Hibs have extended their unbeaten League run to 15 games, but I feel that their visit to Ibrox will see that end on Saturday against Rangers - Rangers of all teams!!!

Hibs go to Glasgow with a great confidence in their ability to shine in their play and to grind out results when required. Rangers have a notoriously fragile defence when under pressure and Hibs must take advantage of this. And Rangers have lost too regularly at Ibrox to allow them to be installed as favourites, as has happened far too often in the past.

However, although this is a really tight game in prospect, I feel that Rangers will be more ruthless in attack than Hibs and that might prove to be the difference.

Group A

Themaclad 13
Zinman 6
Minizin 3
Amelia 1
A.A.A. 1
Twerton -3

I must apologize for the delay in getting the results out this week but as you will all have seen in the news the President has imposed a 10% tariff on the UK and as both Zinman and I are based in the USA this has caused us to be rather busy!! So after the announcement we convened a PL Board Meeting and we determined that we are unable to avoid these tariffs, so by a unanimous decision it has been decided to deduct 10% of all the UK based points and allocate them to the US based players going forward. We are sorry to have to do this but rules are rules!!

Tariff points certainly won't amount to much this week in Group A though. This was the second worst week this season with just 21 points scored in total and had it not been for Man City's comeback win on Sunday it would have been the worst and would only have scored a total of 9 points!!! Themaclad though certainly took advantage of everyone else's woes scoring 13 points, a score that gives him more points than the rest put together!!! He managed to get 2 CSs, one more than the rest combined and scored on his Bonus whereas everyone else missed on it.

Zinman was the only one to score a CR on the Gamball due to his lack of faith in WBA but was able to do little else and ended with 6 points. Minizin ended with 3 and was one of 4 players to score -1 on the Scoreball by putting it on the 0-0 draw between Brighton and Forest!! AAA and Amelia both ended with 1 point, Amelia at least got a CS, but like Minizin they missed on every ball and got the dreaded -1 one on the scoreball.

Twerton has a complete mare!!! He was top last week with the best score this season and now has backed that up with the lowest score we have seen this season with -3!!! He basically missed on everything - the Gamball, Bonus, -1 on the Scoreball and only 1 CR on that Man City win to prevent him scoring the lowest possible score!!

293 Themaclad
266 Zinman
261 Twerton
255 Minizin
196 A.A.A.
194 Amelia

Has this weeks result seen Themaclad finally secure the title?? It will take a pretty spectacular fall from grace for him to lose it now!! His lead over 2nd place is now up to a health 27 points, that place is now held by Zinman with Twerton dropping to 3rd. Minizin is 4th and this top 4 look pretty secure for the Play offs with only a few weeks left.

Cheers
SCO

Group B

Lady Jane 19
Derby 9
BaggieOne 5
SCO 5
Snooty 4
Stairs 3
BBB -1

A difficult week for most players with one very clear exception. For the 6th time this year, nobody got the gamball right (strange, as I thought it was very predictable) and the bonus ball negatives exactly matched the positives.

The exception was this season's stand out player, Lady Jane. She headed just about every statistic - most correct scores, most correct results, only spot-on bonus etc - to give her a 10 point lead over 2nd place, the biggest winning margin of the season. Derby is clear in 2nd place - 5 correct results but he was let down by his balls, only scoring from the scoreball.

After that it was all a bit meh. BaggieOne and SCO are tied on 5 points, B1 scoring on 3 games with 1 correct score while SCO only got 2 correct results but was helped by one of them being his bonus. Snooty sits a point further back with a similar breakdown to SCO, just his failure on the scoreball dropping him down. Stairs is a further point back - an identical return to BaggieOne except for the scoreball which he played on the 0-0 game (even after an additional 30 minutes!). And then we have BBB - just 1 correct result and the consolation of a scoreball point means he went backwards this week.

269 Lady Jane
246 SCO
237 Derby
231 Stairs
210 BBB
200 Snooty
175 BaggieOne

For what seems to be about the 15th week, the only change in the table is Derby and Stairs with Derby pulling clear in 3rd place. Lady Jane had been coming under some pressure from SCO in the last few weeks but her outstanding performance opens up a more healthy 23 points gap as we head into the final few weeks. One other point to mention is that Snooty reached the 200 point landmark.

Zin

Cheltenham 2-1 Doncaster
Walsall 2-2 Port Vale
Tranmere 1-3 Chesterfield
Wimbledon 4-1 Harrogate
Bradford 1-1 Crewe
Bromley 2-0 Accrington
Carlisle 1-0 Newport
Colchester 2-1 Notts C
Fleetwood 0-2 Swindon
Grimsby 3-0 Morecambe
MKDons 2-2 Barrow
Salford 1-2 Gillingham


Tuesday 8th

Chesterfield 3-1 Gillingham

THE MATCH

SATURDAY 5TH APRIL KO 3PM

v

LAST MATCH



First match back after the break and we managed to eek out a point at Cardiff. Cardiff were the better team in the first half and after several chances they deservedly took the lead when the ball was fed out to Davies who cut inside and fired past Charles. Cardiff continued to be the better team and Charles made a good save to keep us from being 2 down at the break. The team was booed off and DR made several changes and looked a better team. We equalised when Ihiekwe headed in a Bannan corner. Cardiff did respond and had a couple of chances but we held on for another point.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Next up and we are back at Hillsborough as Hull make the short journey to Sheffield. Hull have been having a poor season and have been hovering around the relegation zone for most of the season and currently lie in 21st place just 1 point above the relegation zone. They do play Portsmouth and Derby in there run in so those games will be pivotal if they stand a chance of staying in the league. They are managed by Rubben Selles, who took over in December and has won 7 of the 21 games he has been in charge of. There leading scorer is Joao Pedro with 6 goals so far this season.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 24
HULL 16
DRAW 20

CURRENT FORM

OWLS  D L W W L L                                                                      

HULL L D W D W L    

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

OLIVER LANGFORD
Mark Stevens and Hristo Karaivanov
Fourth Official: David Webb

THE TEAM

Beadle
Iorfa Ihiekwe M Lowe Hatsuse
Bannan Charles
Gasama Windass Ingelsson
Pato

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

2-1 Gassama

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

26

ATTENDANCE

27988

BML LEAGUE

Imre 27
Maddix 23
SCO 22
Washington 20
Wereham 14

BMPL

Stateside 17
Owlkev 14
Southey 12
Pei 8

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Villa v Forest
Swansea v Derby
Rotherham v Blackpool
Carlisle v Newport
Sutton v Southend

HHAAA

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC

On the Sky sofa on Thursday, gets on well with his manager translate into potted on Sunday

Rotherham United have sacked manager Steve Evans following their run of seven defeats in 11 League One games.

The 62-year-old Scot, who was in his second spell as Millers boss, had come under fire from fans after Saturday's 4-0 hammering at home by relegation-threatened Crawley Town, which pushed Rotherham down to 16th place in the table.

The club confirmed in a statement, external on Sunday they had parted company with Evans, along with his backroom staff Paul Raynor, Gary Mills and Ian Pledger.

Former Rotherham coach Matt Hamshaw, who served as caretaker boss of Derby County last month, has been appointed to take temporary charge until the end of the season, assisted by Andy Warrington.

Saturday's defeat by Crawley, a club Evans guided into the Football League earlier in his managerial career, was the Millers' heaviest of the season and prompted some supporters at New York Stadium to call for his dismissal.

Speaking to BBC Radio Sheffield after the game, Evans said: "There's no hiding place when you have a performance like that. The performance was limp, way off the minimum standards we expect.

"Everything that my teams have been famous for was not deployed. I think this is as low as it's been in 31 years as a manager.

"Maybe my credit's run out. I've had fantastic times at this club and, if the decision is made to remove me, I'll be back in the future as a fan."

During his initial three-and-a-half-year stint as Rotherham boss from 2012 to 2015, the Glaswegian oversaw successive promotions and kept the club in the Championship.

After leaving in September 2015, he took over at Leeds United a month later but departed Elland Road at the end of that season after eight months at the helm.

He subsequently took charge at Mansfield Town, Peterborough United and Gillingham, as well as leading Stevenage to promotion from League Two in 2023.

Evans rejoined the Millers in April 2024, when their relegation back to the third tier had been confirmed – but they have failed to mount a promotion challenge this term and he leaves with the club nine points above the bottom four.


The boos started in the 15th minute against Crawley. When Rotherham conceded their second goal just after half-time, many of the crowd, already feeling lower than usual, headed for the exits.

At one point an angry fan came up to me in the press box demanding I get answers from Steve Evans and [owner] Tony Stewart as to why things were so bad.

"We want Evans out" and "You're not fit to wear the shirt" were the calls at the end of the game. This was how toxic things had become on Saturday.

Stewart wanted to recapture the magic of the past when Evans led the Millers to back-to-back promotions.

For a number of reasons it didn't work out. The manner of the performance against Crawley meant the writing was on the wall, and I think the manager knew that when he spoke to us after the game.

The problem is Rotherham are now going through managers and there doesn't seem to be any stability. The identity, culture and DNA of the Paul Warne era suddenly feels like a long time ago.

Thus, Matt Hamshaw is an inspired appointment until the end of the season. He knows the club inside out and was a big part of Warne's staff. We're talking about a coach who is highly rated within English football circles.

This is an ideal opportunity for the club and the new boss to see, over the remaining eight games, whether this is a fit for the long term.

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



Division One table after Matchday 12:

1. neonfoxinthebox = 217 pts
   
2. Baggiebob(BBB) = 200 pts
   
3. jjamez = 191 pts
   
4. themaclad = 186 pts
   
5. Lord Snooty = 183 pts
   
6. St Charles Owl = 174 pts
   

Saturday 5th April:
Town v Mansfield
Town scorers:
Mansfield scorers:

Reading v Wycombe Wanderers (12:30)
Leyton Orient v Wigan Athletic
Peterborough United v Northampton Town
Rotherham United v Blackpool
Shrewsbury Town v Cambridge United
Stevenage v Crawley Town

Tuesday 8th April:
Town v Wycombe
Town scorers:
Wycombe scorers:

Peterborough United v Birmingham City
Shrewsbury Town v Reading

Bonus matches:
Saturday:
Championship:
West Bromwich Albion v Sunderland (12:30)
Preston North End v Stoke City
Sheffield Wednesday v Hull City

Premier League:
Aston Villa v Nottingham Forest (17:30)

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

1. ritchiebaby = 219 pts
   
2. theo_luddite = 202 pts
   
3. Devongone = 198 pts
   
4. SHEP_HTAFC = 198 pts
   
5. Amelia Chaffinch = 145 pts
   
6. WakeyTerrier = 142 pts
   

Saturday 5th April:
Town v Mansfield
Town scorers:
Mansfield scorers:

Wrexham v Burton Albion (12:30)
Birmingham City v Barnsley
Bolton Wanderers v Bristol Rovers
Charlton Athletic v Lincoln City
Exeter City v Stockport County

Tuesday 8th April:
Town v Wycombe
Town scorers:
Wycombe scorers:

Bolton Wanderers v Rotherham United
Exeter City v Wigan Athletic
Mansfield Town v Leyton Orient

Bonus matches:
Saturday:
League Two:
Tranmere Rovers v Chesterfield (12:45)

Scottish Premiership:
Rangers v Hibernian

Sunday:
Premier League:
Manchester United v Manchester City (16:30)

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