I haven’t had much gaming time this week, due to being laid up with a bad back, sprained ribs, purely from getting up off the sofa, but Chiropractor said its a build up of poor posture working from home, being hunched over a laptop at a kitchen table, and also busy work commitments, but i did manage to start season two with Luton Town, after securing a 9th placed finish and Carabao Cup win last year.
First up was some business in the transfer market, we need a few players to bolster the thin squad, and only having a measly £23mil to spend, we had to spend wisely.
A player I had been tracking for a while, CB Derek Boyata was finally signed to give us better defensive options, as I have switched from a 3-5-2 formation to a more balanced 4-2-1-2.
Boyata cost us £13 mil, so that only leaves around 10 mil for another player, and we could do with a left winger to ease pressure on 18 yr old Lelevrie who played every game last season.
Also, as predicted, its been a tough job keeping hold of 30 goal striker, Harry Cornick, last seasons heroics have made him a wanted man, fending off approaches from several top European clubs, thankfully, a year into a 5 year contract, Cornick doesn’t seem to be pushing a move, yet anyway.
Only one match played so far, that was an away trip to Romania to face FC Vitorul in the first leg of our Europa League qualifier, after a memorable day trip to Bran castle, home of Count Dracula, arranged by Mick, our Kit man, The Romanian coach driver, Andrei, took a wrong turn and we ended up back at the team hotel at 4am, got 4 hours sleep then was up to travel to the ground.
Feeling a bit jaded and worst for wear, I was concerned but the team far outclassed their Romanian opponents, running out comfortable 4-1 winners, making the return leg a formality, and qualification into the Europa League proper should be a cert, some more fun European road trips to come for sure.
A few goals from our Match against Vitorul:
I’ve also been dabbling with PES21 again, and installed the VirtuaRed 2.0 AIO patch, and its really a class act, so many mods, updates, and graphical enhancements make it a joy to see, and the style and pace of more considered, simulated game play of PES21 is a nice change from the hectic FUT style arcade feel of FIFA.
Possibly a side ML to come on the blog also, will post some footage from Modded PES21 in the comments over the next few days.
FIFAFX.com 
Hello Paul, good to see you are OK aside from the ribs and the bad back. I have been a bit of a long sufferer with back problems and agree that working from home isn’t good for the back. I do tend to sit in the front room on the settee for comfort but am aware that the posture isn’t good.
I have had a dabble with PES 21 a few months back and the core game is very good indeed. There is still a lack of variety of goals and as you have said many a time the Master League isn’t enough to keep the interest going over a long campaign. During lockdown I have been revisiting games that I have played but never finished. At the moment I am playing Witcher 3. When I first played it I never really got into it or properly appreciated it. I am now balls deep and is just a stunning game to this day. The graphics hold up with anything out there with a rich cast of characters , missions and stories. Each character you come accross has there own back story and there are so many little hidden surprises. I have been taking my time and not fast travelling and clearing out every little task or side mission, before delving into the main story at the right time. For the next few months I will be disappearing more and more into this world.
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I was a keen Witcher book reader but gave up with two to go as I found the story wandered badly and was full of there and back again type journeys where not much happened. The first few books had been full of action and intrigue so it was a real comedown. I have only played the first hour or two of the game because of this, but might check it out again if it’s that good – I remember abbeyhill enthusing as well.
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you have my sympathy too, Paul. First game of 11s since February 2020 last night, a 5-0 friendly defeat, and despite an extensive warm up I felt my back and groin muscles start to go as soon as I dived for shots. Tried to keep myself fit during lockdown but agility is gone. Glad to see you’re staying with Luton, sounds like you have some good characters in that team and a Europa League campaign is always fun. Also keen to see some PES footage, had almost forgotten about it
Darryl, absolutely, what a game!! I was the same, lost myself in that world for months, no fast travel, investigating all the side stories and then played all the DLC after completing it. 184 hours, according to Steam. Loved just wandering around on the horse. Currently playing Horizon Zero Dawn as my big open world game and although the combat is quite good the characters, dialogue, atmosphere and missions are painfully bad. Rescued some dude’s sister the other night who gave an appalling drama school style emotional speech then died, made me want to remove my eyeballs. Tempted just to go back and play Witcher or Red Dead 2 again instead, games that can really tell a story and make you think you’re there
congrats on your new role Turf, did not know you played tennis? Would recommend not investing all the club funds in crypto
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Thanks abbeyhill, I’ll take the advice, a notch up from ‘avoid the 2.30 at Haydock’…!
Yes, hadn’t played since the odd post McEnroe Wimbledon on the tarmac outside my childhood home, but mini turf has been going for a couple of years and I thought it was quite a good later life sport to take up (especially as the cricket and golf just take too long and taekwondo has been buggered by social distancing). Very pleasant little club that I will do my best not to bankrupt.
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Good to see you again Darryl, been a while, hope all is well?
Yes unfortunately the later years are catching up on me, and something innocuous as just getting up from a seated position has caused me to sprain ribs, well that and the 15 months of poor posture courtesy of working from home, I’ll take it over being sat un an office with germ ridden people whom I have no wish of speaking to anyway.
I love Tennis, never really played properly, only over the now bulldozed public tennis courts with mates when I was growing up, but love watching it, and love the Wimbledon period as its usually sunshine, smells of fresh cut grass, and a happy period of the year, was gutted to lose it last year, but it’s definitely a ‘proper; sport, unlike Cricket.
I shall meander on with the Luton Town FIFA 21 career, but i think over 600 matches of FUT has deconditioned me towards the FIFA style of gameplay, so fast, frenetic, and all based purely on speed, pace and skill moves, in contrast the slower, more clunky but realistic feel of PES 21 is a welcome aside right now.
I have installed the VirtuaRed mod, and its quite simply superb, all kits, over 450 balls, custom cameras, bespoke scoreboards for every competition, intro servers that play the video graphics of every tournament you play in, mods for turfs, crowds, goal sounds etc, I have started a side ML with Spurs, the post Mourinho era, so will be putting my own stamp on them and seeing what we can do, already captured some early season footage, will edit it up and include in this week’s post.
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With you on the office experience as a bad back is a price worth paying. I wonder why we ever put up with it? I am an antisocial person and really can’t abIde all the falseness of that working environment. The worst part with not being a driver was having to get a bus then walk 15 minutes to the train station and then getting a train just for the privilege of being there. Sincerely hope we don’t have to do that again.
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Happy to take your payment for membership Paul… no cut grass to smell I’m afraid. Our club is tucked away in a residential area and natural grass just wouldn’t survive in the shade, nor stand up to the volume of play at weekends. During the week you can get a court any time but Fri night/Sat morning we have dozens of kids along. Sad thing is the tennis authority make loads of money from Wimbledon but do bugger all towards support. Seriously they make the FA look like generous uncles. When I was a kid it felt like a rich folk’s sport – our school had some courts but they had no nets, tarmac and broken glass/dog shit on them. We charge £25 a year for a mini tennis membership, £40 for a teenager. Absolute steal.
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Not a bad price Turf, is it concrete? or synthetic/rubber courts?
Its one of those games like a hybrid between golf and squash, if you are your opponent is much better than its a bit of a waste of time, if you’re equally matched then its a superb workout, fitness sport and very enjoyable, and it requires a lot of time, and money to become good.
When I used to work for cable & Wireless as a financial systems developer, the head of the dept was headhunted to join the LTA, no idea if he’s still there.
Absolutely balls deep in this Spurs ML, enjoying it so much, the mods make PES 21 superb in all the areas that i ever criticised it for.
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Synthetic with sand infill. We have 3 different groups going – people who want to play in the county leagues, people who are good but don’t want to be in the leagues, and the rest of us who you’d describe as ‘casual’. You’re right, the mechanics of something like serving is not something you just pick up so if your opponent can, and do it quickly, it’s a waste of time if you are a newbie.
Got a message that Taekwondo is actually starting again tonight, presumably non-contact, but sufficient to have me joining you on the injured list no doubt.
I’ll likely get back to Hibs once the Euros start and my interest is reignited. Watched the Scottish Cup Final at the weekend and thought the standard was woeful.
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I hate those sand filled sports courts, guaranteed scraped up knees anytime you play on one of those.
Isn’t Scottish football as a whole a woeful standard?
Cue the age old debate about whether Rangers and Celtic would do well in the Premier League but they just wouldn’t, Burnley would give both a pasting, although good to see Stevie G claim an invincibles season with Rangers, setting him up nicely to take over from Klopp in 2024.
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No disagreement from me on that particular point, although it will be good to have Scotland back in an international tournament at last this summer. Stumbled through to the end of season 4 on FIFA20, as I suspected as soon as we were out of the Europa League, brave quarter final defeat v Lazio, the scripting in Championship games eased up and we got a few wins to finish 15th. Board not happy, and season 5 off to a weak start, but will keep going for now. Look forward to seeing your PES footage Paul, I’m sure it will make me want to switch
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Abbeyhill – the scripting in IFA 20 towards the back quarter of the season was rife!!!
I always noticed a very difficult period from around beginning of December through to end of Jan, always put it down to the ‘Christmas period’ fixture pile up, of course i seriously doubt this was ever included intentionally but somehow added to the realism, and frustration of a season.
new post with some PES footage will be up at 10am.
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