What a player he was.

Not to mention Joe Baker, Peter Marinello, Alex Cropley ...

Joe Baker played in my first ever game, though for Nottingham Forest not Arsenal. Also in the Forest team that day was Jim Baxter, the Rangers legend.

I remember Peter Marinello and Alex Cropley. Marinello was such a talented player he was dubbed the new George Best. Sadly he missed an early sitter at Highbury when Ajax knocked us out the European Cup. Cropley probably didn’t have Marinello’s level of ability, though he did have plenty. But he more than compensated for that with his tigerish competitive instincts.

Joe Baker in my first game too.

My memory is playing tricks though as I falsely recall Brian Dear playing for them (via the song “Oh dear what can the matter be”).


https://www.11v11.com/matches/arsenal-v ... 964-78117/

I see PV4 has been sacked as head coach of Nice after 2-1/2 years, due to Europa League exit.

Anyone remember Joe Baker knocking out man-mountain Ron Yeats in a Cup game?

1963 I think.

Joe Hart may be in goal for spurs on Sunday. If so we need to be taking lots of long range shots. He’s been weak on them for years now

If I remember correctly Alex Cropley broke his leg running to get on the coach at Villa Park

Rich, it is accepted the club was founded in 1886, not when it was formally named Arsenal in 1919. From that, I think it’s right to include the home games under its names preceding that. I might be wrong but I believe Dial Square played at the Isle of Dogs, Royal Arsenal at the Invicta Ground in Plumstead, Woolwich Arsenal at the Manor Ground in Plumstead, and The Arsenal started the early years at Highbury.

I doubt The Arsenal got lower than 2,000 as I think the club played under that name at Highbury until 1919 and the lowest attendance there was the 4554 against Leeds in 1966.

However, let me say I don’t know, but I would be surprised if they never got below 2,000 in any home games during those early years. Be it Dial Square at the Isle of Dogs, Royal Arsenal or Woolwich Arsenal around Plumstead Common (or wherever else they played in those sorts of localities until the move to the Islington area in 1913).

So, an AMN and Partey midfield?

NLD week. Tottenham playing great, managed by a man we can't seem to ever beat. Doesn't look promising does it?

"My centre is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking." - Napoleon (and hopefully Arteta)

Good history aside. Low turnout of only limit of 2K fans Thursday night, due to C19. Fans allowed only first come, first served. Notice that fans were to observe social distancing among other things. And, yes, it may be the lowest turnout on record due to certain circumstances only. Same for NLD Sunday. Only 2K fans allowed and only Spurs fans. No away fans at all.

I much prefer him in midfield to either Xhaka or Ceballos

Old news to you guys but I discovered 'Endeavour' on Amazon Prime and enjoying it immensely. Good or bad, it's very 'British'...lol. The main character's immediate boss sounds exactly like Dumbledore. Anyway, never knew there were so many murders in quaint English towns.

...not as good as the first 2 seasons of 'Luther', but what is? Still very enjoyable.

Do you know if they have been recording recent attendances eg. Aston Villa as zero.

There were programmes produced for each of the behind closed doors games last season that you could order to receive by post, which I did. The attendances up to the Watford programme for those games were all recorded as zero. I’m absolutely certain the attendances for the final game last season (Watford) and all the ones so far this season before the Vienna match would also all be recorded as 0.

Cheers

Just in case you haven’t realised. That is a prequel to the old Morse series with John Thaw (being him as a young man).

A spin off from the original Morse series was Lewis.

I was wondering why the description said prequel. I am going to tackle the series afterwards.

I hope they’re wrong but the Mirror are saying Arsenal are paying Willian £250k a week. Considering his form so far, I hope we haven’t got ourselves a slightly cheaper (if £100k a week can be called ‘slightly’) Özil who is on £350k a week.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football ... dium=email

Yes. A while ago I wrote this about it: "Amongst the many dramatic matches between Arsenal and Liverpool, the FA Cup clash of February 1964 ranks mountain high. It was an epic barney set before a large floodlit crowd. North squared up to south, rock collided with rock, and a blatant injustice prompted a moment of magnificent violence. Pre-match Wright hinted that his tactics would focus on his inside men playing quick, accurate football through the middle. On the night he banked on his speedy wingers’ ability to outrun the slowish Liverpool backs. It could have worked, but typically absent-minded defending let in St. John for the only goal of a raucous evening. Arsenal pressed hard, and according to Ure they ‘paralysed’ Liverpool, only to be denied a penalty when the referee missed Moran clearly punching a Baker shot off the line. Two minutes later the same forward was cut down in the area, and again no penalty. When Yeats fouled Baker fifteen yards inside Liverpool’s half they looked at each other with eyes full of fire and then traded blows. Though Yeats was the bigger man Baker was not one to let the same dog bite him twice. Referee John Taylor decided they were obviously not nonchalant gentlemen picking pears in an orchard and sent both off. The Times described the tie as having ‘more of the drama of a popular uprising than a game of football.’ True, and how we loved it! In the mayhem Liverpool manager Shankly ran on to the pitch to attend Yeats. The referee asked him what he was doing there and Bill explained ‘I merely said I was rearranging the team. He said ‘That’s alright’, and with my job done, I walked off.’ Yeats showered and dressed, left the ground and grabbed a cup of coffee in a nearby café. He returned in time to greet his jubilant team at the final whistle."

Lewis is pretty good.

Read a stat. Pires only ever won 2 penalties for Arsenal. Ljungberg won 11.

How many did Wiltord win, out of interest?

I’d rank them as
1 Morse
2 Endeavour
3 Lewis

Kevin Whately (never better than in Auf Wiedersehn) was quoted as saying that he hated police procedurals and wouldn’t watch such stuff.

So fans allowed back in. And Millwall take the opportunity to loudly boo players taking the knee. How utterly depressing.

Busman's holiday I suppose. Lovely actor.

Morse was brilliant. We rewatched the whole lot recently.

*%^@*** morons. Still the knuckle draggers they always were. They shame football, Britain and indeed the human race.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11735/12152113/millwall-fans-boo-as-players-take-a-knee-in-support-of-fight-against-racial-injustice

Surely the sweeney tops the list.

Ridiculous remake though with Ray Winstone basically going “grrrrr” for 2 hours.

’

Thanks Old Man. If I may observe, the piece doesn’t fully chime with my memory of the violence of the encounter. It was a full blown fist fight with our Joe (cast in the role of David?) bringing down - decking / destroying - the much bigger Yeats who was a very scary ‘enforcer’ figure and the totem of that very tough Liverpool team.

Proper fight. Proper punches. Proper knock-out. And our bloke won. Had been in the street outside, you just know Joe would’ve kicked his head in. Me and my mates talked about it for ages.

A mate of mine was friends with an ex millwall player who went on to have a decent career in the premiership and at international level. I won’t name him but he told me he instructed his parents to stay away from the den so they didn’t have to witness acts of racism towards him or in general. Not really surprised at that today.

That said I thought Les Ferdinands intelligent comments about the issue were spot on that the message was being diluted by its over use and message lost.

For me The Sweeney tops the list by a huge distance. Couldn’t agree more about the Ray Winstone film. Utter garbage. A much younger Ray Winstone was actually in one of the television episodes of The Sweeney. It was called Loving Arms. He had a fairly minor part and it wasn’t one of my favourite episodes, but it wasn’t one of the worst either. Good but not great in my view.

I have to say I’m quite partial to a Ray Winstone movie that shocking sweeney remake aside. He’s very good in sexy beast but the one that had me was “nil by mouth” where he plays an alcoholic husband on a south London council estate. I can’t think of a film that stirs such emotions and portrays a dysfunctional family as well. They nailed it.

I think Ray Winstone is a fine actor too. But that Sweeney film where he played Jack Regan was abysmal. Also the actor they got to play George Carter in it. He was so young he looked as though he could have still been in primary school.

Just watched some of the Chelsea game. Good game to watch and both teams are in a different league to us.

Probably won’t happen but I’d laugh my head off if Millwall had fans banned from their home games for a further period.

Hugely depressing.

Those who think they are better than the next person/s are in themselves, flawed.

I'm on it. I'm enjoying Endevour partially because I like the Sherlock Holmes-esque shows and movies and partially because its a glimpse of British culture and life years ago.

Tories? (joking for those who take an ideological offense, I have no horse in that race)

With all the slow motion replays, var and goal line tech the officials still couldn’t decide if the ball had crossed the touchline yesterday for man u’s equalising goal vs West Ham yesterday. Moyes said it was miles out as the ball floated over his head.
If you haven’t seen it the ball is about 5 yards in from touch near man u’s penalty area, their gk comes out and launches it 60 yards down the touchline it bounces about 2 yards in from the touchline, 1 pass later and Man U score. The question is whether the ball went out of play and came back in like you see from corners.
Given the spin or curls on the ball which is evident from when the ball lands and curls quite far back in to play I’d say it probably did go out of play as it is just impossible to kick a ball pretty much dead straight for 60 yards and for it to only take on any curl you put on the ball AFTER it bounces.