Frank's cousin

Its also about respect though... I agree in part with what Saint bletch is saying, but not totally, 'banter' betwen a few folk who know 100% what sentiment and feeling is behind it is one thing, but I doubt the 'chinky' in the army would cause a stir about his nickname because of the need for a close working unit, but would he have chosen it given the choice? Its about the message this sends out to thsoe uneducated... Also, there are plenty of folk who 'have black friends', and would 'happily share a pint with a black man', how often have these friends been round for dinner? (they tend to go quiet on that score) and many of teh same people would go ape if tehir daughter wanted to marry someone from another country let alone race - they also tend to use 'cultural differences' as an excuse rather than acknowledging their own prejudice. You DONT need to hate or cause harm to be a rascist, simple ignorance and disrespect based on colour, ethinicity is enough, and too often that is forgotten in the 'its only banter tag' - its why Poyet was so stupid to justify his views based on language or cultural difefrences, they mean feck all and just because some nations dont react or treat such disrespect in teh same way does not make it right...

Think we should just put it to bed... its just another game now. Last season, Gus took Adkins comments completely the wrong way and reacted badly - but his side won the league and lets be honest, did take their foot off the gas a little in the last few games - would have been better had its say still been a 3 horse race till the end, but thats history. His comments and in the interview on the BBC website seem normal and respectful - sure he is probably playing afe mind games too, but thats is part of teh pre match game these days - afterall I am sure Adkins might have known what reaction his comments would receive, even if it was more acase of bigging us up and letting everyone know we had not given up on the chase Hopefully, Gus will be true to word and try and play good football this year and not park the bus and we could be in for a cracking game. The more pressure and OTT the build up, the more it becomes like a cup game... Treat it as a normal fixture, play as we have been and we shoudl win given their current form.

Whose parents are workshy drop outs as a result of the Thatcher generation that consigned a whole section of society to the scrap heep and created an underclass.... Foreigners get these jobs because they work hard - simple as and as others have pointed out, I susuepct we have well in excess of 150k brits working abroud anyway, naturally the Daily Mail does not provide these figures by way of balance - oh and what about all thjsoe encouraged by Thatch to go abroad and work tax free? You really do make yourself look more ignorant with every sentance you post.

I think maybe folk are getting confused of the purpose of these dinners - they are NOT like a fan forum in which the purpose is to address questions from the fan base and thus communicate back to fans -I suggest that the purpose is for the CLUB and NC to get feedback FROM fans and understand better how the club is perceived at this present time. I suspect that as a result many are a bit miffed taht there are not 'full reports' of these meetings - which TBH is not necessarily needed?

... assuming that figure of 22m for a redevelopment is correct... what are they hoping to do with that amount? Prices have moved on - SMS may be a litte identikit, but we did get a 32k stadium for 35 mil - The 22k Amex cost close to 100mil - simply dont see what pompey can do to redevelop this for 22 mil... that would build them a 14k new stadium just (see ST Helens new ground) and thats assuming they have bought up some additioanl space from Gaydamak. Looking at the image above, if the new owners wer able to purchace all they highlighted land from Gaydamak/Barclays and finally pay off Chanrai etc that allowwn will cost them 7mil or so + what they owe chanrai + the approx 25mil (20p in the pound) CVA + (any outstanding football creditors?) - so lets assume 35 mil add to that say 60 mil for a new stadium (minimum) + conversion of the land to training ground and academy etc - close on to 100mil - now IF the russians were serious about developing the club, that would probably be a good long term approach, but a) do they have 100 mil and are they willing to pump that sort of cash in, B) who woyuld lend it to them given tehir financial history? Seems teh very first thing they should be looking at if serious is to aquire the land and pay off chanrai and the creditors - then and only then begin the process of new ground and training centre development by which time stadium budget will have doubled again just to get to a 20k figure. Corps, that is why it is still not exactly clear what value the russians currently see in the club as there have been no indications that they have that sort of investment aim. Had, the club spent that 120 mil of accumulated debt on developing the infrastructure as above rather than paying stupid wages and ridiculous transfer , then you would have been a reasonable proposition for a takeover by thsoe who saw the potential of a return to the top flight and thus a gradual repayment of teh investment - maybe then had you fallen on hard times you would have had more sympathy, rather than have spnked that amount on vain attempts for glory and an unfair competitibve advantage. Priorities all wrong it seems.

edit - 'without Van persie and a couple of others'

To be fair, I can understand what Alps means - our tabloid media get a sudden uber rush of 'nationalism' vaguly disguised as 'patriotism' - especially when we meet anyone we ever had a war with... it gets feckin ridiculous. Worse will be if we end up against the Germans again... and they stuffed the Dutch )with van Persie and a couple of others) 3-0 without Schweinsteiger or Lahm... uhm can see the the build up now....

FFS - Cortese is talking about emulating the MODEL not the clubs themselves - The only way we will EVER have a fleeting CL bash is IF by some miracle we do hold on to a crop of talent - now how a club does that is anotehr question.... in Germany young players tend to stick around until they are 21-22 or so, so you get teh odd Leverkusen, Schalke et al having a bash... here the 'big clubs' are desperate to sign any talent at 15, 16 in hope of beating the others to the name... The only way any club of our size could try an emulate that in teh Prem is to install a different clutural mindset etc in the academy kids... which given the current UK cultural of 'I want it now' may mean we need to attract foreign youngsters...?

That Charlie brooker is what is feckin wrong with this country if you ask me... its just a shame that an add which is less about greed and take take take that our society has become is criticised for being schmalzy - has everyone really become that feckin cynically? The ads Ok, but about feckin time someone put the right sentiment back in to advertising.... bet that Charlie fecker loves Iceland's ****e about eat all you feckin can as surely thats all that matters to him at Christmas Good on you Alps for finding it emotive. I am with you on this one.

Ignore Turkish...if wnything positive is ever mentioned about aspirations and desires teh club has... he dismisses as 'Cortese propoganda' - sad.... he cant seem to differentiate between having high ideals and ambition and what we all know would be extremely unlikely from a pragmatic perspective. What the feck is wrong with him? Cortese bashing for the sake of it - looks like a Skate to me. I bet Turkish was there shouting down Lowe every five minutes for lacking any ambition, yet here he is doom saying anything that comes from the chairman that at least shows some.... Cortese: Our aim and ambition is to model ourselves on the best Turkish: (in a stroppy 4 year old voice) NO we can never do that we should model ourselves on ...er... NOrwich or ...er West Brom as that is surely more realistic.. Jeez...

Have to agree with you UP. I dont knwothe ansqwer but its a pretty good guess to speculate it will involve wealth generation ;-) I actually have no issue with a more integrated EU, never felt that single currency and beaurocrats/politicos all in Brussels and Strasboug would make any dent in my national identity - and to be honest, that identity is only the here and now... in the grand scheme of cultural and biological evolution its insignificant anyway... however I do agree with the issue of accountability and to all voters and the EU has been its own worst enemy given the wastage and inefficiency it has precisd over... although our rather xenophobic media has often over egged that as well. The problem with letting 'the people' decide is once again that most dont bother to try and understand ALL the complex pros and cons - and merely follow a party line or the standrad nationalistic rhetoric - is it better for the UK in or out? guess it depends on what criteria - economics? trade? democracy? employment opportunities? all are pretty complex and I dont have enough knowledge to make an informed choice based on understanding the issues surrounding all the criteria..and I would hazzard a guess that 90% of the UK population dont either - so would I want such a decsion made by folks who dont understand the details, or by politicians that will often do what they think will either wins votes or line their own pockets? tricky choice. My problem with the wonderful democratic process of referenda is that we end up in that sad situation again as with changing the voting system... probably a mish mash of biassed mediareporting, poor communication of the the pros and cons and a question worded in such a way that it is a cop out anyway...

All those things, culture, ideology, history etc are in teh grand scheme of things and in terms of human social and anthropological evolution relatively 'recent' - afterall we all came out of Africa originally - depends on where you draw the line as what is significant - as humans migrated, created local history and culture evolved because these groups were relatively isolated... and borders were fought over - move on a a mere 1000 years or so and we now have a situation where travel and migration are reuniting both the gene pool and seeing political, social and cultural reintergration (for those not so obsessed with a culture that is no more than several humdred years old - afterall Even before the lastest immigration from former commonwealth countries, we were ana amalgum of saxons (Germany) Angles, French, Nordics and celts.... - If you see this as a challenge to democracy you are missing a very big point - all depends on what short term timeline some folk adhere to - means feck all in grand scheme of things - its why racists are such ****s - as we all came from the same gene pool and current global travel is thankfully going to ensure taht one day (a few 1000 years or so) we will all be far more integrated than now... which can only be a good thing surely?

Strangely, not sure why they are obsessed with making enemies or creating this false sense of rivalry... whichever way you look at it, it smacks of a chip on shoulder and not even sure where that chip came from. They seem to have forgotten a few things : 1) how vast majority of fans including saints felt for them when their ground was sold from underthem , and how supportive fans from all clubs were in supporting their online petition when their planning application was going through a public inquiry, 2) That most fans including sainst were really pleased when they finally were able to go ahead and get a new ground 3) that Adkins comment was in direct response to a question of 'can you keep up with Brighton? so what was he meant to say? NO? 4) That if Poyet wants to play mind games fair enough - if tehy work he will get credit for being a good manager (in the way that fecker Ferguson was always arse licked by the media for his mastering of them), if tehy dont Poyet will look like a Tool. 5) Adkins record is pretty good - and better than Poyet's game for game by some margin now 6) although we are comfortable financially our 'investment' in players is not what you would call gargantuan or even ahead of what they have done 7) No businesses, companies tax man etc missed out on any monies due - only Aviva and Barclays took a hit - a hit only because for some strange reason our reduction of the debt for which we compromised our quality of 1st team that led to relegation, was not deemed rapid enough... still not clear why... so to compare us to pompey is laughable their own history of finacial problems That they have some fans that fail to grasp any of the above does suggest an element of stupidity, but all clubs have those on their message boards so hardly surprizing...

Funnily enough, I kind of hope Appleton does work out - it a old move giving a younger less experienced face the job, but the advnatges are they dont come with the baggage associated with the same old has beens. Adkins was maybe better known and had far more experience, but had still to be tested when at a club with much higher expectations and pressure from above so it was a gamble in some respect. I have always had an issue when these experiments have been classed as 'cheaper' option - going back to Gray and wriggly who were both experienced and rated coaches - tehir failure in management was NOT a criticism of their coaching, but more that tehy were not able to make that step from coaching skills and tactics and improving players to man management and motivation. Time will tell if Appleton has that in his locker.

THink its in part a cultural thing to. The Swiss background in buisness is one of doing it in private - keeping things OUT of the media. I suspect that the club (ML and NC) will have known that it woudl be difficult to do this completely in a country obsessed with publication of any bit of gossip and rumour and also one in which when (as Journs see it) their right to print and dig what they please is challenged, will be vindictive. We saw the club try and build bridges with teh Echo when ML and NC arrived, but teh echo went ahead and printed the whole Staplewood piece despite the clubs request for a delay - so its not surprizing that any trsut has been difficult to reestablish. On the whole photographer thing... well I suspect there are some more complex issues at stake here and that in future we may see other clubs look to do similar things... the reason? Potentially the tax liabilties clubs face for image rights - I know HMRC are still struggling to pin down a suitable and appropriate model, but it woudl not surprize me that in future publication of player pictures with sponsors logos, shirt and boot manufacturers logos etc will not be far more rigorously controlled so that clubs can provide an appropriate and reasonably quantifiable image right log for revenue purposes rather than the guess work that most use at the moment? ..finally, when ever did we let journos know of any transfer targets....

Jealous we did not win the cup in recent years? Yep sure am, jealous of every club that has won it since '76, afterall football fans all want success for tehir clubs and are envious of those that achieve it... but heres the thing, I am not jealous of any particular club winning it... I dont give a flying feck that it was your club andy more than Gooners or Man U... I am feckin ****ed off with the system, which you use as an acuse - ie. they system allowed you and many other clubs to speculate financially to the pint of meltdown... I admire clubs like West Brom who may yoyo, but have kept themselves reasonably financially stable. We spent 27 years in the top flight and flirted with relegation on many occasions precisely because even after the boom years of Sky and the guarranteed revenues we REFUSED to borrow for transfers and wages - we ran teh club within its means - including a mortguage for in frastructure that cost us 1.8 mil a year against revenue of 45-50mil per annum - ith a wage bill at a stable 50% of turnover - which was a sound and sensible buisness approach. The fact that many clubs were running wage bills in excess of income based on the potential for additioanl income in prize monies from sky and the FA meant that to date our record signing is 4mil odd for Rory Delap - yes some bemowneed lack of ambition under Lowe, but for all his faults he ran a finacially tight ship and included 50% wage reduction clauses on relegation in many contracts - another reason why we often struggled to attract players. Now, I acknowledge that many saints fans hated this approach, but ultimately the vast majority now recognise that it was perhaps the right one having seen where even minor recklessness or gambles can lead - we have learnt pour lesson even though in all fairness it was relatively minor - for even though we spent 7mil of cash we HAD from player sales on a promotion attempt, we were still able to pay the tax man and ALL our bills given that we had an agreement in place not with some dodgy mystical owner in exchange for equity but with a BANK, a propeer regulated one called Barclays - and when Lowe returned the club did everything it could playing kids to reduce the small debt and reduce the overdraft 30% in the first year by playing kids at the same time as PAYING all teh bills and the tax man and he mortgage.... with me? OK so lets look at all thjsoe clubs who for whatever reason gamble on future income... all clubs who take such an approach are in some ways seeking a competitive advantage. Now if it is sustainable as a result of increase future revenues then whilst ALL payments are made to HMRC and bills paid etc, then even though I hate teh model, it is in effect within the rules and despite gaining a competitive advantage it can not be cheating as the rules allow it... however, if a club goes completely mad, spends to an extent taht even with additioanl prize monies from Sky and th FA, there is not a hope in hell of being able to pay it back... then this is is exactly the reason why the penalties were introduced because it IS cheating. A club of Portsmouth size with a 18k average gate just back in the prem, was completely feckin mad spending that sort of money as it should have been obvious to all that the costs outstripped tehy revenue streams - what is worse there were reports of of pompey being 30 mil in debt that year after the cup win.... and they carried on spending like it was going out of fashion... and not paying the HMRC... now I am not sure waht promises the various fantasy owners made in regards to providing funding, but alarm bells should have been ringing as soon as it was clear HMRC were not being paid, let alone he quality of players you were signing and the subsequent wage bill... FFS did no one even question it? Are you all feckin stupid in Portsmouth? The fact remains you won the cup with players of a quality that you could not afford AND WITH NO MODEL OR GUARRATEE IN PLACE THAT THE ACCUMULATED DEBT AS A RESULT WOULD POSSIBLE TO PAY BACK - and did not pay the tax man - so that is cheating in any book and would be accepted I think by anyone with a reasonable moral compass and a brain. I have a couple of very good friendss who are pompey fans - I was pleased for them when they won the cup after years turmoil - even if through gritted teeth.. but one of them even suggested at teh time he was very worried about how you could afford teh quality on the pitch - he had an ST for 20 years + even during the darkest days when you were sold for £1... but he gave up going when the truth and scale of the debt became obvious as he had a degree of integrity that I applaud. It hurts him as he loves the club, but is not prepared to support the dodgy regimes and will return only when there is a solid finacial structure in place and in the public domain... Why teh rest of you cant acknowledge that those years can now be considered as cheating is beyond me... and the comical comeback that we also went into admin and therefore must have cheated is is infantile and suggests extreme stupidity on thsoe that use it - for the record, we went into admin at a time when we were reducing our debt, never having missed any payments and rather got relegated as a result of trying to live within our means - your lot kept on spending....

This. Top post as is Bridge too fars at al. EDL = absolute c***s

To be fair... I am not sure that support levels are really that relevent in the grand scheme of things - also impacted on by local social demographic and disposable income during difficult financial times.... I have no issue with their support, had they not made such a dig deal about how great they are.....

They received close to 9 years intersest at close to 1.8m + around 7 mil final payoff so although no profit - close to break even ish... thing is Pfc, no one is happy we ended up not fullfilling the terms of that contact following admin, its never a good thing, but you have to admit that this loan was taken out when we had no issues with repayment on infrastrcture - we NEVER missed a payment even when relegated right up until going into admin... but its a huge difference than defaulting on all payments as a result of spending huge amounts on transfers and wages way beyond the income stream of a club with a 20k ground?

Him and Guly really - I think one of the key reasons why we are doing so well is that these two do so much work and give others tap ins! - We have had goals from about 8 players on a regular basis, if the strikers dont get on the score sheet then we have Jos, lallana, Forte, Hammond, Spider, Chappers...the lsit goes on No idea how to call this one - the 2 week break, I think is a hinderance as there is a danger we lose a bit of momentum after winning 3 on the bounce. Brighton will be up for it, that's for sure so difficult to call. I am going for 2-0 after 0-0 at half time....

For me the biggest irony is that what we now have is a club, almost the way Lowe and co would have done had they had a pot to **** in. We are seeing further investment in infrastructure, living within oour means but with a fund from the owner (albeit appearing as 'loans'), and the club run under sensible busness practices - its why we still see some not happy with the regime as the club puts itself first and and that means sometimes costs and fees make some disgruntled. For me the real test for NC will be if we are promoted to the prem. what sort of balance will be put in place to ensure a reasonable level of competitiveness versus ensuring we are financially stable - and if performance wise we struggle, will we see the return of those screaming for 'investment'?

Foresight suggests you could have predicted the outcome... you are right in suggesting a 'pheonix' like club would always have been an option, but for many this was NOT somthing they would have been happy with. Even if it meant continued baord room turmoil. I still find it exasperating how some 'blessed with hindsight' feel that it was better - that some how the arrival of ML was preordained - when the reality is we were very very lucky - and we should also acknowledge that our 'luck' was in no small part generated (ironically) by the very things so many (the same who had these amazing chrystal balls) moaned about on here and previous forums for years - the investment in the infrastructure and academy instead of first team... we had that ad infinitum, yet it should be obvious that those things being in place made us 'worth a punt' for Markus' 'modest investment'. We were also ant attrctaive proposition because we only had two main creditors to deal with - Aviva and Barclays - everyone else includig HMRC had been paid, and this was a direct result of the clubs various board room members striving to run teh club financially in teh right way (even with Leon's slight rush of blood to the head) overall none of them went mad with teh pursestrings, and in our final PLC season, we cut eveything back to the bare minimum to avoid doing a pompey and racking up more debt and dbt and debt with no intenstion of paying it back... we should be proud of that.

Cant stand the fact that the whole media are ****ing tehmselves over Fergusens 25 years thing.... not saying hes crap, but its just atad easier to win things when you get a crop of special youngsters who STAY at your club + you have the cash to reward them with the best wages and supplement with so world stars... I am sure would win something if Bale, Walcott, Oxo, Lallana, Bridge + a few top players were here with a lesser manager than 'fergie' - not forgetting the extra points gained in Fergie time neither.... ;-)

Point is though Steve, that at the very least those fans attending officially through the club channels are controlled - it means that if as you say a bunch of the brain dead morons jump in their cars and head for a scrap, at least we can genuinely say they are not our fans attending the game. Nothing can be fully controlled, but control what you can and try and at least remove the chance of the club being dragged through the mire by the few mindless wannbes

This. As some beardy bloke in sandels once said ''reap what you sow'' - as inconvenient as it may be, blame the pathetic morons who act like 'hard men' from both clubs - as they are the cause. Whatever the police are saying we must do, I am glad the club is taking this seriously. Its also about our reputation as a club. This way more is controlled and we avoid teh chance of our token morons draggin the club through the mire... PS. Dune you need to seek out some psychiatric help - for a right wing tory, you seem rather displeased with the club following true blue capitalist principles and making money where they can.... Oh wait a minute, actually it makes sense, typical tories, only really concerned about themselves.... yawn.