forameus

Even if they did - which they could well do - that's not "it". All we've done is make it much harder for ourselves and leave us with no margin for error. Still plenty of games to go, and although we most likely will finish 3rd, this sort of attitude is pish.

And on the numbers not really going down, we can talk about how we're in a lockdown, but take a look outside. It's clear that for weeks now that a lot of people are being lax with rules. Of course, when things reopen then the people that are sticking to them will join that group, but given how busy the roads are, and how there's only really a basic level of compliance, the numbers we're getting look better. Also plus 1 on that Travelling Tabby website. The main tracker is great, but that one shows things a lot clearer, much better presented.

I'd agree with the season being a write-off. I expect we'll take our place in the playoffs, maybe even 4th and come up against...Arbroath I guess? We'll lose to them in the semis and that'll be that. I'd usually be inclined to give managers time, but the approach after the return sets alarm bells ringing. As soon as the final ball of the season is kicked, they can all get punted. I don't see the point in doing it any earlier with just five (or nine possibly) to go. But if he takes to the dugout with his assistants when the next season kicks off, I'd be worried.

I fucking hate RIddle, so I'd be well up for Sheamus giving him a proper scheme booting.

Some nice stuff in that interview, particularly the image that he was terrified of Ric Flair when they started dating. Rest of the stuff is wild, particularly the doctor stuff. For the female talent involved, if you're not planning that, it must be quite the news that you're potentially going to be putting your career on ice for a year at least. And if you're someone who is trying, he tells you you are and then you're not? f**k sake.

Much obliged. Now I just need to actually be allowed to play football in it again...

That is actually great. Is it actually on sale anywhere yet?

The Nicholas moment might have been even better if it didn't take place in hour 38 of the 40 hour show. I don't see him as an entirely goofy character, I'd like to see them lean into the person he is. There was that interview with him where he talked about his mental health issues, and pretty serious bullying as a kid, tearing up as he talks about it. WWE do amazing work with their docs and showing the person behind the character, and I'd be well up for seeing Braun be a guy with sadness in his past, who channeled it all into turning into a monster who likes to throw heels around. They could easily have done something like that with him and Shane.

It's an interesting point. Even last year had the first match back of Edge, Goldberg, Undertaker's last, Brock. Year before you had Rousey, Brock, HHH. This year it doesn't look like Brock will appear (although there's still time), or HHH, or Rousey, or Undertaker, or Goldberg, or anyone considered a special attraction, or a big return. Maybe they're keeping their cards close to their chest, but so far it's just going to be a normal PPV x 2.

Don't know what you're all fucking greeting about. We've got the huge crossover appearance and match sorted already, and it'll keep the tradition of these matches alive. Mr T, Lawrence Taylor, Mickey Rourke, Floyd Mayweather, Butterbean, Shaq...they'll all likely pale into insignificance with the appearance of Bad Bunny.

Is that no the Diva's Championship with a metal job?

Surely has to be something like that. They like to get as many as possible on the card, and pretty much every match so far is a singles match. Unless they're trying to keep as few wrestlers as possible in the building, but you'd think with a crowd there's little point in making savings elsewhere. Plus you can half the roster per night within reason. Although I suppose having 20 or so people in a ring probably isn't the most Covid-safe option they could have.

It's just so unimaginative. Shane is clearly game for doing pretty much anything, to his detriment. He probably shouldn't be on the card over more deserving members of the roster, but he's always going to be. So if that's true, make it a stipulation that actually gives them scope for Strowman to do something with him. Hardly comparable opponents, but I expect they could get Shane to do something similar to the King of the Ring match with Angle. He'll happily kill himself. But no. Let's confine them to a ring and have Strowman throw him off the walls a few times. Then no doubt a fight to the top and Shane falls off to "win". And that's the only match that isn't vanilla in the entire two nights? Fucking yass.

So after RAW, how much has changed for the show? Pretty much f**k all. Looks like Sheamus vs Riddle in another stipulation-less one-on-one match. But don't worry, surely Shane vs Braun will have some mad stip, right? It's Wrestlemania, you've got to have something like that. Oh. A cage match. Yay. EDIT: Looks like Sheamus and Riddle is official, so added that. I assume there's a couple of matches to come to fill things out, but Jesus Hogan Christ, this is a really uninteresting card.

Sadly true. They've always been guilty of chucking stuff together once the final PPV is over before WM, but usually they put one or two storylines fairly long term. The easiest thing in the world is surely to have someone win the Rumble, pick an opponent, and then build a couple of months towards that. But they've properly bungled that. The one exception is Wyatt/Orton. Obviously not everyone's cup of melted Bray, but that has been an uncharacteristically long build. Can only presume they've handed most of the control over to those involved, otherwise it'd have never made it this long.

Which part? A lot of people seem to be harking back to the days where there were far, far more diddy sides. The likes of Lithuania and Georgia were pretty much a guaranteed three points. But a lot of nations now know that they'll likely not have the quality, so they set up in ways that make them harder to beat. They're also all far better technically than they once were. That's not to say that they've entirely caught up. Scotland and other nations like us, should be beating these sides more often than not. I just wouldn't call a lot of them minnows, in the way the likes of Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein and the like would be.

Was Russell Martin the one? I can't actually remember which CB we brought on to play with him but do recall the absolute nonsense of Matt Ritchie wearing number 4. Can't remember who it was, just remember us starting with a "three", but including full-backs, who immediately disappeared forward. Checked the highlights there and the goal wasn't quite how I remembered it, but we were wide open and effectively playing one at the back. Actually, on watching again, and being a big fucking geek looking back at line-ups, it was actually Robertson, as Russel Martin had gotten sucked in to an early ball. It was a "back three" of Hutton, Robertson and Martin, so looks like it wasn't the full-backs disappearing up, it was Robertson deciding he fancied being Grant Hanley, leaving the entire left-half of the pitch free.

Shame really. It's usually clearly an attempt just to get bodies on the card, but the multi-man ladder matches are usually great fun. Tremendously dangerous for all involved, but fun nonetheless. We'll no doubt be getting an Andre Battle Royal instead. Yay.

Remember when we played what was essentially one-at-the-back against Gibraltar, they got their first ever competitive goal in front of a stunned Hampden and then Strachan immediately changed it? Good times.

As usual it's people so desperate to be contrary that they jump too far in the other direction. There's a big difference between accepting that a lot of sides who were diddies are now not, and saying that diddies don't exist anymore. There are minnows in world football, there's just far less of them than there were, and the gap between said minnows and nations like ourselves (and others) is a lot smaller.

Opening post now updated to be full of rambling shite, and a bit about the show that's actually happening. Have to say, there's a distinct lack of it feeling like a Wrestlemania. There's some matches that look like they'll be great, but not much in the way of stipulation or special matches. Across all four nights look like, at the moment, just the one ladder match. I expect a lot will change in a couple of weeks though. Not all bad though, it also exposed me to...this I think the burnt look did actually work in the shows, but on a poster? Jesus Christ.

Also got rewarded in the "loyalty" packs with PIM Overmars. Decided to look to see what I could put together from my severely stripped and mothballed club, and....meh. Sad when packing an icon is considered little more than "oh".

I didn't play much of BF1, but a mate had it. Went down to visit and we had a good old "one life each" shot. I went first, and...f**k sake. I think it had even more impact because I had no fucking idea what I was doing. Just rushing about, shell-shocked, getting the shit kicked out of me. An absolutely wonderful representation of something so utterly horrific. I give it five of those pointy German hats out of five.

It's been a long fucking year, hasn't it? We're now well past the year anniversary of WWE deciding that, above all else, the show must go on, and they started running eerie shows in a darkened, empty Performance Centre. We had a preview of what Wrestlemania 36 might have looked like with the weekly shows happening in front of no crowd, but nothing could quite prepare for how odd the Show of Shows felt. Some good - the Boneyard match, the Firefly Funhouse match, Bayley finding her voice - but also some bad - the audio presentation of some of the matches, Drew's coronation being in front of no-one, whatever the f**k the Gronk was. But, above all else, it was undoutedly a Wrestlemania, desperate to put on an over-the-top show, even with its wings clipped, Since then, there have been a lot of downs, and at times it probably felt like there wasn't much chance the product could sink lower. Dreadful, dreadful RAW ratings, PPVs that didn't make sense, absolutely rancid "cinematic" matches. But there have been some bright spots. There have. Shut up. But after an awful year for pretty much the entire world, if there's one thing that can make things feel a little more normal, as we all stare at our own stadiums lying empty, it's Big Vince cramming thousands into a stadium in a Covid hotspot and putting on an overly long ode to the company he built. Smashing. But even as things get back to "normal", Wrestlemania itself is going to feel pretty different with the new two-night format. The reason given seems to be to allow more people the chance to enter socially distanced stadiums by having two different crowds, but the show has been crying out for a change like this for a while. We've hopefully left behind the era of Wrestlemania shows being about eight hours long, and this should hopefully give a more focused show. You'd think at least. Night 1 is on Saturday 10th April, with Night 2 following on the Sunday. In true @JamieStevenson fashion, the show should kick off around midnight in the UK, and I'd expect there to be a two-hour pre-show, because they just can't help themselves. Interestingly for them across the water, it will also be the first major show to appear on the Peacock network, who are now hosting the WWE Network. But not content with doubling the size of Wrestlemania, Mad Old Bill Regal decided he fancied a shot too. So the traditional Wrestlemania Weekend NXT also became a two-night show, and the aforementioned weekend has now pretty much become a week. Wednesday April 7th will see Night 1 take place, with Night 2 on Thursday 8th. So just the four likely full-length shows in five days, with the Hall of Fame sandwiched in between. f**k sake, guys. Confirmed Matches at Time of Writing Night 1 No. Matches* Stipulations 1 Pete Dunne vs. Kushida Singles match[20] 2 MSK (Wes Lee and Nash Carter) vs. Grizzled Young Veterans (James Drake and Zack Gibson) vs. Legado Del Fantasma (Raul Mendoza and Joaquin Wilde) Triple threat tag team match for the vacant NXT Tag Team Championship[21] 3 Leon Ruff vs. Isaiah "Swerve" Scott vs. Bronson Reed vs. Cameron Grimes vs. Dexter Lumis vs. LA Knight Six-man Gauntlet Eliminator match to determine the #1 contender for the NXT North American Championship on Night 2[22] 4 Walter (c) vs. Tommaso Ciampa Singles match for the NXT United Kingdom Championship[23] 5 Io Shirai (c) vs. Raquel González (with Dakota Kai) Singles match for the NXT Women's Championship[24] Night 2 No. Matches* Stipulations 1 Ember Moon and Shotzi Blackheart (c) vs. The Way (Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell) Tag team match for the NXT Women's Tag Team Championship[25] 2 Adam Cole vs. Kyle O'Reilly Unsanctioned match[26] 3 Johnny Gargano (c) vs. Gauntlet Eliminator winner Singles match for the NXT North American Championship 4 Jordan Devlin (NXT Cruiserweight Champion) vs. Santos Escobar (Interim NXT Cruiserweight Champion) (with Raul Mendoza and Joaquin Wilde) Ladder match to determine the undisputed NXT Cruiserweight Champion[27] 5 Finn Bálor (c) vs. Karrion Kross (with Scarlett) Singles match for the NXT Championship[28] Night 0 So apparently WWE are fucking morons, and there will be "Wrestlemania" matches on Smackdown on Friday 9th April. I'll fill in the matches when they're properly confirmed, but... Andre the Giant Battle Royal Smackdown Tag Team Championship Fatal Four Way - Entrants TBD Night 1 No. Matches* Stipulations 1 Sasha Banks (c) vs. Bianca Belair Singles match for the WWE SmackDown Women's Championship[64] 2 Bobby Lashley (c) (with MVP) vs. Drew McIntyre Singles match for the WWE Championship[65] 3 Bad Bunny and Damian Priest vs. The Miz and John Morrison Tag team match[66] 4 The New Day (Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) (c) vs. AJ Styles and Omos Tag team match for the WWE Raw Tag Team Championship[67] 5 Braun Strowman vs. Shane McMahon Steel cage match[68] 6 Cesaro vs. Seth Rollins Singles match[69] 7 Lana and Naomi vs. Dana Brooke and Mandy Rose vs. The Riott Squad (Liv Morgan and Ruby Riott) vs. Natalya and Tamina Tag Team Turmoil match[70] Winners face Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship on Night 2 Night 2 No. Matches* Stipulations 1 Roman Reigns (c) (with Paul Heyman) vs. Edge vs. Daniel Bryan Triple Threat match for the WWE Universal Championship[71] 2 Asuka (c) vs. Rhea Ripley Singles match for the WWE Raw Women's Championship[72] 3 The Fiend (with Alexa Bliss) vs. Randy Orton Singles match[73] 4 Big E (c) vs. Apollo Crews Nigerian Drum Fight for the WWE Intercontinental Championship[74] 5 Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn (with Logan Paul) Singles match[75] 6 Riddle (c) vs. Sheamus Singles match for the WWE United States Championship[76] 7 Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler (c) (with Reginald) vs. Tag Team Turmoil winners Tag team match for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship[77]

I fully expect there to be no "travelling" fans, but like Craig says, that could mean Czech and Croatian fans based in the UK could still attend. What would happen with segregation in that case, given that, by definition, there shouldn't be any fans other than "home" and "neutrals"? That could get interesting in the event that everyone's best fucking guy Kudela ends up starting for the Czechs, and said Czechs take offence at the abuse he'll undoubtedly get.