WessexPest

True story - she presented me with my degree. Stelling is a consummate broadcaster and whoever gets the nod to replace him I’m certain they’ll be compared unfavourably to him. I just hope it’s not the awful Kelly Cates. Cannot stand her.

As pleased as I was with our victory, the fact Barnsley fans are so unhappy with their lot really puts that performance in perspective. I can stomach being taken apart by Bournemouth and WBA but not dominated by Barnsley at home, and for periods yesterday that’s exactly what happened. Pearson needs to sort this shower out double quick because we may have ended that embarrassing winless run but turned the corner we have not.

Exciting times for WHUFC. Enjoyed seeing Villa get stuffed - have a keen dislike of them going back to when they were in our division.

I don’t blame the fans one iota for the boos and catcalls halfway through the first half - it was unacceptable. Their support got us over the line in the end - were truly our twelfth man today. Kudos to everyone there from this poor exile.

Holy Toledo! That was sphincter-clenching stuff at the end. I was convinced their keeper was going to score. And how that chance at the end stayed out is beyond me. Spent two years in Barnsley as a student in the 90s so after propping up the local hospitality economy the beggars owed me a favour. Another underwhelming performance against a side on a wretched run of form, but that’s for another day. For now let’s just savour the first home win since trilobites swam in the Avon. Credit to the fans, tremendous backing - you were our 12th man today. ?

Since it’s Halloween weekend I decided the bastardize the Addams Family Theme. Doo do do doo *click click* Doo do do doo *click click* Spend their giro up the Welly They’re dirty and they’re smelly Babestation on the Telly The Gastard Family Their ground is a museum No people come to see 'em Their boss is a category B con The Gastard Family So come and play Boob Cricket We’ll give you a free season ticket Darrell Clarke loves a whippet The Gastard Family They punch contenders at Aintree Got ****ed 2-0 at Braintree Garner’s bald and culpable ain’t ‘ee? The Gastard Family

If ever a club needed a new ground… I’ve never heard anyone have a good word to say about Loftus Rd, QPR fan or visitor. Even if it is out of necessity I think moving out of the borough would be a bad move for them, all of London is not their catchment area and the club would risk losing its identity. It wasn’t all that long ago that QPR were able to hold their own with the bigger London clubs - if memory serves they were the highest-placed team based in the capital at the conclusion of the inaugural Premier League season. Now look at them - the fourth best team in West London arguably!

Yes, and before long Mrs Gap will be nagging him to weed the garden, wash the car, go shopping or take the nippers to the park on a Saturday, which means he won’t be able to attend games. So no change there then…

21 years, blimey. That means eight generations of Gasheads have not known anything other than City being above Rovers.

Happy Gap Day, my red fellows. Now that the Gap is old enough to drink here in the States I’m going to take him out to a bar tonight called, “The Snake and Barrow” and treat him to some chewing tobacco and a bottle of Jack “Colin” Daniel. Might even hire him a 1920s themed stripper, Phillips the Flapper - she comes highly recommended by all accounts.

Personally I wouldn’t use that term in a footballing sense, but I don’t think it’s worth losing our s*** over.

I hate the muppet as much as the next man but I don’t see too much reason to get up in arms here. Some Stoke fans refer to their dreadful 84/85 campaign as their Holocaust season. There’s plenty of things to skewer Sharton over more than an arguably iffy choice of words.

I do agree his hands are tied to an extent, but we should be doing much, much better than we are under a manager of his pedigree.

But the CSF hate racists and nonces so they are all thoroughly nice blokes! ?

Yep - I feared the worst for us today so I skipped the game to do something less soul-destroying (mowing the lawn) and after seeing the inevitable confirmed immediately looked at how the cold sores from the Pisspoorial Mound got on. Some solace there. FTG

B******s, b******s and thrice b******s. Did anyone, hand on heart, anticipate anything other than a comprehensive defeat this afternoon? I didn’t. Cast your mind back two seasons when we were on the wrong end of a similar hiding at the Hawthorns as LJ’s stock began to plummet big style - progress since then has been negligible. We’ve too many distinctly ordinary players, too many promising but raw youngsters who lack the experience to rumble with the big boys at this level, and a coach who increasingly doesn’t seem to know how to set us up. The number of stupid errors, lapses in concentration and, of course, amateurish inability to see out a game is getting extremely tedious. And that Nathan Baker must be made of Waterford Crystal. I’m not out of patience with NP, largely because burning through managers eventually saw us go down last time, but his tenure has been deeply underwhelming on the whole. Perhaps I’m still smarting from that horrendous collapse in midweek, but it all feels pretty ominous I’m afraid.

The most galling last five minutes I can remember watching City. I had absolutely no doubt they would equalise, given our penchant for throwing away 1-0 wins this season and the fact that they forced countless corners and every time their players ran at our fullbacks we looked decidedly edgy, but to go on and lose it was a real sickener. Yes, we should have had a pen and Wells ought to have buried his shot that he struck the post with, but their spot-kick was a stonewaller and until we scored Forest had been well on top. You can argue we looked decent in patches second half but once again there was very little end product and in the context of our abysmal home run and the manner in which we capitulated last five minutes there are zero crumbs of comfort.

Every right-thinking football fan should loathe Arsenal.

Okay then - seven points from a possible 48. That’s ruddy atrocious whichever way you look at it.

We can’t rely on our away form indefinitely though. We need to start picking up points at home - can you see us getting anything at West Brom, for instance. I can’t. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t panic stations yet but just when it looks like we might be turning the corner we put in a turd of a display like that. It’s incredible that we managed to land a coach of the calibre of NP and we are still awaiting a home win under him. It’s not good enough.

No sugar-coating that - absolute sewage, City. Utterly embarrassing that we haven’t won at home in nine months. If that doesn’t change soon we could very well be part of the relegation battle this season. Pearson, I have faith in you but you need to sort this out sharpish my old son. Nothing less than three points in midweek will suffice.

P’raps it’s indicative of a midlife crisis but I’ve fallen back in love with City replica shirts these past couple of years - the white one with the retro Robin, last year’s purple, this year’s black, the one just released. Possibly it’s because nobody else within 2,000 miles of me is likely to be wearing one that I’m being bloody minded. The missus hates me wearing them though and as I’m p***y whipped I follow the strict house dress code by and large. ?

Decent. Arguably completely unnecessary to have a third kit and a bit cynical bringing it two months into the season given it’ll be obsolete by May, but nobody has a gun to their head forcing them to buy it.

You say that as if we are some anomaly - whenever there is a decent visiting turnout the home support are going to be hopelessly outsung. There’s been debates about how to improve the atmosphere at SG since time out of mind. This isn’t a phenomenon that has sprung up from refurbishing the stadium, nor even going all seater. Our ground has never been known as a cauldron of noise - the fact we remember games like Man Utd, Palace, Hartlepool, Chelsea, Liverpool, the Gash in 1991 or 1993 is because those times when the ground has been absolutely bouncing have been few and far between. Our 2000ish easily outsang Reading and Cardiff this season - what should they do to address their abysmal atmospheres - relocate to Elm Park and Ninian respectively?

I was chatting to a Boro fan a few seasons ago who was complaining about the evening kickoff for Sky given how far they had to travel for an away game. I goes, “Mate, I had a 16-hour round trip by plane to get to this home game so forgive me if I don’t have much sympathy for you.” ?