Chris

Don Masson is undeniably a Notts County legend, just like Tommy Lawton, I would argue. I have heard many stories about Lawton, and I think we can consider ourselves lucky that we have had so many great players at Notts. There's probably no such thing as the greatest, but greats instead.

Life is always more difficult than it appears via text and screen, I know this has been troubling you for some time. I am also aware that you have an incredible passion for your content and talking about Notts, this is something you do well and put across your knowledge productively. You can develop burnouts from the demand, I did with Meet the Fans and much of the video content I used to do, but I would be lying if I didn't say I missed it. You've done right by putting yourself first at times, but as I have mentioned, it's only you who can decide about your channel's fate. Taking a hiatus for a season wouldn't be a bad thing, the majority of fans would still be there when you return and a break could do you wonders. You might feel the urge to continue vlogging with the promise of this upcoming season and there will always be disappointment one way or another. If Notts ends up having a good season, and you vlog - you will have documented it through the eyes of a fan. If you didn't, it may add to your regrets. Neither really matters because it's how you feel which comes first. I'm speaking from experience when I say taking time away from something you care immensely about can be overwhelming, I have had low points and I regret battling through them without taking time to myself. Likewise, there have been times when I did take time and coming back felt much harder than going. I have mentioned how @GrannyPie had kept encouraging me to return to PON's social media. It felt difficult, as if I had to give answers, I really didn't. The issue is, what prompted my return wasn't right for me in the end. I needed to take further time off, including the site, just to re-find myself. This isn't about me, however, I can draw comparisons and the point I am trying to make is you need to trust your own judgement. You were pretty timid and reserved when I first met you, but I have seen you grow in confidence and flourish as a person. I know you have had many challenging moments, that's just what life throws at us. You will always be the same person, with or without your YouTube channel. I meant what I said to you yesterday, I am always a message away, and you have never been a burden on me. I think you may want to take some time to think things over, maybe consider delaying your return to vlogging but only if it's unnecessary stress to you. Just remember the positives you get and outweigh things with how you feel. Your friends will still be there for you, just as I will be.

You make a valid point about Junior Morias. He had some time and performed decently, but he was frequently reported as injured or carrying a knock. When we were linked with Jatta, it appeared to be a move to potentially provide cover for Macaulay Langstaff and also to give him additional support up front. Morias seems to be a very fast player, so we now have players with different qualities.

I think some people think it's banter, but in fact it's sickening. I think these days, a lot of stuff which isn't "banter" gets given that title as an attempt to make it acceptable or to normalise it. I have been at games where I have heard these types of chants and comments. Ideally more banning orders would be given.

I also understand why some fans are unsure about Stuart Maynard, and I prefer to read rational thoughts like this. Certainly I feel Maynard has to win more fans over, but heading into this season we have the ability to forget the poor form of last season. I strongly believe that Luke Williams wouldn't have changed much. Our players were tired and much of the reasons why I feel Maynard suffered is outlined in the embedded post I made back in June. None of the current friendlies should concern anyone, as they are just training sessions against another team. I am hopeful that Notts can get off to a good start, then fans might see things are improving. The signings we have made should improve the defensive issues we saw last season, making us better going forward because we should attack with confidence. Maynard has a good squad, Notts has shown faith in him and I will personally review things at least 12 games into the season. The squad needs to adjust to the changes and all the new recruits need to settle in, so we might have a transitional period where results might not go our way. Ideally, we will see Maynard show more decisiveness during games. This is one area, I believe he could be better but with tired players and a weaker bench - it does limit what can be done. I am looking forward to the season ahead, I believe it should be a good one for us.

This sounds like a very unfortunate thing to have experienced, very harsh to have built up the excitement and then let you down @Wheelbarrow repair man. In this day and age, I doubt they would have got away with keeping quiet, plus any player worth their salt upon hearing about something like this no doubt would have tried to reach out. It's not right, and I can understand the disappointment leading to a very unhappy memory. Different scenario, but it reminded me of an experience I had when I was younger. My grandfather Ray, he would come round for Sunday dinner with my grandmother. Super would cook the dinner, and we would all eat in the living room. I have fond memories of this, looking out at the back of the front garden sitting on the sofa waiting to see his car park up. Every Sunday, he would bring a chocolate bar and a can of pop for me and my brother each. My Grandfather, loved Lilt, and he would often try to get me to drink it. I really wasn't a fan of the taste, but grew to love it. One of the chocolate bars he gave to me and my brother, it had the chance of winning various electrical devices. One of which was a state-of-art CD player. To my surprise, the bar I had taken upon opening the wrapper said I was a winner. I recall waiting ages to learn as to what and when I would receive my prize. I do remember, being told by my parents that they didn't have any more prizes or the item I had won wasn't something they could deliver on. I thought, we wouldn't see anything of it and I felt disappointed. Yet they did send out a CD player by Sony which was supposed to be worth a lot more than the one I would have won. It was our first CD player, my dad and mum has a massive collection of tapes and other older media formats. Yet CDs seemed such a futuristic step forward. I used to listen to my tape player often, but I hated rewinding and when the tape would get jammed. Sooner after getting the CD player, we as a family started obtaining more albums that we could play on it, my brother collected a magazine aimed to teach young people about classical music.

I can't tell if this is the building which is now @super_pie's college. I found this article searching: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-68167056 Looking at Street View, it does look to be the same building Jake goes to now. I know it used to be a night club, though I have never been into that. I don't like the night life scene, I don't see the enjoyment of it.

I have seen him play quite a few times, he looked really good against the likes of Nuneaton and Basford United. Very calm and wanting to take on players, looks to have good feet and nice passing. Some fans I know from Long Eaton said Ryley caught their eye playing for Long Eaton United. This type of youngster needs to be integrated more closely with the first team and given the chance to progress alongside them, if you play at a lower level - personally I think you become used to that standard, and it can lead to not adapting higher up. Whilst I encourage the club to give them some first team experience out on loan, I do think game time in our squad would better support their development.

Hello, welcome to the Pride of Nottingham @Mark Holland. I hope you enjoy being a part of our Notts County community.

Hello, welcome to the Pride of Nottingham @jake008. I hope you enjoy being a part of our Notts County community.

The only issue is this would lose a lot of revenue in the Champions League group stages. It would have a further impact on the broadcasting side, as they won't want to lose the potential coverage that the games offer. It would be good for the players, in principle. However, I think teams just need to be more aware of how frequent players are playing. Squads are usually large enough to make changes, which would reduce the fatigue caused by playing often. Yet, clubs and managers are more inclined to field their strongest squad, but from a development point of few making the odd change in games which aren't as crucial or where other fringe players could keep up, then the obvious answer would be not to over play first team players. The UEFA Nations League should have been introduced with the mindset that nations must only choose x senior players and enforce them to bring in newer talent. This has added more games but the answer to reduce fatigue is to make use of your full squad. For example, if Liverpool are playing a club considered smaller, would playing 3-4 of their fringe/younger players make much difference?

???? Ha! Almost a military drill. Losing team gets to do twenty press ups... ???? It's a good insight, some of which may be for the camera (not a negative) but it shows the strictness of the training process. All smiles and joking, it's good to see that the group of players are amongst each other. Though someone in the background looks to be struggling with heavy panting. We do need to try not to overdo things in the heat though, yet I am sure this is fully something the coaching team are aware off.

I don't think it's odd that Notts are continuing the U18s pre-season whilst the first team is away, the majority of first year scholars and young professionals are more often featured in the 'development squad' that arranges games between local clubs but isn't an official reserve team due to the costs involved. If any of the young players would be included in the U18s games, then it just opens the door to an academy player. Whilst it's very important that our young pros are playing in the pre-season friendly with the first team. That environment is massive for young talent. You won't get that experience playing Norwich's U18s or Fast Track Academy. Plus, it will give our fans the chance to get behind the academy, as only a portion would have gone to the German friendly.

I have merged matchday topic and with the match discussion has not to confuse members or have two separate topics on the same instance.

@super_ram: Your laughing reaction to my last post will make me declare war on you. Consider the game afoot.

I would be in the camp of wishing nothing like this would happen, because it would mess with the way scores have been handled for decades. Yet, by drawing, earning no points - theoretically would mean managers and players would push themselves more to win. It could have an impact that makes games more exciting because teams will want those points. ????

I don't have any plans, I do want to find the time to write some things for the site. One thing I am considering is a blog entry about the time I had away; thankfully, I have never felt I needed to address it. I also wouldn't want it to see like a big thing or that I was after sympathy, but I think it would be insightful for those who may have similar issues or just wondered why things were so quiet during that point. I did have a few Notts fans I know attempt to encourage me to pick up the social media side and site (who aren't members here). I'll reflect on this and make a draft to see if it does turn out to be worth sharing. Other than that, I want to go see @super_ram and catch up with other PON-related things.

This would have been perhaps one of the first things Notts would have done, under the Trew era which deserves credit for. There was some fantastic fan engagement, the opening days were always great fun. We don't seem to have this thought process these days, but open days do take a lot of planning, preparation and effort on the day. With fans travelling, it would give them some excitement going into the season and a nice way for the club to shake off some of the negative PR from the sale of Macaulay Langstaff. Allowing fans to watch the team train doesn't take much effort, plus is a very nice insight for those who would be able to make it.

Notts could have done a lovely PR move, for those travelling fans by allowing them to go watch the team train. I think a similar thing was done in the past when they toured, was it Iceland? The memory of Romello Nangle's extraordinary goal remains etched in my mind. The training ground and facilities do look nice.

No, PON doesn't run off a Windows based server. Only those systems have been affected by this worldwide outage. That person in the Sky interview clearly doesn't know much about technology. Asking if patches are being pushed out on purpose by the vendor shows a massive lack of understanding how quickly things can change within operating systems code. Most updates always include security patches, so cyber teams are often checking for vulnerabilities. It's these updates which keep systems safer, so it's not something that is done on purpose. If he doesn't know this, it's worrying that someone would speak on behalf of the global outage, because he comes across as utterly clueless. I do sometimes know these people do say daft things, just to spice up news reports, but this would further take creditability away. I would imagine the update had been tested within local environments and no issues had been detected. Whilst it shouldn't have happened, it's very easy for things to go wrong. Suggesting a small amount of code couldn't have such a significant impact, again shows a major lack of understanding of how things work. Sometimes things only occur when they're in a live environment, it sucks, but you have to accept that sometimes it's outside of control. At least it was acted upon quickly, and wasn't left for hours. As this is one of the biggest downfalls when things go wrong with code and operating systems. There are scenarios where debugging can take quite awhile. At least the issue was identified and quickly resolved.

I do hope Woking will be okay, it's horrible to see this continue, but it does show the importance of budgeting within your means. I don't wish to sound cruel, but if you own a club and constantly allow it to run at such a huge debt, surely you know at some point this is going to be an issue with your finances? Alan Hardy thought he was clever, but got bite and proved that he never had enough money for us - let alone Ilkeston Town. Whilst I'm not sure where Woking's debts come from, they could be historical to a point. Clubs must be aware of what they spend, trim as much as possible and look into avenues where they can generate additional income. Having an owner or board members with fairly deep pockets will only last for so long. It's Woking's fans I feel the most for.

@KingMaynard Would you please apply again? Unfortunately, you didn't agree to the rules/code of conduct. I hate to come across as picky, but it's very important that I only accept people who agree to it via the openings. I don't want to discourage you, and I realise you might have missed it, but unfortunately submissions can't be edited. They must be re-done, so if you choose to apply again and ensure to agree to these rules and code of conduct then I would be more than happy to take you up on your offer of help.

Two of the residents of the former care home I worked suffered from this. It's not a nice condition, made even worse if you catch it too late. The carers that assisted them with eating had to spend a considerable amount of time patiently feeding them. Although, it did become a contest between the laziest ones who just wanted to get away with helping others. My time working in the care home, I never felt depressed and I loved making a difference. Yet, it's a grim world. Being one of the cooks, I had to blitz down food for a number of residents and I always made sure to try it before giving it to them. If I didn't like the taste, I wouldn't. Fruit was commonly used to make things taste nicer.

A lot of the people I came across earlier probably don't live there, but it is an area in decline. As Bulwell is located near to Aspley, it is the most sensible choice for shopping. Either, at Morrisons or Tesco. Now, the CO-OP in Strelley is now an Asda I tend to avoid that. I would rather take things as they come, avoid rushing and give people personal space - instead of what it's like now.

Did the number of substitutions increase during COVID, allowing teams to make more than 5 changes? I mean temporarily. I seem to recall watching a few games where virtually the whole squad was coming off, but my memories are iffy, so this could have been a foreign game or something. That seemed excessive but 5 is about the right amount. I think anything higher, it just becomes a farce. Three subs has always seemed quite restrictive, whereas you can make 4 changes and reserve the 5th just in case of an injury. I would rather see tactical changes which are introduced by bringing on a different player, then to watch a match where teams are grinding out a 0-0. Much like coverage of a football match on The Simpsons. It gives managers a chance to change things and inject fresher legs, so personally I like how things are right now.