Gamball:
Southampton - WBA

Others:
Wolves - Spurs
Crystal Palace - Everton
Sunderland - Birmingham City
Cardiff - Norwich
Coventry - Stoke
Middlesbrough - Leicester
QPR - Bristol City
Sheff W - Millwall
Derby - Barnsley

Well what a game yesterday was. When I found out several weeks ago they were going to televise our game against Pompey, I kept thinking I hope we give a good account ourselves otherwise I would never hear the last of it from people and friends who support Premier League clubs. But yesterday we didn't just give a good account of ourselves we played Pompey off the park and matched them man for man. We looked and played like a Football League team.

The chances we created we could have had 3 or 4. I was really impressed by Banks, Grigg, Naylor, Grimes and Palmer at the back. I did worry a bit when Frecklton came on and gave the ball away rather cheaply once or twice but we managed to grind out a 1-0 victory against a team who haven't lost a league game since March.

As much as I enjoy the FA Cup and love a cup run, promotion back to the football league is more important. I do believe if we get promoted and I think we will then if we keep this team together in L2 then we could be looking at a back to back promotion.

Lately I've noticed a surge in 3G and 4G pitches especially in non-league. Now I can see the pros and cons to 3G and 4G pitches but I think football is played better on turf than artificial turf.

I've never played on a 3G or 4G pitch but have played on a 2G pitch which is astroturf and there is sand on there to stop it becoming waterlogged but also to keep it clean, which is a pain if you go up for a header and get a load of gritty sand in your eyes. I've noticed on the 3G and 4G pitches that they use rubber pellets apparently they are old, cut up car tyres, not sure how true that is.

Artificial pitches can be a moneyspinner and bring in extra revenue for non-league and grassroot clubs because they can be hired out for 6 a side leagues or even just hired out for private parties to play on. The downsides to them are the knee and ankle injuries that can occur to players especially if they aren't wearing the right boots or if they get there studs caught in the artificial turf. The other downside is the ball travels and bounces a lot quicker on the pitches where as on real turf it would take the bounce out of the ball.

And the games keep rolling in for the Hibees with a trip to Paisley for a 7.45pm kick-off.

Sometimes we are playing well and losing, sometimes we are playing well in patches and drawing/losing and sometimes we are playing poorly and losing/drawing. The word that is missing is WINNING. That word has been missing for 6 weeks now and we must see a definite improvement in the next couple of games or we will begin to hear the rumbles of discontent from the fans.

Nick Montgomery has my full backing and so has his style of play, but we do not have the players who are totally comfortable in playing out from the back and our opposition know that and try to benefit from that.

St Mirren on the other hand have been grinding out good results and have only lost twice this league season - to Rangers and Celtic - with determined displays. Only Celtic have lost fewer games and this will be a tough ask for Hibs to come away with anything at all.

In a mad dash to keep pace with my curling commitments, I've joined in on the first day in Lohja, Finland for these Championships.

There are only 11 countries entered from Brazil, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Japan, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, and Switzerland. The three podium-finisher teams in Lohja qualify for the world championship, taking place in March 2024 in Gangneung, Korea.

Round-robin play starts on Sunday 5 November and continues until Thursday 9 November. The teams have been placed into one group and will play a round robin. At the end of the round robin, a ranking will be established and the first four teams will move onto the semi-finals. The semi-finals will take place at 9.30 on Friday 10 November, where the team ranked first will play the team ranked fourth, and the team ranked second will meet the team ranked third. The winners of the semi-finals advance to the gold medal game; the losers of the semi-finals will play for bronze medals. Both medal games will be held at 16.00 on Friday 10 November.

Representing England are Stewart Pemblett (Skip), Jason Kean (3rd), Karen Aspey (2nd), Julian Mattison (Lead, who will be Vice-skip) and George Potts (Alternate). They are coached by Tony and Rosemary Lenton, Rosemary being a Scottish medal-winning para bowler and English wheelchair curler.

In their first game England absolutely demolished Japan by 16-0, including 6 shots in the 4th end. It's very unusual for a team to be "grannied" (no score) in any game, never mind a World Championship game. In a turnaround in their second game, the English team were defeated 4-9 by Slovakia, mainly due to a loss of 4 shots in the 3rd end.

At 07.30 tomorrow England will play Denmark, then Spain at 16.30.

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 Random Badger gives you 2 points

The random badger is used for any random prediction used once in each matchday sequence. For instance, a scorer at a particular match, the number of red cards in the matches or yellow cards or own goals or owt you want really within reason, I do need to be able to check whether it's correct or not. Please don't put stuff like....."Commentator says...."  
The joker   is played for one match in each sequence and if correct you get double points. So if you've predicted 1-0 and it finishes 2-0, you get 4 pts, but if you've predicted 2-0, that's 8 pts. But if you get it wrong, it's minus 2.
Jokers and badgers are optional. You don't have to play one if you don't want.

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. Similarly with the badger, if your random prediction is affected by this, it'll be half the points.

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.  

End of season Play Offs: The one who finishes top of the league will still be champion, but after the season finishes there will be Play Offs between the top 4, with 1st v 4th and 2nd v 3rd. This will take in stuff like the EFL Play Offs, FA Cup Final, final day of Prima Donna League, European Finals etc. It will be one matchday for the semis and one for the Final. It will be the individual scores for each matchday against the allotted opponent, with some kind of tie breaker for a drawn match.

The prize for winning will be enormous. Another rep point.

1. St Charles Owl = 286 pts
   
2. Baggiebob(BBB) = 268 pts
   
3. neonfoxinthebox = 237 pts
   
4. jjamez = 235 pts
   
5. themaclad = 227 pts
   
6. theo_luddite = 218 pts
   

Friday 10th November:
Blackburn Rovers v Preston North End

Saturday 11th November:
Hull City v Town
Town scorers:
Hull scorers:

Queens Park Rangers v Bristol City
Sheffield Wednesday v Millwall
Southampton v West Bromwich Albion
Watford v Rotherham United

Bonus matches:
Premier League:
Saturday:
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Tottenham Hotspur (12:30)

Sunday:
West Ham United v Nottingham Forest (14:00)
Chelsea v Manchester City (16:30)

League One:
Saturday:
Peterborough United v Cambridge United (12:00)
Bolton Wanderers v Blackpool

League Two:
Bradford City v Barrow

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

1. Lord Snooty = 245 pts
   
2. ritchiebaby = 221 pts*
   
3. WakeyTerrier = 217 pts
   
4. Devongone = 210 pts
   
5. Amelia Chaffinch = 204 pts
   
6. SHEP_HTAFC = 166 pts
   

Saturday 11th November:
Hull City v Town
Town scorers:
Hull scorers:

Sunderland v Birmingham City (12:30)
Cardiff City v Norwich City
Coventry City v Stoke City
Ipswich Town v Swansea City
Leeds United v Plymouth Argyle
Middlesbrough v Leicester City

Bonus matches:
Premier League:
Saturday:
Arsenal v Burnley

Sunday:
Liverpool v Brentford (14:00)

Scottish Premiership:
Saturday:
Hibernian v Kilmarnock
St Johnstone v Ross County

National League:
Chesterfield v Barnet

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

Nothing much on unless you like watching Wrexham with a Welsh commentary so watched this game, Flumemese beat Boca Juniors 2-1 after AET played at the Maracana in Rio.
Slow burner of a game with the cynicism not kicking in until the second half, however that is the joy of South American football, outrageous dives, knee high tackles, but the winning goal summed up the game, it's a worldie lad who scored then races 100 yards to dive into the home support at the other end, promptly receives a yellow card, his second followed by a red.
On the stroke of ET bit of a melee, home player gets slapped in the face and it's ten a side.
Eventually ends players in tears all over the place, glorious stuff

Hibs and Aberdeen meet this evening at Hampdump for a place in the Final against either Sevco or Hearts.

Aberdeen seem to be getting their goal scoring form back with Myslovic and Duc being the danger men. However they still seem vulnerable at the back and need to tighten up.

Hibernian.................well we all know they can either be excellent or absolute sh*te depending on which team turns up. They have been this way for many years. A good point last Saturday against Celtic followed by a poor performance against Ross. Montgomery will go again with the 4 2 4 he prefers, I expect. He will learn that at times you have to change depending on the state of the game..............against Ross at 2.0 up it was crying out for removing a front man and putting an extra midfielder on

As both defenses are suspect it could be a high scoring game but think Aberdeen have slightly more coming from midfield so will go for a Dons victory 3 . 2 ( possibly after extra time.)

Both clubs are taking fairly healthy supports through to Glasgow so should lend to a good atmosphere.