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The club have taken a fair bit of flak over some of their actions recently but this seems a really good offer on the face of it. I'd like to see them do something like this for all home games as well so folk can have a pint in town if they want then hop on a bus from the city centre around 1430 or 1440 then zip out to the ground.

Hopefully our disciplinary record will improve significantly, our pre-season training will have been sufficient to avoid early season injuries and we adapt a real togetherness right from the off

The ‘It’s coming home’ thing will probably be jumped on but I don’t blame the fans for that - they can and should dream. Roy Keane on ITV had something to say about media pundits looking/speaking too far ahead and was quite persuasive. I doubt though the England players or staff believed any of that. Sadly, the BBC in England/UK is a continual embarrassment - not just in football but in many respects. In this instance, the BBC could have acknowledged or set the tone and been balanced/impartial, like ITV but their very first go-to was a parody of what life would be like in England after them winning the WC - that was how they opened their coverage. ITV had Bilic and Keane and O’Neill and it’s a sad day when ITV are the pragmatics. It would have been tongue in cheek for Scotland, Ireland etc. but the BBC were just sophomoric and really didn’t strike the right tone. Croatia/Modric said the media’s hang up on them being tired and discussing plotting the draw and it being a clear path motivated them, but again that was media driven, not squad or fan - the latter from what I read wanted a test. Friends from England were content with getting to a semi final and had huge concerns over the team and their frailties. The BBC have spun what is, and what should be, a very promising first foray, into a failure from the outset, and most English fans, and I’m sure the squad in time, won’t see it that way. It’s another stumble by a BBC that needs some checks on its representativeness, impartiality, and Reithian values. It’s a sad day when ITV come out on top.

Sadly the mindless, thuggish English support and the arrogant English media turned many in the remaining "home" nations against a very promising, competent young side!

At the end of the day, England didn't beat any team ranked higher than 16th in the world. They did reasonably well and avoided the abject failure and humiliation that has characterised major tournaments of the last 20 years, but when the draw opened up like the parting of the Red Sea, they still weren't up to the task and a wee country ranked lower than them turned out to be a fair bit better and more deserving of a place in the final. The OBEs can go back in the box.

On an average Pie and Bovril thread you have to scroll through page after page of GIFs, memes, and vacuous posts to find something worth reading. 90% of posters have absolutely nothing to contribute, but spam every thread they enter with incessant nonsense. Even the 'good' posters write like insufferably smug, snarky, first year undergraduate sociology students who think they're archie. I've noticed many of the "I'm off P and B where my witty posts will be appreciated" crowd here attempting to imitate the 'cool kids' on P and B, and failing miserably. This forum has plenty of roasters to be sure, but they're OUR roasters.

I'd like to do a couple of previews later on in the season.

https://youtu.be/4zLfCnGVeL4

The Neymar transfer probably has more to do with the Qataris making a political statement than the general financing of football. But, yes, it is disgusting. Of course, the more general trend in football financing is driven in a large part by the consumers. If consumers didn't pay Sky and BT large amounts of money to watch these players and if the consumers weren't sucked into buying the vastly over-priced and over hyped "must have" branded products which are advertised by these broadcasters then there wouldn't be that sort of money around to pay the top players such obscene amounts. If instead, people supported their local sides, they may not see as much quality play but they would get something far more worthwhile with the emotional engagement with the club and the community around it. With money distributed more evenly, then far more hard working professional players would be able to make a living from the game. By our own consumer choice we create the very inequalities we so deplore.