Red-Robbo

It's an interesting point. We basically sing a song about Massengo because of his unusual haircut, but it's obviously affectionate. It could be argued the "you've got a pineapple on your head" chant - which was not invented by Skinner & Baddiel - gave extra prominence to a bang average player. It seems a strange thing to be obsessing about decades later, when doubtless there would have been many more unpleasant chants directed at him - and at loads of other players. Where the sketch stepped outside 21st Century norms was in having a white bloke blacking up. We've had a long discussion on this on Otib, and I think most people now realise why this is not a good idea and have accepted it and moved on.

I'm not in favour of these schemes. Having lived with congestion charge in London for yonks, you soon realise that traffic is like water. Damn it up one way, it simply runs another, sometimes with disastrous effects. The car I drive to games will be exempt from Bristol's charges, so by taking some larger vehicles and vans off the roads, it might actually make my journey options wider and easier - but that's not the point. The real solution is by taking public transport back under public control and extending its scope and reliability, not to mention actually having a system that reliably tells you where buses are: the so-called First Bus App is a joke in Somerset. Last season, I took buses to games, but after the fourth time I found myself stranded because the evening bus back had been cancelled, I gave up and went back on the road. A negative for me and my mates (one of us has to stay sober) and the environment. The way buses operate is so ******* random. My daughters would take one to school if they could. It's a two-mile journey, but unlike when I was a kid, the roads are too dangerous now to cycle in. They have to have to be there 8:30-8:45. There was a bus, but then First changed the time of arrival in Wells to either 8:05 or 9:05 - making it unusable by children. Result, lots of harassed mums and dads clogging up the roads every morning.

As one who knows it well, I can report that Borehamwood has no decent boozers. ?

They can't even fight very well in a pitchside brawl....

Can't blame him. He wasn't expecting them to be there.....

We export arms true, but we don't surreptitiously finance the maniacs of Islamic State.

As state sponsors of terrorism, I'd say they do just that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_and_state-sponsored_terrorism#:~:text=Qatar has sponsored al-Qaeda's,-Nusra Front%2C since 2013.

"He's out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct". Yup, sounds like Barton.

Quite possibly. He looks in his early 40s, so he'd be in their wage range. As for Apocalypse Now, it's frequent quoted by away fans when they first see the Mem: "The horror, the horror..."

Not out if they beat Australia

The question arose in the pub last night as to whether the Gas have ever had a player at the World Cup. I know Junior Agogo was in the Ghana squad during his time there, but I can't recall him at a World Cup.

Good memory (or Wikipedia-ing). I watched most of that year's Cup in a caravan park at Lychett Minster, with my dad wiring up a black & white portable to the car battery. You can tell Mrs R is away for a few days.

I tell you what, I do not have the talent to be a TV cameraman following the game at one of these Cup matches, but if I was assigned the "totty camera" role, scanning the crowd for the nice-looking ladies jumping up and down, I could draw on a skillset developed for decades.

I may be wrong, but I don't think Hunter played in the Cup - although he was in the 66 and 70 squads (I've got his medallion in my ESSO '70 tournament book!? ) Cooper never scored for England. Not sure if Jacki D scored for Poland at the finals??

Joe Jordan did before playing for us. Not sure any have afterwards.

We kept a clean sheet because the US doesn't have a particularly formidable strike force, not because our defence were watertight. McKenzie, in particular, was given the freedom of our box time and time again. As for the forwards, they weren't great but the ball rarely got to them, so chances were sparse. It's a draw, not a loss, but let's not try conning ourselves it was any sort of decent performance.

Exactly. Don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not saying one underwhelming performance will define England's tournament. It's just fickin typical that it happens to be the only game I watched that was so dull.

I may be wrong, but I think it's the first time Canada won it, and they looked an exciting running side from what I saw. I know a couple of Canadians and they've suddenly developed a never-seen-before World Cup fever.

It was dull and tedious. That is the main point for me - because it doesn't have to be. We have some very exciting players. I certainly don't expect England to win every game they take part in, but I do like to be entertained, not frustrated by timidity. As for naming teams that do well in the group stages and advance to finals, you only have to cast your mind back to Russia, where Croatia beat Argentina and Nigeria to top their group and looked good VFM throughout. They may not have won it, but they advanced further than their nation ever had. Or take Brazil in 2002, scoring 11 goals to top their group and going on to win.

Difficult to know who to compare Khomeini and Khameini to, but they are both hypocritical power-mad dictators and murderers. One name comes to mind....

Wouldn't be unusual for their season to finish at Christmas...

And, of course, there are other Cups you could mention where the eventual winners DID look handy in group games. The US offered little bite, but what was disappointing wasn't the final score, but the manner of play and the fact that a team that didn't even arrive after their customary win in the CONCACAF sector had the best of it. Imagine playing like that against Spain? Pickford would get a repetitive injury from picking the ball out of the net! From a personal point of view, that's the only group game I will be watching, so it's disappointing it was such a poor spectacle for the fans. I regret angling my head to look at the screen rather than focussing on the tasty blonde lady on the far table. Hopefully, this blip of boredom has taught Southgate something, and a more attack-minded side can humiliate Wales. However, I feel anyone watching last night is quite right to feel disappointed and let down. The atmosphere in the boozer was as flat as the proverbial pancake after the game.

This is one of those injuries that turns out to be much worse than the medical team thought at first. Or maybe we rushed him back too fast with those cameo appearances, but even they came after a big lay-off.

Well, they certainly put that in... ? As a spectacle, it was awful. Going out to win helps build momentum. Teams with momentum win stuff.

I watched this one - although I'm not going out of my way to watch the World Cup, I'm not weirding out and giving up my usual Friday night in the boozer!!!! We were just too slow, too ponderous and - as has often happened with England - by the time we got the ball in the final third, they had 8 bodies back. Compare and contrast with the panic caused when the USA broke with speed. We sat on the ball, thinking about the "ideal" pass, when just advancing with it would've been the best option. We also seemed happy to allow the Americans to have unchallenged possession in their half from goal kicks. The fact they could literally walk it up to the halfway line then launch it to whoever had found some space, caused us all sorts of problems. England were pressed high whenever they were on the ball in our half. We never got a free pass. And I don't particularly blame any England player - although I'd have made subs at half-time and brought Foden on - I blame Southgate for his relentless caution, which means we cannot break through against any club that is well-drilled and not going gung ho.