TS

22 hours ago, mjmooney said:

Probably 'expats' who live or work in the area. 

Maybe, I did see on The Athletic article about Charlotte FC there was a commenter who said he and his family had made the trip with the team and met Deano in the hotel. Apparently he was on the way to watch the Villa!

https://theathletic.com/5316956/2024/03/05/charlotte-fc-dean-smith-mls-2

On 04/03/2024 at 01:27, Don_Simon said:

A 6,000 mile roundtrip. Wonder what the away following was like?

I was at the game and surprisingly there were some away fans, about a row or two of them so I'd guess somewhere from 10-20 people.

Fair play to them it's a hell of a trip.

2 minutes ago, Phil Silvers said:

Thanks for the info brother villan, see you in a couple of years, or better still, get more involved.

Haha cheers man maybe I will. I've been doomscrolling with the rest of you for the last few days, just haven't found much to say that hasn't already been said.

If this comes off though I'll definitely post a few celebratory GIFs.

I'd be interested in joining this year.

Funnily enough I was on an internal flight in India a couple of weeks ago and the in flight magazine had two pages dedicated to Liverpool merchandise you can buy. 

Saying that though I haven't seen anyone wearing a Liverpool shirt, and I've seen loads of Man Utd, Chelsea, Barca and Real merchandise.

I think the biggest shock would have to be the absolute poverty of the kind we just aren't used to seeing at home. It really makes you appreciate how lucky you are.

I'm actually at the very start of doing this myself. 

I'm currently in the Himalayas in India after starting in Mumbai about 3 and a half weeks ago and working my way up North. My plan is to travel India for 2 months, before doing Nepal/Burma/Thailand/Cambodia/Lao/Vietnam within a month or two, then Hong Kong and Beijing before going to Japan and then finally I've got a 12 month working visa sorted for New Zealand from December.

Part of the reason I'm doing Asia is I did some backpacking around Europe when I was younger, but it is also much cheaper. For example, in India you can easily live comfortably on £500 per month. I think South East Asia may be slightly more expensive but not massively. For me the most expensive place will be Japan and then setting myself up in New Zealand, although thankfully I have some family over there that have offered to put me up while I find some work. The impression I get from them though is that it is very easy to find work in NZ at the moment.

I was in pretty much the same situation as you, no wife/kids/mortgage and I was becoming disillusioned with life in the UK so I decided to get out there and see some of the world while I still have my health and my freedom.

I'm not regretting it so far. Don't get me wrong, I have a big of a love/hate relationship with India but it's more love than hate. There have been a few things that are a bit of a culture shock, but if you're an open minded person (which I'm sure you are if you're thinking about doing this) then you'll find that's nothing more than "Oh, that's a bit odd."

As for my planning for it, it was very limited. I needed to get a visa for India in advance although I believe that has just changed and you can now get an e-visa for big entry points like Mumbai. Apart from that all the other countries are visa-on-arrival with the exception of China, although I can get into Hong Kong without a visa and get a Chinese one from there.

I literally just booked a flight to Mumbai and did the rest of it on the fly. It's easy enough to get around and you meet other travellers who can help you with your plans. I mean, when I arrived in Mumbai I had no idea what I wanted to do in India except see the Taj Mahal and Golden Temple (both of which I have done now). The place I am currently staying is the exiled home of the Dalai Lama and it is absolutely stunning. I probably wouldn't have planned to come here on my own reading a Lonely Plant guide, but after speaking to other travellers here I am, with some other stops along the way I wouldn't necessarily have visited but am glad I did.

It's a bit of a gamble to leave with little to no plan and I was kinda bricking it the last couple of days before I left but I'm really glad I did now. It's one of the best things about travelling alone that you have so much flexibility to do what you want to when you want to, so don't be afraid of leaving without a major plan of what you're going to do when you arrive. Even if you did plan everything out you can guarantee you wouldn't stick to it.

Go for it, I'm sure you won't regret it. I'm not. Any questions please ask.

Incidentally it was this or South America for me but I decided on Asia as I felt it was a bit more safe as a solo traveller. I'm not sure how true that is though.

Surprised nobody has mentioned Ashley Young yet. There's an article in The Independent saying we want him back.

Personally I'd take him back in a heartbeat even after his Olympic diving performances against us.

Look a few pages back he was mentioned a lot

Just had a look at the free agents and there are some interesting names there who can play CM: Cambiasso, Aquilani, Muntari and Gourcuff who plays attacking mid. Any of those you'd take?

Hmmm... Probably only Cambiasso to be honest, tempted by Aquilani but I think with his kind of game he'd be limited now because of his age. Perhaps could do a job though.

Aquilani? He was crap at Liverpool, his game is not suited to the premier league

Surprised nobody has mentioned Ashley Young yet. There's an article in The Independent saying we want him back.

Personally I'd take him back in a heartbeat even after his Olympic diving performances against us.

I think Benteke will do well there but not enough to stop Rodgers getting sacked by Christmas and Klopp comes in to push them to 5th. Benteke under Klopp could be magnificent.

Copa America final is on at the same time.

I think that young men these days feel so emasculated and irrelevant that they tend to take everything to extremes to feel alive and important. It's separate from drinking culture, but aligned with it, showing off about drinking is nothing new. The proliferation of social media has which brings it's own issues has made the need to appear 'ladish' even worse. I find 'laddishness' artificial, but every generation has their 'code' I guess and this is theirs. I dislike it, it seems you must show off about everything you do, be misogynistic and over the top.

Personally I feel a lot of it is due to changes in society. When my parents were my age they were settling down and having kids. Nowadays, it's the minority doing that for a variety of reasons. Partly financial and partly cultural.

From the financial aspect, people like to feel some form of stability before starting a family which isn't there in the same way it seems it was 30 years ago. Insecure jobs, impossibly high house prices and an inability to raise a family on a single wage don't help.

Culturally, the majority of women my age are more concerned with starting a career than a family. While this isn't a bad thing in itself, it means that the responsibilities that caused past generations to 'grow up' aren't there anymore - or at least not as quickly.

All in all which leads to people my age acting like they're still teenagers.

I'm so nervous right now. Can't imagine I'm getting much sleep tonight.

If nothing else I'm looking forward to an amazing atmosphere today.

Feels good typing today. Just wish it was now!

It kind of beggars belief that we have governments trying to put limits on the freedom of information for the benefit of multinational corporations. Well, it would if it wasn't so utterly predictable.

Does this have anything to do with this new EU-US trade partnership? I don't understand why we care so much about American lobbyists.

I wouldn't be surprised if they've taken the reaction from Villa fans into account for all future pitch invasions. Far easier just to not condemn it.

I was shocked too. Best fans in the world™.

All I can hear is the Palace fans singing "1-0, and you still don't sing."

Great send off.

Absolutely ridiculous.

If this is true, (which I hope for the sake of human decency it isn't), it leads to the question why the hell would you do it on a match day? Why endanger all those lives? Surely a random 'electrical' fire midweek would do just as good a job for an insurance payout.

I feel for those families.

H. Gomes. I completely forgot he existed til I saw him playing against Millwall the other night.

Can't help but remember GlastonSpur raving about how he was gonna be Schmeichel, Seaman and Spink wrapped up in one.

Yep that's the one. Cheers.

I read an article in Private Eye about Garcia that heavily implied he's Blatter's stooge and has a past history of finding wrongdoing where his paymaster wants it to be found.

I can't find it online but its an interesting read. I can't say I'd be surprised a Fifa led investigation into Fifa might not be the most impartial.

Wow... empathy isn't your strong point is it?!

With regards to the teaching debate, I think the counter argument to those who lament the lack of struck-off teachers is who is going to replace them? Teaching is not a very attractive career to get into these days and the only people I know who have gone into it have been the type for who it has always been their calling - would they be enough to cover all the teachers sacked for incompetence?

If you want the best teachers you have to attract the best students with a love of their subject, but most graduates I know see teaching as a fail-safe option if everything else goes tits up - and the constant vilification of teachers hardly encourages those who do have options where to work, even if they may be more predisposed to enjoy teaching.

In Finland all teachers have to been educated to Masters degree level and receive a salary and social recognition proportionate to that. Unsurprisingly their teaching standards are some of the highest in the world. (http://tinyurl.com/2enpz2n) In my opinion this is what we should be aiming for in this country, encouraging those highly educated people who would now overlook teaching due to the money or social status to consider it as a profession. When we have people knocking down the door to become a teacher, then we can talk about how we can rid schools of incompetent teaching. Until then an incompetent teacher is better than no teacher.

Unfortunately the government wants to improve educational standards but is hell-bent on creating "free" schools with enough autonomy to have teachers who have never seen a PGSE in their life. I can't see how encouraging even less-qualified teachers into the profession is going to improve standards - not to mention the intrinsic social division that comes with a lot of these schools especially the faith ones.

Admittedly the kids don't help as well, if there was an attractive environment for learning rather than the glorified babysitting that other posters have mentioned you'd probably find more people wanting to teach, but either way it's a bit of a false economy to talk about stripping bad teachers of their jobs unless you have good people to replace them or less kids to teach.