MikeO

Can claim no credit, it's Monty Python .

Rodwell only played five minutes . He must have been good!

Jo and go to 4-5-1?

Bullshit .

Current Player of the Year standings.... Jagielka 214 Arteta 164 Cahill 126 Baines 117 Fellaini 114 Osman 83 Neville 81 Pienaar 67 Howard 61 Saha 61 Lescott 51 João Alves Jô 37 Rodwell 29 Gosling 26 Anichebe 21 Castillo 20 Hibbert 15 Baadhi 13 Vaughan 11 Yakubu 10 Van der Meyde 10 Yobo 9 Baxter 4 Valente 2 MOTM winners.... Blackburn (H)...Mikel Arteta West Brom (A)...Leon Osman Portsmouth (H)...Leighton Baines Stoke City (A)...Tim Cahill Standard Liege (H)...Segundo Castillo Hull City (A)...Leon Osman Blackburn (A)...Louis Saha Liverpool (H)...Phil Jagielka Standard Liege (A)...Phil Jagielka Newcastle (H)...Leighton Baines Arsenal (A)...Marouane Fellaini Manchester United (H)...Marouane Fellaini Bolton (A)...Marouane Fellaini Fulham (H)...Phil Jagielka West Ham (A)...Louis Saha Middlesbrough (H)...Phil Neville Wigan (A)...Tim Howard Spurs (A)...Phil Jagielka Aston Villa (H)...Joleon Lescott Man City (A)...Tim Cahill Chelsea (H)...Leon Osman Middlesbrough (A)...Mikel Arteta Sunderland (H)...Mikel Arteta Macclesfield (A)...Leighton Baines Hull (A)...Mikel Arteta Liverpool (A-league)...Leighton Baines Liverpool (A-Cup)...Phil Jagielka Arsenal (H)...Tim Cahill Manchester United (A)...Tim Howard Liverpool (H-Cup replay)...Phil Jagielka Bolton (H)...João Alves Jô Aston Villa (H)...Mikel Arteta Newcastle (A)...Jack Rodwell West Brom (H)...Steven Pienaar Blackburn (A)...Phil Neville Middlesbrough (H)...Marouane Fellaini

Keep 'em coming Jim, just don't expect any sensible answers from me .

Villa were 2-0 with a couple of minutes left against these . Another one or two would be nice. Lescott and Jo in my fantasy team....happy days!

There was a thing about illegal footie streaming on the news the other day. There's technical dudes trying to get them shut them down as soon as they start broadcasting....curse . 2-0 Lescott!!!

Sorry mate, just a very unreliable Veetle stream here .

....and they each get their very own post . You know what haggis is? Much to his Mum and Dad's dismay Horace ate himself one day. He didn't stop to say his grace, He just sat down and ate his face. "We can't have this" his Dad declared, "If that lad's ate, he should be shared." But even as he spoke they saw Horace eating more and more: First his legs and then his thighs, His arms, his nose, his hair, his eyes... "Stop him someone!" Mother cried "Those eyeballs would be better fried!" But all too late, for they were gone, And he had started on his dong... "Oh! foolish child!" the father mourns "You could have deep-fried that with prawns, Some parsley and some tartar sauce..." But H. was on his second course: His liver and his lights and lung, His ears, his neck, his chin, his tongue; "To think I raised him from the cot And now he's going to scoff the lot!" His Mother cried: "What shall we do? What's left won't even make a stew..." And as she wept, her son was seen To eat his head, his heart, his spleen. And there he lay: a boy no more, Just a stomach, on the floor... None the less, since it was his They ate it – that's what haggis is.

Hangover ? And Paul I'm looking forward to the new Transformers film, Josh loved the last one and I (being a good dad) always found time to sit and watch it with him. THIS had nothing to do with it .

It lives . Just gotta hope it sails through the MOT in August now.

Looks OK....apart from the ridiculous (but oh so hollywood) meaningful father/son crap at the start and end of the trailer . Want to see The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas which has just come out on DVD....anyone seen it?

And here's a very intersting article from Brian Reade in the Mirror, 16th March 2002. It deserves to be read so I've copied and pasted. You forget just how bad things were (how wrong was he about Carsley though!). MY instinctive reaction to Walter Smith's sacking was to accuse Bill Kenwright of an unforgivable act of gallery-playing, disloyalty and naked self-preservation. An insurance policy against being strung from a Bullens Road lamp-post because he had kept faith with a manager who had taken Everton down months before they could boast of being the first team to play 100 seasons in the English top flight. Kenwright knows this grand old team's history and the crowd's apoplectic reaction to the shambles at Boro was enough to make his head, not his heart, go boom-boom-boom. Consequently, to distract attention away from the conductor he simply shot the piano player.So I was about to write about the stoic Smith shouldering his board's comical mismanagement for three-and-a-half years, having to sell his best players to fend off bankruptcy then fight an annual relegation scrap with men so old, they had Nil Satis Nisi Optimum written on their legs in varicose veins. A board which had allowed the club to slide from eminence to obscurity, chasing the white elephant of a new stadium while allowing the only thing that mattered - the team - to become such a grim advert for football they are about to have their sponsor's names taken off their shirts. And then I read of Smith's cunning, last ditch-plan to save them from the drop. Bringing in Ashley Ward on loan. A journeyman Jonah who has been relegated with Norwich, Barnsley, Blackburn and Bradford in the last seven years, and I decided Smith either had a death-wish or he actually wasn't very good at his job. I looked at his three recent signings - Lee Carsley, Tobias Linderoth and David Ginola - and realised they weren't so much cast-iron guarantees against the drop as possible reasons for it. I read the list of the 31 players he signed for £57million, and saw only two who were class and in their prime - Marco Materazzi and Oliver Dacourt. Both swiftly caught on that Smith would not be putting class players alongside them and jumped ship. I remembered how he allowed Don Hutchison to leave because he wouldn't stump up a few extra grand a week to keep him happy, yet saddled the club with Duncan Ferguson's titanic wage and health bills. I thought of all the dire games I'd watched at Goodison since Smith was in charge. The baffling team selections which brought a new meaning to the rotation system (the same players rotated in each other's positions), and I came to four conclusions. That winning a one-horse race in Scotland doesn't equip you to cope with the demands of England's Premiership. That the shambles he leaves David Moyes is worse than the shambles he inherited. That if he'd been as devastatingly honest as people say he is, he'd have walked months ago and told the debt-strapped club to put half of his million pound compo cheque towards a new striker. And that ultimately Kenwright had no option but to make the OBE after Smith's name stand for Out Before Easter, because Everton had begun to stink of decay. When the BBC cameras panned to their fans at Middlesbrough their bleak expressions resembled their manager's. They looked haunted, tired, clueless and resigned to failure. Not gallant failure mind, just cowardly submission. After last Sunday something had to give. And it had to be Smith. His defenders say he ended up having to buy mediocrity because good players won't sign for a club that's going nowhere. In that case you have to find a manager who can convince them they are going somewhere. Something Smith could no longer do because he didn't believe it. Which is why his team didn't either. But where were the men who could? David Jones and Peter Reid? Wrong timing. George Graham and Joe Royle? Yesterday's men. What was needed was radical thinking. An injection of youthful ideas. A freshness. A boldness. A gamble. And Moyes fits that bill. He wins by playing the game the right way and he will eventually perfect his craft at one Premiership club, so why not Everton? Even if he takes them down but brings them back up a younger, better, hungrier team, the fans will be relieved. For too long going to Goodison has been a punishment, not a pleasure. Their bafflingly loyal fans need to start enjoying watching football again. They need to know their cash and their support is pushing the team in the right direction. They need more than anything to see a side consistently beat opposition, any opposition, by playing slick, entertaining football. It's a massive challenge to come to a Merseyside team who have under-achieved for a decade, survey the chasm in ambition between yourself and the side across Stanley Park and make the club great again. In fact it's only ever been done once before. By another untested, fanatical, single-minded, ex-Preston Scotsman whose first task was to bond with the fans by telling them they support "The People's Club." And if Moyes eventually achieves a fraction of what Bill Shankly achieved, a week which started calamitously for Everton might go down as one of the best in their long history.

Found some interesting quotes from around that time, supporters emailing the BBC... I've been an ardent fan of Everton since the 80's...and time and again, the same mistake of sacking quality manager occur. Taking everything into consideration, and with only nine games to go... Smith deserves the opportunity to get it right with at least some decent money to spend. The future's bleak, the future's not Moyes.... the future's the Nationwide League. Tom, England Oh dear! The sacking of Walter Smith suggests the Everton board haven't got a clue. The appointment of David Moyes confirms it! Alan, Isle of Man Bill Kenwright must be applauded on taking a gamble on David Moyes. Everton were certainties for the drop under Walter Smith due to a lack of ideas and tactical acumen. Smith's biggest mistake was to largely ignore one of the best youth systems in the country and I would be very surprised to see David Moyes go down the same road. Neil, England Who in their right mind leaves a side which has a good chance of going up for a side that looks almost sure to go down now? Bryan, Ireland £3 million for David Moyes? If Walter was given that kind of money then maybe Everton would be doing a lot better than they are now. Wayne, England

Do you just want local opinion or country/worldwide ?

Terrible news. Andy van der Meyde has tweaked a hamstring in training and is a doubt for tomorrow . I'd settle for a draw now .

Nice piece. A bit over the top about the old chestnut "next ManU Manager" at the end though . http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...ton/7938649.stm

Our only German as far as I can recall . Willkommen Lars.

Maybe useful but it'd be interesting to know whether you're really "Evertonmad" or are you just saying that because you run parkatmyhouse.com? Truth and spam or lies and spam, that's the question .

This is a bit of fun. Me...as I'd have looked 500,000 years ago... ...1,800,000 years ago... ...2,200,000 years ago... ...and 3,700,000 years ago... I'm a bit worried that 1.8 million years back I looked alarmingly like JPR Williams, but at least I always had more hair than I have now . Upload your photo HERE and have a go. The strangest one was when I uploaded a picture of Wayne Rooney and set it to fifty years ago and it came back with this...

Think whether it was racist or not is speculation unless anyone happened to be there. Sure everyone on here agrees that racism is wrong. But to avoid any conflict the subject is closed.

Day three testing in Barcelona... 1. Jenson Button, Brawn BGP 001, 1:19.127 2. Felipe Massa, Ferrari F60, 1:20.168 3. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber F1.09, 1:20.217 4. Timo Glock, Toyota TF109, 1:20.410 5. Fernando Alonso, Renault R29, 1:20.863 6. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull RB5, 1:21.165 7. Nico Rosberg, Williams FW31, 1:21.324 8. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India VJM02, 1:21.545 9. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso STR4, 1:21.569 10. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren MP4-24, 1:21.657 ....and day four... "The potent pace of the Brawn BGP 001 continued to impress at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya on Thursday, as this week’s multi-team test - the last before the season opening Australian Grand Prix later this month - drew to a close." 1. Rubens Barrichello, Brawn BGP 001, 1:18.926 2. Nico Rosberg, Williams FW31, 1:19.774 3. Timo Glock, Toyota TF109, 1:20.091 4. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull RB5, 1:20.576 5. Fernando Alonso, Renault R29, 1:20.664 6. Felipe Massa, Ferrari F60, 1:20.677 7. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber F1.09, 1:20.740 8. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren MP4-24, 1:20.869 9. Sebastien Buemi, Toro Rosso STR4, 1:21.013 10. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India VJM02, 1:21.045 11. Sebastien Bourdais, Toro Rosso STR4, 1:21.629 Looks like the Brawn could be a contender....Hamilton/McLaren struggling at the mo, but I'm sure they'll sort themselves out.

Maybe one day but their problem is, compared to virtually everyone else on the list, that they've not won anything .

Don't remember exactly how it happened. 1966 (when I was six) passed me by completely but by the '68 final I was hooked. Born in Middlesex and brought up in Surrey by a Spurs supporting dad so there's no line there, my big brother was a red (he bought a Liverpool rosette at the Ideal Home Exhibition because he liked the look of it) so maybe it was just a subconscious decision to go against him, but I can't say for sure.....but I know how I felt when Jeff Astle scored :crying_anim: . My lad, Josh, had no choice in it. He was christened "Neville" by a mate while he was still in his mum's womb (after Southall, not Phil ).