On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
These days it is much more middle aged and even middle class than it was. For a start, you need a decent income to properly follow a premier league club
It is also much more organised and discreet. Because they don’t want to get arrested and lose careers
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "We are tantalisingly close to the final milestone in our roadmap out of lockdown, but the plan to restore our freedoms must come with a warning."
So, Freedom Day a damp squib then. Close. But not yet there. A plan to restore freedom, not action to restore freedom.
Strange, I read on this very board from PB Clown Apologists that this absolutely would not happen.
What's wrong with a warning ?
The government never stops giving out advice and warnings on multiple issues.
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Well, that's convenient. Embarrassing messages? Jut flub your password and IT will magic them away before the inquiry.
Standard IT security. It’s like that at my firm too.
What it should do is wipe the device, only. The messages should be on a server, backed up.
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
I’m sure it does and it’s the guardian making up a story.
The government has confirmed that all the text messages and have been wiped/lost.
Hmmm. The only way I can think off that being a thing would be that after the wipe of the device, they reconnected the device to the service, and the wiped state was imported to the server.
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
Messages are encrypted at rest on the server. Pin reset generates new key pair.
Messages lost.
If it is a company/government system, then that shouldn't be how it is configured. If nothing else, master keys for company run services are thing.
Otherwise wiping evidence becomes a matter of entering the wrong code to trigger self destruct...
Hello, this is the government/civil service.
The same type of people who put the details of everyone who receives child benefit, bank details, names (including the children) etc on an unencrypted CD and sent it through the regular post and would have continued to do so if they hadn't (in)famously lost a CD just like that.
Oh sure. The only reason it happens less in banks/finance is the "If you bypass security for Senior Manager X, then you are legally liable. And so is he, for ordering it" thing. It is quite easy to resist such requests - just point out the legal liability issue for the boss.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
Can we get over football please now? The nations issues do not include an inability to take penalties or even some ugly behaviour by drunk England fans . Never has been , never will be .
Glad to say we have reached almost a zen level relaxed state over never doing well at Eurovision and its all the better for it.Can we do the same for football?
The Scots have been doing that for decades. There is something to be said for it.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "We are tantalisingly close to the final milestone in our roadmap out of lockdown, but the plan to restore our freedoms must come with a warning."
So, Freedom Day a damp squib then. Close. But not yet there. A plan to restore freedom, not action to restore freedom.
Strange, I read on this very board from PB Clown Apologists that this absolutely would not happen.
What's wrong with a warning ?
The government never stops giving out advice and warnings on multiple issues.
The world only exists in black or white.
Either you can have total freedom, or you *must* be banned from everything.
Discretion is forbidden. So next time you cross the road when the light is red, you will be shot by armed policemen. For your safety.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "We are tantalisingly close to the final milestone in our roadmap out of lockdown, but the plan to restore our freedoms must come with a warning."
So, Freedom Day a damp squib then. Close. But not yet there. A plan to restore freedom, not action to restore freedom.
Strange, I read on this very board from PB Clown Apologists that this absolutely would not happen.
I'm no Clown Apologist but the road map (bar four weeks) is being adhered to isn't it? The removal (or more correctly non-renewal) of legal restrictions.
What - specifically - makes you say it is a "damp squib"?
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
There are a couple of issues. The worst of the fan culture doesn't represent England any more than the ultras represent Italy. The FA still has a lot of work to do on reforming it and getting different kinds of people to follow the team.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years in particular. The period between October 2019 and December 2019 is relevant.
Anyone who thinks football hooliganism is a ‘major problem’ lacks a memory. It’s really quite rare these days, and yesterday was completely unique: international tournament finals, at home, happen every half century, this is the first time ever that one has occurred towards the end of a global plague
Frankly, I expected yesterday to be much, much worse. Especially after defeat. A few bottles thrown, some shouting, a guy shoves a firework up his butt. That’s it?! It is nothing.
The nation sighs, shrugs, and moves on. Good
There are many problems facing the young people of Britain. From knife crime to online bullying to the way we have fucked their education through the pandemic. Yesterday’s scenes of modest mayhem are not germane to this debate
Very good post. Spot on.
Those of us who remember the 1970s can attest what 'real' hooliganism looks like.
Because it was on the terraces. It hasn't been there for some time.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on
tbf I dont think Rashford woudl have scored had he not got involved in politics but your point has merit generally . Its not Rashfords fault as he is entitled as the next person to vent political views , its the media and political world's fault for according far too much weighting to them especially as you say he takes home millions a year
Couldn't believe my eyes when Saka was taking the last penalty. How on earth do you hand the most crucial penalty outside of the first to a nineteen year old lad who has never taken a penalty in his professional career before ? Either Grealish and Sterling didn't stick their hands up or Southgate didn't pick either of them for it. Neither is forgiveable.
Was expecting Grealish, Sterling and Shaw to take penalties before he did, but then I wasn't expecting Maguire to take a penalty so I'm probably not paying enough attention.
Gary Neville on Sky News: 'I'm just reading your breaking news and it says "PM condemns racist abuse of England players"... the prime minister said it was okay for the population of this country to boo those players who were trying to promote equality and defend against racism.' https://twitter.com/samuelluckhurst/status/1414493438163173377
I think we’ve all had enough of football players and pundits lecturing us about anything other than midfield selection. They can all fuck off. Including the sainted Marcus Rashford.
They earn millions to kick a ball, feebly, against a post, then they start crying. Enough.
"Pin resets wipe all data from over 100 Treasury mobile phones Permanent secretary Tom Scholar among those affected after entering incorrect passwords repeatedly"
Well, that's convenient. Embarrassing messages? Jut flub your password and IT will magic them away before the inquiry.
Standard IT security. It’s like that at my firm too.
What it should do is wipe the device, only. The messages should be on a server, backed up.
Otherwise you have created a self destruct button for compromising records.
I’m sure it does and it’s the guardian making up a story.
The government has confirmed that all the text messages and have been wiped/lost.
Hmmm. The only way I can think off that being a thing would be that after the wipe of the device, they reconnected the device to the service, and the wiped state was imported to the server.
Syncing deleted the data from the server, in effect. But then there should be backups.
As someone who has to investigate staff mobile phones and backups of messages on a few occasions it maybe they don't back up everything, sometimes they just keep a back of emails, browsing history, call logs, etc but not texts as they set up via a non app system and can only be backed up via a physical backup rather than a cloud backup.
IIRC all work chat systems in banking/finance have to be backed up and available for monitoring. I thought that was a legal requirement - or is that just best practise?
Or do you mean they were using SMS from their work mobiles - in which case the provider has the messages on their servers/backups.
They are kept/monitored but occasionally there's a gap between backups and if they were wiped between the last backup and a current conversation then they were never backed up.
With people WFH during the period the messages were sent I can see it happening.
IIRC the provider can only tell you when/where/to who sent the message.
If they were using iMessage then the network provider wouldn't be able to provide back ups as it never goes via their servers.
Backups should be daily.
SMS messages are kept for longer than that. I worked in telecoms back end for a bit and it was a running joke about the people who showed up to meetings about that stuff, from the government side..... An SMS message is private between you, the receiver, all the alphabet soup agencies, someone bored at the telco, someone who is paying bored people at the telco £50 for a copy of your messages.....
iMessage etc is blocked in many (all?) finance situations - you don't want back channels.
Where it gets complicated, especially with WFH, is when someone lives in an area with poor mobile signal.
They can use WhatsApp (which can be backed up daily.)
Can we get over football please now? The nations issues do not include an inability to take penalties or even some ugly behaviour by drunk England fans . Never has been , never will be .
Glad to say we have reached almost a zen level relaxed state over never doing well at Eurovision and its all the better for it.Can we do the same for football?
It's not easy to do that unfortunately, because it's not quite as simple as that. This is because the second of these are partly problems specific to football, and partly not.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
Tiptoes out muttering "Il calcio e tornato a casa" .....**
Don't tell me - a unit in the Metropolitan Police, which deals with sex abuse, is doing what the West Midlands Serious Crimes Squad did for serious crimes in the West Midlands?
England are not in my view playing to their strengths and won't for as long as Southgate is manager.
Despite his less than stellar CV (got Bura relegated and 2004 Sports Book of the Year) Southgate is on a par with other recent England managers like Hodgson, SGE and Capello with a ~60% win rate. He'll get the usual three major tournaments so he'll be at WC2022 and will get fucked off after that. Even if England win he'll get a mega money deal from a big European club so one way or another he'll be gone by 2023.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
There are a couple of issues. The worst of the fan culture doesn't represent England any more than the ultras represent Italy. The FA still has a lot of work to do on reforming it and getting different kinds of people to follow the team.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years in particular. The period between October 2019 and December 2019 is relevant.
Anyone who thinks football hooliganism is a ‘major problem’ lacks a memory. It’s really quite rare these days, and yesterday was completely unique: international tournament finals, at home, happen every half century, this is the first time ever that one has occurred towards the end of a global plague
Frankly, I expected yesterday to be much, much worse. Especially after defeat. A few bottles thrown, some shouting, a guy shoves a firework up his butt. That’s it?! It is nothing.
The nation sighs, shrugs, and moves on. Good
There are many problems facing the young people of Britain. From knife crime to online bullying to the way we have fucked their education through the pandemic. Yesterday’s scenes of modest mayhem are not germane to this debate
Agreed, but I do hope that all incidents of violence and vandalism are investigated and the culprits punished under the law.
I put this together - it takes the seven day average, and compares it to the seven day average the day before, and plots the percentage changes, up and down....
Signs of hope. ZOE tends to show things a little before they show in daily testing. Also the daily testing shows the rate increase slowing. Schools out soon, and no more footy. Personally I'd like the secondary school cohort to be vaccinated (at least offered) as this would surely help into the autumn, but there is a sense that we are getting there. Well done to the Italians - best team in the tournament, and it took them penalties to get past England last night. Well done England - first final of my lifetime, and hope for the future there too.
Times Radio @TimesRadio · 28m "We need to stop fixating on suppressing infection."
Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at @UniofOxford , says the government needs to "let infection reach an equilibrium level and strenuously protect the vulnerable".
On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
I posted on the drivers behind football hooliganism yesterday.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "We are tantalisingly close to the final milestone in our roadmap out of lockdown, but the plan to restore our freedoms must come with a warning."
So, Freedom Day a damp squib then. Close. But not yet there. A plan to restore freedom, not action to restore freedom.
Strange, I read on this very board from PB Clown Apologists that this absolutely would not happen.
What's wrong with a warning ?
The government never stops giving out advice and warnings on multiple issues.
The world only exists in black or white.
Either you can have total freedom, or you *must* be banned from everything.
Discretion is forbidden. So next time you cross the road when the light is red, you will be shot by armed policemen. For your safety.
Indeed.
It seems anything other than an anarcho-libertarian free for all is now regarded as a lockdown.
Gary Neville on Sky News: 'I'm just reading your breaking news and it says "PM condemns racist abuse of England players"... the prime minister said it was okay for the population of this country to boo those players who were trying to promote equality and defend against racism.' https://twitter.com/samuelluckhurst/status/1414493438163173377
I think we’ve all had enough of football players and pundits lecturing us about anything other than midfield selection. They can all fuck off. Including the sainted Marcus Rashford.
They earn millions to kick a ball, feebly, against a post, then they start crying. Enough.
Gary Neville of course is a staunch Labour supporter too and loathes Johnson, as shown by his comment in the semis Southgate showed the leadership the country had been lacking for the last few years
I always found writing football stories to be impossible at uni. The technique as you may know is to write the story backwards, start on the end of the match and as you go through the story work backwards in time.
Here we have all the newspapers turning around not just copy but headlines and photos at an absurd speed to get late editions to tell the story of a game that finished after 11pm.
Yes of course they can start building their reports during the match thanks to the work backwards technique, but I am always in a little bit of awe to see how the newspapers - all of them regardless of how offensive they may be - turn around breaking news like this so quickly.
I was crap at it. Which is why my journalism career lasted all of a year
I wish you wankers had the bottle to actually fuck off and leave the UK. Sadly you didn't and we're stuck with the stench of a dead country that can't find its own dick because it's fallen off.
How can they be wankers AND have dicks that have fallen off? I’m assuming they aren’t transgender
If you are suggesting that that was not Max's most coherent contribution to PB I would have to respectfully agree.
Perfectly coherent, even though I disagree with the sentiment. Max is saying that Scots (presumably) are wankers (a proportionate number of whom should have the required appendage) and that the country has lost it's dick. Struggling to think of that many Dicks in a Scottish context, but I guess Dicky Leonard could be the one. Not a Scot, of course, but he is a Dick that Scotland has lost, to the extent he's no longer SLab leader. What I can't work out is why Scotland would be trying to find him!
I used to work (on a Scottish university site) with someone called Willie Dick.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
How come you are posting on PB at 9.30 on a weekday? Should(n't) you be at work?
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
There are a couple of issues. The worst of the fan culture doesn't represent England any more than the ultras represent Italy. The FA still has a lot of work to do on reforming it and getting different kinds of people to follow the team.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years in particular. The period between October 2019 and December 2019 is relevant.
Anyone who thinks football hooliganism is a ‘major problem’ lacks a memory. It’s really quite rare these days, and yesterday was completely unique: international tournament finals, at home, happen every half century, this is the first time ever that one has occurred towards the end of a global plague
Frankly, I expected yesterday to be much, much worse. Especially after defeat. A few bottles thrown, some shouting, a guy shoves a firework up his butt. That’s it?! It is nothing.
The nation sighs, shrugs, and moves on. Good
There are many problems facing the young people of Britain. From knife crime to online bullying to the way we have fucked their education through the pandemic. Yesterday’s scenes of modest mayhem are not germane to this debate
Very good post. Spot on.
Those of us who remember the 1970s can attest what 'real' hooliganism looks like.
Because it was on the terraces. It hasn't been there for some time.
It was on the terraces, on the pitches, outside the grounds, in the city centres, on the trains...
Tiptoes out muttering "Il calcio e tornato a casa" .....**
Thought-provoking read. Wonder what will be uncovered...... if, of course, anything is. "Highly regrettable series of missed opportunities....." seems likely to be a phrase to apply.
I think we’ve all had enough of football players and pundits lecturing us about anything other than midfield selection. They can all fuck off. Including the sainted Marcus Rashford.
If BoZo can pull on an England shirt and pretend he gives a fuck, then Neville can point out his hypocrisy
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
Rubbish, I'm still sore about 1991 and 2007.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
1991 - yes - penalty try. Would be today, no question. 2007 - I'm less sure. Maybe now if the call was try onfield, is there anything to turn it over? The spear tackle on O'Driscoll is one of the most cynical things i have ever seen in sport, and how the players got away with it was astonishing. I too have blanked out 2015!
Moving on from football - how many medals do we expect Britain to win at the Olympics?
i think better than is likely to be the betting spread on them. I think the bookies may look at athletics (high profile) and think GB is weak so set the spread low. In other sports we are very strong this year , swimming included
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
How come you are posting on PB at 9.30 on a weekday? Should(n't) you be at work?
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
There are a couple of issues. The worst of the fan culture doesn't represent England any more than the ultras represent Italy. The FA still has a lot of work to do on reforming it and getting different kinds of people to follow the team.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years in particular. The period between October 2019 and December 2019 is relevant.
Anyone who thinks football hooliganism is a ‘major problem’ lacks a memory. It’s really quite rare these days, and yesterday was completely unique: international tournament finals, at home, happen every half century, this is the first time ever that one has occurred towards the end of a global plague
Frankly, I expected yesterday to be much, much worse. Especially after defeat. A few bottles thrown, some shouting, a guy shoves a firework up his butt. That’s it?! It is nothing.
The nation sighs, shrugs, and moves on. Good
There are many problems facing the young people of Britain. From knife crime to online bullying to the way we have fucked their education through the pandemic. Yesterday’s scenes of modest mayhem are not germane to this debate
Very good post. Spot on.
Those of us who remember the 1970s can attest what 'real' hooliganism looks like.
Because it was on the terraces. It hasn't been there for some time.
It was on the terraces, on the pitches, outside the grounds, in the city centres, on the trains...
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
How come you are posting on PB at 9.30 on a weekday? Should(n't) you be at work?
I put this together - it takes the seven day average, and compares it to the seven day average the day before, and plots the percentage changes, up and down....
Signs of hope. ZOE tends to show things a little before they show in daily testing. Also the daily testing shows the rate increase slowing. Schools out soon, and no more footy. Personally I'd like the secondary school cohort to be vaccinated (at least offered) as this would surely help into the autumn, but there is a sense that we are getting there. Well done to the Italians - best team in the tournament, and it took them penalties to get past England last night. Well done England - first final of my lifetime, and hope for the future there too.
The *available data* strongly suggests that the vaccine risk to 12-18 is less than the medical risk of COVID. The issue is the expected rate of infection.
My *personal opinion* is that the probable infection rate among the 12-18 group over the next year means that the risk of COVID (while small) is orders of magnitude larger than risk from the vaccines.
But I am not medically qualified. Nor do I have qualifications and training in the area of medical statistics / medical ethics - though I have some passing familiarity with the calculations used.
It looked like Southgate had got lucky with his tactical change when enthused wing backs contrived a goal before any game plan could get going. But fact is, Southgate change to back five surrendered too much possession and territory. He should have kept a back 4 front 3 and replaced Mount with Henderson to go toe to toe with the Italians in the midfield, we would have created more chances that way, and that would have been our best chance of taking the win. Instead we spent too much of this game on back foot when we should have had more possession and chances of our own.
Can call it a great run, lots of fun, but truth is we haven’t sealed the deal with home advantage. Both the World Cup and this tournament fixtures opened up chance for a good run - true, we should be strong entery into next years WC, but we could meet a Belgium, France, Italy much sooner than semi and final.
This was an historic missed opportunity this evening.
Ticketless fans getting in, in the numbers they clearly have should be treated very seriously. That’s the type of thing that can create lots of deaths.
Horrid to see Saka so nervous when stepping up, and so broken at end.
As I argued on previous thread. That is summat we'll never know. But I reckon matching up with the Italians in midfield wouldn't have worked. As they are simply better. We did well to get to penalties. The best team in the tournament won.
Kane coming deep did play some good forward balls. Mount trying to play role more suited to Henderson was invisible.
If you leave yourself outmanned in midfield, they have extra presser, and extra outlet for pass, so will look better. The talent your midfield has doesn’t stand a chance to show. But you give yourself the best chance if you at least match up.
Also, the problem with funnelling back into 5 4 1 out of possession is in the vital transition when you do have the ball. To break out you need to hold the ball long enough for wing backs to become wingers, and people to find space. Football is about finding space and finding the person in space.
Rice attempted to hold for transition a few times, couldn’t find a team mate not necessary his fault, as 90% game England player with ball could not see an out ball due to Southgates formation and tactic making our players look more inferior than they are, due to problem transition into space. Due to the difficulty transitioning into space from 5 4 1, not anything special the Italians done.
And as Francis pointed out before kick off, we need to put more pressure on the ageing and slow Italian defenders. We didn’t. We didn’t exploit that weakness. Saka who should have started did do it to cheealeeny for his card to show what we were missing.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
Would you feel I was being reasonable if I posted the following sentence:
The fact is Johnson was openly campaigning for Conservative policy, he became too political given he was still a highly paid professional journalist with other things to concentrate on.?
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
Rubbish, I'm still sore about 1991 and 2007.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
1991 - yes - penalty try. Would be today, no question. 2007 - I'm less sure. Maybe now if the call was try onfield, is there anything to turn it over? The spear tackle on O'Driscoll is one of the most cynical things i have ever seen in sport, and how the players got away with it was astonishing. I too have blanked out 2015!
I think my rage with 2007 is that I spent good money buying tickets for the final, I may have been a bit more sanguine about it.
Oh and tickets for the QF against the Aussies, that was bliss.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: "We are tantalisingly close to the final milestone in our roadmap out of lockdown, but the plan to restore our freedoms must come with a warning."
So, Freedom Day a damp squib then. Close. But not yet there. A plan to restore freedom, not action to restore freedom.
Strange, I read on this very board from PB Clown Apologists that this absolutely would not happen.
What's wrong with a warning ?
The government never stops giving out advice and warnings on multiple issues.
The world only exists in black or white.
Either you can have total freedom, or you *must* be banned from everything.
Discretion is forbidden. So next time you cross the road when the light is red, you will be shot by armed policemen. For your safety.
Indeed.
It seems anything other than an anarcho-libertarian free for all is now regarded as a lockdown.
You have been fined one credit for violation of the Prohibition of Thinking Act 2021
Indeed, at least one tribute here, of the "lift restrictions NOW!!!" varietal, becomes angry at the idea that the government would be "recommending" or "suggesting" anything.
Times Radio @TimesRadio · 28m "We need to stop fixating on suppressing infection."
Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at @UniofOxford , says the government needs to "let infection reach an equilibrium level and strenuously protect the vulnerable".
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
There are a couple of issues. The worst of the fan culture doesn't represent England any more than the ultras represent Italy. The FA still has a lot of work to do on reforming it and getting different kinds of people to follow the team.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years in particular. The period between October 2019 and December 2019 is relevant.
Anyone who thinks football hooliganism is a ‘major problem’ lacks a memory. It’s really quite rare these days, and yesterday was completely unique: international tournament finals, at home, happen every half century, this is the first time ever that one has occurred towards the end of a global plague
Frankly, I expected yesterday to be much, much worse. Especially after defeat. A few bottles thrown, some shouting, a guy shoves a firework up his butt. That’s it?! It is nothing.
The nation sighs, shrugs, and moves on. Good
There are many problems facing the young people of Britain. From knife crime to online bullying to the way we have fucked their education through the pandemic. Yesterday’s scenes of modest mayhem are not germane to this debate
I agree with some of this, but in other senses we can't have it both ways. You at one stage described Britain's exit from the EU in terms of a football hooligan leaving something it didn't like. You made that connection because that connection is out there in the culture, and intersecting some who supported both Brexit and the most aggressive strand of the England fan culture. This number of people and strand of the culture not actually as large as it seems, but it is there.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
But it's not really 'England', is it? There is plenty of similar violence all over the world, by all people. In this country, football attracts the tiny (in percentage terms) of people who think this sort of behaviour is acceptable. Add in drink, and it becomes much worse.
IMV it is more to do with a toxic form of masculinity (*) than any particular country. Football is just an excuse; something they can rally around that has 'enemies'.
God know show we fix it though. Some people just seem to like a rumble, and it's probably been the same through history.
(*) They are mostly male.
Fight Club, or at least boxing clubs. Provide a venue where they can fight like-minded people instead of random members of the public.
Boxing clubs and football firms are chalk and apples. There is absolutely no similarity in mindset, intention, attitude, motive. Oh and ability.
The point about football violence is that it is as much as anything young men coming together, in solidarity, to break the rules and place themselves outside society (they don't like us we don't care). Fighting is in their view of the world a natural extension of the pariah not giving a fuck. The focus of this is a football team because it is (or used to be before prawn sandwiches and french imports) local and you might have hung out with the players until they went their way and you went yours. It is also identifiable (red/blue/etc) so provides a convenient marker for loyalties.
A boxing club is disciplined, humble, respectful and rules-bound.
The only time there is no respect is if some cocky git walks in and doesn't show the requisite degree of humility.
There is no or very little overlap between the motives of the two sets of people.
That would be the point of trying to get the young men into boxing clubs, to learn a better culture, than leaving them to perpetuate the culture of football violence.
Good article on why Spain has a very high rate of infection - which is, mostly, so far, not impacting on hospitals and deaths outside a few places in the north.
Tiptoes out muttering "Il calcio e tornato a casa" .....**
Thought-provoking read. Wonder what will be uncovered...... if, of course, anything is. "Highly regrettable series of missed opportunities....." seems likely to be a phrase to apply.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
Which is fine, stick to that not pushing the Labour agenda in his spare time
The thing is @HYUFD why are you so annoyed with Rashford rather than the government?
I'm sure we can all agree that a celebrity bandwagon being parlayed into government policy is of great concern and - to boot - they cynically honour the celebrity. Blame the government for not sticking to conservative principles (like them or not) not Rashford. The fact that a non-elected someone of notoriety can influence things in this way is of great concern to our system of governance and our checks and balances.
Those that defend Rashford may approve purely because of the particular cause in this instance - they need to consider how they would have reacted if he had , say, advocated for a reduction in benefits for the poor. In this scenario they would be just as annoyed and concerned unless they are dispensing with principle and working with an extreme the-ends-justify-the means utilitarianism (which is by definition unprincipled).
Attack our pussy, cynical government. It is concerning that they have set a precedent for this now.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
Which is fine, stick to that not pushing the Labour agenda in his spare time
Does make me laugh. Charles defended his comments in this area by pointing to the family charity work (which is genuinely excellent, I mean no slur). Apparently it is important that the very well to do are trying to help the impoverished, albeit people kept impoverished by the policies written and voted for by the people providing the charity.
Here we have the same thing, only its not the rich establishment showing charity, its the kid who a few years ago came from nothing who is doing all he can to help kids just like him. What an outrage, his charity work. What a disgusting spectacle, the worked his way up from grinding poverty man showing compassion and charity to his former neighbours and friends.
Wanting poor kids who live in shit homes and go to shit schools to not go hungry. Disgusting political grandstanding, pushing the Labour agenda. Much better that he do nothing for these kids, let the government get on with cutting funding to their schools, taking £20 a week off them and letting them go hungry.
You and your other Epping Tories in your WhatsApp group really are truly nasty human beings, you know that?
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
To be fair to you, Marcus Rashford has been criticised - I think even in hushed tones within the football scene - for possibly spending a bit too much time on campaigning and that he should focus more on his game.
Do I think that was behind his miss last night? No. Lots of us have demanding full time jobs and post on here and on Twitter as a break, when we have time. I have no reason to doubt he'd attended all training sessions and was very well practiced, and Southgate wouldn't have selected him if he hadn't been.
He'd sat on the sidelines for 2 hours, barely played for 3 minutes and was then asked to take one of the most important kicks of his life - he then overthought it, looked at the goaly rather than the ball, made a poor contact and half-hoofed it.
He tried to be too clever rather than focussing on the basics and trusting in his skill. That's why he missed, not because of his activities on Twitter.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
To be fair to you, Marcus Rashford has been criticised - I think even in hushed tones within the football scene - for possibly spending a bit too much time on campaigning and that he should focus more on his game.
Do I think that was behind his miss last night? No. Lots of us have demanding full time jobs and post on here and on Twitter as a break, when we have time. I have no reason to doubt he'd attended all training sessions and was very well practiced, and Southgate wouldn't have selected him if he hadn't been.
He'd sat on the sidelines for 2 hours, barely played for 3 minutes and was then asked to take one of the most important kicks of his life - he then overthought it, looked at the goaly rather than the ball, made a poor contact and half-hoofed it.
He tried to be too clever rather than focussing on the basics and trusting in his skill. That's why he missed, not because of his activities on Twitter.
To be fair he only just missed. A decent todger-length to the right and we'd be saying what a magnificent penalty it was.
The combination of toxic masculinity, a misplaced sense of superiority over 'others', and excessive use of alcohol and/or weed and cocaine are not peculiarly English, but are more prevalent in England than elsewhere.
It's not just football either. The poor reputation of English men (a subset, of course, and may include a few women) is well deserved in tourist destinations in much of Europe and elsewhere. The English abroad are not a pretty sight.
The problem may have diminished since the 1970s, but it hasn't gone away.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
You give Labour too much credit there, I think.
Labour were openly campaigning for Rashford's policy
Moving on from football - how many medals do we expect Britain to win at the Olympics?
i think better than is likely to be the betting spread on them. I think the bookies may look at athletics (high profile) and think GB is weak so set the spread low. In other sports we are very strong this year , swimming included
So, close to the 67 medals (27 golds) we got last time?
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
Totally agree. Spot on.
There was a really nasty underbelly coming to the surface in the latter stages. Shining a laser pen into an oppo goalie's face, booing national anthems, breaking into the stadium, beating up an defenceless Asian fan with the words clearly audible 'take that you Paki scum', a grown man literally thumping a young child, bottles thrown at police, incessant booing at taking the knee.
It's very ugly and this is England.
But it's not really 'England', is it? There is plenty of similar violence all over the world, by all people. In this country, football attracts the tiny (in percentage terms) of people who think this sort of behaviour is acceptable. Add in drink, and it becomes much worse.
IMV it is more to do with a toxic form of masculinity (*) than any particular country. Football is just an excuse; something they can rally around that has 'enemies'.
God know show we fix it though. Some people just seem to like a rumble, and it's probably been the same through history.
(*) They are mostly male.
Fight Club, or at least boxing clubs. Provide a venue where they can fight like-minded people instead of random members of the public.
Boxing clubs and football firms are chalk and apples. There is absolutely no similarity in mindset, intention, attitude, motive. Oh and ability.
The point about football violence is that it is as much as anything young men coming together, in solidarity, to break the rules and place themselves outside society (they don't like us we don't care). Fighting is in their view of the world a natural extension of the pariah not giving a fuck. The focus of this is a football team because it is (or used to be before prawn sandwiches and french imports) local and you might have hung out with the players until they went their way and you went yours. It is also identifiable (red/blue/etc) so provides a convenient marker for loyalties.
A boxing club is disciplined, humble, respectful and rules-bound.
The only time there is no respect is if some cocky git walks in and doesn't show the requisite degree of humility.
There is no or very little overlap between the motives of the two sets of people.
That would be the point of trying to get the young men into boxing clubs, to learn a better culture, than leaving them to perpetuate the culture of football violence.
Many do end up at boxing clubs although as has been pointed out there are plenty of old geezers involved in football violence.
But yes boxing clubs are a tried and tested escape route and outlet for the younger demographic.
The essence of my post about motivation, however, remains. People have got to be ready to give up that lawlessness and many never will be.
Tiptoes out muttering "Il calcio e tornato a casa" .....**
Thought-provoking read. Wonder what will be uncovered...... if, of course, anything is. "Highly regrettable series of missed opportunities....." seems likely to be a phrase to apply.
On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
Back in the 80s, it was common for some to claim that hooliganism was unemployed people complaining about Thatcherism.
The evidence, in terms of arrests and criminal convictions was always the opposite. Employed, often quite well paid, dominated.
Estate agents featured highly in convictions for hooliganism, I seem to recall. No surprise there.
I think we’ve all had enough of football players and pundits lecturing us about anything other than midfield selection. They can all fuck off. Including the sainted Marcus Rashford.
If BoZo can pull on an England shirt and pretend he gives a fuck, then Neville can point out his hypocrisy
A rare moment of agreement. I want Boris to STFU about football, and I want Neville (and Rashford, et al) to disappear into the obscurity of late night soccer punditry
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
To be fair to you, Marcus Rashford has been criticised - I think even in hushed tones within the football scene - for possibly spending a bit too much time on campaigning and that he should focus more on his game.
Do I think that was behind his miss last night? No. Lots of us have demanding full time jobs and post on here and on Twitter as a break, when we have time. I have no reason to doubt he'd attended all training sessions and was very well practiced, and Southgate wouldn't have selected him if he hadn't been.
He'd sat on the sidelines for 2 hours, barely played for 3 minutes and was then asked to take one of the most important kicks of his life - he then overthought it, looked at the goaly rather than the ball, made a poor contact and half-hoofed it.
He tried to be too clever rather than focussing on the basics and trusting in his skill. That's why he missed, not because of his activities on Twitter.
To be fair he only just missed. A decent todger-length to the right and we'd be saying what a magnificent penalty it was.
That's true but I think the point was he almost never misses.
The pundits were saying he was looking at the goaly too much - trying to outwit him - rather than the ball and Rashford knew he'd made poor contact with the ball as soon as he'd kicked it.
If you ask me we were lucky to get a draw and penalties at all. Italy could easily have beaten us 3-1 and their defence, once they'd recovered from the opening half-hour, was utterly impenetrable.
Times Radio @TimesRadio · 28m "We need to stop fixating on suppressing infection."
Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at @UniofOxford , says the government needs to "let infection reach an equilibrium level and strenuously protect the vulnerable".
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
To be fair to you, Marcus Rashford has been criticised - I think even in hushed tones within the football scene - for possibly spending a bit too much time on campaigning and that he should focus more on his game.
Do I think that was behind his miss last night? No. Lots of us have demanding full time jobs and post on here and on Twitter as a break, when we have time. I have no reason to doubt he'd attended all training sessions and was very well practiced, and Southgate wouldn't have selected him if he hadn't been.
He'd sat on the sidelines for 2 hours, barely played for 3 minutes and was then asked to take one of the most important kicks of his life - he then overthought it, looked at the goaly rather than the ball, made a poor contact and half-hoofed it.
He tried to be too clever rather than focussing on the basics and trusting in his skill. That's why he missed, not because of his activities on Twitter.
Alan Shearer was talking about that. I formed the impression that while he wasn't directly mentioning Southgate there was some implicit criticism of bring players on simple to take penalties.
I remarked to my wife last night that it reminded me of American Football, where players come on just to take kicks of some sort.
Couldn't believe my eyes when Saka was taking the last penalty. How on earth do you hand the most crucial penalty outside of the first to a nineteen year old lad who has never taken a penalty in his professional career before ? Either Grealish and Sterling didn't stick their hands up or Southgate didn't pick either of them for it. Neither is forgiveable.
You don't want to force someone who doesn't want to do it.
On the other hand you don't want someone doing it out of duty instead of ability.
I don't know why more goalkeepers aren't chosen - they're experienced at kicking a dead ball with maximum power.
Did you miss the Europa League final?
Did you miss the last time England won a penalty shoot out ?
Here's Pickford scoring in it with an unstoppable shot:
Compare with Saka's medium height, medium pace, medium placement effort.
Mason Mount was subbed off at the 99th minute. He's got a 4/5 record on penalties. Bearing in mind the chance of an England win in Extra time was slimmish at that point, did Southgate not think about that sub considering Trippier (Another pen taker) was already off ? It strikes me that Saka would have been perhaps 7th up in the original planned rotation (Kane, Maguire, Rashford, Mount, Trippier, Sancho, Saka) - a very different position to fifth.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
To be fair to you, Marcus Rashford has been criticised - I think even in hushed tones within the football scene - for possibly spending a bit too much time on campaigning and that he should focus more on his game.
Do I think that was behind his miss last night? No. Lots of us have demanding full time jobs and post on here and on Twitter as a break, when we have time. I have no reason to doubt he'd attended all training sessions and was very well practiced, and Southgate wouldn't have selected him if he hadn't been.
He'd sat on the sidelines for 2 hours, barely played for 3 minutes and was then asked to take one of the most important kicks of his life - he then overthought it, looked at the goaly rather than the ball, made a poor contact and half-hoofed it.
He tried to be too clever rather than focussing on the basics and trusting in his skill. That's why he missed, not because of his activities on Twitter.
To be fair he only just missed. A decent todger-length to the right and we'd be saying what a magnificent penalty it was.
That's true but I think the point was he almost never misses.
The pundits were saying he was looking at the goaly too much - trying to outwit him - rather than the ball and Rashford knew he'd made poor contact with the ball as soon as he'd kicked it.
If you ask me we were lucky to get a draw and penalties at all. Italy could easily have beaten us 3-1 and their defence, once they'd recovered from the opening half-hour, was utterly impenetrable.
It was certainly impenetrable from our own 18-yard box.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
If it wasn't football, these people would just congregate around something else. Ideally something where there are opponents who can be seen as the 'enemy', so sports are most likely. Football is just an excuse; their mentality is the issue.
There are a couple of issues. The worst of the fan culture doesn't represent England any more than the ultras represent Italy. The FA still has a lot of work to do on reforming it and getting different kinds of people to follow the team.
That this is essentially a very specific social problem doesn't entirely absolve politicians of blame, however. In a country where this has been a problem for many decades, ideally politicians should keep their distance as far as possible from a certain kind of nationalism. This has not been the case over the last three years in particular. The period between October 2019 and December 2019 is relevant.
Anyone who thinks football hooliganism is a ‘major problem’ lacks a memory. It’s really quite rare these days, and yesterday was completely unique: international tournament finals, at home, happen every half century, this is the first time ever that one has occurred towards the end of a global plague
Frankly, I expected yesterday to be much, much worse. Especially after defeat. A few bottles thrown, some shouting, a guy shoves a firework up his butt. That’s it?! It is nothing.
The nation sighs, shrugs, and moves on. Good
There are many problems facing the young people of Britain. From knife crime to online bullying to the way we have fucked their education through the pandemic. Yesterday’s scenes of modest mayhem are not germane to this debate
I agree with some of this, but in other senses we can't have it both ways. You at one stage described Britain's exit from the EU in terms of a football hooligan leaving something it didn't like. You made that connection because that connection is out there in the culture, and intersecting some who supported both Brexit and the most aggressive strand of the England fan culture. This number of people and strand of the culture not actually as large as it seems, but it is there.
No, no. You've got it all wrong. That wasn't @Leon, that was @PissedLeon. Two entirely different posters.
On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
Back in the 80s, it was common for some to claim that hooliganism was unemployed people complaining about Thatcherism.
The evidence, in terms of arrests and criminal convictions was always the opposite. Employed, often quite well paid, dominated.
Estate agents featured highly in convictions for hooliganism, I seem to recall. No surprise there.
Indeed. The dominant groups, IIRC, were highly paid, but less educated.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
Rubbish, I'm still sore about 1991 and 2007.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
1991 - yes - penalty try. Would be today, no question. 2007 - I'm less sure. Maybe now if the call was try onfield, is there anything to turn it over? The spear tackle on O'Driscoll is one of the most cynical things i have ever seen in sport, and how the players got away with it was astonishing. I too have blanked out 2015!
I think my rage with 2007 is that I spent good money buying tickets for the final, I may have been a bit more sanguine about it.
Oh and tickets for the QF against the Aussies, that was bliss.
England in 2007 were a mess. We were lucky to get as far as we did.
But event then, the rugby side and culture really don't carry the same baggage. We got into a final last time. We lost, badly and it was a bit embarrassing. But somehow it really didn't carry all of the same baggage.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
To be fair to you, Marcus Rashford has been criticised - I think even in hushed tones within the football scene - for possibly spending a bit too much time on campaigning and that he should focus more on his game.
Do I think that was behind his miss last night? No. Lots of us have demanding full time jobs and post on here and on Twitter as a break, when we have time. I have no reason to doubt he'd attended all training sessions and was very well practiced, and Southgate wouldn't have selected him if he hadn't been.
He'd sat on the sidelines for 2 hours, barely played for 3 minutes and was then asked to take one of the most important kicks of his life - he then overthought it, looked at the goaly rather than the ball, made a poor contact and half-hoofed it.
He tried to be too clever rather than focussing on the basics and trusting in his skill. That's why he missed, not because of his activities on Twitter.
Both keepers were superb, Donnarumma waiting for so long before moving is the main reason Rashford missed, against most keepers they would have moved earlier and Rashford could have rolled it in the other side. It is bad technique imo compared to simply picking a spot, but very popular amongst players and Hazard and Jorginho have been very successful with it - with that style I do think the more penalties you take the greater the chance of missing as the keepers will learn a lot about your technique.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
Can we get over football please now? The nations issues do not include an inability to take penalties or even some ugly behaviour by drunk England fans . Never has been , never will be .
Glad to say we have reached almost a zen level relaxed state over never doing well at Eurovision and its all the better for it.Can we do the same for football?
Ultimately it's the right of every new generation of Englishmen (and women) to see their national side losing big international tournaments in a penalty shoot out!
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
The worse thing was that the media were absolutely appalling. Mawkish and bombastic by turns. The point about the stiff upper lip was that none ever knew if they had got you beat, the stupid and overblown garbage from the popular press was emetic and somehow, very un-English. Bill Shankly´s line "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that" was a joke. Yet every media commentator in the country seems to have taken it as words to live by. The team were understated and mostly good sports, the media could hardly have been more different. Awful.
A fine post. There's an unpleasant jingoism going around that's not attractive. The government and its supporters have to show the doubters that the empire wasn't a fluke. That Brexit will make make us great again! Liz Truss parades herself like a Leni Reifenstahl tribute act having made a trade deal with Australia. A deal worth less than our existing one with Bulgaria.
Is it any wonder we have a population bewildered that our football team couldn't beat a team of mortals??
On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
Back in the 80s, it was common for some to claim that hooliganism was unemployed people complaining about Thatcherism.
The evidence, in terms of arrests and criminal convictions was always the opposite. Employed, often quite well paid, dominated.
Estate agents featured highly in convictions for hooliganism, I seem to recall. No surprise there.
Indeed. The dominant groups, IIRC, were highly paid, but less educated.
All that casual wear and train return tickets once a week on average built up the outgoings. Not to mention several gallons of premium lager a week.
The combination of toxic masculinity, a misplaced sense of superiority over 'others', and excessive use of alcohol and/or weed and cocaine are not peculiarly English, but are more prevalent in England than elsewhere.
It's not just football either. The poor reputation of English men (a subset, of course, and may include a few women) is well deserved in tourist destinations in much of Europe and elsewhere. The English abroad are not a pretty sight.
The problem may have diminished since the 1970s, but it hasn't gone away.
What was interesting was that the gatecrashers were a mix of people. The ticket holding yobs attacking them were the stereotype, but those perpetrating the far bigger crime weren't all like that.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
Rubbish, I'm still sore about 1991 and 2007.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
1991 - yes - penalty try. Would be today, no question. 2007 - I'm less sure. Maybe now if the call was try onfield, is there anything to turn it over? The spear tackle on O'Driscoll is one of the most cynical things i have ever seen in sport, and how the players got away with it was astonishing. I too have blanked out 2015!
I think my rage with 2007 is that I spent good money buying tickets for the final, I may have been a bit more sanguine about it.
Oh and tickets for the QF against the Aussies, that was bliss.
I watched the second half of that in a pub in Inverness, not expecting to win, but being surprised by (a) winning and (b) a mostly England support...
Leon, Southgate is the best manager we have had in aeons. Do you not give some allowance for the fact that Italy has better players and the best team won?
Couldn't believe my eyes when Saka was taking the last penalty. How on earth do you hand the most crucial penalty outside of the first to a nineteen year old lad who has never taken a penalty in his professional career before ? Either Grealish and Sterling didn't stick their hands up or Southgate didn't pick either of them for it. Neither is forgiveable.
You don't want to force someone who doesn't want to do it.
On the other hand you don't want someone doing it out of duty instead of ability.
I don't know why more goalkeepers aren't chosen - they're experienced at kicking a dead ball with maximum power.
Did you miss the Europa League final?
Did you miss the last time England won a penalty shoot out ?
Here's Pickford scoring in it with an unstoppable shot:
Compare with Saka's medium height, medium pace, medium placement effort.
Mason Mount was subbed off at the 99th minute. He's got a 4/5 record on penalties. Bearing in mind the chance of an England win in Extra time was slimmish at that point, did Southgate not think about that sub considering Trippier (Another pen taker) was already off ? It strikes me that Saka would have been perhaps 7th up in the original planned rotation (Kane, Maguire, Rashford, Mount, Trippier, Sancho, Saka) - a very different position to fifth.
My eldest daughter, whose interest in football is passing, to say the least, was jeering at the quality of the England penalty shots.
On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
Back in the 80s, it was common for some to claim that hooliganism was unemployed people complaining about Thatcherism.
The evidence, in terms of arrests and criminal convictions was always the opposite. Employed, often quite well paid, dominated.
Estate agents featured highly in convictions for hooliganism, I seem to recall. No surprise there.
Indeed. The dominant groups, IIRC, were highly paid, but less educated.
All that casual wear and train return tickets once a week on average built up the outgoings. Not to mention several gallons of premium lager a week.
There's something wrong about the juxtaposition of two words there "premium" and "lager". Not a concept I recognise, in a British scenario anyway.
On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
Back in the 80s, it was common for some to claim that hooliganism was unemployed people complaining about Thatcherism.
The evidence, in terms of arrests and criminal convictions was always the opposite. Employed, often quite well paid, dominated.
Estate agents featured highly in convictions for hooliganism, I seem to recall. No surprise there.
Indeed. The dominant groups, IIRC, were highly paid, but less educated.
All that casual wear and train return tickets once a week on average built up the outgoings. Not to mention several gallons of premium lager a week.
Yup - I remember Labour trying to heckle anyone who pointed out that, at the time, travelling to Belgium (for example), staying for several nights and getting violently drunk for all of them was not cheap.
Leon, Southgate is the best manager we have had in aeons. Do you not give some allowance for the fact that Italy has better players and the best team won?
No. Because I am sure we had better players. And home advantage
Southgate is a modest, charming man gifted an incredible squad which is beyond his capabilities. He fucked up
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
To be fair to you, Marcus Rashford has been criticised - I think even in hushed tones within the football scene - for possibly spending a bit too much time on campaigning and that he should focus more on his game.
Do I think that was behind his miss last night? No. Lots of us have demanding full time jobs and post on here and on Twitter as a break, when we have time. I have no reason to doubt he'd attended all training sessions and was very well practiced, and Southgate wouldn't have selected him if he hadn't been.
He'd sat on the sidelines for 2 hours, barely played for 3 minutes and was then asked to take one of the most important kicks of his life - he then overthought it, looked at the goaly rather than the ball, made a poor contact and half-hoofed it.
He tried to be too clever rather than focussing on the basics and trusting in his skill. That's why he missed, not because of his activities on Twitter.
Both keepers were superb, Donnarumma waiting for so long before moving is the main reason Rashford missed, against most keepers they would have moved earlier and Rashford could have rolled it in the other side. It is bad technique imo compared to simply picking a spot, but very popular amongst players and Hazard and Jorginho have been very successful with it - with that style I do think the more penalties you take the greater the chance of missing as the keepers will learn a lot about your technique.
Tiptoes out muttering "Il calcio e tornato a casa" .....**
Don't tell me - a unit in the Metropolitan Police, which deals with sex abuse, is doing what the West Midlands Serious Crimes Squad did for serious crimes in the West Midlands?
Pretty much. But not just one unit. The whole Met police. And there will be no improvement while Dick is in charge because she is incapable and unwilling to do anything. She doesn't see the need to do anything, for one thing.
Times Radio @TimesRadio · 28m "We need to stop fixating on suppressing infection."
Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at @UniofOxford , says the government needs to "let infection reach an equilibrium level and strenuously protect the vulnerable".
Didn't she say we'd reached herd immunity last summer?
I think so. Was she also the person who came up with an IFR that would have required the whole UK population to have had covid more than once last year?
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
Rubbish, I'm still sore about 1991 and 2007.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
1991 - yes - penalty try. Would be today, no question. 2007 - I'm less sure. Maybe now if the call was try onfield, is there anything to turn it over? The spear tackle on O'Driscoll is one of the most cynical things i have ever seen in sport, and how the players got away with it was astonishing. I too have blanked out 2015!
I think my rage with 2007 is that I spent good money buying tickets for the final, I may have been a bit more sanguine about it.
Oh and tickets for the QF against the Aussies, that was bliss.
England in 2007 were a mess. We were lucky to get as far as we did.
But event then, the rugby side and culture really don't carry the same baggage. We got into a final last time. We lost, badly and it was a bit embarrassing. But somehow it really didn't carry all of the same baggage.
I don't think it was embarrassing - we played a stunning game in the semi to knock the All Blacks and then came up short against a South African team on the up, who executed their plan to perfection. We also had little go our way in the game. But not embarrassing by any stretch.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
Which is fine, stick to that not pushing the Labour agenda in his spare time
Does make me laugh. Charles defended his comments in this area by pointing to the family charity work (which is genuinely excellent, I mean no slur). Apparently it is important that the very well to do are trying to help the impoverished, albeit people kept impoverished by the policies written and voted for by the people providing the charity.
Here we have the same thing, only its not the rich establishment showing charity, its the kid who a few years ago came from nothing who is doing all he can to help kids just like him. What an outrage, his charity work. What a disgusting spectacle, the worked his way up from grinding poverty man showing compassion and charity to his former neighbours and friends.
Wanting poor kids who live in shit homes and go to shit schools to not go hungry. Disgusting political grandstanding, pushing the Labour agenda. Much better that he do nothing for these kids, let the government get on with cutting funding to their schools, taking £20 a week off them and letting them go hungry.
You and your other Epping Tories in your WhatsApp group really are truly nasty human beings, you know that?
Natalie Elphicke MP also made a similar tweet, I can assure you many Tories across the country were thinking exactly the same thing.
As someone who thinks Johnson and the Tories are evil you obviously have an agenda to portray the government as sending us back to the Dickensian workhouse.
In actual fact the government provides free school meals in term time still and benefits for children from lower incomes in the holidays too, thinking Rashford and Labour's pushing of free school meals in the holidays too could be too costly given the state of the public finances now does not make you evil
Leon, Southgate is the best manager we have had in aeons. Do you not give some allowance for the fact that Italy has better players and the best team won?
No. Because I am sure we had better players. And home advantage
Southgate is a modest, charming man gifted an incredible squad which is beyond his capabilities. He fucked up
I believe that, according to UEFA, Italy were at home.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
To be fair to you, Marcus Rashford has been criticised - I think even in hushed tones within the football scene - for possibly spending a bit too much time on campaigning and that he should focus more on his game.
Do I think that was behind his miss last night? No. Lots of us have demanding full time jobs and post on here and on Twitter as a break, when we have time. I have no reason to doubt he'd attended all training sessions and was very well practiced, and Southgate wouldn't have selected him if he hadn't been.
He'd sat on the sidelines for 2 hours, barely played for 3 minutes and was then asked to take one of the most important kicks of his life - he then overthought it, looked at the goaly rather than the ball, made a poor contact and half-hoofed it.
He tried to be too clever rather than focussing on the basics and trusting in his skill. That's why he missed, not because of his activities on Twitter.
Both keepers were superb, Donnarumma waiting for so long before moving is the main reason Rashford missed, against most keepers they would have moved earlier and Rashford could have rolled it in the other side. It is bad technique imo compared to simply picking a spot, but very popular amongst players and Hazard and Jorginho have been very successful with it - with that style I do think the more penalties you take the greater the chance of missing as the keepers will learn a lot about your technique.
Pickford was extremely impressive.
A gong for him is definitely in order.
Yes, I’d make him the only outstanding English player. Maybe Shaw?
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
Which is fine, stick to that not pushing the Labour agenda in his spare time
The thing is @HYUFD why are you so annoyed with Rashford rather than the government?
I'm sure we can all agree that a celebrity bandwagon being parlayed into government policy is of great concern and - to boot - they cynically honour the celebrity. Blame the government for not sticking to conservative principles (like them or not) not Rashford. The fact that a non-elected someone of notoriety can influence things in this way is of great concern to our system of governance and our checks and balances.
Those that defend Rashford may approve purely because of the particular cause in this instance - they need to consider how they would have reacted if he had , say, advocated for a reduction in benefits for the poor. In this scenario they would be just as annoyed and concerned unless they are dispensing with principle and working with an extreme the-ends-justify-the means utilitarianism (which is by definition unprincipled).
Attack our pussy, cynical government. It is concerning that they have set a precedent for this now.
If Rashford had been campaigning to cut benefits for the poor, I still wouldn't think it had anything to do with him missing a penalty last night.
On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
Back in the 80s, it was common for some to claim that hooliganism was unemployed people complaining about Thatcherism.
The evidence, in terms of arrests and criminal convictions was always the opposite. Employed, often quite well paid, dominated.
Estate agents featured highly in convictions for hooliganism, I seem to recall. No surprise there.
Indeed. The dominant groups, IIRC, were highly paid, but less educated.
FWIW, as a disinterested and non expert neutral, I thought the England team had a very good tournament, especially beating their hoodoo against Germany. Losing at the last by the narrowest of margins is no disgrace. On the other hand the England fans, abusing kids and booing national athems, were at best crass, at worst dangerous and unpleasant, and it seems that the hooligan culture is unfortunately alive and well. The disgusting state of the of the public places where they gathered last night was absolutely vile. On the other hand the cynical attempts to co-opt the popularity of the England team from the PM and his cabinet was so transparently godawful, that it seems to have attracted the opprobrium it deserved.
The worse thing was that the media were absolutely appalling. Mawkish and bombastic by turns. The point about the stiff upper lip was that none ever knew if they had got you beat, the stupid and overblown garbage from the popular press was emetic and somehow, very un-English. Bill Shankly´s line "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that" was a joke. Yet every media commentator in the country seems to have taken it as words to live by. The team were understated and mostly good sports, the media could hardly have been more different. Awful.
A fine post. There's an unpleasant jingoism going around that's not attractive. The government and its supporters have to show the doubters that the empire wasn't a fluke. That Brexit will make make us great again! Liz Truss parades herself like a Leni Reifenstahl tribute act having made a trade deal with Australia. A deal worth less than our existing one with Bulgaria.
Is it any wonder we have a population bewildered that our football team couldn't beat a team of mortals??
Who is bewildered? The mood is of dissappointment, and most accept that the Italians were the better team on the night, the best team in the tournament and worthy winners. Oh and a little bit dirty at times...
Leon, Southgate is the best manager we have had in aeons. Do you not give some allowance for the fact that Italy has better players and the best team won?
No. Because I am sure we had better players. And home advantage
Southgate is a modest, charming man gifted an incredible squad which is beyond his capabilities. He fucked up
I believe that, according to UEFA, Italy were at home.
On hooliganism: many moons ago I heard something (I think it was R5) where they discussed this. Surprisingly (to me), hooligans were found in all classes, all professions, and nearly all ages (bar the very young). I also STR that a solicitor was once given a banning order (I wonder if he lost his job?)
Is there a breakdown of football banning orders by profession?
Back in the 80s, it was common for some to claim that hooliganism was unemployed people complaining about Thatcherism.
The evidence, in terms of arrests and criminal convictions was always the opposite. Employed, often quite well paid, dominated.
Estate agents featured highly in convictions for hooliganism, I seem to recall. No surprise there.
Indeed. The dominant groups, IIRC, were highly paid, but less educated.
All that casual wear and train return tickets once a week on average built up the outgoings. Not to mention several gallons of premium lager a week.
There's something wrong about the juxtaposition of two words there "premium" and "lager". Not a concept I recognise, in a British scenario anyway.
Premium price, anyway, is what I am thinking of, certainly in the 1970s. I used to go sailing for the day in a yacht whose owner's idea of my contribution to the day (as well as help in winter maintenance) was a six pack of Carlsberg Special which I stashed under the deck in the bilge water as soon as I got on board.
We then pavigated our way round the Firth of Forth and through the beer (mainly he: I could not drink very much).
Fortunately, yachties are not known for their violence ...
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
Rubbish, I'm still sore about 1991 and 2007.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
1991 - yes - penalty try. Would be today, no question. 2007 - I'm less sure. Maybe now if the call was try onfield, is there anything to turn it over? The spear tackle on O'Driscoll is one of the most cynical things i have ever seen in sport, and how the players got away with it was astonishing. I too have blanked out 2015!
I think my rage with 2007 is that I spent good money buying tickets for the final, I may have been a bit more sanguine about it.
Oh and tickets for the QF against the Aussies, that was bliss.
England in 2007 were a mess. We were lucky to get as far as we did.
But event then, the rugby side and culture really don't carry the same baggage. We got into a final last time. We lost, badly and it was a bit embarrassing. But somehow it really didn't carry all of the same baggage.
I don't think it was embarrassing - we played a stunning game in the semi to knock the All Blacks and then came up short against a South African team on the up, who executed their plan to perfection. We also had little go our way in the game. But not embarrassing by any stretch.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
Rubbish, I'm still sore about 1991 and 2007.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
1991 - yes - penalty try. Would be today, no question. 2007 - I'm less sure. Maybe now if the call was try onfield, is there anything to turn it over? The spear tackle on O'Driscoll is one of the most cynical things i have ever seen in sport, and how the players got away with it was astonishing. I too have blanked out 2015!
I think my rage with 2007 is that I spent good money buying tickets for the final, I may have been a bit more sanguine about it.
Oh and tickets for the QF against the Aussies, that was bliss.
England in 2007 were a mess. We were lucky to get as far as we did.
But event then, the rugby side and culture really don't carry the same baggage. We got into a final last time. We lost, badly and it was a bit embarrassing. But somehow it really didn't carry all of the same baggage.
I don't think it was embarrassing - we played a stunning game in the semi to knock the All Blacks and then came up short against a South African team on the up, who executed their plan to perfection. We also had little go our way in the game. But not embarrassing by any stretch.
Yes, well said. We beat the best team in the world, and with style. The All Blacks
I believe there is some remarkable stat which shows that teams which beat the ABs before a final generally lose the final. Because beating the Kiwis takes it out if you, emotionally and physically
Tiptoes out muttering "Il calcio e tornato a casa" .....**
Thought-provoking read. Wonder what will be uncovered...... if, of course, anything is. "Highly regrettable series of missed opportunities....." seems likely to be a phrase to apply.
Lessons will be learned.
Couzens was nicknamed "The Rapist".
But look here: "One officer was accused of eroding trust by displaying “an arrogance towards female members of staff and a ready willingness to take advantage of his position of trust to engage in unwanted physical contact”. He received a final written warning."
Still an officer, though. Let's hope no-one meets him on a dark night as they walk home, eh.
England did really better than most of us expected - can't win them all. Embarrassed by some of our fans though, even if Leon thinks them just being manly.
FUDHY I think. The mod said that if anyone screenshot his post and sent it to the media, he’d have to resign his seat.
Ah - didn't see that. I don't think I'd have squealed, not sure anyone would - as Leon said recently, we're a sort of family.
It wasn’t anything. He said we would have won if Rashford had spent more time practicing and less time campaigning. Typical pointless argument from him.
He was just being funny. It's his dry sense of humour. I was surprised people were getting hot under the collar about it
HYUFD was banned?!
Nah. It was @borisatsun for some obnoxious racist stuff. Rightly banned imo.
@HYUFD just left himself open to being publicly embarassed as an elected Conservative making ridiculous posts... if anyone can be bothered.
No I was not banned and I said the same thing in my WhatsApp for local Tories after I posted it here and most of them agreed with me.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
Yes, nothing to do with you at all. Your comment was just a bit puerile, is all.
But that other Construct (the one banned) is different gravy. Ever since he appeared he's been trying to disguise his visceral racism and primitive bigotry behind a modicum of table manners and "read a few books" vocabulary. Then lo - our young BLACK footballers miss their penalties in the Euro final and he gets so excited (!) that it all hangs out. And of course this lovely sentiment was all over right wing social media within minutes of yesterday's sad denouement.
Grim, but at the same time instructive and useful. A strong and timely reminder that this (meanness, xenophobia, ignorance) is the essential spirit of right populism. It's what drives it. It's what it's about. There's nothing good there and no amount of long, straining articles about "left behind towns" and "the problem with multiculturalism", or offended protests that "it's not racist to worry about immigration" and "woke smothers good honest debate" bla bla can change this.
Anyway, rant over. As far as I'm concerned football HAS come home. You can't come closer to winning the trophy without winning it than we did. Well done Italy. Best team in the tournament. Well done England, team and manager, a fabulous run.
The England football culture is just plain weird. You just don’t get the same level of crushing emotional nonsense with Rugby, Cricket, the Olympics or anything else. All the crap about ‘55 years of hurt’. We prodigiously shoot ourselves in the foot. Sad, but I suspect we’re stuck with it forever more.
Rubbish, I'm still sore about 1991 and 2007.
Absolute tosser of a TMO in 2007.
I hate the All Blacks for their spear tackle on BOD in 2005.
Edit - I'd be even more sore about 2015 and Stuart Lancaster if I hadn't repressed most of it.
1991 - yes - penalty try. Would be today, no question. 2007 - I'm less sure. Maybe now if the call was try onfield, is there anything to turn it over? The spear tackle on O'Driscoll is one of the most cynical things i have ever seen in sport, and how the players got away with it was astonishing. I too have blanked out 2015!
I think my rage with 2007 is that I spent good money buying tickets for the final, I may have been a bit more sanguine about it.
Oh and tickets for the QF against the Aussies, that was bliss.
England in 2007 were a mess. We were lucky to get as far as we did.
But event then, the rugby side and culture really don't carry the same baggage. We got into a final last time. We lost, badly and it was a bit embarrassing. But somehow it really didn't carry all of the same baggage.
I don't think it was embarrassing - we played a stunning game in the semi to knock the All Blacks and then came up short against a South African team on the up, who executed their plan to perfection. We also had little go our way in the game. But not embarrassing by any stretch.
That scrum, good grief.
We lost a prop in the first couple of minutes. Could have been a very different game.
I could not agree more, we have brilliant youthful attacking players and Southgate decided to play defensive and draw Italy on. Normally when you do that you have fast attacking players to play counter attacking football. We had Harry Kane. How he could not see what was happening at the start of the 2nd half is beyond me. He waited for Italy scored before he changed our formation.
The one player I don't get is Mason Mount. He offered nothing in either the semi final or final. The Italian defence must have been so pleased to see all our fast players on the bench.
Italy were there for the taking, we had the players to do it and they just watched from the bench.
Tiptoes out muttering "Il calcio e tornato a casa" .....**
Don't tell me - a unit in the Metropolitan Police, which deals with sex abuse, is doing what the West Midlands Serious Crimes Squad did for serious crimes in the West Midlands?
Pretty much. But not just one unit. The whole Met police. And there will be no improvement while Dick is in charge because she is incapable and unwilling to do anything. She doesn't see the need to do anything, for one thing.
Perhaps the only thing that is a saving grace of the corruption and lying in UK policing, is the unfailing stupidity of it.
The "passer by" in Plebgate who happened to write out a copy of the policeman's official statement. Complete with grammar and spelling errors.
The policeman announcing that the newspaper vendor who died had been attended by police officers and the rioters had harassed them while delivering first aid. In the knowledge that people had video what had really happened..
The announcement that shooting De Mendez had been because they were following Israeli tactics. To which the Isreali's pointed out the very large numbers of suicide bombers they have in jail, unshot....
Comments
It is also much more organised and discreet. Because they don’t want to get arrested and lose careers
Quietly leaves this - https://barry-walsh.co.uk/hiding-in-plain-sight/ - and this - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/20/revealed-the-grim-list-of-sex-abuse-claims-against-metropolitan-police - here.
Tiptoes out muttering "Il calcio e tornato a casa" .....**
The government never stops giving out advice and warnings on multiple issues.
The fact is Rashford was openly campaigning for Labour policy, he became too political given he is still a highly paid professional footballer with other things to concentrate on.
It was nothing to do with BLM or the knee which I see as personal choice though I am sceptical of the Marxism within the BLM manifesto now to dismantle capitalism obviously
Either you can have total freedom, or you *must* be banned from everything.
Discretion is forbidden. So next time you cross the road when the light is red, you will be shot by armed policemen. For your safety.
What - specifically - makes you say it is a "damp squib"?
They earn millions to kick a ball, feebly, against a post, then they start crying. Enough.
They can use WhatsApp (which can be backed up daily.)
Personally I'd like the secondary school cohort to be vaccinated (at least offered) as this would surely help into the autumn, but there is a sense that we are getting there.
Well done to the Italians - best team in the tournament, and it took them penalties to get past England last night. Well done England - first final of my lifetime, and hope for the future there too.
@TimesRadio
·
28m
"We need to stop fixating on suppressing infection."
Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at
@UniofOxford
, says the government needs to "let infection reach an equilibrium level and strenuously protect the vulnerable".
@AasmahMir
|
@StigAbell
|
@SunetraGupta
It seems anything other than an anarcho-libertarian free for all is now regarded as a lockdown.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bring-Me-Head-Ryan-Giggs/dp/1906994455/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bring+me+the+head+of+ryan+giggs&qid=1626078750&sr=8-1
I too have blanked out 2015!
My *personal opinion* is that the probable infection rate among the 12-18 group over the next year means that the risk of COVID (while small) is orders of magnitude larger than risk from the vaccines.
But I am not medically qualified. Nor do I have qualifications and training in the area of medical statistics / medical ethics - though I have some passing familiarity with the calculations used.
If you leave yourself outmanned in midfield, they have extra presser, and extra outlet for pass, so will look better. The talent your midfield has doesn’t stand a chance to show. But you give yourself the best chance if you at least match up.
Also, the problem with funnelling back into 5 4 1 out of possession is in the vital transition when you do have the ball. To break out you need to hold the ball long enough for wing backs to become wingers, and people to find space. Football is about finding space and finding the person in space.
Rice attempted to hold for transition a few times, couldn’t find a team mate not necessary his fault, as 90% game England player with ball could not see an out ball due to Southgates formation and tactic making our players look more inferior than they are, due to problem transition into space. Due to the difficulty transitioning into space from 5 4 1, not anything special the Italians done.
And as Francis pointed out before kick off, we need to put more pressure on the ageing and slow Italian defenders. We didn’t. We didn’t exploit that weakness. Saka who should have started did do it to cheealeeny for his card to show what we were missing.
At home in final. Historic missed opportunity. ☹️
The fact is Johnson was openly campaigning for Conservative policy, he became too political given he was still a highly paid professional journalist with other things to concentrate on.?
Oh and tickets for the QF against the Aussies, that was bliss.
Indeed, at least one tribute here, of the "lift restrictions NOW!!!" varietal, becomes angry at the idea that the government would be "recommending" or "suggesting" anything.
Good article on why Spain has a very high rate of infection - which is, mostly, so far, not impacting on hospitals and deaths outside a few places in the north.
I'm sure we can all agree that a celebrity bandwagon being parlayed into government policy is of great concern and - to boot - they cynically honour the celebrity. Blame the government for not sticking to conservative principles (like them or not) not Rashford. The fact that a non-elected someone of notoriety can influence things in this way is of great concern to our system of governance and our checks and balances.
Those that defend Rashford may approve purely because of the particular cause in this instance - they need to consider how they would have reacted if he had , say, advocated for a reduction in benefits for the poor. In this scenario they would be just as annoyed and concerned unless they are dispensing with principle and working with an extreme the-ends-justify-the means utilitarianism (which is by definition unprincipled).
Attack our pussy, cynical government. It is concerning that they have set a precedent for this now.
Here we have the same thing, only its not the rich establishment showing charity, its the kid who a few years ago came from nothing who is doing all he can to help kids just like him. What an outrage, his charity work. What a disgusting spectacle, the worked his way up from grinding poverty man showing compassion and charity to his former neighbours and friends.
Wanting poor kids who live in shit homes and go to shit schools to not go hungry. Disgusting political grandstanding, pushing the Labour agenda. Much better that he do nothing for these kids, let the government get on with cutting funding to their schools, taking £20 a week off them and letting them go hungry.
You and your other Epping Tories in your WhatsApp group really are truly nasty human beings, you know that?
Do I think that was behind his miss last night? No. Lots of us have demanding full time jobs and post on here and on Twitter as a break, when we have time. I have no reason to doubt he'd attended all training sessions and was very well practiced, and Southgate wouldn't have selected him if he hadn't been.
He'd sat on the sidelines for 2 hours, barely played for 3 minutes and was then asked to take one of the most important kicks of his life - he then overthought it, looked at the goaly rather than the ball, made a poor contact and half-hoofed it.
He tried to be too clever rather than focussing on the basics and trusting in his skill. That's why he missed, not because of his activities on Twitter.
It's not just football either. The poor reputation of English men (a subset, of course, and may include a few women) is well deserved in tourist destinations in much of Europe and elsewhere. The English abroad are not a pretty sight.
The problem may have diminished since the 1970s, but it hasn't gone away.
Labour were openly campaigning for Rashford's policy
But yes boxing clubs are a tried and tested escape route and outlet for the younger demographic.
The essence of my post about motivation, however, remains. People have got to be ready to give up that lawlessness and many never will be.
We have a world to fix. It is quite a task
The pundits were saying he was looking at the goaly too much - trying to outwit him - rather than the ball and Rashford knew he'd made poor contact with the ball as soon as he'd kicked it.
If you ask me we were lucky to get a draw and penalties at all. Italy could easily have beaten us 3-1 and their defence, once they'd recovered from the opening half-hour, was utterly impenetrable.
I remarked to my wife last night that it reminded me of American Football, where players come on just to take kicks of some sort.
It strikes me that Saka would have been perhaps 7th up in the original planned rotation (Kane, Maguire, Rashford, Mount, Trippier, Sancho, Saka) - a very different position to fifth.
But event then, the rugby side and culture really don't carry the same baggage. We got into a final last time. We lost, badly and it was a bit embarrassing. But somehow it really didn't carry all of the same baggage.
I've been zen about it since 1996!
Is it any wonder we have a population bewildered that our football team couldn't beat a team of mortals??
‘England had one shot on target in 120 minutes. Shaw's goal in the 2nd minute.’
https://twitter.com/sgevans/status/1414345021357281294?s=21
Premium lager? Ha ha ha.....
Southgate is a modest, charming man gifted an incredible squad which is beyond his capabilities. He fucked up
A gong for him is definitely in order.
https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1414500249910063106?s=20
As someone who thinks Johnson and the Tories are evil you obviously have an agenda to portray the government as sending us back to the Dickensian workhouse.
In actual fact the government provides free school meals in term time still and benefits for children from lower incomes in the holidays too, thinking Rashford and Labour's pushing of free school meals in the holidays too could be too costly given the state of the public finances now does not make you evil
It ends there
We then pavigated our way round the Firth of Forth and through the beer (mainly he: I could not drink very much).
Fortunately, yachties are not known for their violence ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSMi02ghN3s
I believe there is some remarkable stat which shows that teams which beat the ABs before a final generally lose the final. Because beating the Kiwis takes it out if you, emotionally and physically
But look here: "One officer was accused of eroding trust by displaying “an arrogance towards female members of staff and a ready willingness to take advantage of his position of trust to engage in unwanted physical contact”. He received a final written warning."
Still an officer, though. Let's hope no-one meets him on a dark night as they walk home, eh.
But that other Construct (the one banned) is different gravy. Ever since he appeared he's been trying to disguise his visceral racism and primitive bigotry behind a modicum of table manners and "read a few books" vocabulary. Then lo - our young BLACK footballers miss their penalties in the Euro final and he gets so excited (!) that it all hangs out. And of course this lovely sentiment was all over right wing social media within minutes of yesterday's sad denouement.
Grim, but at the same time instructive and useful. A strong and timely reminder that this (meanness, xenophobia, ignorance) is the essential spirit of right populism. It's what drives it. It's what it's about. There's nothing good there and no amount of long, straining articles about "left behind towns" and "the problem with multiculturalism", or offended protests that "it's not racist to worry about immigration" and "woke smothers good honest debate" bla bla can change this.
Anyway, rant over. As far as I'm concerned football HAS come home. You can't come closer to winning the trophy without winning it than we did. Well done Italy. Best team in the tournament. Well done England, team and manager, a fabulous run.
The one player I don't get is Mason Mount. He offered nothing in either the semi final or final. The Italian defence must have been so pleased to see all our fast players on the bench.
Italy were there for the taking, we had the players to do it and they just watched from the bench.
The "passer by" in Plebgate who happened to write out a copy of the policeman's official statement. Complete with grammar and spelling errors.
The policeman announcing that the newspaper vendor who died had been attended by police officers and the rioters had harassed them while delivering first aid. In the knowledge that people had video what had really happened..
The announcement that shooting De Mendez had been because they were following Israeli tactics. To which the Isreali's pointed out the very large numbers of suicide bombers they have in jail, unshot....