Definitely Leeds and Sunderland big local derbies plus as we are in Yorkshire certainly a few more. Very big silence from Boro's top brass ref plans for new season. Everyone clutching at straws to find out what is going on. Sometimes I can understand why but it would be appreciated if they just said we are looking at various scenarios and the fans will be the fist to know but it seems that the fans are last to know when in fact they should be priority.
EFL Cup first round:
Huddersfield v Middlesbrough
Come on BORO.
Definitely Leeds and Sunderland big local derbies plus as we are in Yorkshire certainly a few more. Very big silence from Boro's top brass ref plans for new season. Everyone clutching at straws to find out what is going on. Sometimes I can understand why but it would be appreciated if they just said we are looking at various scenarios and the fans will be the fist to know but it seems that the fans are last to know when in fact they should be priority.
Malcolm, I am sorry but I don’t understand what you expect MFC to do regarding transfers, there have been plenty of articles both on the MFC website and the Gazette outlining their hopes and aspirations for this transfer window. You can’t surely expect MFC to go public on which players we are targeting to buy and sell, as that would alert other championship clubs to the potential availability of said players, which in turn would open a bidding war. Below is the latest article about our transfer aspirations but I would never expect any article to name players until they are close to signing or have signed.
Come on BORO.
@exmil I agree with you about transfers. Perhaps they could make Kieran Scott available for an interview, though.
What the club could do is to inform when the players are back for pre-season training. And when they are going to launch the kit for next season. This is info we would like to know. We need something to look forward to.
At least we have the fixtures now. Millwall at home in the league, and Warnock's Huddersfield away in the Carabao Cup during the first week. Up the Boro!
I maybe a spoil sport but for me forget the Carobou Cup . Promotion is the first priority for boro.
Recent report/rumour suggesting that Wolves may be willing to sell Ryan Giles but we may face competition from Leicester!
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@k-p-in-spain If Leicester are in for him, we won’t be able to compete with what they are capable of offering.
Come on BORO.
I’ve just been enjoying all your posts after a busy family spell that has kept me out of action.
I was very sorry to hear of your further troubles, Ken, and was very heartened when you subsequently posted some great stuff about the cricket. I hope there will be many more of your posts and that you are now getting the full use of your hands back. Keep on fighting. Good luck.
And OFB, I hope your head is better and you, too, are feeling fine after your fall.
I’m excited to get the fixtures today, so we can once again start planning our lives around weekends and midweek games. This season there are just 2 Championship grounds I haven’t visited with Boro - Sunderland (since they left Roker) and Plymouth. I’d very much like to go to both this year, if possible. I think I might get to Plymouth, the railways (and Mrs H) permitting, because I think there will be some tickets available, given the distances involved. Sunland is a different matter - I’ve missed out in previous seasons through not having enough priority points. I was hoping that this year, another year on my season card, I would cross the minimal threshold, as I was only two points short. But a friend told me that the club only takes into account two consecutive years of season tickets in awarding points, in other words expunging everything season-card-related from previous seasons. I do hope he’s wrong about that. Does anybody know?
I think the Carabao draw is terrible, for a number of reasons. Firstly, I always want us to do well in the cups, as that builds momentum and confidence and opens the possibility of big games against the big boys. A nice ‘easy’ game against a League 1 or 2 side would have been preferable; instead, we get an all-Champo tie, away from home, and it’s only Neil bloody Warnock again!! I guess MC may not play his full first team squad for this one: I think we could lose it. And I’m very disappointed from a personal standpoint. There are 11 lower league clubs within relatively easy travelling distance for me whose grounds I’ve never been to with Boro, so I wanted an away tie at one of those. There were 37 clubs in our half of the draw, so, I figured, surely the odds on getting one of these clubs in the draw must be reasonable this year? Not so, obviously. Huddersfield. Aaarrrggghhhh. For the record, and if you’re still awake after this pile of nonsense, those 11 clubs are Wrexham, Shrewsbury, Crewe, Tranmere, Stockport, Bradford, Harrogate, Fleetwood, Barrow, Lincoln and Grimsby. And just think, playmates, if Boro had stuck with Wilder last year, I would probably have had the chance to knock some of these grounds off this year in league games!!!
Totally off topic and left of field, but I am just back in our hotel room with my wife after attending the Peter Gabriel concert at the Hydro in Glasgow. Superb today as he was superb when I first saw him solo in the 70s.
Totally off topic and left of field, but I am just back in our hotel room with my wife after attending the Peter Gabriel concert at the Hydro in Glasgow. Superb today as he was superb when I first saw him solo in the 70s.
You will have seen my wife there as well. She was buzzing when she got back. Tickets were way too pricy for me.
We won a watch as my wife would say. I had purchased the cheapest tickets right up at the back and in the gods as a Christmas present to the three of us (wife, son and me)...we were in the very last row. However as our tickets got scanned at the door, we were told that that section had had to be closed and so we were relocated into the really expensive seats at floor level.
Got to say, the man can still put on on a great show. Glad your wife enjoyed the night as well.
I hope Giles returns to Boro. He loved his time here and be guaranteed a first team place
I have never liked Leicester because of a certain controversial and irritating supporter of theirs Gary Lineker.. His comment's with reference to the Jews made me feel sick. I have visited ,Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps three times. The horror what happened there is totally horrifying. Especially any child under 14 were sent to the gas Chambers as soon as they got of the train. Sorry this is off topic bit Linekers words were abhorrent.
@Malcolm I don't like Leicester for a different reason. Years ago when we played them in the Cup at Ayresome Park I was working in the old half-time scoreboard and some of their supporters were underneath on the bob-end terrace next to the boys end. They called us Second Division rubbish and what a waste of time coming up here to this s--- h---.
Well, welcome to the new 'second division' Leicester. We do know how to hold a grudge on Teesside.
UTB,
John
@exmil - (And Malcolm?) I agree that I'm content to hear very little about potential transfers until the player's signature is on the contract and the deal is done. Too many times in the past we have heard that the Boro is "interested in Player X" or that a bid has been made for his signature, only later to hear that other clubs have come in and gazumped Boro.
I mean, if you have the money, it would be a smart way for SOME clubs to do business. Let some other club do the scouting of players and your club only gets involved when it is clear the parent club is prepared to sell and the player is willing to make a move, and when it comes down to the bidding. Imagine in some dystopian world where you have managed to hack into Brighton & Hove Albion's communications networks. They seem to come up with players that don't cost THAT much, can certainly "do a job" and are likely to massively increase their value after a season or so in England. IF, we had the money though, IF....
I hope Giles returns to Boro. He loved his time here and be guaranteed a first team place
I have never liked Leicester because of a certain controversial and irritating supporter of theirs Gary Lineker.. His comment's with reference to the Jews made me feel sick. I have visited ,Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps three times. The horror what happened there is totally horrifying. Especially any child under 14 were sent to the gas Chambers as soon as they got of the train. Sorry this is off topic bit Linekers words were abhorrent.
I really can’t agree with your comments about GL. He strikes me as a thoroughly decent human being. I don’t recall him making any anti semitic comments - perhaps you could post a link to enlighten me.
@martin-bellamy we will have to agree to disagree but here one many links....www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/gary-lineker-tweet-immigrants-bbc-b2297244
Martin Bellamy, none of the links seem to work. But you have must seen the furore over the comments he made. They were all on th TV stations and newspapers. I'm certainly not on the the same wavelengths are you are So we will leave it that
Goodbye.
@malcolm I assume you mean this Tweet: “There is no huge influx. We take far fewer refugees than other major European countries. This is just an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people in language that is not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the 30s, and I’m out of order?”
You find those words “abhorrent“? You equate those words with a denigration or comparison with the Holocaust? Perhaps you could explain why. His words were a criticism of our government and its actions over the handling of immigrants fleeing persecution, not making equivalence with the Jewish pogrom. I wholeheartedly support his views on the cruel actions of Braverman and her colleagues and decry this Tory government for what they’re doing.
I too have been to Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was a sobering place to visit and I certainly wouldn’t go back. My father was a POW in WW2 but made it out alive. Were he still alive he wouldn’t believe what’s happening in his country right now. He didn’t sign up to fight in the expectation of the xenophobia now present in our population, whipped up by small minded dishonest politicians and the gutter press.
Hi Martin, we are both humans with a life to lead as best as we can. No one knows how long we have to live. I'm now 76 and take each day as it comes.So we shall draw a truce and concentrate on MFC on this blog. Cheers
Hi Martin, we are both humans with a life to lead as best as we can. No one knows how long we have to live. I'm now 76 and take each day as it comes.So we shall draw a truce and concentrate on MFC on this blog. Cheers
I wish you no harm Malcolm, but I’ll always challenge opinions with which I don’t agree. Keep well and UTB.
I think this was the link you tried to post in reference to the Gary Lineker Tweet that caused the storm at the BBC (the last three numbers in the link were missing).
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-64901182
It is in fact a counter-claim by Suella Braverman that his view that the language the government was using was similar to that used in 1930s Germany - she essentially deflects his argument by branding his attack as "diminishes the unspeakable tragedy" of the Holocaust.
Not the point he was trying to make and an example of how some politicians use the media to turn public opinion on their critics. I think it would therefore be wrong to brand Gary Linker as someone who was trying to diminish the Holocaust - indeed, he was actually warning against using similar language to vilify a group of people who were forced into desperate measures to escape a life of persecution.
While the true villains are the people who profit from the misery of those seeking refuge and the unimaginable tragedy of the fishing boat packed with asylum seekers that sank off Greece with around 500 women and children drowned when they were locked in the hold (apparently for their own safety) and had no chance of escaping an unimaginable horrible death in a sinking boat.
Make no mistake, those who travel thousands of miles and get on board unseaworthy boats are desperate people in search of a safer life from where they have come. If they'd had a safe official option they would no doubt take it but in the vast majority of cases none has been provided by governments in the West. The politics of stopping the boats is leading to blaming the victims and has attempted to turn public opinion against them - along with those who try to put their case.
Incidentally, my parents are regular Daily Mail readers who have also turned against Gary Lineker for his views - my worry is that it's far too easy for those in power to deflect criticism and use their friends in the media to try and unfairly label those who don't agree as enemies of the people. It's a dangerous divisive game that has become all too common in many countries and not just the UK.
I'd like to think everyone can just ponder on issues and distinguish the moral right from the wrong and try to see the whole picture and think whether their government is doing all it can to help those most in need of it.
That is a great addition to the discussion. Thank you for that.
Being on the west coast of Canada and not following UK politics too closely these days (we have enough to deal with on this side of the Atlantic), I didn't pay much attention to that issue.
i totally agree with you. Garry Lineker may have perhaps misunderstood the resonance of what he was saying but I in no way interpret that as an anti-Semitic stance.
if anyone wants to hear an excellent discussion with GL, I advise them to seek out the excellent The Rest Is Politics podcast and look for their ‘Leading’ interview with GL. Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell run this podcast.
Hear, hear. I wholeheartedly agree with every word you wrote.
Very eloquently put Werder.
GL never once mentioned Nazis or the holocaust. All he did was to draw a parallel in the tone of the language being used by [some] politicians and [some of] those in the media today with those in Germany in the 1930s. In other words, if we are not careful there is a slippery slope that awaits and not that we have already slipped that far. That it was Braverman who turned Lineker's words into an untruthful allegation he had likened her words and deeds to those of some of the most awful words and actual deeds of the Nazi Party is much more telling about her's and her cohorts' opinions than it is of Gary Lineker's, who I also believe to be an honourable and decent man.
One thing we should all know by this stage in our lives is that you have to read everything you do in any newspaper with some healthy sceptism and understanding that there is an agenda behind every single column inch.
This is my last contribution to the debate about what Gary Lineker tweeted. Actually, it is not really my contribution, but a link to a long thread on Twitter posted by German-British historian Professor Tanja Bueltmann. I recommend reading the full thread.
https://twitter.com/TanjaBueltmann/status/1633445311103262721?t=q7EOIlKBvo7ai3aOhzS72Q&s=01
Latest report/rumour regarding potential recruitment:
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