mcgoo_84

Arsenal - Yes (Emirates)

Man Utd - Yes

Chelsea - Yes

Everton - Yes

Liverpool - Yes

Aston Villa - Yes

Man City - Yes, Maine Road and Eastlands

Portsmouth - Yes

Blackburn -Yes

West Ham - Yes

Tottenham - Yes

Middlesbrough - Ayresome & Riverside

Newcastle - Yes

Sunderland - Yes - Roker Park and Stadium of Light

Bolton - Yes - Burnden Park & The Breezeblock

Wigan - Yes - Springfield and the JJB

Birmingham - Yes

Reading - Madjeski & Elm Park

Fulham - Yes

Derby - Yes - Baseall Ground and Pride Park

Watford - Yes

West Brom - Yes

Bristol City - Yes

Stoke - Yes - Victoria and Britannia

Charlton - Yes

Ipswich - Yes

Crystal Palace - Yes

Hull - Yes Boothferry. (Not made the KC yet)

Burnley - Yes

Plymouth - Yes

Cardiff - Yes

Wolverhampton - Yes

Norwich - Yes

Barnsley - Yes

QPR - Yes

Blackpool - Yes

Sheff Utd - Yes

Southampton - No

Coventry - No (going there in a few weeks!)

Leicester - Yes, Filbert St (not done the crisp bowl yet!)

Preston - Yes

Sheff Wed - Yes

Scunthorpe - Yes

Colchester - Yes

Swansea - Yes - Liberty and the Vetch

Doncaster - Yes, Belle Vue and Keepmoat

Nottm Forest - Yes

Carlisle - Yes

Walsall - Yes

Tranmere - Yes

Leyton Orient - Yes

Leeds - Yes

Southend - Yes

Oldham - Yes

Swindon - Yes

Northampton - Yes

Huddersfield - Yes (McAlpine, not Leeds Road)

Brighton - Yes (that crap thing they have now rather than the Goldstone)

Yeovil - Yes

Bristol Rovers - Yes

Hartlepool - Yes

Cheltenham - Yes

Gillingham - Yes

Crewe - Yes

Millwall - Yes New Den

Luton - Yes

Bournemouth - Yes

Port Vale - Yes

Milton Keynes Dons - Yes (Hockey Stadium)

Darlington - Yes

Hereford - No

Rotherham - Yes

Peterborough - Yes

Wycombe - Yes

Chesterfield - Yes

Rochdale - Yes

Stockport - Yes

Morecambe - Yes

Grimsby - Yes

Brentford - Yes

Shrewsbury - Yes (Gay Meadow, not done New Meadow yet)

Bradford - Yes

Chester - Yes

Accrington Stanley - Yes

Barnet - No

Lincoln City - No

Macclesfield - Yes

Notts County - Yes

Bury - Yes

Mansfield - Yes

Dag & Red - No

Wrexham - Yes

Conference Former League Grounds

Torquay - Yes

York City - Yes

Oxford United -Yes, Manor Ground

R'den & Dmnds - Yes

Cambridge - Yes

Other Non League

Southport - Yes

Hednesford - Yes

Kings Lynn - Yes

Thurrock - Yes

Burton Albion - Yes

Stalybridge - Yes

Hyde United - Yes

Barrow - Yes

Abroad

Stade de France - Yes

San Siro - Yes

Nou Camp - Yes

Counting that lot up it looks like I've done 112 football grounds to watch a game. There may be a few more that I've forgotten about.

In terms of football league grounds that stand at the moment I only have: 6 of the 92 left to do and am going to Coventry in a couple of weeks which will make 5!

It's a sad thought because he's been a great servant too us over the last few years - apart from his stint on the darkside. But I imagine we have probably seen the last of the 'big Aussie' as I fully anticipate he'll return to Aus when his contract runs out as he was going to do two seasons ago when Shez brought him back from the Lashers.

Well said!! I think the win against Carlisle was mainly down to Jarrett coming into the team rather than Davies not being there

Yeah possibly. I also think the fact that half of the players on the pitch last Tuesday had probably played some part of the all conquering youth team over the last few years and knew each others games very well.

Yes Davies was missing, but so was Hughes - the first time all season that neither of them has played and we turn in our best home performance by a country mile.

However until they are both allowed to play in their preferred positions ie: through the middle and not have to worry about where the supply is going to come from and keep going looking for it I don't think we'll see the best of either of them.

Also - note the point above about Davies only being 22 and having to shoulder a lot of responsibility - he's only 2 years older than Smalley with not too much experience behind him either. Maybe time to just back off and let him develop too. He's got the making of a fine striker for our club so let's not end up ruining him and / or hounding him out like we have done to a fair few over the years.

Would you drop Davies once Hughes is back?

 

Personally I would drop him and keep Hughes and Alexander up front... We need a strike partnership! At least these two are intellegent enough to form an understanding..

 

I cant help but think how frustrated Davies strike partners must be, there is no way of anybody forming any sort of understanding with a player so Selfish

 

I feel like he is our main problem at the moment and part of the reason we are so short on goals, nobody knows where he is going to be or what he is going to do next. I acknowledge that the effort is there but everything else is lacking for me.

I know he created the penalty on Saturday but again this was through his own selfishness - he should have released it to Smalley way before he was hacked down who was stood 8 yards out with a free shot at goal.

 

I honestly think with a run of 30 games on the trot Chris Hall would have been as effective

I think singling Davies out as being the problem because he is selfish is just a tad harsh. Yes he can be - but Hughes is no better, the pair of them are constantly trying to out do the other.

We saw how strikers should link up on Tuesday with Smalley and Allessandra, 90% of the time they knew where each other were and what each other were going to do, the other 10% of the time they would get the ball, heads up and look for each other.

I can't remember the last time Hughes, or Davies actually lifted their head and looked at who might be in a better position when they are going towards goal. Yes all strikers need a certain amount of selfishness but I think they take it a little too far and it isnt benefitting anybody.

People have been very quick to forget that up until the 24th of November when Hughes got his goals at Bournemouth Davies had scored 5 goals in the league and apart from the one at Walsall, everyone had an impact in terms of the points it won for us. The six points those 4 goals gained for us mean we aren't sat 1 place above the relegation zone, where we would have been without them. Back then he was the hero, everbody loved him. All of a sudden Hughes is the big hero and people are on CD's back far far too easily.

I'm not saying he doesn't frustrate me at times with maybe taking the wrong option or being greedy because he does, but to single him out as the 'main problem' is rubbish.

Maybe if we had a little creativity in midfield or more to the point width on both sides of the pitch like we did when Liddell was fit down the right and Taylor down the left then CD would be able to actually play through the middle where he is at his most dangerous - as he was earlier in the season, instead of having to drop into midfield to pick balls up to make something for himself or stand in the box and rely on the 2 wide players putting quality balls into the box for him and whoever he is playing with, as we tried to do before Liddle got injured.

Sorry - this rant has been building up for weeks now be it sat at games listening to people abuse him (as one bloke did behind me when he came out to do the Strike it Lucky Draw on Tuesday ffs!!!) or read people criticising him on here as if our every problem at the minute is his fault.

An interesting one this.

 

Trotman may not be ready for the Premiership yet but I'd say that with Paul Jewell and the new American Investors, then Derby will more than likely to be back there in 2009/ 2010 Season.

 

Preston could be playing in League 1 by then.

 

I guess he would be in the shop window more at Derby than Preston as well.

That's if he even got a game. I doubt he would have been any where near the first team - although with Derby the way they are playing who know's! There's always the risk that they go down and start signing all and sundry flashing lots of cash around in an attempt to win the Championship next season and he just gets all forgotten about. I suppose there's still the chance of that at Preston and the obvious worry of them going down but there does appear to be a bigger chance of first team football there in the near future.

He refused to speak to Derby so the extra £100k which is being spoken about would be irrellevant even if the club had accepted their bid - which they probably had done if Paul Jewell phoned him.

As posted on another thread -

Neal got a phone call from Paul Jewell on Tuesday asking him to go for talks but he said no as he wasn't ready for the Premiership - surely he could have put up with it for 3 months!!!!

Not a problem, Derby won't be there next season.

I know - he would only have had to put up with it for three months, dont know what the problem is!!

As a slight aside but still on Trotman - he turned Derby down on Tuesday! Took a call from Paul Jewell asking him to go for talks with them but he told them that he wasn't ready for the Premiership yet.

Seems like he has quite a mature head on young shoulders too.

Added to the fact that he didnt want to leave here as he felt he should show us loyalty for sticking by him when he got injured shortly after joining, he'll definitely get a great reception from me when he returns to BP with PNE next year! (snigger!)

.We have to take the money now while we can look what happened before .

But what happened before needn't have happened again if only the owners or whoever it is who sorts these things (Hardy, Shez, whoever) had pulled their fingers out of their ar5e5 3 months ago and sorted it to prevent this happening.

Then at least we would have been in a position to demand daft money and see who'd pay it or tell other clubs where to stick it!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This club makes me so mad at times!!!

It does, but at the start of this season Trotman was viewed by many as a sub at best wasn't he? To allegedly get half a mill for him after he's had a handful of decent games, even though he has shown massive potential, is hardly a terrible deal. When Gregan returns we're back to Gregan Stam in central defence which was what we expected at the start of the season, plus we have 500 grand to play with.

 

Is this post too positive for my first one?

Far too positive!!!

I totally appreciate the points made but nobody knows when / if Gregan will be fit and if he does get fit, this time next year when his contract is up I would be suprised if he got another one. In the meantime we are left with 2 Centre halves, one of whom is one of the most injury prone players the club has had in years (that's not saying I don't rate Stammy because I think he's great, but it never lasts that long).

Trotman leaves tonight and what defensive cover do we have? None. We only have 2 fit centre backs at the club and with my nervousness about Stams injury record I can't help but think this is going to screw us over, ok so it may give us a bit more cash for a striker, but if we end up with no defence then we'll need to be scoring 3 and 4 a game to win matches, it's a fine balance and just when I was confident we'd got one problem area nailed (the back four) we give away one of our finest assets!

As angry as I may appear here my may I just point out now my anger is not in any way aimed at any other posters views!!

It's just been confirmed to a mate at Boundary Park that Trotman is not playing tonight and the talk is that he is at Deepdale discussing terms.

So it looks like it was part of the Jarrett deal!

I for one am furious that at a time when we need on or two nice aqcuisitions to maybe push on in a bid for the playoffs we get rid of arguably the lynchpin of our defence.

The excuses will be out in force about us having to sell as we didnt want another situation where he could wait until summer and leave for next to nothing through a tribunal but when all is said and done and excuses trotted out (sorry no pun intended!) the club cant have any excuses and have only got themselves to blame, he should have been tied down late November at the latest. Lets face it, we'd seen enough by then to know that he was one to take a punt on we could have had him tied down for next to nothing anyway, as he would have been happy enough just to know he was going to have a contract as a professional footballer for the next few years - performance related bonuses and we're laughing!

This just sums us up!

Gutted and annoyed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mcgoo, no ... it's his older brother Tim. I did have a short spell on loan from Kobayashi to Interyermam but it never really worked out!

Just told Nick and surprise surprise ..... he wants to come to the game with me tonight!

Yeah I remember mate - Nick always says how you were the one out of the 3 with no talent!!!!

It must be a special occasion if he's dragging himself out of the woodwork - equally strange is the fact that I wont be there, got an assignment that desperately needs finishing so going to have to opt out tonight.

Right guys, 1st time poster, long time reader of this site.

What do you want to know about J ? I';ve been mates with him for a long while now. Went to school with him and played in the same school side as him.

Still go out on the beer with him in Bolton when he's around. Sound lad but in recent times a bit of a journeyman as not really had the chance with Preston.

He could have signed a 3 year pay as you play deal with Wigan just after they got promoted to the prem but he declined as he wanted regular 1st team footy.

Been unlucky with injuries but a strong powerful lad.

My only issue is that he's very similar to Kalala and Allot in breaking up play.

Hopefully he'll feel he has a point to prove and I am going to get on to him now to tell him we are expecting big things tonight!

Nick - is that you sneaking on here??!! Typical - my mate signs so I'll jump out of the woodwork lol!!

I can't believe you didnt draft him in when Interyermam were short of a holding midfielder - he could have done a job for us while getting his fitness back!!

I think this is hilarious news! That will surely leave Harry Bassett in charge!! Gutted!

http://football.guardian.co.uk/comment/sto...2006525,00.html

 

Review from this time last year, rated as £750k - £1m then.

 

Must have risen since, no?

I'd be suprised if his value has risen since then, he's been no where near as good this season as he was last. But oone line in that article stands out for me, as it is something I have said for a while and that is the line about him and Liddell. I think it's glaringly obvious that they bring the best out of each other, neither seems to play as well without the other one.

Let's hope the scouts are all Northern based and didn't make the long cold trip down to Gillingham...

Definitely.

Any scout who saw that performance on Tuesday from him would be straight on the phone telling his chairman to put his cheque book away for the time being!!

£750k yes please.

Starbuck

 

"I'm trying my hardest here!"

 

"TRY HARDER THEN!"

 

Wigan away, Springfield Park.

I think that has got to have been the funniest interaction I've ever heard between a player and his own fans!!

Absolutely hilarious!

Dabo wasnt the best signing but I imagine we are keeping this to players who actually played for us??

Starbuck gets my vote too I'm afraid.

Lasts season it started to rain just as the whistle was blown for kick off. As we left the ground with 3 points it stopped. Unbelievable. Compares with Bristol Rovers that time Allott and Dux scored for worst weather at a match I have been to.

 

Add to that driving home with wet clothes on and really it's a good job we won!!

Yeah I believe so - my mates and family were there but I was in Australia (sorry had to drop that in!!) watching the cricket (shouldn't really have dropped that in though after our performance over there!!).

Fiingers crossed for tonight!

In the words of East 17, let it rain!!!!

Titch - have you managed to con Gaz into driving again?? Who else is going with you?

I'll be there with the Mrs!

Train from Manchester Picadilly at 1:45 into Euston then out again.

Not overly thrilled about going on a Tuesday night but these are things you have to put up with when you go to Everton and win. Normally wouldnt have dreamed of going on a Tuesday night due to having time off work etc but seeing as Gillingham is now the only ground in this division I've not done (as I always seem to be on holiday when it comes round) then I thought I must bite the bullet and make the trip.

Looking forward to it.

Should be fun - especially if it rains!!

QPR just a mini bus of silence all the way home and the 94 semi final. Only highlight was seeing one of their coaches in flames on the motorway on the way home.

 

West Ham in the Carling Cup was an odd one too. Barlow's doing a tour of London then saw us getting there at 7.45 just in time for kick off after setting off about 1. Then on the way back we passed Canary Wharf. About an hour later someone pipes up "is that Canary Wharf - again?". Yes, yes it is Canary Wharf.

 

Doh!

RBL - with you on the West Ham one.

Sounds very much like the coach I was on. Like you said - left BP lunch time, then ended up legging it into Upton Park and got in just as they kicked off.

Getting back on the coach after it was kicking off all around us with not too happy hammers a tad narked that we'd just beaten them and then having set off at about 10:15 ish we went back past Upton Park at midnight having become separated from all the other coaches.

It ended up that the driver was falling asleep on the M6 and we were veering across all the lanes, my Mrs had to sit in the aisle talking to him to keep him awake because we thought we weren't going to make it home, to cap it all, we got onto the M56 and he said that if he didnt have us back within 25 mins or so we were going to have to stop for 40 minutes because he would have gone over his time! There was uproar, luckily he just about got us back. Possibly the scariest journey of my life.

Have also been on some amusing coach journeys too.

A few years back we came back from Brighton after a 0-0 at the Withdean and Barlows broke down about 300 yards from a favourite haunt of Latics coaches - Hilton Park Services. We crawled in to the services at about 8:00 in the evening and told to wait inside while they called the breakdown people out - it wasnt until about 11:30 that they decided the fan belt had gone and that coach was going no where meaning another Barlows had to come from Oldham to get us. As if sitting i Hilton Park from 8 - 2am wasnt bad enough, we'd only been there 5 minutes when another coach pulled in, a bloke got off and the coach drove away. The other coach was a coach of City fans coming back from Pompey, the bloke who got off had been chucked off because he was so hammered he had shat himself, he absolutely minged, we spent 4 hours running around the services trying to avoid him. Even the Cops wouldnt put him in their car when he started walking up the motorway!!! They escorted him back down the hardshoulder to the services again. God know's where he ended up. It sure passed the time though.

Got home at about 3:45 on the Sunday morning, happy days!

no he isnt out of contract, signed untill 2009

I was under the impression that we'd only offered him until the end of this season?

Oh well - if I'm wrong then that's fine by me because it's one less we have to sort out.

I know Shez is very much focused on transfer window signings, but now is also the time to review who he wants to stay for next season. By my reckoning we have 11 players out of contract in the Summer.

 

They are: Pogs, Crossley, Stam, Trotman, Lomax, Liddell, MacDonald, Smalley, Kelly, Alessandra, Wolfenden.

 

We don't have a recent good record of retaining out of contract players, so if there are some/all that still interest him, he should get talks underway sooner rather than later.

 

My view is - Pogs - release. Crossley - retain as goalkeeping coach and player but remit is to leek for a long term replacement. Stam - depends on whether he keeps doing it until the end of the season, which is at odds with talking about contract extensions now. I'd wait on Stam. Trotman - sort an extension NOW! Liddell - either release or retain on an appearance based contract. MacDonald - retain. Smalley - retain. He's not there yet, and needs more time to develop. I'd give him another year. Kelly - no idea - anyone? Alessandra - retain - same as Smalley. Wolfy - I'd retain, for the same reasons as Smalley, but I think it may be his last year with us. He needs pitch time - the sooner the better.

 

What do you think?

Just to add to that - isn't Hazell out of contract too? He's been great since we signed him but the last two games at Everton and Leeds he has been immense, good to see him excelling at right back against Leeds too as there is always going to be speculation around Eardley so it's good that we have another option - another we need to get tied down asap.

My god and I thought we had some moaners at BP.

Very interesting!!

When I was coming out of the car park up to the first roundabout on the way home, some idiot in the car in front of me was shining a green laser at me, it's a good job we were stationary at the time because it was a real shock, came out of nowhere too!!

It's a shame i didnt have the forsight to get his reg!!!

What a complete idiot!!

Burnley at home August 1994 just after we'd been relegated from the Prem,

One of the most memorable days of my life, won 3-0 Stitch got 2 and Super Sean (or Super Sean got 2 and Stitch 1, cant remember!!) it was the day Super Sean did a cartwheel in front of the Burnley fans and gave them the finger - good man!!

I couldnt decide on my favourite player so had my photo with Rick Holden and Super Sean (what was I thinking) picture was taken in the dressing room and to this day there is a mystery third leg between tricky Ricky's, to this day I have no idea who it belonged too - scary! It may have even been Rick's, it's a mystery!!!