LaticsPete

I do respect the sentiment of those who criticise AL for apparently interfering in team selection. At the same time it does seem to revolve around just one situation i.e. Nepo at left back rather than in a more attacking role. Presumably leaving out Branger. I can’t recall any other suggestions as how he has interfered in actual selection from the pool of fit players suitable for the first XI. Are we over emphasing this particular problem?

Was on the same bus. “ Dean’s dad” caused it as he said ad nauseam !

From what to what? We’re hardly over blessed with options.

For some Clarke putting his arm in the air almost justifies the penalty. Presumably Matt Smith’s equaliser against Everton should have been disallowed because Bouzanis had both arms in the air?

From the Donny forum: Oldham had a couple of outstanding players, the goalkeeper, and the No 42 had great games and are worth keeping an eye on, making great saves, and the big midfielder breaking up play and looking to put himself about in the middle of the field.

Best ? Presumably you are including the officials as a third team .

Agree but when did Clarke get first yellow?

Give over. Sylla had v good game, breaking up their play and had good distribution

Lancashire Turf Wars Steve Tongue Pitch Publishing 2018 Softback 350pp £12.99 It may be surprising, but Blackburn Rovers was originally the “posh” team in the town. Founded by the well connected, its original colours were Cambridge Blue and white. It was Blackburn Olympic that was the working-class club, founded in 1878 as a merger between Black Star and James Street. Within five years it had brought the FA Cup to Lancashire, beating Old Etonians, and the town was chosen to host the first England game outside London. The power and influence of Lancashire clubs upon football has hardly paused since then, including 59 league championships, with its 16 league clubs outreaching any other county by far. It’s necessary to clarify what “Lancashire” means in this context. Steve Tongue has a definition that is open to dispute but works ok for his book. Basically, it’s the historic county, so including Liverpool, without Furness (so no mention of the former league club Barrow), but with Tranmere and Stockport (historically Cheshire). With that hopefully cleared up, this is a fine history not only of the county’s clubs not only individually but in the context of their rivalries and fluctuating pecking order. The initial focus was very much outside Manchester and Liverpool. The initial Lancashire Football Association in 1878 had 28 teams, none of which were from those two cities. It was the Blackburn and Bolton areas that supplied most of the teams and the early competition outside of Rovers and Olympic was between clubs including six from Darwen , five from Bolton and two from Haslingden. It wasn’t until the latter part of the century that the landscape became populated by names that are more familiar now. By then, of course, Preston became the first Football League champions. Newton Heath and Ardwick morphed into Manchester United and City, Bury became a major force, winning the FA Cup in 1900, Oldham, and Blackpool. emerged , and Bootle, a major player, faded whilst Liverpool and Everton became that city’s league clubs. There are then three main periods of history. Up to the First World War, supremacy was shared amongst several clubs. Oldham were league runners up and cup semi-finalists, Liverpool, Manchester United and Blackburn Rovers, league champions. After 1918, however, the balance changed again. Burnley started off with two finishes in the top two, Bolton had a superb ten-year spell, three Cup wins and frequent top six finishes. The big city clubs began to draw massive crowds and others lost ground. Life for Rochdale was a constant struggle, Oldham dropped out of the top flight, Southport, Accrington Stanley and Southport were perpetual Div 3 North participants, and Nelson’s brief league membership ended, as did that of Wigan Borough. Since 1945 the footballing world has become a different place again, especially in the last twenty years. Lancashire has brought back the European Cup, umpteen championships and cup successes whilst, at the other end of the wealth list, there have been ups and downs. Bolton, Preston, Blackburn, Wigan Athletic, Blackpool, Burnley and Oldham have all had spells in the top flight, but the bottom division has also been graced by some of these. Fleetwood, Wigan Athletic and Morecambe have joined the top 92, Southport and Barrow have left it. The thrusting operations at AFC Fylde and Salford are knocking on the door and the breadth of the game in the county still, to a greater or lesser degree thrives. Steve Tongue encapsulates all of it, including non-league, exceedingly well and this is a book that is both a good read and a reference work for years to come.

Only for a #frenchlad , and obviously on the owner's instructions.

Interesting how positions/roles change in description. 1972/3 seems to be the last time a player was classed as a "wing half". "inside Forward" about the same time. (Ask your dads).

Big lad. 6' 3''

Classic . "Fact" with no source or evidence.

Insider dealing should be punished by points deduction.

Didn’t realise that it was a hospital

Still tasty !

Wow, what precision by the two clubs. Precisely the right amount of tickets .

With hindsight....

Four things that referees have to consider in such a situation. Direction - is the player going in the direction of goal or away from it? Distance - how far is the player from goal? Defenders - are other defenders likely to be able to intervene before the player shoots? Control - does the player seem to have the ball under control? Looking at the highlights , if Maouche fouled him, then a red card seems appropriate.

He doesn’t say that much actually.

Works at many clubs.

Darkness and Light Joe Thompson with Alec Fenn Pitch Publishing, 2018 Hardback 256pp £18.99 A truly riveting book, the story of Rochdale player Joe Thompson and his battle with cancer whilst pursuing his career as a respected lower league footballer. Actually, it’s almost three stories in one, each of which could have stood on its own. There is the football theme, from young boy to professional, that of his life-threatening illness, and that of his relationships with his mother and father. Each is absorbing, and each a testimony to the character of Thompson. At the end of the 2017/18 season, indeed in the last match, Thompson was thrust into the media spotlight. Broadcast live on tv, he scored the goal that kept Rochdale in League 1, sending local rivals Oldham down to the bottom tier. A noteworthy moment in anyone’s career but, and rightly so, feted across newspapers, radio and television because of his double struggle with cancer and the fact that he’d come back from that to play football again. Given the challenge he had risen above, the focus was well deserved. The football life of Thompson more or less started at the age of nine. Living in Rochdale with his aunt, scouts from Manchester United soon identified his young talent and he made the 12-mile journey to train with their juniors and become part of the youth set up. However, like s many youngsters, he was let go at 16 and it was then that his life with his local club began. At the end of last season, he had played over 200 times for them and his relationship with manager Keith Hill is described in a frank and insightful manner. It wasn’t always a warm and cuddly one, and his spells at Tranmere, Carlisle, Wrexham and Southport, in between leaving and returning to Spotland show that. It’s an honest account of contract details, having an agent, and the ins and outs of trying to make a decent living at clubs with little money and knowing that a playing career is short. Whilst that is probably enough for most footballers, being diagnosed with cancer at 23 is something that any of us from whatever walk of life would find horrendously daunting. The no holds barred explanation of his emotions and of the way in which he and those close to him faced up to this is superbly told. Co-writer Alec Fenn captures the sentiments and experiences of Thompson in a gripping yet unsensational way. This is even more apparent when cancer emerges again after it seemed to have been conquered. The devastating six months of chemotherapy, leaving him almost skeletal, would have seen off determination and bravery in many but Thompson in a truly inspirational manner re-emerges as a professional footballer in an almost heroic manner. There is a backdrop to all this as well. As a child he witnessed his mother being subject to major domestic abuse, and he deals openly with the mental health issues that were part of her life later. It’s a moving but not maudlin part of the narrative, as is the impact of his father. A drug user and criminal, he is absent from most of Thompson’s life. The meeting between them that took place after his second cancer battle is far from easy, is in prison, and without a fairy tale ending. A book that is a success on several levels. One that works as a football story but is also genuinely inspirational in its narrative of overcoming many adversities.

That's a family video for generations to come to enjoy. Well done to all involved. Looking forward to pitting wits with yarddog73 !

Urine bubbling over on Twitter

Well put. In the short term I want us to be stronger leaving the Transfer Window than entering it. It doesn’t bother me if that comes from AL identifying players or if someone else does. Given Pete Wild’s probable lack of exposure to players at other clubs then it’s unreasonable to expect a massive input from him in this window. However he does seem to be able to coach well and get the players performing as a unit and that’s what he should be concentrating on. The old role of manager is vanishing even at Div 3 & 4 level. If our owner is adept at identifying talent , from wherever, then we should see this as a positive. Not every signing will pay off - they never have , viz Moulden, Currie, McDonald, in the Royle years-. We are in different times, and we have to make the most of them.