Hello and welcome to another episode of Sutton United Talk Time on Podcast," where host Mike Dowling is joined by the brilliant Claire to unpack a week of emotional highs and vital wins for the U’s. This episode is a passionate blend of match analysis, club news, and the incredible, unique bond of the Sutton United family.
Mike Dowling
Hello and welcome to another episode of Sutton United Talk Time on podcast. It's the Sutton podcast in association with Lucky Star Gin. I'm your host, Mike, and joining me today is Claire.
Mike Dowling
If you are a regular listener, thank you so, so much. I genuinely mean it. I know I say a lot at the start of every episode, but I really do mean it. If you're new, hello.
Mike Dowling
How nice to meet you. Do love hearing from people. Join the conversations, drop me emails, stay connected. At Sutton Podcast on all social medias.
Mike Dowling
I am on them all, but I use some more than others. These shares and the likes get us in front of other people. So
Claire
share the pain.
Mike Dowling
Love. Share the love. Sorry. Claire, we had a very quick chat yesterday.
Mike Dowling
How are you?
Claire
I'm good, thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's been a very long week, but yeah, it's Friday tomorrow, so it's all good. It
Mike Dowling
feels like a really long week, but yeah, we should be thinking it's only Wednesday, but it's Thursday. I'm confused. Doesn't matter, we're not confused, we're fine. We, there's a couple of things to talk about.
Mike Dowling
Obviously, we won a game. Well, we won a league game, sorry, that's not fair. No, we've won three
Claire
and three.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, we've won a more than a mini run now, that's got to be.
Claire
So
Mike Dowling
yeah, we've got a league game, which is the first since August, sometime in August. So yeah, no, someone said that, it must be true. So not really sure what I'm supposed to do with the league game, I can't remember
Claire
what
Mike Dowling
to do. But anyway, we're going to talk about The other side of the club, first of all, Club News, amazing club. Lots of people know that Frances was taken to hospital and she has been, obviously she's a bit distracted with medical stuff, but outside the medical stuff, she has been absolutely tickled pink by the outpouring of support, love. and bullying by some people, because everyone's going, oh, do you need anything?
Mike Dowling
And I went, I'm coming up, what do you want? And she's like, oh, an apple would be nice. So I didn't buy an apple, I bought something else, a fruit platter. But it was so nice to see.
Mike Dowling
And when I spoke to her, she had mentioned that Aggie had called the night before, and she'd had a awful day. She was pulled around, prodded, people talking at her, She didn't understand what was going on. And she was feeling quite miserable and picked up a voicemail that said, call him. And she called him and she was just so, so happy.
Mike Dowling
You've never seen someone smile. Their face must have been hurting with their smiles. But Claire, I mean, obviously watching from afar, this is a club we both know we do these things. But what's your feeling of kind of seeing it from far, not far, but from a slightly different perspective to me, seeing all the fans motions and in your part of the club as well?
Mike Dowling
I
Claire
mean, it's just amazing, isn't it? I think, like, we've always prided ourselves on being that club and looking after our people, right? And regardless of who's in charge, like, as fans and all that kind of stuff, we all band together and look after each other. And, you know, I've lost count over the years how many times I've, you know, signed cards to people who aren't around that you just miss.
Claire
And I think that's one of the really special things about a club like ours, and I think something that sets us apart from, you know, you go watch a premiership team week in, week out, but all they're really interested in is your money, right? And if you're not there, no one's going to bat an eyelid and no one's really going to care. And it's the fact that, like, you know, somebody like Frances, who's there week in, week out, travels up and down the country kind of without fail, that people, that people do miss her and that they want to wish her well and they want to go and visit her. And, you know, it's not, I think something that's really special about this football club is that it's almost, it's your chosen family, right?
Claire
There are people, I mean some of us have got family members down there as well, don't get me wrong, but there's also that kind of element of the people that you choose to spend your time with and everybody has their little kind of bunch of mates that they hang out with, or they go to games with, or they travel with, or whatever. But actually, if somebody's missing, it is noted, and it does kind of merit a response from people. And it's so nice to see, like yesterday, fans signing a card for her, the players signed a card for her.
Claire
As you say, Aggie gave her a call. I mean, the phone call is probably one thing, but I'm sure she treasures the voicemail as well, that she can listen back to that. And she got mentioned in his program column and everything. So it is nice and it's that he sees that after a very short amount of time here and that he's done that for one of our fans.
Claire
It's really special. you know, it's not an isolated incident, you know, in the summer one of our fans had quite a nasty kind of cycling accident and I said to Jonesy, I was like, oh can you all sign this card and he's like, oh we'll do a shirt, right, and they all signed a shirt which is now hanging up in their house and it's really, it's lovely to be able to do that for people and to kind of touched lives a little bit in that way. So it's lovely.
Claire
It's something that makes you really proud to be part of it.
Mike Dowling
Yeah. Because obviously, we're like, oh, yeah, it's a really big thing. And they're like, two minutes out, my life is fine. Such a such a thing.
Mike Dowling
I mean, Frances did what she didn't want to break conferences, but she did say that that Chris had said that you've now got a contact that if you want to complain about the manager, I don't think I'll be ever doing that manager at all.
Claire
No,
Mike Dowling
not her style. But yeah, there was one thing Claire said that, I mean, we do want your money. Don't, don't,
Claire
don't forget. Yeah, no, but you know, I mean, it's not, that's not the driver in that. It's that, you know, people bend over backwards to help each other and, and to do those things. And I think like, you know, we come from a club where I know of fans who've bought other fans season tickets during the years because they haven't been able to afford to do it or, you know, like, it's little things like that that sets it apart.
Claire
And I think that, like, it's a place where people are people first. And that's really, really special. And I do think in the last kind of while that, like, that's really come to the forefront again. And I love that.
Claire
Like, we've always been that way. But, you know, it's just a really special thing, which is why, you know, you and I are however many years after going to our first game.
Mike Dowling
Insert
Claire
number here.
Mike Dowling
Another little thing, obviously we love it, it's the outpouring, I mean Frances was very surprised because she has her own little group of friends and the people on the coach and she didn't realize that many people actually knew her, so that's where she is. But everyone, we don't want to keep proving this, so all of you just stop being sick, having accidents, being ill. We prove it every now and then. We all love you.
Mike Dowling
Just everyone be nice and healthy. Thank you very, very much. Francis, we hope to see you very, very soon. Although been winning games.
Mike Dowling
Oh
Claire
don't be that
Mike Dowling
person, that's so mean. Right one other little thing and I'm going to put you on the spot here because I remember the
Claire
tweet
Mike Dowling
but I'll write down the date. Captain's evening,
Claire
Monday the 17th of November. This is a new one, we've not done anything like this before. So obviously we've done like Meet the Managers and we had a few things last year, kind of on a science basis and some other bits and pieces behind the scenes. But I thought it'd be really, really nice to get kind of like some of our senior players.
Claire
And I don't mean that in a rude way. That sounds so bad, to kind of come and chat to people. Everyone can kind of ask questions. They're going to talk about themselves.
Claire
And yeah, so it should be a really, really good evening. So Jonesy, Woody and Phipsy will be there. And yeah, do come along. It's free to all supporters.
Claire
So just go on the ticket website and get your ticket so that we know you're coming. And yeah, I just, I think it's going to be a really, really good evening. And I'm excited about this one because it was a random harebrained idea that I had and I fully expected to be one, told no, I couldn't do it. And two, that they didn't want to.
Claire
And they said yes, so. Powers of
Mike Dowling
persuasion work well. Yeah, do the tickets because it lets everyone know how many staff to have in the bar for a start, so if only like 10 people buy a ticket you can have 1,000 staff.
Claire
You can have a play
Mike Dowling
reach! But yeah, get your tickets and make sure you come along because they're always good. Right, there isn't much podcasty news. There is one little thing that I think Claire will be delighted about, based on various comments that she's made over the last three or four weeks.
Mike Dowling
Rosie has relented, Sally and Lottie have persuaded her, and the beard is gone tomorrow. Yay!
Claire
I heard that yay from behind. Oh, I feel it, Sally, I feel it.
Mike Dowling
So yeah, it'll be gone. but yeah Rosie gave in later. She's not very well and I think it's a bit unfair they bullied her while she's not well.
Claire
So can I just confirm this to the listener that there will be no Father Christmas beard from Mike this year?
Mike Dowling
It won't grow back in time, so no.
Claire
There we go. You heard it here first, people. Exactly.
Mike Dowling
The listener. Thank you very much. I won't listen to myself, mate. Right.
Mike Dowling
The match. Going into the match. What was your expectation? Were you kind of going, yeah, I'm confident in this one.
Mike Dowling
I will be honest, two or three people before the match did say they were full of confidence, which is a bit odd because we're bottom of the league. And so, okay, I don't know where that came from. But were you confident? What was your expectations?
Mike Dowling
And what did you think of the lineup? Or was there any surprises in the lineup or out of the lineup for you?
Claire
I don't think any surprises with the lineup as such. Yeah, I don't think there was anything there for me that was like, oh, that's unexpected. I've kind of got to the point where I stopped. This sounds really bad, because you know that I've been this toxic positivity person for quite a while, being like, it's going to be amazing, and genuinely believing that as well.
Claire
I think I've just kind of got to a space where I'm like, It will be what it will be. And I'm just learning to kind of like hand it over to the universe and trust the process. But it felt like they felt like a nice little buzz around. And I think because of, you know, having one, you know, a couple before.
Claire
I did have a little bit of my optimism sneaking back in and I think that there is, I've always said it haven't I, like when it clicks this lot are going to be something to behold and I do think that there's, you know, there's definitely an element of that and it's finding the right pieces of the jigsaw and how it fits together and I do think we're slowly getting there and, you know, playing around with it and trying some different pieces. quietly confident, which is, you know, an odd feeling of late.
Mike Dowling
I've got to say, one of the other people that said it was your brother, Dave, he also said it. Whoa, Dave was positive. And one of the things he did say during the game, he said, I've never really been convinced with Jaden out wide, but every time I kind of think I'm not convinced, he kind of scores or creates a goal. Okay, that's why we pay to watch football.
Mike Dowling
I've said several times, this whole team, individually, I'm like, I can see everything. I can see it, but there was something missing.
Claire
And I think that's the thing that we found frustrating for a really long time, right, is that, like, actually, individually, there is so much, like, there's so much potential, there's so much brilliance. And if what it created was the sum of all of those parts, then it should have been fireworks from the offset of the season, which I know, but it just, it just didn't ever, like, it never really hit those notes. And I think now we're getting to a point where some of those things are starting to really gel. And it feels like we can start to move in a slightly different way.
Claire
So yeah, like on paper, it's always been like, why not? So it's exciting.
Mike Dowling
Well, one of the missing pieces, we'll come back to the fireworks joke in a bit. One of the missing, or the slight changes, wasn't, I didn't think he would play, but we signed Easley's captain. And so I was like, well, that'd be a bit weird if he suddenly lines up against his team. But have you had a chat with him yet?
Mike Dowling
I mean, I know he's-
Claire
Yeah, so I met him on, Tuesday, forgetting which day it was. Yeah, really nice guy, really, really nice guy. Like, excited to know to be here and whatnot. Yeah, just a very brief chat.
Claire
But yeah, really nice guy. And I do think there was a touch of, he displayed a touch of class yesterday for me where after the game, he went and stood by the dugout and he shook every single like, easy player's hand on their way off. Like, I just, like, I love that. Like, that was very, that's, when people do gestures like that, it just, it really just shows what kind of an individual they are.
Claire
It's a bit like when we were at Wembley and Matt stood there and shook every single person's hand as they came down with their winner's medal like that, it's a touch above. So yeah, excited to have something new to see what happens. I kind of thought you might play yesterday, but you know, gentlemen's agreement and all that, so maybe we're all just a lot more polite than I want us to
Mike Dowling
be. awkward not sure that worked um but yeah uh what was it terry said he's a he's a really nice guy but he's a bit of a do you want to say it on the pitch oh i'm not saying that But that's
Claire
what we
Mike Dowling
need. Do we need a nice guy?" And he was like, oh, he's not a nice guy on the pitch, no.
Claire
Yeah, but that's what you want, right? Someone who's, like, you want that from all of your players, is that you want to be able to have a nice conversation with them and them to know that they're decent human beings and that they're all, you know, getting on and there's a great camaraderie, like, off the pitch and, you know, in the dressing room or whatever, that they've got each other's backs on the pitch and that they're going to battle effectively, like. I don't want someone in the teams to be like, no, after you.
Mike Dowling
He's had an impact already, because obviously we announced him on Friday and we won our first game, our league game, sorry, on Saturday, so he could just sit back and
Claire
go, well, I don't really need to play, I can just sit
Mike Dowling
here, everything's going well. But we played well in that first half. There were always moments, but we played well. We kind of, I think Jadon said, dominated them.
Mike Dowling
And so we've already kind of half spoken about his goal, not his goal, his assist, where he had a great shot and something that hasn't been happening too often, been followed in. And Dave's got the goal from that rather than his wonderful wing play or anything like that. He's got the goal. So, how were you feeling at 1-0?
Mike Dowling
Were you like, here we go, push on, push on, push on, are we getting the proper Sutton?
Claire
I mean, I'm still slightly in that space, I won't lie, but I think there were just flashes yesterday where you just think, oh, that could have been something, and I think, like, the scoreline could quite easily have been something quite, you know, bigger than what it was. Like, there was some absolute, like, screamers that you think to yourself, how did that not go in? But, yeah, I felt a lot more confident than perhaps I have been of late. I just think there were some times where things got cleared off the line, and you're a bit like, actually, like, the defence is really starting to defend, which is something that, you know, we've been conceding quite a
Mike Dowling
lot, so. Yeah, Aggie's been quite clear on that, where the defence has got to be better, and then he suddenly went, that doesn't mean the defenders, that means everyone. A lot of people are like, oh yeah, we need to get clear out of the fence. No, we don't.
Mike Dowling
They're all right. They just need help. But since then, this guy scored his seventh, I believe, of the season. Well, he told me it's his seventh, so I'm going to believe him.
Mike Dowling
Believe him, yeah. Who knows? I don't know. But 2-0 up.
Mike Dowling
I'll be honest, I was sitting there going, please score before halftime, please score another one before halftime. Because I was like, we were tuning up a couple of weeks ago and it went to pot second half.
Claire
And I thought it was coming. I'm really surprised it didn't happen, if I'm honest. I felt quite comfortable at 2-0 in a way that I haven't felt for quite some
Mike Dowling
time. Were you expecting them after the second half? Because I would have been if it was us, 2-0 down to a team that's kind of been fairly fragile. Why weren't they camped in launching the ball into our area for the first 10, 15 minutes?
Mike Dowling
But they kind of didn't, the onslaught didn't come. Was that when you were starting to feel confident? Is that the kind of time frame of,
Claire
oh, here we go? You do, you kind of expect someone to go in at halftime and have this kind of like absolute bastard conversation of like, you're going to do this and this is how it's going to be and change the world kind of thing. And as you say, like it didn't, it didn't really feel like that. So much so that like when they did score, I was a bit like, oh, okay.
Claire
Excuse
Mike Dowling
me? Like, no. Well, shortly before that moment, we had a very good shout, I think, for a penalty. And I'm not sure.
Mike Dowling
I mean, Eden was down and he was concerned about his face. He had to come off. So I didn't actually see what happened. Frankie's take on it was it was awful positioning from the ref because she was a short person like him.
Mike Dowling
And you've got to move around if you're short. OK. She can't help being short. But it was like, if you'd moved position, you probably would have seen it, blah, blah, blah.
Mike Dowling
But after that, obviously, much concern about Aidan, but they went up and got a penalty. Muller got booked for the penalty, and I'm thinking it must be for time wasting, because it was
Claire
Aaron Pierre
Mike Dowling
on the ball, and he weren't going to do nothing with that ball. So what was the point of fouling him? It was just wasting time, Aidan. Did you know, did you wonder what was going on with Tommy Reed's booking at the time?
Mike Dowling
Did you see it?
Claire
So, I didn't really understand what was going on, if I'm being entirely honest, because I was like, I don't get what the point of that was. But then me and Vicky asked Harry, and Harry explained to us some, you know, where the a learning moment. But essentially, it's laughable sometimes, the way that the referees interact with goalkeepers, because it's like, you book him in that situation, fine, whatever. You spend most of the game, and I don't think this really happened yesterday, but quite often they spend most of the game telling the keeper to hurry up and then not really booking them until maybe like the 85th minute when it doesn't mean anything, right?
Claire
Book them in the first half and then it will stop because they're on a card and they're not going to do it again. It's an odd one. I always find that with interaction,
Mike Dowling
if I'm honest. It is Tommy's third game and I think his second yellow for us because he got one last week for the other night for a time. We're
Claire
not going to be getting any Playfair awards this evening. What's going
Mike Dowling
on with you? I did a very quick look through the fixtures to try and work out how many penalties we've given away this season. It's
Claire
a
Mike Dowling
lot. It is a lot, but I know Jack saved one and I was literally just going through all the fixtures trying to see how many penalties we've conceded and we've conceded seven from what I've seen. I'm sure we're up to double figures
Claire
because it seems like we've given away as many as we can. I think it feels like more because we've had several penalty shootouts as well, haven't we?
Speaker 3
Yeah.
Claire
So I think that kind of sticks in your mind a little bit, but I don't know, like, it does feel like a disproportionate amount. Yeah, I know.
Mike Dowling
I was literally glancing through the BBC one and someone was going to go, no, it was 13 penalties we've given away or something, but who knows?
Claire
It feels more than that, if I'm
Mike Dowling
honest. It does. So, at this point, through one, we are now suddenly on that thing of, oh, we were quite comfortable, and there's only, oh, hang on a minute, we weren't quite as comfortable as we thought we were. That last sort of 20 minutes or whatever it was, That was an odd match of football because I spent most of the time thinking, we're going to lose this
Claire
or
Mike Dowling
not going to lose it. We're going to we're going to give away a draw and all the rest of it. But we had chance after chance after
Claire
chance
Mike Dowling
after chance. And I think we had way more chances and better chances than they had. But it still felt like we were holding on. Do you think we're holding on?
Mike Dowling
Do you think we were seeing out the game nicely?
Claire
That's quite a loaded question, isn't it? Somewhere in the middle. Get off the fence. No, I did feel like we were battling for it.
Claire
I didn't, it didn't feel like holding on. Like, it was like we were actually, like, really going for something in a way that perhaps maybe we haven't quite seen from them before. And I genuinely, with some of those chances, I don't understand how it didn't go in. The science and the angles of it, I just don't get how there weren't more girls on the sheet, to be honest.
Claire
It did feel like we were really, really pressing for it. And actually, that's quite it's quite a satisfying feeling, isn't it? Like when you're, you're kind of down at the bottom, which is not somewhere any of us want to be, to like actually think
Speaker 3
like,
Claire
okay, I don't feel, I don't feel uncomfortable, which is odd, because, you know, there have been instances, you know, like a trip to Wheelstone, for example, where I did feel uncomfortable. Yeah.
Mike Dowling
For me, in hindsight, obviously, because at the time, every time the ball crosses the halfway line, I'm like, oh God, oh God, oh God. And I'm probably never going to change that. But in hindsight, we did look like we were sort of holding on, seeing out the game by trying to find that killer goal. Whereas before, we were dropping deeper and deeper and deeper and going, let's just defend.
Mike Dowling
So I think he's definitely managed to get that message in.
Claire
I do think he felt like, it almost felt like we were unlucky not to have have, like, capitalised on any of that. It didn't feel like, oh, we did well to keep them out of it. Like, it genuinely felt like that narrative had slightly flipped, which is
Mike Dowling
great. Obviously, great scenes, everyone loves winning at the end,
Claire
all
Mike Dowling
the fist bumps and everything, great, love it. But one very, very important stat. Let's ignore the away game for a minute, because that really doesn't help Absolutely. So we have to ignore that fact.
Mike Dowling
But the yellow coat came out for Farnham
Claire
Do you know what? So this is really funny, is that like, why is it as football supporters that we cling to these really ridiculous things? Because I said to Tim before the game, if we win today, on the day when I've finally been able to update the Strikers' keyboard, then I hold my hands up and it is my full responsibility that we haven't been winning so far, because I haven't updated that board, right?
Claire
So it's really... which has literally nothing to do with it in any way, shape or form. Like, you know, people not wearing their lucky pants or wearing a different shirt or any of that stuff literally has no bearing on it. But as football supporters, we're crazy about
Mike Dowling
these things. Absolutely. On Saturday's game, when I was coming down with Daniel, my nephew, he tried to cross the road a bit early. In the
Claire
wrong place?
Mike Dowling
Yeah. I was like, no, no, Daniel, we've got to pass that box. And he was like, Really? I was like, it has no bearing, but I'm not going to sit there rocking and twitching all game, so.
Claire
But we all do it, right? Like, there are little things, and I'm sure, yeah, you can't contribute to them. Yeah, no, like, it's not, it genuinely doesn't have a bearing on the game, but it's, it does in our minds.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, except with yellow coat, yellow coat, definitely, definitely.
Claire
Right.
Mike Dowling
We're off the bottom.
Claire
Yes. 17 points off the playoffs, mate. It's on.
Mike Dowling
Why? That's coming. That was coming. Oh, sorry.
Mike Dowling
I killed it. I'm sorry.
Claire
Just
Mike Dowling
pretend it never happened.
Claire
Start again.
Mike Dowling
Right.
Claire
Yeah, we're off the pole. We're still in relegation
Mike Dowling
zone. Off bottom on goal difference. Big month. All the fun, all the games.
Mike Dowling
Love winning games, obviously. but very, very big month. We've got Morecambe who are bottom of the league, we are useless today, they're bottom of the league. And they've had kind of fairly mixed, poor results, poor results, and they chuck in a good one every now and then just enough to make you think, oh god.
Mike Dowling
So, that's on Saturday. Then we've got Halifax, who are currently ninth, so they're the highest team we're going to face, but we've got that at home. Then Truro away, which I think a lot of people are looking forward to, not necessarily.
Claire
That's going to be a great trip,
Mike Dowling
yeah. Yeah, and then, oh, Gears Head, as I've written here, but Gateshead, who are, oh, Truro are 23rd, and Gateshead are 17th. So three of those games are against teams in and around us. I don't know if Chris does this or not, or does the whole next game, next game thing, but what would you be looking at, say, this is the return I want, that's two home games, two away games in the month.
Mike Dowling
What would you be hoping for out of that? What would be, I mean, 12 would be amazing, obviously, but what would you be targeting?
Claire
think, I mean, I should say 12 would be amazing, right? Like, I want to win at least two, if not three of them. From my perspective, I think you kind of go into a space of like, okay, let's forget where anyone else is. Don't look at the table.
Claire
Don't worry about them. Worry about us. And think about our game and what we're going to do and how we're going to go out there and win this. And I do feel like there's, you know, there's a confidence lift, there's a shoulders lift, like, things are going that way.
Claire
So actually, like, and you also have the advantage now of the arrogance of people going, oh, well, they're just down there. Yes, it's just little Sutton United and they're down the bottom. So it doesn't really matter. And people not necessarily bringing their A game because the likes of Sutton, right?
Claire
exactly, well we were never a pub team, let's not start that argument, but like there's, there is that arrogance to it of like, people underestimate you because they look at what they can see from that, from a, you know, a mathematical perspective and they go, they're not going to bother us. And actually you take that and you show them why that's a stupid way to be because anyone can have their day right and if you can and we we've said it a lot if anyone could predict what's going to happen a game of football like we wouldn't watch it it would be boring right but anything can happen yeah um so i'm yeah i'm gonna go for 12 there we go okay well i'm
Mike Dowling
i'm gonna go for seven um
Claire
no no no no
Mike Dowling
no this is what i'm like Okay. It's going to be like really good and if that seven points, if the one loss out of that seven points comes against Halifax it will be almost perfect because the rest of them means we've taken points off
Claire
people
Mike Dowling
around us. Actually going to take a step back actually because we're talking about the keeper getting booked and we both knew why and then I didn't explain it. apparently the rules changed that the keepers aren't allowed to do that, jumping around touching the posts or the crossbar, and she did talk to him and then went back and he did it again. So when she talked to him and said, you mustn't do that, and he quite...
Claire
Yeah, I didn't see her have a
Mike Dowling
conversation to start
Claire
with,
Mike Dowling
but... Yeah, I don't think it was a long one. I think it was like, she must have said something like, stop that, and he might not realize what she meant by stopping. Stop that, yeah.
Mike Dowling
Yeah, exactly. But anyway, as somebody gave away, we are only 17 points off the playoffs, which sounds mad when you play 17 games and chuck out the words only. But I will always harp back to when we were 20-odd points behind Ipswich, I've
Claire
heard a lot of chat of that this season. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because that happened. You can't deny that that happened.
Claire
And so far, Aggie's given us no reason to believe that he's not a man of his word. And week one, he looked me in the eye and he told me we were making the playoffs. And he shook my hand on it. So quite frankly, who am I to disbelieve him?
Claire
And he said to me, what happens if that doesn't happen? And I said, well, I'm just going to come and sit in your office and cry. Oh, I don't want that. Motivation.
Claire
Emotional blackmail. There we
Mike Dowling
go. I mean, I know he said it and I'm delighted that he said it, but I'm wondering if we might need to explain to him what we tend to do in the playoffs. But let's worry about that
Claire
later down the line. Eventually, it has to go our way, right? It can't always be. like that.
Claire
So, who
Mike Dowling
knows? Who knows? Maybe he'll just go, actually, I've just looked into your record, we're not going to get to that, so I can't be bothered with that. I can't take the heartbreak.
Mike Dowling
We'll get 10. Right, we're going to quickly skip that bit and skip that bit. We're going to go quickly for a prediction. Oh, I haven't done any bloody AI predictions.
Mike Dowling
I don't know what it is. But what do you think for the Morecambe game? What's your prediction?
Claire
Something tells me that it's going to either be really, really dull and quite lowly in score, or it's actually going to be some ridiculous goal fest because it's going to be like two sides really battling it out. So I'm going to do something crazy.
Mike Dowling
Someone said defensively, defensively,
Claire
yeah,
Mike Dowling
they're not very good. They've got a good attack, not a good defense. And up until fairly recently, you could say very similar about us. So with that, nil-nil.
Claire
No, no, no, I'm going to go crazy. I think we are going to win 4-2. 4-2, wow. There we go.
Claire
You heard it here
Mike Dowling
first. I'm going to go that we're going to keep a clean sheet. And I'm going to say... That
Claire
costs us
Mike Dowling
money. Saved a lot on the clean
Claire
sheet. Clean sheet bonuses, don't be ridiculous.
Mike Dowling
I've had a conversation like this at work is with paying, having to pay an outside company to do something because I've just gone, I can't do it. And it's always going to cost money. And I was like, I've been doing two people's job for nearly nine months. You've saved money.
Mike Dowling
Okay. I could get a lot more stuff if I wanted to. Anyway, we Yeah, I don't know what AI is going to put, so I'll just enter that somewhere and put it somewhere so people don't moan that I didn't tell them what it said. I don't want AI to win this competition.
Mike Dowling
But you know what? Neither of us had dinner, so let's wrap it up. Sorry, I'm just kidding. Let's go.
Mike Dowling
It's quarter to eight. No one's eaten yet. So we're going to wrap up this episode of Sutton Podcast. As always, we appreciate everyone's attention and feedback.
Mike Dowling
Follow, like, share, all the other stuff. And subscribe, give me a review, give me a thumbs up, all the rest of it. But thank you to Lucky Star Gym for sponsorship. Thank you to Claire for coming on on a Thursday.
Mike Dowling
It's just so confusing. We were going to talk about the gate was 1700 last night. pretty good considering I think there was Champions League on. It was a Wednesday and that doesn't suit everyone.
Mike Dowling
And it was fireworks night. And it was fireworks night and I wanted you to be able to talk about
Claire
the fireworks. I know. I love the fireworks. Genuinely, if that is one way to make me happy, take me to a firework display, which is really quite sad at my age, but it's just pretty.
Claire
Although, you know, drone ones now are equally as good. You just don't get the bangs. But we'll just skip any jokes we could have made there, I shouldn't have said it. But the other thing we didn't talk about is the excitement of a TV game.
Claire
Oh yeah. I know we want dinner, don't get me wrong, I definitely want to go and make the risotto I'm meant to be making. But yeah, live on BBC Two. Perfect.
Claire
Late kick-off though. Yeah, but it's okay. I mean, it won't make Paul happy because it means he has to use the flash and all this kind of stuff, but
Mike Dowling
live on BBC Two, what's not to like? And more time to hydrate before the game so we can make lots
Claire
of noise. Book yourself in for hospitality, have a cracking meal, come on down, have some drinks, build in the atmosphere. What's not to like? Make a day of it.
Mike Dowling
Exactly. We'll get some of the... I don't know all the players who've played for both clubs. I mean, there's Aaron.
Mike Dowling
And... Aidan. Aidan played for both clubs. Yes.
Mike Dowling
Yeah. Okay. I don't know if there's anyone else. We'll do something like that.
Mike Dowling
Okay, we've wrapped up. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Thanks. I've done like a sergeant on there.
Mike Dowling
Thanks for the listeners. And hope you've enjoyed this podcast. Take care, and we will catch up soon. Bye-bye.
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