THE MATCH

SATURDAY 2ND DECEMBER KO 3:00PM

v

LAST MATCH



Jeff Hendricks was the unlikely hero as we grabbed a well deserved point against the league leaders. We should have been 2 up after just 4 minutes, Bannan missing badly and then Pato having a shot blocked. We then go and concede when a cross from the right found Fatawu unmarked and he fired past Dawson. We had a few more chances but couldn't find the back of the net. Onto the 2nd half and we continued to plug away and create a few chances but couldn't find the back of the net. Then into stoppage time and  Hendricks latched onto Paterson's flick and fired in the equaliser. Leicester nearly stole the points but Dawson saved well.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH

Next up and Blackburn make the journey over the Pennine's. Rovers seem to either win or lose there games, winning 9, losing 8 and drawing only 1 of the 18 games. They currently lie in 7th place, just 2 points off the playoffs and should be there or thereabouts come the end of the season. They are managed by Jon Dahl Tomasson who had a decent career as a player and now is trying his hand at management. There main threat is Sammie Szmodics who has 13 goals already this season, which is 4 more than our entire squad     



DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 60
BLACK 57
DRAWS 39 

CURRENT FORM

OWLS              -                                                                                                 

BLACK             -                                                           

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

DAVID WEBB
Craig Taylor and Matthew McGrath
Fourth Official : Scott Simpson

THE TEAM

352

Vazquez
Palmer Ihiekwe Bernard
Paterson Bannan Vaulks Byers Johnson
Cadamarteri Wndass

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-1 Byers

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

30

ATTENDANCE

24578

BML LEAGUE

Washington 10
Maddix 5
Imre 4
Owlkev 1
SCO 1

BMPL

Stateside 3
Wereham 3
Pei -9

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Burnley v Sheffield United
Leeds v Middlesbrough
Maidstone v Barrow
Eastleigh v Reading
Chelsea v Brighton

HHAAD

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC

Yes, that's right, this is early notification for the 2024 Championships, to be held in Oestersund, Sweden in April. More urgently the Qualification Event is to be held in Dumfries, Scotland from Saturday 2 December to Thursday 7 December. This includes 3 of the Home Nations, namely England, Ireland and Wales.

A total of 26 teams are divided into four groups, where they will play a round-robin format. Round-robin play begins at 17:00 on Saturday 2 December and goes on until 19:30 on Tuesday 5 December. After the round-robin stage, the top two teams in each group will progress to the play-offs, which will determine the four World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship qualifiers.  The qualification games will take place on Wednesday 6 December at 10:00 and 15:00 and the final games will be at 10:00 on Thursday 7 December.

The groups are as follows:
Group A: Germany, India, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Chinese Taipei and Ukraine
Group B: Austria, China, France, Jamacia, Poland, Portugal and Wales
Group C: England, Guyana, Hong Kong, Hungary, Mexico and Slovenia
Group D: Belgium, Brazil, Finland, Lithuania, New Zealand and Slovakia

Ireland's team is Alison Fyfe and John Wilson
Wales are represented by Laura Beevers and Garry Coombs
England are once again the daughter and father duo of Lina Opel and Michael Opel

Photos will follow (once I can trace the Irish one - where is their publicity officer hiding?) along with the playing schedule.

Premier League

Dingle 15
Stairs 14
Derby 10
Zinman 6
B.B.B. 5
Blue B 4
Minizin 2
Lady J 2

Another mediocre week for the PL, all seem to be saving their energy for the Xmas rush!! Dingle takes top spot this week for the first time this season with 15 points. His score was a classic case of not screwing up on the balls, he managed a CR on the Gamball and Bonus and picked up the scoreball as well. Stairs had his best score for weeks in 2nd spot with 14 points. Like Dingle, he scored positive points on all his balls. Derby was the only other player in double figures on 10 points, he only scored on 4 games, but crucially he too scored on all his balls!! Pretty rare to find all the top 3 scoring on all their balls!

Bit of a drop to Zinman with 6 points, he got a CR on the Gamball but his score was held back by missing on the Bonus. BBB got 5 points in 5th and Blue was a single point behind, BBB missed on the two main balls, whereas Blue got a CR on the Gamball but little else.

The bottom two were Minizin and Lady Jane, both with only two points. They both got there in identical ways by missing on all their balls and cancelling that out with 3 CRs elsewhere.

150 Zinman
150 Derby
148 Minizin
138 Blue Baggie
135 BBB
127 Stairs
115 Lady Jane
105 Dingle

Four positional changes this week. Derby and Zinman are joint top after both leapfrogged Minizin who drops to third. Stairs moved ahead of LJ after his good week and Dingle finally gets over the 100 point mark, the last player in the PL to achieve this.

Cheers
SCO

Championship

BaggieOne 12pts
Twerton 9
Snooty 7
Sanjay 2
AAA 2
Themaclad 1
SCO -1

Another low scoring week in the Championship - the 2nd worst of the season so far. Just one player in double figures, just 1 positive bonus and the joint lowest total of correct scores - just 2. In such a low scoring week it was strange that the gamball produced a decent return with 5 players forecasting a Baggies win - SCO and Snooty can be forgiven for not having the same faith as most of us!

BaggieOne sits on top, largely thanks to a gamball maximum though he also shared the week's highest number of correct scores and results. Twerton got back to some sort of form securing 2nd place. No correct scores and only 3 correct predictions though he did at least score on his bonus. Snooty wasn't far behind, matching B1's number of CS/CRs but losing out on the gamball and bonus.

After that it wasn't great. Sanjay chose not to play the gamball but would have doubled his points if he'd done so. AAA, Themaclad and SCO all managed to score on just one game - AAA and Themaclad were saved from a negative score thanks to their single correct prediction being the gamball. SCO wasn't so lucky!

Snooty 134
AAA 130
Twerton 128
SCO 125
BaggieOne 119
Themaclad 107
Sanjay 67

Changes at the top again this week with Snooty edging above AAA. Twerton and SCO also swap places with BaggieOne getting closer to the top 4. At the bottom at least Sanjay closed the gap between him and Themaclad - ok, it was only a single point closer but I think he needs some positive thoughts this week!

The Championship's bonus ball problem just keeps growing. We now have only 2 players, AAA and Twerton in positive territory with this ball - overall it's cost 51 points! BaggieOne and Sanjay are also struggling to turn correct results into CSs - both have managed just 6 so far, in B1's case this is just 12% of his correct results.

Zin

When I die I've requested a VAR be run just in case a handball or an offside has been missed.

Cambridge United have sacked head coach Mark Bonner following Tuesday's 3-0 home defeat by Lincoln City.

The U's only escaped relegation on the final day of last season and are currently 18th in League One.

Cambridge-born Bonner, 38, was appointed in January 2020, initially as interim boss, and agreed a new "long-term" contract in September.

The U's are the seventh third-tier team to change managers this season - and 21st in the English Football League.

Owner Paul Barry said Bonner would go down as "one of the most important people in the history of Cambridge United".

"All of us - owners, board, staff, players and fans - know how lucky we have been to have him and how hard this decision has been," Barry added.

"Cambridge United has made huge strides on and off the pitch over the last five years and Mark has been instrumental in building our strong foundations for the future, creating special memories and moments for all of us along the way - most notably promotion during lockdown, Newcastle away in the FA Cup and the great escape last season.

"He has done it through his leadership and energy, his talent as a coach, his natural communication and empathy, and his desire to push the club forward on and off the pitch as someone born and brought up in Cambridge, who genuinely cares about our city and its communities.

"But in football, sometimes you do have to make decisions you believe are right for the long-term future of the club - difficult though they can sometimes be."

Barry Corr and former Crawley boss Kevin Betsy have been put in charge of the first team on an interim basis.

The defeat by Lincoln was Cambridge's third in a row - a run which began with a 5-0 thrashing at Peterborough in the Cambridgeshire derby.

They have only won one of their past 13 league matches.

"We're really disappointed because it's been a bad few days for us," Bonner told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire after the defeat by the Imps.

Listen to Mark Bonner's post-match interview following Lincoln defeat
"It's nothing that can't be fixed if everybody rolls their sleeves up, has a little bit of belief in themselves that they can do it.

"We're definitely a few wins short of where we should be but on the one hand we have to remember who we are, because playing at this level is tough for us, and on the other, do better than we have if we want to make sure we are a team that's having a more comfortable season."

Bonner first joined the staff at Cambridge almost 20 years ago and was assistant head coach under Joe Dunne and Colin Calderwood before taking charge when the latter left the club.

He was confirmed in the head coach role in March 2020 and led the team to promotion the following year by finishing second in League Two.

They also achieved one of the best results in the club's history when they won 1-0 against Newcastle at St James' Park in the third round of the FA Cup in January 2022.


The end of the Mark Bonner era at Cambridge United will be marked with a mixture of pride and regret; pride in the achievements of a local lad who made good, and regret that it ended with string of results that have threatened to turn this campaign into a carbon copy of last season's all too close flirtation with relegation.

Having worked in the Football in the Community scheme and youth development, he knew the club about as well as anyone and 'got it' probably better than any of his predecessors. To take the club back to the third tier for the first time in almost 20 years would have been a great achievement in itself, but to do so in his first full season in charge - and that season being the Covid one - made it something very special.

Bonner used the promotion bounce to settle the club in a comfortable mid-table finish in League One at the first time of asking, but they struggled with second season syndrome and only avoided the drop on the final day thanks, in part, to favourable results elsewhere.

Having survived by the skin of their teeth last season, the hope was for a more comfortable campaign this time around, but a dearth of goals, a poor run of form and a hammering at local rivals Peterborough proved to be a bridge too far.

Having successfully appointed from within last time, the club will initially give a chance to assistant head coach Barry Corr to throw his hat into the ring, alongside Kevin Betsy.

Whilst it might be an audition, the club will be aware that December brings a busy run of fixtures before the January window opens, so there's not a huge margin for error.

Grimsby Town have appointed former Crewe Alexandra boss David Artell as their head coach on a deal until the end of the 2025-26 season.

The 42-year-old replaces Paul Hurst, who was sacked by the Mariners in October after a run of one win in 10 League Two games left them 21st.

It is Artell's first managerial role since leaving Crewe in April 2022.

"It's an exciting time to be part of this football club," Artell told the club's official website.

"I think there's a lot of hard work ahead, both on and off the pitch, but it's a challenge that I'm excited about and that I can certainly get on board with.

"I think it's been well documented now that I've turned down a few jobs in League Two, I turned down one last week, and I turned down assistant coach at Standard Liege in Belgium before that.

"The key thing is that there's a plan. [Owners] Jason [Stockwood] and Andrew [Pettit] have been absolutely explicit in the detail of where they want this club to go and I went 'that'll do'.

"Quite a lot of other clubs think that I'm the plan and I understand that but, at the same time, it's not just that. I've been mightily impressed by Jason and Andrew and what they have said."

Artell, who won seven international caps for Gibraltar during his playing career, was appointed by Crewe in January 2017 following the sacking of Steve Davis and led them to promotion from the fourth tier during the Covid-interrupted 2019-20 season.

He was the eighth longest-serving manager in English league football before he was sacked by the Railwaymen following their relegation to League Two late in the 2021-22 campaign.

"What really stood out to us when we looked at David's record is the impact his coaching had on the performance and quality of football played by his teams," Grimsby chairman Stockwood said.

"We've spoken before about playing attractive football in the 'Grimsby way', and we believe that we have secured a head coach who can work to produce that for our fans."

Morecambe have appointed caretaker Ged Brannan as their manager on an 18-month deal following the departure of former boss Derek Adams.

Adams left the club earlier in November to rejoin Scottish side Ross County for his third spell in charge.

Brannan, alongside John McMahon, took temporary charge for Saturday's 6-0 League Two thrashing by Wrexham.

"I'm absolutely delighted to be in charge of a club like Morecambe," Brannan, 51, told the club website.

"The fans are great, I've been here before as a player and I always loved it - I'm absolutely buzzing, I'm just so glad the board have stuck by me and given me this opportunity.

"If they [the fans] are anything like Saturday at Wrexham, that's all I can ask. Come down on Tuesday, sing your hearts out and get behind the team because you're an extra player for us, you've been brilliant so keep it going."

Adams, 48, had two spells in charge of Morecambe, first leading them to promotion from League Two through the play-offs in 2020-21, then again from early 2022 when he initially kept the club up in League One.

Although relegation to League Two followed last season, the Scot had stabilised the club upon their return to the fourth tier, with the Shrimps just outside the play-off places when he departed.

Brannan, whose playing career included spells at Tranmere, Manchester City and Wigan, made more than 60 appearances for Morecambe and returned to the club in a youth coaching role after his retirement following a spell as manager of Accrington Stanley Under-23s.

He takes charge of Morecambe with the club 12th in the table, two points off the play-off places, following Saturday's defeat, which was their third in a row in the league

Sunderland v Huddersfield Town
The Sky Bet Championship
Wednesday November 29th - 19:45 ko
at the Estádio da Luz

Huddersfield Town travel to Sunderland to the Stadium of Light on Wednesday night for another Darren Moore masterclass in how to play football with ten defenders.

Hopefully we will have Danny Ward back after his comeback was halted on Saturday by a bout of illness. Talking of comebacks, can we have Stephen Chicken back at the Examiner, please. The new chief football writer at the Unexamined wrote in advance of the Southampton game at the weekend that Danny Ward hadn't played yet this season due to the form of Lee Nicholls, but did play a full game for Wales in the international break.

Really?

Sunderland have a very young side and dominated their game at Plymouth on Saturday, but still lost 2-0. They had 24 shots and 14 corners, but their kids couldn't find the back of the net, so it should be a stroll in the park for our experienced back three of Michal Helik, Tom Lees and Matty Pearson, who have over 1,300 professional matches played between the three of them.

Now, the thing is, the game of football is really all about scoring goals. So can we please have a go at this, Mr Darren?

Tickets:
Adults - £32
Over 65s - £29
Under 22s - £24
Under 16s - £14



A brief history of Sunderland AFC: Formed in 1879, the club has won six top-flight titles (1892, 1893, 1895, 1902, 1913, and 1936) in the First Division, and has finished runners-up five times. The club has also won the FA Cup twice (1937 and 1973) and been runners-up twice (1913 and 1992), as well as winning the FA Charity Shield in 1936 and being finalists the following year. Sunderland have also been Football League Cup finalists in 1985 and 2014.

When formed all that time ago, it was by a bunch of school teachers and the team were known as Sunderland & District Teachers Association Football Club. That lasted a year when in 1880 they became just Sunderland Association Football Club.

They turned professional in 1885 and appointed their first manager, Tom Watson, in 1888. That same year, the Football League was formed. Sunderland weren't in it, but were elected a couple of years later in place of Stoke and actually went and won the title in their second season. They then retained the title in 1893 and came close to a hat trick of titles, but finished as runners up to Aston Villa, six points behind.

Not to be denied that third League title, they won it the following season, making it three out of four and played the Scottish champions, Heart of Midlothian, in a one off match at Tynecastle at the end of the season to decide who would be world champions. Sunderland won it 5-3, but their entire line up was made up of Scotsmen, so this was the first time that Scotland claimed to be the football world champions.

Johnny Campbell was top scorer at the club throughout this period and in 1896, his stepbrother Robert Campbell joined the club as manager when Watson moved to Liverpool.

Having had four different home grounds since their formation, in 1898 they moved into Roker Park, which would be their home for the next 99 years.

Campbell only stayed for three seasons and was replaced by Alex Mackie, who guided the club to it's fourth title in 1901/02. They had some bad financial moments in the next few seasons, which led to some directors being suspended and the club ended up selling Alf Common (pictured below) to Middlesbrough for a record fee, the first one thousand pound transfer.

Head to Head



Sunderland lead the head to head with 38 wins to Town's 24, with 27 draws.

We'd been avoiding each other in the league for the last twenty odd seasons, with last year's meetings being the first since 1998/99. We didn't win either of them. Ex Town Premier League flop, Alex Pritchard, who was booed throughout the game for some odd reason, scored the first for the Mackems and Amad Diallo got a late second as we lost 2-0. We were 1-0 down at half time at the Stadium of Light in the return match, but under the leadership of Neil Warnock, our brave lads fought back to equalise from a brilliantly finished goal from Josh Koroma.

They got their own back in 1950 at the 3rd round stage when Town traveled north to be beaten 6-0, a club record defeat for the FA Cup.

Things got worse a couple of years later when we lost 7-1 at their place in the league, which would've been a club record defeat had we not lost 8-0 at Middlesbrough a year earlier.

Our biggest league win over Sunderland was a 4-0 win at home on Christmas Eve 1955. Len Quested scored, as did Jackie Marriott, with Jimmy Glazzard adding the 3rd and 4th. That sadly, was the last meeting of the two clubs in the First Division, since when there have only been thirteen seasons that we have shared a league table, all in the 2nd tier.

We are well overdue a league victory over Sunderland. We haven't had one since 1985/86 when Mick Buxton was in charge. That was a 2-0 win at Leeds Road with two goals from Terry Curran, in front of only 7,150 spectators.

However, since that time, we have been drawn three times against them in the League Cup and strangely, given our piss poor record in this competition, we won all three, all whilst being at least one league below them. First came a 1991/92, 2nd round, two legged affair with the first leg played at Roker Park.

We won it 2-1, with goals from Simon Charlton and Phil Starbuck. We were in the 3rd Division and they were in the 2nd, but when they came to Leeds Road for the 2nd leg, the Terriers, managed by Eoin Hand, absolutely hammered them 4-0, in what was possibly the highlight of those dark days. Goals came from Iffy Onuora, Iwan Roberts (2) and Gary Barnett got us through to round three, where we were beaten by Swindon Town.

1. Extra Pilchard 
   
2. Adverse Twat 
   
3. Morton Byway 
   
4. Rascally Made 
   
5. Everest Cub 
   
6. A Whitened Head 
   
7. Phil Pinks Evil 
   
8. Bum Knit Cox 
   
9. Long Hair Cub 
   
10. Unreal Ale Vern