Red-Robbo

SOD was very hard to like as a person IMHO. A distant, sniffy, sub-audible droning Midlander with pseudo intellectual pretensions and a habit of getting his excuses in first. Other than on this board, I've yet to meet anyone with a good word to say about him. And that includes casual supporters, diehards and - yes - club employees. But that's neither here nor there. To paraphrase Churchill, they don't have to be nice, they have to right. As NickJ points out correctly, Sean's record was atrocious and you'd not be able to point anywhere in the leagues to find a manager who survived such a terrible run. As for the first point: SC wasn't my first choice either, but what does that prove? We don't vote in our managers - thank God - and I doubt, say, Alan Dicks would've been the popular choice. I'm sick and tired of every thread turning into an SC v SOD civil war. Most posters said last season you couldn't judge SOD on a few months, FFS show some consistency and do the same to Cotterill. The bloke hasn't been here 3 months yet!

Quite agree. It was a done deal.

China and Russia would never have allowed an intervention. Your post focuses on Labour's failings while ignoring failures by Tory administrations. The subject of Mugabe was brought up earlier and the question of why did Labour not intervene there was raised. Of course, it's a different problem entirely to Iraq which had invaded neighbours twice in 12 years, however if you wanted to make a case you'd need to ask why the Tories didn't intervene in the late 80s/early 90s when Mugabe was using North Korean troops in a near genocidal way against Matabeleland and his political opponents.

I guess we just saw it differently. We never looked like we'd score a goal, dominated possession but had just one good chance up the other end. United's strategy was to sit back and play on the break. They were a shyte side back then before their confidence was up but it was always possible they would get a break through: put it this way, I was always more nervous during their attacks then I was excited during ours - such as they were. Anyway, Cowshed is quite right that I haven't gone to an away game since September and I cannot fully comment on the team's recent form. What I would say is losses on the road at top sides like Wolves and Brentford are a bit easier to shrug off than a loss in Sheffield which does seem to be something of a new low. Home again on Saturday, let's see how the team responds.

So your view is that the UK should send task forces everywhere there are conflicts, is it? So Cameron should send forces to Darfur (it's still going on) and the South Sudan? Major should've interfered in East Timor and Rwanda? You're on your own with that one. There were international peacekeeping forces in the DRC but not including Britain. Still you can't fault your Daily Mail logic: Labour was wrong to lead us into an illegal war in Iraq but then also wrong not to support an illegal intervention in Syria. And we'd of had as much chance of damping down extremism there as we had in Iraq. Anyway, back to the OP's topic. I reckon Clegg will founder on a debate entirely based on the EU, but if he goes on the offensive and widens the debate it will be Farrage on the defensive. But I can't see that happening.

At home against a team below us in the league who had yet to win away I'd argue we should've expected a win. Instead we were utterly toothless and - as I've said totally boring. If football was always like that match I'd never go.

I'm not a fan of the acne scarred former ski instructor (and Young Conservative!) as you may have gathered. I don't think many in his party are either TBH....

But they've had Tory activists in the audience on the show too. Look at the audience and see some of the Hooray Henry's making comments and that should be patently obvious. People are not banned from the audience if they are party members, how could they be - it's appeal is largely to the politically interested - but they are required to declare those allegiances so audiences can be broadly balanced.

Undoubtedly Gobbers, they do such biased rubbish as Robot Wars and Traffic Cops. But to be fair, they do balance this with their documentary series about Nige Farage in the European Parliament, An Idiot Abroad....

There are party activists from all parties there - as is obvious if you watch the thing rather than read some obscure blog written by a bloke who works for a neo-con think tank. My point was the producers balance the audience. The show's rarely recorded live. Questioners and audience commentators are closely scrutinised before broadcast to ensure balance.

I have to say Sheffield United at home was the nearest I've ever come to falling asleep at a football match. I managed to endure the first half versus Carlisle despite being jet-lagged and having been awake for 23 hours - and I was positively animated during the second! By contrast I was fairly gripped throughout versus Rotherham. I've only been to one away game this season, maybe the away Sheffield fixture was worse, but in terms of sheer mind-numbing tedium that home game in November breaks personal records for me.

What a load of crap. The audience is screened and party members are given equal allocations. The questions have to meet strictly balanced criteria. It's an independent production incidentally, made by a company called Mentorn.

The scale is entirely different. Comrade Bob also hasn't invaded neighbouring countries. Twice.

I don't think we did gas thousands of Iraqi civilians. Let's face it, 99.99% of Iraqis have been killed by other Iraqis - in the name of sectarianism.

Actually, and I don't want to defend Labour over Iraq, but it was Callaghan who sent two nuclear subs to the South Atlantic when Argentina first threatened an invasion. Thatcher's actions in removing British citizenship from the Falklanders and decommissioning the only Royal Navy ship that was stationed in the area encouraged the junta to believe that the British had lost interest in defending the islands. Read about it in the staunch Conservative ex-Telegraph editor Max Hasting's book on the Falklands War. It's a cracking read incidentally. EDIT: PB made the points first!

wholeheartedly agree, Es. When I read about his advice to Brooks I was staggered.

The "dodgy dossier" was presented via an intelligence committee which is an all-party body. Blair has to take the lion's share of the blame, but don't let Conservatives or Lib Dems try to suggest they were misled into voting for the war. Blair's defence is he was misled by American intelligence who say they in turn were misled by Iraqi defectors. The fact is due diligence was not done by anyone as Dubya wanted and got a war to follow on from his daddy's.

Quite agree with all that, mate. My main point was that D Cameron et al cannot say that they bear no responsibility for the Iraq War. His party pressed for military action and voted for it.

That's true Es, but remember they all voted for the war. As for the kidnap and torture stuff. If you go to a foreign country to engage in an irregular war, don't wear a uniform and join no recognised military unit you are a mercenary and not protected by the Geneva Convention. The Yanks could've saved themselves a lot of time and expense if they'd just shot them in Afghanistan.

I think you're exaggerating a bit there GH. He's actually overseen more wins than the past manager and 12 days ago oversaw a 3-1 away victory at a top club. I'm not defending the performance at Sheffield U. It's unacceptable. My first post, where you fixated on the SOD reference, was to say I don't think anyone should read too much into interviews given directly after football matches. I thought that under O'Driscoll and I think that now. Trying to pick out phrases as sticks to beat the manager is a bit sad, frankly.

Or indeed post this fine song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSPaXgAdzE

I agree with the second part of your post there - and the bit about the scouting network. And yes,if Cotterill fails it will be because he failed to use January to strengthen where we needed it. That said, most who trekked up to Sheffield said Wade Elliott was the one player who consistently performed and that more established team members were dire, so it's not a black-and-white picture. If he keeps us up, I'd certainly give him more time. A sacking merry-go-round has got us nowhere - that's something that we can agree on - and given our position, he faced a hell of an uphill struggle when he joined.

I thought the board was eerily quiet after the Orient game. The usual rush of people, keen to post "Cotterill is a tvat" and "sack the board" didn't even make an appearance. TBH in the stands and the pubs - as opposed to on here - most people I talk to haven't decided about Cotterill's competence. He has made mistakes, but it's still fairly early here and we've seen other manager's do similar. I can't say I was ecstatic at his appointment, but I haven't written him - or us - off yet. This was a really bad loss and Cotterill has to take his share of the blame with the players. The other recent losses were against top sides and Orient excepted, we've not been able to compete with them all season. As others have said, round pegs in round holes is essential for our starting line-up against Gillingham.

Yes loads but have you made a post that has not been negative ever? I was merely responding to other assertions made on this thread - assertions that loads of supporters don't agree with. As I've said repeatedly the SOD v SC debate is tired and boring. What matters is where we go from here. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Not so sure about that H, could've but didn't - therein lies the problem. But we'll leave it there as no point going over the same ground. I must say I am indebted to your knowledge of youth and non-league players out there. No way do I have the time to keep up with football much outside of the depressing world of BCFC at the minute.