StarkMallard

Round: 11 Kick-off: Saturday 17 October, 3pm Don't forget your joker! Bristol City v Sheffield United Norwich City v Portsmouth Barnsley v Cambridge United Leicester City v Doncaster Rovers Leyton Orient v Blackpool Plymouth Argyle v Huddersfield Town Colchester United v Exeter City Crewe Alexandra v Rochdale

The results: Well done to @Michael D Pie. for winning this round - without any equestrian help either? Overall, @Megan_Elizax and yours truly are now the joint leaders! I am now fighting the temptation to rename myself aaaStarkMallard and declare myself the winner on alphabetical order, but alas, I don't think I'd get away with it. Just five points separate the top five. The next round is on Saturday, so keep your eyes peeled for the fixtures on Wednesday. There will be a delay counting the next two rounds as I'm taking the outrageous liberty of going on holiday, but I'll catch up eventually. Thanks for playing and take care!

The midfield isn't creating much @Robbie, that's part of the problem. It wouldn't have mattered who played up front in the first half, they had nothing to work with. The wing backs are too deep, not enough players are taking a risk and going on a run and the front three are left high and dry. It's happened in several games already this season. Admittedly the strikers haven't covered themselves in glory so far. But if it turns out that none of them can hit a barn door (and Kanu has a decent scoring record), we'll just have to select a big unit who can hold up the ball up front and get Roberts and Cooper into scoring positions instead. We need to get the best out of what we've got and we're not yet.

Let's forget about the first half. Sanders and Finneran gave us an effective midfield engine room again and changed the game for the better. Finneran just gets the nod for me as he did that thing where you kick the ball between the posts and under the crossbar and the keeper misses it and everybody cheers. (Note: it took me longer than necessary to write this comment as Finneran is autocorrected to "fingerings".)

We look terrified and absolutely woeful. The players haven't covered themselves in glory so far but we're not getting the best out of them either. I'm sure MP has his reasons for playing ISS and Gibbons as wing backs, but they're so deep they're basically full backs. Only Roberts, Grant and Kanu are in the opposition's half most of the time with acres of space between them, so easy to defend against. And we compounded that by playing our main goal threat, Cooper, in defensive midfield. Oxford had their tails up early on because they saw we were there for the taking. Three substitutions now, let's see how they work out.

Blackburn Rovers 2-1 Cardiff City Middlesbrough 1-1 Wolves Huddersfield Town 1-2 Sheffield Wednesday Wycombe Wanderers 2-0 Luton Town Bristol Rovers 0-2 Barnet Cheltenham Town 0-2 Salford City (joker) Hornchurch 2-1 Eastleigh Tamworth 0-1 Barrow

I've got the same 140th anniversary shirt with the wonky stitching @Fan of Big Tone! I'll dig out one of my old shirts to wear today and get in the spirit of things once I finally get dressed. Tricky game coming, I hope we've used the break well as we could really do with a win.

I couldn't have planned it any better - round ten takes place on the tenth of the tenth... Round: 10 Kick-off: Saturday 10 October, 3pm Don't forget your joker! Blackburn Rovers v Cardiff City Middlesbrough v Wolves Huddersfield Town v Sheffield Wednesday Wycombe Wanderers v Luton Town Bristol Rovers v Barnet Cheltenham Town v Salford City Hornchurch v Eastleigh Tamworth v Barrow

I hope Tsaroulla brings this form into the league too! We're privileged to have some quality players on board and of course representing your country is a massive honour. But it's a bit strange to have such a long international break when the season is barely underway. Or maybe it just feels longer because of the postponements?

Saturday's results: Well done to this week's winners @Megan_Elizax and @menzinho! And an honourable mention too to @cheeky~k8 and Diesel the horse, who definitely deserves a sugar lump from his assistant @Michael D Pie.. There's change at the top - @ARLukomski overtakes @Paris Sandwich Man and @Megan_Elizax moves into second! But things have really tightened at the top. The next round is on Saturday, so keep your eyes peeled for the fixtures on Wednesday). Thanks for playing and keeep dancing!

Burton Albion 0-1 Huddersfield Town Leyton Orient 0-2 Plymouth Argyle Crewe Alexandra 1-2 Bristol Rovers Gillingham 1-1 Newport County Rochdale 2-0 Swindon Town (joker) Eastleigh 2-1 Woking Hartlepool United 1-1 Tamworth Kidderminster Harriers 2-1 Sutton United

!! HYDRATION BREAK !! And while we're supping our bland bitter from Manchester, here's a reminder for @4everapie, @Megan_Elizax, @super_ram, @Chris, @Fan of Big Tone, @cheeky~k8 and @McPie!

Thanks for sharing this @Piethagoram. I've watched a lot of Regionalliga football and follow a club that missed out on promotion to the third division after finishing as champions, so I've experienced it for myself. The problem is a lack of a proper pyramid system - five divisions feed into a 20-team third division, which cannot work. The nationwide third division itself is quite a recent creation; it and the four regional divisions below it were managed by the German FA (DFB). The trouble was that B teams of Bundesliga clubs play in the league system as well, so the regional fourth divisions became swamped with them - I remember the majority of the teams in the southern division being B teams one season. In about 2011 a fifth regional Regionalliga was added and (crucually) new regional bodies were created to administer each Regionalliga. Bavaria got its own Regionalliga despite the region having very few fourth division clubs previously. As a result, virtually the whole of the Bavarian fifth division was promoted to Regionalliga level, including village clubs. The solution chosen initially was that there would be no automatic promotion to the third divison - the top two of the south-western division (as by far the largest league in terms of member clubs) played the champions of the other four divisions in two-legged play-offs to determine who would be promoted. Waldhof failed three times, I was there. The Regionalliga bodies have been at loggerheads with one another ever since. A few years ago a new system was adopted in which the western and south-western division got automatic promotion spots and two of the other three leagues faced a play-off. The north-east like to play the victim here, but the reason why there are so many well-supported clubs from that region playing at the fourth level is that they haven't managed to establish themselves further up, whereas those from the west and south-west generally do establish themselves and often go on to greater things, Elversberg being a recent example. Clubs promoted from the north and Bavaria usually go straight back down. Even the compass model is a sticking plaster. The problem ultimately won't be solved until a fourth division north and south is established - then every champion and runner-up can go up and clubs can progress up (and down) the pyramid.

The third of October is German Unity Day. It's also a bank holiday, which makes it doubly annoying that it falls on a Saturday. To celebrate the day, here's a "wall" of fixtures... Round: 9 Kick-off: Saturday 3 October, 3pm Don't forget your joker! Burton Albion v Huddersfield Town Leyton Orient v Plymouth Argyle Crewe Alexandra v Bristol Rovers Gillingham v Newport County Rochdale v Swindon Town Eastleigh v Woking Hartlepool United v Tamworth Kidderminster Harriers v Sutton United

It's very harsh so early in the season, but Peterborough will have had other ambitions than a relegation fight. We all know what a brilliant job LW did for us, but he had a very good foundation to build on and he lucked out with Langstaff joining us in particular. His CV hasn't been that great before or since, but Swansea and Peterborough were much tougher gigs. He should think about his next club carefully - if his next club is willing to let him build and be patient, it'll pay off.

Happy anniversary to you and Mrs Nutter @nottsnutter and I hope you're feeling better soon @Michael D Pie.. I loved visiting Liverpool as well, it's an interesting place and we had such a warm welcome. Loved vising the Cavern as well, even though it's not the original one. It's one of the places I fancy going to again. We had some excitement today. What I feared in summer has happened, the half-dead woods near our house caught fire and it spread over 12,000 m2. Luckily our estate wasn't in any immediate danger. Apparently they had trouble fighting it because of munitions in the ground - very reassuring as that's my cycling route to work! It's all been put out now but could have been a lot worse.

The results: @super_ram has once again shown us how it's done and won the round, and well done to @ARLukomski! But this round was a bit tougher generally and we saw our first "nul points" of the season... Overall, @Paris Sandwich Man remains top, two points ahead of @ARLukomski while @super_ram has a big jump up the table. And just look at the football genius in third place! Thanks for playing, and thanks especially to the teams too crap to have Sierra Leone internationals for enabling this round to go ahead. The next round is on Saturday, so I'll scrape together enough fixtures and post them on Wednesday. See you then!

Another point is the owners - surely they won't still be fit and proper if found guilty on 114 counts, so they'd have to leave. No punishment that doesn't involve the owners leaving will be sufficient. Ultimately, all this stems from the fact that Man City are effectively being used to showcase and sportswash a foreign country. This has to be prevented in future, acting several years after the fact is not good enough.

Hope the half marathon went well @Fan of Big Tone! @Piethagoram, I've been looking at taking the train for my next UK visit. In theory, an Interrail ticket would be just the job - 240 euros for the ticket plus about 100 euros for the seat reservations there and back. Trouble is, Eurostar only take a limited number of Interrail passengers and they're already sold out for the return trips I searched for in November! I then looked to see what the trains would cost if I booked them normally. 650 euros. Looks like I'll be flying again then. It's such a shame - if I weren't crossing the Channel it'd be a fantastic deal. Hope you enjoy your travels anyway, where are you off to next?

He even dug out his slug celebration a few weeks back! It's his second season there now. He could probably play higher, but presumably he's got a proper job now.

Fair point. But the Rangers comparison isn't quite right - they folded and the Rangers that rejoined the league was a new club. They were fortunate not to spend years in the Lowland League. It would probably depend on the mechanism they use then. If they're given a points deduction that makes relegation inevitable, they'll go down by the normal route into the Championship. If it's instant demotion, who knows (although I can't see anything south of League Two). Instant relegation would render the rest of their season a farce, so the Premier League would probably be glad to drag it out for a few more months! No club in England has ever been stripped of the title before. The fact that City have been allowed to get away with this long enough to win multiple titles and cups shows that the Premier League is not fit to be entrusted with the highest level of our game.

Cambridge United 1-1 AFC Wimbledon Wycombe Wanderers 2-1 Reading Fleetwood Town 1-1 Rochdale Rotherham United 1-1 Crewe Alexandra Shrewsbury Town 1-0 Colchester United Altrincham 2-0 Hornchurch (joker) Scunthorpe United 0-1 Hartlepool United Sutton United 2-0 Florist Green Rovers

They broke Premier League rules, so I'm not sure the Football League can punish them as well and relegate them further. But I agree that one season in the Championship and then carrying on as if nothing happened doesn't seem enough.

Reports are emerging that Man City have been found guilty of "nearly all" of their 130+ charges by the Premier League. Of course City will try to drag things out even longer, but I wonder what punishment will be in store for them? Everton were docked six points a couple of years back, but their rule breaches were far less severe. And of course City dominated English football for a decade while flouting the rules. They should be stripped of their titles at least, and if they're given to the runners-up instead that means Liverpool and Manchester United would win three each. Ideally they should also be relegated to League Two, resulting in one relegation spot less for us to avoid! But since they've breached Premier League rules, they can probably only be relegated once. I do feel sorry for their long-standing fans, but the book really does need to be thrown at them as they've made a mockery of English football. Edit: I've just merged my post with @Robbie's to keep things tidy.

Um Bongo actually has quite a high fruit content @theAnticlough, which I found surprising as I thought it was mainly water and artificial colourings. However, marmosets are from South America, so they're fibbing about who picked the mandarins.