paulhanley

It is still shut. But the Lamb and Flag over the road is back open and has its own Tolkein connections.

Both those Wigan away games were early kick offs, reasonably uncommon in those days. I think Wigan missed a pen in our 0-1 win. The 1-0 home win v Oxford was a great performance. Oxford were top of the league and would be champions by May. A great Burnden atmosphere that day. I think the last time we played games on consecutive days was in 93/4, a decade later. Two 0-0 draws at home to Sunderland and then away at Pompey. I was at both - the trip to Pompey the day got off to a tricky start with snow in Cheshire making the M6 very treacherous. Miraculously cleared and on we want. It was one of Gary Parkinson's few appearances for us that day at Fratton Park. Anyway - a proper tangent is that!

There's a very small Zero Emission Zone in the very middle. It's going to be expanded but hasn't been just yet.

It's on a big retail park like Middlebrook. Beyond that it's a bit hopeless. Surrounded by the big and not altogether friendly Blackbird Leys estate. You could park in the city centre and get the bus out but they charge an utter fortune for parking in Oxford.

He's got some distance to go before he's up to Nolan standard but the speed of development is the same. Leaps and bounds this season!

Watching Thomason's game grow month by month is a pleasure. Even compared to August he's a better performer. I was thinking of similar scenarios in the past. McAteer sprang to mind, but actually a better comparison is Kevin Nolan.

I know Exeter are in a right state but days like today need savouring. I think I am right in saying its only the fourth time in my 45 years of watching us that we've scored more than six in a game (Walsall 83/4, Plymouth 84/5 and Swindon 96/7). Quite apart from that we've hit the top of the league, a six game league winning streak and lots of consecutive clean sheets. Obviously there's a big two league games upcoming but you could not wish for a better situation to be in when entering games like that.

We've had a big purple patch, strung together wins and clean sheets and looked decent doing it. Then there was an international break with players scattered hither and thither. Can we come back and pick up the threads of it all again? If we can then the team has a great culture and good habits and they're powerful things when you're targeting the top two in a 24 team league.

I can't pretend to understand all this share issues stuff much. I just hope it's not all smoke and mirrors and that money is real and debt low. I've been intrigued for some time now about the Swiss group.

Just dwell on the pleasure of having beaten them cunts last Saturday.

My first Roy Greaves team would be: 1. McDonagh, 2 Nicholson 3 Dunne 4 Greaves 5 Jones P 6 Allardyce or Walsh 7 Morgan 8 Whatmore 9 Worthington 10 Gowling 11 Reid First memory of him was the winner he got on the first day of 77/8 at Burnley. Also remember his winner v Spurs that same season, was sat level with it in the Manny Road North. Great that its on You Tube

There was a phase of Mark Patterson getting a load of stick as well - pretty local from Darwen. Some keepers who had rough spells made worse by abuse: Dennis Peacock, Simon Farnworth, Mike Salmon.

When I first started watching Bolton it was Neil Whatmore who was getting the unwarranted stick. I don't know whether its just Bolton fans who seem to always have to have a scapegoat or two, but it is certainly something that's run right the way through our history. The worst example was Ian Moores in the early 80s - he had a really bad time at Bolton but the stick he copped made things ten times worse. If it's constructive it's not as bad Folk on here saying there's something needs addressing with Nlundulu as he seems shot-shy, that's just an observation backed up by what we all see. It's not personal or nasty. That's the difference.

Anybody any idea when the draw is?

I'd forgotten the chant of "We want a ref". How sedate and polite compared to now. .... although thinking back to some other things that happened on the terraces in the 70s it definitely wasn't sedate or polite!!