Neil Harris has been reappointed as head coach of Cambridge United on a two-and-a-half-year contract.

Harris was in charge of the U's for just over two months during the 2023-24 season before leaving in February 2024 to take over at Millwall for a second time.

The 47-year-old, who left The Den in December, has replaced Garry Monk after his exit on Sunday.

Cambridge, who are bottom of League One and eight points from safety, have also announced the return of former boss Mark Bonner as director of football.

The club's majority owner, Paul Barry, said: "This has been a challenging season which has not gone as any of us would have hoped. There have been lessons for all of us to learn.

"Clearly, Neil left us in a unique set of circumstances last season and we all feel there is unfinished business for him at Cambridge United.

"He made a significant impact at the club over a short period last season. He is a winner and his track record as a head coach speaks for itself."

Harris, who is Millwall's all-time top goalscorer and oversaw their promotion to the Championship in 2017, also managed Cardiff and Gillingham prior to his brief stint with the U's.

At that time, he took over from Bonner, who spent several years on Cambridge's coaching staff before becoming manager in 2020 and guiding them to the runners-up spot in League Two a year later.

Bonner, whose eight-month spell as Gillingham boss came to an end in January, has been tasked with leading an ongoing review of football operations at Cambridge.

Barry added: "Mark knows the club inside out - its strengths, its culture and values, and also the areas that we must seek to improve.

"He is an exceptional individual and we believe his leadership, strategic thinking and deep understanding of the game can make him an outstanding director of football for us over the long term."

AFC Fylde have confirmed they have parted company with manager Kevin Phillips "by mutual consent" with the club locked in a relegation battle.

The former Sunderland and England striker took over at the National League outfit in October after spells in the dugout at South Shields and Hartlepool United.

But after a disappointing run of just five wins in 18 league outings, the 51-year-old leaves with Fylde in 22nd place, a point adrift of safety.

Fylde were promoted to the National League as National League North champions in 2022-23 before finishing five points above the relegation zone last season in 18th place.

Current assistant coach David Longwell is to take charge of the team on an interim basis until a permanent replacement is found.

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

THE MATCH

FRIDAY 21ST FEBRUARY KO 8PM

v

LAST MATCH



We handed Coventry all 3 points after a major blunder by Beadle and ourselves not taking our chances. We started brightly and had a few chance, but Coventry scored with the first chance, Simms heading in from close range. We continued to have chances but couldn't find the net. Onto the 2nd half and it was still us looking the most likely, but it would be a Coventry player to score next, thankfully into his own net. We chased the win with Johnson going close and a couple of penalty appeals turned down. Then just as the game looked to be heading for a draw, Beadle dropped a straightforward cross and Simms got the ball and fired into the empty net.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Next up and we travel across the Pennines to take on Burnley. Burnley are having a very good season and currently lie in 3rd place, five points off the automatic spots. The reason they are in 3rd and not the autos, is that they have drawn too many games (14) despite having the best defence in the league which has conceded just 9 goals, which is the best in Europe. If they can find there goalscoring boots they should have a chance of the autos. They are managed by Scott Parker who has been in charge since the summer. There leading scorer is Brownhill with 9 goals and 4 assists.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 39
BURN 44
DRAW 20

CURRENT FORM

OWLS  L W L D W D                                                                      

BURN D W W D D W             

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

STEPHEN MARTIN
Mark Dwyer and Carl Fitch-Jackson
Fourth Official: Lewis Smith

THE TEAM

Beadle
Palmer Bernard Iorfa Johnson
Bannan Ingelsson
Musaba Windass Gasama
Smith

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-1 Gassama

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

26

ATTENDANCE

N/A

BML LEAGUE

Imre 22
SCO 21
Maddix 21
Washington 20
Wereham 12

BMPL

Stateside 15
Owlkev 13
Southey 12
Pei 8

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Southampton v Brighton
Plymouth v Cardiff
Rotherham v Barnsley
Accrington v Doncaster
York v Halifax

AHAAH

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC

roup A

Twerton 9
Amelia 8
Themaclad 7
Minizin 4
Zinman 4
A.A.A. -3

So after the highs of last week where some season long records were beaten Group A this week came right back down to Earth with a bang!! One of the lowest totals of the season and no one reached double figures!! Twerton leads the way with 9 points, there were only 5 CSs this week in total and Twerton got 2 of them. Like everyone else he got the Gamball wrong and in his case missed on the Bonus as well. Amelia is in 2nd spot with 8 points, bit of a nose bleed position for her recently but it was virtually all done on the back of a spot on Bonus. Themaclad rounds out the top 3 a further point back on 7 points, he was the only other player to get any points on the Bonus.

The Zins were joint 5th on 4 points and the got their exactly the same way - missed on all three balls, has one CS and little else!! AAA had an almost complete disaster, he got all 10 matches wrong, missed on his Bonus and Scoreball and if it wasn't for his wise decision not to play the Gamball he would have been even lower. His -3 was a season low for him and also the worst score by anyone so far this season!!

242 Themaclad
233 Minzin
223 Zinman
219 Twerton
179 A.A.A.
168 Amelia

So again, not positional changes and not much else going on with the table. Themaclad stretched his lead over Minizin a bit to 9 points and Twerton closed to within 4 points of Zinman. Amelia is now closer to AAA than she has been for weeks, a nice 11 point swing will do that!!

Just a little focus on the Bonus Ball use in Group A this week. Its always been a tough one to play and the jeopardy is harsh so getting it wrong makes a dent. So far we have had 138 BBs played, just 16 of them (11%) have been spot on to grab the full 6 points and only 38 (28%) have been a correct result. This means that 61% of them have been incorrect and while that is a bit ahead of the Gamball (65% wrong), the Bonus is a ball that each player gets to choose which game to play it on rather than the tricky games Zinman forces on us for the Gamball!! So its a fair assumption that players pick the match they are the most confident in what they are predicting and still get it completely wrong 6 times out of 10 picks!!! If we ever see someone who can actually do well on the Bonus, I would bet they would walk away with the title!!

Group B

BBB 11
BaggieOne 7
Derby 4
Lady Jane 3
SCO 3
Stairs 0
Snooty -1

So it appears that last week's high scores were a one-off as this week saw a reversion to previous form. Just 27 points scored across the group - the 3rd worst performance of the season. for the fifth time (and twice in the last 3 weeks) the bonus ball was a total wipe out - 7 incorrect predictions out of 7! What makes this stat worse was the fact that no single game attrated more than 2 bonus balls so it wasn't as though just 1 banker let everyone down.

Just one player scraped into double figures - take a bow BBB. He was the only player to score on the gamball and also got 2 correct scores to sit at the top of the week's table. BaggieOne takes 2nd place, matching BBB's 4 correct predictions but, like everyone else, missing out on the two major balls. Derby scrambles into 3rd place with just 4 points, with Lady Jane and SCogether a point behind. Lady Jane did get half of her correct predictions spot on but before she gets excited, there were only 2 of them. SCO got one more correct result but failed to nail a correct score.

Stairs had a poor week, just 2 correct predictions and a wipe out on his balls. Snotty bettered Lady Jane, getting 100% of his predictions spot on.....or 1 out of 10. He's sent into negative figures by planting his score ball on a nil-nil game.

217 Lady Jane
200 SCO
195 Derby
195 Stairs
172 Snooty
172 BBB
147 BaggieOne

Lady Jane's recent form would suggest she doesn't want to get into the play-offs - just 36 points in the last 7 weeks. Unfortunately it looks like everyone has the same plan as she still has a comfortable lead of 17 points over SCO in 2nd place who at least managed to crawl his way to 200 points this week. Derby climbed level with Stairs in 3rd place while BBB also drew level with Snooty in 5th.

BBB had mentioned consecutive weeks of ball failure s I thought I'd take a look for Group B.
For the Gamball it's Stairs with 8 consective weeks of failing to score on it (the first 8 weeks of the season). BaggieOne also managed 7 weeks.
The bonus has BaggieOne with 7 failures in a row.
BBB will be glad to see that he does appear in one of the worst runs - for the scoreball. He hasn't scored on it for the last 6 weeks...well not strictly correct, he did get a minus 1 during that run!

As for Group B's bonus balls, only 9% of them have been spot on but this Group has outperformed Group A on correct bonus predictions with a total of 31% - so that's a 40% positive prediction on a ball that's played on a game of the player's choice! Still better than the gamball which shows a positive prediction rate of 30%.

Fleetwood 2-1 Wimbledon
Morecambe 1-1 Doncaster
Notts C 1-0 Colchester

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 6:

1. neonfoxinthebox = 107 pts
   
2. jjamez = 94 pts
   
3. Baggiebob(BBB) = 75 pts
   
4. St Charles Owl = 67 pts
   
5. Lord Snooty = 65 pts
   
6. themaclad = 64 pts
   

Saturday February 22nd:
Town v Peterborough
Town scorers:
Posh scorers:

Reading v Birmingham City (12:30)
Blackpool v Crawley Town
Bolton Wanderers v Leyton Orient
Shrewsbury Town v Stevenage

Sunday February 23rd:
Mansfield Town v Wrexham (15:00)

Tuesday February 25th:
Wigan v Town
Town scorers:
Wigan scorers:

Northampton Town v Barnsley

Bonus matches:
Championship:
Friday:
Burnley v Sheffield Wednesday (20:00)

Saturday:
Coventry City v Preston North End
West Bromwich Albion v Oxford United

Sunday:
Premier League:
Newcastle United v Nottingham Forest (14:00)

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

1. ritchiebaby = 122 pts
   
2. Devongone = 107 pts
   
3. SHEP_HTAFC = 106 pts
   
4. theo_luddite = 96 pts
   
5. Amelia Chaffinch = 77 pts
   
6. WakeyTerrier = 69 pts
   

Saturday February 22nd:
Town v Peterborough
Town scorers:
Posh scorers:

Rotherham United v Barnsley (12:30)
Cambridge United v Stockport County
Charlton Athletic v Exeter City
Lincoln City v Burton Albion
Northampton Town v Bristol Rovers
Wycombe Wanderers v Wigan Athletic

Tuesday February 25th:
Wigan v Town
Town scorers:
Wigan scorers:

Birmingham City v Leyton Orient

Bonus matches:
Saturday:
Scottish Premiership:
Hibernian v Celtic (12:30)

League Two:
Swindon Town v Chesterfield

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

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

Gamball:
Everton - Man Utd

Others:
Ipswich - Spurs
Fulham - Crystal Palace
Villa - Chelsea
Derby - Millwall
Plymouth - Cardiff
Portsmouth - QPR
Swansea - Blackburn
Newcastle - Forest
Man City - Liverpool