Last week's must-win game came within a whisker of going severely Shane Long for Albion, and while the 2-0 half-time deficit thankfully just paved the way for the most entertaining comeback win we've been treated to in years, it nevertheless means that the only two ticks in Ryan Mason's plus column for November were earned by coming from behind at home against relegation battlers. If it was a school report, ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT would be plastered in red ink over the front, and though there are two opportunities in the coming week for that improvement to be delivered, both are taking place on the road where we haven't won in over two months.

The consolation is that our opponents are very much in the same boat as us: the good ship 12th-14th to be precise, boldly going nowhere fast and cultivating an ever-growing aquarium on the lower decks. QPR are Saturday's opposition, defeated at Norwich last week but with a couple of recent wins buoying them somewhat, while Southampton - our destination Tuesday night - are also bouncing back from a loss, but otherwise enjoyed a dream November with a string of resounding victories that went some way to repairing their dreadful start. The encouraging signs for Albion, not just against Swansea but also in the Coventry capitulation, are that we can clearly score goals if our forwards (particularly Heggebo) get the support and supply they need; the lesson to be learned, on the other hand, is that we can't expect to defend a lead for more than ten minutes, and Josh Griffiths needs to be protected from saving anything smaller and faster than a balloon. It's not an ideal situation, but shouldn't be beyond Mason's ken to make good.

Still, a couple of draws to give us an unbeaten run would be a decent outcome against these shipmates who are a little more shipshape at present than us, and even one draw would keep the points tally ticking. Back-to-back defeats, on the other hand, would put us back at square one a week from now.

Scotland get Brazil Morocco and Haiti. Looks like one of the games might be in boston/philly. Brazil will be in Miami. FFS

Only Scotland could wait nearly 30 years to go to a World Cup, the most expansive one in history, then end up with nearly the same draw as the last time they were in it. If Denmark qualify via the playoffs they will land an easier draw

England as Per get the pish easy group, I was almost expecting Spartans or Peterhead to come out of pot 4 That freaky looking gimp Kane will have scored about 20 goals before they qualify.

Totally rigged for TV audiences. Totally contrived.

THE MATCH

SATURDAY 6TH DECEMBER KO 3PM

v

LAST MATCH



The end of a 3 day match week, unfortunately we made it 3 defeats in a row, despite putting in a decent performance. We got off to a great start when McNeill was found on the edge of the box and he finished with a curler into the net. Preston were soon level when Whiteman scored from the edge of the box following a corner. We were soon back ahead when McNeill scored with a header. Cads had a chance to make it three but hit his shot at the keeper. Onto the second half and Preston levelled on the hour mark when Dobbin headed in from point blank range following a corner. We had a great chance to retake the lead Offiah handled in the box but McNeill's penalty was saved. Of course Preston went up the other end and grabbed the winner when Jenson found the corner. Redmond nearly levelled but put his effort wide.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Next up and trip across the Pennines to take on Blackburn. We won here last year 1-3 with Windass scoring a wonder goal. Blackburn have made a disappointing start to the season and currently lie in 18th place just 4 points above the relegation zone. I would expect to see Blackburn remain in the bottom half of the table and depending on how other teams fair could be sucked into the end of season relegation dogfight. They are managed by Valerian Ismael, who took over in February, previously manager of our neighbours the Dingles. There leading scorer this season is Gudjohson who has 6 goals so far.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 62
BLACK 58
DRAW 40

CURRENT FORM

OWLS    L L L L D D                                                             

BLACK D D L W L W

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

RUEBYN RICARDO
Emily Carney and Shaun Hudson
Fourth Official: Declan Brown

THE TEAM

Horvath
Fusire Palmer Iorfa M Lowe Amass
Valery Ingelsson Bannan
McNeill Cadamarteri

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

2-1 McNeill

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

56

ATTENDANCE

N/A

BML LEAGUE

Owlkev 10
Maddix 8
Imre 6
SCO 4
Washington 3

BMPL

Stateside 6
Pei -3
Wereham -11
Southey -12

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Everton v Notts Forest
Ipswich v Coventry
Bristol City v Millwall
Preston v Wrexham
Southampton v Birmingham

AAHHH

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE

Group A

Twerton 16
BaggieOne 14
BaggieVicar 12
Zinman 12
Stairs 11
A.A.A. 10
B.B.B. 6
Minizin 3

Decent week in Group A with 6 players reaching double figures. Twerton is back on top for the fifth time this season finishing on 16 points. He is the only player to get the max on the Gamball this week and managed to score points on all his balls, he didn’t get much else but this shows that if you get your ball play correct you don’t need much else for a good score!! BaggieOne is 2nd with 14 points, he also scored on all his balls and managed one CS as well. BaggieVicar is joint third with 12 points, he sounded like the guy from the Vicar of Dibley all week - no, no, no followed by yes, yes, yes with regard to his Gamball choice!! In the end not playing it cost him 2 points. Zinman also ended on 12 points, this is the third week in a row in double figures for him, he hasn’t done that before this season!!

Stairs is 5th with 11 points, he actually scored on more games that any other player but the miss on the Gamball cost him dearly. AAA is on 10 points, a CR on the Gamball and one CS kept him in double figures. BBB is 7th on 6 points, he actually got a CR on the Gamball but missed on the bonus and did little else to boost his score.

Minizin is in last place this week with just 3 points, this is his lowest score of the season a week after setting his previous low last week, can we call that a slump for him?? He only got one prediction right, a CR on the Bonus but managed nothing else!!

163 Stairs
160 Minizin
139 BaggieOne
138 Twerton
125 A.A.A.
121 BaggieVicar
115 B.B.B.
108 Zinman

So, the Minizin slump sees Stairs go past him to take over top spot, the first time he has held that position on his own so far this season!! B1 and Twerton continue their close battle for third with AAA and the Vicar vying for 5th spot. BBB has dropped back and bit and with Zinman finding some form he is now just 7 points behind BBB for the wooden spoon.

Just a quick look at the Bonus ball this week. It is causing its usual woes and so far only only 3 players have a positive points total from it, Stairs has 9 points with Zinman and B1 both having 6. AAA, Minizin and Twerton are all standing on zero for the season from it!! The Vicar is on -12 for the season and BBB having often struggled with it is on a rock bottom -18 from that one ball this season!!

Cheers
SCO

Group B

Amelia 26
4eva 16
Derby 12
Snooty 12
SCO 8
Salop 7
Lady Jane 7
Themaclad -3

Another good week for Group B - well, most of them - with a total of 85 points scored, the 2nd highest points return so far. We also saw the biggest spread of points with 29 points separating first from 8th. Only one match other than the gamball failed to see both teams score and nobody (at least from this group) picked that game so we saw a complete set of scoreball points.

It was an outstanding performance from Amelia - 26 points beating her previous best by 11. She became the first player to secure a second gamball maximum (and remember, she missed the first 3 weeks), one of her 3 correct scores with 4 other correct results, including her bonus ball. 4eva took 2nd place equalling his season's best 16 points. His score came from 5 correct results with 1 correct score and a full set of positive ball. Derby and Snooty shared 3rd place with an identical breakdown of results/scores to 4eva but both missed out on the bonus to leave them 4 points adrift.

Another 4 point drop off to SCO - he only got 2 correct results but he had his balls on both of them to prevent an ordinary week turning into a bad one. The bottom 3 were the players to miss out on the gamball. Salop and Lady Jane both had 3 correct results including their bonuses to lie a point back from SCO.

I think I mentioned last week that Themaclad was a model of inconsistency, with runs of excellent weeks being followed by bad weeks. Well, after equalling his season's best last week, he proved me right by scoring a massive minus 3 points. A positive score ball saved from a complete wipe out as he failed to predict a single result.

145 4eva
116 Snooty
116 SCO
111 Lady Jane
106 Themaclad
100 Amelia
98 Derby
91 Salop

With the disparity in scoring this week , it isn't surprising to see a number of positional changes in the overall league. 4eva has stretched his lead to 29 points but the fight for 2nd place is getting very interesting. SCO and Snooty are locked together on 116 points, both climbing ahead of Themaclad. Lady Jane stays in 4th place while Themaclad drops 3 places to 5th. Amelia's great week sees her climb off the foot of the table with Derby and Salop both dropping a place. If Amelia had joined at the start of the season and secured her average score on those weeks, she would now be sitting comfortably in 2nd place.

Some notable runs: SCO secured his 4th consecutive correct bonus with Derby having his 4th consecutive miss. In contrast, this week was Derby's 3rd positive gamball in a row and I should have mentioned above that he also managed his 5th correct score this week - only 2 behind SCO. In contrast, 4eva has predicted at least 1 correct score in each of the last 7 weeks.

Themaclad's wipe-out was just the 2nd time that's happened this season, though he did miss out on matching Salop's low mark by virtue of that scoreball point.

Zin

Apparently there have been reports that Remi has passed aged 65 years.
However on News now Man Utd state these reports are false, they have spoken to his family and he is alive and well.

He started his professional career with us before transferring to Man Ure in 1981 and becoming their first black goal scorer.

I hope he is alive and well, even though he followed Ron Atkinson and Bryan Robson out of our door to Man Ure, still haven’t forgiven the Red Devils for this.
They ripped the heart out of our midfield, a team that deserved to win silverware, should have been league champions, would have been, apart from a harsh winter which caused us to have a fixture backlog, which the eventual champions, Liverpool didn’t have due to their under soil heating. We were forced by the FA to play a lot of games in a short period of time, fatigue took its toll, the players ran out of steam and we finished third.

It looks as though they're doomed.
New manager or not, let's hope they stay on 2 points for the season. Pity we won't pass them on the way up, but hey ho Merry Christmas.

Gamball:
Derby - Leicester

Others:
Villa - Arsenal
Bournemouth - Chelsea
Everton - Forest
Bristol C - Millwall
Ipswich - Coventry
Preston - Wrexham
QPR - WBA
Sheff Utd - Stoke
Southampton - Birmingham

Neil Gibson has been appointed Altrincham manager until the end of the 2026-27 season after a spell in interim charge.

Gibson, 46, took charge on an interim basis last month after Phil Parkinson was sacked following a seven-game winless run.

Under Gibson and assistant Lee Jones, Altrincham have taken 10 points from a possible 15 since taking over - although they were knocked out of the FA Cup by Slough Town.

Altrincham have climbed from 20th to 15th as a result, moving six points clear of the relegation places.

"The club has gone through a full process in appointing a new permanent manager and the decision to appoint Neil Gibson and Lee Jones was not taken purely on the results," chairman Mark Luby said.

"Neil and Lee have demonstrated to the board over the four weeks since they came into the building that they have all the experience and necessary skills to keep current momentum and continue to move us in the right direction.

"I would like to congratulate them both on their appointment, they thoroughly deserve this chance and I am looking forward to working closely with them in the coming seasons."