Alf Bentley

I do appreciate this. Indeed, polls only allow a limited number of options, as I recall. I was just trying to stimulate some debate. I don't see how? He was at Wolves for several years, went on loan to Everton, but we signed him on a permanent transfer (Everton had too much sense and declined the option). We then sold him to Wrexham?

I've gone for JJ. More chance of Leeds going down than West Ham, notwithstanding the latter's diabolical start to the season. You've missed a trick, though, OP....you could've included ex-LCFC players in other divisions or abroad. - Coady and Ward taking Wrexham back to L1 would be highly amusing - Could Mahrez get relegated to the Saudi second tier? Or Michael Morrison 's career arc turn symmetrical as he drops back to non-league with Cambridge? - Or a long shot ironic career arc....Vardy puts sentiment ahead of cash and signs for Sheff Wed on deadline day, only to end his career with the Owls getting relegated to L1?

He'll end his playing career at Llanelli Town. But not before he's resurrected his international career. His 4 grandparents come, respectively, from Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Lesotho and Laos.

A personal recollection.... In 1983, when I was 20-21, there was a lot of Daily Mail-style outrage about the misconduct of youth (my generation - some of whom are now outraged at the misconduct of modern youth). I used a pub frequented by a load of "old blokes" (probably a bit younger than I am now) and got talking to them. They revelled in tales of their youth spent brawling and rioting around dance halls - probably in the 1940s, judging by their age. Also, a cartoon circulated on Facebook recently about the rebellious conduct of my Grandma's generation....

I hope any McAteer sale would mean Fatawu is going nowhere....that could be naive of me, though.

"Maybe not as deep as your grave in the garden will be if you do that again!" is the appropriate response, I feel.

On a rack, medieval torture-style? I suppose that would be one way to avoid transfer spending/PSR issues and yet satisfy those who say "we need a big man up front" so we can "just get it in the box"...

I bet your wife/husband/partner was pissed off about that.

I remember seeing that on TV when I was still at secondary school and it making a big impression. I've never seen it since. It quite disturbed me at the time, but I'm unsure exactly why - the themes of brutal bullying and fatal injustice, I presume.

Sorry to hear about your travails, Davie. 12 months waiting for radiotherapy is shocking. Depending on what my consultant tells me about treatment options, I might message you at some point. I'm hoping to avoid hormone therapy, but it might be necessary, obviously - should find out soonish. Mind you, I'm particularly shocked that the PL got involved in your case and imposed PSR tests. I only had to do PSA tests....

Sorry to hear this. Unexpected bad news is always shocking in the first instance. I generally find the uncertainty the hardest to deal with. Once you know the full scenario and implications, even if unwelcome, at least you can then think more clearly about future plans and about your input into treatment decisions. From that perspective, it's excellent to hear that they're acting so quickly to discover the extent of your cancer and to plan the treatment response ASAP. Surgery, with its possible side-effects and recovery time, is not welcome but it's far from the end of the world (speaking as someone who had prostate cancer surgery in March). I'm uninformed about bowel cancer specifically, but know that plenty of folk recover from bowel cancer. While not perfect, cancer treatment options are improving all the time. Naturally, metastasis is a fear - I'm waiting for news, like you - but it sounds as if you'll know the facts about that next week. Good luck. Even with metastatic cancer, there are now often options to hold it at bay for years. My cousin's husband was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and told he had 12-18 months left, but is still going strong about 3 years later - he and my cousin have been travelling the globe, climbed a mountain recently () and were on Facebook 2 days ago enjoying a family outing. Likewise, Sir Chris Hoy is still out there cycling the nation. Though hopefully you (and I) will get better news on metastasis. A lot of folk say to avoid looking at web sites about your illness, but I disagree - so long as you have sufficient sense to tell the difference between reputable, properly researched sites and random opinion / social media gossip, which is often ill-informed. I've found cancer charity sites have a lot of useful info: Cancer Research UK & Prostate Cancer Research, in my case, but I presume there are reputable sites that cover bowel cancer. I've also looked at specialist medical research papers posted online, despite having no medical training - I wouldn't understand much of their contents, but they usually have a brief summary of their findings on whatever illness or treatment they're researching. This is usually easily comprehensible to Joe Public. Being well-informed about likely scenarios and potential treatments can help you understand better what medics tell you - and to take more informed decisions / have some input. All the very best.

The second leg was in Armenia, so it was a hell of a long way for Lincoln Red Imps to travel back enjoying having won on penalties.

As Mozart has returned to write a 2nd symphony, I'll do likewise. Might be helpful, especially as I took a different treatment route and am almost certainly heading for further treatment. Before doing so, I'd like to echo @mozartfox: if you're 45-50+ and/or have any relevant family history of issues, please get a PSA (diagnostic starting point). Also, remember that prostate cancer often has no symptoms whatsoever - and that close female relatives with breast or ovarian cancer may also increase prostate cancer risk. I had robot-assisted surgery to remove my prostate in March. The recovery was a lot easier than you'd imagine, though having a urinary catheter for 9 days after the op was no fun. I was discharged after 24 hours, had almost zero pain (just discomfort sitting on hard surfaces in the early weeks) and other side-effects were minor or quickly resolved: e.g. some minor urinary incontinence, conquered within days. I got tired slightly more quickly than usual for a few weeks, but that soon faded, and my energy/mobility was pretty much 100% from Day 1.....apart from the 9 days of catheter chafing in the right honourable member, which discouraged movement.... Post-surgical analysis of the bit cut out of me yielded pros and cons: - "Negative margins": This was good news, meaning the external surface of the bit cut out was cancer-free - all cancer in the immediate vicinity of the prostate was safely contained/removed - This notwithstanding the fact that the cancer had indeed grown beyond the prostate capsule, upping it from Stage 2 to Stage 3a prostate cancer - My Gleason score (aggressiveness of cancer) was upped from Gleason 4+5 at biopsy to 5+4 at post-op analysis, the second most aggressive rating possible... PSA readings after a prostatectomy are expected to be quite different to those quoted by Mozart after his radiotherapy. As you no longer have a prostate, PSA should quickly fall to zero or at least a mere trace, if cancer has been fully cured.... - My 1st PSA reading was 0.1: very low, but not zero, so would either drop to zero or start rising from there. Unfortunately, it did the latter.... - 2nd PSA: 0.19 - 3rd PSA: 0.3 Thus, I clearly still have prostate cancer at a microscopic but growing level - and growing quite quickly, as it's such an aggressive one. I had another PET scan yesterday and am now awaiting a consultant's appointment to discover the findings and implications of that. PET scans are the gold standard scans designed to identify the location of cancer at an earlier, smaller stage than other scans. As I understand it, the potential outcomes & implications of the PET scan are: - Most likely: localised cancer identified in prostate bed (area where prostate used to be) and/or nearby lymph nodes -> 4+ weeks of radiotherapy with or without hormone therapy to cure - Small amount of metastatic cancer identified elsewhere in body: if in a single, suitable area, radiotherapy could still cure this....but systemic approaches to hold it at bay, not cure it, might be required if it's in multiple locations or in organs where radiotherapy can't be used...the worst potential outcome - The PET scan may not identify the cancer location (0.3 or even 0.5 PSA means the cancer is still tiny). This leaves a choice between blind radiotherapy of prostate bed/lymph nodes (risking needless damage to healthy tissue & needless side-effects) or waiting a bit longer until the location can be pinpointed (allows proper targeting, but with risk of it going metastatic) (Essentially zero chance of PSA increase being caused by anything other than some escaped prostate cancer cells) I still feel exceptionally fit and well - and am now on my second new job since treatment. As usual, uncertainty is the only thing that bothers me, rather than adversity. My realistic hope is that the scan identifies microscopic cancer located in the prostate bed & I just have a few weeks of radiotherapy to cure it (would definitely prefer to avoid hormone therapy if at all possible.....did you know that the "chemical castration" sometimes prescribed for rapists/paedophiles is just another name for "hormone therapy"? ) Good luck to all (especially me ) - and, if there's any chance you might be at risk, go to your GP and get that PSA blood test. Prostate cancer caught early is almost always cured, but metastatic prostate cancer needlessly shortens a lot of lives....

Looks like you're right - according to Wikipedia.

Lincoln Red Imps of Gibraltar have qualified for the play-off stage of the Europa League. They defeated Noah Yerevan of Armenia on penalties after an aggregate draw in the 3rd Qualifying Round. If that's not worthy of a new topic, I don't know what is.....

I blame L'Oréal.

He didn't run onto the pitch and pull down his shorts in the centre circle revealing the words "KP Out" tattooed on his hairy backside. Didn't you see him not do that?

I like the sound of this man.

I know Wednesday are in a mess, but I still can't see The Clash winning that without Strummer's on-field leadership. They still have Mick Jones' creative genius, Simonon's physicality and Topper controlling the pace and rhythm from the back. But ultimately, there are only 3 of them and they're all aged about 70 now.

I'm well aware that PA take part in direct action as well as compliant protest. In my own posts, I've mentioned the paint attack on the plane and the break-in causing damage at the Elbit arms firm. Direct action protesters will expect to face the legal consequences of any damage they cause - and should also face legal consequences if found guilty of assault. You call for the protesters to wait for the outcome of the court case before protesting about the proscription of PA as a terrorist group. Yet you do not wait for the court case against those who broke into Elbit. You simply refer to "the violent attacks on security guards and policemen just doing their jobs", when nobody has yet been convicted of assault in that case. That betrays a certain bias, I feel. People don't have to align with a particular group. I'm sure there are plenty who protest about Palestine without supporting PA. But, as usual with draconian govt over-reactions, the proscription of PA has caused a lot more people to rally to their cause, as they view this as an attack on the civil right to protest - be that PA, other Palestine protests or protests about other issues. Here is a press release from the UN, prior to the proscription, urging the UK not to abuse terrorist legislation in this way, stating internationally accepted definitions of terrorism and predicting likely consequences of such a proscription: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/07/un-experts-urge-united-kingdom-not-misuse-terrorism-laws-against-protest Of course, I don't have the power to decide which proscribed organisation are/are not acceptable. But how the law works is that I am allowed to express views about that - and I do believe that some organisations (e.g. ISIS) clearly are terrorists, while others (e.g. PA) clearly are not. PA or its supporters have committed crimes during direct action and should face the legal consequences for any crimes of which they're convicted....but crimes of criminal damage, breaking & entering or even assault do not equate to terrorism. You trust that the Govt has more info than we do. That may be true. If so, I'd expect it to already be in the public domain or to have been publicised (with anonymised sources, if need be) by the govt when PA was proscribed.....not the case, as I understand it.

Feel free to do so. My understanding is their motives are opposition to Israeli action in Palestine and opposition to British arms sales to Israel. People have different opinions on that, but their stance on those issues is shared by a lot of people. I'm sure their are some dodgy people involved, as there are in most groups. I also know they sometimes commit criminal acts like throwing paint on planes. That doesn't equate to terrorism. A quick Google search suggests clubs only pay for police within the ground, not all around town - the rest is covered by the taxpayer (police resources diverted from other police activities, as they are for protests). There's still a disparity there, but maybe it's fair for organisations/clubs staging entertainment to contribute to policing - but for the basic right to express public opinions not to be subject to whether or not an individual/group can pay to express its views in public? Do you see all protesters as "professional protestors" or just those you disagree with? Are the protesters outside migrant hotels also "professional protesters"? The protests are indeed about the original issue of Israeli action in Palestine (mainly Gaza, but perhaps also the West Bank - I've not attended any). But they've also become about the issue of free speech and the right to protest, due to the group being proscribed as a terrorist organisation. Expressing support for the group is a protest against the curbing of those rights. No, I'm not comfortable with people marching in support of ISIS. ISIS and its supporter have committed countless atrocities and massacred large number of its opponents - whereas Palestine Action has thrown some paint on a plane, broken into the offices of an arms company etc. I think it's reasonable to see one as a seriously dangerous terrorist organisation, but not the other - so marching in support of ISIS would be supporting terrorist violence - akin to inciting violence & hatred. Whether it would be worth arresting an 80-year-old woman in the hypothetical eventuality that she sat on the pavement with an "I support ISIS" placard, I don't know.... In some cases, where time is not a factor, there might be a case for protesters awaiting the outcome of a court case. But legal remedy doesn't preclude protest alongside it - and time certainly is a factor in Gaza (as I've said, the protests are clearly still about Palestine/Gaza, not just PA) as people are starving or being shot there every day and the Israeli govt has just announced plans to use military means to take complete control of the Gaza Strip. Events in Palestine won't wait for the outcome of a UK court case...

It could also be argued that regular and repeated football matches divert police from real crimes. But football matches and protests are both valuable elements of a healthy society....so long as they're not happening every day and thereby taking up a ridiculous amount of resources. It would be interesting to know how the decision was taken to arrest so many people merely for holding placards declaring support for Palestine Action. A decision by senior police or under pressure from the Home Office? Either way, the ultimate responsibility for this fiasco lies with the Govt for passing ridiculous legislation declaring PA to be a terrorist organisation. I've no problem with folk getting arrested if they commit violence, cause damage, obstruct the highway or incite hatred - that's always been the case. Protesters from Greenpeace, Just Stop Oil, CND, Countryside Alliance or whoever have all been arrested for such acts - but not for supporting a "terrorist organisation". You can think what you like of PA, but people supporting them are mainly concerned about mass killings and ethnic cleansing (almost declared as such by Netanyahu's intention to take 100% control by force) - or about free speech. It would also be interesting to know why the Govt passed such draconian legislation. Maybe partly a paranoid fear of losing control of the streets after last summer's riots & the migrant hostel unrest, as others have suggested? Maybe also a little paranoia about being seen as anti-semitic, after they were lambasted for that under Corbyn? But perhaps mainly due to a strategic decision to try to stay close to the USA in the UK national interest, knowing how much more sympathetic the USA is to Israel and how unpredictable Trump is, with his tendency to impose tariffs or other punishments on nations that don't do what he wants? That would be bitterly ironic, after Blair eventually made a similar strategic choice to back Bush over WMDs in Iraq, having ultimately failed to keep him on board with UN-based decision making & weapons inspections...

It's an offence against justice and free speech, as others have pointed out - and an absurdity. Such arrests should be limited to people inciting or engaging in violence (whatever their cause) or committing criminal damage or whatever - protesters accept that as a consequence if they commit such acts as part of a protest. It's also enormously stupid at a time when the police are short of numbers and unable to deal with real crimes (minor crimes, but ones that really affect people - burglary etc.), when the courts are already unable to cope with a backlog of cases and when there's an ongoing prisons crisis....

Yes, I know he said that. I just find the scale of his misjudgement flabbergasting. I mean, if I thought someone had repeatedly tried to poison me to the extent that I'd become seriously ill, had kept a spreadsheet of occasions on which she'd poisoned me, had stopped eating her meals and moved out of the house as a result, and had declined an invitation to another meal as I feared being poisoned again.....and heard that my parents, aunt & uncle were invited to the meal, even if I thought she only had it in for me, I reckon I'd absolutely tell my family not to attend on a precautionary basis. Surely 99.99% of people would do the same?

The Australian mushroom murders story just got even weirder.... https://news.sky.com/story/australian-mushroom-murderer-allegedly-served-husband-poisoned-pasta-curry-and-sandwiches-13408485 So, before his wife murdered his parents and aunt and attempted to murder his uncle, the husband believes that she repeatedly tried to poison him via pasta, curry and a wrap. To the extent that he suffered temporary paralysis, had part of his bowel removed - and, according to the BBC, ended up in a coma. This begs 2 questions.... - Why the fvck did he carry on eating food she had prepared? Why not leave or cook his own grub? Instead, he kept a spreadsheet detailing the occasions on which she poisoned him. - Why the fvck didn't he advise his parents, aunt and uncle not to go and eat the meal she was cooking? He declined an invitation himself, as he thought she might try to poison him again, but didn't see any need to warn his family members off, as he assumed she wouldn't try to poison them, he says....