The Proclaimers will be singing at full time again.

Oh it's the most wonderful time of the year... according to some. Depends on how you look at it if you ask me. But the one thing that always sticks out is the boxing day fixtures and it is quite often one of the first people look for when the fixtures come out. So imagine the disappointment when it was announced that port vale would be following Santa to town. Nothing against port vale as a team or non existent place, but a festive fixture against a team closer in proximity or more rivalry always feels better, especially for a festive atmosphere.

So anyway, port vale come on boxing day sitting bottom of the league, 7 points adrift, with vale fans planning chants against Darren Moore's management. Something we are all too familiar with, that being said the former Wednesday man should never have been offered the opportunity to be at the helm of the terriers. Moore had a disastrous spell in charge of town and saw himself relieved of his duties at the end of January leaving andre breitenriter to have the displeasure of taking town down. Mr Moore wasn't out of a job for too long as port vale snapped him up quickly in the February and he begun the job of rebuilding their side, firstly by taking them down to league two, so kudos to the man, he managed two relegations in one season, bet that hasn't happened much. He did manage the valiants to an immediate promotion back to the third tier thanks in large to the goals from Lorent tolaj. they begun the season with a full squad overhaul, signing 12 new players, but lost the key man of tolaj to Plymouth for an undisclosed fee and have found him to be a massive miss. In his place vale brought in former Barnsley striker devante cole from his failed spell at west brom, many town fans clamoured for us to sign him under Michael duff last season but all eggs were in certain striking baskets, Cole son of Andy, has 5 goals in all competitions which puts him in fairly decent comparison to our strikers, which is saying something considering where they currently sit in the league. Vale also signed long throw expert Jordan Gabriel from Blackpool and former Wednesday player Marvin Johnson both on freebies, although good players for this level, their fitness records leave much to be desired, something our transfer team enjoys capitalising on.

The last time the two sides met was back in 2017 when David Wagner's terriers hosted vale in the fa cup. Town ran out comfortable 4-0 victors over vale with goals from little jack Payne sandwiching strikers from Kasey Palmer and Harry Bunn (no bread pun intended), town would go on to be knocked out of the cup in a replay against Manchester city, the league campaign we know how that ended. Theres a further 3 other meetings between the sides, all in cup action, before we get to the last league meeting, two fa cup ties and a league cup tie, town won in the league cup 4-2 thanks to a lee Novak brace, whilst Nathan Clarke scored the only goal of the fa cup tie the season prior, both with lee Clark at the helm, the other fa cup tie finished 4-3 to vale at the galpharm, in what was towards the end of Stan ternants tenure. The last league meeting was a boring 0-0 draw which condemned port vale to relegation. Overall town have 19 victories over the stoke based side, with 11 draws and 18 defeats, so fairly even, hopefully not so on Friday.

For team news, the lesser spotted Marcus mcguane is returning to training shortly. Herbie Kane has been filmed trying to fight someone on a night out drinking, but he took could be in line for a return to the squad

Nice article here which DOES give me a lot of hope....
Mason backed by West Brom sporting director Nestor - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/art...09g2gn7w9o

Leaves the Kassam potted

[align=center]What better way to work off the half a ton of food you've eaten the day before, go to the ground nesstling on the mountain slopes near the A500/A50 in that most wonderous of cities on the planet, Stoke, luckily at this time of year it is mostly dark so you will miss the beauty of the Potteries
They have started the season well, although appear to have it a patchy bit of form, first time I went to the Bet 365 was a Boxing Day 1998 won 1-0 Michael Jackson was blowing a gale that day

https://www.stokecityfc.com/

MANAGER

Mark Gordon Robins (born 22 December 1969) is an English football manager and former player who is the manager of EFL Championship club Stoke City. As a player, he was a striker and is best known for his time in the Premier League with Manchester United, Norwich City and Leicester City.

Robins began his career with Manchester United. During this period, he scored a goal against Nottingham Forest in a 1989–90 FA Cup tie that has subsequently been credited with "saving" manager Alex Ferguson's job at Old Trafford. After spending time with Norwich and Leicester, Robins went on to play for Reading, Manchester City, Walsall, Rotherham United, Bristol City and Sheffield Wednesday in the Football League. Robins also played across Europe during spells with Copenhagen, Ourense, and Panionios before finishing his career with Burton Albion in the Conference National.

In 2007, he became manager of Rotherham United, and joined Barnsley in the same capacity in 2009, before leaving in 2011, following differences between him and the board. In 2012, he became manager of Coventry City until 2013 when he joined Huddersfield Town. Robins left Huddersfield Town in 2014 by mutual agreement. A few months later he became manager of Scunthorpe United before leaving in 2016.

In March 2017, Robins rejoined Coventry City and a few months later won the EFL Trophy. In the 2017–18 season, Robins won the EFL League Two play-offs with the Sky Blues and were promoted to League One. After a solid eighth placed finish in League One in the 2018–19 season, Robins led Coventry to promotion to the EFL Championship as League One Champions in the 2019–20 season. He followed that up by guiding Coventry to a respectable 16th placed finish in the Championship in the 2020–21 season, and further improved upon this with a 12th placed finish in the 2021–22 season. In the 2022–23 season, Robins led Coventry to a fifth place finish in the Championship, qualifying for promotion play-offs. Coventry City met Luton Town at Wembley in the final, where they ultimately lost on penalties. In the 2023–24 season saw Robins lead Coventry to reach the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the first time since 1987, where they lost to his former club Manchester United. Robins left Coventry in November 2024 and later was appointed manager of Stoke City in January 2025.


Attribution Timmy 96

Form



Stats Fotmob

STOKE 3 PNE 13

Sorba Thomas 8 goals 6 assists having a more than decent season

AI overview

Team Form and Context
Preston North End is currently in better form, sitting higher in the league table (5th vs 8th for Stoke) and are on an unbeaten run of five league matches with two wins and three draws. They have one of the best defensive records in the league.
Stoke City are in a challenging period, having lost four of their last five Championship matches. However, they possess a strong home record this season, which is expected to be a key factor in the AI's prediction for a home victory.
The match will be played at the bet365 Stadium and is expected to attract one of Stoke's highest crowds of the season.


Stoke culture

Christ Church is an Anglican church in Tunstall, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England. It is the parish church of Goldenhill and Tunstall; the combined parish, which is an Anglo-Catholic parish, was created in 2010.[1] It is a Grade II listed building.[2]



Attributed to Attic Tapestry

THE MATCH

FRIDAY 26TH DECEMBER KO 3PM

v

LAST MATCH



Despite a spirited display we went down to defeat at Portman Road. We had a chance to take the lead but J Lowe's shot was cleared off the line. Ipswich came into the game and had a few chances before taking the lead when Kipre headed in from a corner. 1-0 at the break. Onto the 2nd half and Ipswich started on the front foot, Charles making a save from Azon before Philogene made it 2-0 on the hour mark. We got back into the game Liam Cooper got his first goal for the club after Ipswich failed to clear a free kick. Any ideas of a point were extinguished when Clarke picked up the ball and finished past Charles.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Next up and our first home Boxing Day fixture in nearly a decade as Hull make the short journey to Hillsborough. The Tigers are having a excellent season and currently lie in 4th place in the Championship, whether they can keep that form going is another matter, but with this Championship being pretty poor they have good a chance as anybody else. They are managed by Sergej Jakirović, who took charge in June this year, after being in charge of seven clubs around Europe in his early managerial career. There leading score this season is Gelhardt with 10 goals and 2 assists, they also have former Blunt Ollie McBurnie on the boks.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 24
HULL 17
DRAW 20

CURRENT FORM

OWLS     L L D L L L                                                          

HULL W W W L W L

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

Referee: Stephen Martin
Assistant Referees: Mark Dwyer, David Harrison
Fourth Official: Anthony Backhouse

THE TEAM

Charles
Palmer Cooper Iorfa M Lowe Amass
J Lowe Ingelsson Bannan
McNeill Cadamarteri

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-2 McNeill

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

56

ATTENDANCE

28786

BML LEAGUE

Owlkev 12
Maddix 8
Imre 7
SCO 4
Washington 4

BMPL

Stateside 7
Pei -2
Wereham -11
Southey -12

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Man Utd v Newcastle
Wrexham v Sheff Utd
Stockport v Lincoln
Chesterfield v Notts Co
Hartlepool v Scunthorpe

AADDA

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE

Group A

Stairs 15
Zimnan 14
A.A.A. 13
B.B.B. 13
BaggieVicar 11
Minizin 8
BaggieOne 1
Twerton 0

An average week in Group A this week, and I am not just saying that for effect, the actual average score in Group A so far this season is 75, and this week saw 75 points scored!!! It was also an average week for the Gamball as well with just one player scoring positive points on it, but the Bonus was distinctly above average with a total of 18 points coming from it!!

Stairs leads the scoring this week for the 4th time this season with 15 points. He was the only player to manage 2 CSs, including a max on the Gamball. Right behind him is Zinman with 14 points, he too scored a max on the Bonus and this weeks points sees him as the 2nd highest scorer over the past 5 weeks! The top player over the past 5 weeks is AAA, who is joint 3rd this week with BBB. Both of them scored 13 points, both of them had one CS but AAA scored on 5 games whereas BBB only scored on 4, the difference being the Gamball where BBB was the only player to score points on it.

BaggieVicar is 5th with 11 points, he played his Gamball this week and of course promptly got it wrong!! League leader Minizin had an off week in 6th with 8 points, he had one CS and a CR on the Bonus. BaggieOne's single point sees his mediocre form continue, he has only averaged 6 points per week over the last 10 weeks.

Twerton is obviously posting his scores while riding Nemesis at Alton Towers, over the last 4 weeks he has finished first then last then first and now last again!!!

196 Minizin
181 Stairs
168 A.A.A.
159 BaggieOne
154 Twerton
148 BaggieVicar
139 B.B.B.
135 Zinman

Minizin's lead drops to 15 points from Stairs, who in turn is now only 13 points ahead of our new 3rd place player in AAA. B1 and Twerton are mid-table and being chased by the Vicar. BBB and Zinman stay the bottom 2 but they are closer to the rest after this week.

Cheers
SCO

Group B

Snooty 11
4eva 11
SCO 10
Derby 7
Lady Jane 5
Themaclad 4
Salop 3
Amelia 0

I'm always nervous when most players pick the same result for the gamball as it suggests that I've chosen a very predictable match. This week saw 7 players predict an away win and one a draw.....so the inevitable home win for Bristol City saw a complete wipe out on the gamball, the first time that's happened this season. Fortunately the bonus ball had one of its better weeks, actually producing a positive total to leave the week's performance just slightly below average for Group B. QPR's win against Leicester produced a negative total though at least one player scored on that game - ironically that player didn't get a lot else right.

3 players made double figures - just - with Snooty, back from his week off, and 4eva sharing top spot with 11 points and SCO lagging a point further back. All 3 got 4 correct predictions with 1 correct score (the only 3 correct scores this week). Snooty scored a maximum from his bonus while 4eva was the only 1 of the 3 to pick up the scoreball point.

Derby continued to struggle with correct scores but a rare correct bonus, finally breaking a 6 week run, was enough to secure 4th place. Lady Jane and Themaclad both equalled the leaders' 4 correct results but without a correct score, scoring 5 and 4 points respectively with LJ's scoreball being the difference. Salop's poor run continued - his 5th consecutive week of failing to reach double figures but he's kept off the foot of the table by Amelia who scored on just 2 games and missed out on all the balls to give her nothing for the week's efforts.

183 4eva
141 SCO
129 Snooty
127 Lady Jane
121 Themaclad
118 Amelia
113 Derby
101 Salop

The top 2 managed to stretch their lead with 4eva now 42 points clear at the top. There were a few positional changes below the top 2 with Snooty moving ahead of Lady Jane and Themaclad taking advantage of Amelia's bad week to climb to 5th. Salop remains at the foot of the table but he has managed to climb above the 100 point mark.

A quick note that this week's fixtures include matches on Friday (Boxing Day) so please don't leave your predictions to Saturday morning unless you're in Group A where I need all the help I can get!

Zin


Both Zin and I wish everyone a Merry Christmas, see you on Boxing day!!

Gamball:
Millwall - Ipswich

Others:
Man Utd - Newcastle
Norwich - Charlton
Portsmouth - QPR
Stoke - Preston
WBA - Bristol City
Wrexham - Sheff Utd
Brentford - Bournemouth
West Ham - Fulham
Chelsea - Aston Villa

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 21:

1. Baggiebob(BBB) = 390 pts
   
2. jjamez = 374 pts
   
3. neonfoxinthebox = 317 pts
   
4. ritchiebaby = 288 pts
   
5. Lord Snooty = 287 pts
   
6. SHEP_HTAFC = 137 pts
   

Friday 26th December (all 15:00 kick offs):
League One:
Town v Port Vale
Town scorers:
Vale scorers:

AFC Wimbledon v Stevenage
Barnsley v Mansfield Town
Blackpool v Doncaster Rovers
Bolton Wanderers v Rotherham United
Bradford City v Wigan Athletic
Burton Albion v Northampton Town

Saturday 27th December:
Scottish Premiership:
Hibernian v Hearts (12:30)

Monday 29th December (all 19:45 kick offs):
Championship:
West Bromwich Albion v Queens Park Rangers

League One:
Town v Northampton
Town scorers:
Northampton scorers:

AFC Wimbledon v Exeter City
Barnsley v Lincoln City
Blackpool v Rotherham United
Bolton Wanderers v Mansfield Town
Bradford City v Port Vale
Burton Albion v Wigan Athletic
Cardiff City v Stevenage
Luton Town v Leyton Orient
Peterborough United v Reading
Plymouth Argyle v Wycombe Wanderers
Stockport County v Doncaster Rovers

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

1. theo_luddite = 341 pts
   
2. themaclad = 339 pts
   
3. Devongone = 324 pts
   
4. St Charles Owl = 302 pts
   
5. WakeyTerrier = 261 pts
   
6. Amelia Chaffinch = 252 pts
   

Friday 26th December (all 15:00 kick offs):
League One:
Town v Port Vale
Town scorers:
Vale scorers:

Cardiff City v Exeter City
Luton Town v Wycombe Wanderers
Peterborough United v Leyton Orient
Plymouth Argyle v Reading
Stockport County v Lincoln City

Monday 29th December (all 19:45 kick offs):
Championship:
Sheffield Wednesday v Blackburn Rovers
Wrexham v Preston North End

League One:
Town v Northampton
Town scorers:
Northampton scorers:

AFC Wimbledon v Exeter City
Barnsley v Lincoln City
Blackpool v Rotherham United
Bolton Wanderers v Mansfield Town
Bradford City v Port Vale
Burton Albion v Wigan Athletic
Cardiff City v Stevenage
Luton Town v Leyton Orient
Peterborough United v Reading
Plymouth Argyle v Wycombe Wanderers
Stockport County v Doncaster Rovers

League Two:
Chesterfield v Cambridge United

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