The Round Ball Game

[eighthobstruction]

Arsenal fans must be wondering how a lad from Wimbledon who now lives in Newcastle can buy 5 French players for pretty much a song....whereas a Frenchman from France fails to buy hardly anybody French at all.....and still continues to play a moron German with movement problems in defence....

....nasty kick that Baa got yesterday....

[teamsaint]

Didn't you not so long invest in some SPL players like Fox, Hooveldt and Davis ... ? I think Hooiveldt hardly ever managed a full game for Celtic and now you probably understand why. Fox has a sweet left foot from what I remember and Davis can be pretty decent on his day.

Fortunately, there is some fresh, promising talent emerging after a couple of decades of virtual drought. We live in hopes for the future.

Remember football tradition north of the border is as least as old and romantic as yours and, yes, we have our bizzare nicknames like 'baggies' and toffees' as well ...

I really look forward to the day when Scotland starts producing quality players in numbers, and can field a good international side. Back in the day, the English leagues were full of good players from up there....The Saints has Jimmy Gabriel,Eric Martin and a few others.
As for our "Scottish "imports......Davis is a really decent player, worth a place in any PL squad outside the top 4 or so. Fox is short of quality at PL level, but as you say can ping a cross or pass with the best of them.
Hooveldt...Pl squad player, did a great job in the Championship, but gets done too often.
Sure we have our daft nicknames, but Scottish teams seem to have several each !!

[cloughie]

I really look forward to the day when Scotland starts producing quality players in numbers, and can field a good international side. Back in the day, the English leagues were full of good players from up there....The Saints has Jimmy Gabriel,Eric Martin and a few others.

...and ex-owl Jim McCalliog whose assist in 1976 delivered silverware against Man U!

[EdgeleyRob]

I borrowed Jack Dee's autobiography from the library the other day, and thought I would share with you his thoughts on Football:-

It will come as little surprise to you that I do not attend football matches. My default position is that if I want to watch a bunch of violent retards running around a pitch for 90 minutes then I'll apply for a job in the PE department at Parkhurst.

I prefer JB Priestley's take.

To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink.
For a shilling the Bruddersford United AFC offered you Conflict and Art; it turned you into a critic, happy in your judgement of fine points, ready in a second to estimate the worth of a well-judged pass, a run down the touch line, a lightning shot, a clearance kick by back or goalkeeper; it turned you into a partisan, holding your breath when the ball came sailing into your own goalmouth, ecstatic when your forwards raced away towards the opposite goal, elated, downcast, bitter, triumphant by turn at the fortunes of your side, watching a ball shape Iliads and Odysseys for you; and what is more, it turned you into a member of a new community, all brothers together for an hour and a half, for not only had you escaped from the clanking machinery of this lesser life, from work, wages, rent, doles, sick pay, insurance cards, nagging wives, ailing children, bad bosses, idle workmen, but you had escaped with most of your neighbours, with half the town, and there you were cheering together, thumping one another on the shoulders, swopping judgements like lords of the earth, having pushed your way through a turnstile into another and altogether more splendid kind of life, hurtling with Conflict and yet passionate and beautiful in its Art.
Moreover it offered you more than a shilling's worth of material for talk during the rest of the week. A man who had missed the last home match of "t'United" had to enter social life on a tiptoe in Bruddersford

[teamsaint]

...and ex-owl Jim McCalliog whose assist in 1976 delivered silverware against Man U!

What a talented player he was....and Bobby Stokes' onside run timed to perfection.
Good call Cloughie !!
Rodrigues from the same team was one of yours too, IIRC? But not Scottish, obviously !

[teamsaint]

I prefer JB Priestley's take.

Magic. Should be framed and on every kitchen wall, that one ER. !

[gurnemanz]

I prefer JB Priestley's take.

... "Football is the ballet of the masses." - Dmitri Shostakovich.

[EdgeleyRob]

... "Football is the ballet of the masses." - Dmitri Shostakovich.

I love that one too.

In the sweep of its appeal, its ability to touch every corner of humanity, football is the only game that needed to be invented.

Sir Bobby Charlton.

[teamsaint]

Cricket , though, as Bill Bryson pointed out, is the only game really long enough to incorporate a number of meal breaks .A definite plus, along with the Beer, ice Cream, chips, reading, listening to MP3's, etc.
A fine sport !!!

[cloughie]

What a talented player he was....and Bobby Stokes' onside run timed to perfection.
Good call Cloughie !!
Rodrigues from the same team was one of yours too, IIRC? But not Scottish, obviously !

You picked them both up from us after our fall into the third tier in the 70s - before Big Jack picked us up by the scruff of the neck on the brink of Div 4.

[gurnemanz]

Cricket , though, as Bill Bryson pointed out, is the only game really long enough to incorporate a number of meal breaks .A definite plus, along with the Beer, ice Cream, chips, reading, listening to MP3's, etc.
A fine sport !!!

A nice quote from the classic "How to be an Alien" by George Mikes. "On the Continent think life is a game. In England they think cricket is a game."

[EdgeleyRob]

Amongst all unimportant subjects, football is by far the most important.

Pope John Paul II

[johncorrigan]

Pope John Paul II

''GetitrightintaethumBradford!''
The Dalai Lama.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-21314212

[BBMmk2]

I dont think it was by opure chance that we beat Chelsea, it does seem that with the introduction of these new players we have, that the team seems to comne alive again? We definetly had skill, especially in the closing minutes of the game when Chelsea tried to get the ball through, bu with very good defending on Magpies part, perhaps this will bode well for our next game, away to Spurs?

[scottycelt]

''GetitrightintaethumBradford!''
The Dalai Lama.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-21314212

Maybe His Holiness is simply amused by the somewhat ambiguous initials on his shirt ... ?