DangerousSausage

Colchester are where they are for a reason, but they've fought to avoid the drop and have won their last two. Earlier in the season they beat us 5-4 in one of those ridiculous games where we seemed completely in command yet kept gifting them a goal. Danny Cowley is their manager now, so expect aggressive pressing and long ball tactics. For the sake of the other teams at the bottom, we need to put in a professional display, play for pride and keep the hope of a place in the top half alive. If any of the players give it less than 100%, we could be in for an unpleasant afternoon.

Well I've pinned my hopes on an East Midlands rumpus in League One the season after next, so they'll have to stay put! I think they'll nail it though. If they get four points against almost-safe Cambridge and Carlisle, it won't matter what Posh or Bolton do. Three points would probably do it too. Say hello to our nearest and dearest next season!

We were on a bit of a hiding to nothing with Stockport needing a win to secure the title and us losing two of our best recent performers just before kick-off. But it's annoying all the same. To play the devil's advocate @menzinho, I think SM has realised that playing four at the back doesn't give this team any more stability defensively, but when we've played that way it has stunted us as an attacking threat. With Chicksen and Abebayo seemingly unavailable and Robertson probably not yet fully fit, the team pretty much picked itself. Which doesn't excuse some of the defending on display, of course. Langstaff should have put us in the lead, and until Baldwin's ridiculous slip it looked like we were going to give them a game. We looked shaken by the first goal and, like all good teams, Stockport were there to take advantage. Lady Luck deserted us for a bit with the penalty and the deflection, but at that stage the visitors were getting in so many attempts that more goals were inevitable. As they say in Germany, wipe your mouth and carry on.

The older posters remember it well And these are the kits worn in that first season: http://www.historicalkits.co.uk/English_Football_League/season/1888-89.htm

Congratulations to them and to our resident Stag @Dan. It was very clear they had what it takes when they gave us the runaround at the Lane earlier in the season, and they were probably due a shot at League One after all the time they've been away. Nigel Clough has been there a while now, and not every season under him has been glorious. Owners who are wiling to invest in the team tend to demand instant success, but Mansfield's seem to be different. Good for them. Now I'm pinning my hopes on a promotion campaign next season so we can have us, the Stags, Florist and Derby in the same division!

The time is coming ... get your predictions in by 3pm on Saturday and see how far up that table you can get. Oh, and remember your ! In an outrageous turn of events, I'm away on Saturday, but I will get your scores to you in plenty of time (even if they look more like a mobile screenshot than usual). Good luck! Stoke City v Plymouth Argyle Sunderland v Millwall Blackpool v Barnsley Charlton Athletic v Shrewsbury Town Cheltenham Town v Lincoln City Doncaster Rovers v Barrow Grimsby Town v Swindon Town Sutton United v Crawley Town

The results: Preston North End 0-1 Norwich City Sheffield Wednesday 1-1 Stoke City Bolton Wanderers 1-1 Portsmouth Oxford United 5-0 Peterborough United Harrogate Town 2-2 Sutton United Newport County 1-2 Tranmere Rovers Bromley 3-0 Solihull Moors York City 2-0 Woking --- This week's winner is... drum roll... @nottsnutter! @nottsnutter - 11 @DangerousSausage - 10 @4everapie, @super_ram - 8 @Dan, @william1984 - 7 @cheeky~k8, @Fan of Big Tone, @Robbie - 5 @ARLukomski, @Megan_Elizax - 4 @gtownjohnno, @Harry Buckley - 3 @magpiejue - 2 --- With two rounds to go, @gtownjohnno and @william1984 need something big to overtake @ARLukomski. And I've done my play-off hopes no harm at all ARLukomski - 210 gtownjohnno - 203 william1984 - 198 super_ram - 191 cheeky~k8 - 186 Fan of Big Tone - 186 4everapie - 185 DangerousSausage - 184 magpiejue - 179 Dan - 176 Megan_Elizax - 161 nottsnutter - 144 DonnyNotts - 136 liampie - 133 Chris - 123 Joshua - 90 upthepies - 90 Robbie - 83 allardyces tash - 70 TheSkipper - 67 Harry Buckley - 66 KingWilliams - 66 CliftonMagpie - 55 thommo - 49 OoooooTommy - 45 NottsCountyKev - 41 JIMBO - 40 jimbob - 38 Nocturnal-Magpie - 38 AmericanPie - 36 KB1862 - 22 George L - 6 Canadian - 4 --- The next round is on Saturday, so fixtures will be posted on Wednesday. In the meantime, make sure your crystal balls are well polished and take care!

Delighted for the team, the fans and Mr Maynard. It's important for us as a club to have a positive end to the season and instill the belief that we can be looking upwards next season. And so what if it was a bit jammy? Luck tends to even itself out.

We're always good for goals, we have been for a few seasons now. I've seen Notts teams where you wonder where a goal is coming from, so enjoy it while it lasts! I'm glad Langstaff has proven himself at this level too. To be honest I was expecting a little more from McGoldrick, especially given how well he did last season. He's been dropped into the Rodders role and it's an awkward fit for him. I'd like to see us get Scott under contract for next season, I think he has what it takes at this level and our faith will be repaid.

If I understood it correctly, all matches that fall outside the Saturday 3pm blackout (i.e. that would have been available in the UK on iFollow) will be broadcast live, so you should be able to watch the team as before. The question is whether there will be a match pass similar to iFollow, or whether Sky will gouge you for about 30 quid a month for it. Rupert Murdoch is not a philanthropist, all that money is coming from somewhere... As for us exiles, things should stay broadly the same. But I wonder if we'll have Sky's commentators inflicted on us?

Preston North End 1-2 Norwich City Sheffield Wednesday 1-1 Stoke City Bolton Wanderers 0-2 Portsmouth Oxford United 2-1 Peterborough United (joker) Harrogate Town 2-1 Sutton United Newport County 0-0 Tranmere Rovers Bromley 1-0 Solihull Moors York City 2-0 Woking

That game was at Waldhof's ground, which holds 26,000, so a little bigger than Meadow Lane (albeit with only 15,000 seats). And there's no safe standing there! The home end is actually seated, but has been used as a standing area for years. The corners are terraced, but old-style with normal crush barriers. The away end is three quarters seated, part standing, but no one sits down for a derby It might need a bit of an upgrade if they ever make it back to Bundesliga 2. Kaiserslautern's ground was partially rebuilt for the 2006 World Cup and they've got safe standing. Your typical Bundesliga ground has a big standing area (possibly the whole stand) behind a goal, and an area in the corner for away fans too. There are exceptions though - Darmstadt's fans traditionally stand along the side of the pitch, and they integrated a terrace into their new stand which opened last year. They've got a terrace behind the goal too, but it's one of those tin pot temporary stands so doesn't hold that many.

You've hopefully worked out what to do by now - predict the following fixtures by 3pm on Saturday, and remember your joker. Good luck! Preston North End v Norwich City Sheffield Wednesday v Stoke City Bolton Wanderers v Portsmouth Oxford United v Peterborough United Harrogate Town v Sutton United Newport County v Tranmere Rovers Bromley v Solihull Moors York City v Woking

Forgot to reply to your comment @Robbie. I've been to Kaiserslautern a couple of times. The town itself is a little smaller than Mansfield and is uninteresting. The only interesting thing about that place is its football club. They play in a HUGE ground (nearly 50,000 capacity) on top of a massive hill behind the railway station, and they make a decent fist of filling it too. The town itself is far too small to sustain a club like that - they draw fans from all over a large region stretching from Saarbrücken in the west to Ludwigshafen in the east. They were part of the furniture in the Bundesliga until recently, but have fallen victim to mismanagement and only returned to Bundesliga 2 last season. My own team in Germany, Waldhof Mannheim, have a major rivalry with them. There's a lot of bad blood between the clubs due to the teams' time in the Bundesliga in the 80s (to cut a long story short) and they drew 1-1 in the last game I attended before the season was stopped due to covid. Some impressions are in the link, if you're interested! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7R2bqkjmlU

Love the picture, but you can't make them crouch like that at their age Craig Short looking like he just walked straight in from the on-pitch "discussion" at Peterborough in 2010.

The Gulp would have been fun, but it sounds like one of those dingy little pubs with sticky carpets. Not sure that's the image the club is going for? Personally I think we should have gone for Bajner's Bar, with a 20-foot statue of our favourite twig-like Hungarian ex-Ipswich striker at the entrance. I do like The Nest though, it's understated but still magpie-themed. On a side note, The Nest was also the name of Norwich's old ground up to the mid-1930s. I'm fascinated by it. It was a proper dump.

That didn't take long. Can't really comment on Noble (although the Stones fans on Facebook evidently weren't keen), but this could be a bit of a panic reaction as Wealdstone are plummeting towards the relegation zone at just the wrong time. I'm glad we're not in their position.

I can see why they're using that information - a game can turn because of a poor refereeing decision or individual mistakes by players. How many managers have been sacked prematurely by panicked boards because of things they have absolutely no control over? All the same, it's often forgotten that data and AI are tools and need people to manage and interpret them. I'm positive that our owners do this as well. If they only looked at statistics, Luke Williams - who at that time had a win percentage of 26% - would never have been appointed. Spotting players with unrealised potential is also a less exact science, for that you need know-how and contacts in addition to stats.

@Wheelbarrow repair man Magpie Circle is on YouTube. You don't need an account, just go to YouTube and search for it. And if you're too busy repairing wheelbarrows, you don't have to watch it live either (if it's like the other Magpie Circle episodes). I'm expecting some politician's answers as club employees are limited in what they can say and they can hardly rip into our current players. That limitation aside, I think it'll be illuminating and it's good that they're speaking on a fans' platform that isn't controlled by the club.

The results: Sunderland 0-0 Bristol City Watford 0-0 Preston North End Burton Albion 0-4 Oxford United Charlton Athletic 2-1 Barnsley Bradford City 1-0 Gillingham Tranmere Rovers 1-3 Walsall Boreham Wood 4-0 Wealdstone York City 0-1 Eastleigh --- @ARLukomski will be feeling like a number one this week! @ARLukomski - 8 @Dan, @liampie - 7 @gtownjohnno - 6 @Robbie, @william1984 - 5 @DangerousSausage, @Joshua - 4 @4everapie, @Harry Buckley, @super_ram - 3 @cheeky~k8, @Fan of Big Tone, @magpiejue, @nottsnutter - 2 @Megan_Elizax - 1 --- @ARLukomski adds to his lead, but @gtownjohnno still has a dream. As for my own title ambitions, I just have to face it this time I'm through. ARLukomski - 206 gtownjohnno - 200 william1984 - 191 super_ram - 183 cheeky~k8 - 181 Fan of Big Tone - 181 4everapie - 177 magpiejue - 177 DangerousSausage - 174 Dan - 169 Megan_Elizax - 157 DonnyNotts - 136 liampie - 133 nottsnutter - 133 Chris - 123 Joshua - 90 upthepies - 90 Robbie - 78 allardyces tash - 70 TheSkipper - 67 KingWilliams - 66 Harry Buckley - 63 CliftonMagpie - 55 thommo - 49 OoooooTommy - 45 NottsCountyKev - 41 JIMBO - 40 jimbob - 38 Nocturnal-Magpie - 38 AmericanPie - 36 KB1862 - 22 George L - 6 Canadian - 4 --- So I say thank you for the predictions, the scores you're giving. The next round will be on Saturday, so keep your eyes peeled for the fixtures on Wednesday!

A great result and deserved too. With the penalty and Harogate's period of pressure at the start of the second half, the game could easily have slipped away from us again, so it was great for us to get that second goal and decide it in our favour. I only saw some of the game on video (I heard the rest on the radio), but I thought Crowley made a decent fist of the Palmer-esque tidying-up role a little deeper in midfield. Let's have more days like this please!

Whatever we think on the matter, the update from the board has at least given us clarity and confirmed that SM will still be here until the summer at least, and almost certainly at the start of next season too. That has the positive effect that it draws a line under the circus surrounding SM for the time being at least and will help focus everyone's attention towards what's happening on the pitch.

I think they'll still be here at the start of next season. Our board has shown no inclination to sell players before their contracts have expired in the past - think Ruben Rodrigues and Kyle Wootton, who both ended up leaving on free transfers at the end of their contracts. On the other hand, Macca and Jodi would command much higher fees. There's more of a question mark over Langstaff in my opinion, as his scoring record has been stunning and he's bound to have a release clause. However, his age might limit his price - his next contract will take him beyond his 30th birthday, so any buyer would not be bringing in a player they could develop hugely or sell on for big money. In addition, the market is awash with out-of-contract strikers in the summer. I wouldn't blame him for taking a once-in-a-career offer, but so far there's been a lot of paper talk and no actual offers, and there's no reason to assume that the summer transfer window will be any different.

This sounds a bit harsh. Is it compulsory to hate the Scottish now? I can't always understand what they're saying, but there's no ill will. One of them once asked me for a fight in an airport terminal, but he asked politely and I declined, so it was all amicable. I'm looking forward to a few days in Scotland this month, hopefully with no fighting. Being serious, I haven't read the law (and I suspect the other people commenting here haven't either), so it's a little bit over my head. I'm not going to take anti-trans hate groups' word for it thank you. On the other hand, language is a highly subjective thing, and that means laws like this are difficult to put into practice and could potentially be turned against the people they were originally designed to protect. Some of the most effective and prolific hatemongers use insinuations rather than outright abusive language.

Sunderland 2-1 Bristol City Watford 1-1 Preston North End Burton Albion 0-3 Oxford United (joker) Charlton Athletic 1-1 Barnsley Bradford City 1-1 Gillingham Tranmere Rovers 1-2 Walsall Boreham Wood 1-1 Wealdstone York City 2-0 Eastleigh