and even those watching on the telly" I still don't know anyone who's stopped going or watching because VAR is in operation.

As always it's really about the money, or PL clubs losing or gaining business changing amounts because of a wrong decision. Early cup rounds and Championship football downwards just don't those huge amounts hanging over them, or no doubt they'd have VAR too.

That's a tad melodramatic, it hasn't "ruined" the game. It needs to be used more competently for sure. There need to be clear lines so referees and linesmen actually referee games and don't rely on VAR, but it intervenes in the case of clear and obvious mistakes. Pretty much as it was intended to be really. Perhaps the game needs specialist VAR officials, rather than regular PGMOL referees, who won't feel uncomfortable overruling one of their mates. Some of the worst fuck ups have been when it's obvious neither VAR nor the referee want to make a tough decision. Overall though, VAR gets it right the vast majority of times and there are less errors than without it.

VAR though far from perfect has to stay now. A lot of "populism" from usual suspects screaming for an end to it. Thing is, everything is going to be so analysed and TV judged from now on, it will be like VAR still but without the ability to intervene or change a decision. I.E. there will be a lot more wrong decisions without VAR than with it. VAR needs to be worked on and improved not binned off because the people administering it are incompetent.

As you'd assume it would be in order to qualify for European competition. Any team with a big negative GD should be barred from qualification (would only ever apply to Conference league) and the spare place given to an extra team from the Faroe Islands to make it even easier for Palace or West Ham to win it.

Always think goal difference gives a good assessment of how a team has done over a whole season, or is doing over a number of games, and league tables usually bear this out. Getafe have qualified for the Conference league finishing 7th in La Liga with a GD of minus seven.

Footballing supporting really can't get more gut wrenching than it must have been to be a Hearts supporter today.

It's so easy nowadays to think that football is just about the money and the media hype but that video sums up what it really is all about.

I think we all know that to play football at the highest level nowadays you need not only to be a great footballer but also to have the fitness levels and preparation of a supreme athlete. Anything lacking in the latter department tends to manifest itself, particularly, in the last ten minutes or so of games and often makes the difference between win/draw/lose. Pre season is the most important time for working on this, it's incredibly intense and the timing is crucial to arrive at the start of the season neither tired or under prepared. You want, ideally, at very least to be at as high a level as any other team. Any payer not at that level when the season begins ( new arrivals, those who have been injured etc ) will have to play catch up but ideally the majority are there at the right point in time. Our pre season was a bit of a debacle and we just didn't get this side of things done properly. Injuries and the relentless play/travel schedule meant we never got to fully catch up. It meant this season was always going to be difficult and we would tend to struggle and lose ground in exactly the part of games that this intense pre season stuff is designed to address, i.e. the last ten minutes or so of games.

Sunday 2pm kick off away against the team top of the PL form table. Surprising level of confidence around this

A decade of domination iirc.