um pahars

To me there is no doubt that the payments to Mulcaire and Goodman were an attempt to buy their silence (you don't pay off those you have sacked for gross misconduct and who are in prison, nor do you keep paying their solictor's bills!!!) and you may have a point that the longevity of the payments may also be an attempt to keep Coulson under their wing and to ensure his silence/co-operation. However, at the time Coulson was still blame free and the insinuation was that his resignation was that he was doing the honourable thing, not that he was complicit, so he was unlikely to blab and ruin his own reputation.

I am now having flashbacks of that lanky Hungarian Zoltan Litpak or whatever his name was and remembering everyone raving about him (mainly because he was tall!!!!).

Very true and if you wanted an anecdote then yesterday was perfect. I halved my salary switching from accountancy (which included commuting to London) to teaching (local) and yesterday bumped in to a couple of colleagues on the train back from London. They looked terrible, all stressed and moaning. I had just come back off a cruise, still had two weeks of my holidays left and was coming back from watching the 5th day at The Oval. Much happier niw, even though I'm £40k lighter in the pocket.

Just one or two of the players who were for Hoddle coming back will suffice. As for how did I know the players, then some on here must be aware, but I'll send you a PM as don't want to put all the stuff up here.

To be fair as someone else has said, I think there is a difference between income and a severance payment. The severance payment was "earned/activated" at the termination of his contract and it was solely the mechanics of payment which overlapped with his employment by the Conservatives (that said, I do think given the nature and position of his previous and future employers, then things should have been much cleaner and clearer). I would be more interested in the considerable benefits in kind (car, private health insurance etc) that then dragged on to overlap with his employment at Conservative Central Office. These are definite payments that ensure there is still a "financial relationship" between Coulson and NI. (Plus all the other denials or negative answers about being in receipt of monies/benefits in kind make it a rather murky story and a serious misjudgement by a number of people).

Who??? Feel free to mention some names. Let's say I was friendly with quite a few back then, and although those who were around in 2000/1 appreciated a lot of what Hoddle did, there was still much anger and animosity still being held in 2004 over the way he shot off to South Africa and then straight up to N17. So which players wanted Hoddle back then?

I don't think Woodward was on the scene before Luggy rocked up in early 2004. I thought things started to hot up early in the follwoing season when he appeared in the Director's Box at Villa Park. Your version could have some truth in it if you perhaps swapped Wigley for Sturrock, as Sturrock was soon axed and Wigley shoe-horned in to a job he didn't want 6 months earlier.

We certainly did have Cheryl Calder as vision coach and her smarter version of Bash-A-Mole (being a tad facetious there). For me it wasn't so much about the money (although I concede it certainly wasn't a priority and should have been focussed elsewhere), but instead it was the fact that it wasted that vital first season down when we should have been looking to bounce back, but instead we were embroilled in an internecine battle that now turns out to be even more farcial than I feared at the time.

Would be interesting to find out if you are/were in a minority, as I have to say I would have had no problems with SCW and others coming in to the Club to introduce some perfomance coaching etc in to the set up. Other Clubs did something similar and prospered, so would have been open to bringing in some fresh ideas. However, as you say the way it was implemented, the overall vision, the timing and the protasgonists involved meant it was always likely to be one gigantic clusterfeck.

I agree with the practice regarding compromise agreements and the fact that payments are often staggered over future months (and then often mitigated when the individual finds new employment). So that in itself is a bit of a non story. However, the part that makes it interesting are the various denials given by individuals (Senior Conservative Officials and News International Officials) over the last few years, including one or two to the Select Committee that payments weren't being made. Trying to hide something, ignorant & ill informed or not doing their homework (i.e. why wasn't all this found out during security vetting). The other part I was interested in is how after honourably resigning and taking the flak for underhand behaviour during his tenure as Editor, Coulson then walks away with a huge pay off. Even Andrew Neil was under the impression he wouldn't have got much, but then again you often find that when Senior Execuitves and Directors get the boot, they still pocket their handsome pay offs, even if they've been found wanting!!

How about this start has surprised even Adkins and Cortese and they're having a rethink about whether to spend some money now to capitalise on this great start. Originally happy with consolidating and then pushing on next year or year after, but having a rethink to see if they should look to do it quicker????? Early days I know, but we have come out flying.

You're not wrong there. I have always thought policing down here has always been on the "light touch" side compared to visits to London, Liverpool, Leeds etc. Part of me thinks this isn't a bad thing as sometimes there is no need for the heavy handed approach of some forces, but they do need to be able to be flexible and adapt to each game and within each game and ramp up the robustness of their policing when required.

I think the Wall are owned by Chestnut Hill Ventures

I'm just not sure you would ever get to the bottom of it all. It seems an absolute bugugers muddle with eveyone having their own view of what was going on. Plus I'd prefer a few more years behind us before a *****fest and slanging match got any bigger than a few threads on here.

I'm well over Lowe (I even think I praised him in a post above!!!). That said, when some juicy stuff like this is released it's pretty hard to ignore what a fecking shambles we must have been with Lowe being right in the eye of the storm.

To be fair to Clifford he only rocked up after we were relegated. That said, the spectre of Woodward was hanging over us all of that dreadful relegation season. However, our best chance of bouncing straight back up (or repromotion as Lowe called it) was a total disaster and the latest revelations on top of the earlier Redknapp stuff is verging on the criminal!

And where Huw Jennings works as well. Barking (and I don't mean that place out East London way).

Never really rated him, but others obviously did for him to be kept on the books and also brought in as a loanee by others. More than happy to accept Adkins' judgement on him.

I thought he had two assistants in Phil Boersma and Terry Cooper, which is also what ITN says (think Boersma may have been the senior asst though). Chatterley, Rofe and Graydon made way for them.

I'm not sure about that!! Most clubs realise there is a benefit in a youth system and we have had one for years and Cortese is wisely looking to push ours on to another level. But he is certainly not going down the route of employing "nutters" as coaches to undermine the existing boss/players, nor is he looking to bring in someone from outside of the game to manage the first team, paying them handsomely in the process.

There's little between showing poor judgement for being conned or poor judgement for instigating this farce. Either way it clearly exposes Lowe's final years as a complete shambles. Undermining players, undermining coaches and the manager, pulling in a big wedge, **** me, it's even worse than I thought it was at the time. I had some time for Lowe in the early days of his tenure, but like others before and after him, football eventually accentuated the worst in him.

It's not a massive revelation at all!!!! Go back to those dark days and there were many telling those who wanted to hear that the was the masterplan!!! So glad those mental days are in the past!!!

You probably have a point, but to be honest I was merely trying to summarise that of course people need a level of wage to provide the basics - security, housing, food, clothing etc - but after that individuals ways and needs to fulfill their own happiness, self esteem, drive, fulfilling your potential, desire etc can take a myriad of forms, with many not involving a desire for money or material wealth.

Indeed. When you see threads and posts like that (the bitterness and angst is quality), then I think it is safe to assume that we are once again in the ascendancy and the 6 year blip in my lifetime has been corrected. Some of the stuff on that thread is as small time as trying to justify the S.C.U.M. acronym.

Have a look at the good ole "Maslow's Hierachy of Needs". Once you get past the Physilogical & Safety levels, then Love, Self Esteem and Self Actualisation can take many forms (not just material or monetary wealth).