Posted by: @andy-r

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Count me in Andy, but with a couple of caveats. I will be under the knife again myself in early August, so please don't allocate any games to me until maybe the last week in August. Also I will be unavailable for practically the entire month of October, on tour in France.

I am available for a few matches. I would prefer teams that I have not written about earlier.

Up the Boro!

Andy

I'm a bit of a sick note myself at the moment, but I will try and pick up any matches going spare as and when they occur. If we get stuck it might be fun to follow the local journos and ask AI to do a few. And if you ask it to preview a particular  Boro game in the style of say Enid Blyton or Harold Pinter it will produce something amusing and maybe even surprising.

Count me in. 

I might even give Len’s suggestion a go. My eldest has set up a Boro news column using AI which is often quite good but also makes some strange mistakes. Updating this towards a particular match should be possible but I don’t promise anything. 

UTB

Thanks Andy, I’m good for previews - though got back from holiday and discovered my laptop’s ssd (hard disk) had a rating of bad and life expectancy of 0% - which even the most optimistic would deem not good. 

Anyway, posting on my iPhone (which is slow to type) but new disk should arrive tomorrow after spending the last few days backing up and preparing for installing a new disk - I will set up a new 2026-27 board once it’s back in business

btw AI google is panicking and keeps telling me to turn the laptop off before it seizes up but often changes its mind depending on my responses - I find it’s helpful but the ultimate echo chamber on IT matters and also prone to diagnosing me with any number of exotic illnesses…

Count me in as usual, Andy. I have two requests: 

a) If possible, like Jarkko, I’d like to cover sides I haven’t previewed in the last two seasons, if at all possible. But it’s not absolutely essential, if needs must.

b) I could probably do the preview for the season opener v Lincoln. After that, if my eye recovers sufficiently from my retina op I’ll be in the USA from 24 August to 5th, so  I won’t able to contribute until our away game v Birmingham on 19 September.

Cheers

If you can all put up with my tedious ramblings, I’m happy to contribute a few starters. I don’t necessarily need the Preston games, as I can ask PNE Dave for his thoughts and add them as a post below the starter. 

@martin-bellamy 

Tedious ramblings, Martin? Absolutely not! The stuff you write is brilliant! 

@clive-hurren That’s very kind, Clive. Thank you. I think all contributors do a remarkable job of producing quality previews - it’s astonishing really, the depth of skill and knowledge on this Forum.

Just to let you know that I've now successfully cloned my soon to be deceased hard drive and replaced it with a new one  - which means I've now been able to created the new 2026-27 Forum and moved this Preview Writers Roster post into it - it also means any new threads can be made in this 2026-27 Forum.

btw Felt a bit odd typing 2027 given it's still only July - I've got other preseason tasks to undertake on Diasboro and some tidying up for last season too in the coming weeks - so good to get my laptop up and running again.

Although, I'm planning a upgrade to Windows 11 today after adding some extra memory to my ageing laptop - which will hopefully be coaxed through another season.

Incidentally, I'm beginning to appreciated the merits of AI support as it does speed up solving problems rather than trawling through IT forums and sites - if you know the right follow-up question to ask it is extremely efficient. I would say these AI tools are kind of knowledge without wisdom or experience at the moment where the user is basically training it to be better.

Maybe users are essentially unwittingly building a future where they are no longer needed...

Just to add - after adding the new 2026-27 Forum, I also needed to include this forum in the Recent Posts list - otherwise any posts made in this forum are not shown. Usually a simple click of a tickbox  but on this occasion it failed when updating and created a obscure terse error message.

Googling the error provided endless posts with checklists to work through that seemed rather time-consuming and a scattergun approach. I turned again to my trusty AI assistant and whilst it proved quite problematic to solve - it eventually found a solution by giving me some code to place in a particular file to revert to an older Wordpress tool and a plugin to install to clear the Wordpress site's memory cache. Would never have been able to solve that, let alone relatively quickly by just googling sites and ploughing through possible solutions!

Thanks, yet again, Werder for all of your behind-the-scenes work on our behalf. This is from an appreciative ignoramus who understood scarcely a word of your last two posts

@werdermouth 

I’d like to echo Len’s words, firstly to thank you again for all the magnificent and entirely voluntary work you do on our behalf, and to admire your perseverance with the problem, and secondly to say that I too grasped very little of your technical explanations! Frankly, I wouldn’t have a clue: if it didn’t work when I’d switched it off and back on again, I’d probably just give up, or send an SOS to one of my grandsons! It is really good to have someone with your expertise to look after and provide for us older codgers! 

@clive-hurren 

Thanks Clive (and Len) but I do quite enjoy solving technical problems and learning a few tricks. Anyway, I’m sure we have some young codgers too…

I think I might just have time to do some this season!

Hello Andy I will give it a go if there is space on your list.

I see Len suggests AI may help but I doubt if artificial insemination will produce new writers quickly enough for the kick off of the season.

UTB

Chris

Thanks everyone - much appreciate the responses.

Aiming to put it together today or tomorrow so if there’s any more for any more, please shout up now.

Thanks for doing this for all of us, Andy.

I have said I will contribute whenever I can, but that isn't very helpful to you, so if you put me down for 4 or 5, I'll commit to them, but may have to opt out if they clash with my increasingly frequent medical procedures.

As with others, I'd prefer to cover teams i've not written about before, but since this adds an extra layer of work for you, I'd be happy to take pot luck

Posted by: @lenmasterman

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Thanks for doing this for all of us, Andy.

I have said I will contribute whenever I can, but that isn't very helpful to you, so if you put me down for 4 or 5, I'll commit to them, but may have to opt out if they clash with my increasingly frequent medical procedures.

As with others, I'd prefer to cover teams i've not written about before, but since this adds an extra layer of work for you, I'd be happy to take pot luck

Don't worry about it, Len - I think we have enough so that it's only 5 or so matches for each anyway. We'll keep you in reserve for our long cup runs this coming season!

Thanks again to everyone who has volunteered to be a preview writer this season, and welcome aboard the roster to Chris from Barlby.

We had eight who said they would be happy, plus myself and Len who thought we might be able to do a few, whilst I’m sure the ever-present OFB will be willing to pick up a game or two once he’s back on his feet.

To help with the numbers and lightening the burden I’ve put myself back into the regular rotation to give us a team of nine, whilst there might be some other cup games to be picked up along the way.

I’ve assigned the matches randomly but then tweaked it to accommodate a couple of requests and (hopefully) ensure no-one has the same opponent twice or a preview they covered last season.

If I missed anyone or made a mistake, please shout up – I’m around today and tomorrow before disappearing for a few weeks.

Thanks again, everyone.

2026/27 Preview Writers Roster

@andy-r  and everybody 

Thanks very much for the rota, Andy. 

As I might be in the US until 4th September if my eye recovers enough in time, I might therefore not be able to do the starter for QPR on 5th. Would anybody be willing to swop this one with me? 

I could do any of the following: 

@clive-hurren 

Apologies, Clive, I completely misread your earlier comment and avoided the 19th Sept for you, which on reflection wasn’t what you asked for at all!

Brain fade.

@clive-hurren 

Under normal circumstances, that's the kind of situation where I would be happy to step in, but I'm tied up with other issues that week. But do keep me in mind for future situations of this kind, Andy.

Thanks Andy and enjoy your holiday - and thanks for giving my the opening league game at home to a newly promoted team - a chance to get my first win perhaps 😉 

@andy-r That’s all good for me. I’ll stick those games in my calendar. The Burnley game is 4 days before we fly to Oslo and embark on two weeks of a rail powered holiday, taking in Norway, Denmark, Germany and Belgium, but I should be able to fit a starter in ok. 

@andy-r 

It’s noted due heart op in September so hopefully will be able to pick up a cup match by the time the fixtures are declared !

looking forward to reading them all 

OFB

@andy-r 

I just realised that my first preview is for the league cup game next weekend. Gulp.

Not sure how the club is viewing this match but I’ll get my skates on and aim to use this fixture as an intro to the season. I hope to post on Monday or Tuesday.

UTB

@original-fat-bob 

Good look with op in September OFB and hope you'll be back to old self soon and fit for the season!