The rolling Football thread

[BelfastBloke]

There are quite a lot of football fans on MN, and also loads of football-haters. If we hide here in Dadsnet, none of the detractors will find us. But if they do, they are welcome to come here and moan.

You don?t have to be male to post here, of course. (No-one would say women can?t post in the Dadsnet section, just like no woman would EVER say men aren?t welcome on Mumsnet?)

Footy fans please sign in with

1. Which team you support.
2. Which team(s) you loathe.
3. How you are getting your kids to follow the correct team.

1. A thought on the season so far (Premiership/Championship/Champions? League/FA Cup/League Cup/(el clasico?)/World Cup bids.

Cheers for letting us know. 'S'bin emotional.

So here it is - big night for Arsenal in the Champions' League away to Barcelona, but without Walcott or Song (our best hope for fast counterattacks and our best defensive midfielder).

We have 2 goals, but they have an away goal. Thank god we've probably got Fabregas and possibly Van Persie after a miserable time since we gloriously beat them at home.

(Arsenal) - PadDad
(Arsenal) - Saltatrix
(Arsenal) - DanFmDorking
(Arsenal) - BigGitDad
(Arsenal) - BelfastBloke
(Birmingham) - GingerCat12
(Bradford City) - bobbyzee
(Coventry) - Truckulente
(Hull) - Bristol Jim????
(Huddersfield Town) - Trublatmill
(Liverpool) - Binx14
(Liverpool) - cjdamoo
(Liverpool) - Justine MNHQ
(Liverpool) - LurcioLovesFrankie
(Man. Utd) - Pan
(Middlesbrough) - Iliad
(Norwich) - Eeore
(Notts County) - Jenniferturkington
(Nott'm Forest) - MavisEnderby
(Preston North End) - Chippy47
(Spurs) - Whathappened
(Spurs) - MarsLady
(Spurs) - AVeryMerryPersonalClown
(Sunderland) - KenDoddsDadsDog...
(Sunderland, Blackpool) - Purepurple

I don't expect to win, really, but I do know we can score over there, which will make it a fascinating night. But Barca are brilliant.

Will the other footy fans on this thread be supporting the Arse tonight?

i am still reeling from Forests shock defeat by Hull City (yes,ds,thats 1-0 for the millionth time)

Will be supporting the Arse though,mainly cos db lives within 5 mins walk of their stadium (tenuous link)

Will the other footy fans on this thread be supporting the Arse tonight?

Probably not.... the sooner Wenger is out of English football the better...

i will support Arsenal - Wenger has been a real tonic to the premier league, and has brought in some great players in his time. his teams should get some recognition silverware-wise for all of that investment in gorgeous football.

Must say I was supporting the Arse - to no avail

Could think of others I'd much rather see out of English Football than Wenger

how long will Arsenal supporters put up with living on memories?

Do they still have the dates of all their silverware plastered all over the Emirates? It's getting a bit embarrassing now given this rather extended dry spell.

living on memories is serving some of us who support lesser teams very well thank you very much.

Ah 1979,THOSE were the Glory Days.

(Stifles tear and starts singing "We've got the whole world in our hands")

What is it with the anti Wenger stuff?I quite like him.He is very Gallic and wears lovely suits.Not quite as chic as Mourhinio(sp) but ho hum.

Try supporting Brighton & Hove Albion - our home ground is on the athletics track where I did my school sports days......

Still this season's mot too bad :)

Wooot - Norwich won... it's all getting very tight at the top. And QPR lost...

Gutted and outraged that Robin Van Persie was sent off for scoring a goal because he hadn't heard the offside whistle! Not saying we weren't completely dominated by Barca. Just saying that we were winning the tie at that point (it was 1-1, and that would have seen us through).

So, out of the Carling Cup, out of the Champion's League. On Sat we will probably get knocked out of the FA Cup!

That's 12 March: ITV1 in England is showing the FA Cup game between Manchester Utd and Arsenal, at 430pm or 5pm.

Does anyone know will this be shown in Scotland? How do I check?

BelfastBloke - are you really surprised at the referee?

The fact is Inter were in pretty much the same position last year, but the diference is that Mourinho understands how to organise a team.

Still there is some poetic justice in Wenger having a go at the ref the past two games - since he never usually sees such things.

I am surprised at the referee, eeore. RvP was focussing on scoring; I'm pretty certain he didn't hear the whistle with 95000 screaming, and he didn't know he was offside as it was marginal.

You give people a yellow for kicking the ball away in petulance, after they realise they're offside. Not for a striker doing his job.

Yeah but Barcelona have 100,000 crowd, and there is a bias toward the home team the bigger the crowd and also in terms of the reputation of the club - you see it in the PL with Man Utd - remember back in the 90's when they went something like 5 seasons without having a penalty against them at Old Trafford?

It is daft that Wenger and Nasri have been charged over their comments.

Congrats to Spurs.
Of course they were singing "Are you watching, Arsenal?", just like we would be.

My Spurs mate was supporting the Arse yesterday, and I was supporting Spurs tonight.

well done the Spurs. really are a euro-team now. Sandro was a tower, saw everything develop and just stepped in.

So ManUre are through. I didn't see it. And this Chelsea Champs League match should be a formality, surely?

What's happening in the lower tiers?

The Guardian football podcast sent someone to see an amateur team which has the oldest player in football. It's the tenth tier of English Footy, and this team has a 75-yr-old, a 70-year-old, and a 65-yr-old, as well as a couple of 18yr-olds. They lose by loads every week. The Guardian journalist described the team's attack as 'toothless'.

Saw ManU. Usual thing where they score early then sit back like "our work is done". Well, no it isn't. Still play poorly and still win.

Chelski - saw nothing of it - am told it was duller than dull.

I want t osupport the oldies team! Toothless maybe but they have a nasty suck.

Bloody linesman

Champions' League (see what I did there with the apostrophe, UEFA?)

Half way through the Quarter-Finals, and it looks like the Semi-Finals are going to be:

1. Barcelona vs Real Madrid
2. Shalke vs Chelsea or ManUtd

I've tried to summon enthusiasm for supporting the English teams, but out of those five, I'd still prefer Barcelona to win the competition.

My order of preference to win it is:

Barcelona
Schalke
Chelsea
Real Madrid
United

I don't get why people would support a team in Europe just because they're English. Seems somewhat hypocritical given that you hope they fail in the other 50-odd games of the season.

Bassett, that's pretty much my order of preference too.

Supporting a team because they're English makes a sort of sense, because of the UEFA allocations to countries. There's been a couple of seasons where Arsenal've been glad England has 4 CL spots, not 3. And of course one errant season there were 5 (when L'pool won the thing, but then didn't qualify in the top 4).

Isn't it Italy who've just had their spots reduced from 4 to 3, at the expense of Germany?

Spurs need at least 4, but 25 min into the game are playing pretty well. So far.

Real Madrid are better than them as players, man for man, but one or two of them look like they could be nervous.

After that fumble from their goalie Spurs now need 6 in 30 min.

bye bye Spurs.

Come on Schalke against ManUtd