gingerjon

If you gave them, before joining, the TV/sponsorship money to match the other Premier League teams they would be more than fine. They're already both on or just over £100m income per year whilst playing in the SPFL.

I should add that “tightening” the vote by still opening it up to non participating countries, having the vote open before the songs, *and* still allowing multiple votes is … an odd way of tightening.

There is politics to Greece and Cyprus, obviously, but there’s also the fact that they are incredibly similar culture wise so are going to tend to like the same things. The same is true of most of the “we vote for you vote for us” pairings.

So if you’re at a bus stop and there is a bus waiting then you know which one it is, regardless of the direction you are approaching it from.

Neither your post that I replied to, nor the comment you are replying to, talk about being kicked out.

Salford went bust in catastrophic style. London required a buy out once they were a shell club in the Championship. Leigh and Wakefield required positive investment beyond just paying the wages of a team and doing nothing more than that.

I'm sure they will be back.

Werder for me. I was on a German exchange there when they won the Cup Winners Cup. Dad didn't like football, boy I was with couldn't care less, but the older brother went mental for it.

Football Against the Enemy (if you haven't read it, do) has a digression about how fans of DDR teams who weren't favoured still went to games and found the joy and defiance where they could. I've just watched Hearts getting off the bus in Edinburgh and it's all come back to me.

Wolfsburg are 1-0 up at half time

Imagine being a Celtic or Rangers fan. Just a dreary state to be in. Credit to Hearts for taking it to the 87th minute. They have every right to be proud of their season. This wasn’t a choke like forty years ago.

And Ireland, who should hate us, quite often give us decent points.

We sent Sam Ryder with a good song, excellent staging, and a months long push around Europe. In any other year, he wins comfortably. As you say, we don't get low voting numbers because Europe hates us. We get low voting numbers because we do some or all of the following every year: poor song, no campaign, not great group/artist, really bad staging.

In more enjoyable news, looks like the 'we play at each other's home' play off was a belter: Hamilton winning 4-3 in Cumbernauld to beat Clyde 5-4 on aggregate.

I won't be watching.