The Holiday Song

If you know all this already then just ignore, but dear lord please be careful when it comes to edibles! Had a few great Saturdays eating cookies from a coffee shop during lockdown, but then one week drank a bit and didn't properly wait for the first one to kick in (the two things it literally warns on the packet) and it was by far the worst time in my life.

I've used Viagogo website for a game at Allianz, and also one at Dortmund. Worked fine enough although definitely pay over the odds! You can get 3 standing together just now for about GBP 150 each (which includes the booking fees) FC Bayern Munich vs SV Darmstadt 98 Tickets Allianz Arena Munich | Fri 27 Oct 2023 - Viagogo

I assume Sadiq will be cup tied for AZ Alkmaar? Otherwise Aberdeen might have to face him again in the Conference League

I think the big difference is how little of our games make it to live TV. The downside of keeping to the 15:00 on a Saturday model (which I wouldn’t want changed tbh).

Well there you go. That's about twenty years of me ranting and being annoyed about the SPL rules when it wasn't their fault! Will say though that that ruling really meant that Falkirk were never going to seriously upgrade Brockville because it was never going to get to 10k seats. But this discussion was also happening twenty years ago on P&B, lets not go over again!

Pierre Van Hooijdonk having to admit he had no evidence and apologise to new Ajax manager Maurice Steijn after saying on TV he was involved in dodgy dealings when Steijn was manager of Breda. First game of the season for me tomorrow (second round of games). ADO at home to Roda JC. Can't wait to get back into it but not really sure how ADO will do this year.

Had been to Frankfurt a few times and wouldn't have massively disagreed with you. But was there last weekend and went more to the south and east of the station and was a lot better than I remember. Although I also wasn't massively impressed with Dusseldorf so we're maybe just different! (totally agree on location though).

If your camera was tilted a few degrees more to the left there then would see my house (well, my mam and dads). Hopefully going up in October. Will probably take the boat (as feels more of an experience then) but always a bit of a risk with the weather. Northlink are pretty good if you want to push back a day or two but then the availability of cabins comes up.

Another potential way to get there is Glasgow to Dublin at 22:25 on the Tuesday (‪Ryanair £16) and then Dublin to Zurich the following morning at 07:10 (Aer Lingus ‪£74). Bare bones and need to sleep in the airport! Could also do it a day later and pretty much the same price. Another thing I probably wouldn't do but love looking up this type of shite for some reason.

Dominic Iorfa's son (same name) playing for Sheffield Wednesday too!

Just thinking out loud here, but there’s a Ryanair flight on the Tuesday evening from Newcastle to Milan that’s relatively cheap (£60 bare bones). Then the direct train from Milan to Lucerne the following morning for about £40. Bit of a faff but if anyone was desperate to go then a bit of an adventure. When Falkirk played in Liechtenstein I was scared of flying so got buses from Aberdeen to Zurich. Took me just over 36 hours if I mind right. It was more than a bit of a faff, a dreadful experience! Wouldn’t even consider it nowadays.

Funny how much people can disagree on things like this as Mark Nicholas is my least favourite sports presenter/commentator of all time! I'm also not a fan of TMS so suspect we just have totally different tastes (not a bad thing!).

Oh I’m sure that was the thinking, but it just seems pretty stupid with all the other variables around it. (Know you weren’t saying otherwise btw!)

This is it for me. If I remember correctly there was 7 overs left in the day and by declaring they lost 3 and got to bowl 4 overs that first evening. Effectively if they'd batted to close they had the chance for extra runs in those 7 overs and they could have declared overnight. I could have got more onboard with it if they had already scored 450+, if Root had been out or the weather conditions had been really favourable to Anderson and Broad's swing bowling, but none of those were the case. I honestly think it was hubris without any really thought to the game situation, which is perhaps the core tenant of Bazball (which I think is brilliant btw) but it opened the door to the Aussie's and indeed a draw there and it's still all to play for. Of course, easy to say in hindsight and everything probably plays out differently but that declaration was a big mistake IMO, and honestly makes little difference to forcing a result or making it a more exciting match. A 5th test decider would have been even more exciting and got people interested...

Feel England been significantly the best team this series and wouldn’t begrudge them the win (hard to admit!) but will be interesting to see how they’ll be judged if this test is a draw and so last one is meaningless. That declaration in the first test was mental and the forecast for the last two days here has always been terrible, so batting on so long today was a risk. All very well Bairstow having an amazing innings today when they’re well on top, but been a net negative for the first three tests. Great series though, so hopefully get a meaningful fifth test.

Video for this one is "good"... the crowd going oooh and Souness trying to make ups some shit excuse for it.

It was stupid and nasty, but there's some embellishment here... was a first and ten play with about twenty seconds to go.

McCullum came out and said the umpires called over. Did they? If so I can definitely see why England are annoyed. If not, I'd like to see McCullum correcting that on record if he's really into the whole spirit of things. I kindof think it's just a bit of an unfortunate incident. Don't feel Carey has done anything wrong (he wasn't sleeklit about it) but Bairstow has obviously considered it as dead at that point. It's a bit daft from Bairstow and he doesn't strike me as being the most detail orientated guy in the world so could say it's his own fault, but think a bit unlucky too. Anyway, delighted the Aussies won!

Maybe been a theme and just not noticed it before, but seems to be a lot of new kits based on old strips recently. This is ADO Den Haag's new kit kit, based on the 80s strip on the left. Could have done with the sponsor being in red too IMO. As a big Father Ted fan would like one with Funland on the front, unfortunately that's only for the kid's sizes.

Cheers. More lazy than terrible I guess, and probably not that big a deal (didn't really narrow where Scotland could end up playing anyway!)

This is partly a question first before lumping it in as bad journalism, but is the bit at the bottom here about pots and venues correct? Because I think the author has just made the assumption that pot 1 teams will be in Position 1 in the group draw and pot 2 teams will be in Position 2, but I'm not sure that's right (at least wasn't for 2020 and it would always mean the teams from the top two pots would play each other in the first round of games)? Scotland's Euro 2024 chances after Georgia win, Pot 1 hope, the German cities the team could play in | The Scotsman

Had thought about this today and decided to go for it too after reading these, cheers. Three nights in hotel next to Essen station was about GBP 250 total (sleeping two) so not too bad. Paid upfront after the comments about cancellations! 10 mins to Gelsenkirchen 25 mins to Dortmund 30 mins to Dusseldorf 60 mins to Koln Four possible games those three days around there so hopefully get tickets for at least one (not too fussed if Scotland or not)

Was that the chairman Fulston's company? I know the spelling is different but I always thought it was and was reading something there that said he owned a fork lift company, so some coincidence if not.

If I remember right (and that's a big if), it's not particularly useful to compare historical mortgage rates as house price % increases have been a lot higher than wage % increases. Therefore proportion of disposable income is affected differently. Someone else might be better placed to confirm/explain though.

I really enjoy the whole Bazball philosophy, and I’m a big fan of Stokes (despite wanting England to lose!) but think it's also fair to criticise the declaration. You don't need to declare there to do the other parts that gave them a chance of winning the game. Lets say England put another 50 on in 7 overs and then Australians start their first innings from first ball of day 2, a winning result is obviously still a possibility from that point. I’m intrigued whether the decision to declare was a gut feeling, an example of the type of strategy they’ll always go for, or data driven (i.e. the expected runs Australia would lose out on from a wicket that evening would outweigh the expected runs England would have got carrying on a little longer). If it had been overcast or a seamers pitch, and/or Root hadn’t been in I think would have been a decent idea.