Ethel The Tree

https://www.afcb.co.uk/live/afd71a33-ee01-4b87-bca5-f2f58adbdf0a Late shout - I've only just spotted this myself 1-0 down at HT

Liam Palmer - most games, most minutes, reliable, consistent etc

Still waiting for that elusive first clean sheet of the season Twelve games (all levels) and six different keepers

Back in the early 80s In a Lostock Hall chip shop queue behind some weirdo with SW tattooed on his nose Five minutes of mental torment Fellow Wednesdayite or an escaped convict bearing the initials of the b@stard who grassed him up? Guess I'll never know

No problem - fixtures copied off soccerway last week because our OS are as useless as ever Any guesses why our junior sides never take part in any cup competitions - apart from the FA Youth Cup?

Here you go, Malek U21 fixtures ..... August 12 Charlton Athletic 18 WATFORD 26 Bristol City September 1 COLCHESTER UNITED 5 Bournemouth AFC 15 QUEENS PARK RANGERS 23 Barnsley 29 SHEFFIELD UNITED October 7 Fleetwood Town 10 WIGAN ATHLETIC 20 Crewe Alexandra 24 COVENTRY CITY 31 HULL CITY November 11 Huddersfield Town 18 Peterborough United December January '26 9 BARNSLEY 16 FLEETWOOD TOWN 27 Wigan Athletic February 3 Coventry City 6 CREWE ALEXANDRA 17 Hull City 20 HUDDERSFIELD TOWN March 3 Sheffield United 6 PETERBOROUGH UNITED 16 Swansea City 20 BRENTFORD 31 Millwall April 10 CARDIFF CITY

This ^ I was so disappointed when Jack Charlton left, but HW basically added Martin Hodge, Lawrie Madden and Varadi to Big Jack's squad and instilled a work ethic other sides weren't prepared to match A case of light the blue touch paper and stand back Some brilliant memories

He seems to have been treading water with our U21s for the past year or two He certainly hasn't progressed or 'made the jump' at the rate some folks had predicted - or hoped for But he's signed a new deal after completing a fairly low-key spell with Cork City hmm.. I'd be surprised if he's ready to become a fixture in our current matchday squad So maybe it's an extension signed prior to another loan out - in England? - similar to Sean Fusire last January

Sheffield Wednesday @swfc · 1h Our U21s take maximum points this afternoon at Colchester; Colchester 0-1 Owls (Hunt 46') SWFC: Stretch, Siqueira (Emery 76), Flannery, Johnson, Hunt (Trialist 76), Trialist, Buchan (c) (Thornton 46), Fernandes, Kamwa (Phuthi 56), Brown Moses Sorry folks, couldn't resist it

Sad news indeed RIP nev

https://x.com/MillwallAcademy you can buy a £2.50 match pass on here ^ to watch it live ... or follow them for posted updates

https://x.com/theposhacademy Match coverage on here that puts our own (lack of) to shame Wednesday won 2-1

Can't you see your own contradiction, @scram? If it means something to those you mention then results/competitions cannot be called meaningless Hell, they mean something to me. That should be enough As for the evidence you choose not to recognize, take youthhawk - a dedicated follower of youth football with 14.6k followers on twitter. Do they think it's all meaningless? Millwall's dedicated academy account has close to 6k followers and you'll find similar numbers following each club that provides regular live updates of PDL2 U21 games I'm not alone in criticizing Wednesday's standard of coverage but when the club has provided live stream coverage of U21 games played at Hillsborough the viewing figures have varied from 5.5k (v Peterborough) to 7.9k (v Bristol City) with the Sheffield derby match attracting 20k The Youth Cup games were even more popular than the league fixtures I'd call this evidence that these games matter to large numbers of people to (perhaps) differing degrees Anyway, I'm through with this for another season. Hopefully our prospects might improve before next August But I won't hold my breath

Actually, I've always found your insight over the years to be interesting But your contention that match results and the competitions themselves are meaningless are not easy opinions for me to accept Especially as I don't need to look too hard to find plenty of evidence to the contrary As for judging coaches based on results, isn't that how ALL coaches are assessed? And if coaches at U21 level deserve to be assessed differently from the rest then ours haven't performed particularly well for a number of years now To say so shouldn't leave my own 'level of ignorance' open to question