Footy updates 2025/11 - the Tractor Boys get lucky

This weekend's match forecasts:

Brighton 2 Tottenham 2 Result: 2-2
Not a bad result for Spurs because Brighton are a decent team but they probably would have expected more.

Blackburn 1 Ipswich 3 Result: Match abandoned after 80 minutes at 1-0
This rain-flooded pitch abandonment probably comes as a great relief for the Tractor Boys. Their centre half Jacob Greaves was sent off and Blackburn scored from the resultant penalty. Will the match be replayed or just the final 10 minutes or so? I don't know, but see below.

Sheffield United 0 Charlton 1 Result: 0-1
Promoted Charlton having an encouragingly steady season, although this scoreline probably says more about hapless Sheffield United, who have zero points from six matches

Wycombe 0 Northampton 0 Result: 2-0
Wycombe climbing the table from a poor early position

Manchester United Women 1 Arsenal Women 4 Result: 0-0

I don't think I've ever seen Arsenal's women fail to score; we fall behind leaders Chelsea - not for the first time in recent years

Arsenal 0 Manchester City 2 Result: 1-1

A bit disappointing, given our dominance, but at least we're still above Tottenham

Tunbridge Wells 2 Whitstable Town 2 Result: 1-2
Whitstable are climbing the table. They are just three points off the leaders but have played two games fewer because of their FA Cup run. Promotion prospect?

And here's a fun fact:

[source: Football Web Pages]

Shout out to all you Whitstable fans!

Correct results: 2 out of 6

Correct scores: 2 out of 6

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Upcoming midweek matches:

Tuesday - Southern Counties East League Premier Division

Whitstable v Snodland

Wednesday - EFL Cup 3rd Round

Tottenham v Doncaster

Port Vale v Arsenal

Wigan v Wycombe

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Back to the Ipswich match; here's what ChatGPT says:

If the game is abandoned before the 75th minute (i.e. before 75% of normal time is played), the result does not stand. The fixture is replayed in full at a later date, starting from 0–0 regardless of the score when it was abandoned.

If the game is abandoned after the 75th minute, the EFL board can decide to let the result stand, but usually they still order a replay unless both clubs agree otherwise.

Clearly, Blackburn would argue that with only 10 minutes plus possible added time to go, they're 1-0 up and Ipswich down to 10 men, the chances are they are going to win and the score should stand as the result. Ipswich would say they could easily get a penalty or score from a set piece, there's no certainty. And Blackburn are responsible for the state of the pitch.

There is no situation where a game could be arranged to play out the final 10 minutes.

I reckon either they replay in full (and Ipswich get extremely fortunate) or it's declared a result and Ipswich go to court.

Youthful regression

I just listened to Béla Bartók's Music For Strings, Percussion and Celesta. It's literally years since I listened to any of his works and it was great to re-experience the pure joy of his music after all this time. I used to be a fan of mid 20th century music (this is from 1936) - Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Hindemith, Copland, Messiaen, Vaughan Williams amongst others. I feel I may have wasted some later years playing computer games and neglecting my cultural base.

I'm going to make a playlist.

Bartók again: Concerto for Orchestra, my favourite of his works.

Hindemith: perhaps the Concert Music for Strings and Brass; there's nothing like a bit of brass. Hindemith was a prolific composer and he wrote sonatas for pretty much every orchestral instrument. I've never played his Trumpet Sonata and I don't think I've ever heard it. I really should give it a go (listening I mean, not playing).

Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time is special for its wartime context; a difficult listen but I can immerse myself. It really needs a quiet, non-football meditative evening.

In my youth I used to sometimes spend any spare cash buying long playing records (vinyl) and one of my favourites was Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1. I'll find a performance to listen to.

Charles Ives was a very odd American composer, early 20th century but stylistically adventurous. I remember his The Unanswered Question and I sought that out on YouTube. It has a trumpet solo, so that's a plus. Wikipedia tells us, based on Ives' own words:

Against a background of slow, quiet strings representing "The Silence of the Druids", a solo trumpet poses "The Perennial Question of Existence", to which a woodwind quartet of "Fighting Answerers" tries vainly to provide an answer, growing more frustrated and dissonant until they give up. The three groups of instruments perform in independent tempos and are placed separately on the stage—the strings offstage.

I've always thought of the trumpet as the ultimate in asking about life, the universe and everything!

I also discovered a YouTube channel by Thomas Ligre, where he plays 20th century classical music whilst the music score scrolls on the screen. This is magic! Totally up my street; I've subscribed and, if you are kind and leave a comment, I'll bring you some more.

Here are the opening bars of the Ives, as it appears on the video:

Not much happening, I hear you say? Wait, the trumpet will ask the question soon.

I'm regressing to my youth.

Footy updates 2025/10

It's been a busy week in Europe. Arsenal started their Champions League campaign with an excellent 2-0 victory away to Athletic Bilbao, Spurs got a very lucky 1-0 win against Villareal, whose goalkeeper effectively "threw" the ball into his own net in the 6th minute. Need to do better; him and Tottenham. 

Whitstable got an excellent - and probably unexpected - 1-0 win in the FA Cup Second Round Replay away to Chichester on Wednesday. They face Hungerford Town at the Belmont Ground next Saturday in the Third (and final) Qualifying Round; they're on a roll.

This weekend's match forecasts:

Brighton 2 Tottenham 2

Blackburn 1 Ipswich 3

Sheffield United 0 Charlton 1

Wycombe 0 Northampton 0

Manchester United Women 1 Arsenal Women 4

Arsenal 0 Manchester City 2

Tunbridge Wells 2 Whitstable Town 2

Things I didn't know #7

William Shakespeare was born and died on the same day of  the year - 23rd April b.1564 d.1616

Also:

Ingrid Bergman 29th August b.1915 d.1982

Raphael 6th April b.1483 d.1520

Machine Gun Kelly 18th July b.1895 d.1954

Sidney Bechet 14th May b.1897 d.1959

Now you're ready for your next pub quiz!

What would have made a good tournament?

A few days ago I wrote about Divya Deshmukh, 19yo Indian woman chess player playing in the Open section of the Grand Swiss tournament. Divya said

Even if I lose all the rounds, I think I will be fine if I learn.

And I promised to let you know how she got on. So here goes.

Clearly, despite her words, she would have not been happy losing a succession of games, even though her opponents were generally rated 150 and so points above her. And I've mentioned before that for top players it's not too difficult to successfully play for a draw if that's what you want to do. I can't see there would be any point in entering this competition if that's the limit of your ambition, so some wins would be good, together with a smattering of draws. Or the other way round.

The results:

Game 1: loss

Game 2: draw

Game 3: draw

Game 4: win

Game 5: loss

Game 6: draw

Game 7: win

In game 8, Divya played the current World Champion Gukesh Dommaraju, rated almost 300 higher than her. Possibly her biggest challenge so far in her career, and a battle of the 19yo Indians. And got a draw after a long drawn out battle. At this point she has 4 points, ahead of the World Champion, who has just 3.5. Remarkable.

Game 9: loss, after a late blunder (yes, even Grandmasters do that!)

Game 10: draw

Game 11: draw

Divya Deshmukh scores 5 points out of 11 and 81st place out of 116 players. If 5/11 doesn't sound great, the winner of the event scored 8 out 11. She ends with a rating of 2497.6, having been 2478.0 at the start of the tournament. And she got a draw against the World Champion.

Also, it's only fair that I mention Aleksandra Goryachkina, also playing in the Open section. She has also already qualified for the Women's Candidates, like Deshmukh, so she also chose to play against the best men. She's 26, slightly higher rated, Russian born competing under a FIDE flag. Her results:

Game 1: loss

Game 2: draw

Game 3: draw

Game 4: win

Game 5: loss

Game 6: loss

Game 7: draw

Game 8: win, she's on 3.5, alongside Gukesh, with three rounds to go.

Game 9: win

Game 10: draw

Game 11: loss, so also 5 out of 11, in 79th place alongside Divya. She ends with a rating of 2541.1, having been 2528.0 at the start of the tournament.

I was unable to find any interviews with Goryachkina, so I can't tell you about her motivation or reaction to her performance.

Overall, a successful tournament for both players; they both played consistently above their ratings and proved they can compete with higher rated Grandmasters. Perhaps they'll be joined by others playing in Open sections in the future.

Chucking it down

I don't like black pudding. There's an argument that it's the ugliest looking piece of food ever. UOAT. Ugliest Of All Time; a new category of OATs. Ramsbottom: now there's a contender, on name alone. Yesterday, The Official World Black Pudding Throwing Championships were held there. Apparently it's something to do with antipathy towards Yorkshire puddings (Ramsbottom is in Lancashire so a modern day War of the Roses) which are incidentally pretty tasty, especially if served on the right (dinner plate) size, with gravy. This:

Not these:

In an attempt at raw journalism, I asked ChatGPT who won yesterday's Championships.

The winner was Ged Flanagan from Salford. If you want, I can also tell you how many Yorkshire puddings he knocked down, or who came second?

They throw them at the Yorkshire puddings? Wow. I'm almost at my limit of interest in this bizarre manifestation of British culture, but I couldn't resist wondering how many he did knock down. Could it be 100? Or maybe Ged was the only contestant to score at all.

Nine.

In more news, there were allegations of cheating in the World Stone Skimming Championships which the Times, apparently without irony, describes as "prestigious". Perhaps in Easdale, "one of the slate islands off the west coast of Scotland" (I thought I'd just quote the newspaper on that, to save me the bother of some independent journalism) where the contest is held, it's prestigious. I mock not.

Organisers were alerted that some of the participants had been deploying stones that had had their rough edges filed off before being flung across the flooded quarry where the tournament is held.

Shocking. "They deeply apologised for bringing the sport into disrepute and accepted disqualification", said Kyle Mathews, a GP who acted as "toss master". Apparently there are seven categories by age and other attributes, including one for "old tossers" aged 60 and above. I'm thinking of entering next year, just so that my family can forever call me that - or maybe they already do, privately.

I know you want to know: the overall winner was Jonathan Jennings from .... Kentucky. What? You travelled halfway round the world just to skim some stones? Don't you have lakes in Kentucky?

In other throwing news, the UK is about to start chucking out some "small boat" migrants to France this week, as part of the new "one in, one out" agreement. Not surprisingly, the UK and French governments are not giving any details of who and how many, particularly on those we're letting in.

Final news on these matters: the rain in Cornwall was chucking it down so hard last night that my satellite connection was disrupted and I actually missed the added time handball and subsequent penalty which allowed lucky Liverpool to go back to the top of the Premier League table. Ugh.

It also affected the opportunity to see the final public performance of trumpeter Alison Balsom, of whose playing I am a massive fan, in the Last Night of the Proms. I am very averse to that event, which seems to me to be less about actual music and more about flag waving - of which we need rather less at the moment IMO. Maybe there will be a YouTube video.