Chris_OGrady

Fair play Gareth. He can hold his head high, but he's not the man to take us to glory. I've found myself getting increasingly frustrated by him over the last few years, but it's nice that we can look back on his reign fondly rather than it dragging onto an acrimonious end. As others have stated above, the only tournament I can't fault him for was Qatar 2022. We put in some good performances and were beaten by a strong France team. 2018 he did well too, and I think in hindsight Croatia probably had a slightly better team than us. 2021 was a huge missed opportunity and ultimately the one where we should have cashed in. It was where we started to have an excess of attacking options and Southgate's negativity and limitations became apparent. He played such a negative team in that Italy final and we were poor as soon as we took the lead. With it basically being a home tournament, we should have won it. This tournament has been a complete smokescreen and it's a miracle he didn't end up the same way as Roy Hodgson after the Slovakia game.

the "golden generation" only really had a top squad/team in 2004 and 2006. In the 2002 world cup vs Brazil we had Danny Mills, Trevor Sinclair, Nicky Butt and Heskey all starting... In 2010 we had Upson starting at centre back...

Now that we failed to shithouse the tournament, it would have been better in hindsight if we did crash out to Slovakia and Southgate given his marching orders. Unfortunately the smokescreen has been created again and we'll be wasting one of our best generation of players with a flawed manager. Bang average/underwhelming/under-performing sides have won the Euros before (Greece 2004, Portugal 2016, Italy 2021) but I imagine they weren't lead by a failed Middlesbrough manager.

Euros semi final and I'm hardly even arsed. Don't think I've even got out my seat once for an England game so far this tournament. It's just very bizarre. Doom and gloom aside (apologies), a win in 90 mins I think will galvanise the public and hopefully myself!

Where did you end up going?

This is purely based off the occasions I watched him play for Roma in the Champions League and Italy in major tournaments. He never seemed to have any influence on the games. Most notable moment I remember is him elbowing some Arsenal player in the face for no reason and getting sent off

Totti

I’m in for a few hundred

Just been in York for a few days with work. Got to be one of the best pub per capita places in the country. An incredible volume of good establishments with proper beer selection. Most pubs have a minimum of 5 cask options which are usually local/independent offerings rather than the usual boring stuff (Abbot Ale, London Pride etc). Brew York has got to be one of the best taprooms I’ve visited too- food was amazing. Even on Tuesday the pubs and city were lively.

yeh great venue but unfortunately run by M&B

My old student union! Yeh its the best area of town there- great pubs, bars and architecture.

Shame about the Monday! There is a decent cluster of traditional pubs at the bottom of Hardman Street (Georgian Quarter) - Grapes, Fly in the Loaf, and Roscoe Head. The Bridewell is good closer to the centre of town. Baltic Quarter is more crafty, but reckon it will be dead there on a Monday (could be wrong). Ship and Mitre is good the other side of town, but I think you are better off being in the Georgian Quarter.

Great debrief! Seems very similar to my experience.

What were the highlights?

Anyone get any recommendations for good beer shops - selling local/independent/interesting beers - in north Leicestershire? I find Bradleys in Quorn has a decent selection.

I've done a blind taste test on macro lagers and didn't do great. I also challenged my mates, who thought they would be able to smash it, and they didn't fare any better. Admittedly, after after each pint your judgement goes to shit...

I was meant to be going Tamil Crown, Old Fountain, Wenlock Arms, and the Earl of Essex next week, but railworks on the EMR line have put an end to that... For any Charnwood heads, the Navigation in Barrow has upped it's Cask game with 5 on yesterday and most of them small/local offerings too!

Agreed. I've just got back from Croatia. Dubrovnik is beautiful, but quite expensive and rammed with tourists. It tends to quieten down in the evening though so I'd recommend staying over one night. You can do it easily in one day. Deffo worth visiting though! I also did Zagreb, Plitvice, Trogir, Split and Hvar. It's a beautiful country and I thoroughly enjoyed my trip. All the costal towns (Trogir, Split, Hvar and Dubrovnik) are very pretty, but fairly similar. My favourite place was Zagreb- reminded me of Prague in terms of its architecture. It was significantly cheaper and less touristy than everywhere else too. Most of the coastal towns seemed to be rammed with big tourist groups (especially Americans). I've had similar experiences in Italy too. Have Americans always flocked to European towns en masse, or is this a new phenomenon? I suppose America is growing richer than Europe by the year so they must have significant purchasing power over here.

Castel San Pietro for sunset. Cappa Cafe for a pint (good outside area). Bell tower is worth going up too. It’s a beautiful city!

It’s just part of the sanitisation of football (especially at the top level). We can’t possibly interact with these £100k per week superstars who have literally nothing in common with us anymore and we must bow down to them. There were more pitch invasions in 70/80/90s before social media even existed. The top clubs used to pitch invade (Man Utd/Liverpool) but now they are soulless, corporate entities devoid of young people. I’m too old for it now personally, but it’s always good to witness. Looks like i’l be bringing along my clapper in future to tap along to Uptown Funk with the majority of this thread!

Okay my first post was very facetious. I always just enjoy seeing footage (old and new) of people celebrating and spilling onto the pitch. Obv it’s much better when there’s an actual reason to pitch invade (promotion, avoiding relegation, winning something). It’s just part of the joy/emotion/atmosphere of football. The fact we don’t do it anymore, and the way our club acts towards it, just kind of reinforces the idea that we are corporate customers rather than actual fans. We have our celebrations dictated to us by the club, through their tinpot music and annoying pitch displays, rather than doing it ourselves. I get your points, and there are a lot of clubs that do pointless pitch invasions with annoying lads running around filming themselves, but in the right circumstances pitch invasions are great. I just find that people who are against them are just anti atmosphere in general (i’l try not to dip back into stereotypes 😂).

The only teams that don’t pitch invade are tourist clubs (Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal etc) or family clubs like ourselves. Anyone who is against pitch invasions is probably also pro VAR.

https://www.alltrails.com/en-gb/explore/trail/england/derbyshire/bamford-edge-and-stanage-edge-circular This one I did recently was great. Views over Ladybower Reservoir were stunning. There was lots of roadside parking around the start point too.

Off to Croatia on Saturday for 10 days. Got a day in Zagreb, day at Plitvice Lakes, few days in Split, few days in Hvar, and then a day in Dubrovnik. I've pretty much got my itinerary sorted, but if anyone has any recommendations for bars/restaurants/places to see etc that would be great!

Just having one in the Bankers Cat Leeds- great gaf!