Footy updates 2025/6

A weekend to forget for our favourite teams.

Ipswich Town, recently (and briefly) of the Premier League, pre-season favourites to win the Championship, languish in 20th place after a 106th minute (of 90) equaliser at home to lowly (21st place) Derby County, meaning they have just 3 points from 4 games and are already 9 points adrift of the leaders. Boosted financially by £100 million in Premier League prize money and £40 parachute payments, they have made 11 signings in the summer transfer window, some of those on loan; that's a whole new team! Most of them have yet to play any minutes and all will need time to settle in so perhaps it's too early for us fans to panic. Obviously the club decided the remnants of the relegated squad, after some key departures as a result of relegation release clauses in their contracts, needed a complete overhaul. We can only hope recruitment has been a success.

In the same division Charlton Athletic, possibly one of the pre-season relegation favourites after promotion from League One, are four places and one point above Ipswich. They lost away at QPR on Saturday but, unlike Ipswich, they do at least have a win under their belt. If they can maintain this early season form maybe they can survive.

Down one division, Wycombe Wanderers are firmly stuck in the relegation places with just two points from six games. This is their fifth season in League One after one season in the Championship and will have expected to be challenging for the playoff places after achieving that in two of the previous seasons including last year. At least they are still in the Carabao Cup, in which they play away to Wigan Athletic, also of League One but in mid table, in a couple of weeks time.

Our two Premier League teams also join the Carabao Cup in the third round. Arsenal are away to Port Vale, who are one of only two teams below Wycombe in League One; Tottenham are at home to Doncaster Rovers, currently 5th in League One. Both had disappointing results at the weekend. Tottenham's probably comes in the "shocking" category, losing 1-0 at home to Bournemouth, who had 20 shots (6 on target) against Tottenham's 5 (1 on target) despite Spurs having 61% possession. In the previous game they won away at Manchester City convincingly, a situation reminiscent of last season, when they lost 2-1 at home to Ipswich followed immediately by a 4-0 win away to Manchester City. There's a word for this: spursy. It's hard to understand and must be infuriating for their die-hard fans. At least they've got a new signing on the way: Xavi Simons, who they stole from under the nose of Chelsea.

I was most disappointed with Arsenal. With a bunch of top-class new signings, away to a Liverpool team which has been shipping goals (albeit while still winning), I expected a statement win. I had hoped that manager Mikel Arteta would have had the courage to select 18yo Ethan Nwaneri to replace semi-injured (on the bench) Martin Odegaard. Nwaneri is an attacking creative player and could have taken the fight to our opponents from the beginning and linked up with new striker Gyokeres, but instead he went for the 'safe' option of Mikel Merino, who is undoubtedly more solid and capable of pressing the opposing midfield hard. The result was a sterile game in which Arsenal passed the ball around between their defenders, effectively saying "we hold what we have" and wanting not to lose. Which they eventually did with an extremely impressive Liverpool goal direct from a free kick. If he keeps on making passive selections like this, we will once again fail to win the league.

Both are still in the top four though:

It's an international weekend next, so no more updates on your favourite teams for a couple of weeks.

Things I can't find out #1

Lots of Farage noise in the news has resulted in some questioning of whether the Rwanda scheme would actually have worked, given that the current government is apparently considering "return hubs" agreements with other countries. These are not the same as the Rwanda scheme; the latter was meant to send asylum applicants to Rwanda to be processed, return hubs are for those whose asylum claims have been processed and denied, as temporary holding areas pending deportation back to their country of origin.

It's not unreasonable to consider whether the Rwanda scheme, had it been deemed legal, would have worked. No asylum seekers were ever sent to Rwanda forcibly, but four individuals decided to accept the UK government's offer of £3,000 and a five year support package. Their identities cannot be disclosed by virtue of a High Court ruling which, probably reasonably, reflects normal asylum seeking practice in accordance with the Human Rights Act and the Refugee Convention.

Surely though, there would be some value in knowing what happened to them? Were they processed fairly through the Rwandan asylum system? Were they granted asylum? Were they granted residency/citizenship? Where are they now?

So much legislation is based on "here's an idea that we think might result in....". You can imagine both ministers and civil servants spending their lives with their fingers crossed. Sometimes there are pilot schemes. In a way, these four who went to Rwanda could be thought of as a pilot, so that we can learn lessons from it. We don't have to deny them their right to anonymity, and we don't want to ask subjective questions, just establish the facts as proposed above.

I'm not a journalist with sources and research teams but I tried, using various AI and search engine tools, to get some answers. But either no-one is interested or the authorities have no intention of following up. So I thought I should email the Rwandan government and the Home Office. Which I did.

Here's my email:

Can you tell me how I can get answers to the following questions about the four individuals who voluntarily went from the UK to Rwanda under the voluntary returns program? I don't want to identify the individuals, just to know:

1.Were they processed through the Rwandan asylum system?

2.Were they granted asylum?

3.Were they granted residency/citizenship?

4.Where are they now?

Thanks for your help.

I don't have high hopes of getting meaningful answers but, if I get any responses, I'll let you know.

I suppose there are other ways - Freedom of Information requests, Parliamentary questions - but I'm just some old bloke sitting on a sofa with his laptop.

How long between referenda?

We in the UK don't have much of a tradition of referendums, and we don't have a written constitution, so to the question of "should the Scots have another independence referendum?" or "should we re-run Brexit?", our politicians simply shrug and carry on as usual.

But is that really good enough? Both of those examples proved to be marginal decisions and circumstances change. But equally you can't just change your mind as a nation every few years; that would make long-term policy making impossible.

In the absence of a written constitution, our Great British Tradition of Keep Buggering On comes into play: kick the ball into the long grass (for the uninitiated, this is something Donald Trump does to his opponents at golf): too difficult, file it under Virtually Impossible and focus on more urgent matters. But perhaps the biggest problem in British politics is short term thinking.

If my main complaint about the above two referendums is the narrow victory margin, it seems logical that I can't justify a re-run if the margins remain narrow, even if in the other direction.

The biggest problems with both issues is that they were driven by fanatical ideology; maybe we shouldn't allow fanaticism to define our future.

My solution to this problem is:

• set a future date for a repeat of each referendum, perhaps 25 years hence (how's that for long grass?)
• subject to certain criteria being met, those criteria being measures of support in the relevant electorate for the poll; for instance in Scotland a 75% majority in the Scottish parliament for a party whose manifesto for the election for that parliament specifically included an independence commitment. Similarly, if parties with a specific manifesto commitment to rejoin the European Union were to, between them, get 75% of the seats (or perhaps 75% of the votes) in a UK General Election
• Once a referendum has been thus initiated and completed, whatever the outcome, the clock would be reset for a further 25 years
• These rules to be set in stone in a law, with a provision that the law would require a 75% majority vote in both Houses of Parliament to overturn it

What do you think, dear readers? Would you like a constitutional convention to consider these proposals? To plan effectively for the long-term future? Or would you prefer us to Keep Buggering On?

Footy updates 2025/5

As you can see, our two North London favourites are leading the way in the Premier League, albeit after just two matches. The Gunners hammered newly promoted Leeds United with two goals from new boy Viktor Gyökeres, two from the League's best right back Jurien Timber and an exciting Premier League debut for 15yo Max Dowman, who won a penalty and, later tis week, will return to school in year 11.

Tottenham had the easier task, away to a disjointed Manchester City, but a win's a win!

Elsewhere, news is simply awful. So bad I can't bring myself to show the tables. Charlton lost at home to one of the promotion favourites Leicester City. At least they have 4 points in the bag so no panic yet. The other promotion favourites Ipswich Town slipped to a defeat away to Preston and now have just 2 points after 3 games. It's not what we were hoping for. They are still making signings but they seem to be based on development and future resale value rather than improving the starting eleven.

Wycombe scrambled a 90th minute equaliser against Reading and both of them slid into the relegation zone at this early stage. Things can only get better.

Help - invasion!

I've been invaded:

I know that some of my readers are gardening fanatics and I need you to tell me - how do I get rid of this insidious stuff (I think it's bindweed) with minimum strain on my 81yo back and with a guarantee that it won't return?

Alternatively, is there a way I can create a pretty, Chelsea-worthy garden using its pretty white flowers?

My main gardening tool is a flamethrower (aka weedburner) but it doesn't destroy the roots.

Footy updates 2025/4

The mighty Wycombe Wanderers have had many ups and downs in their recent history. Managers came and went, promotion/relegation and some memorable nights under the lights. Notably a FA Cup semi final against Liverpool at Villa Park in 2001. We woz there! They've had some pretty decent managers on occasions - Martin O'Neill in the 1990s got them into the Football League, Gareth Ainsworth achieved promotion to League One in 2018 and to the heights of the Championship two years later. That lasted just one season before relegation and Ainsworth led them to the playoffs a season later, after which he left to become manager at Queen's Park Rangers. His successor Matt Bloomfield, like Ainsworth a Wycombe player legend, made them into a good side again and they competed (unsuccessfully, losing to blog favourites Charlton Athletic) in the playoffs again. Bloomfield left to become manager at Luton. They have started this season disastrously. Defeat at home to Exeter on Tuesday followed two defeats and a draw, leaving them one place above the relegation places. They are at home to fellow strugglers Reading on Saturday - a relegation six-pointer this early in the season?

Wycombe probably need to be better at holding onto good managers.

But the news of the day involves two clubs we are following on this blog series. 24 hours ago, it looked as if England star and chess champion Eberechi Eze was on his way to sign for Tottenham Hotspur. He'd have been a great signing for them but, in typical Daniel Levy style, Spurs apparently wanted to squeeze a few extra pence off the transfer fee. Meanwhile Arsenal's star striker Kai Havertz suffered a knee injury which it looks like would mean him missing a few months of the season. Sporting Director Andrea Berta leapt into action and clinched a deal to take Eze from Crystal Palace and out from under Tottenham's noses. It has to be confirmed but, as I write this, Eze has been left out of Palace's Europa Conference League team tonight, so he is expected to take a medical at Arsenal tomorrow. Oh joy😂