Joe, throughout this time, had been trying to get airplane flyovers of the mountain to try and potentially do supply drops.

That's another controversial aspect of it.

Ranger Wayne Mary, who was out at Wonder Lake, when he started to hear about it, he said, we need a flyover.

And Joe, when he got down to the Babcock camp... also said we ought to have somebody fly over and take a look.

At the time, the mountain was still completely socked in, and the winds were at 100 miles an hour or more.

The reality of getting a plane to fly up there and take a look was questionable.

The superintendent of Mount McKinley National Park can't order the Air Force to fly.

And obviously there is now in place sort of a fully fledged rescue service and people to this day continue to climb the mountain.

Is that kind of how you read it, Andy?

Yeah, I think... obviously McCrory left and he was at the end of his contract at the end of this season.

I think in that case, it was like, well, we wouldn't be too fussed to let him go if we got a decent fee.

I think if we were going to let Jason Knight go in this window, we were going to ask for probably six to eight, maybe 10 million, which I don't think teams would look at that as good value.

I think if they're going to try and get him, they may try and get him in January, similar with Anis last year and Zach Beiner.

Um, He's not the sort of bloke.

I think he's got that kind of reputation in the game, Andy, that he's a solid professional.

I can't remember being this excited about two City strikers for quite some time.

So they do all set off together at the beginning, don't they?

They do.

So they get up onto the glacier.

The horses couldn't bring the gear up the last 1,200 feet or so, so it was a fairly steep climb to get onto the glacier.

They set up camp there, and then they start ascending.

And the way that the ascent worked was they had a lot of gear.

They needed to move enough food and supplies up as they climbed up.

Was the original idea they would all summit together?

in the past, that has not worked upon, but, uh, what has not worked and how AI might make it worse or make it, like rectify those mistakes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then it can definitely go either way or both ways, as we'll see.

So we had this really old idea thousands of years ago.

There was, like, the best way to make decisions together, to set rules and adopt policies would be every person directly gets to be involved in the decision.

And that would be really nice because then we get a lot of properties from that process that we think are good.

Mm

Andy, your thoughts on a nil-nil down at Plymouth?

Well, I mentioned on the Newcastle pod I don't go to pre-season friendlets very often.

This was a prime example of why I don't.

I mean, yeah, it was rubbish, to be honest with you.

We didn't create anything.

Everybody looked slightly off the pace.

They were up for it.

Can anyone put their finger on what was the key difference today? Same team minus Twyning for Horvat, but apart from that, obviously we are away from home, we're not at Ashton Gate, but anything Andy?

Andy

Hall, what do you do with Knight and Bird? I don't think they're going to sign contracts.

I think the best case scenario is we get a good six months out of them now, hopefully fit in Bird's case, and we get the best out of them.

And in January, obviously they're playing... to get a move or to get a big contract somewhere else and we get a really good six months out of both and in January they either get a move for a few quid somewhere else or we're in there with them for the whole season and they're still trying to, this is very much a best case scenario.

But the issue is if we do have to sell them in January, we've got people in place in the squad already that actually if they do go in January, We're not scrambling around on the last day of January trying to replace our two best players like we did last

then into a three-night finish in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anything you want to pick out there?

Well, again, it feels like a big season has changed, doesn't it? Because you've got this guy coming in, you've got Skubala coming in, we've got potentially three big first team members out of contract.

And if, again, that needs to be one of the things addressed this year is if these guys aren't going to sign contracts, they need to go in the summer before January, even if it means taking a hit of, you know, I don't know, but there needs to be decisions made quickly because we can't get to January like we did last year.

With Skubala and having the legs cut off from the team in January, in the last week of January, they need to be sorted one way or the other.

At least by the end of the August window, I think.

If they're not signing contracts, we need to move them on.

And again, when you spoke about bringing the younger players through and that kind of thing, that's going to be a challenge as well.

Yeah, he strikes

Terms apply.

Later on, you know, uh, measured where it stepped over the fence and, you know, I want to say it was forty-eight inches, forty-two to forty-eight inches, somewhere in that neck of the woods.

And, uh, it, uh, went over it really easy.

And the other thing I noticed was you could tell it was kind of bulky looking, but furry at the same time.

It, it didn't look like somebody, you know, wearing a bunch of clothes or a suit or something like that.

I mean, you know, it just looks like its outlines had-- was furry looking.

Um, that's the only time that I can confirm that I seen something.

Terms apply.