Dino Maamria has been appointed as Barrow's new head coach following the departure of Paul Gallagher.

Former Preston North End striker Gallagher was only appointed on 2 January and lost all of his five games in charge. Assistant John Welsh has also left Holker Street.

Maamria arrives with the club third from bottom of League Two and three points above the relegation zone, having lost six matches in a row and eight of their past nine.

Tunisia-born Maamria has previously managed Burton Albion, Stevenage, Oldham Athletic, Nuneaton, Southport and Northwich.

"I'm thrilled to join the club and can't wait to get started," the 54-year-old told Barrow's website., external

"It's a terrific club that I've watched from afar and I know a lot about the players, who I'm excited to get to work with.

"The situation I come into is something I have been in before and I can never promise to win every week, but my teams will always show heart, desire and passion and cover every blade of grass.

"It's so important we all work together, players, staff and the supporters and make a team that will do the town proud."

The Championship is considering extending the Play Offs to six clubs, meaning the team finishing 8th could end up in the Premier League.

Is this just to get Wrexham promoted? Do you think it's a good idea?

Personally I think we should go back to promoting the top three without a play off. But that's never happening now.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/art...dnll5gp1go

THE MATCH

SATURDAY 14TH FEBRUARY KO 3PM

v

LAST MATCH



Another game, another defeat, no goal again and and no shots on target again. We did ok for the first 10 minutes but when Swansea took the lead in the 19th minute there was only going to be one outcome. Swansea got the ball wide and the cross was turned in from close range. We kept it at 1-0 to halftime. Onto the 2nd half and Swansea were on the front foot trying to look for a second. We manged to hold out until the 70th minute when Vipotnik blasted in a free kick from the D. It was soon 3-0 when Swansea got in down the right and crossed for Vipotnik who turned and fired past Cooper. It was 4-0 when Cooper gave the ball away and Yalcouye raced into the box and fired past Cooper.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Next up we return to Hillsborough and Millwall and of course the return of Bannan. Millwall are having a very good season and are currently in 5th place in the Championship, they are only 6 points off the automatic spots and have a 6 point gap to 7th place Preston. With the state of the Championship this season, I would say they have a chance of the autos but more realistically a spot in the playoffs would be a good achievement. They are managed by Alex Neil, who has been in charge since December 2024. There leading scorers are Azeez and Ivanovic who have 7 goals each this season.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 20
MILL 19
DRAW 17

CURRENT FORM

OWLS     L L L L L L                                                                

MILL      W D W L W W

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

Referee: Duckworth, Edward
Assistant Referee: Venamore, Lee
Assistant Referee: Hodskinson, Paul
Fourth Official: Joyce, Ross

THE TEAM

Cooper
Palmer Cooper Otegbayo Adaramola
Thornton Ingelsson Heskey
McNeill Yates Ndala

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)



WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME



ATTENDANCE



BML LEAGUE

Owlkev 16
Imre 16
Washington 14
SCO 11
Maddix 8

BMPL

Stateside 15
Pei 0
Wereham -11
Southey -12

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Derby v Swansea
Portsmouth v Sheff Utd
Lincoln v Bolton
Bromley v Notts Co
Forest Green v Carlisle

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE

OWLKEV

We got his brother sacked, likely to be a short appointment

Championship side Watford have appointed Edward Still as their head coach on a two-and-a-half-year contract.

Still takes over at Vicarage Road following the resignation of Javi Gracia after only three months in charge.

The 35-year-old, who is the older brother of former Southampton boss Will Still, was previously assistant manager at Belgian club Anderlecht.

"I'm so thrilled and proud to be here. This is a club which has a big place in English football and a fantastic history," he said.

"All of the focus will be on winning games as quickly as possible and getting the best out of the players.

"Fans can expect our team to be aggressive, really compact defensively and attack with pace."

Still takes over with Watford 11th in the Championship, but only three points outside the play-off places before Saturday's game at Preston North End.

Still has managerial experience in the Belgian Pro League with Charleroi, KAS Eupen and KV Kortrijk.

He has also previously worked as assistant to his younger brother Will at French club Lens, guiding them to an eight-place finish in Ligue 1 in 2024-25.

"Ed's appointment was made on the conviction that this is a coach whose modern and progressive coaching methods fit perfectly with our squad dynamic, who we believe will take the team forward, and who gives us a real chance to challenge for the play-offs," said Watford chairman and chief executive Scott Duxbury.

Former Bournemouth defender Charlie Daniels, who has been interim boss at Vicarage Road for the past two matches, will take on the role of first-team coach alongside Karim Belhocine.

"We are delighted Charlie Daniels has accepted Ed's invitation to be part of his coaching staff, as we are really grateful for the job and work he did in the interim period," said Duxbury.

"He quickly earned the respect of the technical department and the players, and his promotion maintains that link with the academy."

Still becomes Watford's third head coach this season with Paulo Pezzolano lasting only 10 games at the start of the campaign prior to Gracia's reappointment, having previously left in 2019.

The Hornets also had three bosses in the same season in 2021-2022 when Xisco Munoz, Claudio Ranieri and Roy Hodgson took charge, and again in the following campaign when Rob Edwards, Slaven Bilic and Chris Wilder held the job.

Still is Watford's 14th head coach, not counting interim bosses, since September 2019 when Gracia left for the first time, and their 11th since the end of the 2020-21 season.


I think this could be described as a pretty left-field appointment given Watford are only three points from the play-off positions and Ed Still has no British, let alone Championship, management experience.

He has worked in Belgium for the majority of his coaching career and with his brother Will in France at Lens.

Chief executive Scott Duxbury speaks of the young squad Watford have and the hope they will identify with Still, so the Hornets hierarchy are banking on him forming a good relationship with this youthful set at Vicarage Road to get them back on track.

Watford have good contacts in Belgium so Still has obviously impressed them. His first task will be to get the Watford supporters on board who seem underwhelmed by the appointment.

You're probably like me in really appreciating this platform - it's unique in it's style, news, opinions and, importantly, basic good manners!
If so, PLEEEAASE read the top thread ("GoFundMe") by the great Stairs, and donate in order to help the platform survive

Group A

Zimnan 22
A.A.A. 17
B.B.B. 14
Twerton 8
Stairs 6
BaggieOne 5
Minizin 2
BaggieVicar 1

Average week for Group A this week but certainly not average across the players individual scores!! The Gamball saw 26 points scored on it and 4 other games ended in double figures. This was offset a little by 2 negative points games and one zero. Only 3 players managed positive points on the Bonus, guess where these three ended?

When I completed the scoring I expected that we would be posting these scores late as I was expecting a phone call from Zinman's better half to say that he was in hospital with a nose bleed that wouldn't stop!! Yes, Zinman is top for the second week in a row, he was probably able to stem the bleeding through his expertise in dealing with it last week!! This week he scored a personal season's high 22 points, and he did it in a week where few others managed decent scores so he knows this will benefit him in the table. He scored a max on the Gamball, a CR on the Bonus and backed this up with 2 other CSs - thats how you build a good week!!!

Two other players ended in double figures, the inform Alphabet boys - AAA and BBB, who along with Zin have outscored all the rest over the past 10 weeks. AAA ended with 17 points, he was the other player to score a max on the Gamball and had a CR on the Bonus. BBB only managed a CR on the Gamball but was the other player along with the top 2 to get a CS on the Bonus as well.

Big drop down to the rest, all of whom missed on the Bonus. Twerton and Stairs managed a CR on the Gamball, BaggieOne, Minizin and BaggieVicar did manage to get one CS each but little else to back that up. Zinman's score equaled all their scores put together!!

249 Minizin
243 A.A.A.
235 Stairs
216 BaggieOne
216 Zinman
210 BaggieVicar
209 B.B.B.
181 Twerton

So after a few weeks of little change in the league table, continued good form for some and continued poor form for others is starting to show in the league table. Minizin still leads but his lead is now down to only 6 points, and its now AAA that is right on his heels!! Stairs average form over the past 10 weeks has seen him drop to 3rd and he has scored 35 less points than AAA over that period!!

BaggieOne is now joined in 4th placed by Zinman, who moved up 3 places this week, easily his highest position this season. BaggieVicar is drops a place to 6th, as does BBB despite a decent week. These two though are still in touch with B1 and Zinman and with the higher scoring in Group A, they are all now fighting it out for that last PO spot!! Twerton is now well adrift in last place and is the only Group A player to not reach the double century yet.

Onto a few stats:

BaggieOne and Minizin have the most Correct scores, both with 26 scoring games, but at the other end 4 players have 21 and BaggieVicar is on 20 in last place.

With Correct Results, Stairs leads the way with 97 but BBB - 7th in the table - is in second with 93. Bottom of that table is again BaggieVicar on 83, with Zinman and Twerton on 84.

From a points perspective this means that the top scoring player in non-ball games is:
194 - BaggieOne
186 - BBB & Stairs
176 - AAA, Minizin & Twerton
160 - BaggieVicar
156 - Zinman

This backs up that while these games make up the bulk of the games and the bulk of the points, it does that for everyone essentially, what sets certain players apart from the rest in terms of the table though is something else. Basically they don't make that much difference to overall positions, over to you Zinman to show us what does!!!!

Cheers
SCO


Group B

Amelia 18
SCO 18
Themaclad 13
4eva 8
Lady Jane 5
Salop 3
Snooty 3
Derby 3

Another week that saw a big disparity between the best and worst players. After 3 weeks without a maximum gamball, this week we had 2 of them though neither of those players were in the top 2 for the week. In total, 3 players gained points from the gamball, just 2 on the bonus and only 1 player failed to get anything from the scoreball - though he wasn't the lowest scorer from that ball. We also saw a high proportion of correct scores to correct results with 41% of correct predictions being spot on, a ratio only bettered once this season......obviously Derby missed out!

For the 2nd week in a row, Amelia sits on top of the table getting 3 maximums from her 5 correct predictions. Also for the second week, she scored a maximum from her bonus though she did miss out on the gamball. Amelia is level at the top with SCO whose ball consistency continued (more on this later), scoring from all his balls. Themaclad is the 3rd player in double figures - just 1 correct score for him but it was the gamball.

A bit of a gap to 4eva, the other player with an 8 point gamball but not much else - just 2 correct results. Lady Jane managed a 100% ratio of scores to results but only managed 2, neither of them her gamball or bonus but enough to keep her out of the bottom places. At the foot of the table we find 3 players, Salop, Snooty and Derby, all with just 3 points. Salop and Snooty scored on 2 games - Salop was very grateful for Man City's late win that saved him from a negative score - and both scored on the scoreball. Derby actually had the third highest number of correct results, 4, but was the only player not to nail a correct score (again). He also played his scoreball on Albion to lose a point.

250 4eva
236 SCO
201 Lady Jane
194 Themaclad
186 Amelia
183 Snooty
172 Derby
166 Salop

The only changes this week see Amelia jumping ahead of both Derby and Snooty. SCO continues to close the gap at the top and Lady Jane passes the 200 point mark.

Onto a bit about the balls and revealing that aspect that SCO alluded to above. The table below shows the total number of points accumulated by each player from the 3 balls and the differences are quite stark:

92 SCO
62 4eva
39 Lady Jane
35 Snooty
26 Amelia
12 Salop
9 Themaclad
8 Derby

This really shows how important it is to concentrate on your balls! Positions in the points from Balls table seems to be fairly close to the overall league table. Themaclad and Derby are held back by negative bonuses, while Salop is on zero points for both of those balls. Amelia also has a negative bonus score but her 2 weeks of correct score gamballs have helped enormously.

Zin

2 points for correct result
4 points for correct score
2 points for each correct scorer
Correct joker doubles your score   (correct score on a joker would give you 8 points)
Wrong joker result gives you minus 2
Correct Badger gives you 2 points

The prize for winning the league is one rep point.

Cup games: In the event of a draw, it's half the points if you've predicted a draw when it gets to 90 mins and the full points if it's still a draw after extra time. Half the points will be awarded for correctly predicting the winner of the match if it goes to penalties. However, if you do predict a draw and it's a match that won't be going to a replay, you can get a possible extra point by stating which of the two teams you think will eventually win.

Random score generator: I will be using the random score generator again for those who miss predicting, so we shouldn't get some people too far behind that after missing a couple of weeks they lose all interest, because I know it's not easy getting on here every week.
To be fair to everybody, this is going to be like, say if three people in one week miss their predictions, the first one in the table will be given all 0-0, the second one down the line will get 1-0 and the third will get 0-1 and so on, like if there's four missing the 4th will get 1-1, then 5th 2-1, 6th 1-2. and if there are so many missing, might as well pack in.
And if you miss two weeks on the trot, I'll stop until you come back on again. Not doing it for half a season like I did t'other year.  


At the end of the season, the winner of group 2 and the bottom of group 1 will swap places in what is commonly known as "promotion" and "relegation". It's something that most football fans will be familiar with, unless you're a fan of Liverpool or Arsenal or one of those other fashionable clubs.

The second placed player in group 2 will then have a play off with the player who finishes second from the bottom in group 1 to decide whether they will be going up, down or staying where they are.

We're going to have two seasons in one though, just to try and make it a bit more interesting and not so long drawn out. The first season will end on the Boxing Day fixtures, with the play offs being on the dates of the Twixtmas fixtures and the NYD fixtures.

The second season will start the following week, which is usually the FA Cup 3rd round, finishing on the last game of the League One season. Then another period of relegation/promotion play off games, taking in such fixtures as the EFL play offs, FA Cup Final, UEFA finals and such like.

Each group will have it's own set of fixtures. Both groups will have the Town games, with scorers to predict as before. Then it will be a split of League One fixtures and bonus matches, hopefully around ten, eleven or twelve games per Matchday.

The random badger is restricted to three goal scorers in any of the fixtures in your group.

Here's how that will appear at the end of the fixture list. All you have to do is fill in the blanks.......


*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

Any of those will score two points if correct. No minus points for getting it wrong.

Postponed matches will only count if the match is re-played before the next Matchday is under way. Abandoned matches will be awarded half the points for the score at the time of abandonment, so 1 point if you have the correct result, 2 points if you have the correct score.

Substitute or scorer in one of the Town games:- These will be only be allowed if you change them before the match involved has kicked off.

Prediction League Archive: https://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=12830

Division One table after Matchday 5:

1. Baggiebob(BBB) = 101 pts
   
2. jjamez = 88 pts
   
3. neonfoxinthebox = 87 pts
   
4. ritchiebaby = 87 pts
   
5. theo_luddite = 81 pts
   
6. Lord Snooty = 76 pts
   

Saturday February 14th:
League One:
Stevenage v Town (12:30)
Town scorers:
Stevenage scorers:

Reading v Wycombe Wanderers (12:30)
Exeter City v Northampton Town
Lincoln City v Bolton Wanderers

Scottish Premiership:
Hibernian v St. Mirren

FA Cup 4th round:
Norwich City v West Bromwich Albion
Aston Villa v Newcastle United (17:45)

Sunday 15th February:
Birmingham City v Leeds United (12:00)

Tuesday 17th February:
League One:
Doncaster v Town
Town scorers:
Donny scorers:

Barnsley v Peterborough United
Blackpool v Plymouth Argyle
Bradford City v Stockport County
Burton Albion v Rotherham United
Cardiff City v AFC Wimbledon
Exeter City v Wycombe Wanderers
Leyton Orient v Plymouth Argyle

*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

1. St Charles Owl = 100 pts
   
2. themaclad = 98 pts
   
3. SHEP_HTAFC = 80 pts
   
4. Devongone = 69 pts
   
5. Amelia Chaffinch = 58 pts
   
6. WakeyTerrier = 56 pts
   

Saturday February 14th:
League One:
Stevenage v Town (12:30)
Town scorers:
Stevenage scorers:

Barnsley v AFC Wimbledon
Bradford City v Peterborough United
Cardiff City v Luton Town

Championship:
Preston North End v Watford
Sheffield Wednesday v Millwall

FA Cup 4th round:
Burton Albion v West Ham United (12:15)
Liverpool v Brighton & Hove Albion (20:00)

Sunday 15th February:
Grimsby Town v Wolverhampton Wanderers (13:30)

Monday 16th February:
Macclesfield v Brentford (19:30)

Tuesday 17th February:
League One:
Doncaster v Town
Town scorers:
Donny scorers:

Lincoln City v Northampton Town
Stevenage v Port Vale
Blackpool v Mansfield Town (20:00)
Reading v Bolton Wanderers (20:00)

League Two:
Chesterfield v Gillingham

*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

Wigan Athletic have sacked manager Ryan Lowe after 11 months in charge following their 6-1 thrashing by Peterborough United on Saturday.

The dismal defeat dropped the Latics into the relegation zone, with the club having won just once in their past 10 League One fixtures.

They were 11th in the table when they beat Burton on 2 December, but are now 22nd, two points from safety, after 29 matches.

Lowe, 47, was appointed as manager in March 2025 on a three-and-a-half-year contract. He succeeded Shaun Maloney, but the former Preston North End, Plymouth Argyle and Bury boss won just 12 out of his 49 games in charge.

Peterborough hit struggling Wigan for six
Wigan said Glenn Whelan and Graham Barrow will take charge of the first team on an interim basis while the club "will work quickly to identify and appoint" a new head coach.

The club also thanked Lowe for "his efforts and wishes him all the best for the future".

Lowe previously won promotion from League Two with Bury and Plymouth and finished 13th, 12th and 10th in the Championship with Preston.

Having arrived at the club at the tail end of the 2024-25 season, Lowe guided Wigan to a 15th-placed finish in the table.

After winning against Northampton on the opening day of this season, Wigan's form soon tailed off as they secured just three victories from 17 matches in all competitions between late August and late November.

Wigan's next match is at home in the league against Reading on Tuesday (19:45 GMT) before they travel to face Premier League leaders Arsenal in the fourth round of the FA Cup on Sunday, 15 February (16:30).

A mixture of league and cup matches - usual cup rules apply, the score after extra time but before penalties counts (I'm guessing that there are no replays again this round?)

Gamball:
Portsmouth - Sheff Utd

Others:
Norwich - WBA
Port Vale - Bristol City
Southampton - Leicester
Villa - Newcastle
Liverpool - Brighton
QPR - Blackburn
Birmingham - Leeds
Grimsby - Wolves
Stoke - Fulham