101
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Poll - taking a Season Ticket refund?
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on: May 20, 2020, 07:44:38 am
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Now theres a memory. I had totally forgotten about The Princess Charlotte. Many a good night was spent there. And they served a decent pint in the front room. Although I cant remember what it was. I am sure that Coolie will though? Best night ever there was Hanoi Rocks. Just superb.
It was a great venue and I think I was at that Hanoi rocks gig, for my apprenticeship we had to go one day a week to Leicester Poly and always went to the Charlotte for a pie and a pint at lunchtime. It was a great venue up there with Rock City and the Roadmender as the 3 best venues in the area.
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102
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: How to end the Season.....
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on: May 04, 2020, 11:47:13 am
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Interesting to hear the premier league talking about playing not just the end of this season but the whole of next season behind closed doors.
Doesn't surprise me, they know that they can make more money from streaming the games live and not have to worry about policing and emergency services costs.
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104
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: On this day
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on: April 28, 2020, 07:54:00 am
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I'm only going back 35 years or so as that's my time following the Cobblers but some of these games I write about I remember so vividly!
So we are on 27th April now.
On this day 1985, Graham Carr, newly installed into the hot seat at the County Ground, was masterminding a good end of season run with 7 wins in our last 9 games. One of those games we didn't win however was the 1-1 draw with Hereford at Edgar Street in front of 3266 fans. The Cobblers would finish second from bottom of the league, and in the days before promotion and relegation to the Conference we were re-elected for the following season! This was the last time we had to seek re-election to the League. It was also in the days before the playoffs so Hereford who finished 5th ended up missing out on the fourth promotion place by seven points.
Thanks to an 8 game winless run towards the end of the 1990/91 season our playoff hopes evaporated, one of those games was the 3-0 home defeat by Darlington on this day 29 years ago. 4884 were in attendance for this game, including i'd guess a fair number of travelling Darlo fans....they won the title that year by a point from both Stockport and Hartlepool. Ironic that 29 years on, none of those three are league teams today.
On this day in 1996 we drew 1-1 at home with Lincoln City. 5,166 were in attendance for that game.
Moving forward to 2007, another 1-1 home draw, this time on a Friday night against Huddersfield Town in the third tier. Andy Holt gave us the lead on 63 minutes but the Terriers levelled on 75 minutes to take a point. 5,842 were in attendance to see a Cobblers team featuring the likes of Mark Bunn, Mark Hughes, Bradley Johnson and Kenny Deuchar. We would finish the season in 14th level on points with Huddersfield in 15th!
A near full house crowd of 7,471 saw us beat Barnet 2-0 at Sixfields this day seven years ago. This was the last game of the regular season and we were already sure of our playoff place, however the loss sent Barnet down. Wimbledon's 2-1 win over Fleetwood lifted them out of the bottom two and above Barnet, Dagenham and Plymouth, all of whom lost on the final day. As for the game itself 2nd half goals from Roy O'Donovan and Luke Guttridge. David Moyo was once again in the starting line up at the expense of Bayo, and Lewis Hornby also started for the Cobblers.
Finally, just 12 short months ago we concluded our home schedule with a 2-2 draw against non-league bound Yeovil Town. The Glovers took an early 2-0 lead before a second half own goal and a Daniel Powell effort brought us a point in front of 4,908 spectators.
Shows how things change of the 12 teams mentioned 7 are no longer league teams. When you look at it during my time of watching The Cobblers (about 1983) we have been extremely lucky not to have joined them at some point.
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105
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Top 10 Strikers
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on: April 09, 2020, 16:24:28 pm
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Strikers don’t just have to be top goal scorers, battering rams such as Steve Howard, although that’s possibly a touch unfair create so many opportunities for those around them, then you have players like Heggs who was plain and simply a pest! You can put McGleish in that mould too, but boy could he finish, I think the best train of thought should be who would be the best strike pairing the cobblers could put together over recent years.
I think Heggs and Gayle were probably one of my favourite pairings
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108
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Poll - taking a Season Ticket refund?
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on: March 20, 2020, 13:29:09 pm
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Does anybody actually understand the Duckworth Lewis method? I certainly dont. So, having stayed at Tabasco Towers for the last seven days, with my little sniffle, I ventured out yesterday. Its chaos out there. The CO-OP has empty shelves, I do need some bog roll, but I risk being judged as a hoarder. Even worse, the Old house at home is shut, The Picturedrome is shut, The Crown and Cush is not changing any barrels at the moment. And I just been charged £1,837.47 for a full service, cambelt, waterpump, and MOT on my golf. That bill is going straight to my accountant. Tax return next month! CJ, let us know how you get on mate. A progress report would be nice. Tabasco, I think I can help you with the bog roll situation, if you contact London Road P***borough they do a nice line in blue bog roll with their sponsors name on it, it will probably cost about £40 for each roll but you can cut it up into useable sizes, please dont flush it though as it is not good for the environment.
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110
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Redevelopment Closer Than Ever?
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on: March 19, 2020, 10:16:50 am
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Good idea. So when we get these new seats for the west, and the North and South are double tiered, how about having white ones in the lower tiers and claret ones in the upper? I dont think that has been mentioned before on any of the preceding pages.
I think the North stand when it has 2 tiers should spell out SHOE ARMY with the seats so we could have shoe in claret with white seats surrounding in the top and the other way round in the bottom tier.
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112
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Contracts & Curle
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on: February 26, 2020, 11:40:47 am
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I am not convinced either way by Keith Curle, however, I have enjoyed going this season for the first time in 3 seasons, we are playing better and winning more games. Curle has done what the board asked of him in cutting the wage bill and moving the team up the league. I would give him another season and a change of direction if I was in charge, I would tell him I wanted more football from the team and go for promotion, surely it has to be better to keep a manager who knows the team and has been here a while, if he continues to play hoofball and doesn't follow whats asked then look to get rid of him then. For me I would give him a 1 season extension with aims for the season of more football, increase attendance and promotion. I think like most that we will not go down under Curle but I believe he has done enough this season to see if he can move forward with a team and win a promotion.
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114
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Contracts & Curle
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on: February 19, 2020, 14:58:57 pm
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Curle and the players are as good as we're going to get.When will people realise we're the Cobblers not Real Madrid - a club whose history consists as much about staving off extinction and avoiding re-election as it does promotion glory.
Whilst their styles are obviously different, Curle's timeline closely mirrors Wilder's albeit it will probably not end in a run of non-stop swashbuckling victories to secure us the title.
We've got probably the 75th best budget in the league (if that) and the 75th best ground and support. We've probably got the 75th best manager and players too.
Why do people persist in believing promotion to L1 is some kind of thing we should always be challenging for. The resources just don't match the dreams - get over it.
If we make the play offs - and I think we might well do - Curle will have done a decent job. If he gets us up (and do people not actually think he is trying his nuts off to get that elusive promotion?) he will have done a great job.
I agree, I think sometimes certain people can get a bit carried away, In all my lifetime we have been mainly in league 2 occasionally flirted with league 1 (and for a brief moment got close to Championship) and a few times come close to the drop. In fact just surviving by the skin of our teeth on one occasion. I have been watching us since about 83 time and love a good season but expect a bad one, that way I am not disappointed to often. I remember stopping going for the last few years of Cardoza's reign because I didn't agree with what he was doing then I missed out on the Wilder era. So I have since decided to just go and enjoy the good and put up with the bad.
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115
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Walsall away 15.02.20 #selloutthebescot
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on: February 18, 2020, 13:05:39 pm
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Surely all of this conjecture about whether Curle should go or stay depends on what his targets given to him by KT before the season started. If KT's instructions were to cut the wage bill and achieve a mid table or higher then he has achieved at the minute. If it was to cut the budget and gain promotion then maybe not. Personally although I am not keen on hoof ball I am happy we are seeming to win more than we lose and, if, He was to get another season I would hope we would improve the squad some more and start playing more of expansively.
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116
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Walsall away 15.02.20 #selloutthebescot
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on: February 13, 2020, 12:03:42 pm
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You missed the championship season?
Funnily enough I did, I was peed off with Cardoza so had stopped going to home games and money was tight so didn't do the aways. Then when Cardoza went I daren't come back until the winning run was finished as I didn't want to jinx it!
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117
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Walsall away 15.02.20 #selloutthebescot
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on: February 13, 2020, 11:18:50 am
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I can remember the Atkins era as clear as a bell, but the Boothroyd era only stands out for a couple of games, one mentioned above!
With Atkins I liked the fact that the effort was always there, we didn't really have any stars, more of a squad and team ethic of everyone pulling in the right direction for each other, and that came from the manager too. Sure the football wasn't great, but in my eyes it was 10 times better than we are seeing now. There were the odd 0-5 blips, as there always will be but in the main I look back fondly on the Ian Atkins era and enjoyed it a lot more.
I loved the Atkins era, not sure whether it was my age at the time or just enjoyed the effort was always there and the players all stuck together, I am starting to see bits of that at times now, but we are still a long way off. I never really liked Boothroyd, thought there was very little team spirit in his sides.
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119
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Disappearing Punters?
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on: February 12, 2020, 13:25:03 pm
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Their support was better than ours last night as well .
I have to disagree with that, I thought the West Stand was in good voice, hardly heard anything from Swindon until they scored.
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120
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The Hotel End / Cobblers Corner / Re: Derby away - replay
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on: February 06, 2020, 08:23:03 am
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I have to agree with previous comments that KC,s apparent criticism of Oliver is strange. I thought he won virtually every header in the first 30 minutes.I dont think Williams won one all game.
Maybe Oliver is one of those players who needs a bit of a kick up the backside every know and then, I don't know but he has certainly been one of our better players recently.
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