DangerousSausage

What's the score, Denis Law?

Stoke City 0-1 Coventry City
Wrexham 1-0 Charlton Athletic
Doncaster Rovers 1-2 Barnsley
Exeter City 1-1 Wigan Athletic
Bristol Rovers 0-1 Gillingham
Harrogate Town 0-1 Oldham Athletic
Morecambe 2-2 Sutton United
Truro City 0-1 Altrincham

Congrats to this round's big scorers, @Blake and @Dan! At the other end, a few of us scored nul points...

So @magpiejue retains top spot ahead of @4everapie, while @ARLukomski moves into the top three and our two biggest scorers making big jumps into the top six...

So that's us up to date again. I've already posted the fixtures for round 16, which is on Saturday, so have a go if you haven't already! Thanks for playing everyone!

It's a "meh" from me. I don't really see the point of it, but if people like it, good for them.

I like the idea of using the single magpie as a motif, it's just a shame we didn't do it for the away shirt so it could actually be seen during matches.

Saturday is once again prediction league day - you know what to do! All the matches kick off at 3pm (or 3:03 pm in the case of the Vauxhall Conference, something about having three promotion spots - outrageous cheek) and you get one joker each. Good luck!

Burton Albion v Blackpool

Luton Town v Rotherham United

Accrington Stanley v Bristol Rovers

Cambridge United v Barnet

Grimsby Town v Chesterfield

Braintree Town v Truro City

Hartlepool United v Wealdstone

Woking v Boston United

Thanks for your entries everyone! I've been on my travels this week so I'm late with the scores, but I'll post them in a day or two. In the meantime, I'll post Saturday's round...

Better safe than sorry @Fan of Big Tone, hope you got sorted. I'm going to have to see the doctor yet again about my swollen mouth which is showing no signs of improvement. This will be my fourth doctor now - hopefully this one will take me seriously. The first one actually searched my symptoms on Google while I sat in the room with him.

I got back from the U of K yesterday and will be back for Christmas now. I didn't get to see Notts this time but I'm at least armed with a new home shirt (the first one since the sponsorless 17/18 shirt).

On 10/11/2025 at 17:52, Chris said:

The only other thing I have been doing is loading Championship Manager 1998 in DOSBox and playing it as I go about doing stuff.

I might give DOSBox a try (I always fancied Sensible Soccer, and I miss football games). I've got Football Manager 2006 and have played it half to death. The latest versions don't really appeal to me as I think it's become too complex.

Our form is even more impressive when you consider how poorly we started the season, with one point from our first three games and MP not having a clue what his best team was. The quality of football we play is still up and down at times, but the new additions look integrated in the team now and the results speak for themselves.

Stoke City 1-1 Coventry City

Wrexham 2-1 Charlton Athletic

Doncaster Rovers 0-0 Barnsley (joker)

Exeter City 2-0 Wigan Athletic

Bristol Rovers 2-0 Gillingham

Harrogate Town 1-0 Oldham Athletic

Morecambe 1-1 Sutton United

Truro City 2-1 Altrincham

I think cavemen were highly organised @Chris, they probably had a rota for hunting wooly mammoths and everything.

I'm in the UK visiting family and friends for a few days. I'll be missing out on football, but this time there are other priorities. Hopefully I'll finally make it back next time.

Time to dust off the crystal ball again! These all kick off at 3pm on Saturday - don't forget your joker!

Stoke City v Coventry City

Wrexham v Charlton Athletic

Doncaster Rovers v Barnsley

Exeter City v Wigan Athletic

Bristol Rovers v Gillingham

Harrogate Town v Oldham Athletic

Morecambe v Sutton United

Truro City v Altrincham

Interesting comments here. If Traore really is one of our two biggest investments then wow. But do we really know who he was referring to? I would have thought that a certain player whose name rhymes with Harry Potter would be more likely as he's completely vanished from the first team picture. But regardless of that, it's a highly negative thing to say - the door should be closed on a player when he leaves and not before. Telling someone he won't be given a chance regardless of how hard he tries is hugely counterproductive.

I really don't care about this competition and I feel it's demeaning for us as a professional club to play an academy team, but it's still important to keep the good form and the good vibes going. They've evaporated a bit despite our good recent league form.

I remember standing so close to the fire that I could feel my skin going crispy. In hindsight probably not that healthy...

I miss bonfire night, maybe I'll have a fire in my garden next year (in a fire pit that is, I'm not setting my shed alight).

It felt like an accident waiting to happen and so it proved. We created about three chances in 120 minutes against a part-time team. After the lead we completely handed the initiative to the home side and never got it back.

We missed Palmer badly; if he's fit, he should be playing (with the exception of tomorrow's silly cup game against Man United under 12s). But I do have some sympathy with MP here - you should be able to rest a single player without everything collapsing like a pack of cards. Especially as the replacement was the experienced Ollie Norburn, who was about a close as we came to a marquee signing this summer. And the less said about the Sunday League-esque performance of our goalkeeper the better.

I don't agree with some of the comments about the referee, I thought he got all the big calls spot on - their number 11 had been offside and was interfering in play for the offside goal, Grant was tripped for our penalty (this was more visible from one side than the other) and Norburn obviously handled the ball for their penalty. The fake outrage by the commentary team irritated me and was disrespectful towards officials who did their job well.

The better team on the day progressed, we've got to get back into our rhythm and forget this quickly.

The results:

Blackburn Rovers 2-1 Southampton
Millwall 1-0 Leicester City
Barnsley 0-1 Rotherham United
Reading 1-1 Doncaster Rovers
Barrow 2-2 Barnet
Harrogate Town 0-3 Newport County
Forest Green Rovers 2-1 Boreham Wood
Hartlepool United 2-0 Solihull Moors

Congrats to @william1984, who wins this round! And I must confess I'm a little mardy - I pored over all the form tables for this week's predictions, and then @Hi Humans ツ comes along, just makes up some numbers and scores higher than me!

In our leaderboard, @magpiejue moves back to the top with @4everapie and @Robbie just a few points behind.

As our FA Cup run will be taking place this weekend, we'll now have a little break - the next round is on the following Saturday, 8 November, with the fixtures posted a few days before as usual. Thanks for playing!

It's a bit of a meaningless statement this early in the season. Barnet would have been in the top seven if they'd beaten us. But we beat them, so they're not. (I know, insert comment about aunties and uncles here.)

What counts is the ability to decide the really tight games in our favour, and we've struggled to do that for years. Even in the NL days, I'm convinced that if we'd beaten Wrexham at the Racecourse Ground, we'd have been spared the play-offs. It's a habit that has held us back since too, and a couple of "statement wins" as @theAnticlough puts it would really breed confidence that it could be our year.

Enjoy the rest of your trip @Fan of Big Tone! You're coming back at just the right time though in my opinion - the nights are getting darker and there's a bite in the air. You can't beat this time of year.

I've been a bit elusive yesterday as I haven't been well; a few weeks ago my mouth swelled up and I was sporting the full botox look for a few days. The Hollywood lips are more or less gone now but I still don't know what caused it.

At the weekend I'd recovered enough to go to a concert, the German pagan folk band Faun in Offenbach near Frankfurt. Their songs are based on folklore and some are even in English (albeit not always modern English). Give them a listen if you fancy something different!

Not a good move by the club - the original announcement was tin-eared. At least they've responded to the criticism, though it's unclear what will ultimately come of it. We could possibly get around it by calling it the "Haydn Green Stand sponsored by Green Shift Energy" if the sponsors agree to that.

I hate the trend of naming everything in football after sponsors. Some years ago I knew what every ground was called, now it's just an ever-changing roll call of sponsors. It's even worse for those grounds that have only ever been named after a sponsor as they don't even have a traditional name to fall back on.

But money talks. A while back I saw a list of stadium sponsorship agreements for German third division clubs, and every single one of them was in seven figures (bar a couple of clubs without sponsorship deals, and one in particular that gave away permanent naming rights in the early 90s in return for a scoreboard, which then broke). Sponsors in the UK aren't as generous, but there's lot of money to be made. And the fuss about the Haydn Green Stand shows that it might even be less controversial to sponsor the whole ground as it isn't named after someone.

Blackburn Rovers 1-1 Southampton

Millwall 2-0 Leicester City

Barnsley 2-1 Rotherham United

Reading 2-0 Doncaster Rovers (joker)

Barrow 0-1 Barnet

Harrogate Town 2-1 Newport County

Forest Green Rovers 1-1 Boreham Wood

Hartlepool United 1-1 Solihull Moors

Fun fact: I'm going to a concert on Saturday and a member of the band I'm seeing does tarot readings. Unfortunately it starts after these matches have finished, so I can't cheat by asking her the results. All of these matches kick off at 3pm on Saturday - predict them using conventional means (i.e. guessing) and remember your joker!

Blackburn Rovers v Southampton

Millwall v Leicester City

Barnsley v Rotherham United

Reading v Doncaster Rovers

Barrow v Barnet

Harrogate Town v Newport County

Forest Green Rovers v Boreham Wood

Hartlepool United v Solihull Moors

It's a shame we couldn't hold on (the first Swindon goal in particular was soft), but I think that's a decent result to cap a very good few days' work.

I was thinking about where we must be in the form table, given the poor start we had and the way we've recovered since.

Call me cynical, but when I hear about vilage teams winning the league, my first thought it that they've been financially doped. If that's not the case, this is an amazing achievement.

The results are in...

Birmingham City 2-3 Hull City
West Bromwich Albion 2-1 Preston North End
Blackpool 1-1 Wycombe Wanderers
Doncaster Rovers 1-2 Northampton Town
Grimsby Town 1-0 Gillingham
Newport County 0-2 Cheltenham Town
Altrincham 1-3 Woking
Brackley Town 0-0 Gateshead

A few of you posted your predictions in the thread for round 11. Luckily they were the correct fixtures so I was able to count them! But do it again and I'll dock you all one million points 😉

Here are the scores for this round. Congrats to @Sir Magpie, who won't be propping the table up for long on this evidence...

Overall, @JustLikeJuve and @magpiejue now share the top spot a point ahead of @Robbie.

The next fixtures are on Saturday, so I'll post them at some point tomorrow. Have a good week!

I missed the first half on Saturday, but looking at the chances Barnet had it looks like we rode our luck a bit. I was pleased with our fighting qualities in the second half though - if the footbally part isn't quite coming off, you've still got to hang in there and give yourself a chance. And given some of the options we have on the bench, there's always the chance of a late winner.

I agree about McDonald too, I think he was underrated last season but this season he's made the shirt his own. And players forcing their way into the first team picture is exactly what you want - it shows the rest of the squad that the first 11 are staring on merit and that they too will get that chance if they perform well enough.

He'd done well with them up to this season, but he's such a volatile character it's always seemed inevitable that it'll turn sour. There's a non-zero chance of us meeting them in League One in a couple of years.

This is last week's thread. Please post your predictions here!

To everyone: THIS is the thread for this week's prediction league; several of you have posted in last week's thread, which is now locked. Luckily, you seem to have posted this round's fixtures in the other thread, so I can count them and you don't need to post again. If any more of you have predictions, you can post them here before 3pm as usual. Thanks @Robbie for bringing this to my attention.

Here are mine:

Birmingham City 2-1 Hull City

West Bromwich Albion 1-1 Preston North End

Blackpool 0-1 Wycombe Wanderers

Doncaster Rovers 0-1 Northampton Town (joker)

Grimsby Town 2-1 Gillingham

Newport County 1-0 Cheltenham Town

Altrincham 1-1 Woking

Brackley Town 1-1 Gateshead