I was surprised that there is no automatic promotion for tier 5 Scottish non league clubs into League 2, tier 4 of the Scottish league system.

The champions of the East, West, & South of Scotland Leagues play in a playoff to determine one team that gets a chance to promote to the Lowland League

The Lowland League champion then plays in a playoff with the Highland League champion, with the winner of that playoff playing the bottom club of the SPFL League Two for a place in the SPFL. 

Congratulations to Rory McIlroy for finally winning "The Masters" & with it completing the career Grand Slam.

Rory joins a a select band of golfers & becomes the sixth all time Grand Slam winner.

11 hours ago, Piethagoram said:

Will @super_ram be appearing on Crimewatch now?

Not as a suspect ,I hope.

Good morning and happy Sunday everyone. I slept until 8.30 this morning which is very unusual for me I think yesterdays park run and gardening in the afternoon meant I was really tired.

How is everyone? Come on the weekly chat and let us know.

It's a little more cloudy today here but we are getting some sunny intervals too. It's just a little cooler today than we've seen during the past week 

Good news this afternoon. The Notts Women have beaten Lincoln City at Gainsborough by 3 goals to nill. Great that they have managed to get a clean sheet too.

That win gives them ten wins this season with just one game to go. Ten wins in a 12 team league isn't bad.

Looks like they will finish mid table which is a massive improvement compared to last season when they survived relegation by the skin of their teeth.

Ordinarily, I'd say it's play offs, but every week the results from the teams in the top three and in the play offs change the positions. This week it was our turn to blob it. Others will, so hold the line and keep the faith. Worse case scenario we will be in the play offs. Wembley is a heart-breaking place to be heart-broken, but I'm happy to take the risk.

It's squeaky bum time. If Notts don't make the top 3, I'd prefer if Walsall and Doncaster swap places. The playoffs will be wide open and a playoff place would be progress. League 1 would be a brand new adventure boys and girls. Think of the away trips and the teams coming to Meadow Lane. I'm getting ahead of myself......but......a man can dream........

Last season, after 42 games, Notts were in 15th place in League 2 having lost 19 games with a goal difference of 4 & points tally of 55.

This season after 42 games  Notts are in 6th place in league 2 having lost 12 games with a goal difference of 19 & a points tally of 68.

That's an increase in the points tally of 27% compared to last season.

Notts still have the playoffs firmly in their hands & even still have a possibly of automatic promotion.

There is still lots to play for before the season ends. There will be lots of twists & turns with the top 10 having to play each other & points will be won & lost in unexpected ways.

If you go by the stats the Notts team has improved markedly from last season. I also think that the overall standard of the league is much more equal than it was last season. Last term, there were around four teams dominating, but that's not the case this season. 

That's why even at this stage, up to 8 teams have a chance of automatic promotion, & Notts are one of them.

The poll is now closed. Thanks to all who voted. Much appreciated.

I am pleased to announce that the Pride of Nottingham's Man of the Match against Salford is  David McGoldrick. 

28 minutes ago, Robbie said:

Thanks to all who voted. Much appreciated.

All two of us. 😂

11 hours ago, Fan of Big Tone said:

All two of us. 😂

Those two votes decided the man of the match. Whether it's 50 voted or just one voted, it still counts the same. 

N’Mai was their number 10 I think, if so he was outstanding full of energy, running and passion, everything we lacked. 

I had been expecting a new DoF to come in soonish as this is the time of year that clubs start working on their summer recruitment. I've never heard of him but I'm happy it's someone the owners have worked with and evidently trust.

It's promising to see the club thinking ahead, but the appointment doesn't mean much to me at the moment. I'll reserve judgement until I see how he settles into the role and what he can bring to the team. The position seems straightforward, and he will have the backing needed to succeed. It's also encouraging to see the Reedtz family sticking to their network, which helps them deepen their understanding and build a routine for knowing what works. Although the role is new, previous experience should help. To me, though, it feels like a standard appointment.

1st May start for DoF...too late IMHO

I don't read the Guardian, however, I must say that Alassana has been a revelation since he joined Notts. Partly thanks to him Notts are in a good position to win a playoff spot.

It's a good read and very positive about Jatta's career and skill. It will draw more attention to him as a player, but that's something Notts will have to handle now that we're recruiting better players.

Looks like the freezing of season ticket prices has been incredibly popular with the fans reading all the feedback.

Purchased!

Tea has been taken.

Durham are 289 all out 

Notts require 89 runs from 40 overs to win the match.

A win for Nottinghamshire.

Couldn't have wished for a better start....bowling batting and fielding all a big improvement on last season......let's hope it continues until next September....Well done Notts...

Bristol City 2-1 Watford

Swansea City 0-1 Derby County

Leyton Orient 2-0 Wigan Athletic (joker)

Shrewsbury Town 1-1 Cambridge United

Bradford City 1-1 Crewe Alexandra

Fleetwood Town 2-1 Swindon Town

Altrincham 1-1 Yeovil Town

Sutton United 0-1 Southend United

Bristol City 1-0 Watford

Swansea City 1-1 Derby County

Leyton Orient 2-0 Wigan Athletic (Joker)

Shrewsbury Town 2-1 Cambridge United

Bradford City 1-0 Crewe Alexandra

Fleetwood Town 2-1 Swindon Town

Altrincham 1-0 Yeovil Town

Sutton United 0-1 Southend United

The results:

Bristol City 2-1 Watford
Swansea City 1-0 Derby County
Leyton Orient 0-0 Wigan Athletic
Shrewsbury Town 0-1 Cambridge United
Bradford City 2-0 Crewe Alexandra
Fleetwood Town 0-4 Swindon Town
Altrincham 2-1 Yeovil Town
Sutton United 1-1 Southend United

---

This round's winner is @super_ram, with an honourable mention to @william1984!

---

After a storming few rounds, @super_ram has overtaken @ARLukomski to reclaim the top spot...

---

Saturday's fixtures will be posted on Wednesday night, so keep your eyes peeled. Thanks for playing!

I vote for @DangerousSausage to become the Pride of Nottingham's official April Fools planner. The good old days when PON used to create them were fantastic, especially the Jake Bugg prank, which Nottinghamshire Live picked up before realising it was an April Fools. 🤣

I nearly announced Steve Thompson as our new DoF @CliftonMagpie, but I was too afraid of the man himself getting wind of it!

On 04/04/2025 at 20:08, CliftonMagpie said:

I vote for @DangerousSausage to become the Pride of Nottingham's official April Fools planner. The good old days when PON used to create them were fantastic, especially the Jake Bugg prank, which Nottinghamshire Live picked up before realising it was an April Fools. 🤣

 

Please, don't bring that up. JJ managed to fool people twice, involving Jake Bugg. One where some fans actually bought into our story about him having signed a pro deal with the club. 🤣

Talk Sport also picked the story up, but they had a sense of humour about it.
 

On 04/04/2025 at 20:31, DangerousSausage said:

I nearly announced Steve Thompson as our new DoF @CliftonMagpie, but I was too afraid of the man himself getting wind of it!

We'll need to discuss things a week or so before the next April Fool's as this could have been a very funny one to have shared onto social media. 😆

This is an important topic. I think it is important to follow other members, who's posts one finds interesting.

There are so many great & interesting posts on PON. My advice would be to read as many as your time allows really.

I try to read as much content as I can if I have the time or if the site is a little slow, like today for instance 

As new members have joined since this topic was first posted, it's important for the newbies to know all this stuff too.

I'm going to try to start highlighting parts which will improve members and visitors time, just subtle reminders. This might become repetitive, but please understand that the more I mention it, the more likely new and older members will start using such features.

In fact, I am going to make sure that I do this myself.

Please look around the site at various points, whereby the "follow" feature might keep you better informed.

Desktop: The feature is usually found near the top, within a header.

On mobiles: It's further down underneath the main body.

Forums, sections, blogs etc. - will update you on new and existing content.

Articles, posts, topics, comments etc. - will alert you to new activity.

You can decide how you want your updates, by clicking follow, but also in your notification settings you can further tweak things to your liking.

Just to mention:

I have followed every article section, every forum, and every active blogger. I will make sure to follow key topics, which makes me feel when we upgrade to v5 that there could be room for improvements on managing the follow function.

Such as the ability to set a duration for keeping it active, which would be useful for topics like Match Discussions, Man of the Match, Prediction League rounds etc.

@Chris He was the bookies favourite, Maynard was the second favourite...

I'm pleased that Maynard was appointed. Stuart has done ok & Notts have improved since Stuart was given the job.

12 hours ago, Piethagoram said:

@Chris He was the bookies favourite, Maynard was the second favourite...

I must have been sleeping, or one of the many bangs to my head is to blame. 😅😆

It didn't work out well for Leicester when the got rid of Steve Cooper.

Yep, they should have stuck with Cooper, I think it was @Chris who said Van Nistelrooy would be a disaster for Leicester and he was right.

Van Noodles didn't really do a good enough job, he should have got behind the players and rallied them up with belief and confidence. Instead, he talks about "we" and some aspects which make him sound like he's behind them. Such as saying all the players are trying, so how do you go behind by so many goals by the 35th minute? If it's not the players, it's the manager. If it's both, then perhaps some of the players aren't good enough? In which case, you need to make sure the manager is someone who can get the best out of everyone. Ruud is clearly a nice enough person, but do you get a manager vibe from him when watching this post-match reaction?

The appointment falls onto the Leicester City board, they need to be very mindful about who comes in next as it could cause them more issues in the Championship, if they appoint a manager not good enough for the Premier League, and is out of his depth in the second tier of English football.

I think the fact Jarvis gets up so quickly probably didn’t help us. I don’t like it but I remember when George Abbott scored against Barrow their players just protested until the ref basically folded. I wonder if Will had stayed on the ground and the rest of the team made a scene it might have been overturned?

Equally I think the fact he doesn't protest tells you it probably wasn't a foul, he could’ve done more to hold the Colchester player off and just knocked the ball out for a throw. He’ll learn from it though and we still played 90 minutes of football and didn’t score… We’ve got to find a way to create some decent chances when teams do just sit back and let us have the ball.

I thought Notts made a very bright start, and early on created some decent chances. There are times when we look like we're moments away from scoring, and if we just took a bit more care, that might have been the case. Colchester United didn't look like a team trying to push for the playoffs, I thought they were quite dirty and were fortunate to have the officials largely giving them advantage but this is another matter.

There are chances created where it's easy for me to say at the time, and in hindsight, that Notts should have slowed down or even taken a shot earlier. The players are always thinking, have energy and adrenaline pumping amongst a host of other things, and it does mean times there will be wasted opportunities.

As I say, I felt Notts played quite well until Colchester took the lead. At the time, I had suspicions of offside and a foul.

Colchester always looked happy with a point, even more so to just sit on their lead. To be fair, I think they defended very well, and ignoring all the heavy shirt pulling, dangerous challenges and other antics, I think this is the main reason why Notts started to struggle. I noticed visible signs of frustration, which I don't really like to see from players like David McGoldrick But again, it's the heat of the moment. I would just like to add, there were times he made very poor decisions and nobody got onto his back. Notably, a very poor cross, where he started to hit himself in the head. Whereas he did complain, and get in the face of some of the players at times, which just doesn't sit well with me for a player of his experience.

I thought Nick Tsaroulla was superb, by far the best player in terms of performance on the pitch in my eyes. I felt Stuart Maynard should have switched him to the left when bringing on Jodi Jones. I felt unimpressed with the changes, not to go as far as calling Mai Traore a headless goat (like a fan said behind me), but Traore clearly isn't settled yet. I feel had Maynard made at least one change earlier, around the 55th minute we might have been a bit more composed.

Notts did very well to maintain possession and create chances, what they lacked is that ability to get back into the game. I made the point about rushing earlier, but there were times when we should have taken the time to carefully choose where to shoot, and then times where time mattered. Another day, things might have been different, but I thought the decision-making was very poor on our behalf at times. So many times we needlessly made passes, or passed into crowded areas.

I wouldn't single anyone out as having a particularly poor game, but defensively I thought Matty Platt was by far the most consistent defender. Nick Tsaroulla impressed me, I thought David McGoldrick worked hard and played well. Matt Palmer pulled a lot of strings, and has recently started making longer, pinpoint passes which mixed things up. Will Jarvis did okay, but in an average way. Charlie Whitaker should have stayed on, I thought he gave us a lot of heart and made some nice runs/passes. Some of the comments directed to Sam Slocombe during games shows the level of bias some of our fans have towards him, and I would discourage these remarks. Slocombe did well enough, despite several players putting him in danger with poor decisions. There's zero fault on him for the goal, Jacob Bedeau was out of position and the defending at this point wasn't good enough.

Oddly, it was once changes had been made by Maynard that I stopped believing we could get a point or more from the game. Now, the pitch was poor, but you have to play on what is presented. The officials made the game difficult, and this is very frustrating. The management of the referee was very poor, inconsistent and very biased towards Colchester. Not once did he allow us to play to our advantage, instead repeatedly calling it back. On the other hand, Colchester were allowed several challenges by the U's and should have been punished.

The melee between players is just a further sign that he lost control of the game, very poor officiating, but truth be said, you can't help but feel Notts should have been better.

Southampton have been relegated from the Premier League.

The gap between the Premiership and Championship is seemingly getting bigger and that's not a good thing. It's looking like this season all the teams that got promoted will be relegated. Same thing happened last season with Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton... What's the point of going up to just come straight back down?

Latest Premier League table.

Good morning all and happy Sunday, or not so happy for us Notts (and Derby) fans. 😒

It looks like it’s going to be a nice day weather wise, so we’ll have a walk this morning then this afternoon we are going to see the family and stay for the evening to keep our grandchildren company while their mum and dad go out, Mrs. T is going to cook Fajitas for tea, I don’t expect we’ll see much of Fred as he seems to spend a lot of time out with his mates till it gets dark  and Chloe will likely be in her room with headphones on. 

Have a lovely day whatever you are doing.

Good Morning.

It's a lovely start to the day here once again.

Dissapointing result yesterday, but we move on. Still lots to look forward to. Five games to go. Two wins & a draw should secure a playoff place, then anything can happen. We could see Doncaster, Notts, Walsall & Grimsby in the playoffs. 

Notting Helles, well recommended

I wasn’t at the game but listened on the radio. I’ve watched the game’s footage today and think Will Jarvis is a good choice for Man of the Match.

i voted and i am surprised to learn i am the only one who did for that player. 😛

The poll is now closed. Thanks to all of you who voted l.

I am pleased to announce that Nick Tsaroulla has been voted the Pride of Nottingham's Man of the Match against Colchester.

Well done Nick.

Update 

Loughborough add a fourth 

Full time.

A spirited performance by the Pies against a professional outfit, but it ends in defeat.

Latest WPL Nat League Div 1 Table

It doesn’t say a cost but it mentions breakfast and asks about dietary needs, so I assume breakfast is free?

On most models it seems that 73 points might be enough for a playoff place. 75 to be a little more comfortable.

My prediction table is:

Bradford 82
Walsall 81
Wimbledon 80
----------------------
Port Vale 80
Doncaster 78
Notts 76
Grimsby 72
---------------------
Colchester 71

I really do think it’ll be close, there's still a possibility one team suddenly ends the season strongly and goes clear at the top, who knows?! I also wouldn’t be surprised if Walsall slipped out the automatics, I think their saving grace might just be their remaining fixtures against the poorer teams but their current form is awful.

As far as Notts are concerned, I think I had us down to draw with Salford and Doncaster at home and lose at both Bradford and Colchester… Maybe a touch pessimistic but it does mean even if we don’t have a great end to the season we should still make the play-offs.

I've done an up to date model after today's defeat to Colchester.

I've put Notts down for two wins, two draws & one loss from their last five matches.

Notts finish in 5th place & get a play off place.

I worked at Simon,May & co Ltd at Weekday Cross from 1963 to 1997.There were caves there that extended below the cellars.Myself and a couple of mates entered one but we only had cigarette lighters to light the way.From what I was told at the time they were made available as air raid shelters during the war but think that was just for employees .

Crawley Town 2-0 Peterborough United

Lincoln City 3-2 Huddersfield Town

Northampton Town 1-0 Rotherham United

Crewe Alexandra 4-2 Grimsby Town

Doncaster Rovers 1-1 Walsall

Harrogate Town 2-3 Tranmere Rovers(joker)

Aldershot 1-2 Fylde

Wealdstone 2-2 Boston United

Crawley Town 0-1 Peterborough United
Lincoln City 2-0 Huddersfield Town Joker
Northampton Town 0-3 Rotherham United
Crewe Alexandra 1-0 Grimsby Town
Doncaster Rovers 1-2 Walsall
Harrogate Town 2-1 Tranmere Rovers
Aldershot 1-0 Fylde
Wealdstone 0-0 Boston United

For some reason the text I wrote bragging about my magnificant victory this round has just vanished, although you can see the table and standings above. So here's your reminder that I won, and I suppose I'd better post Tuesday's scores for you too:

Thanks for playing and don't forget to enter your predictions for Saturday's games!