The Round Ball Game

[jayne lee wilson]

The new season starts today......a week before the first test against the aussies !!

Several British teams in Europa league action, including St Johnstone and West Ham.


Oh.. And I know one contradicts JLW at one's peril, but the worst way to lose a football match is to concede a headed goal in the last minute of extra time in a cup semi final, scored by the smallest player on the pitch.

"Adrian heath" is still used as a term of abuse round our way !

Well, Liverpool fans aren't too keen on him either!

Have you seen the OG yet teams? Heart-sinkingly spectacular. Poor Laura Bassett connects with it 18 yards out, it soars against the bar-underside, bouncing down over the line and out again - inverted reminiscence of a Lampardian injustice in SA 2010! Oh and, Japan's penalty was given for a foul clearly outside the box...

Th World Bad Luck Cup contagion has already spread across genders... (where's the head-in-hands icon when you need it?)...

[P. G. Tipps]

They have done well,fair play to them.

The standard of football in the competition has not been great IMO.

The BBC seem to think differently.

What have standards got to do with the equality-obsessed BBC, these days ... ?

Good luck to the ladies' playing football, I say, and anyone who wishes to watch. I've often seen the Scotland men's international side play a lot worse.

What depresses me is that they trot out all the old male football cliches that now go with the game. You know the 'we are absolutely gutted', 'we can go home with our heads held high', 'we gave it everything out there tonight', all that sort of masculine tosh.

Thankfully, as yet, I have seen no lady spitting on the field ... but I suppose it's only a matter of time.

[teamsaint]

Well, Liverpool fans aren't too keen on him either!

Have you seen the OG yet teams? Heart-sinkingly spectacular. Poor Laura Bassett connects with it 18 yards out, it soars against the bar-underside, bouncing down over the line and out again - inverted reminiscence of a Lampardian injustice in SA 2010! Oh and, Japan's penalty was given for a foul clearly outside the box...

Th World Bad Luck Cup contagion has already spread across genders... (where's the head-in-hands icon when you need it?)...

the OG certainly falls into the " couldn't do that if you tried category "

Its not as if the men have used up all the luck over the years........very poor decision on the first pen..... and the one that hit the bar was a great strike.

[antongould]

https://twitter.com/thefootballcafe/status/616992821690675200

Eat your hearts out Keegan and Blair

[johncorrigan]

Its not as if the men have used up all the luck over the years.

teamsaint, you're still using up the karma from a certain famous goal that didn't cross the line and a Russian linesman who in his mind's eye could still see the Germans looting his country 25 years previously. Until you seek forgiveness the luck will continue...mind you, God knows what we've done to deserve our lot!

[aeolium]

...mind you, God knows what we've done to deserve our lot!

Joe Jordan's handball in the Scotland v Wales World Cup qualifier in 1977 that partly enabled Scotland to qualify for the competition in Argentina in 1978, jc Hopefully the current Welsh team will go on to qualify for Russia and go some way to exorcising that ghastly memory...

[johncorrigan]

Joe Jordan's handball in the Scotland v Wales World Cup qualifier in 1977 that partly enabled Scotland to qualify for the competition in Argentina in 1978, jc Hopefully the current Welsh team will go on to qualify for Brazil and go some way to exorcising that ghastly memory...

Ah Joe...what a hero...precursor of Diego, you know, aeolium?
In the lead up to the '78 world cup debacle I remember a billboard campaign for Heineken beer which featured Joe, renowned of course for having no front teeth.

The billboard posters ran in 3 panels - so in the first it's a picture of Joe with no front teeth, then he drinks a pint of Heineken and by the third panel Joe's teeth are restored - 'Heineken! refreshes the parts other beers fail to reach'. Strangely enough the apocryphal story runs that the ad campaign also ran in Arabic countries so apparently drinking Heineken meant that you lost your front teeth!

A bit like this, but with Joe instead of Lenny!

http://www.cdpcelebration.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Spock-blog.jpg

[teamsaint]

toby gone to the north London yobbos,(Rupert Lowe's phrase ,not mine).

lets hope big Ron has been keeping an eye out for good replacements.

Send for a great Scottish Centre Half, like the old days. We need the new Jimmy Gabriel......

[teamsaint]

busy day.
Spiderman gone, as predicted.

still, 25 m buys you some good footballers even at todays prices, if spent wisely.

where IS JLW anyway?!

also :new man in at Leicester.

is Alison over the moon or sick as a parrot?

Anything interesting going on in the rest of the football world, as "not covered by the BBC"?

[EdgeleyRob]

SCFC have signed about 47 players so far.
Ranieri at Leicester seems a strange one,bet he doesn't last.

[Alison]

Not sure at all how I feel lads.

I would have liked Cambiasso to have a go.

For years I would have loved Martin O'Neill back but he has lost that air of infallibility somehow.

[EdgeleyRob]

Not sure at all how I feel lads.

I would have liked Cambiasso to have a go.

For years I would have loved Martin O'Neill back but he has lost that air of infallibility somehow.

Gary Lineker said it's an uninspiring choice.

[teamsaint]

I take it Aeolium is sipping a seasonal bovril on the terraces at the Tulloch Caledonian Stadium.
first serious action of the season for a board team tonight.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/33555814

[EdgeleyRob]

Blimey,it's July 16th,and they lost 1-0.

[teamsaint]

those of you looking forward to watching some European footy this season, will be reassured to find that UEFA are all over the serious issues facing the beautiful Game.
Here, for instance, are the all important kit regulations. ( actually these are a couple of years old, but you'll get the idea.)

http://www.uefa.org/MultimediaFiles/Download/Tech/uefaorg/General/01/75/63/78/1756378_DOWNLOAD.pdf

Amazing.

Don't forget, the super Saints play their first European game for 12 years on Thursday in a quite interesting tie against Vitesse Arnhem.

its on BT sport for those unable to be at SMS .