ilkleyram

4 hours ago, maxjam said:

One of those idiots will obsess over it too much and help cure aging!

But yeah life does suck at times and you never know when your numbers gonna be called, enjoy it whilst you're fit, healthy and active.  Its over way too soon and unless something does actually follow death, you gotta make the most of things whilst the goings good.

Back on topic... If you give me an unlimited healthy life and the technological advances that will have hopefully occurred in the meantime, I'm pretty sure I could keep myself busy for a long, long time.  IMHO its actually pretty sad to see two thirds of people replying to the topic (at time of replying) against living forever, but each to their own I guess.  You lot have gotta have a bit more drive and and passion, not to mention an inquisitive nature to explore and learn!

I swear I was born too late to map and explore the Earth and too early to fly out into the galaxy and see what it holds.  Ah well, I've got Starfield, I'll go play that for a bit instead 😛

This might be pedantic but you can’t cure aging - every single one of us is aging all the time.
What you can impact are the effects of aging - what you do for yourself- not smoking or drinking or taking drugs, taking exercise, keeping mobile etc - and what the medical profession does by way of research and developing medical skills and the pharmaceutical industry does by way of research and drug development. 
Between them the medical and pharmaceutical professions have been responsible for significantly extending life expectancy over the last few generations and greater knowledge and wealth as well as access to better healthcare systems in the developed world especially have also played their part 

I’m in my late 60s and was lucky enough to be able to retire 10 years ago. After a difficult couple of years getting over not working I love my life - exercise every day, never felt fitter, though bits are dropping off - my hearing needs aids, my eyes need glasses, my joints creak, I’m on medication (low level) for cholesterol and blood pressure and my hair is largely a distant memory. I do find myself thinking about my mortality fairly frequently  though not morbidly. Death is the last great secret I have to experience. I  know I have long since passed the halfway mark in my Rams watching season tally.

In my youth 65 was old and people often died soon after retirement. Now I’m there I want to keep going but I am a deathist - never heard that expression before. I want to keep on going so long as life is comfortable and my body is not giving out. I’ve no interest in the far future - I expect it would look terrifying to today’s world, just as today’s world might be terrifying to people born 300 years ago. I’ve no interest in rounds of surgery to replace my heart or organs for the 5th time - you would end up like Trigger’s broom on its 20th handle and 10th head or whatever it was.

What I would like is the opportunity to pick the moment I go and in the UK. But that’s another debate.

Just now, Curtains said:

Do you think Clowes will have to sell eventually to rich investors to achieve that aim or is it possible for him to do it 

No reason in principle why not but a lot of things have to go right at the same time from player to manager (and that is NOT a comment about our current manager). And above all we would have to have a lot of luck going our way on everything from referees decisions to academy fruitfulness.

If there’s anything I worry about about David Clowes’ ownership is his relative wealth. He’s clearly a rich man by any stretch of imagination. Good for him.  But he isn’t football rich it seems to me even at championship level never mind PL level. When you have clubs effectively owned by countries rather than individuals then having a couple of hundred million isn’t enough, especially if you then want your club/business to be self sustainable.  
There are reasons why very few (can’t name any but I presume there are some) football clubs are actually self sustainable and genuinely have income greater than expenditure. I doubt any in the PL actually are, nor the championship for that matter and so for us to get there requires someone to spend/gamble enough to make it possible or take a long time (and have a lot of patience). We’re not a club with a lot of patience from top to bottom as these pages often demonstrate.

I don’t know how many years of watching live football I have left.  I’ve done 60 or so. David Clowes’ relative financial weakness is a huge problem for football as a whole and is the result of FFP and TV plus feeble football administration. I live in hope that we will gain two promotions in the next 10 years or so and that I see it,  but I’m not expecting it. We certainly can’t win anything in the top league any more other than individual matches. I am just glad that I have lived through the golden age of football when football life was simpler, fairer and better. And we were good.

Archie Gemmill. Not our greatest ever player but the best midfielder we’ve ever had with skill, pace off the mark, tackling and an indomitable spirit that refused to accept losing. He would transform this team and any we’ve had over the last 25 years as well, through force of personality alone. Willie Carlin on steroids and Willie transformed what became a really good side. Archie was better.

1 hour ago, Blondest Goat said:

 

There is no limit.  I didn't reference any limit. I simply asked what good it does to keep going on about it.  You said we shouldn't just shrug our shoulders but what exactly can we do about it?  We have zero influence over these things.  

We go on about a lot of things on this forum that we have zero influence over. 
Or perhaps we have a bit of influence somewhere along the line. Maybe just maybe fan dissatisfaction with wasting time influenced this season’s changes for example. Maybe not but we should live in hope otherwise what’s the point? 

18 minutes ago, MadAmster said:

What's the number of comments that upsets blondes ?  😉

🤷🏼

11 minutes ago, WestKentRam said:

It may vary depending on whether it's an international break or not.

Ah. Thank you 

4 minutes ago, Blondest Goat said:

What good does keep going on about it do?

Please could you let me know what the maximum number of comments we’re allowed to make on any one topic is? I can’t find the number in the t’s and c’s

1 hour ago, kevinhectoring said:

And if they saw it and thought it was handball (like most people who were watching)…?
 

It’s been said elsewhere: big defensive error when the attackers have an overload - it’s right that the refs give the benefit of any doubt to the attackers. 

If they saw it and thought it was handball then they were wrong and unlike 99% of the people watching they were a) close to the action and b) have gone through significant amounts of training to help them make the right decision 

They have to be certain - nothing to do with the attackers having an overload or giving the benefit of the doubt to them otherwise he should have given the 3 other clangers he made in our favour (which the crowd also saw). The ref clearly wasn’t certain otherwise why go to the lino? And if the lino saw the incident he would/should have seen it wasn’t handball. If he didn’t see it then they shouldn’t have given the free kick nor send Joe off. 

22 minutes ago, bcnram said:

In the heat of the moment in real time it looked like it had hit his hand. I would think the conversation with the Lino was more about was it a clear goal scoring opportunity. 
These things happen, that is just the way it is. 🤷🏽

Oh, I agree. These things happen when humans are involved.

But that doesn’t mean that we should shrug our shoulders (as per your emoji) and excuse a guy (who has previous with us) who not only got this major decision wrong but also 3 others, each of which would/could have changed the scoreline in our favour

And, it might have looked like handball from 100 yards away up the other end of the pitch but he was 10 yards away at most, albeit with a slightly obscured view; the lino was 20 yards away with no obscured view, and the laws say they can only give the freekick and send Joe off if they saw what happened, and they didn’t.  
If they saw the incident they saw it wasn’t handball; if they didn’t see it they can’t give it. And the whole point of training referees is to get them to get the big decisions in a game correct.

25 minutes ago, oodledoodle said:

Got to remember that refs don't have the advantage of slow motion replays from every angle like we do during/after the game.

When we watch it back we're looking in minute detail at whether Joe handles it. The ref doesn't know he's about to make a decision on a handball in the moment. I can totally understand the ref making a mistake here. It's rubbish on us, but it happens.

I can’t. He gave himself time to think about the decision - which is good - by going over to the lino.  In itself that suggests he didn’t have a clear view and therefore couldn’t be certain that Joe had handled the ball and therefore he couldn’t send him off (or give a foul).

The lino had the better angle of sight. If he saw a handball (which clearly he could not have done) then he could have said so when they conferred. What he should have said to the ref was either that he didn’t see it and was looking elsewhere (not unreasonable) or that he saw it clearly and no handball. If he said that he saw it hit Joe’s arm then he was wrong.

As @angieram says, they both guessed. Wrongly. We may still have lost but we also may have won or drawn. Our chances of either of the latter two options were significantly reduced by his decision.

One other minor point. If you look how the ball bounces off and away from Joe it’s clear that it hits a solid part of his body. If it had hit his hand it would more than likely have bounced down given the angle of his arm. The ref should have reflected on that in his decision making - they were fresh out of half time, not tired and should have been well attuned to the game so had no excuse. 

Three statisticians go hunting and spot a stag

Number 1 fires and misses three feet to the right

Number 2 fires and misses three feet to the left

Number 3 shouts 'we got him' 

11 hours ago, RoyMac5 said:

The thing is I want to look forward to the below categories, not back... 

"Bit bored of same discussions and its a while to the next match so to try and distract (or ignore as you wish and go back to the moaning) and remind us why we're all on here can we share some positives:

- favourite Rams player(s) (dont have to have seen play) and why? - Roy Mac and most of that 1st league winning team/Chris Martin

- stupidest journey to see Rams play? - is it Watford where you walked around the back of their stadium through 'grasslands'

- funniest match moment? - normally it involves laughing at opposition players or fans.

- favourite away ground visited and why? - Wemberley, Wemberley for the Charity Shield

- proudest moment as Rams fan? - All the time. (Although specifically recently 2013/14 season when were everyone's favourite 'second team') And Wayne's & Liam's season leading us through adversity.

"

 

At Watford you can - if you walk up from the Rookery end of the ground (the opposite end from the away end) - walk alongside some allotments rather than through grassland. They’re very jealously guarded (or were when I lived there) by the locals, despite the hospital wanting to expand onto them and the council wanting to put a road through them. 
The other sides of the ground are restricted by the hospital, Vicarage Road and houses

The bright note, and I really hesitate to use that expression with such news, is that our medical team and physios are used to dealing with this injury.  Hopefully that will help Jake.  And in the darker moments not only will he have Fozzy but he'll also have Fozzy's example - you can get back to full fitness and the first team after an ACL

1 hour ago, RoyMac5 said:

👍

But not "It was worse. He's a cheat." 

If you watch the video in slow-mo (drag the dot along the bar)...

...it's not a straight-on view for the ref. 

No. I don’t think that referees generally are ‘cheats’.  Incompetent often, yes.  Cheats in the sense they deliberately make decisions against any one team, including ours, no.

I don’t think he had, from this camera angle, a clear view of Joe’s left arm (he did have a clear view of his right arm) so he was right to check with the lino who should have had a very clear view of both of Joe’s arms from the angle that the lino would have been looking. The ref couldn’t see it; the lino clearly didn’t otherwise he would have said no handball so they are both incompetent for coming to the decision that it was handball and a sending off. Both guessed. Wrongly. 

4 minutes ago, angieram said:

 

From that view the only thing you could say was that the ref thought it might have hit Joe’s left arm. His right is miles away. And his left arm was slightly obscured from his view. The lino however has no such excuse even though he was 20 yards away he was still front on to the incident so he must have had a clear view.  Unless he was looking elsewhere.
If neither of them clearly saw a handball and guessed then they shouldn’t be giving it, handball or not. And clearly it was not.

Big decision to get wrong. Very poor refereeing never mind the three other major decisions he got wrong.

1 hour ago, CBRammette said:

Bit bored of same discussions and its a while to the next match so to try and distract (or ignore as you wish and go back to the moaning) and remind us why we're all on here can we share some positives:

- favourite Rams player(s) (dont have to have seen play) and why?

- stupidest journey to see Rams play?

- funniest match moment?

- favourite away ground visited and why?

- proudest moment as Rams fan?

Feel free to add Qs or totally ignore or try and start other topics please before we all go bonkers. 

Charlie George - by a long way the best footballer I’ve seen in our shirt. Vision, pace, skill and an attitude. Could pass like few others I’ve ever seen including the modern era.

Can’t remember where we were going - we’d started early - but 9 of us in the back of a works transit with no seats. There were even more coming back. Broken down train with no heating coming back from Brighton midweek comes a close second 

Any time the ref falls over. Always makes me laugh.

Accrington Stanley - proper ground, warm welcome before, during and after, proper fans with plenty of access to other clubs higher up but stick with their local team

The obvious ones are the trophies - 2nd division, 1st division, Texaco,Charity Shield - but winning v Rotherham to go up was fantastic, so was Stuart Webb saving us even though it lead to Maxwell (we didn’t know what was to come). Clowes taking over just about tops it though. I cried when I heard the news, rang my son, we both cried - relief and pure joy in equal measure. The reflected pride comes in one of our own having the resources and the courage to take us on at our lowest moment.

22 minutes ago, hintonsboots said:

Yes she told me that earlier 👀

So that’s where she went 

3 hours ago, hintonsboots said:

Everybody’s got a source nowadays. It’s the new must have accessory.

I haven't.  But my wife has apparently

3 hours ago, The Last Post said:

Millenium was told in no uncertain terms on Thursday that he will not be leaving, The giveaway is "he will not be leaving" I'm not doubting what Millenium was told, I'm asking who blocked it and then "may have rescued it" there's reasons why transfers collapse then put back on life support.

I love the use of the word "perhaps" there's a lot of If's but's and maybe's there 😉

No, you concluded that 'Someone is not being "honest"'.  And I offered you a (realistic IMO) scenario where everyone has been 'honest' because circumstances altered on the Friday.

If @Millenniumram's information on Thursday night was accurate then all it took on Friday to change the situation was Brighton changing their offer.  Maybe they offered more money, maybe they offered a 4 month loan to Derby, maybe it was something else. Who knows or who cares?  But something clearly changed from Thursday night because otherwise Cash would have been on the team bus to Bolton on Friday and tucked up in bed rather than pounding round Starbucks' car park.  And if he didn't get to Bolton until 2.30am (as someone else has said) then he was pretty late setting off from Derby so it must have gone on for a while.

No dishonesty involved from anyone as you intimated.

18 minutes ago, Terry Hennessy said:

Hmmmm....for the life of me I don't understand why in instances like this that things get left to the last minute.... the same thing happened to JCH at Pboro....

But IMO if Cash thought he'd be playing for a Premiership team he's deluded. He'd sit in their U23s or whatever and rot until January when he'd get loaned out somewhere....so other than a bit if extra money in his pocket it'd be a retrogressive step for him...

It’s human nature. On every single transfer deadline day there are last minute deals. And it’s simply because everyone wants the best possible deal for their club or for their player ( if they’re an agent). And negotiations will always happen up to the limit whatever the deadline is. 
Like so much else in football it’s a system created for TV under the auspices of protecting clubs. And it’s fake. I’d rather we went back to the old system of limited transfers during the last few months of the season but otherwise an open process. Sky will never allow it. 
As for cash he’ll know exactly where he’s going in January or next summer. But he’ll also know his bank balance will be higher. No problem with that so long as he performs for the next four months. 
 

4 hours ago, The Last Post said:

And yet PW said in his Radio Derby interview.

"The honest truth is someone wanted to buy him, it looked like it was happening. He didn't travel with the team and in the end when it failed he travelled over and I just didn't feel like he was right."

Your "someone" with connections right at the top.

Has either duff info or DCFC were stringing EC along on Friday, When they could have pulled the plug on Thursday.

Someone is not being "honest"

Why do you reach that conclusion?  
@Milleniumram was told on Thursday night. Let’s presume that was true.  Maybe Cash was told that on Thursday.

Why could the situation not have changed on Friday. Perhaps Brighton upped their offer. Maybe Cash and PW agreed that he hang around in Derby whilst the negotiations continued. Perhaps him hanging around in Starbucks was because he’d set off for Bolton but got a call to say it might be on again.

perhaps everyone is being honest - Derby with the player, the player with Derby and PW in telling us what happened on the Friday and why he wasn’t in the starting 11.

2 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

The 5 year plan was to be a stable Championship club. An example of this playing out cold be:
Year 1 (last season): Challenge for top 6
Year 2: Win promotion
Year 3: Avoid relegation
Year 4: Lower-midtable
Year 5: Midtable
It doesn't mean (as I interpret from your posts) that we have 5 years to get back to the Championship.

Whilst I 100% agree with you on preferring to sign players the 'right side of 30', I can also see the opposite side of the argument. There are few young promising players available on a free or negligible fee. Wildsmith, Vickers, Rooney, Cashin, Ward, Wilson, Elder, Bird, Thompson, Fornah, Sibley and John-Jules all fit within the ideal age range, with the majority of our signings so far joining that group.

However, I feel we could have pushed harder on signings younger alternatives to the players we have signed, such as Matt Pennington, Lloyd Jones, Jack Sparkes, Jensen Weir, Aaron Pressley, Tyler Walker

You're right of course, that we have more players in the 'ideal' age range than perhaps some give credit to Clowes/Pearce/Warne for achieving.  From an age perspective only, the squad looks better balanced this season than last never mind what will happen over the next couple of days.  And maybe it's because the 5 year plan you describe is the one that is in their minds.

An alternative would be:

Year 1 (last season) Challenge for top 6

Year 2 (this season) In play offs/challenge for top 2

Year 3 (next season) Promotion from league 1

Year 4 Midtable/lower end of Championship.  Warne extends contract

Year 5 Top end of Championship/build for EPL

That effectively gives us two more transfer windows - January 24 and summer 24 - to reduce the average age of the squad still further whilst maintaining a core of senior/older/experienced players, with greater emphasis on more younger players arriving in the summer of 24 ahead of Year 3. And recruiting then with a significant eye on players who will also cope/prosper in the Championship (your 'younger list' being examples) so that the summer of 25 (year 4) becomes more of a 'topping up' window. 

All very interesting but as Billy Davies knows you can't pick your moment to get promoted and football teams rarely develop in a linear fashion.  Sometimes luck plays a larger role than planning and noises off are nowadays a more significant factor than in days gone by.

14 minutes ago, Bris Vegas said:

Scrapping VAR and we just go back to more controversy and complaints as officials aren’t getting the decisions correct. 

The main argument for the introduction of VAR was to get more decisions right, reduce the controversy and thereby support referees and the importance of match officials.

It feels, and I don't watch that much EPL football nowadays, as if there are plenty of examples where decisions have been properly changed and maybe that's to the overall good of the game.  But every decision changed, by definition, means that the ref either got the original one wrong or missed it completely, so it reinforces the fallibility of referees and constantly questions their competence.  

It also appears to have done nothing to decrease controversy around decisions.  At times there appears to be more controversy mainly because there's very little in football that's fact - ball over the line for example - rather than opinion, and the lawmakers just make it worse with all the 'unnatural position' nonsense which turns a relatively simple question - 'was it deliberate handball or not, in the opinion of the referee' - into a discussion that would test the capabilities of United Nation peace negotiators.

In the end they're all human beings - fallible, frail and some are better than others - and football is routinely a matter of opinion.  The misplaced drive in football, and life generally, for perfection just leads to disappointment.

1 hour ago, Kokosnuss said:

I've previously said that I like Warne and that his sometimes offbeat comments sort of reflect how I'd be when put in is position.

Not coming out with the expected tropes and occasionally being too self-critical,  at times too honest not to caveat some of the stuff I've said for fear of being misconstrued. Filterless but also weirdly cautious. I understand it. I empathise.

When he starts talking absolute b*******,  making excuses and coming out with contradictory nonsense which changes from one minute to the next to cover his own back... it reminds me of the worst characteristics that I myself can be and often am guilty of.

I don't want that in a football manager charged with taking us back to the Championship FFS. Great bloke even with a bit of cringe but SHUT THE f*** UP sometimes, y'know?

Just to be completely clear is this absolute b******* and contradictory nonsense, which I hear you are often guilty of?  
 

😉