Student Ram

I'm finding myself using the terms "mood Hoover" and "negative ninja"! Thanks Mash.

Have you been wooing the flirtatious drama students with your new wheels Sev?

Chuffin' ell was that real!! My 20 month old went to first baby ballet lesson on monday. Think I'll send her with a copy of this next week and tell them I expect similar results by her 2nd birthday!!!

Me Too, thought it was good TV, not as intense as Spooks but fairly likeable characters. Don't think we'll see game of thrones till next spring at the earliest or maybe even next autumn, I imagine a full series takes some making! Just me or did anyone else enjoy the throwback to the early days of spooks with the re-appearance of Tom!!

Did you skip merrily through the park on your way into work then or march through looking all manly?

Like Sam, I'm enrolling on a Uni course this week, so can legitimately be Student Ram again.

Saw Paul Sculthorpe doing the great north run on Sunday. Can't understand why he wasn't in the celebrity section. New claim to fame, I ran a faster time than Scully!!

In answer to Alan Marsden, although they are top in the Championship these things always tend to by cyclical and if there aren't further targets to achieve player retention and development tends to be cyclical and things slide back the other way after a few good seasons, e.g. Hunslet, Dewsbury, Leigh, Widnes Haven, over the last 10 years. If I remember correctly didn't Fev apply in the last cycle of applications, so that when the time came this time they would be better informed of the criteria they needed to be achieving. It strikes me that they are moving things along very nicely at Fev with probably the main sticking points being ground development and potential crowds. The first is the same all the Calder clubs seem to be facing, and the second stems from the fact that Fev as a town really is pretty small with 2 other Pro RL clubs nearby. In answer to Parky's point it's never appeared that they have anyone to bankroll them, but because of that it's taken a long time to get the on field things right which they've now done and it will take a long time to get the ground sorted, let alone be successful in SL. Perhaps though their primary aim is maybe to be able to displace one of Cas or Wakey (who are both similar in not having a big backer) or maybe both in this or the subsequent round of applications, and worry about the success bit after that? I get the feeling that in SL now you either need to have a rich backer (Warrington (although I know they made a profit this year) Wigan of old, Hudds, HKR,) or be based in a large city where attendances and income from corporate sponsorship provide adequate revenue (Leeds, Hull). Not sure how Saints get all their money This is where the middle ground teams struggle as they are based in areas too small to generate large crowd income and the local companies that provide sponsorship opportunities are not "big" enough to pay big bucks. I also see this as being why the RFL's overall plan is that RL is less about the M62 Corridor and more about expansion in to bigger cities and markets, as thats where the money will be to keep the game going. Anway, well done Fev and if they can somehow get the ends of the stadium developed Cas and Wakey should be very worried.

In the same way Rugby/football clubs seem to continually fail to pay their tax bills these days. So many clubs seem to spend their whole existence teetering on the edge of going under mainly due to sums owed to HMRC. For crying out loud run with some stability for once. It was good to see Warrington declare a profit earlier this year, wish more clubs could do this. If they manage a profit also not just to spend it straight away, but to use it to establish a more secure financial future should the bad times come around again.

30 Seconds to Mars - Closer to the edge. Usual cheesy tune that puts a smile on my face.

Good to hear he's doing ok. To AMH: might get round to changing my username eventually..... but not yet - I still want to pretend I'm 21.

Well Done Fev

He's a great runner in broken play with plenty of pace, good feet and excellent defence. What he's not good at is barging a hole through a well set line or getting around a drifting defence. Hope he really comes on at Saints and becomes the player England need him to be in that position.

LMAO If you want to go RL player spotting, go down to Freeport Nandos at lunch time, seems to be where all the Wakey and Cas lads go for their post training lunch - plenty of protein in chicken I guess!

Well the Ice this morning certainly created some work in A+E. We had something like 100 patients book in over a 2hr period, we had to invoke our major incident plan because of it. Never seen so many mangers running around!! Seemed like everyone had got a bit confident because some of the snow had gone, but all that slush turned to ice was very slippery indeed!!