Grovesred

Saturday was certainly a day of two halves for me.

Best bit was watching York City put in a stonking performance (MOM: Panther) to reach the Conference playoffs, and ignite dreams of New Wembley glory

Worst bit was going into to City Social Club, gazing expectantly at the TV screen, only to be greeted with the horror of Gr£tna's winner, and stumbling back out into the car park in tears during a phone call to my born-and-bred Saintee better half

im going to be in Pyong Yang (N. Korea) and all foreign news is banned!

Not too dissimilar to trying to find out Scottish results from the English media, then. :|

Old Firm excepted, of course

There is a widely known relaxant called alcohol, it might help you never know.

Indeed - I had recourse to this for much of yesterday. As if watching York having to strain every sinew to get all three points against ten-man Southport wasn't stressful enough, I must have spent the GDP of Luxemburg on mobile internet services keeping track of Saints & Gretna.

And this Saturday will be more of the same - York needing a point at home to Oxford to make the play-offs (and, hopefully, an appearance at Wemberlee) but still needing to keep an eye on goings on at Hamilton and Dingwall.

And I thought sport was supposed to good for your heart...

A quick tour of Yorkshire would work wonders.

I'll drink to that.

With a select audience of three (two people supporting Saints plus the steward) the York City Social Club wasn't exactly bouncing on Saturday afternoon, but I think the screams of anguish are still echoing round Kit Kat Crescent.

"Gutted" doesn't begin to cover it.

Yorkie the Lion

[url=http://www.sports-mascots.co.uk/yorkie1.jpg]

Saints had damn well better get to the final - I can't make tomorrow (got the keys to a select venue to watch it on TV) so a second Hampden appearance is abolutely necessary, and I won't take "no "for an answer.

With all respect to York City, I would say Scotland could expect a move to a club a little bigger.

Just so, although I'd say City's (non) league position and ropey finances are the problem; it's a decent size club averaging close to 3000 people per match, and the likelihood of much more if promotion can be grabbed at Wembley next month.

If I were a footballer and had a choice between Birmingham & York...

...well yes, I'd choose York, but anyone with a grain of sense and an eye on their bank account would head for Birmingham, but if Jason's reading this, City is a club that really could go places over the next few years, York is a fantastic place to live, and you won't find many better coaches than billy McEwan, etc, etc ;o)

http://www.yorkcityfc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=337244#337244 (sorry you'll need to register to view it) is reporting a rumour emanating from the Falkirk area that York City is Jason's destination.

Much as I wish it were true, I really can't see it happening.

Allegedly, Brooks Mileson is a friend George Reynolds, the former Darlington chairman who is once again a guest of Her Majesty.

There must be some mileage in that for a talented songwriter.

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I assume they've decided they can't afford to lose him 8)

the water is brown.

See my comments (above) about the beer.

Blackpool itself is a bigger shithole than I remember

Many years ago, I went to watch Blackpool v Hull with a mate who's a Codheads fan.

We had a bad trip down to Blackpool. It was a cruelly cold night - I don't think I've ever been colder at a football game. We spent most of the afternoon finding the worst pubs the town had to offer, and being overcharged for rancid ale at each and every one.

And then the game was shit.

So naturally we moaned non-stop through the first half. Very loudly.

I have to say if someone sat behind me at a game, loudly slagging off my home town, my home town's pubs, my team, my team's stadium, my team's fans etc etc, I'd feel inclined to give them a gobful back at the very least, or smack them one if they were significantly smaller than me.

However the elderly couple sitting in front of us turned round at half time and shared their flask of tea (complete with liberal shots of Scotch) and even offered us some of their sandwiches.

Needless to say we felt about 3 inches tall after this display of generosity shamed our mean-spirited whingeing...

I'm not in any position to pass comment on the SFL, but

...in England.

There, the Nationwide Conference has four employees looking after 68 clubs...

And doesn't it show!

- This is the organisation that negotiated a deal with Sky giving the home team £5,000 for a game shown live, so if you lose 350 fans off the gate, you're actually worse off.

- It's the organisation that unilaterally scrapped clubs' deals with their local radio stations and imposed a new, national deal with the BBC. Don't know about other clubs, but York City now get less from the BBC than we did before.

- It's the organisation that has over-ruled the FA and prevented Scarborough from signing players, even on loan, despite all their creditors being satisfied with their arrangements to pay off their debts.

- It's the organisation that has a different definition of the term "under 24 years of age" to just about every other organisation in football world-wide, leading to the loss of York City's £500,000 rated striker Clayton Donaldson to Hibs for £0.

I was speaking to a York City official fairly recently, who described a visit to Conference HQ which turned out to be a barely-converted terraced house in a residential street. He knew he'd found it because there was a sheet of A4 in the window with the number 51 scrawled on it by way of identification.

He and another employee of the club (who said, "See? I told you it's a ****ing Mickey Mouse league") were ushered into what had been the sitting room, before being shown up to the front bedroom for an important disciplinary hearing.

Now it may simply be that the four employees are not spectacularly incompetent, or that the (apparently) elected board are not a bunch of southern-biased tossers, but these consultants really should not assume that a smaller staff is a more efficient one.

Well done, Motherwell FC, and thank you.

The Scotsman was applauding the majority of the Motherwell fans who self-policed this... so fair play to them

Indeed, but it's not always easy for other fans to intervene. These batsards rely on their ability to intimidate, and your ordinary fan doesn't always feel confident enough to intervene.

Which is why there are stewards and police at games, so the clubs must act, and demand that the stewards and police that they are paying for enforce ground regulations and the law of the land.

Absolutely outrageous if that's what they were. Motherwell should be ashamed.

I thought I heard some such racist shit, but wasn't 100% sure.

Sadly, these wankers seem to be gaining a bit of confidence to spread their poison over recent months - they need challenging and telling to shut the **** up whenever they spot their shite.

Jason's goal was an excellent riposte; nevertheless I always feel an overwhelming urge to begin introducing heads to pavements...

rant over/

O'Neill's on Low Ousegate show a fair few Scottish games, I believe, so it might be worth giving them a bell

Scrub that - just dropped by on my dinner break, and it's Fecking Blackburn v Fecking Arsenal.

Do they still do students?

...must ...resist ...tap-in

Is there anyone who doesn't take delight in the current plight of Leeds United...?

At York City home games, there's always a heart-warming reaction when it's announced at half-time that Leeds are losing again but with three Leeds fans (including my boss's boss) sitting within twenty feet of me as I type this, I need to be circumspect

Meanwhile at the other end of the table, Leeds have launched a new strip...

A purely selfish request,but does anyone know of anywhere in the Yorkshire area showing the game? I don't have Sky so can't watch it on BBC Scotland. A Scottish pub or something would be ace.

O'Neill's on Low Ousegate show a fair few Scottish games, I believe, so it might be worth giving them a bell 01904 686901

Even if you do have Sky, don't they block the signal for BBC Scotland down in England when there is a footy game on? Can anyone confirm?

Sky is OK - at least it was for the Hibs game the other week.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, pleads guilty to something they didn't do.

I beg to differ.

I've seen it happen more than once, quite apart from having been very close to doing it myself.

Rangers and Celtic are going nowhere in Europe - perhaps they should merge.

Light blue & green touchpaper, and stand well clear...

If you did nothing wrong, you should have plead not guilty and the courts would have found in your favour.

Sadly that's not always the case.

I was arrested at a game in the 1980s, but had not broken the law in any way. I pleaded not guilty, but nevertheless was found guilty.

I appealed to the Crown Court, where the judge told me that even if he'd believed my version of events (I said I'd done nothing wrong and provided a full account of my actions) he'd still have upheld the conviction.

The next time I appeared in front of a court (activities on a picket line, not football-related) I again didn't think I'd broken any laws, but accepted a binding-over because I didn't think I had any chance of getting a fair hearing, and expected to get landed with hundreds of pounds costs in addition to any fine.

Now, these experiences aren't exactly uncommon, and I'm just pleased that banning orders weren't all the rage in 1983, but I'd have to consider a case long and hard before I'd ban a supporter from a ground for life.

I also hope I'd have the good sense to reconsider any such ban after a time - we all change as we grow older and yesterday's hooligan may well be a perfectly decent citizen tomorrow.