Kid Icarus

It's basic like, but I was expecting just two bold stripes after seeing the amazon documentary and the stuff about a grey trim is new.

Ha, no way! I was at that game. I've still got the programme from when I went down to Wembley with the middle school. Think it's in the loft but IIRC it's Michael Owen, Ronaldinho and Wes Brown in there that ended up pro.

I went to school with him and I'd love to say he was shite, but the truth is he was a few years younger than me and I really can't remember whether he was rated in the school or not tbh. Think I might have played at the same time as him on the field once or twice but my memory's hazy. I think he was at the Sunderland academy at the time. Stuart Nicholson who went on to play for West Brom and a few others was good though. I'll resist the urge to go on about how good David Borley was again. I knew of a lad who was in the academy at the same time as Peter Ramage and he kicks himself for being a bit of a hot head and not sticking in because he reckons everyone would have said Ramage was the least likely to make it, but he got there by working hard and being a bit of a teacher's pet.

Honestly, it's a mixed bag for me. I went to school with a handful of players who were in academies and played pro, some of them were unbelievable, some you couldn't really work out what was seen to be so special about them.

I was alright among the average people you'd play with. Played up front (badly) and midfield (better) for my first and middle school team and was top scorer at some regional school tournament thing at Blue Flames when I was 12 (along to the soundtrack of Tina Turner who was playing over at Gateshead Stadium on the same night no less ) I was very much a confidence player though, even on the yard, and there were some seriously class players at my school, so it didn't take much for me to lose confidence. think I was shit and as soon as I thought I was shit I would play shit. I was fast and had a decent finish which is just about the only thing I still have left along with my cba attitude to tracking back and inability to resist trying some insane Ginola type move when receiving the ball with a defender up my arse. Can hardly play now, used to play 5-a-side but I suffer terribly with shin splints so essentially had to resort to walking around like Andy Reid.

Yeah Toon polls are very annoying. Like when Arsenal fans kept ruining goal of the month/season when it was up for viewer voting

Looking at that RAWK page it's mad how they separate themselves from the overall capitalist hellscape of modern football inclusive of Liverpool. They talk about all of this as if Liverpool, Arsenal, and Man United are on the outside looking in, standard bearers of honesty and integrity, doing it the right way, and not just overtaken, poorer or greedier versions of the same cunts that own us, Man City and Chelsea. Now that the tribalism of losing on the pitch has kicked in, now the system they and their current and previous owners pushed and profited from has gone too far. What a remarkable coincidence. It's not even capital realism where the clubs fighting the system are products of the system themselves. They were and are the owners, creators and perpetuators of the system that led us here. To suggest that any other reality exists is laughable. I'm absolutely on board with the idea of modern football being a sick joke. I don't like our owners, or football clubs being owned by states, sovereign investment funds, and so on, but I also don’t like football clubs being owned by private investment funds any less. They function in exactly the same way, with exactly the same purpose - maximum profit at all costs. And with that purpose is where you get the degradation of the game. I’m sure a lot of them understand all that, but I’m guessing as a way to draw a distinction between their own club and ours, they’re talking like they’re owned by a fan co-op, and not, you know, a foreign sports investment fund that a couple of years ago tried to form its own slush funded super league. It’s easily done like, I was put under a spell by the myth of the ‘what is a club in any case?’ idea, and it’s easy to combine that idea of our fans (which I was also wrong about) with the club itself. Liverpool fans have that concept on speed with the success and genuinely socialist principles of Shankley to hoodwink them into believing their club upholds those principles or ever truly did, but in 2023 they’re living in folklore if they think those principles apply anywhere in football anymore, let alone Liverpool, Man United, or Arsenal. The sooner fanbases lose the tribalism and the 'I'm alright Jack' attitude and realise the entire game is heading right down the toilet in front of our eyes, the better.

*adds to the Make Myself Feel Better list underneath Wayne Rooney*

Pope being commanding on crosses is a huge plus for me over Given, on shot stopping there's not a huge amount between them.

It's Enrique or Beresford, with Bernard 3rd in my lifetime imo and all just about preference between Enrique and Beresford.

Mine, FWIW. Really don't care about making these formations coherent, it's not like they're going to play It's just about fitting the best/favourite players in for me.

For 6 months Pope was by far the best 'keeper I've seen for us like. Similar to the Ginola/Robert debate, it's about peak vs output and enjoyment as well.

For me your XI has to be restricted to your own lifetime or it's guesswork. I also prefer it when people choose their favourite XI rather than the best XI personally.

The home one is a dud, but the hooped one has grown on me and the yellow and green one would be up there as one of the best kits we've ever had imo.

Honestly if there's a season for them to luck out and take the hit it's this season. They're noticeably not as bad as the last few years and the promoted teams are almost all write offs.

It did feel like a while but I can't fault the outcome or the process at all

Yeah his wife is from here IIRC.

True of most in that list tbf

Aye, my mate hated Gary Taylor-Fletcher purely because of his "stupid name"

Skip to chapter 4, it'll give you the full breakdown of how JKR 'motte and bailey's her position - that's saying something openly inflammatory and contraversial (the bailey), then when it's attacked, retreats back to claiming they meant something much more straightforward and uncontroversial (the motte) and pretends that was the thing everyone was up in arms about. It also completely depends on what you count as 'direct hate' or even transphobia, because bigots, racists, transphobes etc rarely just openly come out and say 'I hate X' If you're interested you can obviously watch the full thing, particularly chapter 7, to get a better idea of how she cloaks her transphobia in concern and cry-bullying. All of this is an aside from what's going on here as well btw. I think the TERF lass is a cunt, but I also hate cancel culture, grassing, and the hypocrisy of NUFC doing this while being owned by PIF.

That is not at all what JKR has only said like. That might be what she says she's only saying, but she actually says a lot, lot more than that, almost the the point of not coming up for air.

One thing I will say tbf is that when he's not doing his Oscar Milde act I do think he's good otherwise.

72 before bonus points. Not bad considering I started the day on 4 points

Palmer, Mowbray, Raisbeck, Wilson, McNamara...plenty of others

Yeah, there are some quality commentators about. The reason I listed those commentators is because they're all known for their use of language. Drury's obviously been around for years himself as well, I've always had this opinion on him.