Elite football in England has been suspended until at least April 3. Given that UK government advisors are suggesting that the Covid-19 pandemic will not peak in the country until May or June, an April 3 return of football seems optimistic.
Football authorities will be keen to play out the outstanding competitive games, not least to avoid lawsuits from relegated clubs that will have missed out on last-gasp chances of salvation. UEFA may accommodate them by moving the 2020 Euros to next year. Nonetheless, the prospect that this season is run is real.
If so, how do we declare the Premiership season for the record?
The most straightforward answer is to proclaim the season null and void. This has many attractions for the Arsenal supporter. Liverpool would not be champions and Leeds United would not be promoted from the Championship. Also, our season to forget would be forgotten, obliterated from the record. However, a Klopp-crony media would not put up with that for a minute.
Alternatives?
The remaining games could be adjudicated by the equivalent of the Pools Panel, the group of ex-players who decided on behalf of the football pools what the result of postponed games would have been. (For far-flung ‘holics, the football pools were a UK betting pool in which punters predicted the outcome of league games each week with forecasting score draws being the holy grail. For younger ‘holics the Pools Panel was introduced in 1963 when bitter weather forced a three-week suspension of league football.)
The up-to-date version of this is perhaps the match week predictions on the BBC by Mark Lawrenson and his weekly celebrity guest. These are so dire that the idea is barely worth thinking about for real. And could we rely on anyone correctly to predict the 10-game winning run we were about to go on to close out the season?
The next choice is to freeze the table as is and declare the positions to be final. The only snag is that while most clubs have played 29 games, four clubs — including the Arsenal — have a game in hand.
It would only be fair in such circumstances to adjust the table based on points won per game.
This would leave the top five unchanged. Liverpool would be champions; Manchester City would be runners-up; Leicester City, Chelsea and Manchester United would complete the top quintet. Sheffield United and Wolves would swap places in sixth and seventh.
But the most compelling reason for making the adjustment is that it would bring an instant St Totteringham’s Day. We would move up to eighth, and Mourinho’s Miseries would slip to ninth.
No change elsewhere in the table. Norwich, Aston Villa and Bournemouth go down. Eighth might be sufficient to qualify us for next season’s Europa League, depending on what happens to the place reserved for the FA Cup winner.
It would not, however, get us back to the Champions League next season. For that to happen, the shortened season would have to be ranked alphabetically, which would make us runners-up. The neighbours escape relegation, sadly, by one place as Watford, West Ham and Wolves go down, but all hail the new champions, AFC Bournemouth.
Stay healthy, ‘holics.
Great fun Ned but with a lot of commonsense integrated too.
Our best outcome would be to pretend the season didn’t happen and revert back to the previous season where we finished fifth . If Citeh are banned from the Champions League, we are the ( very) big winners .
I agree that the clamour of strident Mugsmashers will be such that they will want to complete the season even if it takes until Christmas . It will certainly take the edge off their celebrations whatever happens . If oldies are going to be stuck indoors into the middle of the summer that suggests that we are unlikely to be able to conclude this season but the legal minefield that will follow will be amazing to behold. In the meantime let’s welcome in St. Totteringham !
Thanks Ned, that’s an interesting selection of possibilities you have given. The one showing St Totteringham being alive & well is particularly appealing.
No doubt, with the current predictions of the progress of the virus, there will be no premier league football for many months & the authorities have some difficult decisions to make. To cancel the season as null & void will surely lead to some legal claims by the negatively affected clubs. Should this happen however and last season’s final positions determine entry into the Champions League, then our 5th position could gain us entry with the prospective ban on Man City.
Until the length of this crisis becomes more apparent then I suspect any decisions will be deferred. Unprecedented it is!
Loving it Ned. Mourhino’s Miseries 😂😂
The Monks must have worked long and hard into the night to produce that table. Another cup of ale for them this morning!
Thanks Ned 🙂
Only Dennis knows how it will
come out in the end but I like
any solution that brings back
the blessed Day.
An excellent piece Ned. I am sure you are correct that expensive lawyers are poring over documents for loop holes and options. They would do well to read your piece and remit a proportion of their fee in gratitude. Sadly that remittance will of course, not appear. Back to bread and water for the monks.
Great stuff Ned. Sensible and succinct.
I am so clueless as to what might be the end result I have not thought about it, so it is good to read some thoughtful suggestions about the options. Bring us St. Totteringham!
Arteta persudes Gary O’Driscoll , who was off to join Liverpool to head up their medical side to stay
https://www.goal.com/en/news/arsenal-doctor-odriscoll-rejects-liverpool/jbj94nsfdbd516fjo0ehspyl3
I’m told he is VERY good
TTG@7, I understand that he is very highly regarded and his mind has been changed by Mikel’s vision for the club’s future.
TTG & Bathgooner @ 7 & 8. That is some rare good news in the current phase of doom & gloom. Not only because we have retained the service of a first class club doctor but that he has listened to Mikel’s vision for the club and bought into it. That’s most encouraging.
Thanks, all. Glad you enjoyed the post.
The monks are grateful for any sustenance, however meagre, Bath, though they prefer the finest claret.
Cheers Ned!
The Pools panel! Memories and howls of derisive laughter in equal measure.
Ned. Finest claret for the Monks? Have you been selling indulgences again?
The toenails clippings of
St. Totteringham should be
enough for a case of Margaux
Great and impressive machinations, Ned! As for your final option I am pretty sure we would have Bournemouth’s vote. But as for fairness, the points per game table must be the only reasonable choice!
Better check your cellar, C100…
Dang! How did that happen??
Whats going on ere then?!
Welcome Cfpb
Ned appears to be motivating his virtual monks by feeding them my virtual fine claret.
I know. I worry about us too.
🤓🤓
It seems to me that a likely scenario is to complete the season, however long that takes, then take a six-week break and play next season.
One of the oft-mooted scenarios is that COVID-19 will be back for winter 2020-21 (possibly in the guise of COVID-20). If that requires a suspension as well, we would be looking at two full seasons played over three year, which is not terribly satisfactory, but could easily be seen as the best possible outcome.
If there were no outbreak in the coming winter then I’m sure The Powers That Be could be relied upon to lash together some meaningless competition to fill up the four or five months gap before the start of season 2021-22. I can think of lots of possibilities – enhanced cup competitions (I believe that the 1946 FA Cup was played over two legs to make up for the impossibility of arranging a league season in quick time at the end of the War); maybe some kind of international club league with many divisions of, say 10 clubs playing home and away – unlikely to go ahead as it might be seen as a dress rehearsal of some kind of breakaway elite pan-European league; lots of international friendlies – a public starved of domestic competition might flock to see them (on the other hand it might not).
I’m cautious about the idea that, if it were abandoned, the final table for this season would be drawn up according to average number of points-per-game. Apart from the conspiracy theories, I also recall hearing that for at least one season, it was decided to publish the interim tables sorted by pointer-per-game and that this lead to “some strange effects”. I’m afraid I don’t think I ever knw what these effects were; I certainly don’t now :-(.
If Manchester City win the rest of their matches they finish on 87 points but if Liverpool lose the rest of theirs they finish on 82 points. An argument for awarding Liverpool the title without completing the season? I think not.
New site, same old fat fingesr I’m afraid.
I caught the last couple of lines of my previous post out of the corner of my eye. They should have referred to “point*s*-per-game” and have mentioned that I “don’t think I ever kn*e*w what th*o*se effects were”.
I haven’t the heart to re-read the whole post.
CUYG COYG
…and you can’t put starts in to get “interesting” emphasis.
(Exits stage left, muttering.)
“stars”. “fat fingers”.
I give up.
You are clearly in need of a glass of C100’s restorative claret, Pangloss.
Were you thinking of goal average, which is what the Football League used before 1977 to separate teams with the same number of points? It was calculated by dividing a team’s goals scored by goals conceded. It was replaced by goal difference (goals scored minus goals conceded), which was thought would encourage more attacking play.
No, not goal average, which I understand.
Switching between goal average and goal difference also gives rise to anomalies. Like every other change ever devised, there are unintended consequences. Those involved in changing to goal difference seem to have been fewer, or less onerous, than most.
Consider golden goal extra-time for instance – clearly it didn’t occur to anyone in advance that awarding a match, level on 90 minutes, to the first team to score in extra time might encourage both teams to avoid, at all costs, conceding during extra time. Fortunately in a rare example of common sense, the authorities spotted this very quickly once they’d used the method in one competition and dropped the experiment right speedily.
I think the idea of publishing the mid-season league tables in order of teams’ average number of points per match must have been tried sometime between 1958 and 1963 when my elder brother would have been old enough to observe and remember it but I wasn’t.
interesting take, ned. the monks have done you proud. a bottle or five of c100’s finest claret on the refractory table, then.
on an aside, i do believe the legend of c100’s cellar will be taking on lars wallet for the largest gift that keeps on giving. how nice to have a new touchstone so soon 🙂 sorry, c100, but you’ll just have to adjust your purchasing patterns to manage once the pandemic has dispersed and you can get to the stores again.
i can just hear the monks chanting:
Hear us, O Dennis, and have no mercy, because they have sinned against Thee.
Hear us, O Dennis, and have no mercy, because they have sinned against Thee.
To Thee, highest No. 10,
Assister of all,
do we lift up our eyes
in gratitude:
Hear, O Dutch Treat, the prayers
of your servants.
Hear us, O Dennis, and have no mercy, because they have sinned against Thee.
To the Right foot of the Thierry,
corner-kick,
way of the penalty,
gate of Invincibility,
bless us with
the joy of your play.
Hear us, O Dennis, and have no mercy, because they have sinned against Thee.
We beseech Thee, Dennis,
in Thy great majesty:
Hear our groans
with Thy holy ears:
cause the Shite at the lane
to suffer.
Hear us, O Dennis, and have no mercy, because they have sinned against Thee.
To Thee we confess
our hatred admitted
with a steadfast heart
We reveal the things shared:
By Thy kindness, O Redeemer,
act upon them.
Hear us, O Dennis, and have no mercy, because they have sinned against Thee.
The Scum, seized,
not refusing to be led by the Mourinho;
condemned by false expectations
because North London will always be Red.
O Denis, bring forth the day
of St. Totteringham upon us.
Hear us, O Dennis, and have no mercy, because they have sinned against Thee.
apparently this is a chant from the middle part of the age of Arsæne, calling on Denis to have no mercy on the Scum, who cannot be redeemed at any price. This chant is very simple, something that can be sung by a stadium section without organ accompaniment — convenient for an Arsenal hymn. THOF does not want Scum to rejoice during the season, so THOF causes Scum to lose for the duration of the season.
Nice one Scruz. I can imagine this in plainsong or Gregorian chant. Very soothing.
I see my cellar is under attack. I must arrange more visits to Cambridge college high tables to restock.
i’m thinking gregorian, c100.
and better get out and fill that cellar, no doubt the monks have a secret passage they use to procure their bottles. can’t have them running dry, can we?
Gregorian chant with my
coffee – a very spiritual start
to the day. And not the tot
of whiskey in the coffee sort
of spiritual.
Not sure about the monks and
their secret passages bit though
😱
Top o’ the maaarnin’
Scruz@26: Very liturgical.
C100@27: High tables beget low cunning.
OM@30: The monks move in mysterious ways.
Good Dennis! We have taken an ecclesiastical turn in the face of the media hype of an existential threat. (Remember over 80% recover without medical intervention.)
Good work, Scruz, master wordsmith. I prefer the ‘more red wine’ approach myself to the background of the fine music that has been discovered in the 8-track in the new bar.
Great work scruz. Bt8 contributions look good too, but I have yet to listen to them.
COYG CUYG
Most reasonable will be to declare the season null and void, start the leagues next season with the make-up of exactly how they started this season. Unfortunate for some.
Cancel Euro 2020 and make it Euro 2021. Cancel CL & EL. Let the teams and the organizations work to put together a contingency plan if there is a secondary wave in 2021 winter (all matches played in empty stadiums etc.) .
Another way to clear some fixture space in 2020-21 would be to slim down the CL to a knockout competition between the champion clubs from each league (i.e., revert to the old format before the game porn of group stages were instituted.) UEFA has 55 members so you could have a round of 64 with byes for the champions of the top nine leagues (Spain, Germany, England, Italy, France, Russia, Portugal, Turkey and the Netherlands?) A plate competition for the clubs knocked out in the round of 32 would do for the Europa League, if necessary.
Euro 2020 becomes Euro 2021
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/51909518
cheers, all. stolen and adapted, to be honest. i just tried to make it an ode to the one true god against that horror of a club from middlesex to bring about the feast of st. t.
ned @36, that’s us out of both cl and el then, yes?
Faustus@35 – I’m not sure that it’s more reasonable to scrap a half-finished competition than it is to extend the timescale allowing it to be finished.
However, I am sure that the decisions will be taken by a number of organisations in whose reasonableness I have limited confidence.
COYG CUYG
This article interested me. It shows some of the societal benefits accruing as a result of the Covid19 crisis . Not everyone will buy into the spiritual allusions but it is remarkable how this situation has rapidly led many of us to realign our thinking on what really matters
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/culture-mind-and-brain/202003/there-is-good-news-about-the-coronavirus
ttg@40 indeed. and the canals of venice are running clear, and i haven’t seen the skies so blue in a long while. if i can get my head around my worklife changes in the coming days it’ll be a satisfying experience methinks.
Great article TTG! We all have known for a while that we need some resets in the ways we live and work to make the story of humankind last a bit longer. Maybe this will teach and inspire us to make some of those changes.
Selling cats and bats and snakes next to poultry being killed and dressed and sold ? Maybe time to change that …
TTG@40, an excellent read. Thanks for linking. I am certain that many positives will emerge as we change our ways to mitigate the effects of this truly dreadful challenge.
Courage, mes braves.
Wonderful read TTG @ 40. It’s a most positive thought that we can take stock of our lives and the world around us and review what really matters to us all.
Thanks TTG, a very positive
outlook was a refreshing change.
And also there was an unintentional
laugh when I got to the end and
the Read Next article was “The
Coronavirus is Much Worse Than
You Think”.
Of course I didn’t read that one
🙂
In the spirit of TTG’s article I
thought to share two kindnesses
from this morning and it’s not even
9:00 yet….
1) An old friend dropped off a
sack of rice to our house – just
in case she told us
2) My mothers (she is 77 and
lives by herself) neighbours on
either side told my brother they
will be happy to do her shopping
for as long as necessary
OM, A highly auspicious start to the day. 👋🏼👋🏼
Dr. Feelgood hits the mark at drink #68:
An uplifting pre-assist for the half ton to…
Thanks for the link bt8 and I
cannot disagree with a medical
man.
By the way, what a contentious
lot you all were back in 2013
😁
And to lay it across the area
for……
Oh my cross-cum-shot went in
– they all count
Well in for the half ton, OM. They do indeed all count, however mishit.
Some holic legends in the drinks for that 2013 post — some of whom are still at the bar. Thankfully.
Another for cba:
Good morning to all gunners in the house……this COVID-Q19 we hope it can be arrested soon because those affected are not just numbers,they are people with loved ones.so my prayers to already infected,hope they pull through.
There’s something a little odd in the posting that bt8 has linked to above. It contains a fair number of comments from Oxon Gooner which is a handle that I used to use, but I don’t recognise any of them, and I cannot imagine myself posting most of them. I think regulars might agree that while #5 might be me, a number of others just don’t look in any way familiar. I vaguely recall joining with TTG in trying to start some unbelievable transfer rumours once upon a time, which might explain some, but the musical references really don’t strike any sort of chord (sorry, not intentional).
COYG CUYG
Pangloss @55: Schizophrenia? Blackout? Week-long binge a la Russian Zapoi?
Or vandals took the handle?
Choose wisely …
Dear old Cesc getting an “unexpected” greeting from his neighbors in Monaco … https://www.instagram.com/p/B91a2knJDQu/?igshid=1jn1zufpsj80k 😂
I could be wrong but I reckon this old girl sits near me on the North Bank 😂😂
I’ll take the fifth, Dr Faustus.
Great stuff Cesc, leading
from the front
pang@55, i can see you rolling #28 on that link of bt8’s. i mean, inflatable bananas? 🙂
c100, she should live on every street. no shrinking violet, she.
This is brilliant stuff, and is measured and helpful on this outbreak . It was sent to me by a lady friend of mine ( not like that) who has very good medical connections
it’s a discussion with Amesh Adalja – one of the go-to US experts from John Hopkins School of Public health specializing in infectious diseases and pandemics. It’s about an hour but measured, clear and illuminating rather than alarmist; although there are some concerning figures here. One thing he says towards the end is that 17 years ago post SARS, infectious disease specialists were sounding the alarm about future zoonotic diseases and saying that something like this would definitely happen – and vaccine research and funding required; but not sexy enough for governments and pharmaceutical companies to respond … I think they will now! Also that this might be a dry run for something much worse in a few more years (high infectivity and much higher mortality if no vaccines) – so in a way this is building global resilience and preparedness. Not the best news but better that we are not sleepwalking into an even worse disaster a few years down the line.
Financial support for EFL clubs
Eurovison Song Contest cancelled. At last an upside…
Just a quick comment on the new board.
I preferred it when the links posted were just links, as on the old forum. There’s too much scrolling for me with embedded links/attachments. An option to show links as links, if possible to implement, would be useful.
Cynic I can see your point, the meaning of the writing becomes a bit harder to follow with the more bells and whistles added. It might be something to reconsider, or to try out assuming the option of the link only is still available of course. What do others think?
agree with you both. but there are times we post inline pics, i wouldn’t want to lose that facility.
scruz,
Is “ inline pics” a typo? Or are they
a thing that I don’t know about?
Just wondering…..
Basically I agree with Cynic as giving
posters the option seems fine if that
can be done. Unless it’s a one or t’other
thing?
I like the images. They mean I know what a link is instead of potluck YouTube videos or links to the daily mail.
I like the new images. I think they add to the professional look and also mean you can choose whether to click on the link or not. I was worried about storage costs but the techies who kindly run this site pro bono assure me that storage costs are so low that it won’t be a worry to those who fund it. So I’m for keeping things as they are.
As to the idea that it creates “too much scrolling” – nice wind up Cynic 😂
Matt@51,
Please keep your cum-shots to yourself, you dirty blighter!
BBC gossip page says ‘Arsenal are resigned to losing striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang…’ However, the source is Sport, the Barcelona-based newspaper, which also suggests the Catalans would want a hefty discount on account of Auba’s age and that the has to force the sale through if he wants to join Barca. So scurrilousness on many levels is afoot, I suspect.
https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/arsenal-tasara-aubameyang-millones-euros-7893968
DM@72. It was a cross-cum-shot, so might be an anger management issue. 🙂
It’s not a wind up it is a total pain in the arse to scroll past this stuff
Premier league and FA announce postponement of all fixtures until at least end of April
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/mar/19/premier-league-efl-and-wsl-football-will-not-restart-before-30-april
Cynic@75, keep on scrolling, mate.
Everything has an upside and a downside.
At least you can see at a glance whether a link might be of interest to you or not. You no longer need wonder whether scrolling by means you have missed one of the great written or aural contributions to civilisation.
You can simply scroll on. Just imagine that nice PC Dixon whispering in your shell-like, “Just move along, sir. Nothing to see here,”
And all it will cost you are a few squares from your most favoured digit.
@78, that was squames not squares.
Damn spillchucker!
And in the spirit of the new links, to emphasise the options now available, I respectfully offer a timeless classic as performed by me and several others in the local gang show in 1964:
C100 @77 so it is possible to post the link only without the image. How did you manage it?
Beyond me mate! I just copy the link to the clipboard and paste it in! Guess it depends on the link. It was certainly nothing I did different.
bath@79 “squames not squares”. Try again, mate.
It’s all a mystery to me why sometimes the image is posted and other times just the link, as in several previous posts too.
bt8@80 I suspect it comes down to including a link in the comment, or adding it as an attachment, although I could be wildly wide of the mark.
Re the Grauniad article – The first bullet point in the subheading is “FA extends season indefinitely in attempt to finish it”. Note the words “attempt to”.
What are they suggesting might happen to prevent the season from finishing?
Would it kill the subeditors to say “in order to” instead?
Pangloss@82, actually squames is exactly what I intended. Short for squamous epithelial cells that constitute the outer layer or epidermis of your skin and which you shed in scrolling on a touchscreen, rolling your mouse or simply as they age.
The reset until 30th April for football is a bit irrelevant. It is inconceivable to see it starting then unless our epidemic follows a very different pattern to other places . Boy are Italy having it bad !
Squames are cool. Thanks for the new word, Bath!
Pangloss. At least they didn’t say “desperate attempt”. 😆🤧😆
Scrolling isn’t an issue when I’m on a computer and I can press the End key to get me to the most recent posts. I haven’t figured out how to do that on an iPhone, so it was an issue when, e.g. Holic’s (RIP) last post, there were thousands of drinks and it would take minutes to scroll down (there must be a shortcut, right?). I’ll be at the computer for the duration of the Covad crisis, so it is not a problem now.
bt8@88 Little thanks to the subeditors then. (Someone should be grateful for small mercis.)
TTG@86 Agreed it seems unlikely that we’ll be in a position to resume football on April 30. The previous end of the suspension – April 3 – always seemed wildly optimistic. On the other hand, if they are signaling an intent to review the suspension every three weeks, that seems remarkably sensible.
Confirms the first paragraph of this post. 🙂
Not that one needed to be a genius to foresee it.
I found this article about the suspension, due to bad weather, of the 1947 season quite interesting; a few quite unnecessary digs at cricket and Stoke City apart.
This article: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/mar/19/forgotten-story-english-football-suspension-dilemma-1947-first-division-june-finish
here i thought squames was our new center half.
Pangloss
Thanks for this. The next great freeze was 1962/3 which I remember well. It was the year our school boiler broke down and we had an extra-long Christmas holiday . In the early part of the New Year there was very little football and what did take place happened on very iffy pitches . I think we played Oxford in the third round and there were walls of snow around the pitch at Highbury . That season the Cup Final was played right at the end of May when it used to be played in late April or very early May. I remember something like a six week break without football. Ned and the monks probably have the facts .
potsticker@89, that was one of the crosses i happily bore at dave’s site. i got rather good at speed scrolling to get to the new drinks!
hey pang/ttg, you’re killing the post i have planned, right?
sends it across the goal… where’s lurky when you need him?
TTG, my main memory of 1963 are that it started snowing on Boxing Day, so no White Christmas. I don’t really remember the cold, I think the temperatures were fairly typical; we had a toboggan which we seemed to use on Hampstead Heath fairly frequently. I recall also that the greybeards (i.e. people who were no more than 10 years younger than we are now) were always saying “It’s not as bad as 1947”.
Speaking of Oxford, I recall hearing since that the temperature there didn’t rise above freezing for 30 consecutive days. (I may have that wrong, maybe it froze on 30 consecutive days. Whichever, it’s a long time for Southern England.)
Modestly removes cap and raises bat to four corners of the ground.
Thunderous applause for a fine century. A bottle of Pol Roger please bartender. 🍾🥂
Pangloss@94: Interesting read. Nice photo of the Arsenal scoring, too.
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/a9106130d240a111d13b29472d696e12e07f4c5f/0_199_3624_2382/master/3624.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=257f98d608fbe340555a322e6705c975
To borrow from Herodotus via the US Postal Service: Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
That game must have been the 6-2 win over the Mancs at Highbury in February, in which Ronnie Rooke hit a hat-trick. (Trivia footnote: Rooke was the last Arsenal player to score 30 goals in a league season until TH14 in 2003-04.)
We played our last game in 1946-47, away to Sheffield Utd, on June 7, a 2-1 defeat that meant we finished 13th that season, with an unimpressive 41 points from 42 games, winning only 16. It would have been a lot worse had we not found a semblance of form in the run-in, picking up 16 points in our final 13 games. We were still London’s top club, however, above Chelsea, Charlton, who won the FA Cup that season, and Brentford, who got relegated.
But next season we would be league champions.
And well in for the ton.
TTG@96: It was a three-week gap without football because of the weather. Pangloss’s memory is holding up well. The snow did not start until Boxing Day. It was cold enough that a friend and I could build an igloo in the street.
Ned, the breadth of information within the Monks’ archives constantly astound me. As does the speed with which they can access it.
Speaking of table settings, as Ned did so eloquently up above, a timely article about the impact of coronavirus on restaurants in Chicago, Minneapolis and other places.
https://www.eater.com/2020/3/19/21185918/how-can-goverment-assistance-help-restaurants-actually-need-in-the-form-of-relief
So, let’s really set the Monks a challenge…
I further vaguely remember that in 62/63 they held the FA Cup draws on the “usual” dates (the Monday following the scheduled Saturday of the matches?) and that the 5th round draw was held before all the 3rd round games were played. I think there were a few cases of “A or B or C will play D or E”. Can the monks confirm or refute? Most complex match drawn – “A or B or C or D will play E or F”? Number of teams still in the competition when each round was drawn?
If I were clearer about the timezone where Castle Ned is located, I’d have a better idea which of the daily offices might have to be postponed – Vespers?
..and in other news, Everton seem to be on the point of building themselves a nice new stadium – another Grauniad article at https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/mar/19/everton-new-stadium-coronavirus-crisis-northern-powerhouse (I’ve lost all confidence in my ability to post links as embedded HTML.)
COYG CUYG
Pangloss@108: Your memory goes from strength to strength. The draw for the fifth round was delayed by a week because many third and fourth round games had not been completed and the fifth round itself was twice pushed back. Similarly the sixth round, which was not played until March 30. Our interest, however, had ended with a 2-1 fifth round defeat at Highbury by Liverpool on March 16.
The full fifth round draw:
(Rotherham United or Watford) or (York City or Southampton) v (Bolton Wanderers or Sheffield United) or (Port Vale or Gillingham)
West Bromwich Albion or Nottingham Forest v (Stoke City or Leeds Unite) or (Blackburn Rovers or Middlesborough)
(Birmingham City or Bury) or (Walsall or Manchester City) v (Blackpool or Norwich City) or (Bradford City or Newcastle United)
(Scunthorpe or Portsmouth) or (Lincoln City or Coventry) v Sunderland or Gravesend & Northfleet
Swansea or (West Ham or Fulham) v Everton
(Bristol City or Aston Villa) or (Huddersfield or Manchester United) v Chelsea or (Cardiff City or Charlton Athletic)
(Shrewsbury Town or Sheffield Wednesday) or Arsenal v Liverpool or Burnley
(Peterborough or Derby County) or (Hull or Leyton Orient) v Leicester City.
Admirable.
My only worry is how did the teams know who to play against when two sets of opposition showed up at the ground. 😉
Pangloss will either be a. Pleased ; or b. Compelled to come up with a harder challenge.
Don’t encourage him, bt8.
Smart work from the monks
there Ned.
On the PL, my most optimistic
thought is mid June to start again.
And even then clubs may be short
of players from countries still
suffering- if the player returned
home.
…is impressed.
Fx: Retires to a convenient corner to devise a more fiendish challenge.
As you see, Ned, he didn’t need much if any encouragement. 🙂
You too can rank Terry last and Vieira and Adams at the top of the pops.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/51871622
Interesting insight into one of our own – Jerome Thomas.
Written by one of his old clubs- Rotherham- but it illustrates how difficult it was for talented young players to break into the first team set-up . He was a good young player who played in the Premier League for West Brom.
It reminds us all what a great youth set-up we had then
https://www.themillers.co.uk/news/2020/march/read–featuring…jerome-thomas/
Ned,
You have excelled yourself re this Cup draw. We ended up playing Sheffield Wednesday in the Fourth Round ( I think I saw it and we won 2-0) and then played Liverpool at Highbury in the Fifth Round. We played them twice in successive years and lost both . I think it was the following season when Joe Baker laid out Ron Yeats with a lunch Tyson Fury would have been proud of. Yeats was called ‘ the Colossus’ by Shankly but that dented his reputation a bit. But losing Joe Baker for a large chunk of the match hurt us even more !
I supported Arsenal for 13 years before we got past the Fifth Round…but that season we won it !
Joe Baker used a punch not a lunch to deck Yeats. Alan Brazil uses the latter !
No, don’t spoil it for me TTG. I had a wonderful picture of a four bottle lunch at Rules with the debonair Baker as rage rawboned Yates slid not so gracefully below the table …
I love the exchange from 118 to 120. Classic Holic repartee. Great image.
Attendance figures from transfermarkt (stadium capacity, 2019-20 season total, average per game):
Arsenal FC
60.704 843.853 60.275
West Ham United
60.000 838.943 59.925
Tottenham Hotspur
62.062 831.374 59.384
C100
That’s a great image and Rules would have been around then so it might have been possible . We’ve alluded to Joe Baker on here before.
Dave loved him and I thought he was a terrific striker, two-footed, good in the air and packed a serious punch ( lunch) 😃
Tell me more of Joe Baker’s packed lunch. Sausage roll presumably?
Joe was a very Scottish Englishman.
Played for Hibernian originally so his favoured lunch would have been Haggis and Oatcakes!
Delicious 😨😨
thanks bt8 for the link @116
done and done
A couple of odd choices in the
list of 10 but it didn’t matter to
me as objectivity wasn’t in my
selection criteria anyway
Rules is the oldest restaurant in London.Established 1798. I’vecertainlywined and dined clientsthere and I bet you have too!🍷🍷🍷
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