The9

Can't really fault the club for not going with it, and having seen Cortese's previous methods, that'll be that transfer dead now anyway. Even a £3-4m offer would be pretty significant.

His "football watching whilst getting paid" skills can't be matched at any level.

You don't think offering £6m for a relatively untested goalkeeper shows there's probably a LOT more money being thrown around ? Whether the players want to come and the clubs want to sell is another thing, but - assuming it's true - there are other positions where we're equally in need of strengthening and we're almost certainly looking at people for all of those too. I'm not convinced about Butland's ability or future prospects, but that's a statement and a half that we can afford to do this, again IF it's true. Baulking at £6m just shows we're not going to go above our ceiling.

Like Wales is you mean ? With their top 2 teams in the English Premier League and Championship ? It's the EXACT same situation as Scotland, with the exception of Scotland's league being much more established. And we will see how many Scottish players are in the Olympic squad - just because the SFA are paranoid doesn't mean Scottish players won't be involved (other than on ability of course).

I wouldn't worry about it, we have some right weirdos here who don't like it when anyone else knows something they don't. I barely ever bother going on twitter, but if you want to go and dig a bit then post it on here, there's no harm in just asking, is there ?

Makes you wonder how much money we're planning on investing in the playing squad though doesn't it ?

She's brunette, having actually checked yesterday. Could be just for the online store pics, or just women's sizes (if we have any) though, who knows ? Looks a bit like Christina Ricci from er, below (but not face on).

Yeah, I was wondering when someone would mention the current (current until tomorrow) kit is printed - it's a mainly white shirt though so like I said, I don't really have a problem with that, it makes sense.

I have a 2008-ish Lotto UNAM Pumas shirt which is white inside and navy/gold on the outside with a massive printed Puma on the front too.

Teams wearing red and white stripes : 2 Teams wearing predominantly red shirts : 3 (including Arsenal with white sleeves) Not much in it, is there ? And why try to be "different" by looking like 3 massive teams when you can be the dominant striped team much easier ?

I do now...

Not sure you're getting it if you're asking about white shirts, white is the "default" colour for the material. The 1994 Pony tick kit is printed - even the black shorts - I know this because my shorts had a manufacturing defect where the polyester had stuck together, and when it opened, the fold was white inside and the rest of the short was the black/red/white Pony print. Have a look on the inside of a shirt to see what colour it is. If it's not the same colour as the "outside" of the shirt, it's a print on one side rather than a dyed fabric (same colour throughout). Generally the prints are cheaper looking, IMO. The recent red England away kit from Umbro is actually red, for instance. The 1991 Liverpool adidas shirt with Candy on the front and the 3 stripes over the right shoulder (camera left) is printed, as is the green away kit. My horrible glc Newport County kit from 2006 is printed, you'd think they'd have put a proper chain on it...

See above. I also doubt West Ham will be playing in bright orange.

Erm, all I can see is a picture of Butland in that hideous jade England goalkeeper's kit with crosses all over it ? EDIT : Ah, my work PC didn't display the HTML properly. I've logged in on my phone, I see what you mean now. You'll also note Reading apparently will be playing next season in blue and white halves.

UEFA wouldn't be able to prevent it as there are precedents all over the world - and though Scottish law is separate, GB is a sovereign state within it's own boundaries so they can't even make a case there. Add to that the EU's free trade regulations, and UEFA wouldn't have a leg to stand on. And didn't : Newport County won a restraint of trade case in the High Court over the FAW to be able to play in an English league whilst based in Wales just after the Maastricht Treaty came in. The SFA also wouldn't have any power of veto, and if they refused to affiliate Rangers, the club could just affiliate to a Northern English FA and ground share in England whilst they put their legal case together quoting the precedent above. Newport played in Gloucestershire for 3 years... Agreed re: cheating bastards though.

No early kick off on Prem opening day then, as they're showing Leeds v Wolves at 12:45 on 18th August. That increases the odds of us being a Sat evening, Sunday or Monday night match, because you KNOW they're going to show us at City. Also really pleased to see the midweek before that match is an international week, we've got very few internationals, City's lot will be all over the world.

Having Swansea in the Premier League (and Football League for 100 years previously) hasn't been such a massive problem. Cardiff in the nPC, Newport and Wrexham in the Blue Square Premier, etc. Actually all that's happened is there's finally been a ruling that the English-league based clubs can't represent Wales in Europe, and they're not entering the Welsh Cup any more, which they'd been excluded from for 15 years until last season anyway.

I thought it was VERY interesting when they interviewed Green on SSN about the news that they would lose the SPL vote and when asked what he'd do next he said "apply to the SFA for affiliation, and then contact the Football League about membership". There's a word implied there, but he didn't actually say "Scottish", and like Swansea and Cardiff, etc. they'd need local (Scottish) FA affiliation even if they were joining the English League.

Gallivanting, I tells ya. You could always ask them at WorldNet. Can't see us getting a team together pre-Emirates either though. Maybe a new recruitment drive and a revamp of the Forum kickabout is needed..? You can travel down from London, in an amusing role reversal of how I originally got involved.

Yeah, but they get a wad of cash for just turning up, even in the prelims.

I'd actually forgotten it rained. I can remember being forced to play defensive midfield whilst stevegrant gallivanted around up front whilst claiming to be in midfield alongside me. He did score direct from a corner though. That was the morning after the abbreviated Blackpool night out - I scraped my new car down a wall in the lane behind the B&B on arrival, it took us 9 hours to get to Blackpool on the Friday afternoon/evening, and we only had 10 players when we arrived, so we recruited a bloke in a Saints shirt in a Blackpool pub who shockingly turned up in the morning, but unshockingly wasn't great in his trainers - which I've just realised was because it was in the wet. It was also Killer's comeback for Saints, so must have been 2005/6. As bystanders may have observed, IFC football is not necessarily about the quality of the football...

Given that the league splits after everyone's played a couple of times, half the League would only get one visit from Rangers a season anyway, and one of the other top sides will get Champions League revenue instead of them. That's without even considering if the threatened boycotts would have had any cost to the clubs.

Unfortunately the structure of the Football League isn't such that the clubs get to vote on it, so the fans don't get to lobby. Agreed that the threats of other SPL clubs' fans by refusing to attend and damaging incomes (offsetting the financial benefits of having Rangers in the SPL) was probably the main driver, but nevertheless there's integrity in the process and honour in actually making the stand.

You will note that this is not only cobblers, and not remotely amusing, but also displays ignorance of the fact that it was Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs which actually did for them despite their unionist and royalist tendencies - which is a far more delicious irony, clearly beyond the understanding of some.

Rangers have already been liquidated due to the guy (Green) who took them over having his CVA rejected and indicating beforehand that he would liquidate them if that was the case. They were massively in debt due to not paying HMRC but it was HMRC who rejected the CVA (they always do due to not having preferred creditor status since 2003 and therefore always losing out on tax revenues, so it's a matter of principle not to support the defaulting on tax payments). With the Skates HMRC's share wasn't sufficient to block their CVA (which hasn't been paid in any way in the last 2 years). Portsmouth will only get liquidated in the next few weeks when it becomes clear that no-one with a playing contract is going to defer their payments to allow them to emerge from their forthcoming CVA2. Failing that they'll get taken over by a bunch of fans who won't be able to pay the first month's wages anyway and go pop from there. It's more complicated than that, but basically Rangers' debt was mostly to HMRC ("The Big Tax Case"*) and the new owner agreed to liquidate, thinking they'd get back into SPL (oops). Skates are blithely ignoring all debts, pretending they're not in trouble and whining to everyone to be able to spend more money they don't have. The one thing that looks good in all this is the integrity of the SPL (at least now with the stated opposition to Rangers' re-entry to the SPL, as opposed to previously when Rangers were building up massive debt and stuffing 95% of their opponents). I tried to keep it short but it just isn't. * HMRC accused Rangers of massive tax underpayments on money given to employees between 2000/01 and 2009/10. Rangers appealed against the bill and the case has trundled on through First Tier Tax Tribunal hearings in October 2010, April, May and November 2011, and January this year. The disputed underpayment is around £24m but Rangers' liabilities could be far, far higher. "The total amount determined as due by HMRC in respect of this case is in the region of £75m, including interest and penalties," said administrators Duff & Phelps in their report to creditors on April 5. Or to put it another way, as former chairman Alastair Johnston did 14 months ago: "There's a 10,000lb gorilla in the room and you don't know what its appetite is."