A half-way competent EFL (OK, I know that is stretching imaginations) would have made sure the panel looked whiter than white. Definitely the right decision to eject Southampton and certainly the wrong personnel.

Southampton cheated, then lied, then denied, then sought to deflect & blame others. Right to the last they are saying the panel was biased. Utter shame on them. Pity their fans who deserve better.

Seems to be how the world works these days OI.

Definitely right to remove Southampton but was it sensible to have the independent board chair someone who had played for Middlesbrough (once to be fair) and one of the two legal advisors, a lawyer who had appeared on behalf of the club. Right decision, dodgy optics.

[Link] Info coming out about Spygate.

Sad for Kevin Keegan - cancer is an absolute c**t. Hopefully he can get the treatment and pain management he needs to make things less uncomfortable…

WJ, that's the thing about the BBC, its the amount of ads they have on there. Apparently they are AD free, except that they aren't really if you think about it. Commercially the value of this is massive, if you were to bundle this up and put forward to their "promotions" and be charged by a minor station, say Channel 5, the cost would still be colossal. The fact their promotions seem to get longer and longer and the frequent push on programmes like the One Show, or the News goes to show how much of an advantage they have over other stations.

Kevin Keegan has been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

Stockport manager leaves the club

(plus perhaps they sow teasers in order to get people clicking later to see what the latest is on that thing they teased earlier?)

OI - maybe they felt that the upcoming 1,000 pages of Mandelson stuff is of greater potential interest to most than the continuing and basically unchanged situations in the Middle East, etc? I’m not defending the BBC here, just surmising - how they rank order the stories is something about which I know very little.

BBC 'News' also likes to tell us what's happening on Strictly, Traitors and other garbage they produce.

Maybe it should be called the BBC Update instead. 🤔

This is a news related peeve. The BBC's 1 O'Clock news started about a maternity report that will be published this month before moving on to a murder trial sentencing that will take place this afternoon followed by a report on Mandelson documents that will be published later today. Is my belief that news is things that have happened totally outdated?

WFC played Notts County in the old 1st Division. I remember watching a a game against them at Selhurst Park.

Yeah! I was right (eventually) about Colchester. I'd never have got Crewe, especially as they have won "things" and been promoted and relegated quite a few times.

Alan Hawley only played 1 game for us in 1976?

3 days to first test match 🏏

Ten days til the first World Cup match and sixteen days til the first England game.

Crewe only team never to win a League title, and Col U team currently on longest run without a promotion.

Pointless fact as the question is about teams that haven't played in the top flight. And I spent years telling students to read the question. Mea Culpa 🙏🙏

Notts County were a founder member of the football league so definitely played in the top division, albeit there was only 1 at the time.

Rochdale were within about 30 seconds of winning the title last season until York scored, shades of Jon Main at Hampton

The name rings a bell but only made a couple of appearances for us

Do any of our older fans remember right back Alan Hawley, who played for us briefly in the early 1970s ? He passed away on the 7 October 2025, aged 79. He spent the first 12 years of his career at Brentford, having made his first appearance at 16 years, 3 months and 22 days, to become the Bees youngest ever debutant.