lager loud

I’m watching in Budapest - but had to ignore a message telling me I wasn’t entitled to buy the stream…

I’ve done some ‘finger in the air’ calcs for my own situation (Dolman Centre, adult). I reckon the breakeven point is attending about 15 or 16 games - obviously depends on which seats I bought, and some assumptions about what happens to Membership and pay-per-game prices. I'm guessing we’d still have perhaps 10 Saturday 3pm kick-offs, although there could be one or two of those I couldn’t get to. So it comes down to whether I’d go to midweek evening games (mostly not), BH games (Xmas No, Easter Yes) and when our other weekend games would be moved to - Saturday teatime is OK, Saturday lunchtime sometimes OK, other times unappealing. I’m not sure which of those times is ‘prime’ for Sky, but I suspect we won’t be getting the top slots. All in all, it’s a close decision financially, and may well come down to the seats/convenience/priority issues. Mmm.

A couple of us pretty much decided yesterday that we won’t be renewing. That will be the first time since about 2002 for me. We’ll get memberships but pick and choose our games, and watch on TV when that’s an option. It’s not really to do with the quality of the football or the character of the manager - we carried on through the worst of McInnes, O’Driscoll, Holden, and Lee Johnson - but due to the new TV deal. We’ll go to pretty much every Saturday 3pm kick-off and perhaps Saturday lunchtime (pain to get there so early but a few beers afterwards compensates). But there will need to be a good reason to go on a Sunday or to any evening game (particularly Friday evening, which is my least favourite KO time). It will be interesting to see how many games that actually leaves us. The main downside will be struggling to get tickets for away games. We only go to two or three a season, but one in particular - QPR - is a regular fixture if it’s a weekend game, meeting up with some old mates who are QPR fans. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. If QPR stay up, and the game is at a time when we’d want to go, we’ll either have to get tickets via other ST holders or, as a last resort, get seats with our friends in the home end.

For the first time in the 20 years or so I’ve had a season ticket I’m going to give serious thought to not renewing this time. Since I retired a few years ago I don’t need the ‘release’ of going to the game as I used to. The experience itself is pretty dull at the moment anyway, so it often feels more of a chore than a pleasure. I much prefer 3pm Saturday games to ones at ‘odd times’ on the weekend (Saturday 5.30 is OK as it can be followed by an evening in the pub, but it’s a real pain to get to a game by lunchtime (and to get home after a midweek game); and Sunday games get in the way of other things I do). It seems the new TV deal next year will mean more games will be at odd times, but will be available on Sky. So the option of buying a membership and picking and choosing my live games seems quite appealing ATM. If I do renew, it will be more for social than footballing reasons: City games are the main times I get together with my oldest local friend, who comes over from his home near Newport for the City games. If I thought our meet-ups would wither away without City games I’d probably stick to getting a ST.

Thanks Dave. I do have a few takers for this one. I think I’ve got access to enough but will let you know if not.

I’m a ST holder. Should I have had an email about this by now?

For this Q2 “not sure”/Q3 “No” voter it’s because of the risk that a new owner could be even worse.

I generally stick on the M5 to the M42 then M6, M69. The A46 is a nicer drive but may be slower (assuming the M42 is moving OK).

Returning to my home town (and the club I first supported) for this one and staying over tonight to catch up with a few mates for some beers - in much better pubs than were around when I began drinking at the end of the 70s! I’ve been watching City for nearly 40 years now, and only followed Leicester ‘properly’ for perhaps 10 or 12, so I’m definitely much more red than blue when they’re playing each other, but I can still get pretty involved when Leicester are playing anyone else. I’m hoping that at least one of the teams gets automatic promotion as I don’t think I could cope with them meeting in the playoff final!

That was one of the most noticeable improvements last night, IMO. In the first half in particular we often had Knight and Williams up in the final third, which helped create overloads for Sykes in particular. And our defenders were also willing to break forward with the ball (which I think is essential to disrupt a fit, organised opposition (i.e. every Championship team). Playing like that is bound to leave us exposed to the quick break/transition, but I think we have enough of an attacking threat for the benefits to outweigh the risks. It’s certainly more enjoyable to watch!

A Matina wrap is now my regular pre-match snack, followed by a gentle stroll to AG. Superb.

There clearly are: the system is not updating as it is supposed to for everyone, and the passes did not work at the turnstiles for a number of people at the PNE game. That didn’t cause the scale of chaos experienced at Arsenal last weekend, but it did delay the entry of a good number of spectators.

My pass for Birmingham has disappeared, to be replaced by a 2023/4 Season Ticket, which has a QR code. I only got into the PNE game after the pass was changed at the turnstile to ‘Birmingham City - 5th August’ - no idea if that’s relevant. So it’s anybody’s guess what will happen on Saturday. I certainly won’t be arriving too close to KO time!

Agreed. As a Glos fan who was there today…I hate The Hundred.

Some of the oldies here may remember that there was an incident comparable to the Bairstow stumping in a Test match in the West Indies in 1974. After the last ball of the day non-striker Alvin Kallicharan, who was 100 and some not out, started walking off towards the pavilion (at the opposite end) before the umpire called ‘over’ or ‘stumps’. Tony Greig shied at the stumps and ran him out. After a long discussion with the WI cricket authorities that evening England decided to withdraw their appeal. This was probably the right thing to do from the point of view of preventing a riot as well as upholding the spirit of the game. Tony Greig’s sense of fair play was probably closer to a modern Australian than an old-fashioned Englishman - but he wasn’t captain at that time, and the appeal wasn’t withdrawn at once, as I thought then and still think now, it should have been.

Bairstow didn’t leave his crease through playing the shot. He was batting within his crease, ducked and stood up without leaving the crease, made no attempt to run, then scratched a mark in the crease after the keeper had caught the ball. It's nothing to do with it being the last ball of the over: in that situation the ball would generally be considered dead, even if the umpire hadn’t called ‘over’ - and even if the rules of the game apparently don’t say so!

Don’t think this has been posted before - haven’t read the whole thread: Stuart Broad left the Aussies in no doubt what he thought about the Bairstow stumping. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/cricket/66082649

Will that be getting an outing when HMHB play in Bristol in September, Dave? I’ve got an ‘unusual’ DP away top lined up for that gig…

I’m quite happy to admit that I don’t keep up to date with every change in the laws and their interpretation. So I had a look at Rule 11 in the FA’s Laws of the Game 22/23 (copied, badly, due to formatting issues, below). There are more ways a player can become offside than you mentioned. • preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or • challenging an opponent for the ball or • clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or • making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an or opponent to play the ball Unless you believe Sharp was neither “challenging for the ball”, nor “attempting to play the ball which is close”, nor “making an obvious action which clearly impacts [either Vyner’s or Tanners] ability…to play the ball” then he’s offside. I’d argue he was doing at least two of these.

Sharp was (marginally) offside when the ball was played across. Looked pretty clear on the Sky freeze frame last night. And shouldn’t have been a difficult one for a professional linesman to spot.

Leonard Cohen - Songs From A Room Tom Waits - Alice Half Man Half Biscuit - Achtung Bono The Cure - Disintegration Joni Mitchell - Blue To be honest, I could probably have filled the list with five from any of LC, TW or HMHB. Five is definitely not enough!

That’s a small shame, as I today booked my COVID booster jab for 10.50 in Yate on that Saturday. Mrs Loud will have to put her foot down to drive me to the game on time. On the other hand, post-match beers starting around 2.30! Every cloud…

I’m not 100% on whether the Atkinson incident was a penalty, but I think that was one of three or four occasions in the few minutes before the goal when City felt the ref wasn’t giving us decisions we could/should have got, culminating in the challenge on Sykes. I’d have felt like kicking someone by then, too - which is not to excuse Sykes, but might help explain why he reacted the way he did.

I partly agree with this, in that it clearly took a while before NP worked out how to change things after the red card, and it’s not clear why Wilson or Tanner couldn’t have done the RWB job. But TC and AW were clearly running out of steam before they were taken off (TC in particular). NW, I thought, could still have done a job (but hasn’t played 90 minutes much, recently). And the players who did come on all did a decent (and ultimately successful) job. It’s possible that I’m comfortable with NP ignoring the right backs on the bench because I still have occasional nightmares about the time Jimmy Lumsden decided to play Steve Neville there (in what was essentially a back two, if I remember correctly) rather than bring Andy Llewellyn off the bench.

Agreed. I thought he was going to be sent off about two seconds before he actually made the tackle: I could almost see the red mist in his eyes from the Dolman. Freeman should have gone too, mind. No excuse at all for barging a player, off the ball, well after the whistle has gone.