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Tough fixture against one of the high flying sides in the league who only lost 1 game so far and sit in 3rd place.

Difficult place to get a result.

Expecting another win, tbh. We seem to be set up perfectly for away games.

Last time I went to Meadow Lane we won with a late Colin Calderwood goal - still umming and ahhing about going tonight.

Pity it's not a Saturday game, but I'll go for a 0-2.

Meeting an old friend who is a Notts fan pre match and exploring the city centre a bit. I'd take a draw today to be honest.

2 - 0 Town win.

Ah, a trip to Hooters then? ;)

Never seen us win there, Ruddock and Troy being two of the low points with their sending offs. My brother in law is giving up watching his beloved Man Utd on TV to watch real football so hopefully we put on a decent show. 2-1 win, Anderson and Woolery

I've heard good things about their food, but I doubt either of our girlfriends would be impressed!

Probably going to have to settle for a Nandos. Plenty of very old pubs about too.

Its too early to know who the high flyers really are. We can get a result today, but as always I'd probably take a point away from home.

In 2 minds to go to this one from Birmingham Uni. Anyone have any idea of how many we'll take?

Whoever scores the first goal will win.

Whoever scores the most goals will win.

I like your thinking, very Kevin Keegan.

Woolery 1-0.

I'm quite certain in my head that Meadow Lane was my first ever away victory after a long time of asking. Sure we won 1-0. Anyone help with that in the 2000s? If i haven't made that up I would take the same score line tonight! Norris with the goal

Probably this game in 2004, a 2-1 win as we have only won there 1-0 once since the 60s and Fjortoft scored there in 94.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dx9M7fzm-s

Our record at Meadow Lane since the early 70s has been.

5 wins, 4 draws, 6 defeats with us scoring 18 goals and County scoring 19 goals, pretty close TBF.

Their manager Kevin Nolan has hinted that he may make up to 6 changes for the match tonight and use his squad, hopefully that can be good for us.

Really wanted this on a Saturday, can't do it midweek. Will take a point.

A good point, you can catch teams on a really good run, which for whatever reason is about to end, or vice versa. It's around the Festive period that you start to get a clearer idea. At this time of year it's about looking for little indicators... tonight it's can we do midweek fixtures, if we can a good sign, if we can't, not the end of the world as it's difficult.

Must be our last trip to Notts around mid December in 14/15 both sides going well in PO slots, or better. We stuffed them 3-0 they fell away and got relegated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFFWF1DnZKM

Gladwin tore them apart that game. Back when they had Roy Carroll who would complain about everything he possibly could!

 Years ago a mate was at University in Nottingham... he started off watching County, on the basis, their gates were lower so needed the support, then Forest started going well so he went to see them.

What he discovered which somewhat surprised me, was that there were quite large numbers, who would go and watch both. There wasn't the same level of stupidity you got with say Rovers and City.  The historic 2 side British cities, have seemingly been divided by either geography or religion, but Notts and Forest are close to each other, with no apparent reason for a divide.  Of course back then it was a lot cheaper than now.

I've often wondered if Supermarine managed to get up to Conference level, would I go and watch them. Think unlikely, as it would be a geography thing, part of my reasoning for living where I do is it's a 15 minute walk to the CG. Hunt's Copse, is just too far.

That man could whinge for England (OK N Ireland then!) about everything not given his way. Not a very good keeper either.

Plays with Jordan Stewart at Linfield now.

Yes I think its pretty rare that there is no real hatred between clubs in a city.

Yes there is a little mockery goes on but over all they don't have a mutal hatred as you state Bristol does, also Manchester, Sheffield, London & Birmingham do, Liverpool there is no huge hatred either but they don't really like each other.

And yes if Supermarine got into the Conference I would keep an eye out for their results but would not support them as I only support one club, not even a foreign club.

What about Stoke and Port Vale? Can't imagine much enmity there. And don't quite a few West Ham fans go to Orient? Seems to work where they're clearly not rivals. Others?

TBH I forgot Stoke, PV really don't like Stoke not sure if its mutual though. (EDIT: yes it is mutual)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potteries_derby

Last time I went Lee Hughes came on, our lot started abusing him and much as I feared he scored the only goal right at the end of a dour game.

I think it was the Wilson / Hart 'Im playing 3 strikers not none' season.

Quite rightly they loathe each other, completely different towns, but, one Stoke, gets administrative naming rights over the other.

Bit like Swindon and Highworth. I don't suppose many Town fans went along to watch Highworth Town v North Shields a couple of years back in the Vase semi final...a lthough I suppose in a gate of 1200 it's possible.

Stoke fans refer to PV as "The Fail"

I think some people just love watching football. I've gone to random games out of sheer boredom when Town are away or not playing... It's much nicer watching as a neutral and a lot better than watching it on the Telly. I have Reading, Aldershot, Woking, Wycombe, Maidenhead and a whole host of lower non league teams pretty close by. Even Fulham, Brentford and QPR are under an hour away.

It's a good thing to do. I know a few Town fans who like to see a fairly local game if we're at the arse end of the country, who will even go and watch Oxford, if it looks tidy fixture.

Not a Town fan if they go and watch those shaggers

No True Scotsman fallacy.

Don't start Smeeton.

We visit BPV back end of October.... I'll save it til then  :)

Any chance of a stream of this floating about somewhere tonight?

I would guess 0%.

You've got nothing left.

Ey up mi ducks.

Pre match low headroom in the Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, arguably the oldest pub in the country. Although there are a couple of other contenders in the city as well.
People who order Carling here should realise that they are doing wrong.

Hopefully the same level of performance tonight and see where it takes us.

Vpn and ifollow mate

£5

Which VPN do you use mate? a pay for a or a freebie?

I use IPVanish which is paid for but works across Firestick too.

On the question of Firestick - anyone seen any of our games crop up on SportsDevil etc?

Cheers, will look at that, I have been keeping an eye on Kodi and none of the Town games so far has come up on any provider including Sports Devil for me.

Does IPVanish increase the amount of films etc on Kodi  which no longer seem to stream anymore

IPVanish just hides your IP address so nobody can see what you are downloading. Kodi streamed films are fine for me. I tend to use Mobdro for sport, though.

I used to teach one of the County players, on loan from Forest so will be interested to hear how he gets on - assuming ifollow will actually let us listen tonight.

Would be happy with a draw, but not really sure which way it will go.

Is that a new firestick or first gen mate

Ipvanish only works on the 2nd Gen Firesticks btw.

I did see Windscribe VPN gets quite good reviews and 10 gig a month free if you register your email.

It might be worth someone trying it tonight and getting the match pass, you can use a UK credit card and address- 10gig should also cover the away games as well.

Here is a link if anyone is interested  https://windscribe.com/

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJipdxUXcAAvdoX.png)

Taylor starting instead of Dunne is the only change today.

Dunne not in squad. Didn't see a report of any injury?

Yeah Iandolo in for Dunne, no word anywhere if its an injury or not yet.

5 changes for Notts County.

3 debutants for them.

Not going to defend then!

Watching the Luton highlights it looked like he picked up a knock at one point. Although he carried on at the time, it could have been that that's keeping him out.

Defending isn't one of our strengths TBH :D

Decent enough cameo from Taylor on Saturday.
He will need to make an impact as a starter to convince the doubters (myself included).

Have a feeling that Anderson will do well tonight.

Stick Taylor just in front of the back four and Elsnik behind the front 4, 5-0-5.  Get it forward!

Rob, please delete this post in case any of the Notts County management are spying to see how we may line up ;)

It's a shame football pitches in the lower leagues have improved now we've gone all agricultural, we'd do well in the winter ploughed fields I think.

Like Saturday another fluid attacking team, well done Mr Flitcroft.

Loads of changes for County so that should work in our favour.

Hoofball. Get it forward!

Not the best with VPN's. I suppose Julie Watts retired at some point?

You need an email address to log in now not a user name.

Close by Norris, first chance of the game.

Chance for County just wide.

Yeah mate, i use privateinternetaccess, its 5 quid a month but you can use on 5 devices at one time

Does that work fine with iFollow on PC?

Yeah i watched the game the other week on my laptop. Had to set up another ifollow account though

Excellent, yes I tried seeing if I could pay for one match with a free VPN but it was limited to 300mb, after I tried signing it it cancelled my UK subscription.

Pen to County.

0-1

Soft penalty to give away, wasn't it Lancashire that gave away the one at home as well, for pulling?
Been scrappy, just like every game so far.  Norris keeps running into people and Anderson and Woolery keep running into their tackles.

And he has scored an own goal too.

We sound easily 2nd best this half.

Watching on 'ifellow'
Anderson looking good, we are defending well, penalty looked like a home team decision, county having most of the play now whilst we look to counter

Jeesh, this is going to be a long season, the football on offer is dire, and I include Luton in that.  If you are not winning, it isn't any fun whatsoever.  The camera has to keep swinging left and right at such a place it blurs the picture.

Ifollow has somehow changed my accounts to Free Pass and I can't even access radio comms, which is shit. Some serious UX and reliability issues needed if they're going to grow this thing.

Game sounds....average.

HT 1-0 to County, we don't sound good so far, give them a kick up the arse Flickers.

Lancashire is becoming a bit of a liability.

How many penalties has he given away must be 3

Well having the red circle black background combo for 35 mins was fun....again. At least this time i'm not drinking low alcohol beer. On the red wine...and yes it deffo is! Oh well, plenty time to snatch this, i'm off to check on my beef broth!  :pint: :pint:

Lancashire needs to find a new way to defend in the box which doesn't involve hugging the striker. Norris playing well but very isolated, woolery having a nightmare

As a true foreign user I have had no problems with ifollow, which isn't always a food thing.

Woolery off Gordon on

First time we've been behind away from home this season. We seem to have struggled to get back into the game when we've gone behis.

Doesn't sound like we were quite good enough tonight.

not sure if I'm encouraged by beating Luton and losing to a penalty at the now league leaders, or worried by three losses in four.

not showing anything to make me think we'll go up mind. but early days.

not showing anything to make me think we'll go up mind. but early days.
[/quote]

I think we will finish mid-table. Not got enough for a genuine challenge

Could almost say nothing's changed from last season l

Is there no post match tonight? Just got a bloke talking about scarecrows on bbc wilts  :hmmm: We missed Dunne tonight. It just didn't really click.

Hodgetts golden tones are still going on 103.6fm

This is my horrible feeling.

This is going to be a long old season - and that is passing no judgement on where we might end-up because I think that is a bit of a lottery to be honest, just like that game - we could easily have taken a point or more, or conceded another couple.

The first 7 games leave me feeling this:

Taylor - done as a player, not changed my mind on that yet
Midfield in general is a waste of time being creative when we are clearly insistent on just driving the ball forward.  This is 70's/80's football at it's worst, Graham Taylor circa that time period would be a happy man.  Leave all the creativity to the top four.
Anderson is like watching one of those artsy films like Tree of Life.  You know someone must get it and enjoy it, but after 30 minutes you just need to switch off because it is clear it;s going nowhere.
Woolery - there is a player in him, rough edges though, he will be proper hit and miss
Defence is no better or worse than any other in this league - effort, some organisation and willing to put challenge in.  Give away fouls, beaten by any semblance of ability and just as likely to fall over when going for row Z every time.

I will say it has to be the worst collection of footballing "talent" since 05/06.

The thing with plying the way we are, in this league, it is likely to bear some fruit from time to time - playing the %'s is called that for a reason.  We are by no means worse on a footballing level than any team bar Exeter, so some days those %'s work in your favour.  Today they didn't, Saturday we got the Pen and a Sending Off.

No, it's totally different.  We are much more likely to earn results against a team like we played today as we are not to I believe.  Only when we rolled the dice to early and in the next game had a player sent off did we truly look lost.  Tonight we were never out of that game, despite that game being a glowing review of everything that is wrong with English football, IMHO.

That was a game lacking any kind of quality from both sides. We gifted them a goal and they sat on it and soaked up our rather lacklustre attack. Was dying for a good cross to come in but no one obliged.

I made my views early that I did not like this managers way of playing football.
We have gone from a side who plays young potential good footballers who were badly handled to a load of old farts past there sell by date and a few loanees playing typical division two football.
Thank goodness I missed tonight and will be out of the country for the next month so I don't have to go and watch.

The important thing is it wasn't 4 in 4, as that would have piled huge pressure onto Flitters for Saturday.

The home form needs to turn starting Saturday.

Ok, back to the doom and gloom it is then.

Reading the contrast in fan reactions after almost every game is greatly amusing.

Glad you are amused, the chairman has spent a lot of money this season putting together this dross. We will get the odd good result but Shitcroft will not last the season.

Not sure I see too much doom and gloom, if anything the reaction was that we could have easily got something from that game. I also do not agree that playing shit Football will equal shit results as described above.  It is however painful to watch, but it was no worse than Saturday in style.

No

Yes I see what you mean.  Of course I'm basing my feeling on the 3 home games I've been to, which have been as unenjoyable as last season (for different reasons).

That was shit.
One moment of notable shitness decided a shit game between two shit teams in a shit league on a shit night.

The pub crawl beforehand was very enjoyable.

Spot on match report.
You can probably use this same post for most games this season.  ;)

Saves me having to write it, cheers.

Not amused by form. Amused by fans reactions.

'Shitcroft'

Case in point.

Lost both games dunne hasn't started..

It was a penalty.
Woolery was Rubbish.
Poor on the left for some reason.
Weather was shocking.
End of...

Ok, just before I turn in for the night, I'm going to try to be positive.

I liked Norris, worked hard, won a lot of headers, put a shift in. Vigs made a cracking save and held the crosses he came for.

Also, I had a genuine fear that we'd slide through this division (Vale are bottom), but I believe this team have enough about them to be mid table. They should halt the decline. At the end of last season, I'd have taken that.

I'm sure we will get midtable, anything above that is icing to me.

 :nod: We were a top 3 team after Saturdays game. Hopefully we will be again this coming Saturday.

Which I still believe to be true. I have not said otherwise    ;)

We give away a stupid penalty, Notts County spend the rest of the game timewasteing and offering very little as an attacking force and we still looked fairly toothless. Gordon looked up for it and was a big improvement on Woolery, Elsinik looks useful and Norris worked his socks off. The fastest Taylor moved was when he was subbed and personally would have preferred to see Tom Smith in there if he's fit

The stated aim of chairman, manager & players is promotion.
Based on that a mid table finish wouldn't be too good.

Lacked a bit of composure & quality in the final third last night.

Hopefully the 5,000 or so hardy souls will be treated to a much needed home win on Saturday.

We still should be, and if we're not challenging Flitcroft goes.

Still too early to tell either way... take Notts as an example, last season they had a start not too dissimilar to ours this, but then went on a terrible run of 1 win in 20... woke up a bit in the new year, and then tailed off at the end, just about enough to stay up. Whereas Exeter were bottom in November and ended in the PO's.

In the overall scheme of things, most would happily have taken a point at each of the 2 tough looking away games... we got 3.

The world seems like a better place now. Thanks Reg.  :)

Ha ha. Has a mod done an autocorrect to stop the original version catching on?

The Matt Taylor signing has been a bit of a waste of time by the sounds of it. Think he'll be gone by January.

And yet, had Power signed him last January, everyone would have said just what we need. You can see what Flitters wants from Taylor, and he played 40 + games for Cobblers last season, so he still might have something to offer, perhaps coming off the bench to run down games when winning.

Lets put it into a bit or perspective.

We were beaten away from home to a team who are (currently) very near top of the table by a solitary, and by the sound of it slightly iffy, penalty.

Yes we didn't have a good night, we didnt create lots of chances, but we still made a few which on any other day could have been converted giving a very different scoreline.

Last season we weren't even creating chances and still leaked goals.

It doesn't seem to need a lot of tweaking just maybe a couple of strikers hitting a bit of form, we should be aiming at play offs still.

As for Shitcroft....seriously?

It needed nipping in the bud.

From what I've seen this season so far...

We look like a mid-table side, the football on offer from both us and other teams is truly dire.
I didn't expect such a big difference in quality between League 1 & League 2 but the gap appears to be massive.

There is a gap between Div 3 and 4 but it isn't a chasm. These days the biggest gap seems to be between Div 3 and Div 2, which has been skewed by the sides falling out of the Prem with massive parachute payments. Straight away from last season's promotion sides Millwall and Bolton are struggling, of those going down Blackburn, Wigan and Roverum are doing OK.

In many ways Div 4 is like the Prem, insofar the perceived wisdom, is that for the most of the clubs who are looking to stay in that league, it's about %ages, long ball and physicality with the occasional flash of football. It's no coincidence that its hallowed operators like Allardyce, Pulis, Pardew, Dyche, Howe have all done time either as player or boss in the lower reaches of English football.

The smarter foreign bosses get this, it also helps if they played a bit here, so West Ham v Uddersfield on Monday was a truly dire game, a slight upgrade on Div 4. The old Euro 2012, England most passed move, of Hart hoof up to Carroll, very much in evidence.

Of course the wealthy elite clubs can afford to graft a bit more style onto the muck and nettles. 

In Div 4 the perceived wisdom is that you need a big physical side, that can score a few from set plays, and not really much place for small skillful players, unless they happen to be strong stocky types. You could hear Flitters talking about this in his post match, Power obviously knows it by ripping up the model. This season won't be pretty.

I think that's a bit unfair to the visitors at Swindon this season. Exeter looked quite tidy and Barnet and Crawley played some really good stuff once their confidence was up. Its just a shame it was against us.

I agree on Exeter, the other two were aided by our decision making.  First we vacated the midfield, then we lost a player and provided the space.

I thought Crawley and Barnet just looked like 2 typical counter attacking sides. Exeter were a better team but I still think they looked direct.

To me other than the gap in quality, it's exactly what I expected from League 2. Direct, bypass the midfield and look for route one.

If any Psychologists had any ounce of dedication to their profession, they'd watch a season of L2 to see what pressure does to the mind.  Some, no many, of the players will have at some point not been that far away from a top league career, yet, on any given Saturday they can barely manage to control a ball without the urge to then whip it 50 yards forward.  A complete lack of faith in their skillset occurs at this level and it amazes me because when they are younger they are usually very cock sure.  It's why I was so intrigued by our efforts a few years back, when it seemed to be working, because we were asking players to do something that clearly becomes far less easy to do as you drop down a level or two.  That appears to be the difference in many cases, a simple implosion in the mind.  I imagie that is also why some players can rise through many leagues without looking out of place (Britton, Vardy) - they somehow recover, unlocking that should be the goal of some decent analysis.

Once watched a sports psychologist type guy explain how he worked with Darren Clarke, who had dropped to 150ish in the PGA rankings.  He mentioned how Darren had essentially lost his marbles and it was all down to being able to correct his mential state so that when the pressure came on he had belief in ability again - he went on to win a major I think.  he said it was common in sport because everyone thinks everyone else is better than them - why is that?  I have no issues believing I am the est at what I do :-)

Just got back after an overnight stay and have to say I am somewhat surprised by Flitcroft summary of the game I can only assume he was at another match. It was 100% a penalty as all us could quite clearly see from where we were sat. I have watched every game this year home and away and my confidence in us getting promoted at the first attempt has started to fade. We are clearly not a very good side with some very average players and a manager whose tactics are extremely questionable. The mindless aimless hoof ball that was on display last night which is seeming to become the norm is extremely embarrassing to watch. The only way that we will ever make the playoffs this season is if there are 18 other teams more crap than us.

Not true... it would only require 17 teams to be worse than us.

At this early stage of the season, we haven't yet seen enough to know how things will develop.

And it is entirely possible there are 17 worse teams over the course of a season, depressing as that may be, and equally as exciting.

Atm there are 10 teams below us in the  league football pyramid. Is this a fair reflection of where Power has taken us?  Have we bottomed out? Is there worse to come?  :hmmm:

At least Yeovil, FGR, Cheltenham are below us in the worst team in the South West/West Country stakes.

Highlights up. How anyone thought that wasn't going to be a penalty... naive, much?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLGbvcawtO8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLGbvcawtO8)

Can't disagree with any of that. I've only seen 3 games so far (one live - Exeter) and 2 on iFollow (Barnet and Notts County) as well as the end of the Luton game, but I've seen nothing that suggests we are anything other than a poor Div 4 team. Dreadful, aimless long balls. And why, when they play a short pass do they kick it so fucking hard? I lost count of the number of times one of the halfwits smashed a 5-10 yard pass to someone only for it to bounce off his shins because it was hit too hard.

I watched last night and thought we were awful - with the exception of Gordon when he came on, Conroy and Norris, who at least ran around looking like he gave a shit (one thing about Norris is that, despite his dubious finishing skills, he rarely gives the ball away). The likes of Woolery and Anderson, supposedly our star players, didn't look like they cared. Woolery was particularly poor. And WTF was Lancashire thinking for the penalty. It's infuriating when players do things like that, especially as there was no real need for it. Makes you wonder what they have for brains...

The only positive for me is that Notts County are 2nd and didn't look that much better than us. Just a bit less shit.

:D He couldn't get off quick enough could he?

Striker was backing in well.

For anyone who went, seeing the 'highlights', was it just 90 minutes of each team taking free kicks on the edge of the other sides penalty area.

Lancashire preventing striker from jumping. Pen. 

Starting to look like the first 1/4 of the season will have been underwhelming.  Next 4 games quite important in setting a tone and this Saturday a key, key component.

Robert T's comments on sports psychology and League 2 were interesting.  It is pleasing, so far, that one of our lesser "footballers" is starting to overcome a 'mare of a debut season through sheer bull-headed belief and effort - others should start helping Norris.

Lancashire is a fucking idiot that was a needless penalty to give away. Refs are giving penalties this season for shirt pulling and wrestling players to the ground. What's annoying the ball and the player we're going nowhere it was a fucking ridiculous bit of stupidity by Lancashire that's two games now he's done it and DF needs to drum it in to our defenders to stop gifting teams goals. After all the good work we did on Saturday we should have been kicking on and should have got a point last night. Notts county are nothing as a side but if you gift teams like we did & give them the advantage DF needs to start stamping it out.
We've lost to three crap sides already and Saturday we need to get the three points & try and get maximum points from our next four games

Good point, well made.
Blackpool made the play offs in 7th place with a meagre 70 points last term.

and went on to win promotion

And are now in the Div 3 PO slots.. shame we couldn't tempt Gary Bowyer, but seems he preferred working for the Oystens rather than Power.

What worries me, on a purely personal level, is that I always thought winning football was enough for me to turn up on a regular basis.

But with the poor quality I've seen so far I can't summon the enthusiasm to go Saturday. Things may change, I suppose, if we believe the team are still 'bedding in'. I want to go, honestly.

That sums up how I feel and unfortunately many who sit near me.
A home games costs £50 in total, will probably be watching the premier 12.30 kick off in future.

It will be interesting to see the gate on Saturday, my feeling v Barnet was we're just about down to the hardcore of about 5000, hopefully it won't be much down on that otherwise we're in real trouble.  We need a win doesn't matter how ugly.

Agreed.  It's no surprise that people are becoming less enthusiastic about turning up at the County Ground when you consider our league results there so far this year:

D D L L D W L L W D D L D L L  Goals scored 12 Goals conceded 21

Only in 2 of those games have we scored more than a goal... 2 in losing to Sheff U, and 3 v Gills. 7 goals in the other 13.