Very sad news tonight!! The ex-First Minister for Scotland passed away during a visit to Macedonia. Alex had his great moments as a past Scottish political icon/First Minister who played a big part in promoting the quest for Scotland to finally attain her own self-determination. His last comment today on X was so fitting and directed at the Brit Govt - "Scotland is a country, not a county"!!! Spot on Alex, and defiant to the end esp in the face of Britnat-Brexit attempts to undermine the political status of Scotland and the current Scottish Govt!! How sad that he never witnessed indy happening and a huge irony that he passed away not long after the death of Alistair Darling, who played a huge part in the unionist Bitter Together assault/debates of 2014 against Scotland (and received his token knighthood from his southern unionist paymasters for "doing the deed" against his own country!!!), thereby stymying the Yes quest for Scotindy. SAOR ALBA! RIP Ecky!!

This year's event is being held in Aberdeen, Scotland once again. It looks as though, having hosted it in the past 3 years, they're getting to keep it. The games start on Saturday 12 October.

There are 39 teams divided into the following 5 Groups. The top 3 in each Group progress to the last 16, with the best-placed 4th team making up the numbers. 2 knockout games will take place on Friday 18 October to decide the Semi-finallists, who will then play 2 games during the following day to decide the Medal Places.

Group A – Canada, Czechia, England, Hungary, Latvia, New Zealand, Philippines, Türkiye
Group B – Australia, India, Ireland, Italy, Nigeria, Poland, Puerto Rico, Sweden
Group C – Brazil, Spain, Hong Kong, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, Chinese Taipei, United States
Group D – Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia
Group E – Belgium, Finland, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Switzerland, Ukraine, Wales

England's team are Andrew Woolston (Skip), Lesley Gregory (3rd), Martin Gregory (2nd) and Kirsty Balfour (Lead), who is from my local ice rink, even my local club.
Ireland are represented by John Wilson (Skip), Alison Fyfe (3rd), Craig Whyte (2nd) and Jen Ward (Lead).
Scotland are keeping it in the family with Neil Kennedy (Skip), Margaret Agnew (3rd), John Agnew (2nd) and Sheila Kennedy (Lead).
Wales have Garry Coombs (Skip), Laura Beever (3rd), Rhys Phillips (2nd) and Judith Glazier (Lead).

England play Latvia at 8am on Saturday and Phillippines at 12 noon on Sunday. Ireland play Puerto Rico at 4pm on Saturday, then Nigeria and Australia on Sunday at 8am and 8pm respectively. Scotland open their campaign against Romania at 4pm on Saturday, followed by Hong Kong at 8am on Sunday. Wales play Ukraine at 8.30pm on Saturday and Germany at 8pm on Sunday.

Amazingly, I've got photographs of all the Home Nations' players, which I'll post tomorrow.

Saturday 12 October 2024

Chesterfield 3-1 Notts County
Barrow 4-0 Morecambe
Cheltenham 2-2 Swindon
Doncaster 1-1 Crewe
Gillingham 2-0 Accrington
Harrogate 2-1 Newport
MK Dons 1-1 Port Vale
Salford City 1-0 Grimsby
Tranmere 1-0 Bradford City
Wimbledon 3-0 Carlisle


League Table After Match day 10

Devon - 213
Dancing - 192
Spireitematt - 176
Lord Snoots - 173
Maclad - 172
Amelia - 161
SaltergateBorn - 154
St Charles - 140

Group A

Themaclad 9
Amelia 9
Twerton 7
A.A.A. 5
Minizin 5
Zinman 1

And another poor week this week with no one getting into double figures, not helped by a whitewash on the Gamball and only one player getting anything positive on the Bonus. Unfortunately for the rest of the Group A players, the one player to score points on the Bonus was the leader Themaclad, who along with Amelia ended in first place on 9 points. He managed a CS to go with is bonus, while Amelia had 2 CSs but missed on all her balls, including the dreaded Scoreball being played on a 0-0 draw so even that cost her a point and the outright lead for herself this week.

She wasn't the only one to put her scoreball on the Swansea game, Twerton was also docked a point so finished 3rd with 7 points. AAA and Minizin tied with 5 points each. AAA was the first player to choose not to play the Gamball and it was the right move for him and saved him a point as he got it wrong anyway. Minizin did manage a CS and 2CRs but missed on his Bonus and Gamball.

Zinman's woes continued again, this time he ended with just a single point and finished bottom for the 4th week out of 7 and in the bottom 2 for the 6th week so far!!! We can now see why he was part of the decision to remove promotion and relegation this season!!!

81 Themaclad
69 Twerton
47 Amelia
44 AAA
43 Minizin
30 Zinman

Themaclad increases his lead over Twerton to 22 points, and Twerton is now matching this gap from himself to 3rd placed, a spot now occupied by a resurgent Amelia!! The two Zins occupy the two bottom spots with 13 points separating them.

Group B

SCO 10
Derby 9
Lady Jane 7
BaggieOne 6
Snooty 5
BBB -1
Stairs -no show -2

Well it was better than last week but only just as Group B recorded their second lowest total of the season, not helped by Stairs' absence (I hope this was forgetfulness rather than something more serious). Only 1 game produced a negative score with Swansea's failure to beat Stoke blowing a couple of bonus balls. Tip for future weeks - I suggest we all wait for Lady Jane to post her predictions and then copy her gamball - once again she got this game spot-on, her 3rd gamball maximum and so far she only only 2 failures on this ball.

However it's not Lady J but SCO who tops the table this week scraping double figures from just 2 correct predictions. He was helped by them both being correct scores and one of them being the bonus. Derby had a more normal week, 2 correct scores from his 4 correct results but held back by his ball failures. Lady Jane scored 8 points from her gamball but minus 1 from the rest to sit in 3rd spot. BaggieOne also got the gamball result right but lost a point on his scoreball to sit 1 point ahead of Snooty.

BBB had something of a nightmare with just 1 correct result and a scoreball - not enough to avoid a minus score but he was saved from bottom spot by Stairs' absence.

80 Lady Jane
61 Derby
52 Snooty
51 SCO
48 BBB
47 Stairs
45 BaggieOne

Lady Jane maintains her healthy lead at the top with Derby edging clear of the rest in 2nd place. The rest are covered by just 7 points with a bit of shuffling this week - Snooty and SCO both climbing 2 places, BBB dropping 2 and Stairs falling from 3rd to 6th after his no-show. Lady Jane's mastery of the gamball is shown from the 30 points she has gained from it so far - nobody else is in double figures and 3 players are negative. Stairs non appearance gave him his season's best gamball score!

Thought it might be interesting to take a look at the standings with regards to the end of season Play Offs where the overall Champion will be decided. If the season ended today here is how it would look:

Group Winners (Bye into Semis)
1. Themaclad (81 points)
2. Lady Jane (80)

Playoff spots (3 v 6 and 4 v 5)
3. Twerton (69)
4. Derby (61)
5. Lord Snooty (52)
6. SCO (51)

Eliminated
7. BBB (3 points off the POs)
8. Stairs (4)
9. Amelia (4)
10. BaggieOne (6)
11. AAA (7)
12. Minizin (8)
13. Zinman (21)

So while the current group leaders are building a nice lead, the trailing pack are all single digit points off getting into the play offs, with one notable exception in Zinman who is an unhealthy 21 points adrift of a post season run!!! We will post this every so often so that everyone can get focussed on the task at hand!!

Cheers
Zin & SCO

Former Sunderland and England striker Kevin Phillips has been named the new head coach of AFC Fylde.

Chris Beech left The Coasters last month after picking up just one win from their opening eight National League games of the season.

Phillips departed Hartlepool at the end of last season, despite guiding Pools to 12th in the National League after arriving in January when they were four points above the drop zone.

The 51-year-old’s first game in charge will be the FA Cup fourth qualifying round clash at home to Rochdale on Saturday.

Goalkeeping coach Chris Neal and former striker Nathan Delfouneso have been in caretaker charge at Mill Farm, earning seven points from five matches to climb to 21st, a point from safety.

Fylde chairman David Haythornthwaite told the club website, external: “I am sure, like me, our fans will be excited with this appointment.

"I would like to thank Nathan and Chris for stepping in and taking charge for the last five games, during which time they have not only steadied the ship but put a smile back on people’s faces.

Phillips played for nine clubs during his 20-year playing career, including Watford, Sunderland, Southampton, West Brom, Aston Villa and Birmingham.

He scored a total of 287 goals, won eight caps for England and became the only English player to win Europe's Golden Shoe award in 2000.

Since retiring in 2014, he has held coaching roles with Leicester City, Derby County and Stoke City before a 15-month stint at South Shields, who he led to promotion into the National League North in his second season in charge in 2022-23.

Phillips had expected to remain at Hartlepool this season but claimed the club had withdrawn a contract offer in order to appoint former Woking boss Darren Sarll instead.

Phillips will be assisted by Wess Brown, who he worked at South Shields.

A rest week this week but due to a hectic travel schedule I'm posting the games for the 19th early.

Gamball:
Cardiff - Plymouth

Others:
Fulham - Villa
Ipswich - Everton
Southampton - Leicester
Luton - Watford
Oxford - WBA
Preston - Coventry
Sheff W - Burnley
Stoke - Norwich
Hull - Sunderland

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

Everybody has the same fixtures this week:-

Division One table after Matchday 9:

1. themaclad = 161 pts
   
2. St Charles Owl = 158 pts
   
3. Baggiebob(BBB) = 155 pts
   
4. jjamez = 153 pts
   
5. SHEP_HTAFC = 143 pts
   
6. Lord Snooty = 132 pts
   

1. neonfoxinthebox = 187 pts
   
2. Devongone = 177 pts
   
3. theo_luddite = 174 pts
   
4. ritchiebaby = 167 pts
   
5. WakeyTerrier = 139 pts
   
6. Amelia Chaffinch = 126 pts
   

Thursday 10th October:
UEFA Nations League:
England v Greece

Friday 11th October:
Iceland v Wales

Saturday 12th October:
Croatia v Scotland (17:00)
Belarus v Northern Ireland (19:45)

League One:
Crawley Town v Shrewsbury Town
Peterborough United v Rotherham United
Stockport County v Wycombe Wanderers

League Two:
Chesterfield v Notts County (12:30)

Sunday 13th October:
UEFA Nations League:
Finland v England (17:00)

Monday 14th October:
Wales v Montenegro

Tuesday 15th October:
Scotland v Portugal
Northern Ireland v Bulgaria

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

Gone on loan to Oldham for the rest of the season.
We loan out 2 promising youngsters ( Hobson to Barnet) and what? Stick with Grigg, Madden and Fleck? The 2 later seem to be somewhat injury prone.
Can't think of anyone Cook has sent out on loan who came back and made the cut at the end of the season.
Unless he's got a master stroke up his sleeve, I can see another season in league 2 looming.

The eternal optimist in me thinks that Hibs' recent improved form will continue on Saturday against an impressive Motherwell side. The 'Well have only lost once since mid-August and will be a tough test, especially at set pieces.

Gayle and Hoillett have looked good and, although they probably won't last a full game, 60 or 70 minutes from them should be enough to see off most teams. Despite his dreadful penalty miss against Rangers, I expect SDG to start Kuharevich, on the basis of him being a bit of a handful. All we need is for Kwon to find his shooting boots and I'm sure we can pick up another 3 points.