Steve Watts

Thought this might refer to us and our penalty conspiracy but it doesn't line up with when we were sponsored by that random betting firm! But seriously..... As a coach at grassroots level, I get really disappointed to see the stuff that goes on, and some of that comes from the opposition coaches! @Silvio Dante and I teach the kids to respect the referee and hush them up if they start moaning at them. Naturally we call for decisions, but that's it. If it's not given it's not given. No amount of bitching is going to change their minds. Many of these referees are kids themselves and the stick they get is awful, especially given their age. As other coaches on here will know, parents tend to mysteriously get a phone call when we head in their general direction with a flag, leaving us to run the line. This exposes us to the parents of both teams for one half. Several times I've turned around to parents to tell them to get off the referees back unless they want to pick up a whistle themselves, but that shouldn't be necessary. One match this season, the opposition players (under 12's, mind!) were bitching and moaning all through the match, but you could see exactly where they were getting it from as the coaches were doing the same, often straying 5/10 yards onto the pitch to remonstrate a decision. Change needs to happen across all levels and all types of participant though whether it be coaches, players or spectators. As an addendum and bit of advice to other coaches, we seem to have finally cracked the flag duties problem, by asking for two volunteers to do a half each on rotation. When they know they can concentrate on what their kids are doing for half the match it makes them far more agreeable to doing it every few matches. The hypocrisy is not lost on me though that Silv & I can't solely focus on our own kids at all because we're keeping an eye of all of their kids as a team, but we'll take the win where we can!

Ffs Dave.... don't come at me with logic!

Still struggling with the concept of pillars in a 21st century built stand!

The craziness being that if the offence happened a yard further forward it wouldn't even have been a foul as we all know there's no way we're being given a penalty unless he's shanked by every member of the opposing team, including the coaching staff! That's the inconsistency that bugs me. If a defender brings a player down with the keeper still in position it's a red. If a keeper brings a player down but there's a covering defender it tends not to be, in my experience. (Though I may be imagining things there) I like the second highlighted paragraph. Denied by a handball offence wherever it occurs (except a goalkeeper within their penalty area)....why the bit in brackets when referring to handball offences?!? Clearly if the keeper is in the area there is no offence if he handles it! It's like they go out of their way to make things ambiguous!

Do the questions need to be submitted beforehand? (In crayons, obviously) I'd love to hear the reason behind the splat, especially as the template was on page 1 of Google images. Seems both pointless and lazy.

And I can find no record of this anywhere to offer an explanation!

Well the answer to that conundrum is to get Nakhi fit. He (especially) and Williams are both big misses for us at the moment. I've said it before, but a front three of Wells, Bell and Conway would be a defenders nightmare.

And therein lies my problem... There's no way I make it into work the following day! I do. Work use one hotel and one hotel only, so sadly my only three options are a taxi at £40 plus, getting back to the hotel 3.5 his after the match ends, or finding someone who's driving and doesn't mind dropping me off on the way home. The first two are non starters, so it's a case of "Help me OTIB Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope"!

The original DMARLC on champ man!

It's a whole other debate entirely, but for me Naismith can only play in midfield. He gives me Mad Frankie jitters when he plays at the back!

Although a throwback to this would guarantee a purchase from me....

I actually did look at that earlier when chatting about something else. The requirement is only 2,000. That reduces to 10% if the capacity is lower than 20k.

I've got to make an office visit in December to sunny Wigan (I get all the glamourous trips!)... I always travel up the day before, which just so happens to be the day we face Blackburn away. I was thinking of going to Ewood Park given it's only a short train ride from Wigan, but it looks as though there are no trains that would get me back there after the match. Is anyone driving up who would be willing to drop me back to Wigan on the way home after the match at all? Will obviously chuck some money in for the motion lotion.

Carlsberg don't do surreal, but if they did.......

Well lying low is what he does best...

Jobs for the boys girls

You will still what....???? I'm not sure the thread title has been answered...

I'm just shocked we've got 18 pages on Jon Lansdowns interview with Joe Simms? I mean, I like the guy, but I really don't think Joe's qualified enough to manage in the Championship.....

I think most of us possess just as many qualifications in managing a football club, making medical judgments or even being a football club chairman as Jon does... But that bar is very very low!

Hi Jerry, With regards your answer regarding finding a venue for the forum, is there a reason it can't be held in the Lansdown Suite? I've a feeling given the events of the past week, it'll be a popular one. Hiring out a venue when the ground has state of the art conferencing suites seems an unnecessary outlay doesn't it? Cheers, Steve

I'm going to make an assumption that the business you own is in a field you know well. That's the difference. SL built a business from scratch and used the funds generated from scratch to buy something in a field he didn't know well. If my assumption is right, your business ownership lends more similarity to Hargreaves Lansdown. I wouldn't expect an employee of HL to be telling SL how to invest any more than one of your employees to question you. I'm just surprised that on a protest thread we've managed to get to page 8 without anyone saying "I will booo-urns"! That in itself should tell a story about how angry people are!

Sadly he did do that for a while when he appointed the King of the Snake Oil Salesmen as CEO in 2016. This particular bit I have a (very) small degree of sympathy with SL. He appointed what appeared to be a football man, acknowledging that his decision making on football related matters wasn't up to scratch. Unfortunately for all his smooth talk and schmoozing when SL was present, he leaves and SL discovers that we've racked up more than he thought. Won't be the last person to be sold on the patter of someone else's pitch. Sadly, since Snake Oil left, the decisions have continued to be baffling. The last good decision he signed off on was extending NP's contract from the initial "to the end of the season" appointment.

For me, this is possibly the worst decision the club have made since they phoned David Moyes and told him not to fly back from America to interview for the job as we'd given it to Tony Pulls. Genuinely don't think we've made as bad a call as today since then. Any advances on the Moyes/Pulis call?

It would certainly be a strange move to try and undermine a manager who has probably given more academy products a chance in the first team than possibly any other manager in 20 plus years if your ambition is to see academy products in the first team. I would 100% back this. There have been many apologists for the Lansdowns over the years, myself included. But this decision today will be the draw that breaks the camels back for many of those apologists. It certainly is for me.