fgrsimon

1 hour ago, Enclosure Old Timer said:

Bloody hell Slarti , if you're turning this thread into a Fairport history this could run for ages!!!

Certainly could, it was Simon Nicol's parents house in Muswell Hill, N London. Up for sale last year for around £6 million.

A little known fact is that Richard Thompson went to school in the same area with Hugh Cornwell of Stranglers fame and they were in a band together pre Fairport.

10 hours ago, Unan said:

I’m back doing a Computer Science bachelors at the big age of 29, Data Science is the field I’m looking to work in, this would be a dream job, but for the wages football pays, I’d never work in it!

I did an IT Masters at age 27 after getting a Zoology degree and working in the NHS for 4 years. Best career move of my life. I was earning £7.5K a year in the NHS and by 2002, 12 years later I was earning £2K a week as a contract programmer. 

... and the best thing about the MSc was that the (Conservative) government paid for it. There was a shortage of IT people in the late 80s and they were paying for graduates from other disciplines to retrain in IT.

OTIB better for keeping up with Non League scores than the BBC.

BBC still showing no scores or details for Worthing v Braintree.

Good grief! Even by their own standards that's embarrassing.

Amazing how they continuously find new ways of plumbing the depths.

It will be tough for them to compete with the likes of mighty Bristol Rovers and their 'reasonable' budget next season.

Have their fans ever experienced the unique atmosphere of the Mem?

6 hours ago, 22A said:

Boston won 2-1 and are promoted to the National League. Both sides went for it right to the end. With just two minutes remaining, instead of running the ball to the corner flag Boston players went looking for a third goal.

2002 City played Boston away in the LDV trophy. Any of you on here go up there for it?

Watched FGR there once. You turn right off the A1 and think "not far now" but an hour later you're still miles away.

You can see the famous 'Stump' from the ground and to be honest, I don't think there is a lot else to see in Boston.

8 hours ago, Corsham Ed said:

Despite the result today, it has been a good day, Birmingham relegated and we finish above Cardiff

But below bloody Preston yet again!

Am I right in thinking the last time we finished above them was the L1 promotion season?

Frome Town 3 Mousehole 0

That's one hell of a trip for a regional league! Must take Mousehole a couple of hours to get to Plymouth even.

It would have been disastrous if we'd blown promotion and it was getting a bit nervy because I think Trumpton was the 3rd game where a win would guarantee promotion. However 2 days later Scott Taylor scored the winner as Reading beat Tranmere and we were up without kicking a ball.

So we didn't win Div3 and Rovers did...meh! Who really cares about Tier 3 championships, promotion was 90% 

Tranmere murdered us that season - 6-0 away and 3-1 at home I think.

It was a great season of football anyway, 2 flying wingers and Taylor/Turner upfront

On 01/05/2024 at 18:58, Lanterne Rouge said:

-12 if Birmingham stay up as well........................................

Our record against Luton since they came up from L1 isn't great either, although we did beat them last season.

On 25/04/2024 at 23:23, Mayes86 said:

Ladies and gents I give you fans mock up of what they think could be built and they are creaming their pants in the comments.

a lot have mentioned it needs a corner added to join the incredible new south stand, another has claimed the thatchers end (which I believe to be their shed behind the goal) will be a two tiered stand with seating on top and safe standing on the bottom, I’m imagining that shitty old stand at griffin park .
 

this just confirms how deluded they are to think they need two tiered stand and the corners filled in. 

So that's someone's dream vision of the ground and it still looks f'ing shit! Six different stands, none of which match or join up.

If they had any sense then it should start when MOTD finishes, then you could watch all the day's goals in one go.

12 hours ago, GrahamC said:

Pretty much everything about the Prem is shit.

I know that many want us to get there but having seen us play 4 seasons of top flight football in my life (a totally different, fairer world), I’m genuinely not bothered about joining that circus.

It's VAR that would ruin it for me. It's taken away the one fundamental pleasure in watching football - celebrating a goal.

Last weekend I did the very old-style thing of watching MOTD without knowing the results. I found VAR even ruined that - goal with celebrations, then the camera cut to the Ref speaking into his earpiece, the dreaded "VAR will be having a look at this" and subsequent fannying around with monitors on the side of the pitch. Add to that tedious discussions as to whether someone's fingernail is playing him offside. Worst thing to happen to football IMO.

23 hours ago, Davefevs said:

I think Aden split up with Mrs Pack’s sister and started going out with Chanel Cresswell (actress).  

I think Chanel Cresswell may be an actress in the same way that I'm a footballer.

4 hours ago, Northern Red said:

Apparently only a couple of the existing squad are under contract for next season so he'll have the opportunity to completely rebuild it.

Best thing they could do.

It's around 13-14 IN contract and 14-15 OUT of contract at a rough estimate. There have been so many players in/out the last couple of seasons that it's more or less impossible to say for sure.

Still players like Amadou Bakayoko on the books at present having spent the whole season at Dundee. At least one, David Davies genuinely thought to be missing / lost but apparently sadly long-term ill, not injured.

Very few with any re-sale value at all.

33 minutes ago, trickytimes said:

Who is his brother-in-law?

Aden Flint IIRC. They or their wives had some sort of spat?

13 hours ago, Lrrr said:

A lot of budgets in the national league are bigger than those in league two, bigger attendances and no form of financial fair play in the national league has seen Wrexham have a bigger budget then half of league one when in national league and Stockport were paying players 6k a week when they were there. 

No one in the NL will be paying anywhere near what FGR are paying in L2 this season. If we take the recently published payments to Agents as a rough guide, only Wrexham paid more, FGR paid £260,000. Highest in the NL was Oldham at £80,000.

Just depends on how much Dale Vince wants to continue chucking money at the problem and how difficult it will be to get existing players off the payroll. There's around 30 in the 1st team squad!

7 hours ago, Lrrr said:

They'll struggle to get out of the national league Cotts or not, they'd likely have to at least increase their budget by 50% to compete for promotion

Top 6 at least L2 budget this season. I think increasing that by 50% for National League would be insane but this is Dale Vince. A fool and his money are easily parted.

Their biggest problem will be getting rid of the vast majority of overpaid and disinterested players.

1 hour ago, bristolmoose said:

Are they the only surviving fans who witnessed a Rovers goal?

The worrying thing is that Fritzl doesn't look out of place on that bus.

9 hours ago, Silvio Dante said:

Things are worse than we thought!

 

"The Kuwaiti equivalent of Jon Lansdown" :laugh:!

He shall henceforth now be known as Abdulatif Al-Lansdown.

8 hours ago, TonyTonyTony said:

If he is being paid until January 2025, he must have signed an NDA, in which case he has broken it by responding to the post's story. 

Not exactly the smartest move, considering he is on gofundme asking for money.

Yeah that was the first thing I thought too. Probably a smart move if there was a NDA as there is no way he was keeping his trap shut for year or more. Could now have saved themselves paying his salary for 9 months there. 

Mind you this is Bristol Rovers, so who knows what might have been put in place or whethervit's 'watertight'.

All good entertainment anyway.

5 hours ago, frenchred said:

Must be a Bristol thing as our club is a shambles behind the scenes as well!

There's shambles and there's Bristol Rovers (and Swindon Town to be fair). 

59 minutes ago, Red Billy said:

Sometimes you think you are safe and that the results needed to create the swing won’t happen.  Some times you think fifty points will see you over the line.  Some times you laugh so hard you have tears that roll down your cheek. 

Shows that you can be relegated with 50pts even with only 2 down.

Even this season only Rotherham currently have less than a point per game in the Championship. So I think it could be 48-50 points needed to stay up. It will be great to watch especially from a place of safety. Could easily be 6-7 teams involved on the last day.

47 minutes ago, Open End Numb Legs said:

Any guesses as to what the bucket is for?

I really don't want to think about that, especially as someone said the 'concourse' looks like a prison...

1 hour ago, SydneyCity said:

My brother told me of something he read the other day…

The Championship is made up of 24 teams. 11 are fighting for promotion. 11 are fighting relegation. And there’s also Bristol City and Preston.

Yep that's been mentioned a few times already and it rings true but it could be added that also Preston always finish above Bristol City!