Bowyer resigned at Charlton and joins Blues. From one basket case club to another. He could be getting his second championship relegation in two seasons.

THE MATCH

WEDNESDAY 17TH MARCH 7:45PM

v

LAST MATCH



Well we inevitably lost but at least put up a decent show in the first half before capitulating in the 2nd half. We got off to the perfect start when Rhodes finished coolly after the ball broke for him in the box. We had a few more chances with Reach & Harris but there keeper saved comfortably. Westwood had one shot to save which he did comfortably. Onto the 2nd and Norwich controlled the game and levelled when Puuki found space in the box and drilled it into the top corner. The winner came with 10 mins to go when Cantwell bent one in from the edge of the box after we lost possession. Pelupessy had a late chance but hit it straight at the keeper. That's 7 straight defeats as we head at high speed to League One

THE MATCH



Next up Huddersfield make the short journey to Hillsborough. The Village won there last game at QPR and now have a handy 9 point gap to our very selves. They should be safe as most teams below them are crap. They are managed by Carlos Corberan who was one of Bielsa's assistants at Leeds. They beat us 2-0 earlier in the season and will be another team trying to do the double over us, just like Rotherham, Luton & Norwich.

CURRENT FORM

OWLS               -                               

HUDDS             -                                                             

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

DAVID COOTE
Nick Hopton and James Mainwaring
Fourth Official : Peter Wright

THE TEAM

Apparently he plays 4231

Wilddmith
Palmer Lees Urhoghide Penney
Bannan Hutch
Harris Windass Reach
Rhodes

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-1 Rhodes

BML STANDINGS

Owlkev 12
Stateside 11
Washington 10
Pei 7
SCO 7
Imre 6
Wereham 5
Maddix 4

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Nottingham Forest v Norwich City
Queens Park Rangers v Millwall
Wycombe Wanderers v Barnsley
Birmingham City v Reading
Blackburn Rovers v Bristol City

AAAAH

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC

VENUE



LAST TIME OUT

MIDDLESBROUGH 3 STOKE CITY 0



BIT OF HISTORY

The Riverside Stadium is a football stadium in Middlesbrough, England, which has been the home of Middlesbrough since it opened in 1995. Its current capacity is 34,742,[4][5] all seated, although there is provisional planning permission in place to expand that to 42,000 if required.[1]

Been a few times decent ground possibly the seats need replacing had that slightly worn look last time I went although no one is using them at the moment.

HEAD TO HEAD

Our first league visit to Middlesbrough was 9/11/1901, first victory was five years later both gmes ended 2-1, our recent record against Boro is distincly average 1 win in the last 11 victories stretching over 50 years. Amazingly we have the change of our first double over Middlesbrough since 1971-72.
Just about on the fringes of the play offs under Colin and his trusty seconds Jeppers and Blackie good win on Saturday useful squad no with our ex Fisher.
You know what you get with Darnell, he wins the cheapest of fre kicks at the merest touch of the opponent, in a way sorries he gone but suspect we will never find out why?

FAMOUS MIDDLESBROUGH PEOPLE

Ernest William Hornung (7 June 1866 – 22 March 1921) was an English author and poet known for writing the A. J. Raffles series of stories about a gentleman thief in late 19th-century London. Hornung was educated at Uppingham School; as a result of poor health he left the school in December 1883 to travel to Sydney, where he stayed for two years. He drew on his Australian experiences as a background when he began writing, initially short stories and later novels.

In 1898 he wrote "In the Chains of Crime", which introduced Raffles and his sidekick, Bunny Manders; the characters were based partly on his friends Oscar Wilde and his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, and also on the characters of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, created by his brother-in-law, Arthur Conan Doyle. The series of Raffles short stories were collected for sale in book form in 1899, and two further books of Raffles short stories followed, as well as a poorly received novel. Aside from his Raffles stories, Hornung was a prodigious writer of fiction, publishing numerous books from 1890, with A Bride from the Bush to his 1914 novel The Crime Doctor.

The First World War brought an end to Hornung's fictional output. His son, Oscar, was killed at the Second Battle of Ypres in July 1915. Hornung joined the YMCA, initially in England, then in France, where he helped run a canteen and library. He published two collections of poetry during the war, and then, afterwards, one further volume of verse and an account of his time spent in France, Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western Front. Hornung's fragile constitution was further weakened by the stress of his war work. To aid his recuperation, he and his wife visited the south of France in 1921. He fell ill from influenza on the journey, and died on 22 March 1921, aged 54.

Although much of Hornung's work has fallen into obscurity, his Raffles stories continued to be popular, and have formed numerous film and television adaptations. Hornung's stories dealt with a wider range of themes than crime: he examined scientific and medical developments, guilt, class and the unequal role played by women in society. Two threads that run through a sizeable proportion of his books are Australia and cricket; the latter was also a lifelong passion.

2 points for a correct result
4 points for a correct score
2 points for each correct scorer
Correct joker doubles your score      
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.


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.

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.  

No Town game this week.  

Saturday 20th March:
Brentford v Nottingham Forest (12:30)
Barnsley v Sheffield Wednesday
Bristol City v Rotherham United
Coventry City v Wycombe Wanderers
Millwall v Middlesbrough
Norwich City v Blackburn Rovers
Preston North End v Luton Town
Reading v Queens Park Rangers
Stoke City v Derby County
Watford v Birmingham City
Swansea City v Cardiff City (17:30)

Bonus matches:
FA Cup 6th Rd:
Saturday:
AFC Bournemouth v Southampton (12:15)
Everton v Manchester City (17:30)

Sunday:
Chelsea v Sheffield United (13:30)
Leicester City v Manchester United (17:00)

Scottish Premiership:
Celtic v Rangers (12:00)

Table after Matchday 28:

1. Baggiebob(BBB) = 710 pts
   
2. jjamez = 705 pts
   
3. themaclad = 699 pts
   
4. theo_luddite = 688 pts
   
5. St Charles Owl = 660 pts
   
6. Lord Snooty = 654 pts
   
7. neonfoxinthebox = 641 pts
   
8. SHEP_HTAFC = 628 pts
   
9. ritchiebaby = 617 pts
   
10. Amelia Chaffinch = 532 pts
    
11. Beefy 1965 = 356 pts

Chesterfield 2-1 Sutton United
FC Halifax Town 1-0 Aldershot Town
King's Lynn Town 0-0 Hartlepool United
Stockport County 1-2 Barnet
Wrexham 3-0 Eastleigh
Boreham Wood 0-1 Notts County
Dagenham & Redbridge 1-1 Weymouth
Maidenhead United 0-0 Torquay United
Woking 1-2 Altrincham
Yeovil Town 2-0 Bromley

League Table After Matchday 36
Lord Snoots = 354
Amelia = 294
Spireitematt = 270
Dancing = 268
Devon = 246
St Charles = 226
BBB = 0

Where are the other 2 coming from (or 3 if we fail against Palace today).

We still need Newcastle and Fulham to collapse as well. But ignoring that for now...

Chelsea (a)
Southampton (h) - maybe
Leicester (a)
Villa (a)
Wolves (h) - maybe?
Arsenal (a)
Liverpool (h)
West Ham (h)
Leeds (a) - maybe?

After enough meanderings to make it thoroughly dizzy, Dancing`s “Can we do it” thread seems to have made its way onto the subject of ‘plastic’’ clubs and whether they should be held in contempt for being such. That`s an interesting question; well it interests me anyway, so can I put a hypothetical question out there for anyone who happens to stumble across this thread, whether you`re a Spireite or not, and ask for your honest opinion?

Suppose a multi-billionaire came along who happened to be a lifelong follower of your club – that could be the Spireites / Stags / Blades / Owls / Terriers or whatever; the name of the club doesn`t matter - and pumped enough money into it to allow it suddenly to reach heights it had never dreamed of before. In our case that would be the Premier League, in the case of United, Wednesday, Huddersfield etc that would probably be the Champions League. How would you feel about that? Would you be embarrassed by the fact that you had suddenly become a ‘plastic’ club and the object of resentment from others? Or would you be elated by your rise in status and determined to enjoy every second of the ride for as long as it lasted?

I`m asking the question in all seriousness and would be fascinated to hear all of your opinions.

West Brom have appointed Chris Brunt as academy coach, lets hope he can teach the youth, loyalty, dedication and how to be a real professional.

Almost one month after the postponement of this match, this is a chance for Hibs to apply a bit of "pay back" to John Hughes and his Staggies' side after that embarrassing defeat at ER Stadium. I reckon they have lost their best player, Ross Stewart, who was transferred to Sunderland AFC. However, they still appear to have a serious challenge in them esp when one considers that Celtic lost 1-0 in Dingwall albeit after "blowing away" so many goal opps in a really one-sided game of footie. So that doesn't augur well in the lead up to this match esp as Hibs have similarly "messed about" when it comes to the art of striking and ensuring a good result is attained after playing well and creating lotsa goal opps. Hibs are still in the 3rd place position in the Scot Prem and this is our "game in hand" plus we can "claw back" some pts on Celtic's second place position. Will Hibs "blow it"? I reckon they will probably do exactly that. But their away form is good and surely some of these players must have some motivation to perform well? My problem is I just don't know what Hibs team will "show up" for this match. Of course, I don't have any great trust/belief in Jack Ross any more. Another question I'd like to ask is, "Are some of our players affected by COVID and the lockdown effects"? I'm just trying to figure out the reasons why they are so erratic in form!?

GGTTH