Today football is full of Jordans and Jermaines with their fancy tricks, stepovers and fancy haircuts. But it wasn't always this way. Football was once a game for real men. Men who would have looked just as at home in a working man's club as on a football pitch.

This is a place to celebrate them. And not just from Notts, but from all clubs.

Number one. Malcolm Shotton.

Adam Campbell scored a blinder against Blackburn on Sunday, but with Jonathan Forte, Graham Burke, Jon Stead, Izale McLeod and on loan Vadaine Oliver all pushing for places up front, who will start against Yeovil and who can you see being the established pairing throughout the season?

I'm not so sure. Messi has done everything in the game except and it's a big except, win an international tournament. Maradona was incredible when Argentina won the WC in 1986. His performance against England was both sublime and ridiculous. It could have been a summary of Maradona's career. He went on to beat Belgium on his own before requiring the help of his team mates to defeat the Germans. It will always be Maradona for me.....

Right, here's a little puzzle to pass a few minutes - the following anagrams are all Notts County defenders.  The first 5 are iconic names from the Sirrel era, the second 5 are all from this decade.  As a clue, the number in brackets relates to how many appearances they made in a Notts shirt:

SPIDER ORCHARD (399)

HANDMADE DIVE (429)

BARE IRONY (323)

BOW BORN TONIGHT (232)

INSTANT BRINE JAM (311)

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PERKY SECTARIAN (64)

MERE EAGLE (50)

JADE MOSS (27)

KEN ACCOLADE (68)

DAY GRILLED (78)

Southwest Trains have advance booking fares of 16 pounds return from London Waterloo

1) Richard Duffy - Brilliant player who next to the right guy can be an unstoppable defence, very confident, dont let his size fool you!

2) Haydn Hollis - few bad seasons but his confidence has grown next to Duffy and under John Sheridan. has been brilliant all pre season ( expecting fans to complain about him when another defender doesnt do there job   )

3) Jordan Richards - when given the run out this season he will become a unbelievable player, just like his father was, to say he is 19 years old, he has so much confidence where ever he plays, future player.

4) Stanley Aborah - Enough said.

5) Carl Dicko - more than likely our new captain, very good leader and will only lead us onto great things.

finally 6) Alex Rodman - Brilliant on the ball, always looking to pass, wont go wasted this year if stays injury free!

What are your thoughts guys?

According to the Sun, would be a quality signing.

I have just received my season ticket package, really pleased, a very informative booklet, a free ticket for a mate and magpie rewards! Good stuff

Curtis Thompson has cracked a bone in his ankle.

Jonathan Forte has a knock doesn't think he will play tomorrow, nothing serious saving himself for Yeovil.

Izale Mcleod has a knock but should be alright, wants to put last season behind him and start scoring again - other than the knock he says he feels in good shape, one of the best pre seasons fitness wise.

O'Connor is looking at the Scunthorpe game.

Will Mellor-Blair is in talks still but things are going well, hopes for deal. 

Rob Milsom - you guessed it, injured again! 

Bury have made Tom Pope available for loan or free transfer, what would you think of us signing him? He was on the up a couple of years ago but hasn't hit the ground running at Bury

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Pope

The draw for this wonderful competition has taken place, we can look forward to local derbies against Hartlepool, Rochdale and Sunderland's youth team. At least one will be at home, presumably including the Sunderland match.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record - if you love Notts, the best thing you can do is stay away. Or do you want to see B teams in the Football League?

I have to say, I am very impressed with Windows 10 - it feels like everything Windows 8.0 and 8.1 should have been in the first place.

My laptop recently got stuck for an unknown reason on a blue screen loop, I'm pretty good at fixing things but this had me stumped and I couldn't boot or load the bio screen. Fearing I had lost a lot of important data, I decided to try upgrading - as I had read that you can upgrade without losing data.

Since upgrading everything is fine, much faster than Windows 8.1 (no annoying charms).

Applications feel smoother, I like the notification system and general look of the system. It seems much more modern, now I am expecting others to say they dislike it (basically because it is different) but hey, it brings back the best of XP, Vista and Windows 7 without the annoyances that each of those had. I am very impressed!

Anyone else upgraded or using Windows 10?

Good little article here about Steady Eddie, and also there is a list of managers (I can't say I would be able to name them all off the top of my head). At the end there hopefully JS will be 'present' for a  long while to come!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/36865749

http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/36901810

So if Pep's principles were ever invoked at Notts, would Caskey have ever had played?

how do you feel things are coming along at notts now?

i just wondered how the general opinion here is of the club at the moment. i think sheridan is doing well, we seem to have some good experienced players and i think a few more additions we would be set for the season ahead. what signings do you feel if any are needed? have you been impressed during pre season? any newcomers caught your eye?

That left back has looked decent in every game he's played pre season, really hope we sign him. He told me on Saturday he has started talks about signing.

And Will Mellors-Blair is still on trial hope he gets some game time against Walsall and Blackburn, would like to see how he works with Stead, there's potential there.

Anyone else heard anything worth talking about?

who is going? how do you think we will do.

its a game that will say a lot more about the signings and squad than any of the other friendlies, it should be a good game.

Jack Archer a fellow magpie lost his life at the age of 14, I don't know much about him or what happened but i know he loved notts!

I think it would be good if we could try and organise a minute of respect at the 14th minute at some point

Rest in paradise jack!

So i was thinking while arguing with a couple of florist fans, as you do, why did people decide to support notts ?

Because I feel like as Notts fans we accept we arent the best team in the world, and as hard as it is we know florist will be more successful and have more fans

So what made you decide to support notts over those over the Trent ?

*This might have been done before but i just thought it was a good discussion topic

Tomorrow/Saturday is Eddies testimonial, lets hope we give him the reception a player like him deserves!

Over 350 appearances across 10 years at notts, I don't think anyone can argue he deserves a testimonial!

It is a friendly game but its against Florist so I'm hoping the kop will be bouncing and we will show them why we are the pride of Nottingham!

So lets get down to business! Who would you start ?

I'm someone that likes a good sing song so I was interested to hear what peoples favourite chants are! They don't have to be notts related!

For example: the two chants that really stuck into my head last year were from Newport And brizzle rovers!

Newport: ohhhhhh, ayyyyyy, ohhhhh, ohhhhh, Newport county!

Brizzle rovers: Lyle Taylor baby! Lyle Taylor ohhhh!

1 rule! If the chant involves any rude words please substitute that word or asterisk it out!

anyone going? be sure to let us know your thoughts on the standout players etc.

did notts lose against alfreton last year? i cant remember.

With the LONG wait for the new kits to be unveiled, let's reminisce about previous kits, what is your favourite shirt/kit that Notts have worn and why? 

Mine is the 1997-99 home shirt, first Notts shirt that I remember born in '94. Also we won the league in that shirt (not that I remember that much, thank God for the internet). The shirt looks nice too and I own one of these shirts too. ????

Away shirt, I quite liked the 13/14 purple and yellow shirt and last seasons all white one for looks. 

http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2017/matches/live/day=-6/session=1/match=2020165/index.html

Easily the worse lose by a Scottish team in European football. The winner was scored by a policeman. Callum McGregor should come back to Notts, the higher standard in L2 will make him a better player..........:-)

I'm bored. There's no football (apart from friendlies - yawn), there's a curious lack of rumours, it's Friday afternoon and the weekend stubbornly refuses to come.

Entertain me please someone! Otherwise I might end up having to find some friends at this rate.