Danny Morrison

So it will be universal across Scottish grounds to hold a minute’s applause for Mandela – a man with unashamed links to Sinn Fein and the IRA – and yet there are clubs in Scotland who can’t even hold a tribute for the actual war dead of their country!? Pathetic.

This is illegal. The IP address of this guy should be handed over to the polis.

Well it's strange to hate the English national team but support English club sides.The hatred for England football team in the Republic is quite extreme.

Lemon and Fartson are bigots.

None.

LOL! Best thread ever

Personally I'd like to see the Irish tricolour.

I don’t rate McGeady either An average player who runs with his head down.

Being serious. I don't think they'll get a point.

It’s a false analogy though. The UVF or Ulster Volunteers of the early 20th century were not a terrorist organisation. The IRA from every period have been engaged in what most people would call politics designed to terrorise or torture. The suggestion that the IRA from the early 20th century was some kind of decent benevolent force is just ludicrous. Not only did the old IRA target Protestants on a relentless basis, they also targeted many Catholics. They shot Catholics who didn’t agree with them, as they were leaving mass.

And what difference would that make? The so called old IRA waged an ethnic cleansing campaign against Protestants in Cork. The old IRA were just as bad if not worse than the Provos. They killed over 2500 innocent people between 1916 until 1925.

5M

Thought it was quite funny myself

Here are the clues... What We Know from the article on 10 September: Confirmation of what we knew from Feb 5th, that he grew up on a council estate, adding this time that it was a ‘multicultural’ one. TSF is white because he talks of the first time he was confronted with racism and it being towards his friends with whom he’d grown up with on a mutlicultural council estate. He has a good friend who is an African player that played in Russia. What We Know from the article on 3 September: Very little. What We Know from the article on 27 August: He once successfully completed a transfer on deadline day. What We Know from the article on 20 August: He has played for a newly promoted Premier League club. What We Know from the article on 13 August: He had an ‘above average’ first season as a professional and he has been dropped for a season opener. What We Know from the article on 21 May: He has been involved in a last day relegation battle. The manager at the time “sat (the players) down to watch a montage of their best pieces from the season”. It is known that Roy Hodgson has adopted this technique. What We Know from the article on 14 May: Diddly-squat What We Know from the article on 7 May: He thinks Howard Webb is the best ref. Thinks Rob Styles was an awful ref. Nothing near to a big clue this week though. What We Know from the article on 30 Apr: He played with Paolo Di Canio: “I played with a foreign player who was a master at winning free-kicks after minimal contact. Our manager loved him and would say to us: “You all need to be more streetwise like Paolo” “ What We Know from the article on 23 Apr: “So what can we conclude from all of this? A couple of things: that my daughter will be told to stay away from footballers” – TSF has a daughter What We Know from the article on 16 Apr: Confirmation that he’s played for a few clubs and also that he has suffered with confidence in the past. Not CR7 then. What We Know from the article on 9 Apr: TSF “once won a free-kick playing at Old Trafford and a Manchester United player brought the ball over to the spot where it was to be taken from and handed it to the referee.” – Almost certainly not a goalkeeper. “My wife told me that last week two girls no older than 13 or 14 were shouting the F-word at anybody who came near them…” – He’s currently married. “…Apparently I came in for a particularly vicious barrage after miscontrolling a pass” - he played a match at some point towards the end of March/beginning of April 2011. “I still grew up to be a footballer and, may I say, a fairly well-adjusted one, and that is because of my upbringing and the values that were instilled in me. My dad preferred to scholar me on the game rather than stick a finger up at the opposition’s striker after he scored.” – He had a strong father figure What We Know from the article on 2 Apr: He played with a group of French players at one club and ‘whenever they spoke in French around the training ground one of the English lads would shout: “English only, please.”‘ He played with “a striker who refused to move unless the pass went exactly where he wanted it” – Di Canio? Hasslebaink? Anelka? Berbatov? …? What We Know from the article on 26 Mar: As the article begins, Rudyard Kipling is a hero of TSF “If Capello had stayed put on the continent and the FA was today casting its net for a tough, no nonsense and successful manager, I’d have said they needed the Italian to steer the ship for us.” – Referring to England as us, TSF is English. What We Know from the article on 19 Mar: Not a lot to report here. You could read in to the fact he has played for a club with a gambling culture and look to find evidence of this. But I would have thought there are many more clubs with a gambling culture than is common knowledge. What We Know from the article on 12 Mar: He’s not gay, so that rules out … no one. What We Know from the article on 5 Mar: Very little on offer here. Just confirmation that he’s an older player, which we already know. What We Know from the article on 26 Feb: “I have seen defenders hold people off for at least 15 yards just to win a goal-kick. Anywhere else on the pitch it would be a foul.” – Suggests he’s not a defender. What We Know from the article on 19 Feb: “I’ve played for great managers, and I’ve also played for one or two where I would happily have faked my own death if it meant not working with them a minute longer” – Suggests he’s played under at least 4 managers. Talking about a manager losing the dressing room: “At one club I played for, it was because of a shared belief that our tactics were flawed, that this was making us look like poor players and, in turn, lose matches.” – So he played for a team whose manager ‘lost the dressing room’. “A friend of mine recently told me his team lacked any clear direction or ambition and, as a result, problems came about which had not been addressed. He said things got so bad that a group of players even began to raise the possibility that it could be a deliberate ploy by the manager to get himself sacked.” – Given that he states this was ‘recent’ it would seem this is reference to Roy Hodgson at Liverpool. If so he has a friend who plays for Liverpool. Talking about the manager who still wanted to be a player: “…despite the fact that he knew I had a long-term girlfriend” – had a ‘long term girlfriend’ as a younger player. “I had been playing for the manager in question for a long time … a man who had all the answers and knew what was best, a man who I looked up to as a god of the game … it was a misjudgment by him to seek help from me, and it showed him up as a man who, at the time, was troubled” – Played for one manager for a long time who was seen as a great before ‘losing it’ …at a time when The Secret Footballer was becoming a senior player. “It turned out that, unlike Redknapp, he was not the Messiah” – He thinks Harry Redknapp is the Messiah! What We Know from the article on 12 Feb: “I remember being in talks for a move from one Premier League club to another” – goes on to say he made the move. So he has had a transfer between 2 Premier League clubs. What We Know from the article on 5 Feb: “…when I think back to when I was kicking a flat ball around a council estate with holes in my Nike hand-me-downs” – For at least part of his childhood he was brought up on a council estate …well it rules out a few i suppose. “To let you into my mind, when I find myself the subject of a transfer and subsequent contract negotiations” – A player that has completed at least one transfer (i.e. not a Ryan Giggs!) What We Know from the article on 29 Jan: “What if Sky Sports offered me Andy Gray’s job? Not a chance.” – Not a fan of punditry, thus unlikely to be a player who appears as a pundit. What We Know from the article on 22 Jan: “There’s a striking clause in my Premier League contract” – Seems to be talking in the present tense so we can pretty much assume he is a current Premier League player. But there is possibly a chance he still has a Premier League contract despite playing elsewhere.

If it is because this was a third division side, then expect another few embarrassments this season. We are not going to go the entire fixture calendar without dropping points. No team goes through an entire season winning every single game.

No doubt we’ll have threads like this every team there is an odd hiccup this season. It was the first game of the season. Of course, we were never going to win every game. I don’t know where that notion came from. We’re playing in some horrendous little pitches, where anything and everything is possible. If you put Barca in the 3rd division of Spain, they wouldn’t win every game either.

They're out.

How can you support more than one team? Mines is Shamrock Rovers BTWW

Should be reported to the police.

LOL @ his face

He’s filling in for Christine McVie. Hasn’t been the same since she left.

A lot of short-sightedness in this thread. I can see him being a great signing.

I don't get it... What has PLG got to do with anything? And why would it offend Ally?

She's horrid. What is that thing on her head?

I'd rather lowest tier of English football than the SPL.