Tamworthram

Simply no longer part of the ST deal and haven’t been for a long time.

I seem to have stumbled across a band from Japan called Love bites. The latest YouTube clip I’ve seen is a live recording of “Lost in the garden”. Amazing musicians.

Just make sure you have a good moan if there are any first day gremlins. 😀

I remember years ago, loads of us piling into the back of a transit van and travelling all over the place. No seat belts or anything. You couldn't (shouldn't) do that now. Health and Safety gone mad. 😀

I'll be renewing but there's no hurry (just don't spend the money on something else in the meantime 😀). Before you know it, some people will be moaning: 1) I haven't had my personalised letter/email yet 2) renewals aren't working properly on the website.

Early days still but there aint a lot of "bitching" on this site. If you look at places like X then you should expect it.

Absolutely. The increase will of course be painful for some (as all price increases are) but we have to be realistic in our expectations.

If I remember correctly, they were on top for the first 15 - 20 at PP but once we’d weathered the early storm we took over. I wonder if it will be similar pattern tomorrow? Early Barnsley pressure but we hold firm (no goals conceded and not a plethora of yellow cards) and then begin to assert ourselves (hopefully). COYR.

Of course it’s a shame they have gone up (about £60 for me) but I don’t feel like moaning about it. I think it was inevitable given they haven’t risen for so long. The cost of living has gone up for everyone and, sadly, DCFC are not immune from increased costs. How palatable the increase is is, of course, influenced by what league we’ll be playing in next season but I don’t think it was feasible to wait until that has been determined. No brainer for me, I’ll renew without hesitation. Some consolation for me 1) it’s less than I’ve budgeted for and 2) I’ll be in the seniors bracket the season after next.

You probably should have removed the Bristol Rovers badge to make the joke work. 😅

Possible but very unlikely I would have thought. I can’t imagine Mel being bothered enough to put any such condition in the contract and risk it not going through.

Damn it. Another barrier to me buying a Tesla. 😀

I'm not sure you could describe the chants as "official"😀 I'm not entirely comfortable with his appointment for this game but I don't think there are any real grounds to suspect he is biased especially if, as you have, you separate out the Barnsley apprentice factor. The EFL don't appoint referees per se. Do we know it's actually them that select the referees for specific games? I'm not convinced they do but happy to be proved wrong. Whoever did select him though has made a bold decision that should perhaps, by applying a bit of common sense, have been avoided.

Agreed. I would fully support the return of the railways to public ownership (assuming it was managed effectively of course) but, as you allude to, a massive investment in the infrastructure would be required in order to deliver the service, at a reasonable cost, that most of us crave.

I agree with you in principle but I suspect many countries have a good and affordable public transport system to get people to work during the core hours to the cities but do they run such a service to the smaller towns like Uttoxeter and Tamworth at the hours that would suit shift workers? Maybe they do, I don’t know. Also, I don’t know where you work but, unless you work in the town centre, such a service would also need to serve the surrounding area.

Well of course it is a rich country but in terms of size (geographic, population, public transport network) you can’t really compare it to a country like Luxembourg as you most probably know. The problem is that whilst the GDP for the UK is very high (top 6 in the world I think) so is the cost of running the country hence the high national debt (104% of GDP v 27% for Luxembourg). Maybe the UK could afford it. Has it been costed? Assuming it wouldn’t be cheap (as I say, if you’re going to offer free or cheap train tickets it isn’t as simple as lowering the prices. As we’ve discussed on this thread already, the infrastructure couldn’t (including the number of trains. I believe most, if not all, commuter trains are already full to overcrowded for example. How are you going to reduce congestion on the roads if the busy trains can’t take any more passengers) couldn’t cope. how would it be paid for? The simple answer might be to increase taxes but such a project would be competing with the other very worthy causes. So, unless you have the answers, let’s not pretend it’s an easy thing to deliver and fund. Maybe the price of off peak train tickets could be significantly reduced (that’s probably where the current capacity is) but it wouldn’t help reduce commuter traffic. I would fully support a free or low cost public transport system but I think it would be a little naive to think it’s an easy fix.

Introduced in 2020 apparently (a few years after I was there). To be fair, it must be a lot more feasible for such a small, yet rich, county like Luxembourg to introduce such a scheme than somewhere like to UK. I’m not sure nations governments and moral obligations go together in many places in the world but it’s a nice idea. Having said that, not something I know much about but, isn’t there already a £2 cap on bus journeys in England (bar some exceptions) funded by the government? Although this is due to finish at the end of December. The trains are a different matter and I would imagine a massive investment in the infrastructure would be required if the network is to cope with a big uplift in the number of passengers.

A bit late for that isn’t it? Some folk on here are already convinced that the referee fraternity in general have it in for us. Worst still, they think it’s driven by the EFL.😅

Projected Premier League income. If they were stuck in the Championship (or lower) they wouldn’t be worth anywhere near that much.

I can’t help but think that to make a serious impact on congestion you’d need a significant investment in the public transport infrastructure rather than just making the cost cheaper in order to attract more users. If only we could have found several billion for such a wide scale and effective project. (HS2 cough cough).

Yes I know. I tried to take a look myself. 😊

I’m not sure the first statement is always true. I reckon, if we really want to do something to protect the environment then it’s going to cost us (and the economy). Is the second statement a proven fact or just a logical assumption? That’s what I was querying, whether it had been “proven”.

I’ve been to Luxembourg and I’m not sure there are that many “poor” people there.😅 Luxembourg is a rich country and I think it’s fairly safe to assume that they can offer free public transport because of the countries wealth (and the fact that it’s a small country) and it’s wealth hasn’t been accumulated as a result of the free public transport.

I’m not disputing it as I simply don’t know but how and when has it been proven that cheap (or free) public transport is a benefit for the economy as a whole?

Cheers, I thought it would. I can’t really see it being a sell out then if the capacity is still around 23,000. It certainly isn’t a sell out yet.