Wolfcastle

I Reckon Poch could have beaten Nicuragua or whoever it was, lost to Belgium twice, Croatia once and beaten Colombia on penalties with England. I reckon even Bruce could

Its by far the most popular sport in the world and massive business. So by all means fundamentally change something that's worked so well for 150years to look like you do some actual work. They tried this ages ago, was some piece, think it was Dover against someone, Don Howe was watching on and seen the virtue in it. Looked, was and is ghastly.

Gothenburg right? Had my heart set on going their on 04 but got Drogba'd. Scored an overhead kick in that game too so nice synergy. Got the highlights of some blokes daughter who taped loads of Milan stuff for some, probably Maldini, reason

Hope he does well, it does feel a fresh move but lets not kid ourselves he was anything but abysmal for us. Can't see the logic in Shearer's being injured causing Tomasson to fluff all those chances, score exclusively pub league level league goals (horrific miskicks, deflections or richochets.

Couldn't agree more and like wasn't enough

They wouldn't have defended or deflected things before the takeover because they were never brought up to anywhere near this degree before, so intsead of 'sportswashing' its highlighted things more and caused a need for defence, deflection - context to me - that wasn't present before. If its 'sportswashing' its been extremely counter productive. But then I'm ignorant too.

I think they've worked themselves into a shoot. Like a roided up version of Rangers in the 90s. Far too good, rich, strong for their competition - more money than the rest of the league combined, but when it came to Europe they're disadvantaged by not being as battle hardened and match sharp as their opponents. I know all words are made up but 'sportswashing' is beyond contrived. It in itself is another contrived word 'whataboutery' and basically means 'only foucs on the sports side, not the other things, because that's where my (vested) interests lie"

Was this century he was after. I think we paid a fee to loan Distin for a year but it wouldn't have been much.

Yes, he was the first to my knowledge. Or maybe Tapie at Marseilles. Tapie went one better though and bought matches too. Lived up to his name.

Just giving this a bump with the new members we have. Loved it 90-95, then they moved Gazzetta to 10am from 11am and I wasn't getting up that early on a Saturday for anything. Then less importantly Serie A regressed and the money was all here. Luckily, because of the time, I taped a lot of them and have watched them back and appreciate the humour more now. Also because I'd love to have heard the outtake of this conversation or have James Richardson expand on it when talking to Boskov (Napoli manager) in November 94 "“not for the first time Boskov embarks on a completely unprompted monologue about Newcastle, training programmes and a lot more besides.”

About four games under Hughton then four years of Pardew and Bruce. Wouldn't wish that on someone like Huddlestone never mind King Arfa

I think football has gone down hill since the 90s very early 2000s. Fitness and speed maybe but actual ability is way lower. The best players then are way better than the best players now. It was rare that a winger couldn't cross then, now we rave about it. International football I find glaring at this. The current French world champions are not a patch in the 1998 team, nor are the Brazil or Argentina sides. I bet through the 80s 90s and early 2000s Italy never had a team as bad as this - and they're European champions now. The Portugal European champions team was the worst team they'd sent to a tournament for a good while

Yeah, I'm not sure what we mean by anti-hero a player that was our guilty pleasure or the opposite of hero/Owen

Yeah Allen came on at half-time in that utter classic with Spurs (we had no strikers at the time) and started (think scored twice) the first friendly that summer at Hartlepool, had a real forgotten man and lovely bonus about having him back on top of the rest of the squad. Don't know if it was a recurrance of the previous injury or a new one but that was pretty much that. Could have figured in the underrated players thread, was pretty prolific for Millwall

Just like Cappello (the first time)

Malcolm and my (background circled) reaction to that clincher. Had everything really didn't it. Quite edgy because they were a good team and we were new to the level. Noise is so loud when Mathie scores that the audio maxes out.

In Pavs defence Tommy Wright in nets that night. Great atmosphere, their manager Trevor Francis "well they've got the best fans in England" Got Mathie 14 on my away shirt the next day on a high off that. Think that was really the game we came into our own in the PL.

Cool and interesting thread. With us, had favourite players as we all do and loved Peacock, Kelly, and Albert but probably only classed Keegan as a hero and that was as a manager. Generally it was Stoykovic and/or Mancini, partial towards style, fine if eratic, over substance. Waching the Champions League QF and SF in 95 I liked the look of this bloke with an array of skilled ways (not stepovers) to beat a man or get a shotaway, going near post instead of crossing to the commentators disliking only sweetened the deal. Would be great if he played for us, like I fantasised, knowing it was a fantasy about Stojkovic and Mancini and others. Two month later we signed him. David Ginola.

I heard he was the origin of the inflatable craze in the late 80s for similar reasons. Sounded something similar to 'banana' the way some Man City fans said it, hence the banana inflatables there first, followed by fish, canaries and sex dolls and the like

PSG did that with us and Milan over George Weah in 95. Our owner threatened to report them and I think that's why we got Ginola for so cheap. Hi and welcome by the way. Another Football Italia fan from the 90s. Inter v Samp 90/91 my first game, a cracker and basically support the Italian national team (Italian in the family but this happened naturally), got more engaged in them than us under Ashley.

Think having a foothold in parts of the world like Asia and Scandinavia and the Anglosphere advantages even when the Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga were miles ahead and Le Championat competitive helped when the league started growing. Arguably the Premier League/football league was always popular globally, maybe even the most popular and it just went mainstream when football did. Just thoughts.

Wouldn't be the first club Storey's owned

Doesn't appear to be any rule that signing an injured player or pulling out from a signing of injured player is stupid one way or the other. At least now we know that those assessing it are far better equipped to do so than the previous lot. Will just have to delegate I guess. As good as Wilson is, I wouldn't sign another Wilson if I knew we were in for patchy fitness.

Hi and welcome, That's understandable. Its like the George Weah situation in 95, was a bit of a long shot we'd tempt somebody over Milan at that point much as it is now. Thanks for the advice but I also enjoyed the less reliable links from the Italian press. Gazzetta had us coming for Chiesa, Kessie and Brozovic in October.