Cod Eye

In before kick-off to avoid live chat. I'm fucking shitting myself! Come on REDS!

It's strange that we, as football fans, can all flip flop our opinions on the sports transfer situations depending on the payer in question. We all bitch and complain when our clubs star player basically ignores the fact they have just signed an x years contract when a bigger club shows an interest, but when a player that is not performing wants to honour his contract and not move on, we all call him a lazy bastard. I know I have done both in recent transfer windows....

Feels weird having the Championship season end mid-week.

Not expecting to do much celebrating as a Barnsley supporter. No doubt the annual Barnsley/Rotherham division swap will be confirmed tonight. Only thing positive out of it would be if Brentford end up in the top 2. It shows that using their system does indeed work, despite the complete fuck up the so called "Billionaire" owners at Oakwell have made of it...

I loved all 4 days of play of that test. It had everything that made me fall in love with the game in the first place. Interesting conditions and pitch, making it a proper battle between bat and ball. An opener showing grit, application and concentration to grind out a slow hundred. An all rounder taking apart the bowling attack in tricky conditions an two pace attacks that had the ball consistently swinging and seaming. Lovely stuff!

Also, it just showed that you don't have to go out and play mega attacking to get the result. The slow, long first innings was perfectly played, and wore out the Windies' bowlers perfectly. Gabriel was moving like the fucking Tin Man for The Wizard of Oz on day 3, never mind the last day!

14 minutes ago, JNLister said:

Shock of shocks, this was a total bust. There's basically no way of doing a scorecard where you can figure out what's going on. Three missing fielders mean 28 an over doesn't feel particularly impressive. And while it didn't happen this time, there's a strong probability in every game that you get anything up to six overs where the fielding team is already certain to come third and thus its of no consequence to them whether they take wickets or concede runs. 

I really don't get that triple threat format. All you hear from the likes of the ECB is that they wanted to simply the game for newer audiences, which is why someone came up with the "100" format. 

The triple threat rules confused the shit out of me, and I've watched all forms of the sport, as well as played it for over 30 years.

If anyone has any Adidas that are tired looking or need a good clean, let me know. One of my best mates has a side business doing this(and customising them too), with or without re-dyes and new decals, etc, and I'd be happy to point you to his Facebook page to contact him. He's really good and has a good following now. He's also doing personalised Adidas face masks at the minute too.

*Mods, if this isn't allowed, feel free to give me a bollocking and delete the post. I don't get commission or anything for recommending his, and just thought it might be of intest to someone...

If you hadn't said that was Andre, I wouldn't have had a clue it was even a wrestling figure, let alone Andre...

Well, after my relationship broke down and I had to leave the family home and the dog that was my best friend, I was heartbroken. I can't brig myself to get another dog, but on Monday just gone, I picked my a kitten, that the kids have named Elsa!

What the fuck is wrong with 20 and 50 over cricket for those that want a shorter, more intense game? A T20 match isn't much longer than a football match, but the powers that be seem intent on stripping the sport bit by bit until it's about 40 minutes long and filled with muscled up players who can belt almost ever over the rope, all because young 'un's have "no attention span". Shove you 100 and Triple team cricket up your fucking arses. 

Test cricket is one of the only sports left that has stayed pure and faithful to it's roots, let's keep it that way, please. 

Sorry for the rant!

Back to the current test, I think the first few days have been proper engrossing. A real battle between bat and ball where the constant swing and seam have ensured the batsmen have had to fight for every single run. I'm praying it continues like this too...

It would make sense to start to rely less on the Anderson/Broad tandem, and start planning the next long term attack. It's a shame we won't be seeing them both bowling here though. Anderson is a proper joy to watch in these conditions, and I could see the West Indies batsmen seriously struggling against him(assuming the conditions of day one carry on for at least a few more days)...

4 hours ago, cobra_gordo said:

Looks like I've mis-remembered, done a Google and it's the European market thing. Although on the VHS we had as a kid it was still Taco Bell.

I've only ever seen the Taco Bell version, and got it on VHS almost immediately after it was released...

What benefits do the likes of Ricochet get for being in the main event these days rather than being in the lower or mid card? Apart from having more chances to wear their latest t-shirt to push merch sales, I can't think of many others. In the past, they wanted to top spots as they got a bigger chunk of the gate and PPV revenues. Now, there are less house shows than ever, and the PPV market is tiny thanks to the network, so PPV bonuses are smaller. The difference between a lower/mid card spot and the main event(even the spot as champion) is the smallest I think I've ever seen it, so in that respect, can you blame someone for just being happy to have a job?

I've said it in another thread recently, but the main event is now "WWE" rather than wrestler A vs wrestler B.

1 hour ago, ElCece said:

That is part of the problem thay Root and Cook had (although I still think Cook was a decent Captain) was no time captaining there county as they have always been in the team. 

Burns could be capable, beyond Stokes and  who is established in the team without retirement looming? 

Fuck it brings back Nasser and bat him at 9. Always been my favourite captain.

It's been one of the few downsides to central contracts. While they help the bowlers by managing their workloads, most of the top batsmen will only play a few times a season for their county so they very rarely get the opportunity to become a full time captain.

I really wish England could stumble upon someone else capable of captaining the team. I've never liked the idea of simply making your best player the skipper. Root was up there as one of the best 3 batsmen in the world before the pressure of the captaincy came along, but now you can see he looks jaded every time he comes out to bat now. I thought the same about Stokes yesterday too. There was a few flashes of the classic Stokes batting, but you could see the additional pressure.

The majority of the batting line up if fucked though. I can't remember the last time our batsmen looked so "transitional", 

6 hours ago, BomberPat said:

I've probably gone into this before, but I fucking hate "backronyms" - the Hospital one is new to me, but "Port Out, Starboard Home", or "Fornication Under Consent Of The King", that sort of bollocks, is just pub bore levels of made up "facts" to impress idiots, and bear absolutely no resemblance to how etymology actually works. 

The first time I ever heard the "FUCK" one was on one of those old Channel 5 sex magazine shows like Sexcetera or whatever they were called. It had a ting where it would ask you a question before the ad break and tell you the answer after and the origins of the work Fuck was one. I felt a right prick when I tried to look smart in the pub by using the "fact", and a bloke who was an English professor laughed his bollocks off at the absurdity of it!

47 minutes ago, Pinc said:

And? If you go on a Man Utd forum, I'm pretty sure you won't find them comparing their players with the players of Macclesfield(for example).

Give it a few years, and see if AEW can become serious competition then start comparing...

The new US belt is frustrating for me. The return of the eagle to a belt is something I've thought WWE should have done for ages(I'd have one on all the "World" titles to tie them all together), but the big, garish lettering just totally kills it and devalues it too. Take that design, give it decent lettering and a few tweaks and it would make a decent world title, in my opinion, of course...

Edit:

Also, do we have to compare everything WWE do to the same thing AEW does(or vice versa)? 

On 6/29/2020 at 11:38 PM, SuperBacon said:

This is really interesting, and I'll be absolutely honest something I have been guilty of.

Countless times I've seen a black player dominate midfield (I'm thinking of Yaya Toure for some reason) and referred to them as a "beast" or similar, and that is the very definition of unconscious racism, in that I am not being racist directly, I'm playing with a trope and giving it validation.

Something that needs to be checked and corrected.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jun/29/groundbreaking-report-reveals-racial-bias-in-english-football-commentary

Sorry about quoting this so late, but I have only just caught up with this topic.

In one of the early "Secret Footballer" books, he goes into detail about something similar. Basically, he says that many (british)managers wont trust black players to play in the more creative, playmaker roles as they believe black players don't possess the intelligence to play there. I remember at the time thinking that it was bullshit, but when discussing it with the lads in the pub, Toure was the only black "playmaker" type player we could think of(at the time)

For me, unless they book a huge dream match/bring one of the big name veterans back, it doesn't really make a difference who is champion or who they feud with. WWE have told us for decades now that the name on the marquee is WWE, and your buying a ticket for a WWE show, rather than the names who appear on it. 

I can't think of a single full time contracted name they have who would make me think "shit, I HAVE to make sure I see that match"!

Everytime they make one of these docs with the 'Mania 9 backstage footage, it reminds me just how much I'd love a feature length "The Making of Wrestlemania 9" documentary. 

I always think the response of "I'm going to fucking sue you" to allegations like this is just as low as the alleged crime, and makes you look an ver bigger, heartless cunt.(unless it's an obvious attempt to gain financially by the accuser). If someone built up the guts to make an allegation like that against me(especially if the thing was done innocently, or part of a miss-judged prank etc), the last thing I would want to do is make threats and effect them even more. 

Why didn't the Knights, who as we all know are on here(or Ricky is anyway), reach out to AVM via PM and see what the full story was Rather than just put statements and videos up abusing the lad?

I've never met the Knights, or been to their shows(that I know of anyway). All I know of them is what I saw on the documentary and the movie(which was not meant to be 100% factually accurate). I also have never met AVM, so I'm commenting on this completely neutral.   

I watched Barnsley win at QPR earlier for the first time in about a million years. 2020 is now officially the wierdest year in history!

Just waiting for the post to deliver it. Can't wait!

The story of the original was one of the best I've ever played...

It's a shame his back was fucked when the WWF went with Bret as champion. An in his prime Perfect, Bret and HBK(and maybe Owen Hart too) all working together in main event programs could have produced some brilliant matches.

I'd just moved into a house with my (at the time) Mrs, and were in the habit of having huge, fuck off all day piss up's there during the summer. We heard about this Live 8 thing, though it was going to be our generation's Live Aid, so went out and spent a fortune on an outdoor projector and sound system and invited every fucker we knew. Christ, it was heartbreaking how shit it turned out to be. Everyone(there was 36 of us crammed into the garden if I have counted right) was at our's had started on the ale an hour or so earlier to get in the mood and were buzzing by the time it started.

Then, it took all of 10 minutes to realise how shit it was going to be. One by one, everyone gradually drifted off into the house or a different part of the garden and from memory the only time anyone looked back at the screen was when Robbie Williams did his bit(and then it was only the women). Absolute shite...