Agreed. I am one of those who see Margaret Court as the greatest female tennis player of all time despite the era in which she played,

Hi Kiwi - Bernard may have covered the points on this subject, though I note he did not mention Bungert, who as we know, would have made Alcaraz look like a novice...

Enjoy this little beaut - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyYMhVGtWO4

Absolutely - her record speaks for itself, and the cancellers will never be able to change that.

Thanks for your enjoyable post Andy. I imagine you have come across it, but if not Jerry White's book Campbell Bunk is well worth a read.

As for me, born 1950 in South London; raised the son of a Smithfield Meat Market father and an early morning office cleaner mother - the most giving of parents who backed me in whatever I chose to do. I have two wonderful younger sisters; a wife of getting on for 47 years (a proper Bermondsey girl); one son who lives in Canada with his beautiful wife and our almost two-year old granddaughter - the jewels of our lives. I was fortunate to attend an achieving comprehensive school off the Old Kent Road where the teachers were good enough to get me to University College, London. After the obligatory larking about in the late 60s and early 70s (including travel to Franco's Spain and Salazar's Portugal) my career was in local government, most latterly as a manager of capital projects. Now retired, I am quite pleased with some of the schemes I worked on, especially the parks, sports and leisure ones - you will have heard little of any of them, but perhaps the Peckham Library might ring a bell?

Arsenal of course through my dad and grandad - Millwall too (you had too in my neighbourhood) and latterly Dartford FC. I love all varieties of music but can't play a note; enjoy cinema, books, most sports and am a self-published local historian, from which I get nothing but pleasure. Still believe Pele is the greatest of all time and that the Gunners will one day win the league again.

Thursday getting called off by the grief police now

Brentford Sunday match could be moved to an alternative ground, the Ems possibly. If still going forward that is. Queen's funeral on Monday.
The PSV match still appears to be going ahead.

What’s the point in moving it from Brentford’s ground to the Emirates? I’ve read the ideas that the location of games next weekend will be moved because of pressures on police manpower. But because the Emirates has a much bigger capacity, won’t far more police be needed at Arsenal’s home games than Brentford’s?

The whole idea seems utterly stupid.

It’s not just England where var refs are awful. Last night in Italy had probably the worst var mistake ever. Juve forward Milik headed in a 97th winner from a corner, Juve defender Bonucci stuck his leg out to try to poke the header in, he didn’t touch it but was deemed to be offside and interfering with play…..that’s not the controversial but. When they drew the lines to show Bonucci offside they forgot a defender who was out by the corner taker to try to block the corner and it shows he was playing Bonucci onside by almost half a metre! The video frame the var ref looked at didn’t have him in the picture!

I read it would just be London games affected but that Chelsea v Liverpool and spurs v Leicester could just swap the home/away games for the season. I can’t see Brentford accepting a neutral venue (why should they lose home advantage) and as you said, switching it to the Emirates solves nothing

Imagine the fixture chaos that will now ensue if PSV and Brentford get cancelled.

Milik was also sent off after taking off his shirt celebrating the goal...that was then ruled out.

Not a bad tune but I can see what perks your interest ...you grubby old heathen .

Always wonder why bands ponce around with a stand up bass .... why Buddy Holly didn't tell Joe B Mauldin get an ordinary bass like Jet Harris .

Bernard ..bless his little cotton socks ... love for things Germanic obviously hasn't stretched to the valiant exploits of Willie Bungert yet .


Have a go at this ... a souped up version of the Everly Bros hit .
I like the driving guitar in the background and the bird second from the left does it for me
...think these guys are on a bit of p*ss take ........... bit like Phil Collins doing ""Cant Hurry Love "" he hated the tune apparently , he extracted the urine and it went to No !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFu1haa ... hrisSalmon

Hmmm ... I'm not as familiar with women's tennis it would depend how you slice and dice it ...Navratilova , Graf and Serena Williams could make claims

Think I'd be putting forward "Little Mo" Maureen Connelly ..... won the US Open aged 16 , Wimbledon next year ; first woman to win the grand slam .Only person in history to win the four grand slams without dropping a set .

All together won three Wimbledons , three US Opens , Two French , one Aussie before she was 19 .

At which age she fell off a horse sustained compound fracture of the fibula never played again .

Must admit I’d never heard of him. Looked him up and he never won a major. Nearest he got was reaching the singles final of Wimbledon in 1967 where he lost in straight sets to Newcombe. Only won four games in that final.

Went to my first Arsenal game in December 1967, so was probably a bit young in mid-1967 to take any notice of other sports like the Wimbledon tennis earlier that year.

I noticed a newspaper article where Ramsdale said he wasn’t going to allow Haaland to score against him. I wish some players would just shut their mouth sometimes.

https://twitter.com/Adz77/status/156910 ... WmZrA4-2Zg

I don't have a problem with Milik being sent off. I think it is a silly rule to get booked for taking your shirt off to celebrate but every player knows what will happen, it is a black and white 100% yellow card with the rules so just don't do it

Very good start to the day - the Everly Bros were a big sound of my youth - still play them these days.

I always thought we should have found a way to keep Giroud. A lot of Arsenal fans didn't appreciate him, perhaps some on here.

https://z-p3-upload.facebook.com/GiveMe ... 1848014642

Morning Andy.

Good post. Interesting responses.

This is a Google Street View of where I was born in 1951 - 132 Highbury Hill, London N5. I had (still have) an older sister and we'd all lived in a flat there since my old man was demobbed from the RAF in 1946:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.5568777,-0.1040962,3a,87y,216.6h,94.89t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1siETWjVihcMTqeBragLKZBg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DiETWjVihcMTqeBragLKZBg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D356.32187%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192

Being born into a family of Gooners who'd been going to matches since the 1913 arrival, I never had much choice. If you can, do a 180 degree spin on the Street View. If you can't, seek out that address on Google Maps. Either way you'll see why I had no chance whatsoever.

My old man was an architect who was then working for William Binnie. Binnie had designed the East and West Stands a few years earlier. Because of the architectural connections - plus Kenny Friar was a family friend - my mother and father would often be invited to matches in the 'Lions Club'. I have no recollection of my first game or anything like that since I was regularly taken over there as a babe in arms. Going to a match wasn't that special to me; it was just part of my growing up. That's how I got to do more than 50 years at the old stadium.

By the time my second sister arrived, we were living at 68 Riversdale Rd, N5 and this is where I spent my formative years:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/68+Riversdale+Rd,+London+N5+2JZ/@51.5593876,-0.0989439,826m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x48761b808fd7eb51:0xe534c25366a45189!8m2!3d51.5603115!4d-0.0949699

Thanks to my old man, I was properly and diligently schooled - Arsenal in the winter and Lord's in the summer. We never had season tickets - we'd just stroll over there at 2:40 or so, first team and reserves. In my teens, I'd often go down to the Spuds with my neighbour, PJ who was a few years older and had a van.

Neither I nor my sisters have lived in London for quite a while now but between us, we've managed to maintain standards. We had a rare family gathering recently with about 50 of us - me and my sisters plus our other halves, our children with their spouses plus what seemed like an army of grandchildren. They're now spread all over the country and indeed the world, and with the exception of one or two blow-in in-laws, all of them, to a greater or lesser extent, are Gooners.

That’s a heck of a story. I’d heard the name and knew that she had been a star. But I had never realised quite what had happened.

Just shows. When you’re a kid previous sport is as if back in pre-history. And that despite being a keen tennis player from the age of 10 onwards.

Bernard, Rich
The whole scenario comes down to policing. given that the funeral and many football matches are in London. Stating the obvious here. Changing stadium venues won't necessarily make a huge impact. And if true the expectations of 20K-30K expected to queue to see the Queen lying in state, then of course security resources will be stretched.

PSV now postponed.

Weird country

Sure the Dutchies really appreciate spending a fortune on travel and accommodation

PSV game has been postponed

Just cancel the whole season I reckon. Keep the mourning going till May

Not sure it's appropriate to play football at all anymore. I'm sure we can find more productive things to do with our time and money

we can do stuff like write poetry about the queen or maybe draw pictures

As a mark of respect I’ve decided not to pay my mortgage or energy bills for 4 weeks

Prediction

Somehow the rescheduling of all these fixtures will utterly screw us and derail our season.

I can’t imagine what happens after the Christmas World Cup. Players form could go anywhere

Could we offer to switch and play them away. It would be ideal for us to actually play the game.

Our last game was 8th sept and the next one will almost certainly be 1st Oct. Bizarre in a season where the fixtures are having to be so compressed because of the world cup we have over 3 weeks without a game!

It is a shame and it seems total pot luck a bit like in the covid effected season as to how badly you are effected.
We've played 7 games and now have 3 postponements.

it seems an even worse decision to postpone all the football last weekend especially when all other sports went ahead.

Yes it looks absurd right now. The full resources of the police were available plus the grounds had full supply’s of food and drink that was wasted.

Seems mad

Liverpool and Celtic were due to play at home. The powers that be were terrified of the optics as they knew they'd be some kind of anti-monarchy stuff. I think it's *%^@*** ridiculous as apparently Chelsea's midweek game is going ahead I believe?

That is just plain nuts. Chelsea’s game can go ahead but ours can’t. Both in London. Both with demands on police.

How does that even work?

I've read there is nowhere in the calendar to fit the Arsenal v PSV match between now and the world cup - as the game must be finished before the group stage.

One option is postponing the match v City in the league on Oct 19th and playing it then.
Or, we play it the same midweek as the League Cup game and field a youth team in one of the two games (depending where we sit in Europa league)

The rules state if you cant fulfill your game the member association (us) forfeits the game. If it comes to that there will be uproar!

It may have something to do with the PSV supporters? Not sure what they are like these days but when I went to an ECL match in Eindhoven some years ago they were scary. I also went to Amsterdam once to see Ajax v PSV and that game was postponed at the last minute due to a police strike. The Dutch authorities took no chances.

I presume that there is f all chance of Sunday’s game taking place then.

I read there is potential (albeit unlikely) that Brentford v Arsenal could be played this weekend because Brentford's ground only holds 17,000 people - but games at Chelsea and Spurs would be postponed because they hold over double and triple the people so presumably double and triple the policing requirement

Forfeiting it would just be the cherry on the cake wouldn’t it.

Shame this isn’t all happening two months from now during the World Cup. Or even during the International break.

Oh well. So much for getting all excited over possibly seeing Arsenal being allowed to play one game.

Not certain anyone's noticed, but Chelsea's CL match at home against Salzburg on Wednesday hasn't been postponed. Odd that. Still London.

Outrageous.

And yes… we had noticed.