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Reply | Arguably our best Striker, Midfielder and Defender all gone
at 12:36 15 Jul 2025
It’s not a lot of use being a quality defender if he cannot play week in week out. Tuanzebe couldn’t and carries just too much risk for me, fitness wise. One of the things I’d like to see next season is a settled defence with a No 1 keeper behind. Don’t care which keeper - they’re all about the same level and adequate.
Delap? Well he was always going sadly as I suspect will Hutchinson. They need to be playing in the Premier League.
The surprise is Morsy if he goes. He might have been our best midfielder, but frankly that’s not saying a lot as collectively they were taken to the cleaners after 20 mins max every week, neither protecting the defenders or supporting the forwards. Sam though was the heartbeat of the team; a top Captain; would be fine for another season at Championship level. But if he wants to move on or can get a better deal elsewhere, fine. Sad though it is. Same with any player.
A team as broken as that needs change. Am I convinced we will be able to get in the quality we need in the areas with gaps (principally midfield and Hirst back up)? Not sure since everyone is after the better players. Time will tell. |
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Reply | Morsy
at 08:58 15 Jul 2025
Has he told you? Has McKenna, Ashton or the bloke that does contracts told you that? What’s the evidence beyond him not travelling? My suspicion is that he will move on. If I gambled, I’d put money on it, but I don’t know that for certain. There is no fact behind it.
Speculating, putting two and two together is fine, but I stand by what I said. Only he and the club truly know - and if you’ve ever done anything that’s media sensitive, you’ll understand why I say that. |
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Reply | Morsy
at 07:54 15 Jul 2025
Fair points. I guess it depends on a number of things
1. Is there any substance to the rumours?
2. What does Sam want to do and what are his priorities? - it’s his career
3. What is the club looking to do - plan and build for the future, ‘upgrade’, pull its financial horns in because the owners want to realise their profits (sale)?
All speculation with no basis whatsoever. Literally just thoughts based on nothing as nobody but him and the club know anything. The only certainty beyond death and taxes is that Sam will move on at some point and his playing career will come to an end.
Looking back at his career on Wiki, I’m sure he will see his time at ITFC as the pinnacle. To achieve what he has late in his career does him and the club credit. |
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Reply | Benters Waterbutt Watch.
at 05:25 15 Jul 2025
It’s a Ward water butt - a well known make that retails up at around £35 on Amazon and similar amounts in garden centres. It comes with tap, connectors and stand. So yes, £20 for that is a steal. |
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Reply | Morsy
at 23:31 14 Jul 2025
Pretty much agree with you. However, you do need a ‘water carrier’ type of player and I’d like him to stay another season. .
But not on any terms. He’s 34 in September and he’s not the player he was. Time is catching up with him, just as it does with us all. If he goes to say Derby on a good two year deal I’ll understand it, not least because his family come from the midlands.
All good things come to an end and maybe it’s time for us to revamp and change and for Sam to take on a new challenge in his final years. Notably he’s rarely stayed anywhere more than four years (Wigan: five). Maybe that’s what works for him.
He’s been absolutely fantastic for us as both a player and Captain and if he goes, it will be with good wishes and heartfelt thanks. Terrific character, we’ve been very lucky to have him at the club. |
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Reply | Cobbold Stand
at 18:30 14 Jul 2025
That was what somebody told me (made up? No idea), but I cannot see it happening or the East Stand being redeveloped in the foreseeable tbh. |
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Reply | Humphreys is 21, Baggott is 22
at 15:10 14 Jul 2025
Don’t know about Baggott. Not seen him so can’t comment. Humphreys played a little in the Championship so I’ve seen a little of him and on tv a couple of times for WW. He had an excellent season in L1. Why shouldn’t he do ok in the Championship? A lot of our L1 players flourished when we were promoted so why shouldn’t he?
From what I’ve seen, he can pass, likes to get involved, good awareness (doesn’t give the ball away too often) doesn’t mind a tackle and knows where the goal is. Good attitude too. Being young, he might well provide the legs our midfield sorely missed last season. I’d certainly have him in the squad try him out. I don’t think he will let anyone down and as others have said, think he’s a better player than Taylor. [Post edited 14 Jul 18:25]
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Reply | Climate change: How would we have coped in a different era?
at 14:17 14 Jul 2025
I don’t think Churchill and some of the tories were against the principle or the Welfare State, just some of the details. He certainly didn’t do anything against it when re-elected after Attlee.
He like many of older people in the 1940s might have been shameless old Victorians; the upper crust sustained by privilege but after WW1 and 2, the Depression and the country exhausted and economically broken, many saw change as inevitable and desirable.
In that sense, they did see greater good and were acting to better the wellbeing of a battered people to a far greater extent than politicians do now. Let’s face it, what is good for the people is least of government priorities these days.
Party first, second and third providing it benefits those supporting it. The wartime coalition was co-operation in a time of desperation and a hapless leader in Chamberlain. But as soon as the war was won and before it ended, the coalition was over and Churchill thrown out on his @rse.
Politicians were not above being blinded by their ideals, hopes and party politics. Let’s not forget Labour voted against re-armament right up to 1939.
Overall, human nature doesn’t change. Greed, exploitation, corruption were alive and well long before Tudor times. Nothing has changed, though any morsels of doing what’s right for the people, like the creation of the Welfare State, has long gone in the bin. |
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Reply | Cobbold Stand
at 13:17 14 Jul 2025
That Leeds game was so tight. Being not the biggest teenager on the planet, I didn’t see a lot but the teams pretty much cancelled each other out that day. I’ve kept very few football programmes but I do have that one and those from the two Leicester replays, not that there’s much to the second one. |
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Reply | Was this the guy we should have appointed instead
at 12:06 14 Jul 2025
I agree Matt. I don’t think Guardiola, Klopp or anyone else could have done much with an owner like Evans. It’s why despite the dreadful football and comedy punts on apology players (stand up Polish Pete and Cokey) McCarthy deserves a lot of credit for keeping us up and even being vaguely competitive for a couple of seasons.
Ross? Sunderland were in almost as big a mess as us at the time and he proved to be as hopeless as Hurst. I’m sure the Sunderland supporters will give him a big round of applause if he shows up at the SoL this season. Maybe not. |
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Reply | Climate change: How would we have coped in a different era?
at 12:00 14 Jul 2025
The U.K. is responsible for less than 1% of world CO2 emissions. The land mass of the U.K. is 0.05% of the earth’s surface. Zealot Milliband can have everyone eating roots and berries and living like cavemen and it won’t make a blind bit of difference to climate change without other countries doing it.
Milliband thinks it’s a good idea to cover everywhere including his own roof with solar panels made in China using fossil fuels and cheap labour before sending them round the world in an oil powered tanker. Politics and principle before economic sanity?
We have the most expensive energy in the world and that won’t change. So we are taking a lead. Whoopee. I’m sure those right thinking nice men Putin, Trump, Xi and Modi will see the light and follow Milliband’s lead. Maybe not.
Of course reducing reliance on fossil fuels is a good thing. The planet is for future generations and the current people of the world are doing it no favours. Recycling is a good thing too. But it has to be done the right way. Forcing it in a way that sees for example Luton’s Vauxhall workers thrown on the dole or coke imported from China or somewhere to fuel a steelworks because we refuse to mine it in Cumbria isn’t the right way.
Neither is tearing up the countryside in the Pennines and covering it in foreign made windmills to power a couple of lightbulbs. And before his crowd come round with the pitchforks and flaming torches because Mrs C has a petrol powered Yaris, perhaps they should take a good look at the ongoing clearance of the Amazon rain forests. Perhaps subsidise the locals there who have no economic choice rather than people buying electric boxes from China.
Just a view. I agree re Milliband. His one man crusade isn’t going to work. Btw, we definitely do not want to stop the Gulf Stream. It’s what gives the U.K. a moderating Maritime Climate that’s warmer in winter, cooler in summer usually. London is on the same degree of latitude as Moscow. |
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Reply | Measles becoming an issue in the UK now
at 11:26 14 Jul 2025
More like the language of the thickos who live where I do wandering round Asda in dressing gowns and slippers. That’s not anecdotal. I’ve seen it.
Edit: my benefits defrauding neighbour doesn’t dress like the dregs of the planet that do, but nice though she is, she actually does speak that way in addition to driving around in her £60k Mercedes monster truck and complaining the parking spaces are too small. [Post edited 14 Jul 11:31]
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Reply | Bloke in a Norwich shirt ahead of us in the queue to get in yesterday.
at 07:14 14 Jul 2025
Quite right too!!
Mrs C actually chucked mine out without me noticing. It was a red tab Levi jacket, had cost me a fortune and had taken months to get right. I’d had it for years and it was perfect. Just the right level of wear, fraying, grease, gunge and general patina. It’d virtually stand up on its own.
I wept.
She also managed to lose at work (teacher) my FA Cup Final scarf. If these two offences don’t constitute grounds for divorce, nothing does. In fact, as far as I’m concerned such behaviours merit a lifetime stay at Alligator Alcatraz. Not that I’m the least bit bitter. |
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Reply | Cobbold Stand
at 06:54 14 Jul 2025
I had the same experience. It looked smart and uber modern in the early 70s, even before the extensions were completed in 1975. Big too!
I last watched a game from there about 2019 and I was surprised about how much it had aged. Narrow staircases, hopeless toilets, dingy interior. Like another poster I’m only just over 5ft 9ins and my shins were right up against the seat in front. The seats are not the biggest, but I guess in 1971 neither were the people.
It desperately needs replacing. As for the West Stand, as has been pointed out, it is a bit of a tumbling mish mash. The top section was of course the 1982 addition that over sailed the original stand. The seating isn’t as bad as the Cobbold, but some of the views are poor. I have heard the plan is to redevelop and re-roof it adding capacity, before the East Stand (Portman, Cobbold, Whatever).
Probably just rumours and hope because I can’t see how the owners could ever get their money back, unless it added significant value to the club in some way. I guess the Boxing and Sheeran events show the potential that the space can be used for more than just 23 games a season. |
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Reply | Benters Waterbutt Watch.
at 06:36 14 Jul 2025
The water in them does need keeping an eye on. The Suffolk house (my late father’s place) had a WB but.he never did much with it and the contents were rank and the tap broken. I’ve emptied it and converted it into a compost bin (drilled holes, will saw out/ fit an access door next time.
As for replacing the water but, I’ll do so - the garden is huge and there’s space for the largest of such things. If the water in the butt is rotated and kept clean (a fitting lid!), the water can be used for a variety of purposes, not just plants.
Edit: rainwater for the green stuff is better for it than tap water. [Post edited 14 Jul 8:28]
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Reply | Boris Johnson doing Boris Johnson things
at 06:20 14 Jul 2025
Actually it was the late Alastair Darling (the most able Chancellor of my lifetime) that is, or should be, respected for his reaction to the 2008 financial crash.
Brown was actually responsible for the effects in this country being as bad as they were. In particular, he created the FSA so splitting regulatory responsibilities with the BoE to the point where nobody was responsible for anything. The FSA was binned in 2013 and not for austerity reasons!
Of course the main accountability lay with the banks themselves. How cretinous people like that chancer Freddie Goodwin, who destroyed RBS, got away with it is quite beyond me. Instead of having his pension reduced to a reported £800k pa (how can anyone live on that?), he should have been slung in gaol and all his assets seized.
Boris Johnson? Whether the article is true or not, there’s nothing that vacuous charlatan of a windbag has to say that is of any interest to me. He too might have benefitted from a spell behind bars for his miserable efforts. |
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Reply | Measles becoming an issue in the UK now
at 06:00 14 Jul 2025
Interesting. I think the French are quite correct on this, as they are on a lot of things.
It should not be a choice. In my opinion to ignore vaccination because a few cranks like that swivel eyed, roadkill loving, nutjob Kennedy are spewing long disproved rubbish is a form of negligence.
If ‘’ma kidz, ma right to choose’ overrides this, the perhaps a few separate schools for those children somewhere in the country, not necessarily convenient to the parents, and an understanding that if they contract measles, the parents will be paying for all the treatment might encourage a rethink.
A little extreme maybe and will never happen, but the principle is sound in my view. |
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Reply | Benters Waterbutt Watch.
at 05:46 14 Jul 2025
Well, for my little garden, I installed a couple of 100 litre water butts a month ago. They are fed by rainwater from the garage roof. The connectors were not too difficult to fit, but when attaching them a little silicone compound on the threads will really help with the seals.
It’s only rained once really, and both butts filled remarkably quickly, so a third butt has been purchased (£20 from Lidl for a Ward 100l butt and all the connections) for linking at some point.
We have tomatoes, beans (not fared well this year), cucumbers, courgettes, chillies, lettuce, potato buckets, usual herbs on the go and they take about 20l of water in dry weather, so 200l is about 9-10 days watering. Since the owners of what falls from the sky for free (water companies - ffing disgrace!) need their massive shareholder dividends, my water bills like everyone’s are rocketing so I might even gutter up one of the small sheds I have.
Every little helps. |
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Reply | Marcus Harness for Free
at 22:22 13 Jul 2025
Who knows, but if it’s in the club and the player’s best interests fine. I thought MH was a good player and looked quite lively for Derby last season.
Harness made a valuable contribution to our rise from L1, seemed a good club man. Was he quite as good as I thought he might be when he signed? Not quite, but ha can be proud of what he did achieve here. I wish him well. |
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Reply | Live Aid concert on BBC2
at 23:37 12 Jul 2025
I saw the Queen concert at Hammersmith in December 1979. It was one of the most extraordinary things I’ve seen. Brilliant doesn’t cover it. Better than that. But it felt, if I’m honest, more of a stage performance/show than a down and dirty gig as I knew it. That’s not a criticism, just how I saw it at the time. Mercury - what a showman, what a voice and oh how they hell did he get those trousers on?
Fantastic at Live Aid. Killed it. I’ve been watching it tonight. I’m glad they showed The Who doing Won’t Get Fooled Again. One of my favourite ever tracks and they smashed it.
Thought the Philadelphia stuff looked subdued. Bit like most of the audience weren’t quite sure why they were there.
The day itself, everybody knows where they were. I actually had to work that day. We had the radio on the whole day and still enjoyed it. I’ve never really watched it back bar bits, so watching some of it tonight was great. What a voice George Michael had. Sad the way it ended as it did. |
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