The9

There are certainly some padded seats at the back of the Itchen, we got to see (but I don't think use) them when we did corporate last year. Speaking of corporate, the silver/bronze meal and pay for your drinks bar has been refurbished as a load of stand up tables and no meal for this year, something like £900 for the equivalent of an Itchen Premium seat and what basically amounts to the right to stand up at half time and pay for your beer on some carpet.

The almost complete lack of people complaining about prices this year also suggests price isn't the problem - and I'm also guessing that people are pretty used to not being able to afford "luxuries" by now as well.

I'd like to thank MLG for taking the time and effort to bring us this information to drive informed debate. I'm expecting it to be downhill from here. FWIW the 22.5k is neither impressive nor disappointing with the current economic climate. I have one now and didn't have in 2004/5 but I'm sure for most people it's been a damn sight harder to find the money for it in the past year or so than it was back then.

Yeah, definitely, that's why we had 22,500 ST holders in the previous two seaso... oh.

There were about 6 of them in my hometown for a week after 24 hour licensing came in, not so much since.

Same goes for the Prems next season, I think 2nd would be quite goods. Sorry, been invaded by the spirit of Bearsy.

Same here though in theory, it's nothing to do with "free speech", it's a privately owned moderated forum and you play by their rules. No different in that respect, only the level to which comments are moderated. It was also the same in Saints Forever until someone got annoyed enough with it to bring the whole thing crashing down, and SaintsWeb has also had more draconian times (mostly when Lowe came back), as people tend to need to be reeled in when they're furious about things that are important to them. I'm sure when there were 250000 members posting from Southsea common about how whizzo Cup Winner King Kanu was and what an amazing squad of internationals they'd assembled on a shoestring that was definitely sustainable on crowds under 20k, there wasn't as much need to monitor their forum.

Makes perfect sense, but how did you deal with screaming below-age-of-discussion kids at the time ?

They're in most of the threads which are entitled something like "[Random] Away match [1983]" or "Soul Cellar" usually. Have you got a selective memory then ?

As the owner of POL he is entitled to it as well, his website, his rules. The fact they're not the same as our rules for their remaining fans is the debating point.

This is where you are incorrect. They are not high profile, they're now a League One side who nobody cares about any more. The FL is dealing with them as they have dealt with every basket case since 2001, except if anything the threatened controls over spending for the next 5 years are above and beyond, and only suggested due to their previous misdemeanours. I'm not sure what more you expect the FL to do, they've punished them -10 for not allowing their 2010 CVA members voting rights to their 2012 CVA and have said they'll only allow a takeover if the new owners meet stringent criteria, which is bound to significantly deter any other potential buyers and might yet deter the "one and a bit" they do have.

There's not usually any problem with clubs continuing to compete, the golden share is held by the old club and they're allowed to be in admin for (I think) 18 months, so they could actually go through 2 pre-seasons in admin without this being a problem. It's only when ownership changes via administration that the golden share becomes a factor. The issue here is that if the Skate 2010 club don't get bought out they will cease to exist before the season starts, and Skate 2012s will not have a league to play in unless they meet the League's criteria for the golden share.

He's alright actually, though he does have a bit of a persecution complex. Probably comes from being a Rangers and Skates fan.

Can I just say it doesn't work so well if your audio is switched off.

That's pretty good too.

I noticed during the Ajax match that a lot of the red seats in the Northam are starting to look very faded now, mainly because they'd obviously replaced a few here and there which stood out like sore thumbs. I couldn't care less if we have padded seats or not, I only get to use mine at half time anyway.

It was certainly possible when we bought ours a month or so ago - in fact at one point you could slap any old info in for their DoB and it would add them to your account as linked, thereby telling you what their DoB actually was, so technically speaking you could have then logged in as them (DoB was the default password) and done whatever you liked on their account !

I think that's the same for anyone who's already bought an ST, probably a temp measure to stop everyone checking on the numbers ! You can still buy individual match tickets with login though.

I remember the fear of "the stick" I had in my childhood. It was always a threat, but I'm pretty sure my mum used it once and completely lost it with me. Can't say it's really formed much of an opinion for me on whether other people should or shouldn't, I just know what I wouldn't do, and I'd have worked that out without getting whacked myself anyway. I can see the use of a smack in extreme circumstances, but as I don't have kids I haven't yet had to build up that tendency to let things go that parents need and the wife generally is a lot more laid back than me re: discipline generally (as well as 12 years younger and brought up in a completely different environment) so I doubt it would actually happen in our house if kids pitch up at some point. Being exposed to my near 3 year old niece briefly on occasions does make me wonder how the hell most parents keep it together though, and she's pretty good most of the time.

I've been to the KA once (after a 5-a-side at River Park) and never been to the others. The White Swan (as it was) has been toying with "amusing" A-boards ourside with "jokes" and "witticisms" on it for months, smacked of the horrendous enforced jollity of some kind of religious love-in and despite the obvious temptation of collapsing into the pub after work, I've always managed to avoid it. Then again I haven't been in Hyde Tavern either and that looks pretty nice. I actually have no idea where the Black Boy is.

I walk past it a few times a week on my way to the office, and The White Swan has been relabelled "The Mucky Duck" as of last week, which is one of the crappest examples of late 90s-style kooky corporate desperate rebranding I can think of since... the late 90s.

Anything using "Nathaniel Clyne" instead of "Fog on the Tyne" should be considered genius. I think it's a little before the board-bangers' time though.

Anyone would think they were about to lose their football club or something.

They also have Steve Wigley there, judging by his full Fulham training kit in Hedge End Sainsbury's yesterday. Amazing tan too.

It's a potential transfer between two Premier League clubs who are affiliated to the FA; what's it got to do with the Football League ? Besides, what's your basis for advocating third party involvement, and making a moral judgement on this particular transfer and not others ?