jonah

I was told his nickname amongst the players was "piggy", presumably in reference to his Tissier-esque physique ;-) He was my schoolboy idol, an awesome finisher and I was gutted when we sold him. Glad to see someone else remembers that goal he got against Leeds... IIRC he picked the ball up just in our half by the dugout and must have beaten the entire Leeds team (twice) before scoring.

Frank, if I buy you some speech-to-text software will you use it?

Although that does assume that they aren't financing the takeover through debt which will need to be repaid through whatever structure they set up. I think the chances someone buys the whole caboodle with no further debt in the SFC company structure is fairly low, even if it's just to structure their own purchase costs into a loan tied to the company.

I think at this stage Pinnacle are by far the better option. The Swiss have made several mistakes already, including: * Using lawyers to conduct their affairs - this is unsupportive of our local community, there are literally dozens of small businesses on The Avenue and in London Road that could have benefitted from fronting their bid. * Conducting their affairs in private - do we really want people in charge who don't spend half their day on the phone to The Echo or typing up responses to bulletin board users? * They have not named a former player as Chairman or Chief Financial Officer. Again, this is really unsupportive and there are dozens of former players they could have used to win the fans over. * They need a UK money man with a ridiculously uncommon surname so that we can easily check him out on the electoral roll - the prospect of secret Swiss bank accounts and privacy laws will not help them one bit.

It was joke ART. I think it's very good news if they are at SMS again - however, we know even less about them than we know about Pinnacle... and it would be a little rash to just assume they are better!

I'm a bit worried they had to drive to SMS and couldn't afford to fly over - FlyBe are very competitive even at this time of year.

LOL, what a classic thread, I'm not sure what's funnier... all the posters thanking GM for his sincere apology or the fact the head of a multi-million pound consortium in the middle of a delayed takeover replies and demands he is insulted face-to-face.

That would indeed be sensible, but I'm sure most people purchasing companies from administrators don't "change their minds" part way through exclusivity only to carry on regardless by bringing in someone completely different.

I have to ask you Ed, do you type in the asterisks or do you actually type the rude words knowing they will become asterisks anyway? Also, you really ought to brush up on your grammar and spelling as these are skills which will serve you well in all walks of life (except perhaps in a call centre) - "dont" isn't a word unless you are holidaying in St Tropez this summer, and sentences should always be terminated correctly. I would recommend the use of a single question mark in this instance. I wonder if TL will "chuckle" over this one like he did with the tyre kicker picture?

There is box ticking due dilligence, and then there is proper due dilligence. Example number 1 - the Pinnacle Group's original backers provided proof of funds, Fry accepted this and gave them exclusivity; original backers run a mile when they go to the trouble of typing up a spreadsheet; mate-of-a-mate-of-a-mate Fialka steps into the frame. Does any of that trigger Fry into re-checking finances? He's already granted the group exclusivity based on the original backers. Example number 2 - theoretically speaking, suppose somebody was a letting agent with turnover of £100k between 2 companies he part owns - in the current housing market he's probably achieving around 4% yield in which case that income comes from property loosely valued at around £2-3m. He might even have a couple of more properties he's doing up, so in his opinion he might have say £5m of property. Now of course he might be highly geared and have over £4m in mortgages, but he is in a position to self-declare himself as a High Net Worth Individual - or even get his accountant to do it. So somebody in that position can easily tout themselves as being a "multi-millionaire property investor who is a HNWI". In reality they could be in negative equity and not worth a penny, it's funny how assets are priced differently when you have to sell them... Of course there is a third option, which is that this guy just won the lottery and has £35m squirreled away at his parent's house.

Well that should be easy pickings for the Fraud Squad as Crouch must have piles and piles of forged documents, as must Fry and MLT - after all, nobody would be mug enough to be taken in on somebody else's word without doing their own due dilligence. Fry really needs to poke his head back up above the parapet again to explain the situation - that should be interesting.

OK, well a sound bite on local radio hasn't made it up to London yet I'm afraid :-) I would be interested to hear his exact phrasing out of interest - since when did funding a pre-season game become necessary in order to gain exclusivity in buying a distressed asset from administrators? Or was he saying the administrators raised the deposit requirements above the publicly quoted figure at the last minute?

I'm afraid ottery is showing classic signs of psychopathic behaviour - try searching on 'jonah' and see his obsession! Must be a family trait.

Link? I thought the £500k "exclusivity fee" included the upfront payment for Dyer plus a deposit from Crouch? Why on earth would Pinnacle pay more than they had to?

I would be interested to know whether MLT has (a) spoken to the money man in person, (b) ascertained that he is indeed funding the purchase, and © seen firm evidence of funds in place. Because unless he has, I'm afraid he's in danger of being the new Mary Corbett to the new Michael Wilde in terms of this transaction [but otherwise still a God of course]. In reality we still know sweet FA about Pinnacle. We don't even know for a fact who stumped up the exclusivity fee, although we do know it wasn't the full half mill for some reason, let alone how they are funding the purchase - is it all debt? You also have to wonder why someone supposedly worth "hundreds of millions" plucks a chap out of Locks Heath to take his bid forward rather than a professional firm. And why does he plump for MLT as chairman and tell the press before he's even got exclusivity, let alone bought the damn club? Obviously I'm a cynic but things don't ring true - it smacks of a Saints fan bringing back famous footballers (MLT and Keegan) to realise his dreams via a bloke called Tony. As others have said, take MLT out of the equation and most fans would be more than a little worried.