DarkFruitsRam7

Post of the year material.

Jim Walker the forgotten man
As many of you know I have been for the last 18 months meeting up with the old brigade, the proper DCFC legends, the ones that put us on the map in footballing terms, the ones that made us the best team in England and got us to the European Cup semi finals, the teams of 71/72 and 74/75.
It started off as way to spend time with my Dad who was a bit lost after the loss of my mum, he is a season ticket holder now and was back in the day so I started off out on a journey that has lead us to meet most of them, one of them remains elusive and one didn’t wish to participate.
All of them have been fantastic, eager to tell stories of the great Brian Clough and the amazing fortunes of Derby County who in those bleak years of three day weeks, power blackouts, strikes and Rolls Royce nearly going under taking thousands of local jobs with it gave the people of Derby something to be proud of.
Upon meeting one of those legends, Jim Walker I was particularly struck by how at peace he was with the world, very relaxed, very friendly and by far the best story teller of them all.
Jim had not long ago lost his wife to illness so immediately him and my dad had something in common other than the love of football, he made us very welcome and gave us an open invite to go round when ever to continue with the tales.
Now most people may remember Jim as the guy who was signed by Clough & Taylor from non league football to play for Derby County and was a major part of the team that won promotion from division two in 1968/69.
He lost his place in the team to John Mcgovern but captained the reserves and stepped in when required to cover injuries of suspensions, this meant that he played only a few games in the 1971/72 season but it was his goal in a 1-0 win against Crystal Palace in late march that gave Derby both points and if you remember we won the league and finished first above dirty Leeds who were just one point behind and had a greater goal difference, so in effect Jim scored the goal that won us the First Division Championship.
Aswell as a footballer Jim is probably better known as the Aston Villa physio, he was there for around twenty years and served under many managers including Graham Taylor, Ron Atkinson, Brian Little and John Gregory, he was also the man charged with looking after Paul McGrath for many years both on and off the pitch and is spoken of in very high regard in Pauls autobiography.
He had a private practice at the Belfry for the golfers and was also the go to man at the NEC when any pop stars suffered an injury or needed attention from a physio, he worked with George Michael, Elton John, Neil Diamond, Michael Hutchence and Kylie to name a few hence him having so many fantastic stories.
Jim has also had illnesses this however does not dampen his spirit or take a smile from his face.
One thing that I was amazed to hear that Jim did not receive a medal for winning the league title despite being only one of sixteen players in that 71/72 season to have donned the shirt and scoring such a valuable goal.
When ever you see the pictures of the team celebrating and holding up their medals jim does not have one.
I approached Andy Ellis the club historian and the writer of many Derby County books and the fount of all knowledge and he confirmed it.
So we the approached the club and asked if they would support an application to Gordon Taylor of the PFA to ask if he would inturn support an application to the football league to present Jim with the medal that he should have received 46 years ago.
The club agreed and they sent the letter to Gordon Taylor who gave it his blessing and the approach was then made to the football league, this was back in February this year after the ball was started rolling in June of 2017 so it took a while.
I am delighted to say that the agreement was given and Derby County approached the very same jewellers who had made the original ones to make one for Jim, to the exact specifications of the original medals and in the same box and made from 9ct gold with all of the hall marks.
For some reason the club at this time can not be seen to publicly present Jim with the medal which is a great sadness as I thought that he was going to be able to step out on the pitch at Pride Park on the opening home game against Leeds (quite fitting as he stopped them winning the league with his goal), it is a litigious matter so I will comment no further other than to say that they did everything that they could.
So to wrap up the story I had the great honour of going to Jims house today with my dad and my son and presenting him with his long overdue medal, he had no idea that it was coming and to say that he was over whelmed is an understatement.
It was great to see his face and to have the privilege to do something like that, I had the medal at my house for a while but obviously didn’t want to post any pictures until now as it was a secret.
Not very often that you get to present a league championship winning medal on behalf of Derby County and to one of the few from those great days and can be called the legends.
We are hoping that Jim will still be able to have amore public presentation at sometime in the season at Pride Park when what ever issues are resolved.
Up the Rams !!
 

Never had mental health issues and I don’t have them now. But just found out some terrible family news that will change everything I’ve ever known. Going to be extremely difficult to adjust to. Posting on here as this forum has some great people.

Never had mental health issues and I don’t have them now. But just found out some terrible family news that will change everything I’ve ever known. Going to be extremely difficult to adjust to. Posting on here as this forum has some great people.

Never had mental health issues and I don’t have them now. But just found out some terrible family news that will change everything I’ve ever known. Going to be extremely difficult to adjust to. Posting on here as this forum has some great people.

Best thing you can do is speak about your 'news' and share it with people (perhaps even join a support group) - that will help you deal with it and realise you're not alone in what you're going through. Don't bottle it up. Take care of yourself too.

Howzabout this for a rack of ribs, there's a quarter chicken under it anorl..
 

The big pull for Fortnite, and similar games, is the fact that you're playing with and against real people rather than AI bots - no matter how good the AI is you can usually adapt or come up with a strategy to guarantee a win, people however play in thousands of different ways and are always coming up with new tricks.  Add to that the fact that you are beating other people rather then the computer itself it is more satisfying. 
I'm not so good at Fortnite myself but do find it strangely compelling, especially late at night when you can jump in tired, not engage your brain to have some fun.  I much prefer MMORPGs (Star Wars Galaxies being my all time favourite) however and the same principle applies, you're playing with and against real life people building up your character or empire in a social environment - I know people from all over the world that I've kept in touch with for in some cases around 20 years who I've never met nor will probably ever meet in real life. 
For me at least, its turned a sad, lonely hobby into a bit of a social event.

I think I might have bridged gaming and DCFC by potentially arranging something with Timi Elsnik and Kyle McAllister playing with the #1 UK Fortnite player to promote the Fortnite community I run. I will post up times and dates of the Twitch stream, I am sure DCFC fans would be interested in seeing and hearing DCFC players playing a video game.

The problem is full AAA releases carving up games, withholding content, inbalancing the game just to get money from microtransactions. EA are the biggest scumbags of the lot. Absolutely destroying that Star Wars game to the point where they had to patch the progression system once they disabled the microtransactions after the huge backlash - just proving the point that they were completely game altering to a fault. Yet they don't care, because they still make billions because they invented ultimate team game modes on every sports franchise they own the monopoly on.
Other games have had microtransactions bolted onto the game after the fact due to greedy producers, again, ruining the entire game. Biggest example of this would be the newest Deus Ex, which Square Enix ruined by doing this. But they're not the only ones.
If you pay for a full price game, you should get the full game. This is just the latest iteration of the games industry finding another way to get all of the money, rather than just a boat load of it. They have tried before with online passes required to try and kill the preowned market, massive pre-order bonus culture to entice presales to pay for the game before it's even made and alike.
I don't have any issue with free games, like League of Legends, or cheap games like Rocket League making their money through skins and other cosmetics - which have no effect on the balance of the game. Where Rocket League and League of Legends does it right, is that there's a very limited number of items you can possibly get in any given Rocket League box, of which you can trade afterwards anyway, and League of Legends lets you buy the actual item you want. Even then, it's not ideal, but at least these games don't charge you £45 to play it to begin with, before letting you know you've only got a small portion of the game, and you have to grind an ungodly amount of time to do the cool stuff with shelling out yet more money.
The Asian market has at least taken the step of making games disclose the odds on each item in loot boxes, it's a small step, but it's showing how it is being now thought of as gambling.
Games like Overwatch are always given an easy ride on this, but they shouldn't be. Mainly because it's Activision, and they tried to patent a matchmaking system which would literally put people without any DLC items against people with them, to make them want to buy them. They have loot boxes with a huge number of items in them, with such tiny odds, and it very much preys on the haves and have nots, and specifically a younger audience.

By the same token anyone can kick a ball about. Is it not just another form of paying for entertainment, when all’s said and done? We might perceive a qualitative difference, but it’s just a different choice. 
Only playing devil’s advocate, I know nothing about it. 

I've started a monthly Games Board evening with my Dad, brother and son last year - an excuse to get together in a pub midway between our houses as much as anything.
We have mainly played games from my brother and my childhoods where possible and they have ranged between great and interesting, the games played so far have been.
Kevin Keegan's Matchday
Emlyn Hughes' Team Tactix
Terry Venables' Manager
A Gary Lineker games that my brother got of the internet and was so complicated you needed Steven Hawkins involved.
Bucanneer (A pirate game)
Astron (A space game from the 50s).
 
Any suggestions?

You must have been on the pizz a gain if you think that is a naan ?

Hopefully the name of the restaurant isn’t what you end up with afterwards  

The story of a certain man .
As he stood in front of the Pearly Gates, he saw a huge wall of clocks behind St Peter.

He asked, 'What are all those clocks?' 

St. Peter answered, 'Those are Lie-Clocks. Everyone on earth has a Lie-Clock.

Every time you lie the hands on your clock move.' 

'Oh', said the man. 'Whose clock is that?' 

'That's Mother Teresa's', replied St. Peter. 'The hands have never moved, indicating that she never told a lie.' 

'Incredible', said the man. 'And whose clock is that one?' 

St. Peter responded, 'That's Abraham Lincoln's clock. The hands have moved twice, telling us that 
Abraham told only two lies in his entire life.'

'Where's Gordon Brown's clock?' asked the man.

'Brown's clock is in Jesus's office. He's using it as a ceiling fan.' 

The Big Short.
A film about hedge funds and banks betting against housing bonds sounds terrible, but it's actually really good.
9/10.

Mesh “pants” in swimming shorts. 
Cant be just me who cuts it out every time I buy new ones? Just bloody uncomfortable. 

I see it came with chips.

Wrong thread, there is a children’s one somewhere.. 
Full of aminal shaped fare just for you.
The bowl is chipped as well.. Head shake.

5* lunch today:

I can actually cook fairly well when I want to, but would rather spend my time doing other things to be honest.?

Sausages now we’re talking, bootiful! 
Can’t be arsed with lambchops though (not the member....most of the time), pulling meat off the bone is something that should have been left behind with the cavemen. 
I only want what I can eat on my plate, otherwise what’s the point in it being there? Garnish, I’ve got a mirror if I want to look at something pretty, I’m hungry, time to eat.
In one hole and out the other, all comes out the same.....kinda, a good curry being the exception to that.

Hash Browns have no place in a full British Isles breakfast.

What are you eating tonight @JuanFloEvraTheCocu'sNesta?
 

In sunny Tenerife:

Just passed my driving test with no faults.