Special K

I've always found the check a trade website a good source for half decent local trades. Worth giving that a go.

It's not though is it? Judgment at court. Please don't dig that hole any bigger. Irrespective of that, there is no balance to discuss. You pay your bills on time. If you don't, you get a bad reputation, or worse, statutory judgments against your company. It is a very simple tenet of business administration. Corporate image is primarily about confidence in your brand and losing court cases that should never have gone to court in the first place is either plain bloody stupid or smacks of overbearing arrogance. I suspect the latter. I suspect the contractor was "tested" to see if a) he had the stomach for the fight and b) had the capital to fund the fight to the court steps. Good on him for seeing it through. Let's hope the club have paid that particular bill. And when NC tries to get an offer accepted in January on a much needed defensive duo, i can imagine his stance for negotiation will be very much weakened by tales of financial mismanagement with, relatively speaking, small sums of money owed to local builders. FFS, you can't go wading into a boardroom wanting a 5m defender with a 1m downpayment when you can't even pay your suppliers what that defender would want in his weekly wage and yes, the other clubs representatives will do their homework. If it was my CEO acting like this, i'd sack the ***t. Inexcusable actions by the club. Really, really poor.

Errr, because that's exactly what it is. You can stick your head i the sand as far as you want to, but it doesn't alter the facts. Facts that have been determined by a court of law. Serious questions need to be asked of the business practices of the Club at present and as far as i can see, that is exactly what this Echo piece is doing.

Exactly. Whilst not wishing to generalise it seems very difficult for some posters to grasp the obvious logical arguments. It is a very simple case of the Club being either unable to pay or not wanting to pay. If they don't want to pay because they have a valid grievance, then air that grievance in the prescribed way, it might just be a winner. The adjudication was the place for that, but i suspect they offered very little in their response to the claimants referral. They lost the adjudication and whilst the Adjudicators decision is final but not binding, it can be challenged in the courts. If they wanted to do this (which is, i suspect, what happened) but didn't offer a defence, then they are fecking stupid and Cortese needs to shake up his administrative procedures as this is very much a business own goal. Simple, you do not go to court and then decide to not offer a defence. It is just bloody stupid. But i doubt that very much, which leads onto the only other logical reason; that being they cannot pay. Irrespective, the damage to the business reputation of the club is already done. Arguments about NC just being a ruthless businessman don't hold water as, at the very least, his organisation has some serious administrative holes if they let 2 legal decisions ride and, embarrassingly, offer no defence for their actions. The fact that this is being debated is confirmation enough. At worst, he's a nasty, duplicitous bastard who rides people for fun and enters into agreements he has no intention of honouring. If he does this with a local building firm who employ local guys and girls whose wages need to be paid and have to go to court to get what is rightfully theirs, it is only natural to speculate about his performance as a chairman on footballing matters and whether this club is in the proverbial "safe hands". I used to think that MLT was wrong in his assertion of Cortese's character, but the more that comes out, the more i find myself agreeing with him.

Maybe, but then again the club shouldn't be entering into contracts they know they cannot fund. Entering into contracts and knowing you cannot meet your liabilites is generally called insolvent trading, although obvioulsy there was cash coming in, a way down the line. With particular reference to the Echo article on the refit of the Channon suite, they should have played fair and negotiated a payment plan if they couldn't afford the agreed payment schedule. But they didn't, could not defend their actions and have strung it out far too long before losing face by not even entering a defence when it reached Court. I seriously hope they cough up now. If it were my Company that was owed, then with a judgment in hand i'd give them 7 days to pay and then go straight to launching a winding up petition. On the wider picture, I have a theory, and it is only my view I hasten to add, that in the summer, when the Liebherr Estate effectively wrote off the debt the Club had generated since takeover, it said to Cortese that the goal had been achieved (PL status) and whilst this was in the original plan, going forward, they would not fund anything else and that SFC has to stand on it's own two feet without any guaranteed backing from the estate. Not a bad position to be in i guess; a new PL club with no debt, but the main problem with that is there was no ready cash either (hence the inability to complete payments for work done and drawn out transfer arrangements for players over the summer). For me it would seem to fit the events that have transpired since promotion and whilst i don't suspect there is a large problem yet (although the next set of accounts will be interesting), I think we are far from being draped in the riches some fans believe, as i don't think there is any real forward funding from the Estate. On a slightly different note i was lucky enough to be invited in the Channon suite for the Swansea game and was quite disappointed with the whole "experience". Hardly any seats or tables, it looked like an unfinished airport departure lounge. The food on offer was crap (choice of 4 wraps that you had to pay for) and the booze was pricey. This is the first time i had been there for about 5 years, when it was a much better affair with proper tables, decent buffet and some free booze. Now it is hardly what i would call a "Premier League Experience" and will look forward to getting back into the Kingsland!

That should say "sounding" of course!

I have just finished watching the 2nd series of Romanzo Criminale (Sky Arts). Superb series, as was the first. Despite spunding like extra's from a german smut movie, I think i shall miss Dandi and Freddo.

Fed up with all the hand wringing and self flagellation by the BBC at the moment. Doe eyed presenter dropping the tone of thier voice when talking about the problems within various parts of the Beeb, looking terribly contrite as yet another piece on the internal strife bores me rigid. Entwistle obviously hasn't got the backbone to see this through, so had no choice to go. There is also too much ineptitude at decision making level within some areas of the corporation when it comes to what to and what not to air. IMHO the Beeb are only guilty of incompetence and this needs to be dealt with swiftly, by someone with a spine (difficult to find in the BBC), but they way they go on about their own problems you'd think they were all personally guilty of child abuse. Today i heard a piece of R4 about whether the public had lost "trust" in the BBC. FFS, I wish they'd stop feeling sorry for themselves, sort out their own internal issues with a few sackings and concentrate on the real victims of this sorry story - those who'd been abused.

I want to know when all the easy fixtures are coming? There's loads of people on this board saying there's lots of time and that we've played all the top teams once, so we should be alright. I'm looking at the fixture list and all I can see is everyone else saying their fixture against us is the easy one. And i'll predict the obvious replies by calling myself a spazzy bedwetter, just to save the overly optimistic bishop bashers out there the time. Oh, and we've been shyte tonight. But fair play to the support that travelled. Sound loud and proud for most of the game.

Poor old Nige. P45 in the morning.

Hoping for a win as always, but cannot see anything other than a narrow loss. Valiant effort, but on the wrong end of a 3 - 2. Hope the performance is good and that we can pick up where we left off against Spurs with that decent 2nd half performance.

No mate, they will probably have been paid, but there is a limit on the amount of work they can carry out. Of course they could chose to do more, but then NC wouldn't be obliged to pay anything over the amount stated in the LOI! But the longer it takes for the contract to be signed, the more uncertainty there is that Leadbitter will hang around waiting for the green light to carry on what they have started. It seems strange that NC would question the contractual arrangements at this late stage. Generally speaking they are all sorted prior to starting on site, especially concerning something as fundemental as the appointment of an Architect. Usually the time gained by issuing an LOI is used to sort out minor issues and compile the documents, which can take a little bit of time. But of course any questions raised about Staplewood will be interpreted by the Corteserati as being anti-saints, anti-NC, etc, etc, so apologies in advance to all the monkey-spankers who think this post has an agenda.

I suspect that Leadbitter are acting on a letter of intent with a maximum value of £1.5m. When that amount is nearing the amount of works completed on site, the contract really needs to be executed or they will just leave site. It's quite common practice, but most Employers don't c*ck around with contracts when they need to be signed.

No, we will be relegated. A quarter of the season gone already and with the points we have, the Club will need a huge change in fortune to end up out of the bottom three. Can't see it myself, unless the slide of form is arrested and reversed completely during November and December. There are games we could win in that time, but i don't think we will be good enough to muster enough points before Christmas to provide a platform for the second half of the season. Playing catch up will add it's own pressure and there doesn't appear to be the strength of character and vital experience in the squad to cope with it.

Cool. I was going to have to miss this fixture on the original date, but now it looks like a cert. Thanks Sky.

I'd have picked Boruc, because when one of their pikey fans runs on to give him a slap, he can bottle them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-20069757 Interesting case. Good on the claimants for the result (mainly women, although a few fellas too). Hopefully this will address the ridiculous notion that employers can pay women less than blokes for jobs of an equivalent nature.

This fella is a Grade 1 tit. He can poke his opinions up his arse and f**k off whilst he's at it.

He shouldn't be dropped, but he's no skipper. Give the armband to someone else who's got a voice (if there is one!) and let AL concentrate on his game.

I hope there will still be a need for childrens books as imho, it still the best way for kiddies to learn to read, especially when you are mentoring your little one. Hopefully reference titles will be maintained in physical form, but I suspect they will eventually succumb to the e-reader. There is an inevitability about the high street bookstore closing down, which will be a shame as they are great for a browse around. I've never had a kindle, or similar, and used to work in a bookshop, so i guess i'm a little biased, but i hope the old bookshop will still be found on the high street in years to come.

His dead ball delivery has always been, and continues to be, excellent. He get's caught out of position too often for a defender, but as he enjoys getting forward, why not play him in midfield? Just a thought. i know it would leave us without a recognised left back, but if the club spend on one in January, i think Foxy could fill a role in midfield - good engine, like getting up the flank and can deliver a cross. He just doesn't defend well for a defender.

Lennon and Bale will destroy our full backs and Defoe will run rings around our static, out-of-position centre backs. Sadly, I would be suprised to see anything other than a healthy win for Spurs.

Not getting ahead of myself at all, just responding to your OTT post which went right off tangent. I think you were the one who, bizarrely, suggested living my life for me. I was just humouring you. Although don't back down now, please, it was just getting interesting. I don't think calling my post sarcastic nonsense is really fair, especially after such a sweeping generalisation by you about a few hundred million people based upon a flat share with one geezer, something of course, you are happy to pick others upon on other threads. Just an observation, like.

Actually, just "informed" mush. Please read and understand in future, thank you very much. You may wish to think for me (quite how you get to this conclusion I cannot see) but may i suggest a little therapy as this may increase your self esteem and usher you away from wanting to live your life vicariously through others. Although i must confess to being a little tempted to take you up on your offer, but the obvious flaws of contradiction, banality and paucity of humour push me away, so sorry fella, you'll just have to find someone else. Good luck though Bro, yeah!!