Heathrow fox

Non league play-offs are brutal.Not even a chance to catch your breath and they’re over.

Just looked it up and yes 42 points each season.We did end up third bottom in 86/87.19th spot going into the newly formed playoff system. Good point about Taylor.I seem to remember that a close season reset and money spent on experience and all would be well.Losing 5 and 4 nil i the first two games scuppered any optimism. I remember the crowd turning against Levein Going back to my op that people not remembering Hamilton.Having read these pages for a good few years now.Rarely does that mid eighties side get a mention.Good players like Ian Wilson,Ian Banks, Bobby Smith and even Steve Lynex.Andy Peake being the exception. The sad thing is that many who did go in those dark days are now dead

It’s the reason Bryan Hamilton never gets mentioned in the worst manager threads No one remembers him!!

Feel for Plymouth as they have fought hard since the manager change

Plus promotion will mean having more chance of keeping hold of the likes of Small etc.Oxford United look just about safe now and although they were well organised last season,didn’t look world beaters by any stretch Managing Southampton in the PL is starting to look like mission impossible so not the major disaster it first looked like for NJ

Well I was half joking but tbh I would have him over RvN any day,any league any country.

Great great win today.Still need to beat Wrexham and hope Lincoln turn up in 12 days time.Burton still fighting for their lives obviously.It’s a shame Charltons charge came a game or two too late. Still a great turnaround from last season.NJ done a great job

Give Pards a bell.Comes across really well when he’s stood in on TalkSport

He had to be subbed off injured a couple of minutes later

Looking at the table it’s clearly split into 5 different categories.Top 2 clearly better than everyone else.Then the CL challengers,followed by the new breed hipster brigade.Next the tired established mob.Lastly the three promoted clubs otherwise known as the cannon fodder.

Bare in mind spectators back then sat on wooden benches,peed up walls and watched a far inferior version of the game.Players earn more now all the way down the pyramid and someone has to pay for it.

Very good watch.Stagnant wage growth,high cost of living and the need to keep feeding the current economic model being some of the main causes. I presume immigration is a short term fix as importing a workforce just means that said workforce ends up facing exactly the same issues.Unaffordable housing etc and a drop in the birth rate.That bottleneck has to be faced at some point.

Well the likes of Edouard wouldn’t have such an easy ride back then

Yes the tables and player stats would be at the back of the programme and the Mercury would do a report of the match.I went to a few of these reserve games in my early teens.It could be a very strange eerie atmosphere.The FNF or whatever they were called that you refer to were a great idea.I never went to any myself but know loads who did.I think they attracted 5 figure crowds sometimes

There were the old Central and football combination leagues.Northern teams played in the Central League.Leicester being in the midlands did stretches in both.I think there was a 1st and 2nd division so you had relegation to contend with and the divisions had at least 18 or so teams in them, so pretty full on.

Hope everybody’s making drinking water available.It’s getting incredibly dry out there

Did anybody go to the reserve games when they were a thing? Not the Barrie Pierpoint decent crowds FNF but when it was the real nitty gritty 300/400 sat in the old main stand.

Aldershot going to Wembley for the first time in their history.Chuffed for them

Anybody mentioned Brian Little and his non negotiable thirty mile radius rule? It may have been thirty minutes come to think of it

I think that line of questioning would break him.Blokes had smoke blown up his arse his entire career.

Denmark hasn’t got thousands of troops to send.It also emptied it’s armouries helping Ukraine

The Copperbox Arena is a cracking little venue.I have watched the London Lions a few times and always think that it would make for a brilliant five a side football stadium.My Stepdaughters boys are heavily into this sort of nonsense and are desperate for me to take them.Tickets appear to be selling well with only a few left for this Monday.Will be interesting to see if demand continues.

It was certainly the wettest but seem to remember it being fairly mild for early January

I Agree.We were looking at Mendy before Kante.Musa was heavily linked in the January 16 transfer window.Slimani looked an excellent signing on paper. The whole not capitalising on the title win was a myth.The public and media soon moved on.Only a few weeks into the next season we played Liverpool and it was a Klopp spaffathon.O and let’s not forget Leicester are Champions btw.

That all stemmed from the great escape end of season 90/91.A fresh start on all levels.Brain Little arriving via helicopter and spending £200000 on a bunch of unknowns and still managing to inject positivity throughout the club and fanbase.Attendances doubled overnight and the pride returned after years of endless relegation battles. Pretty much continued until the fall out of the administration.