The Dolman Pragmatist

Most comedy is of its age, but good humour is good humour, whatever the age. The Marx Brothers can make me cry with laughter and they’re nearly 100 years old. I still think The Fast Show is pretty much as funny as when it was first shown, and I never get bored with Men Behaving Badly. Python has its racist/sexist moments by today’s standards, and it was always hit and miss even at the time, but the hits are still sublime.

I’ve watched it on and off for 20 years and I watched the final episode this morning and still found it amusing, as did my 14-year-old son. I think it still did a job, and could have continued. I hope that what they replace it with isn’t more men around a table arguing about who supports the best team.

Amazing stat on Sky soccer this morning: Coventry have only spent 19 days in the top six all season, fewer than Reading who were relegated.

Shane they weren’t in the pool with their arms aloft. It would have made “we will never die” even more ironic.

Gerry Sweeney, Djiekanowski…

Brilliant stuff from Jack Hunt. I’ve never seen someone look so relaxed before, during and after a critical penalty. Chewing casually throughout. What a guy!

Albatross … Fleetwood Mac (it’s a Coleridge thing…)

Go West … Village People

A Saucerful of Secrets … Pink Floyd

Clearing out my loft, I’ve found a box containing a random mix of programmes and One Team in Bristol mags, some going back to the 80s. Anyone who wants them is very welcome to come and collect from me in Bath. No payment required. If you’re interested, PM me.

Swings & Roundabouts … Elecampane

If I remember correctly, he played as a ‘number 10’ in pre-season, i.e, just behind the main striker (Fam).

No, I assume he means Layla Part 2, on which the drummer the late Jim Gordon* played the piano part that he had written (though his then girlfriend Rita Coolidge claimed credit for it). *For those who don’t know of Jim Gordon, he played with countless acts and bands during the 60s and 70s (including Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, George Harrison, Delaney & Bonnie) but suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and killed his mother in the early 1980s, spending the rest of his life behind bars. He died a few weeks ago.

I heard earlier this season (from someone who had been speaking to a City scout) that at one age group City were only looking for players indicated to reach a specific minimum height. This very much confirms my suspicions that at times the characteristics of the squad are more important in recruitment than the ability of individual boys.

What makes you think that City are very good at both ‘in care’ and ‘after care’? In my experience (which is not negligible), City are no different to any other academy in the way that they select and release boys, and I’ve seen a lot of boys struggle in the past-release period. Also, sometimes you feel that recruitment is aimed at getting the right squad to enable one or maybe two boys to progress. For instance I know of someone recruited by City in the recent past who I and others would be astonished if he made it, but he fulfils a squad need. I doubt for one moment that City believe he has a future in the adult game though. This is the problem. Scouts are very often looking to meet a squad need, rather than looking for special talent, so boys are recruited with almost no chance of making it. And in the meantime they are training three or four times a week, and their parents have to facilitate this, which usually requires huge personal sacrifice. You can blame the parents for being too ambitious, but how many parents are prepared to tell their son they can’t take up an academy place if they’re scouted, particularly once they’re 12 and over?

Wet Dream … Max Romeo

I was told by a former international sportsman this morning that a lot of savings are being made at Radio Bristol…

And there is no more than one activist per constituency…

Hasn’t scored for a while, and that’s been our main problem recently…

We dropped three tiers in three years once!

West Ham had 23% against Fulham yesterday and won…

Another former City man taking charge of a Prem club, as Mike Stowell has taken temporary co-charge of Leicester. That makes a quarter of the clubs in the Prem managed by former City players/coaches (Stowell, Dyche, Moyes, O’Neill, Hodgson).

The tight-lipped, ashen-faced supremo?

Sorry, but the issue for me is that referees’ jobs have been made completely impossible by a) the attitude of the players, who think they are above the game; b) the constant and intense scrutiny via media that many referees experience; and c) the intolerance of fans who fail to understand how difficult a referee’s job is. If players took some responsibility, rather than protesting about every decision that goes against them, whether the decision is correct or not; if managers reinforced good behaviour and supported referees rather than bawling abuse from the touchline and failing to criticise their own players’ behaviour; and if everyone acknowledged how difficult it is to referee a football match and that mistakes are inevitable - then we might get somewhere. It’s a wonder anyone wants to be a referee these days, and there is a real crisis at grassroots level with so few refs available.

My son watches it now and I catch bits of it, which are sometimes really quite amusing.