StipeTripe

Yes I knew that HDGS, it was kind of rhetorical. I prefer my description, which it must be said is pretty accurate as you got him straight away!

Indeed HS, when many (young uns I presume) were being indignant and citing a riot at Edgleley earlier this season I wonder what they'd have made of the good old days, ahem. Like Easter '84 when hordes of skyblue:censored:e attempted to rearrange BP and anything vaguely Latics based in it! The Chaddy was somewhat like a medieval battle ground as each side surged backwards and forwards, and when the two sides clashed? Well I always think of them cartoon fights where various limbs emerge and disappear in a cloud of dust. For several games after the rotting dismembered remains of Latics and citeh hung from said spikes on the perimitter fencing and gave the ambience of a disused abattoir. You tell the kids stuff like that these days and do they believe you? Do they 'eck, don't know thems born, they really don't. Next weeks programme will focus on Latics and Wednesday re-enacting the Battle of Culloden, circa 1980 (that's the recreation not the original), with special guests Jack "ah luv our kidda ah do" Charlton, Ronnie Blair, and the winger, you know, that long haired poof from Wednesday.

Yup Millwall was a 3pm kick off, just dug out the programme. Coaches for West 'am went at 6am, there was an exec one at 6.30 mind. There was apparently also a VIP flight for the game at £99 which sold out all 100 places. Its amazing what you see looking through old programmes, just before the Crimb games we played Baltimore Blast at G-Mex in a "Transatlantic Challenge" during the Guinness Soccer 6 tournament, forgotten all about that! Theres also the programme from the ZDS cup game at Bramall Lane, but we'll not go into that one eh? Oh and Ernie at Grimsby, brilliant. Chritmas. D'OH

The Football Leagues computer has been relatively kind to Latics this year. Following correspondence with Inspectormorose as to the likelihood of a trip to Gresty Road it made me think about the worst Latics following Crimb. Reckon it has to be 1990/91, Plymouth at home on the Friday night (21st) the away to West Ham on Boxing Day with Millwall away at the original Den the following Saturday. I know the two London games had an police enforced 12 noon kick off, which meant coaches leaving BP at summat like 6am. I can't really recall much about either day, except having about 2 hours kip prior to setting off to BP for the Boxing Day coach. Think we stopped at Knutsford or Sanbach on one of the days to find everything shut, Boxing Day most likely so the bundles of papers outside Smiths were duly opened and paid for, I often wonder what the staff thought we they turned up to find half the papers already sold and a pile of cash in the doorway. I'm pretty sure Sheddy Terringham played for Millwall and that Roger Palmer tackled somebody with a 30ft slide tackle, the pitch being that muddy. Oh and we came back accross London, against Police wishes, went over Tower Bridge and up Oxford or maybe Regent Street, who knew, the sales were on anyway. Maybe I imagined it, anybody else do the two games, the Inspector can't remember due to all festive games of that vintage being a haze, dunno why tho'

Well you got that right. So anyway do you agree that the team of 73/74 grabbed an automatic promotion place and held on to it or not, you know like what you said, sorry implied? After all I agreed about the team of 90/91 doing it, unless we go back to the 50's and 60's or the early 1900's which other Latics promotion team could you mean? Its not a biggie, its not rocket science, a yes or no will do.

Cheeky get!

Quite FMS. I thought my explanation had a touch of logic to it, ho hum. When I were a lad at school we used to do "reading and comprehension" as part of "English". I'll confess I were never much cop at it, it would appear that the Corps old school didn't even introduce the lesson.

Hats off to Peterborough and indeed the writer of the article. There doesn't appear to be a hats off smiley thingy, boo, shame!

LOL Mr Rum

I've long since given up thinking "we should beat that lot" Dan, its pointless, as are often the games many think are 3 point certainties with Latics. It is what it is, a point from a game not even half through the season. If I'd been away and somebody said we got 4 points from the Scunny and Brighton games I'd have thought oh ok. The first thought been a draw with Scunny and beating Brighton, its still 4 points tho'. Please, please nobody post something along the lines of "but what if you were told we got 1 point from Yeovil and Brighton", it really isn't worth it!

That's what you wrote? Isn't it? So I used the last two promotions to illustrate. Seems reasonable to me. Oh and adieu, again!

What's that rustling I can hear, oh aye its the Corp clutching at straws. At which point I shall bid you adieu, wouldn't want to get too excited in my replies.

Did I question commitment? Or if they played just for the money, paltry or not. The question was to you, regarding your bogus statement, it went like this...... So anyway do you agree that the team of 73/74 grabbed an automatic promotion place and held on to it or not, you know like what you said? Just curious like.

One does apologise again, just using a metaphor to illustrate that you were missing the point, unusually for you, and as you've missed it there is little point pursuing it further.

LOL, well I'd sign him back tomorrow if I was manager no matter what the fee.

Yes. The illusion was that previous Latics teams grabbed an automatic promotion place and hung on to it. 01/01/74 they were 7 points off them, in fact with 1 game in hand and only 2 points for a win!

When or if you played football I bet you the one who'd have a shot for goal and it'd go out for a throw in.

Good one, yes shouldn't post in haste, I was so excited I waited a day between posting, I had intended to post the previous day but tempus fudgeit as they say. So anyway do you agree that the team of 73/74 grabbed an automatic promotion place and held on to it or not, you know like what you said? Just curious like. Anyway I have re edited my barely readable effort just for you, the parts I missed in haste I've highlighted. Again one does so apologise for confusing you, although it doesn't seem to hard.

Fair enough Dan, but at this level in football no team is ever going to take all their "opportunities" and anyway we get 46 opportunities per season, if we start singling out teams like Brighton then don't we sound like we're being a bit superior, and a tad like the fans of "big" clubs might? There is very little between top and bottom in this league as results this season show, any team on there day seems capable of beating any other, best thing to do is keep picking up points and see where we are with 5 or 6 games to go.

Yes Dan I'm only interested in Latics too, but then we are playing in a league with 23 others you can't view us in isolation. At the end of the day the point was that Forest went up by winning 22 games, less than half and it matters not a jot if they won 22 by beating the top 11 home and away or the bottom 11 or a raggedy arsed selection across all 23! They won 22 and went up, it also means they drew and lost to teams that were average, it happens, its happened for the last 120 years or whatever it is Football League wise. I know Shez bangs on about consistency and we all know why, but what else should he say. Fact remains that he can say it until he's blue in the face but it won't change the fact that players in this division are playing at the third tier of English football, and playing there by enlarge for a reason. Hell the so called top 4 in the Premiership ain't always consistent, what can we expect. Btw Dan I well remember thinking when we beat Sheff W on 91 that I wasn't gonna celebrate cos that home defeat by Hull could have cost us!!! ;-)

Well yes the usual sweeping generalisation from is partly right. The 90/91 stuck at the top like glue, mind they didn't win in 21 of the games that season, tsk dropping points against numerous non contenders along the way, Oxford, Bristol Rovers, Port Vale, Newcastle and even relegated Hull & WBA all stealing points from JR's all conquering battlers. Worse though, and it shows you perhaps shouldn't make such off the cuff tosh, it didn't look so good 21 games in 35 years ago, they weren't managing to stay in that automatic promotion place! As this 'ere linky will show, tsk damn stats eh. 01/01/1974

Is that actually meant to mean anything? Is that seriously is the best you can come up with? Hic!

Thing is Dan we as fans only ever analyse stuff if we fall short at the end, and then we analyse away with a chorus of "if only", what we tend to forget is that there will be another 21 teams doing the same. Joe Royle always said you end up where you deserve in the league. As Leicester are top at the mo and on a cracking run its a good bet that Leicester fans ain't bemoaning being 2-0 up against a mediocre team like say, ohhhhhhhhhhh I dunno, Brighton, and losing 3-2, yet if the don't go up there will be fans who'll blame it on that game amongst others. As for the 02/03 season, yes you could say those 2 games cost us, but then you could also say we were lucky to grab late, late wins at Stockport and Mansfield, what goes around comes around? All games are bread and butter games when you think about it!

You didn't, you implied it and I thought I'd put the fact into words, like you do, as another correspondent on here recently wrote "that's you doing your quote-what-you-feel-like thing innit?" Anyways you can't lose can you, miserable if we don't go up, miserable if we do in case it all goes wrong. Self flagellation is always sad to witness, or in your case is it just plain old corporal punishment?

Forest didn't win most of their games, in fact less than half, mind they probably didn't slip up against teams not challenging eh? Chortle! Mr Logic, wow good one, fair sliced through me like a rapier.