Now I know footballers, despite the size of some of their contracts, aren't exactly the brainiest guys on the planet as a rule (with a few exceptions) but taking this guys alleged boast at face value from the age of 16 to 26, (he's now 28 and the complaints started to be registered 2 years ago), unless I've got my maths wrong means he thinks he bedded on average 2 to 3 women a day, every day in that period, including the days he was playing and several Christmas Days. Who knows, maybe he started by bonking his teachers at junior school?

Not that I'm jealous or anything but, somehow, I reckon he was talking complete bollocks. The woman he said it to, if she was anything of a basic maths wizard, which she might not be, might have worked that out too had she not been so busy taking her clothes off in order to get her mobile phone back off him. (Not sure how that works) ......

That and if he thinks that's the way to charm the pants off a woman ..... just saying - "how would you like to be miss 10,0001"? Helluva chat up line that one, but maybe now I know where I was going wrong with the girls in my spotty youth. Maybe not to be honest.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022...rial-hears

All I can say is that having seen the fetish shop just down the road from Chester station, is there something in the water in Cheshire that us "normal folk" need to be aware of?

Rochdale have parted company with manager Robbie Stockdale after 13 months with the League Two club.

Dale have lost all four of their league fixtures so far this season and are bottom of the fourth tier.

The 42-year-old was appointed by Dale in July 2021 and leaves the club along with his assistant Jimmy Shan.

"The board would like to place on record its thanks to Robbie and Jimmy, and wish them every success in the future," the club said in a statement.

Stockdale is the first manager to be sacked in England's top five divisions this season.

Dale's only win has come against Burton Albion in the Carabao Cup on 9 August, with Stockdale saying after Tuesday's defeat by Stevenage that he understood fan frustrations around their poor start to the season.

"There are a lot of positives," Stockdale told BBC Radio Manchester after what proved to be his final match in charge.

"I know it doesn't look like that now, but there are. The biggest thing from me to the players is they have got to believe in themselves and I'll make sure I put that belief into them."

Under Stockdale this season, Rochdale have scored just one League Two goal and are the only English Football League side without a point.

Having previously had three spells in caretaker charge of Sunderland, as well as working as assistant to Paul Heckingbottom at Hibernian and Sam Allardyce at West Bromwich Albion, Rochdale was Stockdale's first managerial position.

He took over from Brian Barry-Murphy in the summer of 2021 and led them to an 18th-place finish in their first season back in the fourth tier, after relegation from League One in 2020-21.

Analysis - 'Rochdale's board have decided to act'
BBC Radio Manchester's Bill Rice

Robbie Stockdale arrived as Rochdale boss last summer following their relegation from League One, saying the board's vision matched his own.

In his first managerial role, the former Middlesbrough midfielder said he came to win, but managed just 16 victories in 59 games in charge - not helped by losing key players such as Matty Lund, Ollie Rathbone and Aaron Morley.

Dale finished 18th last season, and after last season's player of the year Eoghan O'Connell went to Charlton, the start to the current campaign has been even worse, with four defeats leaving them bottom without a point, and despite Stockdale trying to pick out the positives, the board decided to act.

Aldershot 1-1 Bromley
Altrincham 1-2 Yeovil
Barnet 0-1 Woking
Dag & Red 0-2 Maidenhead United
Dorking 1-3 Gateshead
Scunthorpe 0-2 Solihull Moors
Southend 1-2 Oldham
Torquay 3-2 Boreham Wood
Wealdstone 2-0 Halifax
Wrexham 2-0 Maidstone United
York 3-0 Eastleigh
Notts County 1-3 Chesterfield

League Table After Matchday 3
Dancing - 95
SaltergateBorn - 71
Devon - 52
Amelia - 49
Spireitematt - 42
Lord Snoots - 25
St Charles Owl - 10

It has changed a bit in recent years

LAST TIME OUT



MANAGER

Seems a decent bloke and anyone who can piss that tool off at Forest Green Rovers deserves an accolade

On 11 October 2013, Edwards announced that he had retired from professional football at the age of 30.[32] He became Under-18s coach at Wolves, and his first season in charge (2014–15) was considered very successful by local newspaper Express & Star.[33] He was promoted to help Head Coach Kenny Jackett for the final two months of the season, and then to the role of full-time First Team Coach during the summer of 2015.

On 25 October 2016 Edwards was appointed interim head coach at Wolves following the sacking of Walter Zenga.[34] He took charge of two games – a 1–1 draw at Blackburn Rovers, followed by a 2–3 defeat to Derby – before Paul Lambert took charge. Edwards remained at a club in the role of first team coach until the conclusion of the season when he departed alongside Lambert.[35]

On 28 June 2017, Edwards was named as the new manager of his hometown club AFC Telford United.[36] The Bucks finished in 14th place in the National League North, 10 points outside the play-offs. Edwards left by mutual consent at the end of the season.[37]

Edwards was appointed as the head coach of Wolverhampton Wanderers U23 on 20 July 2018.[38] In his first season in charge, he led them to promotion to Premier League 2 Division 1, the highest level of youth football, for the first time in their history.[39]

In October 2019, Edwards left Wolves to take up a 'prestigious role' with The Football Association working as a coach with the England U20s.[40] On 24 September 2020, he was appointed as head coach for the England under-16 team.[41]

Forest Green Rovers
On 27 May 2021, Edwards was appointed Head Coach of League Two side Forest Green Rovers, joining the role on 4 June in order to be able to finish the season with his England sides.[42] After picking up four wins from his first five matches, Edwards was awarded the EFL League Two Manager of the Month award for August 2021 with his star striker Matty Stevens winning the Player of the Month award.[43] He won the award for a second time for November following three wins from three.[44]

Edwards then won the manager of the month award for a third time for January 2022 after picking up 14 points from six matches, including a 4–0 win away at second-placed Tranmere Rovers, moving ten points clear at the top of the league.[45] On 23 April, Forest Green drew 0–0 away at Bristol Rovers to secure promotion to League One for the first time in the club's history.[46] The following day, Edwards was named the 2021–22 EFL League Two Manager of the Season at the league's annual awards ceremony.[47] On 11 May, he departed the club following negotiations with Watford.[48]

Watford
On 11 May 2022, Edwards was announced as the new head coach of Watford, taking over from Roy Hodgson at the conclusion of the 2021–22 season.[5]

https://www.watfordfc.com/
@WatfordFC

Ray Cooper

Cooper was born in Watford, Hertfordshire. In addition to percussion, Cooper studied classical piano, strings and woodwind, as well as theatre. He later joined the band Blue Mink, and as a session musician he played on records for artists such as America, Carly Simon and David Essex.[5] He played on and co-produced the album Somewhere in England by George Harrison in 1981.

Cooper has long been associated with Elton John's career, playing on more than 90 recordings, and performing in more than 800 concerts with John both as a duo and in the Elton John Band. His first appearance with John was during the sessions for Madman Across the Water, and he played his first live show with him in early 1972. Cooper had a short stint with The Rolling Stones playing percussion for their 1974 It's Only Rock 'n Roll album. After contributing to various Elton John albums, Cooper joined the Elton John Band full-time in 1974 and spent the next two years recording and touring with the group.

During John's semi-retirement in the late 1970s, Cooper played on various singles and albums for John, and recorded with George Harrison, the Kinks, Wings and Art Garfunkel. In 1977 and again in 1979, Cooper toured with Elton John as a duo in which John would play a solo set and then be joined by Cooper on percussion for the second half of the concerts.

Cooper's relationship with the Rolling Stones continued into the 1980s. In 1981, he contributed to Bill Wyman's third solo album. In 1983, he participated in a short tour for the Ronnie Lane ARMS Charity Concert along with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and other artists, including Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts.

In the 1980s, Cooper continued to record and tour periodically with Elton John. In 1986, he joined John's touring band for the Tour De Force (tour) concerts in Australia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, augmenting Jody Linscott, who was the band's percussionist on the rest of John's world tour.

Cooper showed up on Christine McVie's self-titled solo album in 1984. In 1985, Cooper appeared on both Mick Jagger's She's the Boss album and Bill Wyman's Willie & The Poor Boys. Also in 1985, Cooper performed as percussionist for a number of artists during the charity event Live Aid. In 1997, he guested with Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings for Struttin' Our Stuff.

In every tour during 1990, Eric Clapton and the band played "Sunshine of Your Love", which then flowed into a short one-minute drum solo by Steve Ferrone (drummer for Clapton's band on the tour), then into a seven-minute percussion solo by Cooper on the tambourine, congas and gong. On 16 January 1992, he played percussion for Clapton's instalment of the MTV Unplugged television series.

During 1994 and 1995 Face to Face tours with Billy Joel, and during Elton John's tours in 1995, Elton John played "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting", which then flowed into a solo by Cooper on percussion. In the 1995 "Evening With Elton John and Ray Cooper" tour, the two men performed in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela and Costa Rica, where John performed a solo set, then was joined by Cooper on percussion for the second half of the show. On 15 September 1997, Cooper was the principal percussionist along with Phil Collins at the Music for Montserrat fund raiser concert in Royal Albert Hall. Cooper was part of the band at the Concert for George, the memorial concert for George Harrison, held at the Royal Albert Hall in 2002. He contributed to the tribute concert for Jim Capaldi in January 2007. He worked on Katie Melua's album Pictures (2007).

Film work
Towards the end of the 1980s, Cooper got involved in film as a musician, actor and producer. His work in film production included work for HandMade Films, which was owned by his friend George Harrison.[6]

Cooper has played small roles such as the preacher in Robert Altman's feature film Popeye (1980) starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall. He has performed music in several of Terry Gilliam's productions, appearing on-screen in quirky roles like the technician who swats the beetle at the beginning of Gilliam's 1985 film Brazil and as the functionary whispering in the ear of Jonathan Pryce's Right Ordinary Horatio Jackson character in 1989's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. He appeared in the Concert for Cascara in the 1985 film Water, and appears as a street commercial for The Zero Theorem.

Recent work
Cooper has continued recording and performing with Elton John on various albums and tours, including John's The Million Dollar Piano show in Las Vegas.[7] In 2009, John and Cooper performed a small exclusive series of shows, mostly in the UK and Europe, the first time since 1995 that the two had toured together without a band. Amongst their performances was one at the Royal Albert Hall to raise funds for a new organ which the Royal Academy of Music would assemble in their Duke's Hall. They raised further funds with a further performance at the Royal Opera House in 2011. The organ has been named the Sir Elton John and Ray Cooper Organ, and was heard for the first time on 7 October 2013.[8][5] In a greeting to Cooper on his 70th birthday, John's website stated that when Elton composed the song "Tambourine" for his 2016 Wonderful Crazy Night album, he made sure to bring in Cooper to play the instrument on the track. As of June

https://www.hibernianfc.co.uk/article/preview-rangers-h

This is a match v THEM that, in recent times, Hibs hardly attain any positive result no matter how they play (League Cup semi-final/cuffing, a Boyly master class, excluded) and yet Rangers clearly don't like playing Hibs in most of these games that are normally "tight affairs" until an SFA assigned ref "steps in" with some kinda dodgy decision that doesn't benefit our side!! This time we play them at a point in between two tough Euro footie play-off ties; we must try to take advantage of this situation for a change!! We just lost to Livy last week, a "sore one" to take, and the players really should need no motivation to take them on and try to win this match at home in front of a big turnout of Hibs fans. We have Boyly providing a big goal-scoring threat and I wish we had that second prolific pen box striker who can "bury" teams that Hibs are pressing and creating good scoring opps. One can only live and hope!! C'mon Hibs!!

GGTTH

https://www.tourofbritain.co.uk/race/2022-tour/

Aldershot fans were apparently guilty of damaging part of the stadium and abusing Boreham Wood keeper Nathan Ashmore last night.

Now I'm not usually into victim-blaming, but it does seem that a significant percentage of times that National League fans are accused of misbehaviour Nathan Ashmore has been in goal for the opposition.

Whilst racism in sport, as in life, is despicable, isn't there sufficient evidence that Nathan's behaviour is undeniably a contributory factor in these instances? It isn't simply that he is a very good keeper at this level, despite his build, who likes to put on a performance and interact with the crowd. It goes further than that, and the fans of several different clubs have reacted in the same way.

Shouldn't the League be asking him to curb his excesses and in return be promising to protect him from all forms of racial abuse? The danger is that one day the incident won't remain minor and someone will do something everyone, including Nathan, will regret.

THE MATCH

SATURDAY 20TH AUGUST KO 3:00PM

v

LAST MATCH



Our first defeat of the season, as we had a man sent off and eventually went down 2-0. By the staring lineup it was obviously a cautious approach, with the bench looking better than the starting eleven. We were doing ok without really looking like scoring, when James went in high and late and was shown a straight red, correct imo but only a yellow with others. Byers spat his dummy out when subbed before HT, I think DM wanted our best players on the bench   . Onto the 2nd and inevitably Posh scored a couple of goals, surprisingly both from crosses from the right and a couple of headers  

THE MATCH



Next up and another tricky trip, this time to Bolton. They have made a good start in the league with 2 wins and 2 draws so far and currently are in 4th position. They missed out on the playoffs last season and will be looking to rectify that this season. They are managed by Ian Evatt who has been in charge for a couple of years. They have one of our ex players, Kachunga, who did bugger all with us, but has 1 goal and 1 assist this season.

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 55
BOLT 41
DRAWS 29

CURRENT FORM

OWLS              -                                                     

BOLT               -                                                

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

CHARLES BREAKSPEAR
Graeme Fyvie and Simon Clayton
Fourth Official : Matt Corlett

THE TEAM

Stockdale
Heneghan Ihikwe Palmer
Hunt Bakinson Bannan FDB Johnson
Gregory Windass

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-1 Gregory

ATTENDANCE

N/A

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

26

BML LEAGUE

Imre 3
Wash 2
Maddix 1
Pieowl 1
Owlskev 1
SCO 1
Stateside
Wereham

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Fulham v Brentford
Burnley v Blackpool
Portsmouth v Bristol Rovers
Doncaster v Salford City
Southend v Oldham

HHHAH

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC

British long jumper Fincham-Dukes produced his best ever jump 8.06metres in the first round to take second place in the Long Jump. His jump was adjudged legal. He retained second place with that jump to win a Silver medal. Protests after the event led to his jump being reassessed as illegal as a tiny part of the toe of his shoe appeared to be over the take-off point. That jump was ruled out and only his second best jump was allowed to count so he went down to fifth.

Now imagine Real Madrid's goal after the game is re-scrutinised and officials decide to rule it out, they then go on to look at a disallowed Liverpool effort and decide it should have stood. Suddenly Real Madrid having become European champions 1-0 find they actually lost 0-1 and Liverpool are declared champions. Not only would there be riots, but also Real Madrid would protest that they would have played very differently had they known they were a goal down instead of one in front.

Certainly Fincham-Dukes lost at the very least his final jump because he jumped knowing the leading mark was 46 cm ahead of him, way beyond anyone else in the field's capabilities. Indeed once the gold medallist Tentoglu had demonstrated his massive superiority over the rest of the field every jumper other than Fincham-Dukes was straining to leap 8.07 rather than bridge the impossible gap to the leader. For his part Fincham-Dukes spent the whole competition under the misapprehension that he was in second place which surely might have affected his performance.

He has been cheated by over-officiousness and those who gained by protesting should be regarded as lacking in sportsmanship. If there is one important lesson we learn from sport, it is to take the rough with the smooth. Alternatively we can whine like five-year-olds, daddy that's not fair. His big toe was nearly in that nasty plasticiney bit.

A bit like Thomas Tuchel they need nowt so much as a mardy tablet.

British long jumper Fincham-Dukes produced his best ever jump 8.06metres in the first round to take second place in the Long Jump. His jump was adjudged legal. He retained second place with that jump to win a Silver medal. Protests after the event led to his jump being reassessed as illegal as a tiny part of the toe of his shoe appeared to over the take-off point. That jump was ruled out and only his second best jump was allowed to count so he went down to sixth.

Now imagine Real Madrid's goal after the game is re-scrutinised and officials decide to rule it out, they then go on to look at a disallowed Liverpool effort and decide it should have stood. Suddenly Real Madrid having become European champions 1-0 find they actually lost 0-1 and Liverpool are declared champions. Not only would there be riots, but also Real Madrid would protest that they would have played very differently had they known they were a goal down instead of one in front.

Certainly Fincham-Dukes lost at the very least his final jump because he jumped knowing the leading mark was 46 cm ahead of him, way beyond anyone else in the field's capabilities. Indeed one the gold medallist Tentoglu had demonstrated his massive superiority over the rest of the field every jumper other than Fincham-Dukes was straining to leap 8.07 rather than bridge the impossible gap to the leader. For his part Fincham-Dukes spent the whole competition under the misapprehension that he was in second place which surely might have affected his performance.

He has been cheated by over-officiousness and those who gained by protesting should be regarded as looking in sportsmanship. If there is one important lesson we learn from sport, it is to take the rough with the smooth. Alternatively we can whine like five-year-olds, daddy that's not fair.