Off Topic Other Stuff (anything you want to share)

How the other half live.

Arsenal player Alexis Sanchez who has a while to go on his present contract....is demanding £400.000 per week.....an increase on his present salary of £125.000 per week......it's called bribery from were I come from, or is it just a loyalty bonus.

 

Such sad news today about the Sunderland lad Bradley Lowery losing his fight with cancer. It breaks my heart to think of a lad of 6 having to have gone through what he has. Also for his parents and no matter how proud you are and how brave the child has been it cannot make up for losing them like that.

RIP young man and and my heart felt condolences to his parents and family.

 

Not being a follower of the PL, I don't know if you are aware of the relationship between Bradley and Jermain Defoe following Bradley's appearance as a mascot for Sunderland in September last year. RIP.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...erminally-ill-cancer-footballer-a7828481.html

 

Yes I've seen that notdistant. I've seen comments before about players visiting hospitals and stuff and it must be hard for some of them with families to sometimes see kids on the wards with sometimes dreadful problems. I have first hand experience of this from years ago when my own brother was ill with a brain tumour and was in Great Ormand Street. I defy anyone to go onto some of those wards and feel nothing. The staff deserve every penny they earn and more and the parents should get a reward of some sort because most of them are so stoical. It's very hard to lose a child and my parents, especially my mother, never really got over it themselves. It's the sort of thing that makes me a non believer in religion.

 

Jermain Defoe has been effected emotionally by his contact with this young lad.....something that started as "part of the job".....ended up being a bond between a young fan whose hero was Jermain and the pro footballer who took time to bring young Bradley's dreams to fruition....something in the end more important than just kicking a ball around.....I did see Defoe at his Bournemouth interview and he was genuinely upset when the subject came up....it was a relationship that certainly meant much to him and he must of known that Bradley didn't have much time left.

 

I see Exeter have made yet another shed load of cash by selling a youngster. Watkins goes to Brentford for £1.8m. They seem to make a habit of doing this where we seem to make a habit of flogging our's for next to nothing in comparison. We are by far the bigger club of the two in terms of history etc and yet they seem to outdo us with the kids over and over. Question has to be what are we doing wrong that they are doing right. Apart from hardly playing them that is.

 

Interesting chat about this with someone at Torquay tonight. His opinion was that it boils down to Exeter actively pursue a policy of finding young talent , developing it, and then selling so the club can afford to function for another year or two, whereas we focus on assembling a team to be successful enough to allow us to climb up the leagues (potentially at the expense of playing the 'kids'). I agree that the two shouldn't be mutually exclusive, but I think it shows the different mentalities of the clubs. Perhaps one day we will be able to do both, but at the moment the youngsters don't get enough exposure to make them worth a lot of money. For what it is worth I think we have a good bunch of youngsters at the moment and it might just be that the likes of Sangster and Fletcher do pretty well for the club, either financially or on the pitch.

 

I think it's been a question often asked for a long time now lyndhurst. And if honest it is a question that ought to be. I can see no earthly reason why we as a club can't do both now or historically. We have a youth set up which could if it pushed itself go out and actively pursue youth talent. We have had and could have now the resources to do it better than Exeter can. I exclude the several years of melt down in that argument. One can finance the other quite well if it's done either properly or at all. I accept Exeter need to do it to survive another year or two but if we are going to progress then we also need money to do it. You can only go so far on a shoe string and it's revenue like a good transfer fee and add ons that give a club resources to push on to where we all want to be. I think it shows a lack of ambition to some extent by the club that it doesn't. Not just now but for a very long time.

 

The new rules whereby large clubs can poach young players from the likes of Argyle make spending money on extra youth development more risky than it already was.

 

Exeter have always been good with the youth, i know alot young lads that argyle said no to and went to play at exeter youth. Not all make it but at least they were given the chance as argyle just dont want that..

 

It may be more risky with premier league poaching as it is but Exeter don't do too badly from it and certainly of late. I don't think we do enough to promote our own youth and even if we find one we certainly don't consider playing them like Exeter do.

Anyway, watched the England ladies smash ten bells out of the Scots tonight. 6 - 0. I said to the wife at 4 - 0 that the scoreline isn't a proper one. It has to be 5 - 0 to be proper in football and if they score a sixth then it has to be 6 - 1. What do they do, cock it up and score 2 more. Still they are quite new at the game aren't they. I did find it quite disturbing that the commentator kept talking about Nobbs being all over the pitch though. There again they did have Michael Owen as a pundit.

 

I think that is my point....we have some real talent in the Academy (as anyone who was at Devon FA tonight will testify) but for whatever reason in recent seasons they haven't had enough exposure in 1st team football to warrant a big transfer fee. That can only be the attitude of successive managers rather than a lack of ambition. This season we have entered teams into pretty much every competition going, so not sure where we can get more quality match time from.

 

Wow. What a day to be English sports wise. We had old Foomey winning the Tour de France, England women beating Spain 2 - 0 when they played like a bunch of muppets and best of all the Women winning the World one Day Cup in cricket with a nail biter finish. I had to go out today but did get hoe for the last part which was by far the best by the look of it. A lesson by the ladies on how to claw success out of the jaws of defeat.

to them all.

 

Just been watching the game show Pointless.....won by Steve an Argyle fanatic and his daughter Alice.....they won £3000....getting 2 out of 3 of their answers pointless.

 

Whilst down Bournemouth last week.....we came across a camera crew and Michael Portillo...in a bright blue jacket and yellow trousers....waiting outside the Marriott Hotel to be picked up in a mini-bus (it came as we walked past).....I assume he was filming a future edition of his railway journeys programme that day.

 

or he was off to dodgy meeting.. He wears some odd gear. but an odd person.. is he a train spotter?

 

I hear a lot of comments when I'm at Argyle that are a bit pointless. Obviously naturals.

 

That show is Pointless like most of the others.. never watch none of that as i am am doing a silly thing... working .

 

Ah but you wait till you retire Joe. It's an afternoon snooze followed by Countdown, then Tipping Point and the Chase. Alternatively, yes you do have a choice, it's 15 to 1 followed by Tipping Point and then Pointless. It's these quiz programmes that keep us going don't ya know. Then it's tea done on a tray during one of those programmes and dishes out of the way before the news. That's when it's time for the later snooze as it's best not knowing what's going on in the world. That's Monday sorted...................................and Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and Friday. On Saturday it's sports for the afternoon and Sunday is a day of rest of course.

Dunno how I fit it all in.

 

Well it that case i think i will keep working.. Its the Tv programmes that would do me in.. Why don't you get a bicycle and take up cycling.. You could pop out for a nice ride across the moors.. Plenty of snoozes as well.