THE MATCH

SATURDAY 3RD MAY KO 12:30PM

v

LAST MATCH



Our final home game of the season saw us pick up a point as not taking chances and poor defending (a familiar tale of the season) came back to haunt us again. We got off to a good start and took an early lead when Pato forced one in off the underside of the bar. It didn't take long for Pompey to level, Blair firing past Charles from 10 yards. We went in level at the break. Onto the 2nd half and although we continued to press forward we only really had half chances, our best chance coming from Musaba which the goalie tipped around the post. It kind of felt like an end of season game.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Our final game of the season see's us travel down to Watford. Watford will finish mid table like ourselves and I would think they will be disappointed not to have been challenging for the playoff spots and with the owners being trigger happy when it comes to managers, Cleverley's job must be in doubt. Cleverley has been in charge for just over a year now, which is quite an achievement for a modern Watford manager, with a 35% win rate. There leading scorer is Bayo with 10 goal so far.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 16
WATF 25
DRAW 11

CURRENT FORM

OWLS  D W L L D L                                                                   

WATF L L L L W L

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

ANDY DAVIES
Graham Kane and Rob Smith
Fourth Official: Sam Allison

THE TEAM

Charles
Iorfa Ihiekwe Otegbayo Hatsuse
Bannan Charles
Gasama Windass Ingelsson
Smith

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-1 Smith

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

26

ATTENDANCE

N/A

BML LEAGUE

Imre 31
Maddix 23
SCO 25
Washington 20
Wereham 16

BMPL

Stateside 20
Owlkev 14
Southey 12
Pei 10

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Leicester v Southampton
Derby v Stoke
Wycombe v Stockport
Crewe v Walsall
Gateshead v Southend

HHHAA

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC

Huddersfield Town v Leyton Orient
Sky Bet League One
Saturday May 3rd - 15:00 ko
at Leeds Road

]

Huddersfield Town welcome Leyton Orient for a Play Offs party at the Kevin Nagle Arena on Saturday afternoon. They just need three points to achieve their ambition of making it to the end of season lottery. And our spineless idiots are in no mood to be party poopers. Even though this has now been announced as the final Town game for the General, Jonathan Hogg.

So in advance of Saturday's game, I'd like to say congratulations to the O's for that and offer my sincere apologies to Reading FC and all their supporters who after a traumatic few years, will have to settle for another season in League One.

Talking of Hoggy. Kevin Nagle has said that he hasn't been offered a new contract. How many more have been told the same? How many will have even less of a reason to bother with trying to look as if they care?

Tickets: Meh! Who cares? They don't. Why should we?

In our very first Footbal League season, 1910/11, Orient was our 9th league game. They were Clapton Orient then and the game was played at Clapton Stadium, also known as Millfields Road and we lost 2-0. We won the return fixture 2-0 with Irishman, James Macauley and Scotsman James Richardson scoring our goals.

We stayed together in Division Two until Town got promoted in 1919/20. That was of course, the roller coaster season that nearly saw us go bust, nearly got taken over by Leeds United, but ended with an FA Cup Final and a first promotion for the club. The season started with Orient coming north to Leeds Road, the first league game after the Great War. Our war hero Jack Cock, scored the first goal. He would become our first ever England international in the next few weeks, while the second goalscorer in our 2-1 win, Jim Baker, went on to join Leeds, becoming their club captain.

After a midweek trip for a defeat in Bury, our brave lads went down to Clapton on the Saturday and completed a league double over the O's. It was a 1-0 win and Sammy Taylor scored the first of what became and still is a club record of 41 goals in a season.

So we never met again until we were relegated in the 50s. They had become Leyton Orient by now and we had six seasons together before they went and had their one and only season in the top flight of English football. We had another two seasons together in the 2nd Division before they went down again.

We had just one season together during our decline in the 70s. That was 72/73 in Div 2 and we got relegated.

They were still in Division Two as we started to climb back up, but our next meeting came in the FA Cup in 81/82. We drew at Leeds Road but then lost the replay down at Brisbane Road.

They were relegated at the end of that season though and so we met in the league for just one season, which saw us promoted at the end of it. The home game was a thumping 6-0 win with goals from Colin Russell, Mark Lillis, Daryl Pugh, David Sutton and a couple from Brian Stanton. Lillis and Stanton were on target again in April, as well as Phil Wilson as the Terriers won 3-1 to go top of the 3rd Division table.

We got relegated again at the back end of the 80s and so had another six seasons together in Div 3, the last of which, we went up again. In that 94/95 season, we did the double over them. Paul Reid and Andy Booth on target in the 2-1 home win and Iain Dunn and a Ronnie Jepson penalty secured a 2-0 away win.

Boothy scored a few against Orient in his Town days. He scored in a 3-0 home win when we met up again after our relegation to the 4th tier in 2003. He scored again in a 1-1 draw down at theirs later in the season, but having already sent off Pawel Abbott, dickhead referee Trevor Parkes, gave Boothy a second yellow card and off he had to go. Dickhead!

It's not all bad memories for the club legend and ambassador though. In 2009, Boothy played his 457th and final game for Huddersfield Town, away at Leyton Orient. He only went and scored as well, his 150th goal for the club. We couldn't hold on to the lead though and the match ended as a 1-1 draw.

Once Boothy had retired, another goalscorer started tormenting the O's. Jordan Rhodes scored 7 goals in 6 games against them, including a hat trick at Brisbane Road in the promotion season of 2011/12.

That was the last time we played each other until this season. At the end of November, we won 2-0 down there with Michal Helik and Callum Marshall scoring to push Orient into the bottom 4, with us firmly entrenched in the top 6.

How easily a season can turn around! Next season, they may be in the Championship!

1. Liam Chuffed
   
2. Mr Cat Arkwright
   
3. Not Tomsk
   
4. Hulls Calm Alarm
   
5. Ah Chill Mike
   
6. Adolf Diapered
   
7. John Grot in Town
   
8. Been a Hiker
   
9. Ruth Poverty
   
10. Unbroken Rose
    

Swansea City have appointed Alan Sheehan as their head coach on a three-year deal following his successful spell as caretaker boss.

Sheehan impressed after taking charge in February following the departure of Luke Williams, leading Swansea clear of relegation danger in some style.

The 38-year-old Irishman has now been handed the chance to make a long-term impression having been given a first permanent managerial role.

"It's a privilege to be at this football club and now I have the honour of officially being the head coach," Sheehan told the club's official website.

"It's somewhat surreal. There's been a really good feeling around the place and I spoke over the last couple of months about building something.

"I've been in talks with the ownership for a good while now and I haven't really changed what I've been saying about moving forward. Now is a really good time to move forward."

Swansea were looking nervously towards the bottom three when Williams left the club on the back of a run of seven defeats in nine Championship matches.

But the Welsh club are now guaranteed to finish in the top half of the table having taken 23 points from Sheehan's 12 games at the helm.

The former Luton Town and Southampton coach was initially put in charge for five matches before he agreed in March to remain at the helm for the remainder of the season.

Director of football Richard Montague said: "We've been very impressed with Alan since he's taken over as caretaker head coach for a second time.

"It was important that we carried out a thorough and detailed process for appointing our new head coach.

"We had to get this decision right, and we are very happy with the work that's been done and confident that we've picked the best head coach to take our club to the next level."

Sheehan has always been interested in taking the role on a long-term basis, though he repeatedly stressed that his ideas must align with the club's view on the way forward.

Former left-back Sheehan joined Swansea as an assistant head coach in the summer of 2023, linking up with then sporting director Paul Watson, who he knew from their time together at Luton.

Having initially been part of Michael Duff's backroom staff, Sheehan first took over as caretaker boss in December 2023, when he helped Swansea claim 11 points from seven matches before the arrival of Williams in January last year.

Sheehan returned to the backroom team before stepping up to the top job for a second time when Williams said his farewells.

At the time, Swansea were eight points clear of the bottom three in 17th, but they have since delivered a remarkable upturn in form to climb to 11th in the table.

After defeat at Millwall last weekend ended Swansea's very faint play-off chances, they finish the season with a home game against Oxford United on Saturday (12:30 BST).

Tom Gorringe, Swansea's CEO, added: "Alan has shown strong leadership and tactical acumen during his time as caretaker head coach.

"Collectively, we believe he is the right person to take Swansea City forward and build on the progress that we've made towards the end of this season.

"We're excited and optimistic about what we can achieve together."

Confirmation of Sheehan's backroom staff will be made in due course.

Group A

Twerton 18
Themaclad 15
Zinman 15
Minizin 15
Amelia 5
A.A.A. 4

This weeks results mirror the season as a whole, tight at the top followed by a gap to the stragglers. All the balls produced positive points in total with nobody missing out on all of them and a few spot on predictions thrown into the mix.

Twerton leads the way this week with 18 points, he only scored on 4 games but managed a maximum on both the Gamball and the Bonus. Three players shared second spot with 15 points - Themaclad, Zinman and Minizin. Themaclad and Zinman managed 2 correct scores, a correct result on the Bonus and scored on 5 games, whereas Minizin only scored on 4 games but picked up a spot on Gamball along with a CR on the bonus.

Big 10 point drop down to Ameila with 5 points. She managed to score on half the games but she missed on both the Gamball and Bonus. AAA is a point behind her but managed it on just 3 scoring games including a CR on the Gamball.

341 Themaclad
301 Twerton
297 Zinman
289 Minizin
231 Amelia
223 A.A.A.

These results means we see no changed to the league table. Going into the final week sees Themaclad with a pretty unassailable lead of 40 points but the chasing pack are only separated by 12 points and also hold a lead over the Group B play off chasers. Worth noting that Twerton becomes only the second player in both leagues to pass the 300 point mark. This means the final week will need to be a disaster for them to not make the playoffs at this stage!! Cue the sirens going off for one of them!!!!

Cheers
SCO


Group B

Snooty 16
BBB 16
BaggieOne 15
Derby 15
SCO 6
Lady Jane 4
Stairs 2

The penultimate week of the regular season saw some interesting results. It produced the highest number of correct result predictions - 37 - and also the 2nd time the scoreball column ended blank. With just 2 games seeing both teams score this wasn't a complete surprise. This week also saw 2 players getting 7 correct results, only the 2nd time this has happened and the last time was last week!

The table divides into 2 groups. We have a share at the top with both Snooty and BBB scoring 16 points. Snooty was one of those with 7 correct predictions and he also got 3 spot-on, but 2 of the games he got wrong were his gamball and bonus, preventing him from having a stormer. BBB got one fewer correct results and scores but nailed his bonus to match Snooty's total.
BaggieOne and Derby sit just a point back. BaggieOne was the other player with 7 correct results but he only got one correct score (a recurring issue for him) while Derby scored on both the main balls amonst his 6 correct predictions but failed to get any correct scores.

And then trailing some distance behind we have the rest. SCO's correct bonus kept him ahead of Lady Jane, neither of them scoring a maximum, while Stairs got just 2 correct results and missed on all the balls.

I'll keep the stats for a full report next week.

295 SCO
283 Lady Jane
281 Derby
259 Stairs
248 BBB
238 Snooty
230 BaggieOne

Lady Jane failed to capitalise on SCO's poor week so, while 12 points isn't unsurmountable, he enters the final week with a relatively comfortable lead. The chase for the play-off positions is now looking very interesting (I write this before seeing Group A results). Lady Jane had held an impressive lead for most of the season but with Derby closing the gap to just 2 points, she could now be in danger of missing out on the play-offs. No positional changes this week and it would surely be a miracle if any of the other players could catch the top 3 - maybe it's time for some unexpected predictions (like predicting an Albion win this week!)

Zin


Playoff Update

With only 1 week left to go here are the standings

League Leaders - First week Bye
1. Themaclad - 341
2. St Charles Owl - 295

Playoff Places Race
3. Twerton - 301
4. Zinman - 297
5. Minizin - 289
6. Lady Jane - 283
7. Derby - 281

Not quite done but almost
8. Stairs - 259
9. BBB - 248
10. Lord Snooty - 238

On their Summer Hols
11. Amelia - 231
12. BaggieOne - 230
13. AAA - 223

Themaclad is now mathematically in the playoffs and almost guaranteed the Group A title. SCO is looking good for the Group B title but could still be caught in the final week.

In the Playoffs, Twerton and Zinman both have a healthy lead over 7th place Derby, so they are looking good for 2 of the PO places. Minizin, Lady Jane and Derby are in an 8 point battle for the final two places and SCO is not fully out of reach but does have a 14 point gap over them to lean on!! Stairs, BBB and Lord Snooty are not mathematically out of the race but it would take a monumental week from them to even get close. Everyone else has their flip-flops on and are walking on a sunny beach somewhere!!!

Accrington Stanley vs Chesterfield
Bradford City vs Fleetwood Town
Bromley vs Cheltenham Town
Carlisle United vs Salford City
Colchester United vs Barrow
Crewe Alexandra vs Walsall
Grimsby Town vs AFC Wimbledon
Morecambe vs Harrogate Town
Newport County AFC vs Tranmere Rovers
Notts County vs Doncaster Rovers
Port Vale vs Gillingham
Swindon Town vs Milton Keynes Dons

Inside Info' for Anyone Who Cares

Accrington Stanley are safe from relegation.
Chesterfield could reach the play-offs, but need other results to assist big time. 0-2 would be an ideal score, but Chesterfield never win at Accrington. Chesterfield cannot finish above BOTH Grimsby and Wimbledon. Wimbledon will be in the play-offs if they win or draw. Grimsby need to win to get above Wimbledon and possibly Salford, if they lose or draw at Carlisle. If Wimbledon lose three teams could all overtake them. A draw could be good enough for Chesterfield IF Salford and Grimsby lose and Colchester do no better than draw. We could also finish 10th!

Bradford need to win to be certain of the third automatic promotion place, as Walsall and Notts County have a better goal difference than them. Fleetwood are safe, with barely a sprat to play for.

Bromley and Cheltenham are both safe (unless Putin attacks, then GCHQ's doughnut becomes a major target).

Carlisle are sadly down anyway, Salford need to win to ensure their play-off place.

Colchester need to beat Barrow and have a very favourable set of results from teams above them. Barrow are 16th and safe from non-nuclear attack.

Crewe slumped into mere safety. Walsall desperately need to win to have a chance of the third automatic promotion spot, but they are safe for the play-offs.

Grimsby need a win to be certain of the play-offs. A draw would leave them dangling on Salford losing and Chesterfield not winning. A win or a draw would be enough for the Wombles. Lose and they could go from 6th to 9th.

Morecambe are down, Harrogate are as safe as a cupcake.

Newport are safe and sacked their manager. Tranmere are also safe with a new man in charge.

Notts County are safely in the play-offs, but could achieve automatic promotion if they win and Bradford and Walsall lose. Donny are up but must win to be certain of being the Champions (of not much ...).

Port Vale are up but a win could make them Champions if Donny can't beat Notts County. Gillingham are nestling safely in the bottom half and might not care.

Swindon are having a Holloway revival but have only pride to play for. The concrete cows are neither collecting rosettes, or off to the slaughterhouse.

Enjoy

And so to the last week of the regular season:

Gamball:
Coventry - Middlesbrough

Others:
Leicester - Southampton
Derby - Stoke
Portsmouth - Hull
Watford - Sheff W
WBA - Luton
Brentford - Man Utd
Brighton - Newcastle
West Ham - Spurs
Chelsea - Liverpool

The jailing of Mansfield Town striker Lucas Akins for causing the death of a cyclist is "devastating" and came as an "unbelievable shock" to the club, says Stags boss Nigel Clough.

Adrian Daniel, 33, died 10 days after he was struck by a Mercedes G350 being driven by Akins near Huddersfield in March 2022.

Akins, 36, was sentenced to 14 months in prison on Thursday.

Mansfield's 4-0 defeat by League One title winners Birmingham City on Sunday was their first game since their player was jailed.

Clough spoke to BBC Radio Nottingham shortly before the match about the sentencing of the forward, who has played under him at both Mansfield and Burton Albion.

"For player and person like Lucas, we have lost a friend and a colleague to a sentence," Clough said.

"I also can't stress enough how much we have to acknowledge the pain of Mr Daniel's family.

"It is just a tragic accident and we are devastated for Lucas that he has ended up with a prison sentence."

Akins had pulled out into the path of Mr Daniel, who had been cycling home from work.

In a victim impact statement, Mr Daniel's wife, Savanna, said his death had been "like hell and a nightmare I'm not waking up from".

She criticised Akins for not pleading guilty at the first opportunity, but said she did not want him to go to jail.

"We do not need any more lives to be destroyed by this," she said.

Akins was a Mansfield player when the crash happened and he continued to play for the Nottinghamshire club afterwards.

After pleading guilty at Leeds Crown Court on 4 March he started a league match just hours later.

He made a further eight appearances for the club - and even started in an international match for Grenada against Russia in Moscow last month - before he was sentenced last week.

Akins has played professionally for 18 years and counts Huddersfield, Burton, Tranmere and Stevenage as well as Scottish sides Hamilton Academical and Partick Thistle among his former clubs.

He has just two months of his Mansfield contract remaining, having signed a new one-year deal after helping them win promotion from League Two last season.

Akins' future beyond the summer remains uncertain.

"That will be discussed," said Clough.

"Nothing will be decided immediately. Everybody is just digesting what was an unbelievable shock this week.

"There is talk of him maybe appealing, so we we will see what happens in the next week or two."

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


FINAL MATCHDAY OF THE REGULAR SEASON


Division One table after Matchday 16:

1. neonfoxinthebox = 293 pts
   
2. Lord Snooty = 283 pts
   
3. Baggiebob(BBB) = 282 pts
   
4. jjamez = 279 pts
   
5. St Charles Owl = 260 pts
   
6. themaclad = 240 pts
   

Saturday 3rd May:
Town v Leyton Orient
Town scorers:
Orient scorers:

Blackpool v Bristol Rovers
Bolton Wanderers v Stevenage
Mansfield Town v Exeter City
Northampton Town v Wigan Athletic
Reading v Barnsley
Rotherham United v Peterborough United
Shrewsbury Town v Crawley Town
Wycombe Wanderers v Stockport County

Bonus matches:
Saturday (12:30):
Championship:
Bristol City v Preston North End
Watford v Sheffield Wednesday
West Bromwich Albion v Luton Town

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

1. ritchiebaby = 283 pts
   
2. SHEP_HTAFC = 272 pts
   
3. theo_luddite = 270 pts
   
4. Devongone = 254 pts
   
5. WakeyTerrier = 196 pts
   
6. Amelia Chaffinch = 185 pts
   

Saturday 3rd May:
Town v Leyton Orient
Town scorers:
Orient scorers:

Blackpool v Bristol Rovers
Bolton Wanderers v Stevenage
Cambridge United v Birmingham City
Charlton Athletic v Burton Albion
Lincoln City v Wrexham
Mansfield Town v Exeter City
Northampton Town v Wigan Athletic
Reading v Barnsley
Rotherham United v Peterborough United

Bonus matches:
Saturday:
Scottish Premiership:
Hibernian v Dundee United

League Two:
Accrington Stanley v Chesterfield

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