[theo_luddite]

The McGalpharmsmiths Stadium
Under the sunny blue and white sky
In the shade of the rusty old Gas Works Gasometer
HD1 6PG
Kick-off 15:00 UK Time
Saturday 19/03/22




Boiler Repair Man or Scott Parker, as his mum calls him when he calls round for Sunday lunch, and his high flying squad fly into town via Leeds Bradford Airport for this weekend's fixture between 3rd placed Town and 2nd place Bornmuff. Not for them the endless suffering of a perilous 7 hour coach journey that the newly impoverished waifs and strays of Chelski will have to endure up to Boro from their Sarf West Larndan training ground (and then back again). Poor sods.   

2nd placed Bornmuff come looking to consolidate their automatic promotion play-off spot, however none of the top 3 have been in exactly sparkling form of late.

Fulham after drawing at Barnsley at the weekend followed that up with a 1-0 loss at West Brom, who carried on where they left off in the last 10 minutes against us.
Bornmuff drew with Reading after a win at home to Direby. That followed a second draw of the season to Posh, this one at home.

On the tellybox

Not showing anywhere at the moment other than iPlayer or Bornmuff's International Tellybox/Interweb channel.

Latest news

This is Town's last match before another of those 2 week International breaks, I take it you've all noticed this too.
Levi Colwell has been called up by England U21's.   

Out Injured/Suspended/Isolating

No new injuries from the bruising at Millwall.

Back training but not oven ready/Back in the frame

Eiting is back in the frame having missed out at Millwall with a cut on his foot.
He needs to be more careful when he's cutting his toenails. 

Last time out

Town's unbeaten run ground to a halt at Millwall, just in case the news didn't reach your personal cave.


(That didn't work too well did it?)

Bornmuff drew with Reading and have only won 1 of their last 4 games.



Elsewhere Forest took the points off QPR, The Chefs had 2 goals disallowed for offside (but apparently they weren't) in a 0-0 draw at Blackpool, Stoke lost at Cardiff and Coventry lost at home to Hull.



Tables, Form & Stats





 

 

Millwall extended their unbeaten run to 8 by beating Town, Forest theirs to 7 so the top 12 positions are getting tight again in the fight for the top 6 places.
Well make it 5 as I don't really see anyone catching Fulham.

A 15 game unbeaten run at the start of the season saw Bornmuff flying high from the off.
That run came to an end with their first defeat of the season on 3rd November at home to Preston Both Ends.

Two games later they showed they were really human after all as they went on a 6 game run without a win, which finally ended with a win on December 27th v QPR. Add to that games postponed for Covid and Cup games, it means they've played less games than anyone in the division. Over the New Year that allowed Blackburn to catch them up, before they fell away again mainly due to injuries, and then Town's long unbeaten run put us in the frame, though they still have 3 games in hand on us.

Both Ends are their bogey team this season and are currently the only side to do the double over them.
Posh have drawn both games against them, proving to be an unexpected achilles heel for a top 2 side.



Form against the current Top 8 shows Bornmuff to be a tad more successful than us, 11 points v 16 points so far.



Musical Interlude

Alex James, bass player for Blur grew up in Boscombe (I may have mentioned this before, and even played this before)

https://youtu.be/WDswiT87oo8

Andrew James Somers (born 31 December 1942), known professionally as Andy Summers was the geetarist in Police. (I may have also mentioned this before).

With tickets for Saturday's match priced at £10/pop, I doubt many will be able to say this.



Giles, Giles and Fripp were an English late 1960s band, featuring brothers Michael Giles on drums and vocals, Peter Giles on bass geetar and vocals, and an up and coming youngster called Robert Fripp on geetar.

You may have noticed some of Mr. Fripps recent er, duets with his "'er indoors" that they 'um release (if that's the right word?) more or less every Sunday.
Watch at your own peril. It seems to be a bit nippy in the Fripp/Willcox kitchen most weekends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw4ZQcnx80Y

I linked that one for a reason

News elsewhere from the Boscombe Bugle
Gareth Malone presenter of the BAFTA-award-winning TV series The Choir was educated at Bournemouth School and sang with the Symphony Chorus of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. He used to busk in the town centre in his yoof. Max Bygraves was famous for getting stuck up a cliff trying to rescue his grandson's kite and we can all blame Bournemouth for foisting Tony Blackburn on the world, or at least Radio 1.



Innies and Outies



In total Bornmuff spent £11.3m on transfers this season (5 players)
The January Sales brought in the following


Moore is injured so won't be battering our back 3(4?) this weekend.

Who's banging 'em in

Dominic Solanke is their main threat but by pushing Town old boy Phil Billing a bit further forward they've turned him into a veritable goal machine this season.

He only scored 6 in 6 seasons for us, in his first season at Bornmuff he scored 3 and 8 all last season.



They can't all win

This weekend is mostly top half v bottom half, with our fixture and Fulham v Forest the two that stand out. Preston v Blackpool could turn out to be a mid-table Lancashire derby match with a bit of fire in it.



We've played 'em before

Bornmuff are just ahead in this fixture, which is rarely a draw, and the last that was goalless happened in September 1991 at the old Leeds Road ground.

We played each other 4 times in the 2010/2011 season and all 4 games were score draws.
The last two being in the Play-off's. Town won 4-2 on penalties after 1-1 and 3-3 draws and we went on to ...... you know the rest. 
Some guy called Danny Ward played for Town and scored a goal that day.
Another guy called Danny Ings played and scored for Bornmuff that day. Wonder what happened to him?



Next up?

Town don't play until April Fools Day. No seriously, on a Friday night away to Hull.
Yes SKY have been playing around with our fixtures again.

Pressers

The Esperanto version (all 25 minutes of it - get a beer or move on).

https://youtu.be/9PRIA9Y2Ea4

The rough translation from the Unexamined

https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/sport/foo...e-23425699

The view from Boscombe Pier

https://www.afcb.co.uk/videos/press-conf...oPlay=true

That's all folks.