World Curling Championship action continues in Europe when the Le Gruyère AOP European Curling Championships 2024 are staged from 16-23 November. The Kisakallio Sports Institute in Lohja, Finland will host the A-Division competitions, with the following teams-

The ten A-Division women’s teams are: Denmark, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Türkiye.

The ten A-Division men’s teams are: Austria, Czechia, England, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Round-robin play commences on Saturday 16 November and will continue until Thursday 21 November. In both men’s and women’s events, the top four teams will progress to semi-finals. Semi-finals and qualification games will start on Thursday 21 November. For the semi-finals of both gender A-Divisions, the teams ranked first on the round-robin table will play the fourth-ranked teams, while the second and third-ranked teams will face each other. Both women’s and men’s gold medal games will be staged on Saturday 23 November.

Scotland Women are Rebecca Morrison (Skip), Jennifer Dodds (Third), Sophie Sinclair (Second), Sophie Jackson (Lead) and Fay Henderson (Alternate). They will be looking to improve on last year's 5th place finish.

Rebecca, Jennifer, Sophie S, Sophie J

Scotland Men are the usual suspects - Bruce Mouat (Skip), Grant Hardie (Third), Bobby Lammie (Second), Hammy McMillan (Lead) and Alternate Kyle Waddell. They are the form team in this event, having won Gold in the previous 3 years and are the current World and Tour Challenge Champions.

Kyle, Hammy, Bobby, Grant, Bruce

England Men consist of Rob Retchless (Skip), Jotham Sugden (Third), Scott Gibson (Second), Jonathan Havercroft (Lead) and Colin Mouat (Alternate). Colin is better known as the good-looking brother of Bruce.

Jonathan, Scott, Jotham, Rob

Gareth Ainsworth has been appointed as head coach of League One bottom club Shrewsbury Town.

The 51-year-old Lancastrian returns to management after a year out of the game.

After more than a decade in charge of Wycombe Wanderers, which included promotion to the Championship in 2020, Ainsworth left in February 2023 to take over at Queens Park Rangers, one of his clubs during his playing days.

But he lasted just eight months in charge at Loftus Road before being sacked.

Ainsworth replaces Paul Hurst, whose second spell ended last week after just seven months as head coach.

He brings with him long-standing number two Richard Dobson, who will be assistant head coach.

“From the moment we started the recruitment process, Gareth and Richard were our number one targets," said Town's director of football Micky Moore. "It is a massive coup for Shrewsbury Town to have them here.

“I’ve known Gareth for a long time. He was the stand-out candidate. And he is someone I have always admired for the outstanding work he did at Wycombe.

“He brings to this football club an enthusiasm and a wealth of knowledge having managed more than 150 games in League One. He is exactly what we need.

“I’m sure, in time, we will be able to build a football club that will really make the town and our supporters proud.”

Long-serving Shrewsbury chairman Roland Wycherley is in the process of trying to step down as the owner of the Shropshire club.

Ainsworth, who has worked as a match summariser in the media over the past 12 months, is Wycherley's 15th and probably final appointment after 28 and a half years at the helm.

"I would like to extend a very warm welcome to Gareth and Richard at this difficult time," said Wycherley. "I wish them every success in their endeavours as they work to restore the feel-good factor to our club.”

Shrewsbury sit 24th in League One, having swapped places with Burton Albion as a result of their 2-0 defeat by the Brewers last weekend.

First-team coach Sean Parrish took caretaker charge of both that and Tuesday's 3-0 EFL Trophy hammering at Walsall.

Town are scheduled to return to action on 23 November with a lunchtime home game against title favourites Birmingham City.

Bonnyrigg Rose have been deducted 6 points because their pitch has too much of a slope.

https://www.hibernianfc.co.uk/news/2024/...directors/

It must have taken about 2 mins for Hibs CE, Ben Kensell, to cobble together that totally unimpressive formal statement in support of David Gray. I'm absolutely stumped by this response and I'm sure there are 1000s of Hibs fans who are similarly bemused by it. We had an opportunity to reset during the "international break" - all gone!! I fear the threat of relegation looming ever closer and am gradually becoming more n more frustrated and disenfranchised from Hibs and the people who are supposedly running our football club with our best interests at heart.

Can anybody tell me the sense of warming up a goalkeeper to the point he gets injured doing it?

Few people can have devoted more thought to their own time keeping goal than me, even if it was at a not very high level. I took it / take it seriously.

Of all the thoughts I ever had, of all the mistakes I ever made ........ I never put a ball going past me down to NOT having warmed up sufficiently. ALL I ever did, even for finals at Saltergate was a kick-in and some handling on crosses. I NEVER dived, I NEVER sprinted. BUT I did always try to think about the game beforehand and all the things I'd be required to do, I relaxed and cleared my head.

Our young, apparently superfit keeper injured himself on Saturday in the warm-up. It's quite common these days. It used to be a NEVER event. I've no objection to Ryan Boot playing. That didn't make us rubbish - every other team knowing what to expect did. BUT what is the point? He'd be better off telling the goalkeeping coach it's rubbish and he'd rather meditate quietly alone in the dressing room.

Being warmed up enough to prevent immediate injury shouldn't be very vigorous. Sport requires your brain to be on-song, not coping with a breathless, panting body. We need good alert decision-makers out there, not lactic-acid junkies.

I can say that at cricket I've taken several first-ball slip catches off fast bowlers without injury on a gentle warming up and a bit of catching practice. AND never dropped one. Like much of professional sport extensive warm-ups are for the benefit and justification of the coaching staff only. Philip Larkin got it wrong, it isn't only your mum and and dad who xxxx you up.

2 points for correct result
4 points for correct score
2 points for each correct scorer
Correct joker doubles your score   (correct score on a joker would give you 8 points)
Wrong joker result gives you minus 2
Correct Badger gives you 2 points

The prize for winning the league is one rep point.

Cup games: In the event of a draw, it's half the points if you've predicted a draw when it gets to 90 mins and the full points if it's still a draw after extra time. Half the points will be awarded for correctly predicting the winner of the match if it goes to penalties. However, if you do predict a draw and it's a match that won't be going to a replay, you can get a possible extra point by stating which of the two teams you think will eventually win.

Random score generator: I will be using the random score generator again for those who miss predicting, so we shouldn't get some people too far behind that after missing a couple of weeks they lose all interest, because I know it's not easy getting on here every week.
To be fair to everybody, this is going to be like, say if three people in one week miss their predictions, the first one in the table will be given all 0-0, the second one down the line will get 1-0 and the third will get 0-1 and so on, like if there's four missing the 4th will get 1-1, then 5th 2-1, 6th 1-2. and if there are so many missing, might as well pack in.
And if you miss two weeks on the trot, I'll stop until you come back on again. Not doing it for half a season like I did t'other year.  


At the end of the season, the winner of group 2 and the bottom of group 1 will swap places in what is commonly known as "promotion" and "relegation". It's something that most football fans will be familiar with, unless you're a fan of Liverpool or Arsenal or one of those other fashionable clubs.

The second placed player in group 2 will then have a play off with the player who finishes second from the bottom in group 1 to decide whether they will be going up, down or staying where they are.

We're going to have two seasons in one though, just to try and make it a bit more interesting and not so long drawn out. The first season will end on the Boxing Day fixtures, with the play offs being on the dates of the Twixtmas fixtures and the NYD fixtures.

The second season will start the following week, which is usually the FA Cup 3rd round, finishing on the last game of the League One season. Then another period of relegation/promotion play off games, taking in such fixtures as the EFL play offs, FA Cup Final, UEFA finals and such like.

Each group will have it's own set of fixtures. Both groups will have the Town games, with scorers to predict as before. Then it will be a split of League One fixtures and bonus matches, hopefully around ten, eleven or twelve games per Matchday.

The random badger is restricted to three goal scorers in any of the fixtures in your group.

Here's how that will appear at the end of the fixture list. All you have to do is fill in the blanks.......


*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

Any of those will score two points if correct. No minus points for getting it wrong.

Postponed matches will only count if the match is re-played before the next Matchday is under way. Abandoned matches will be awarded half the points for the score at the time of abandonment, so 1 point if you have the correct result, 2 points if you have the correct score.

Substitute or scorer in one of the Town games:- These will be only be allowed if you change them before the match involved has kicked off.

Prediction League Archive: https://www.sportsbabble.co.uk/showthread.php?tid=12830



Division One table after Matchday 14:

1. themaclad = 270 pts
   
2. jjamez = 262 pts
   
3. St Charles Owl = 249 pts
   
4. Baggiebob(BBB) = 247 pts
   
5. Lord Snooty = 222 pts
   
6. SHEP_HTAFC = 210 pts
   

1. theo_luddite = 275 pts
   
2. neonfoxinthebox = 271 pts
   
3. Devongone = 248 pts
   
4. ritchiebaby = 240 pts
   
5. Amelia Chaffinch = 204 pts
   
6. WakeyTerrier = 198 pts
   

UEFA Nations League:
Thursday November 14th:
Greece v England

Friday November 15th:
Scotland v Croatia
Northern Ireland v Belarus

Saturday November 16th:
Turkey v Wales (17:00)

League One:
Exeter City v Lincoln City (12:30)
Blackpool v Northampton Town
Bristol Rovers v Crawley Town
Cambridge United v Barnsley
Charlton Athletic v Peterborough United
Stockport County versus Wrexham

UEFA Nations League:
Sunday November 17th:
England v Republic of Ireland (17:00)

Monday November 18th:
Poland v Scotland
Luxembourg v Northern Ireland

Tuesday November 19th:
Wales v Iceland

*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***
*** scores for ***

Huddersfield Town v Manchester United under 21s
Bristol Street Motors Trophy - Group F
Tuesday November 12th - 19:45 ko
at the John Smith's Stadium

Man Utd's profiles: The Academy head coach and in charge of the Busby Babes in this game will be Travis Binnion, a 37 year old who started his playing career with the Sheffield Utd Academy, but never made the first team. Before football though, he had a short (one match) career as a cricketer with Nottinghamshire.

After a short spell playing in Finland, he quit playing to become a coach and was offered a job back at Bramall Lane. He moved to Man Utd in 2019 and became Academy head coach in 2021. His team won the FA Youth Cup in 2022, with current first teamers Kobbie Mainoo and Alejandro Garnacho in the side that beat Nottingham Forest 3-1 in the Final.

Another of the coaches is a name that will give many a Town fan shudders down the spine. He's 36 years old and has been playing as one of the over age players. He scored the first goal in a 3-0 defeat of ours in 2011 at Old Trafford. His name is Tommy Rowe.

Seventeen year old twins, Jack and Tyler Fletcher are the sons of former United player, Scottish international and current first team coah, Darren Fletcher. It's Jack who seems to be making a name for himself at this stage of their progression. He came on a a sub in the game at Oakwell and scored twice as United came form 2-0 down to win 3-2 against Barnsley.

Ethan Ennis scored the first goal in that comeback. He's 19 years old and according to his Wikipedia page has been described as having "brilliant quality on the ball", "an eye for a creative pass", and "brilliant instincts in front of goal". He has also been called, 'two-footed, commanding in the air, and jet-heeled'.

1. Eggs To Beer
   
2. Isiah Wonderment
   
3. Iggys Gran
   
4. Souls Chapel
   
5. Nellie Gravy
   
6. A Nookie Bimbo
   
7. Dinky Tran Andrew
   
8. Ironwood Lover
   
9. Only John Mimics
   
10. Alf Crimper Blaze
    

hiya all
apart from the prediction league i dont post much

but what is it with these stupid international breaks?
do we really need them?

FIFA trying to make more  ££££££

international  breaks.....please

players being forced into nothing more the glorified friendlies?

end up getting injured?

its stupid

Or even week 15, can't edit the title.
Thanks Themaclad sorted,?

Harrogate 1-0 Morecambe
Salford 1-1 Carlisle
MK Dons 2-1 Swindon
Wimbledon 3-1 Grimsby
Barrow 1-2 Colchester
Cheltenham 1-2 Bromley
Chesterfield 3-1 Accr. Stanley
Doncaster 2-2 Notts County
Fleetwood 0-1 Bradford
Gillingham 0-2 Port Vale
Walsall 3-1 Crewe
Tranmere 2-2 Newport