Knot no longer

'Match Of The Day' is back tomorrow, as Premier League football returns.
But this screenshot of one of the programme's opening credits (from last season) is now quite redundant, sadly, and will never be seen again.
It features the Stafford Knot and the iconic bottle oven, both signifiers of Stoke City Football Club. Which was relgated to the Championship last season.
Sob.

Rest from The Great War

It’s the number on this plaque that makes one stop and ponder.  The text says that the club formed here at St Chad's School Room in Stafford had to deal with forty thousand soldiers.
Stafford was just a regular market town; and to think that the numbers, in such a relatively small place, were as great as this over two years shows how enormous the effect of World War One was in provincial England.

Algae tracks

The hot summer means lots of algae growing in rivers. It is so solid here on the River Sow at Shugborough that the ducks make tracks through it as they swim.