Gone from the first round afterwards, the soft tossers at the top of the money league get their way

First-round draw:

Luca Brecel v David Gilbert

Robert Milkins v Pang Junxu

Ali Carter v Stephen Maguire

Shaun Murphy v Lyu Haotian

Mark Selby v Joe O'Connor

Kyren Wilson v Dominic Dale

John Higgins v Jamie Jones

Mark Allen v Robbie Williams

Judd Trump v Hossein Vafaei

Tom Ford v Ricky Walden

Zhang Anda v Jak Jones

Mark Williams v Si Jiahui

Ding Junhui v Jack Lisowski

Gary Wilson v Stuart Bingham

Barry Hawkins v Ryan Day

Ronnie O'Sullivan v Jackson Page

The World Seniors for both Men and Women are being played in Östersund, Sweden from 20 to 27 April and are being run in conjunction with the World Mixed Doubles event.

There are 25 Men's teams, including those from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, split into 4 Groups. England are represented by Guy Topping, Peter Topping, Peter Alexander and Chris Kerr with John Brown as Alternate. Ireland have Bill Gray, David Whyte, Neil Fyfe and Ross Barr with Johnjo Kenny as Alternate. Scotland's team is Hammy McMillan (father of Hammy junior), Murray McWilliam, John Agnew and Gerald Baillie and Wales' hopes are carried by Andrew Tanner, Richard Pougher, Alistair Reid and George Fyffe.

Scotland being presented with the Scottish Seniors Trophy


The Women's event consists of 18 teams in 3 Groups. They include England's team of Manon Harsch, Angela Wilcox, Helen Forbes and Deborah Higgins, the latter two being members of my local ice rink, while Ireland have Dale Sinclair, Bernie Gillett, Nina Clancy (also from my local rink) and Louise Kerr. Scotland have Karen Kennedy, Gail Thomson, Alison Cunningham, Gillian King and Alternate, Sheila Kennedy.

The England team after qualifying for the Worlds

Scotland with the Scottish Seniors Trophy


More photos to come after I find them.

Onward, onward rode the five hundred, into the valley of death they thundered (apologies to Manfred Mann)

Our final five fixtures are as follows:

5 - Saturday 27 April, 2024 – St Johnstone (A) – 3pm kick-off

4 - Saturday 4 May, 2024 – Ross County (A) – 3pm kick-off

3 - Sunday 12 May, 2024 – Aberdeen (H) – 3pm kick-off

2 - Wednesday 15 May, 2024 – Motherwell (H) – 7.45pm kick-off

1 - Sunday 19 May, 2024 – Livingston (A) – 3pm kick-off

Not quite 500 miles to travel in the next month, but it will be the valley of death if we don't get a grip and show how good we can be. Each of these teams, even surely-relegated Livingston, will be keen to prove they are better than us and our form gives them every reason to believe.

Rotherham United have reappointed Stevenage boss Steve Evans as manager after sacking Leam Richardson.

The Millers parted company with Richardson on Wednesday morning, two weeks after their relegation to League One was confirmed.

Evans led the South Yorkshire side from League Two up to the Championship in his first spell in charge between 2012 and 2015.

The Scot and assistant Paul Raynor have signed three-year deals.

"Leam's departure was not something we took lightly, but following extensive conversations at board level, it was unanimously agreed that a change of direction was needed to give us the best possible chance of bouncing back to the Championship at the first time of asking," chairman Tony Stewart told the club website.

"In Steve and Paul, we have two individuals that understand the Rotherham United 'DNA' and know what it takes to build a successful team. They have a proven track record of success at a plethora of clubs, including our own."

The 61-year-old becomes Rotherham's third manager of what has been a dismal campaign.

Matt Taylor was sacked in November and replaced by former Wigan boss Richardson the following month, by which time the team had slipped to the foot of the table, a position they remained in for the entirety of his tenure.

Relegation was confirmed with a 1-0 home defeat by Plymouth on 5 April and they lost their following two games at West Brom and Swansea, as Richardson won just two of 24 games in charge.

They host Birmingham City on Saturday in their penultimate home game of the season.

Evans makes Rotherham return after Stevenage success
Evans leaves Stevenage after two highly successful years in charge in Hertfordshire.

He kept Boro up in League Two at the end of 2021-22 and then, improbably, guided them to automatic promotion last season.

They spent much of this campaign battling for a play-off spot in the third tier but Saturday's home defeat by Burton all-but ended their top-six hopes.

Stevenage chairman Phil Wallace said Evans was leaving with the club "totally different" to how it had been two years ago.

"It's not what we wanted, but compensation clauses are in place for a reason and these things happen in football," he told the club website.

"The approach was unexpected but handled in the right manner by both clubs and we told Steve that, after all he'd done for our club, we would not stand in his way if the compensation terms were met and he wanted to leave."

Evans now returns to a club he led to back-to-back promotions from League Two to the Championship between 2012 and 2014.

He successfully kept the club up the following season but left in October 2015.

Spells with Leeds, Mansfield, Peterborough and Gillingham followed before he took over at Stevenage in March 2022.

As well as his three promotions in the EFL he also guided both Boston United and Crawley Town up to the Football League.

Evans can turn back the clock at Rotherham - Analysis
BBC Radio Sheffield Sports manager Rob Staton

Steve Evans' last spell at Rotherham was extremely successful. He led the Millers to back-to-back promotions, including a play-off final victory at Wembley, then took on the big boys — recording famous wins at the New York Stadium against Leeds, Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday.

He signed several players who went on to become club favourites and it wasn't unusual to see Evans on the balcony in the directors area, celebrating a big win, often swinging his tie around his head.

He knows the club, the area and the chairman and he rejoins having done a superb job at Stevenage.

In a way that's what the Millers need now — someone who can come in and put a team on the pitch to get results. If he can do that with Stevenage, there's no doubt Evans will back himself to turn back the clock at Rotherham — where expectations will be to push for promotion next season.

Premier League

Lady J 13
Zinman 2
B.B.B. 1
Derby -1
Minizin -2
Stairs -2

Well where do you start with this one?? For starters we can now safely claim to have reached new depths in terms of the ability of our performance as a group with this weeks scoring coming in as the lowest total of the season!! The balls were a disaster, all bar one missed on the Gamball, everyone missed on the Bonus and only two scored the extra point on the Scoreball!! When you add only 4 correct scores, of which one person got two of them, and only 6 correct results out of the 60 games predicted on then you can start to see why this week was pitiful!!

The one exception to all this is Lady Jane, she got a spot on Gamball and managed 2 correct scores!! In the end she scored 13 points, and because of all the negative scores she scored individually more than the whole division scored!!! Her dominance this week over every other player means I am giving her a paragraph of her own and not talking about anybody else!!

Zinman's poor form continued but remarkably his pathetic 2 points sees him take 2nd place this week!!! I really have nothing more to add to this and it just goes further downhill from here!! BBB is 3rd with one point and then Derby comes in with minus 1 point. Minizin and Stairs should be thankful I am even mentioning them with their -2 each!! Three of these players set season worst totals!!

355 Zinman
334 Derby
334 BBB
333 Minizin
306 Stairs
267 Lady Jane

Not much change in the scores means not much change in the table, Zinman actually increased his lead as BBB moves joint second and Minizin moved down to 4th place and that's about your lot!!

Cheers
SCO


Championship

AAA 9
Snooty 8
SCO 6
BaggieOne 5
Sanjay 3
Themaclad 1
Twerton 0

Well it was better than last week - just! Once again nobody reached double figures though everyone avoided a minus. For the second week running the balls were a disaster - just 1 correct gamball, one bonus and a total ball score of -16, one better than last week!

AAA tops the table with 9 points but he missed the chance to close the gap for the play off place by not playing the gamball which, of course, he got spot on missing out on 4 extra points. He was though the only player to get his bonus right. A point back is Snooty who scored on 4 games including the gamball but couldn't find any correct scores. Playing his bonus by forecasting a heavy Huddersfield defeat didn't help him. Also scoring on 4 games was SCO. In his case he also got one correct score but missed out on all his balls to end with just 6 points.

BaggieOne got 100% of his correct results spot on, but as there were only 2 of them (and neither were the gamball or bonus) he only amassed 5 points, 2 better than Sanjay. Themaclad avoided zero points by virtue of the scoreball point leaving Twerton at the foot of the week's table. Like BaggieOne, he didn't bother with any 2 point games, turning all of his correct predictions into correct scores. When I say 'all', I mean just 1 with the 4 points wiped out by his negative gamball and bonus.

340 SCO
327 Twerton
309 Snooty
299 AAA
290 Themaclad
276 BaggieOne
234 Sanjay

No change in the overall positions again with SCO stretching his lead at the top to 13 points.

Zin

THE MATCH

SUNDAY 20TH APRIL KO 12:30PM

v

LAST MATCH



We could only manage a draw in a game we had to win, with other teams finding ways to win against teams chasing promotion. We started on the front foot, Ugbo having a shot saved, Smith then hit the bar and then Smith scored but was judged to have fouled (wrongly imo, but this is the EFL ). We tapered off but went in 0-0 at HT. Onto the 2nd half and Stoke were more of a threat but it was us that took the lead, Palmer firing in as the ball dropped to him. But we couldn't hang on and Stoke equalised when Cundle had too much space down the right and finished well. We did have a late chance but a Stoke defender cleared off the line.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

THE MATCH



Next up and the shortish trip to Blackburn. Blackburn had great result last weekend, going to Leeds and winning 0-1, giving them a 5 point gap to the relegation zone. Although not mathematically
safe, if they beat us they will probably be safe for another season. The scorer for them against Leeds was Szmodics, who has scored 30 goals this season, 24 in the league, if they do stay up will they be able to keep hold of him? They are managed by John Eustace, who took charge in February this year, after Jon Dahl Tomasson left by mutual consent.

DEJPHON CHANSIRI, GET OUT OF OUR CLUB    

ALL TIME H2H

OWLS 61
BLACK 57
DRAWS 39

CURRENT FORM

OWLS              -                                                               

BLACK -                                         

EFL STOOGES

DOES IT MATTER THERE ALL CORRUPT  

JOSH SMITH
Nigel Lugg and Mark Russell
Fourth Official: Jeremy Simpson

THE TEAM

Beadle
Palmer Ihiekwe Bernard Johnson
Musaba M Diaby Vaulks Bannan Gassama
Ugbo

SCORE & SCORER (HOME TEAM SCORE FIRST)

1-2 Ugbo

WEDNESDAYS FIRT GOAL TIME

26

ATTENDANCE

N/A

BML LEAGUE

Imre 23
Maddix 21
Washington 19
Owlkev 13
SCO 12

BMPL

Wereham 12
Stateside 6
Pei -2
Southey -12

OTHER GAMES OF MILD INTEREST

Everton v Nottingham Forest
Aston Villa v AFC Bournemouth
Crystal Palace v West Ham United
Fulham v Liverpool
Middlesbrough v Leeds United

HHHAD

THE MUPPETT LEAGUE




KATE BECKINSALE TRIBUTE PIC

Gamball:
Huddersfield - Swansea

Others:
Luton - Brentford
Sheff U - Burnley
Leicester - WBA
Cardiff - Southampton
Stoke - Plymouth
Watford - Hull
QPR - Preston
Everton - Forest
Crystal Palace - West Ham

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 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.

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. Similarly with the badger, if your random prediction is affected by this, it'll be half the points.

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.  

End of season Play Offs: The one who finishes top of the league will still be champion, but after the season finishes there will be Play Offs between the top 4, with 1st v 4th and 2nd v 3rd. This will take in stuff like the EFL Play Offs, FA Cup Final, final day of Prima Donna League, European Finals etc. It will be one matchday for the semis and one for the Final. It will be the individual scores for each matchday against the allotted opponent, with some kind of tie breaker for a drawn match.

The prize for winning will be enormous. Another rep point.

1. St Charles Owl = 312 pts
   
2. Lord Snooty = 309 pts
   
3. jjamez = 294 pts
   
4. themaclad = 294 pts
   
5. Baggiebob(BBB) = 274 pts
   
6. ritchiebaby = 267 pts
   

Saturday 20th April:
Town v Swansea
Town scorers:
Swansea scorers:

Leicester City v West Bromwich Albion (12:30)
Cardiff City v Southampton
Stoke City v Plymouth Argyle
Queens Park Rangers v Preston North End (17:15)

Sunday 21st April:
Blackburn Rovers v Sheffield Wednesday (12:30)

Wednesday 24th April:
Coventry City v Hull City

Bonus matches:
Premier League:
Saturday:
Luton Town v Brentford
Sheffield United v Burnley

Wednesday:
Wolverhampton Wanderers v AFC Bournemouth

FA Cup semi finals:
Saturday:
Manchester City v Chelsea (17:15)

Scottish Cup semi finals:
Sunday:
Rangers v Heart of Midlothian (15:00)

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

1. neonfoxinthebox = 288 pts
   
2. SHEP_HTAFC = 285 pts
   
3. Devongone = 283 pts
   
4. theo_luddite = 283 pts
   
5. WakeyTerrier = 222 pts
   
6. Amelia Chaffinch = 203 pts
   

Saturday 20th April:
Town v Swansea
Town scorers:
Swansea scorers:

Norwich City v Bristol City
Rotherham United v Birmingham City
Sunderland v Millwall
Watford v Hull City

Monday 22nd April:
Middlesbrough v Leeds United

Tuesday 23rd April:
Leicester City v Southampton

Bonus matches:
National League:
Saturday:
Chesterfield v Maidenhead United (12:15)

Scottish Cup semi finals:
Saturday:
Aberdeen v Celtic (12:30)

FA Cup semi finals:
Sunday:
Coventry City v Manchester United (15:30)

Premier League:
Tuesday:
Arsenal v Chelsea

Wednesday:
Everton v Liverpool


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