Red-Robbo

It looked a sitter at first from my angle, but when you see it closer, he gets the ball, when the keeper was already making himself large. It was score-able, but not my definition of "a sitter".

Let me make one thing clear, Cornick didn't do anything particularly wrong in that game. I am amused however by some posters here who respond to any criticism of the man as if someone had insulted their own mothers. Only Pearson provokes a greater circling of waggons response.

My big question in that game is why Pearson waited so long to bring on subs when it became obvious we were hardly able to get the ball out of our half midway through the second half? Fresh legs were needed after the high intensity first half. West Brom showed what that could do. I'm satisfied with our performance. Just think Pearson took too long to shape it up.

It was both. Keeper did extremely well, but HC could see the entire net. There are strikers who'd put that beyond anyone's reach.

"Just taking the tram to watch Bristol South End, dear... will be back in time to catch the Caruso concert at the electric kinematoscope...."

We'll only wear it when it's been snowing....

Seconded, I'd rather it stagger from embarrassment to embarrassment and not fold till it hits at least Southern League.

That's not a forum avatar by the way. It's an actual picture of the smoke coming out of his ears when he heard Clarke-Harris wasn't joining them.

The MaraMeccano Stadium.

Unlucky, da sheesh

You mean he's not the Kuwait Crown Fund???! Imagine if he was just a bloke who ran a few restaurant franchises, had a teensy bit of spare cash and fancied playing at "English league club owner" for a few years! I don't think he even has a nice watch.

Very true. Certainly, chasing money as an endorsement of success doesn't bring happiness. You need enough to be able to live free of debt and be relatively comfortable, but if you get caught in the aspirational lifestyle/envy mindset you'll be forever chasing your tail and never satisfied. I earn less than I did a decade ago, but am much happier which boils down to being in charge of my own destiny, being in a nice environment and a loving relationship. I could earn more if I took fewer holidays, was away from my family more, was more ruthless, paid employees less. But I don't want to do those things. Why live for work, when you can live AND work?

Well. They were right there. HOWEVER, if you have a gramme of sense you'll realise you can't judge a player on the basis of his home debut - particularly when much of the rest of the side were off their game as well.

I was there. 'Pool fans taking it out on the cars parked behind the stadium. Pandemonium around the Raynes Rd exit.

Because he's being paid - and breaking his contract by leaving mid-season would mean he wouldn't be. He also doesn't strike me as the sort of chap who'd cut and run and leave his players and us fans in the lurch. Next season, it's a different ball game. He'd need pretty concrete assurances he wouldn't be expected to operate with a below-average playing budget. He'd need assurances that profits on sales would be ploughed back in. It's not hard to imagine that, at 60, Pearson sees this as his last job in football and he'd like to leave a legacy. He probably took the job because he saw us as like Leicester: at least in terms of fanbase/city size/potential/lack of glamour. He'd like, if at all possible, to leave us with a promotion I'm sure.

We should install this and then retract part of the pitch if we're doing badly. Be easier to defend half the pitch. If we do it when they have a throw-in, their player might fall in the gap.

Who do you think you are kidding, Mr Hitler-lookalike....

Allegedly. Other sources dispute this.

Boat = "Bring.out.another.thousand!"

For sure, but the word I used was "organised" which is where the Glasgow team 'mobs' were a bit different from unorganised brawling seen in many games all over in the past. The mobs were often linked to either Orange Lodges or Catholic social clubs and so had the organisation to plan 'paggers' well in advance, sometimes liaising with opposite numbers to ensure a decent confrontation. They often took the violence into 'opposition' pubs as well, something of a development in the inter-war years.

If you read John Lydon's autobiographies, it's clear there was a massive overlap between blokes who knew who attended north London/Essex discos in the mid-70s and wore expensive - back then usually pastel-shaded - clothes, and guys who got involved in bother at football*. These "soul-boys" were often known as casuals at the time, due to the "smart casual" attire they wore out for the night, as opposed to bell-bottom jeans/t-shirt uniform of most club-goers back then. Seems to me this is where the term 'casual' first came from, and why it tended to get attached to a football sub-culture. It was, at the start, just a fashion thing. * John "Rambo" Stevens who provided Sex Pistols security was one. Never really liked punk music, a well-known 'face' on Highbury's North Bank.

Author Irvine Welsh, of Trainspotting fame, claimed Hibs fans used the term casuals ('cashees') first. He was involved in the scene in the 80s. Organised football violence was certainly a thing in Glasgow and Edinburgh before it was in England, because of the sectarian element. Gangs associated with Rangers or Celtic emerged in the Peaky Blinders 20s era. Obviously, the term casual and the fashion obsession wasn't part of it then. In a sense, "football hooliganism" was invented in Scotland, made a mass culture in England, refined and rebranded in Italy and Holland, and now still lives on as a mass phenomenon in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Its continued existence here is rather niche.

So, they'll say. I think adidas - in the very early 70s, not widely available in provincial Britain - was their favoured look in the early days. Man Ut fans claim to be the first casuals, and back then they adopted Fred Perry as a look. Talk to Rangers/Celtic/Hibs/Hearts fans they'll claim that the term 'casual' was coined up there. One thing's for sure, as you say, the culture originated in the UK and was exported.

Often with the bouffant hairstyle too! You didn't know if they wanted to punch you or... , yes, well.

It's interesting that before the current CP Company and Stone Island (both Italian) brands worn by so-called casuals, they adopted other Italian makes, such as Emporio Armani, Fila, Ellesse and Fiorucci. The term casual, in the football context (before then it was mainly applied to lads who wore pastel colour clothes, slip-ons and listened jazz funk in Essex discos), first got coined in Scotland. However, "hooligans" in places like the north of England had already started to wear at-the-time expensive branded clothes like Adidas and Fred Perry.