RoverAndOut

This feels like something that would find an audience here...

It is 3 years since the last round of this game started and nearly a year since it finished but with another season about to commence and sacking taking place at an astonishing rate these days, surely the next round shouldn't last as long! The last game took long enough to finish that I ended up coming out on top, and with no Miracle Aligner around, and the support of Buffalo Phil and Great Uncle Bulgaria, I am happy to step into the breach of running what should be a relatively stress-free game (for everyone apart from those whose jobs are at stake!) After all, I've lurked around here long enough without actually running anything, about time I did something useful! This seems to have crept up on us, such that the 2023-24 EFL season starts next Friday (July 4th), so time's ticking to get this up and running! Entries are valid until midday BST on Friday August 4th 2023 via DM or you can post on the thread - but your picks are liable to be stolen! That gives you just over a week! Rules are pretty straightforward: Submit a team of 20 names. (Plus subs, but with only a week to go until the game starts, one or two subs max should be all that's needed). The first person to have all 20 names they chose leave their club (this can be due to resignation, termination, mutual termination, changing club or any other form of sacking) wins. It's as simple as that. Valid Leagues are any 2023-24 members of: English Premier League English Championship English League One English League Two English National League English National League North English National League South Scottish Premiership Scottish Championship Scottish League One Scottish League Two Welsh Premier League Welsh Cymru Alliance League Northern Irish Football League Premiership Northern Irish Football League Championship (I'll be reliant on your notifying me if your picks have gone in some of the more obscure leagues, mind you!) The last round saw 5 entrants, but it would be great if we could get a few more of you involved - I know there are plenty of football fans on here and the fruit is ripe for the picking (14 sackings across 11 Premier League clubs during last season, more since the season ended, and only 32 of the 92 league managers have been in charge longer than last summer!) so feel free to get involved. The more the merrier, it's just a bit of fun and gives us something to talk about between deaths. Good luck!

Just to update for those not in the loop: The Charity Commission has issued a report on the dealings of the Captain Tom Foundation today and found that they have "damaged public trust in charities". This stems primarily from the £1.47m they were given as an advance for 3 books based around Captain Tom: his autobiography, "Tomorrow will be a Good Day", a kids book, "Captain Sir Tom Moore: One Hundred Steps" and the preposterous "Captain Tom's Life Lessons". All 3 books claim that proceeds from them would go to the Foundation. The charity says it has not seen a penny of the advance or the proceeds. You'll be shocked, I'm sure, to find this wasn't an isolated case of Captain Tom's name being used to personally enrich the Ingram-Moores, who still deny doing anything wrong, of course. This was always the inevitable end of the messianic cult that erupted from him doing those laps of his garden. The circus was always going end in ignominy, especially once they kept flogging him for cash after he died. The BBC's had a field day today, 3 articles: The Charity Commision Report: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c86qdq67dd5o An insider's view by the former Chief Executive of the Foundation: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6kg7wgw7no And "Captain Sir Tom Moore: What has happened to his legacy?": https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-66134840

First: HE'S NOT DEAD. Just some topical humour I thought some in these parts might appreciate...

Yes, and Trump won it. But as Crem (of all people) pointed out, the electoral college can do literally whatever they want. And it isn't representative of the true result of the election (i.e. how much support/votes a candidate received). You could lose by a single vote in 12 states and win every single vote going in the other 38 and the other guy wins the election and you have a landslide in the popular vote. The electoral college decides the winner, it doesn't begin to describe how people voted.

I know I'm better off not engaging but what the fuck are you talking about? She's got 73 million votes - only Biden 4 years earlier has got more as a Democrat. She's lost by 3 million votes - Trump lost by 7 million 4 years ago, Kerry was the last Democrat to lose by 3 million (and the last to lose the popular vote). She's got 48.2% of the vote - Hillary got exactly the same 8 years ago. Bill Clinton in 1992 (when Perot was a spoiler) was the last Democrat to get less (43%). She's lost by 2 percentage points - Trump lost by 4.5 four years ago. Kerry lost by nearly 2.5 20 years ago. She got 226 electoral collection votes - 1 less than Hillary 8 years ago. 4 Republicans have had less since the Democrats last scored less, when Dukakis scored less than half of Harris's total in 1988 (111). Only an idiot would base overall electoral performance on the electoral college. And you're not an idiot are you Mango?

Didn't see or hear her mentioned but there was a third balcony that I'm not sure was focused on. One had Kate and Sophie, one had the Duke of Kent and Tim Laurence, the third...I don't know. EDIT: Scrolled through the iPlayer coverage and found the shot of the three balconies. Think the left one has the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester in it. In which case, no sign of Princess Alexandra.

Cenotaph time, and his equerry laid a wreath on his behalf. Assumed this meant another non-attendance but then the camera cut to him standing unaided in full military dress uniform next to Tim Laurence on a balcony. Looked far better than he has recently, but at 90-odd, one bad chest infection or a fall could finish him off. But remarkably, doesn't look in immediate danger anymore.

I have barely looked at any election coverage from the USA this past year, the fact it was even competitive was demoralising enough, the prospect of the aftermath, whatever happened, was going to be awful. I've followed every election since 2004 to some extent, watched late into the night ever since until this year. There's nothing fascinating or entertaining about any of this, I would also recommend ignoring the news for the foreseeable.

And a year earlier they were a penalty away from the Premier League. Not a big Coventry fan (we've had some poor decisions and luck against them in recent years) but absolutely criminal they've sacked him. I'll post an update at some point in the near future. Ten Hag was one of only 2 Premier League managers not picked at the start of this game, the other being Eddie Howe.

Read an article on the BBC explaining why Trump won. Not difficult - of course you vote for the guy who offers simple solutions to complex problems. Who wants to vote for the ones who tell you it's complicated? It's a great gig too, because they're so complex that your simple solutions can't work but then it's all the other side's fault if only you give them even more power, then the simple solutions will work! Who cares that deporting millions of migrants will cost trillions of dollars? Or that it will deprive numerous American industries of their workforce? Just deport them! Who cares that the only way to end the Ukraine war is to cut off funding and let Putin have everything east of the Dnieper river (for now)? Who cares that the 2°C target is going to be obliterated when it's only your grandkids and great-grandkids who will suffer the consequences and you get cheap oil here and now? Who cares that you're going to finish that border wall you claimed you'd built 4 years ago (and Mexico paid for)? Who cares that the President is a sexist authoritarian demagogue when the other side are radical lefties (who are barely left of centre in reality)? Turkeys voting for Christmas, and the billionaires are delighted.

Getting rid of him altogether would make the forum much better.

It will. The worry is the damage that will be done in between. Ukraine, the Middle East, the environment, and that's before we consider the fact that the band of nutjobs he's assembled know what they're doing this time and how to game the system. They also have a compliant House and Senate and a conservative Supreme Court so they can run the table. And doubtless they'll somehow explain in 4 years time how the radical left have somehow stopped them doing everything they wanted and they must be re-elected for the sake of the nation, which will surely crumble otherwise. What an ungodly mess, and somehow this is still in some ways a better outcome than the armed gangs marauding the streets and Trump screaming foul on Fox News because Kamala won.

Just dared to look at the news. Guess it was a free and fair election then. Amazing given all the illegals voting and the ballot stuffing in the swing states...

Are you fucking insane? The result will not be clear by the time I get up for work at 6.30, it probably won't be clear by the time I leave work at 4pm. If you think you'll have a winner by 3am you're even more deluded than we already know you to be. And regardless of how late you stay up, stop spamming the thread with every little thought you have.

Apologies to those who wish me not to engage with his nonsense and not to quote him so he gets around your blocks but this is inanity on a monumental scale. It's like the past 2 years have just passed you by. Of course it's going to be close! Of course it's going to be decided by a battle of shifts in swing states! That's literally what has been the mood music for years! We don't need a running commentary on your internal musings about things we've known for ages just because the penny's finally dropped for you at midnight on election night.

Loads of quotation marks, no attributations. Classic Crem.

Well if it makes you feel better, if Harris wins you can look forward to the complete disintegration of the rule of law and mobs of angry MAGA supporters storming municipal buildings across the country while their Commander-in-Chief screams nonsensical conspiracy theories. That should provide decent copy for a few weeks at least...

I don't care what Gallup say, you only have to look at Florida's decisions over the past decade. Repeated elections for de Santis, support for his crackpot Disney war, increasingly insane referendum results, the fictitious war on woke...I could go on. Its voting patterns are MAGA Central.

Is this meant to be a surprise? Florida is turning into Trumpland. They're as nuts as he is and have been for years.

Has anybody said anything worth reading so far today? I've got half of you saying current turnout benefits Harris, and half of you saying it favours Trump. Truth is you're all scrabbling around in the dark until the bloody things are counted. We're nowhere near knowing who's going to win than we were this morning. I'm not counting any chickens of any kind until a result is called, and I'm certainly not taking the vote of 6 people in the middle of nowhere as an indicator of who's going to be the next President. Frankly, I'm not sure we can take any result as gospel until January 20th, the way this hullabaloo is going to carry on.

Funny old bunch. As one insider says, it could reasonably be a cabinet Sunak would pick. A right v right leadership election and the cabinet has very few right wingers in it. Chris Mason pointing out there's 121 Tory MPs and around 100 cabinet roles to shadow. Taking out those who don't want to serve (Sunak, Dowden, Hunt, Claverley, etc.), those chairing Select Committees and those you don't like, you're not going to be able to shadow every position without doubling up and beggars can't be choosers when it comes to filling posts.

Thank heavens for small mercies eh?

Priti Patel as shadow foreign secretary! They just don't get it do they? A woman sacked for lobbying the Israeli government whilst supposedly on holiday. And Jenrick back in Justice. They're just as shit as they were before the election. Not a chance they win in 2028/29, I'd give Farage more chance.

We can argue over which poll is more significant and why a 52% lead is better than a 58% lead until we're blue in the face, simple fact is it all ends on Tuesday and millions of ballots have already been cast. And, essentially, we know absolutely nothing about who is going to win. More than 60 million votes have already been cast, the election will essentially be decided in just 7 key states and Trump has lost the popular vote already twice over and still won one of those 2 elections. I worry that the trend seems to be slightly back in Trump's favour, and I still wonder if some of those key voters in the battlegrounds are prepared to vote for a woman. I think the two big polling unknowns are, rather than how many of their target voters they can get to the polls, how many independents and moderate Democrats are quietly intending to vote for Trump but not vocalising it due to the toxic political climate, but vice versa, how many Republicans in the privacy of the polling booth are going to decide that enough is enough, the circus has to end and they cannot continue to support someone actively destroying their party and so vote for someone other than Trump, safe in the knowledge nobody in their party will know. Whether either of those groups is enough to tip the scales I have no idea, but given lots of states may be decided by less than 100,000 votes, it could make the difference. We could have any result from a Harris blow out to a Trump blow out, or even a mythical tie. Nothing would surprise me anymore. But the idea of (at least) 4 more years of Donald Trump is terrifying to any sane, rational human being.