Captain...

I get that, but they could at least get basic facts straight.

Nah! We're a nation of piss takers, it's what we do. Actively wanting the women's team to fail because of the men's teams failures is pretty pathetic. Having a bit of fun when you're winning is fine.

I think the amount of digs women and women's football in particular has had to suffer over the years a few digs back can be forgiven. Any man getting bent out of shape over the success of our national team needs to, for want of a better term, man up. If you're not interested then fair enough but don't go around pissing on other people's chips.

You use it at the ATM machine.

Barnsley that season, we won 3-1

Great stuff, those Cambridge and Newcastle games were my second and third Leicester games. My fourth was at Wembley.

I wasn't, I was just saying we are a long way from automating it because it is not as simple as tennis, which is simulating the path that one moving object of regular size and shape has already taken, likewise cricket, only 1 variable but extended with a predictive line. For offside you need to take a number of irregular unpredictable moving variables into account that's without even considering the subjective nature of the offside rules and the difficulty in actually determining when the ball has been played to start checking. The semi automated offsides are so much better than the crappy lines, but it still only tells half the story.

And the phases of play? This all came in years ago when a player was injured in the box and was flagged for offside. It also allows for players retreating from an offside position if they've had to close down a time wasting goal keeper (I would love to see what would happen if we scrapped offside completely). I guess the compromise is that technology flags immediately that there was an offside in the build up then VAR reviews if it had a direct impact on the goal.

Does that include deciding if they were interfering with play or if it was a phase 2 offside or not because the defender didn't intentionally play the ball. (Lauren James' offside goal was a ridiculous decision). There is one thing determining if a player is in an offside position at a specific point*. It's another to factor in all the other variables that make an offside. *Determining that specific point is also a minefield and the frame rate of the VAR camera is still not high enough to establish the exact moment a ball was kicked. I think we're a long way off automatic offsides.

I don't think anyone is saying they would rather be in the championship, but we're here so let's focus on the positives. I do wonder how positive this thread would be if we didn't have 6 points and we'd had a valid winning goal chalked off incorrectly for offside or conceded a penalty from a blatant dive.

There is only expectation on those that spend ages in the transfer section of the forum. Most of us will be aware of the interest then take a look at him when he signs. Not pre judging him by transfer speculation.

It seems that this is all down to a tiktok video urging people to cause disruption on Oxford Street. Any of you young folk aware of this video and what it's motivation is?

It's the weaponising of the word that angers me. The fact it is being twisted into some culture war bullshit and terms like anti-woke and war on woke are banded around like it's a good thing, like we need to stop people being culturally and socially aware. We need to fight them woke folk until they become morally corrupt bigots.

How does needlessly contributing to this manufactured culture war help in anyway? No need to state you are not donating to woke charities especially when you later state the charities you are going to donate to. If you have a problem with Oxfam, don't donate, if you want to educate people on what Oxfam are doing pop into general chat there will be plenty of interested parties. Good luck with the charitable donations just keep the culture war rhetoric out of the football forum.

Looks like it's not a new phenomena. This is Darwen in 1898/99 only won 2 games all season guess who one of the obliging teams were.

For sure most people are good people and this was possibly just a massive misjudgement by a "youtuber". However the bigger problem is that these YouTubers and social media influencers have no moderating influences. They are not part of a production company nor have a team of "pen pushers" to regulate and curb some of their exuberance and excesses and make sure that stuff like this doesn't happen. The lawlessness of YouTube and social media is brilliantly freeing for contributors but it does inevitably lead to kids with no real life experience doing or saying something that causes this kind of chaos.

Or the thread is locked because people were just being dicks in the thread.

Pardon?

It just doesn't register.

Nope, and I can't wait to just celebrate a goal. I hope we score loads.

I never notice the goal music, so I don't really have an opinion. Clappers also don't bother me much, it's a nice memento to take home from the game I wouldn't be bothered if they got rid of them and they do seem like a waste, I hope they are made from recycled material. Now VAR, VAR is the absolute worst for killing enjoyment of the game. Every goal scored is tainted with the possibility of it being ruled out.

Especially when the scout motto is "Be Prepared".

I really enjoyed Adrian Tchaikovsky Children of Time, but struggled with the follow up. Have you read the third one?

I understand the question is about early influences. If you're looking for something new I can't recommend Becky Chambers highly enough. Incredible sci-fi world building with a strong satirical leaning.

Not everyone has a childhood best friend. Some people have a real lonely childhood where they struggle to make friends and connections with people. Then they find someone that they can connect with on so many levels and that person will also have sex with them and they want to spend the rest of their lives together of course they'll see them as their best friend... Not me, obviously, my childhood was amazing, but, you know, some people...