I picked a good year to embrace my Scottish ancestry and follow Scotland.

How does Barry feel about Scotland snatching the limelight from Ireland?

PS. No hard feelings at all about Hearts of Pine being the USL club to improbably make the pod even though my own club, Hartford Athletic, beat them on our way to winning our first trophy, the Jagermeister Cup, given that we lost in our other domestic cup competition to those amorous Maine bastards.

Assuming it wasn't actually a dream, I was utterly gobsmacked to hear the lower divisions of US soccer make it to the pod last Thursday. I don't think we can talk about Portland Hearts of Pine without mentioning their kits, which are truly splendid. And, yes, the actor Patrick Dempsey is a fan.

This is why Nicholas gets paid the big bucks because Hartford now leads.

Also, Hadji Barry looks very much like someone who hasn't really played in the last few years.

We. Have. Put. Up. With. A. Lot. Of. Guff. 🤣

Technically, in the East Coast time zone, the sports day is beginning with joy. 😉

People talk about Keystone Kops defending, but this was as close to the silent film slapstick that gave the term its name.

bsky.app/profile/hfda...

Hartford twitter has now confirmed

The really stinky thing about the situation is it might amount to a 'he said, he said' situation. But based on how Hairston, Burke, Hartfords players (after they realized what was apparently said), and especially the officials, I can only surmise that a slur or charged comment was made.

I thought Joe and Mark Donaldson did a great job not leaping to conclusions while also identifying the chain of events and implying what happened.

Very weirdly. The Hartford account was fairly circumspect.

I had just joined a USL group chat with a bunch of Riverhound fans who were pretty anti-Hairston after that. Needless to say, I left the chat.

It can only be a racial slur. The ref was very, very patient.

The ref didn't book Hairston either (I don't think?).

This was just shared into my feed by a non-soccer mutual.