Just out of interest, where IS the press box ? Is it the one with the Radio Rovers hoardings (or is that just the Radio Rovers guys) ?

For me, the big tell-tale sign was Todd's reaction to the contact, the double take he makes is a either a sign of a very very good actor, or someone that wasn't expecting to find somebody sprinting into his shoulder. Personally, I don't think Todd was up to faking that reaction. After rewatching it from three angles half a dozen times I don't believe Todd knew a thing about it under Van Persey hit him.

I don't remember much about it, which probably isn't a good sign I take on nobody on here heard it (Radio 5 around midnight on Friday). We're all ripping into the FA for thier stupid antics, but Radio 5 where trying to find a Blackburn fan, in Blackburn, who wanted to discuss the stupidty of the location/ko time, to go on air on Midnight Friday ! A few quick apologies, apologies to those I probably insulted on Firday night (including the norwegian contingent), I was somewhat drunk. Apologies to everyone I saw, but didn't imediately recogise on Saturday, I wasn't exactly with it and suffering the effects of Friday a little too much. And finally, the biggest apology to JPW. On Friday, around 1am (a mere 3 hours before most of you left Blackburn), I returned to my hotel, too drunk to operate the alarm on my phone and had the genius idea of getting one of the travelling fans to ring me around 9am. I don't think JPW (who was alseep on his phone to ensure it's alarm woke him) apreciated a text at that time in the morning asking him to ring me .

I don't either, but it's an often used line in the music press.

Seeing as I'm off to see them at the academy tomorrow I've spent the evening with Terrorvision's Regular Urban Surviors and Take The Money and Run on whilst I work. Also, I know I've gone one about them before, but one of the guys from "soon to be huge" Leeds band This EtAl sorted me an pre-producution CD of their latest demo and it's fantastic ! I'm seeing if I legitimately distribute copies, but until then anyone that likes there stuff let me know and I'll see what I can do. There stuff has been likened to Muse, Queens Of The Stone Age and Interpol, the first single was He Shoots Presidents (downloadable free and legit from http://www.dancetotheradio.com/) but the best is yet to come in catscan. After earning an appearance at last years Leeds festival, having the music championed by Steve Lurpack on Radio 1 and Claire Sturgess on XFM, having their first single sell out in less than a week and one hell of a local following, I'm confident they are going to make it. As they haven't got a proper deal yet, you can download loads of their tracks from http://www.thisetal.com/media.asp (again, I urge you to check out catscan). Let me know what you think.

Simon (or anyone else for that matter), PM me your mobile number and I'll text you were we all are on Friday. I'm in a hotel right in the middle of St Marys (the main drinking area) and I'll be arriving Friday lunch so I should be able to scope out some suitable drinking establishments before the evening.

Well, it does for 10% acording to the poll.

From Superstella Information for Friday / Saturday night revellers in Cardiff: - 'The Yard' is an alright place to start. It’s the old 'Brains' brewery, there's lots of space etc. That is on High street. The yard is just across the road from o’neills. There are quite a lot of good pubs and bars along there. If you go up the street from the yard (away from o'neills etc) you'll come to Sam’s bar (? i think) at the end, and then along that street (Mill lane) there are some really nice bars - Moloko is a really great place to go. If you carry along that street you can turn left into a little arcade that take you back to high street. In the arcade is a great little pub called kiwi bar (or something) - that is definitely worth a go. Further up high street (towards the castle) there’s a funky little place called the toucan bar. There's loads more places on high street, but I’ve forgotten their names! So - if you get to the top of high street you'll be facing the castle, turn right and carry on to Queen street - the main shopping area (pedestrianised), carry on going, and on a street called the priory (or the friary, not sure) there’s a bunch on bars like the ‘Ha Ha bar’ and ‘slug and lettuce’ etc, they're quite nice. If you keep going down queen street for a bit, on one of the streets off to the left you'll see a big old red brick building saying 'Evolution' on the front. That’s just a generic club/bar type place - there's two parts. If you go in the front it's just a club/bar type thing, does mainstream pop/dance till 3 ish; round the back is a bigger club (it's all part of the same thing) and that’s more dance etc. That place is vaguely entertaining, but watch for fighting because it's frequented by valleys thugs. Also - there’s a big, huge place called Dewi's on Mary Ann street (or somewhere round there). There’s also a big walkabout on high street (but I’m sure you'll see that anyway). From Tris Depending on where you're staying, Roath is a decent option, its nearly in student land so a good atmosphere but its much quieter and much cheaper than the centre which is chaos normally.... ......if you have to be in the centre then anywhere bar St Mary's Street (the first main street you get to from the station walking to town) should be ok. If you can make your way as far as the ice rink/cardiff international arena (5 mins), there's a really good large pub on the corner (not the Springbok bar which'll be rammed!). My tip would be Roath personally!

A couple of years back I was in Edinburgh for a works Christmas Party and managed (through this board) to get in contact with a couple of Scottish Rovers fans (who read but didn't post) from just outside the city (Falkirk I think). They kindly gave me a lift down to Ewood for the Man Utd game and sadly I lost their email address very soon after (if you're reading this guys, drop me a line, I never did get the chance to say "Thank You" properly).

I figured we might as well turn this into a poll.

Rovers have had £25 tickets available all along. But for a long time no IT'S ONLY SINGLES. People were asking for 2 or more tickets and being told they couldn't have them so the word spread that none were available. However, as long as you happy not to sit with your mates there are still (or at least were on Saturday) £25 tickets available.

Do we not have any members familiar with Cardiff who could suggest somewhere ? The only suggested names so far are the Prince of Wales, which comes under ths no chuffin way category and a wetherspoons, hardly a football pub. We found a great little pub prior to the game at Ninian Park, but it was trek from the millenium.

Me, PennyDuff and half of Norway it would seem.

Grumble Grumble Grumble. It works both ways. I (almost always) drive and couldn't get anywhere near the coffee stand for my traditional pre-match/half-time coffees because of the hoards of folks queing for their free beverage Still, fantastic day, great result and I'm finally looking forward to Cardiff.

Except that SWI (who have the contract to manufacture our kits) don't own Umbro. They do however own Lonsdale, along with other brands such as Dunlop, Slazenger and Donnay to name but a few. It's not going to be Umbro/Nike/Adidas/Diadorra/<InsertBigProfitableSportswearCompany> any time soon.

I'll be there on Friday and no doubt indulging in a beer or two somewhere

I don't think anyone has mentioned pubs yet. So, 11am-12am in Moon Under Water on Deansgate anyone ?

Maybe the club's PR department is pushing positive stuff to the LET ? Anyone from the LET (c'mon, we know you read this ) care to comment ?

It's a couple of years since I read it, but isn't the Prince Of Wales the home of the Soul Crew acording to the book of the same name ?

AFAIK there are only two ways of getting the key card from Millie, boff her or shoot her. It may be that your brother has already killed her, in which case (if memory serves) you should recieve a call from Woozie asking how it's going, you then tell him you've killed her and he suggests you just let yourself into he house (which you can then do). Of course, if could be that she's alive and she's just never there, which does normally sort itself out.

Not wanting to start a panic, but aren't tickets not on sale until tomorrow ?

I guess the s.com must have fallen off the end in transit

After an unexpected change of plans I'll no longer be on the imfamous Acrington Love Bus to Cardiff However, I will now be in Cardiff centre for both Friday and Saturday nights ..... which is nice (and how glad I am Mrs Glenn found a room in Cardiff and didn't resort to her second choice, Bristol). Beer anoyone ?

Conspiracy theories abound regarding the scheduling of the new series of Doctor Who (I kid you not .... and lets face it, everyone who is THAT bothered about it has already downloaded it ).

Right. Rather that letting the few usual suspects do it, who is up for getting on every phone-in/letters page/rant line etc to voice our displeasure ? Who's up for turning up at the FA with printed letters of complaint (no point emailing them, they'll just get ignored. Pretty much the same with posting them), physical people stood getting in folks way in the reception at Soho Square will have far more of an impact. Lets face it, we're not going to get it changed, but we should at least let the world know what stupid, ignorant, London-biased, big-club-orientated arses the FA are being. Getting media attention is easy, phone ins are dying for rant-driven callers, paper editors love to run this kind of thing. It doesn't take much effort. I think the important line to get out is the hypocrisy of their statement "We have taken a responsible decision bearing in mind these issues and the travel arrangements for fans from the four competing clubs." Plainly this is a LIE on the day of the game only a single train that doesn't leave quite enough time to get to the ground is running from Blackburn. We've had two sources claim a LARGE section of the M6 is going to be closed. It's common knowledge that when two teams are in Cardiff on the same day the traffic backs up for miles, how bad is that going to be when Man Utd and Newcastle fans are arriving too (because a lot of people will be down for the weekend). For the game at Ninian Park I got on the minibus at 8am at Acrington, so that would make it 5am, however that was allowing for traffic of 1000 travelling fans, how much longer with 60000+ travelling fans (plus those Man Utd/Newcastle fans making a weekend of it). So say .... 2:30am ? Plus the hour from Leeds to Acrington ? I might as well just go straight from work ! Take the Friday off work and stay down there ? Great idea, my wife has to book her holidays every april for the next 12 months ! Some of use just can't "take the day off". Even if we could, having 4 teams playing on the same weekend has made hotel rooms one hell of a premium. Their other point, "The kick-off times are always set after full consultation with the police and other safety authorities, and with safety and security considerations given the highest importance." - Yeah, that makes sense. Rovers have next to no recent history of trouble and Arsenal rarely take big numbers of lads outside London, where as Man Utd and Newcastle are both known to mob-up on regular occasions. It therefore makes sense to keep us and Arsenal out of the pub but not Man Utd and Newcastle .... NOT ! The decision has been made for TV, not safety. I'd end with a cheeky "rant over", but I've got a feeling this rant is going to last for some time yet !