Uilleam

And let us not forget: For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture Psalm 95, KJV

Dire. Has PC "lost the dressing room"?

Second half - worse than the first

Well, Dundee are no Ross County. Thank fuck.

They appear to have more appetite for the match.

We are too easy to play against. Everybody sees it, and knows it, and does it.

Make sure you pay him. Oh, and stay away from open windows, just in case.

Have they changed your medication?

Alright, OK

I think that we will need to; if not, the Dundee side will have an advantage, being full of bog trotters

We will sink or swim. After the weekend, the smart money might be on the former.

Match on! Thank God for Patrick Harvie, who, seemingly, has stopped global warming. In only one small part of Dundee, granted, but a start is a start...

......post-Independence Record breakers? Arkadag FC and the winning streak still under scrutiny Turkmenistan’s champions lay claim to a world record but some suspect details lie behind their dazzling winning run John Duerden Tue 16 Apr 2024 08.00 BST Record breakers? Arkadag FC and the winning streak still under scrutiny | Football | The Guardian It’s not often that a football world record goes from Wales to Saudi Arabia only for Turkmenistan to also have a claim. In March, Al-Hilal surpassed the achievement of 27 consecutive top-tier wins set by The New Saints of Wales in 2016. The 18-time Saudi champions have now extended that streak to 34 and look unstoppable at home and abroad. The same can be said in central Asia where Arkadag FC have won every competitive game in their history. The 2023 league title was lifted in December with 72 points from 24 matches. Throw in seven cup victories and six from six so far this season and it comes to 37 and counting. Yet the world record resides in Riyadh, over a thousand miles to the west. What gives? “There’s relatively little detail available for the Turkmenistan league, less than we want for the kind of due diligence we carry out in our research for this and similar records,” a spokesperson for Guinness World Records told the Guardian. “This may also be indicative of a level of governance and competition under what we’d ordinarily look for as well. All this being considered, we have confirmed Al-Hilal as the record holder.” A lack of detail may be down to the fact that Turkmenistan, home to 6.5 million people, is one of the most isolated and secretive countries in the world and, even given the growing importance of the wider region in geopolitical affairs, rarely gets a mention in the western media. In terms of governance and competition, the way Arkadag were formed may also be an issue. It all started with Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the president of Turkmenistan from 2006 to 2022. Berdymukhamedov revelled in his nickname of “Arkadag”, which means “hero protector”. One of his pet projects before he handed the reins of power to his son, Serdar (nominally, at least, as many observers believe father is still pulling the strings), was the foundation of a new city in the south of the country, a smart city that cost upwards of $5bn. A city that, unsurprisingly, is called Arkadag. Home to more than 70,000 people it needed a football team so, ahead of the 2023 season, the best players in the country joined the newly formed club. National team stalwarts like Arslanmyrat Amanow and Altymyrat Annadurdyyew were soon wearing the shirts designed by Berdymukhamedov which, unsurprisingly given his obsession with the animal, sported a logo of a horse. The league’s transfer window was extended to facilitate this influx. The rise of Arkadag FC is almost pleasingly nostalgic for anyone who remember the former army and secret police outfits that dominated eastern bloc leagues in the cold war era. Fans of rival clubs may not agree, however, especially as they suspect favourable officiating – such as in a November clash with Sagadam when, with the score at 2-2 going into the final seconds, the new boys were given a controversial penalty and subsequently won. Indeed that game was a rare close affair, with the champions ending the season with a +66 goal difference. So far this season, that margin is +30 after six games. There are few public complaints as Turkmenistan is not really the place to criticise projects close to the heart of the former president. Guinness World Records misgivings are unlikely to be well received. Berdymukhamedov is known to be keen to get his new city into the storied book in some manner and club officials believe once the team starts competing in Asian competitions, which is scheduled for the summer, then their case for inclusion will be there in black and white for Guinness to see. Al-Hilal also have state backing, largely owned as they are by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which is chaired by the country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. There are also plenty of fans in the country who believe the Blues get the rub of the green when it comes to refereeing decisions. To be fair to the Riyadh giants, they were the most successful club in Saudi Arabia and Asia in terms of titles – 18 and four respectively – before PIF took charge of them in 2023. This season, however, has been something else – the 34 successive wins has them on course for an unprecedented quadruple. Last week saw the head coach, Jorge Jesus, and stars such as Rúben Neves and Kalidou Koulibaly (Neymar and Aleksandar Mitrovic are injured) get their hands on trophy No 1 with a 4-1 victory over Al-Ittihad in the Saudi Super Cup final. Riyadh rivals Al-Nassr were beaten in the semi-final, a game that saw Cristiano Ronaldo sent off for elbowing the Al-Hilal defender Ali al-Bulaihi. Al-Hilal are 12 points clear of second-placed Al-Nassr in the Saudi Pro League with seven games to go. League title 19 is incoming. Then there are two semi-finals in April: the King’s Cup, Saudi Arabia’s domestic knockout competition, against Al-Ittihad, and the Asian Champions League clash against Al-Ain of the United Arab Emirates. Al-Hilal are favourites to win both and a fifth Asian title would put them two clear of the next two most successful clubs: Pohang Steelers of South Korea and Japan’s Urawa Reds. Asia is also the next stage for Arkadag. Can they translate their domestic dominance into overseas success? The ambition is certainly there and sooner or later they may well find themselves on the same pitch as Al-Hilal in a game that these two teams won’t be able to both definitely win.

Here's Gideon Haigh on Underwood. (Haigh is always worth reading, even with typos, which are several in this piece). Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Derek Underwood 1945-2024 GH on England's one-of-a-kind spinner. APR 16 READ IN APP Artwork by Fisher Classics There was no reason for Derek Underwood to bowl left arm. He batted right-handed. He wrote right-handed. Everyone else on both sides of his family was right-handed. It was just that when he first stooped to pick up a cricket ball while watching his father Leslie bowl medium pace for Farnborough in Kent that it was with his left hand. Nor was there any reason for him to bowl as he did, as a spinner operating at just below medium pace with a low arm from round the wicket. Nobody told him to. Nobody affirmed him. Tony Lock was so dismissive of Underwood as a colt he took him for a batter. The technique proved an advantage when he was picked by Kent as a seventeen-year-old because English county pitches, dressed in Surrey loam, had grown so slow: he was the youngest man to take 100 first-class wickets in a season. As Underwood described in his autobiography Beating the Bat, however, he was constantly counselled by captains, coaches, selectors and critics to change, to adjust his speeds, angles and attitudes, to conform to the stereotype of the left-arm orthodox - something closer to a Bishop Bedi or, in his own country, Don Wilson. What people didn’t realise, Underwood recalled, was that he had usually tried all these ideas first and found them wanting. He professed not to be fussed by the difficulty of classifying him; his preferred self-designation was ‘mean’ bowler: ‘I hate every run that is scored off me. I don’t like trying to buy my wickets. That is just not the way I play the game.’ He was nicknamed ‘Deadly’. It was perfect in its way. Nobody could have looked less lethal, with his clean chin, receding hairline, ten-to-two feet and more-or-less constant dishevelment; but ‘Deadly’ went with his remorseless control, his menacing fuller length, his inhibiting stump-to-stump line, and that refusal to barter wickets for runs. Geoff Boycott referred to him as having ‘the demeanour of a civil servant and the mentality of a rat catcher.’ Alan Knott, his great confrere, noted Underwood’s ‘supreme cricket fitness’: so grooved was his action, he was a stranger to injury. Doing what came naturally did not always come easily. While wet pitches made his name, Underwood saw these as a mixed blessing. The trouble was he so often went out and confirmed these suppositions, starting with the afternoon the twenty-three-year-old routed Australia at the Oval in 1968 by taking seven for 50, including four for 6 in his last twenty-seven deliveries. ‘I was shattered by the end of it, and felt no particular elation at the time,’ he recalled. ‘My first desire was to get back to the dressing room, and I remember thinking to myself how peaceful it looked as I entered the deserted room.’ He claimed not to have watched footage of the day. But for a decade and more, he was English cricket’s go-to guy on anything other than a green seamer, and even he could be handy. At Adelaide in 1975, he claimed the first seven wickets of the Test match. Underwood’s other great service for England was as a nightwatchman, which was a decidedly dangerous occupation in the days before helmets, and which he perhaps rendered more perilous by a technique that involved playing everything, even bouncers. ‘Whenever I see a bouncer coming I automatically get into line, body behind the bat and ball,’ he explained. ‘That is what I was brought up to do. Nobody ever told me what I should do next and I never learned.’ Tony Greig called him ‘one of the bravest tailed batsmen I have ever seen’ and recalled greeting him at the Gabba in 1974 with Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson in their pomp. Any advice? asked Underwood. ‘Yes,’ said Greig grimly. ‘Fight for your life.’ After an over of bouncers from Thomson, Underwood came down the pitch and said simply: ‘I see what you mean.’ It’s funny, but Thomson was a bowler I often put in the same bracket as Underwood - not of course for pace or danger, but because of their sheer untutored uniqueness. That 1974-5 summer was my first as a cricket watcher, so I took them both at face value: why should they not bowl the way they did? I’ve waited my whole lifetime and seen nobody like either of them. The same thought occurred to Knott: But, then, the game no longer makes any pretence of balance. As Underwood’s death was announced, an Indian Premier League match was underway in which runs were scored at fourteen an over and thirty-eight sixes were hit. A ‘mean’ bowler now seems almost unthinkable: the ball might as well be struck from stationary tees. In the circumstances, one might as well do what comes naturally.

The question is most properly addressed to the players, and it should be in two parts- Can you do it? Will you do it? It is clear that it 'can' be done: Helicopter Sunday, and other damned close run things, happened, actually, and gloriously. It remains possible. It is difficult to envisage that it 'will' be done. The players have spurned the opportunity to make it happen -Motherwell (at Ibrox!!), and Ross Co.- were six points thrown away, meaning, realistically, that winning all remaining games, including a victory at Piggery Place, is required. That, I fear, is too much of an ask, a stretch too far, for the current playing staff. They have run out of that road marked 'playing badly and winning' (as was, as ever, likely), are increasingly vulnerable to organised and determined opposition, and look shot, tired, and confused, bereft of ideas, of confidence, and of desire. I do not see how improvements may be made, nor what players could, or would, stand up, be counted, and drive/pull the rest up to the required standards. I cannot even be confident that they will win the outstanding fixtures against 'the rest'. If the Will is there, it will be done, but they look gey, gey, short in that department. Now, as for the Scottish Cup.......

Derek Underwood obituary: Spin bowler considered one of England’s all-time greats Nicknamed Deadly, he had a unique style that made him almost unplayable new The Times Monday April 15 2024, 2.30pm, The Times Derek Underwood obituary: Spin bowler considered one of England’s all-time greats (thetimes.co.uk) Fresh-faced, courteous and polite to a fault, Derek Underwood appeared to be too nice a man to excel against rough-hewn Australians and bouncer happy West Indians in the cauldron of Test cricket. This was deceptive. Geoffrey Boycott, his longstanding England team-mate, described him as having “the face of a choirboy, the demeanour of a civil servant — and the ruthlessness of a rat catcher”. Indeed, Underwood’s nickname was “Deadly”, bestowed because in helpful conditions he was exactly that. On rain-affected pitches his sharp left-arm cutters, delivered from a flat-footed run at near medium pace and allied with metronomic accuracy, made him almost unplayable. Even on placid pitches his immaculate control and subtle variations of line and length could frustrate and undermine the best batsmen. Although he possessed great determination and pride in performance, both for himself and for his county and country — and would glare at fielders if the batsman pinched a single — Underwood’s personal ambitions were confined to his own game. “Why do so many players want to be captain?” he asked plaintively. Cricket politics were not for him and his essential decency was such that he tended not to take sides in disagreements. The ability to bowl came so naturally that if he fretted over any aspect of his profession, it was whether he could cope in retirement. Given that he was a world-class cricketer, Underwood was woefully underpaid. This resulted in his joining the two highly contentious breakaway events of his era: Kerry Packer’s World Series and a tour to South Africa in 1982. Both were unofficial and, because he was so highly regarded, Underwood gave them some respectability. This did not prevent the authorities from implementing lengthy bans, which curtailed his England appearances. Underwood and Alan Knott, his Kent and England wicket-keeper with whom he formed a telepathic understanding, were initially both sacked by their county for joining Packer, a decision which Les Ames, their former cricket manager and mentor, described as “repugnant and distasteful”. Until their retirements in the mid-1980s they were not even consulted over changes of captaincy at Canterbury: county committees were omnipotent. Derek Leslie Underwood was born in Bromley, Kent. He was given an early taste of cricket from his father, a useful club bowler, who was so determined that he and his older brother, Keith, should take up the game that he built a net in his garden. Derek’s ability soon emerged. At Dulwich College Preparatory School he took nine wickets for ten runs in an under-tens match and continued to shine at Beckenham and Penge Grammar School, making 96 in a match against the staff and taking all ten wickets against a rival school. He was recommended to Kent after attending a cricket school in Croydon, where he was coached by two England players, Ken Barrington and Tony Lock. He had started as a quick bowler but realised he would be more effective if he reduced his pace. He took easily to spin. At 16 he was in Kent’s second XI, taking nine wickets against Hampshire in his first match. He was only 17 when he made his first-class debut in 1963, taking four wickets against a strong Yorkshire side, and he went on to top 100 wickets for the season, the youngest player to do so. His arm ball, which dipped in to the right-hander, won many lbw decisions. He was the outstanding English spin bowler of his era and, with the arguable exception of Jim Laker, the finest to emerge since the Second World War. His 86 Tests brought him 297 wickets at a respectable average of 25.83, and he would have taken many more had he not decided to join Packer and tour South Africa. A tail-end batsman, he was often deployed as an England night watchman and as such showed great courage against the ferocious West Indian pace attack. He was a reliable outfielder who missed little. The supreme professional, he always kept his feelings under control. Even quixotic captaincy decisions, such as not bowling him at the right time in a Lord’s one-day final which Kent narrowly lost, were accepted without complaint or rancour. At the Oval in 1968 he helped England to a remarkable win against Australia which squared the series. At lunch on the final day Australia were 86 for five and heading for a heavy defeat. A cloudburst then flooded the ground, making further play seem unlikely, but thanks to the valiant mopping up efforts of the ground staff, helped by volunteers from the crowd, the match resumed just before 5pm. Getting the ball to turn and lift from the damp pitch and with every England fielder crouched round the bat, Underwood took four wickets in 27 balls to secure victory with minutes to spare. He finished with seven for 50. From then on, though occasionally left out to make way for an extra seamer or for Norman Gifford, who bowled at a slower pace, he was England’s premier spinner. Shrewd enough to adapt to different conditions, he was often as effective overseas as on English pitches, which would normally be expected to give him more help. In Australia, where he got little turn, he took pace off the ball and relied more on flight. He had some spectacular figures. During the home series against New Zealand in 1969 he had match returns of 11 for 70 at Lord’s and 12 for 101 at the Oval. In New Zealand in 1971 his 12 for 98 at Christchurch included his 1,000th first-class wicket. He was 25 and only George Lohmann and Wilfred Rhodes had reached the landmark younger. On a rain-affected pitch at Lord’s in 1974 he had a spell of six wickets for two runs as Pakistan collapsed from 192 for three to 226 all out. In 1977 he was one of the first batch of England players to be recruited for Packer. This dismayed some admirers and he admitted that the decision had been a painful one to make. Indeed, he, along with Colin Cowdrey, his Kent and sometime England captain with whom he had an excellent relationship, had been lone voices in saying they would be prepared to play an additional Test match on the 1970-71 tour of Australia without extra remuneration. But cricketers, even established Test players, were not well paid and had little security. A generous contract with Packer was too good to turn down and offered Underwood and his family a chance to secure their financial future. After a High Court decision thwarted an attempt by Lord’s to ban the Packer players from all first-class cricket, Underwood was able to continue playing for Kent, and in 1979 he was restored to the England side. Of the players who had signed for Packer, he missed Test cricket the most. But in March 1982, directly after playing a Test in Sri Lanka, he joined the breakaway tour to South Africa, earning a reported £40,000 for five weeks’ cricket. This time a three-year ban from Tests was unchallenged and it ended Underwood’s international career. He went on playing county cricket until his early forties, retiring at the end of the 1987 season. In all first-class matches he took 2,465 wickets at an average of just over 20, conceding barely two runs an over. His one century came against Sussex at Hastings when he was 39. Appropriately enough, this was on the ground on which he had taken his best figures, nine for 28. Underwood, left, with fellow cricketing heroes Geoffrey Boycott, Bob Woolmer and Alan Knott NEWS GROUP NEWSPAPERS LTD

You should have waited until after the watershed.

The answer is Prince William. He supports the Villa, and lives in a Palace

Who had a Palace and Villa double?

We are too easy to play against. We tend to start ponderously and sluggishly, and it takes most of the first half, or even longer, for the players to warm up. We can't deal with a fast, aggressive press, we can't defend it, we rarely seem able to play through it, and we panic, which reinforces our problems. With everybody at sixes and sevens, the ball becomes an enemy, passing becomes desperate, hitting and hoping, and, of course there is no leadership on the field. All of this is exacerbated by lunchtime kick offs, for which, astoundingly, we seem completely unprepared. Any manager who gives his players a can (or two) of Red Bull before kick off can guarantee to give us problems. The point is: if a tactical illiterate like me can see this, why can't our esteemed Manager and Coaches?

Jesus wept!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For 'remainder' read 'remnants'.

You mean the defence rests. (P Mason of California refers)