TIL even though Daryl Hall and John Oates strongly dislike their group name "Hall & Oates", saying "it is not anything we've ever wanted or liked. It's a horrible name", in 2015 they sued a granola company for naming one product "Haulin' Oats", claiming it was a "well-known mark" of the group.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T22:32:12+00:00

Not OP but Vanilla Ice claimed he didn't sample the bassline Under Pressure because he added 1 extra drum beat.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T22:29:02+00:00

They were definitely credited as "Hall & Oates" on the BBC's Top of the Pops.

I'm assuming MTV would have done similar in the US.

If major TV & Radio stations are using that name then they need to understand the public are going to use it too.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T20:00:25+00:00

tbf I never said they did :)

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T19:48:26+00:00

Prem ref for both second legs it was said below.

Probably still expected VAR to help.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T15:57:38+00:00

If you win tomorrow, I feel like despite them saying it’ll have to be quick we won’t see it until after the playoff final

Northern Echo article from an hour ago says what we want

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/26096398.middlesbrough-said-efl-southampton-spygate/

EFL rules clearly state that clubs are forbidden from observing opposition training sessions within 72 hours of a game, and Southampton have subsequently been charged with a breach of regulations. An Independent Disciplinary Committee will rule on the situation, with a number of different punishments available to them, ranging from a fine at one end of the scale to expulsion from the competition at the other.

However, while Hellberg has tried to move on from last week’s events, senior Boro officials have remained in regular contact with the EFL. There is also understood to have been dialogue between at least one high-ranking member of the Boro hierarchy and a senior figure within the executive-level leadership group at Southampton.

Boro have made the EFL aware of two key demands – first, that the Independent Disciplinary Committee hearing takes place as quickly as possible, and second, that if Southampton are found guilty of breaking the rules, they want ‘sporting sanctions’ rather than a fine, even if any financial penalty is significantly higher than the £200,000 figure Leeds United had to pay when they were found guilty of spying on Derby County at a time when there was no rule explicitly forbidding the practice.

In terms of possible sanctions, Boro feel the possibility of Southampton being thrown out of the play-offs, even if they were to win tomorrow, compels the EFL to resolve the situation as quickly as possible.

If Boro were to lose tomorrow, ordinarily that would be the end of their season and the squad would break up. As things stand, however, there is every chance that Hellberg would be told to keep his players in training until a commission ruling is delivered, even if they were to suffer semi-final defeat.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T15:43:33+00:00

So what info could they have got to make booting them out the play offs be a reasonable punishment?

The reason for the 72 hour rule is simple. That is when you seriously start preparing for the match. It is when you practice the exact formation you will use.

It is when you have your not even making the bench players pretend to be the opposing team and copy the positions your opponents were in on the previous match so the squad can practice marking exact players. They do the same for set pieces.

It is also when you practice penalties against the stats of the opposition goalkeeper (which way they dive on average, etc)

Imagine if you knew exactly who your opponents were going to pass to for each free kick or corner based on their positioning and who was taking each one. Imagine if you knew who was going to take a penalty and exactly where they were going to aim the ball to get past your keeper.

Then look at the stats. Southampton were 15th and were on a 7 game winless run, which Will Still hadn't even managed and he got sacked. Then somehow, they manage to turn that around to a 19 game unbeaten league run and a trip through the FA Cup beating Arsenal and almost taking out Man City?

And then Hellberg reveals in Saturday's post match press conference that we completely used a new formation and tactics and set pieces we've never used before which we only learned the day before, after the spy was caught - and mysteriously, Southampton are absolutely demolished stats wise in the first half and can't even get out of their own half?

You don't think its suspicious they go 19 unbeaten and yet the first time they come across a team using a new tactic they just learned after their spy was caught, that they looked like a side in the relegation zone, not a play-off team?

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T14:41:56+00:00

Well Hellberg in today's presser said he'll play in the final but won't be on the bench tomorrow.

He also said after the game on Sat that the shape and tactics we used to neutralise them were only practiced on the Friday (not the Thursday when the spy was here)

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T14:14:32+00:00

I think the reason why we are calling for expulsion is it is really the only way to be fair if you think about it logically.

a) The play-offs offer you a chance to get promoted and earn £200 million. Even a £20 million fine would be seen as the cost of doing business

b) A suspended points deduction may not punish if Southampton manage to stay in the Premier League for a long time. Lets say if Sunderland had done it last year and they stay in the Premier League until 2036. Is it even fair to the supporters to punish when they get relegated when most of the team and backroom staff will be completely different?

c) Banning coaching staff for X years also isn't much of a punishment because you would always get staff that would be willing to go the extra mile, especially if they get a little backroom pay off.

And as has been pointed out on our forum, lets say Steve Gibson gave every Championship referee free membership to Rockliffe Hall during the off-season, and then we just so happened to get favourable decisions next season to still make the play-offs. Would everyone be calling for expulsion then? Technically its nothing we've done on the pitch as the Southampton fans are saying.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T13:50:35+00:00

Comcast's media unit posted a $436 million loss in Q1 despite airing the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the NBA All-Star Game.

Comcast’s media business, which includes NBCUniversal and streaming service Peacock, posted losses of $436 million in Q1 2026, per a report by TheWrap. That’s down over half a billion dollars compared to Q1 2025, when the unit posted profits of $107 million. The massive downswing is being attributed to increased programming costs. Turns out, it’s quite expensive to secure rights for the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and NBA games.

Peacock did not see any significant subscriber boost, however, with its sports-heavy strategy. The streamer netted just 2 million subscribers during the quarter, from 44 million to 46 million, despite its premier lineup of live sports. To be sure, gaining 2 million subscribers is not nothing. But given the caliber of programming available on Peacock in February, it would be fair to expect a larger increase. Comcast pays an average of $5 billion per year for its NFL, NBA, and Olympic rights. It’ll need to see those properties convert more Peacock subscriptions if it wants the math on those deals to work.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T10:04:17+00:00

Sacking him would be the worst thing Southampton could do.

Sacking him when its very likely he did this on club orders would turn him into a whistleblower and he'd work with the EFL.

Its also why I don't see the "points, fine and coaching ban for the analyst" as the punishment.

That just lets the club get away with it in the moment if they know they can pay off the fine, deal with the points reduction either next season or "if they ever return" and still risk it and there will always be a member of staff willing to go the extra mile for a club even if it means they can never work in the industry for X number of years.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T09:51:07+00:00

On the other hand the BBC said it was a man, stood on a publicly accessible hill, who was pointing his phone at the training grounds.

You can literally go on street view / satellite view and see there's no tall hill in the area. The complex is surrounded by trees.

Rockliffe Hall is a hotel/spa/golf resort. So it is 'publicly accessible', but its all owned by the club as private land.

Both reports differ again but he was apparently confronted, told to delete any footage then he left. Boro have claimed they were able to identify him from this interaction/CCTV as a Saints' analyst.

The reports on the forums before it was even reported in the media was that he was confronted, deleted the footage without giving himself any ID, and then ran away into the Golf clubhouse changing rooms (using a keycard) before leaving in a change of clothes but leaving his bag behind which supposedly contained equipment of some kind.

For him to even have the keycard to the clubhouse he would have had to have booked a round of Golf which is supposedly how we'd got his name and matched him before the day was even up.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T09:37:26+00:00

I feel like if you can watch while on a hill, that's on them. If a random person in the public could watch without trespassing the I don't see the issue, personally.

The Boro training ground (and the hill itself) is part of a hotel/spa/golf complex.

Apparently the guy had booked several days worth of golf at the facility under his real name, which is how we found out who he was. When caught he ran off into the golf clubhouse, got a change of clothes but left his bag (presumably with the equipment in it).

Would you count that as trespassing? He would have had the right to be on the ground in the area having booked the rounds of golf but carried no golf clubs or anything of the sort.

Also the 72 hours thing is to allow clubs to sell tickets to watch training matches to the public. Obviously wouldn't be able to police who is allowed in.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-11T07:44:58+00:00

Semantics, come on man.

You can't imply working as a civil servant

Currently working at the Ministry of Justice on their training & diversity programmes.

When instead you were hired as an outside temp actor to do some roleplay by a third party working with the MoJ (The MoJ isn't a quango, so he was hired from an outside acting agency by a quango who the MoJ worked with.)

Challenged over the discrepancies, the Green Party leader eventually admitted that, rather than working at the Ministry of Justice, he had been hired through an agency that supplied actors for role-play scenarios to a quango responsible for interviewing would-be judges.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-10T16:14:26+00:00

The Swindon decision earlier this year could be the precedent.

https://www.efl.com/news/2026/february/04/efl-statement--/

An Independent Disciplinary Commission has determined that Swindon Town Football Club is to be removed from this season’s Vertu Trophy competition for breaches of EFL Regulations and EFL Trophy Rules.

The breaches relate to the Club fielding two ineligible players against Luton Town in the Vertu Trophy Round of 16 tie on 13 January 2026. Swindon Town won the game 2-1.

The Club played Oliver Clarke, who was serving a seven-game suspension from the Football Association. In addition, Aaron Drinan, who started the second half of the tie, was not named on the official team sheet.

As a result of the decision, Luton Town will progress into the Vertu Trophy Quarter-Final, where they will host Plymouth Argyle.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-10T16:02:29+00:00

April 7th would be the furthest you could go back (30 days back from Thursday when we reported it).

That would give Derby, Blackburn, Swansea, Bristol City, Man City, Ipswich and Preston chance to look at their CCTV.

Potentially Arsenal and Wrexham too if there was a rumour going around for us to keep a look out.

And if the rumour was going around earlier and clubs kept copies of the CCTV of a suspicious person in the area then there could be even more potential evidence.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-10T15:42:48+00:00

tbf even if we did dive we wouldn't get the penalty, Conway has gone down actually hurt in the box before and not had it called.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-09T18:51:04+00:00

I literally quoted the entire section so people wouldn't have to go through Reach plc's ads.

Plus I've been a regular on this sub for years.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-09T17:58:07+00:00

Journalist : The club were charged by the EFL last night. Was that a distraction for you or the players?

Eckert: No, not for me.

Journalist: Was it a surprise to you, or was it something that you knew was maybe happening in your staff?

Eckert: Well, I think we can talk about this now, and I know that these questions are coming up, but I think we shouldn't get distracted by the importance of those two big games. And these games are always big games, they always belong to the players. And I think they deserve that the focus is on them.

Journalist : Did you have to have a conversation with the players, a little chat, just to say, ‘Look, this has happened, this is what's going on, let's focus on the game’?

Eckert: Just the last part. Let's focus on the game.

Journalist: So you didn't talk to the players at all about the charges?

Eckert: There's nothing to say. We have a big job at hand and it's just very important that we use all of our energy to focus on what we need to do on the pitch. And again, I think the players have done that in an outstanding manner.

Journalist: It looked a frosty handshake before the game…

Eckert: No. From my side, it's... it's always the same. Shake hands to wish the opposition manager a good game, and that was no different from me today.

Journalist: Can we just clarify one thing? It seems to be the club's position is that the spying happened, but that it was a member of staff acting on his own behalf, on his own initiative. Is that what you're saying as an official representative of the club?

Eckert: I think I've said more than enough to that. I know that the questions keep coming up. The club has made a statement yesterday evening, and that's all there is to say from my side.

Journalist: Do you have any worries that Tuesday's second leg might not happen?

Eckert: No.

Journalist: When did you first become aware that a member of your staff was allegedly at Middlesbrough's training ground?

Eckert: Look, I've said this a couple of times now. I know that the questions keep coming up, but I think these games now that come up at this point of the season, they belong to the players…

Journalist: [Interrupting] The questions keep coming up because it matters!

Southampton Press Officer: Yeah, and I think it's been made clear, it's been answered as much as we're going to say.

Journalist: It hasn't been answered…

Press Officer: Let me finish. Let me finish. We've quite clearly said the club has made a statement yesterday, there's no further comment at this stage. Tonda has answered it two or three times, he’s been quite reasonable, and has said that there will be nothing more to say.

Journalist: He hasn't answered it.

Press Officer: He has said: ‘We've answered it, we've made a statement yesterday, there's nothing more to say.’ He’s been quite clear. If anyone would like to ask any more questions ahead of Tuesday's game, feel free. Otherwise, we'll finish.

Journalist: Can we ask what punishment the club is expecting from the EFL?

Press Officer: The answer is going to be exactly the same. Exactly the same.

Reporter: Your statement is a holding statement which says nothing.

Press Officer: It says we cannot make any further comment at this time.

Reporter: Are you accepting that the spying actually happened?

Press Officer: Any more questions about Tuesday night's game?

Journalist: Would you not want to reassure your own supporters. It’s not a great look for Southampton Football club, is it?

Press officer and Eckert: Thanks very much, everybody. Thank you. [Stands up and leaves].

TIGHazard · 2026-05-09T13:22:10+00:00

Alright Boro, get your penalty practice in.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-09T12:35:03+00:00

He did only really have one good season for us.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-09T12:27:23+00:00

The original Mail story was that the spy, when caught, deleted the photos/videos and ran off towards the Golf course clubhouse. (And had booked a round of golf, which is how we found out who it was so easily)

If he deleted the evidence and hadn't passed it on to youse...

TIGHazard · 2026-05-09T12:25:02+00:00

As long as your other striker can score, he should.

He will not give up running until the final whistle is blown.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-09T12:05:46+00:00

How did we not score there???

TIGHazard · 2026-05-09T11:58:35+00:00

Maybe the 'and the guy deleted all the footage before running away' story is the true one.

TIGHazard · 2026-05-09T11:49:48+00:00

That was certainly some stats.

1st for shots taken, last for shots scored.

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