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 ***

The Mixed Doubles Championships are at the same venue as the Seniors and on the same days. Nowadays this event attracts the really top players from the countries involved, unlike the early days when the second or third choices used it as competition practice to improve their World experience. There are 16 teams drawn in two Groups with the top 3 teams in each Group progressing to the final stages on Friday 2 May.

Scotland
And of course there are Bruce Mouat and Jennifer Dodds, and of course there are photos them in real life on the Scottish Curling website (as well as the Lego models, if you fancy that sort of thing - I don't).



They will play Netherlands at 1 pm today and China at 10pm tonight, that is if you believe the website schedule. Only time will tell.

Tranmere Rovers midfielder Sam Finley has been given a 13-game ban for making a homophobic comment to an opposition player.

The midfielder, 32, admitted a Football Association charge of misconduct over a comment made to Walsall striker Jamille Matt during a League Two game in January.

Finley was sent off in the 38th minute of the game - which Tranmere went on to lose 5-1 - having been shown two yellow cards for incidents unrelated to the slur.

He has also been fined £2,000 and ordered to complete an education programme following an Independent Regulatory Commission hearing., external

In a statement,, external Tranmere said they "condemn all forms of discrimination and will deal with the matter internally".

The lengthy suspension is one match above the 12-game upper limit for an aggravated breach involving "abusive, indecent or insulting words or behaviour" because of Finley's past offences.

He was previously charged for a similar homophobic comment made to a referee in February 2016 while Finley was playing for AFC Fylde – which resulted in a four-match ban and fine.

Finley also received an eight-match ban and fine for making an offensive comment to a Rochdale player while playing for Accrington Stanley in April 2020.

In addition to his ban and fine, Finley, who admitted using the homophobic slur to Matt even though the match officials had not overheard it, has been ordered to attend a mandatory face-to-face education programme within four months.

Should he fail to complete the programme to the FA's satisfaction within that period, he will be "immediately and indefinitely suspended from all football and football-related activity until it is completed".

These Championships start on Saturday 26 April for the Men and Sunday 27 April for the Women in Fredericton, Canada.There are 31 Men's teams (what do you make of that, theo?) in 5 Groups. England, Ireland and Wales have been drawn together in Group A (allegedly a fair draw) with Scotland in Group D.

Germany play Scotland at 7.30am tomorrow with Ireland playing Portugal and England playing Wales at 11.30am. At 5pm, Netherlands will play Ireland. I've taken these timings from the World Curling Federation's website, but with an apparent 1 hour time difference between Canada and the UK , I'd rather add a further 5 hours on, following Welsh Curling's fine example.

Wales Men
Once again Wales have helped out by quoting their full schedule on their team photograph.

Andrew Tanner, Richard Pougher, Alistair Reid, George Fyffe

And Ireland have followed suit.
Ireland Women

Louise Kerr, Nina Clancy, Bernie Gillett, Dale Sinclair

Ireland Men

Bill Gray, Neil Fyfe, David Whyte and Tommy Campbell


And Scotland? Nah, don't be silly. This is all Scottish Curling could come up with. Honestly, if it's not Bruce, they don't seem to be interested.
Scotland Women

Jackie Lockhart, Mairi Milne, Claire Milne, Katie Loudon
Scotland Men
Tom Brewster, Frazer Hare, Robbie Stevenson, Don Frame

England Women
Viv Kerr, Carole Topping, Desna Fielding, Jean Moat
England Men
Ken Horton, Douglas McGlynn, Martin Gregory, Stuart Brand
England do summarise their playing schedule, but it's not in a snappy photograph.