Ken Tone

see pedg's excellent updates ,ie The Theoretical Promotion/Champions Thread Something like the 'mind the gap' thread. Aim is to update it after every relevant match. Current Saints points: 78 Current possible maximum for West Ham: 69 + 3 * 8 = 93 Current possible maximum for Reading: 73 + 3 * 7 = 94 Points needed to guarantee winning Championship: 17 (1 + 94 - 78 ) If West Ham beat Reading maximum points will be WH: 93, R: 91 If West Ham and Reading draw max points will be: WH: 91, R: 92 If West Ham lose to Reading max points will be: WH 90, R: 94 Thus beating 91 points will guarantee promotion. Points needed to guarantee promotion: 14 (1 + 91 - 78 ) (in reality our goal difference is probably worth another point but theoretically it is not relevant) Last edited by pedg; 24-03-2012 at 05:01 PM. Reason: updated

Why would saints do this? The current seats are perfectly serviceable, so apart from changing any for a new sponsor, what a waste of money. I mean for that sort of cash you could probably pay Tal Haim's wages for a week!

I'd been going to reply that I knew nothing but was prepared to tell -- but then I read the rest of this thread and realised that many people have in effect beaten me to it.

No idea where to buy roind here , but have turfed a lawn or two in my various homes. As someone else has said, the more preparation you can do the better ...and that is where you will score over a professional, who will not care so much about the long term effect as the immediate satisfied customer one, whereas you presumably will care about how good it will look in a year or two's time. Get the surface soil as flat and fine, and as free of stones, as you can bring yourself to do. My 2 top tips then: 1. Use an old bread knife or similar to trim turfs to size /shape. 2. Use a plank, old floor board or similar, to walk on the bits you've just laid as you work. This will stop you leaving huge footprint holes and also help bed the turfs in evenly. (I'm assuming you don't have a large but relatively light roller)

Bumping this. Ought to be a sticky

Sorry. Don't want to sound like an ITK wannabe, but I don't think I can say any more without putting someone in an awkward position.

Spoke to someone today who met with Birch yesterday. No hint of anything moving on the buyer front.

Exactly. PFC say you can borrow Varney, but insist it is with a pre-arranged deal to buy at the end of the season. They have to do so this because if all their loan players return to the wage bill in the summer they'll be right back where they started, only worse, with no gate receipts coming in. Meanwhile Blackpool say, hang on, why should we commit ourselves to that? There's a sporting chance that all your players will be free agents if you go bust in the summer, so why on earth shoud we promise you a fee now?

It's probably Kanu. They won't have seen him training for quite a while!

You really do know him!!!!

The £20 million loss estimate was net, after taking into account the parachute payments. They are spending way above their means.

A genuine LOL coffee over keyboard moment. thanks

In the spirit of post 1, I'd just like to remind everyone of the really funny thing I said to my mate at the game last week. You all know him. Ask him if you didn't hear.

May seem weird at first that doncaster may outsell Portsmouth, but I think a lot of take it or leave it' fans don't want to know about the Portsmouth game. The confrontational atmosphere that some find really exciting, others find just plain unpleasant. I'll be there, as a season ticket holder, but if I were more of a casual fan faced with all the barriers to buying a ticket, and remebering all that damn silly fence-rattling last time .....

For me it's because financially they are this year's Portsmouth. They're spending far money they do not have. I read somewhere they're looking at a £20 million loss this year alone, and they were thought to be already skint when they were relegated last year. If they aren't promoted, I predict administration and more poor innocent bystanders left with a bad debt.

I doubt the gentleman's agreement personally, but I can see Adkins not playing Sharp nonetheless. I disagree with a later poster - Sharp will not want to score against his old club. All the emotions around his baby, and the support he received from Donny fans and staff at that time etc, will make him very reluctant to be the person who helps relegates them.

There would be no logic to such a rule, since the purpose of the parachute payments is to protect relegated clubs from financial meltdown, giving them support in paying ongoing high wages of players signed when in the PL. That applies just as much, if not more if they are relegated again to L1. It would make no sense to abandon a club when it needed the cash even more because its other sources of income went down further still. Of course what is supposed to happen, is that the relegated club uses this grace period to reduce its costs as much as possible in preparation for future break-even, transferring out those high earners that it can, and signing cheaper players etc, but having some money to hang on grimly wit,h if some players insist on seeing out a lucrative contract a la Ben Haim. But as we all know the portsmouth ( and indeed west ham) model is to just spend like there is no tomorrow anyway.

There's a small, and relatively cheap, pay and display car park at the corner of millbank street and prince's street. Doesn't nomally fill up till gone 2 , but if you want to be absolutely certain of a place I'd be there earlier. If you're realy unlucky and it is full , there are several private car parks along millbank road towards the ground mostly charging £5 , or the official Saints one opposite the garage which is mostly for parking season ticket holders but lets in reasonably early 'casuals' for £10. You can't get much closer than that!

He'll be back soon regardless , just with a different user name. The mods just need to look out for a fiver being lost in the post.

Snipped to save space The thing that gets me about "it's not the fans fault", is the one-sided thinking behind it. Of course it is true that most fans had, and have, no influence over the way their club is run, but then that is just as true in good times as it is in bad. By the 'not our fault' reasoning, PFC fans also had no part in their cup win. They can't expect to revel in the glory of a cup win that also 'was not their fault', then just step away from the consequences of buying that cup with a 'not our fault'

Personally I prefer the George Bernarnd Shaw quote: [h=1]“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.”[/h]

Exactly, but plus 10% of the supposed 'profit' for Redknapp, so in Johnson's case £1.4 million to him, so the real profit is down to £1.6 million. And I think Storrie was getting a percentage too wasn't he? So that's the profit almost disappeared. This on what appears to be a really good bit of business , never mind counting the transfers which made a loss. So in effect the answer to where the money went is, "to the greedy players, and to you and your mates, Redknapp"

Exactly. So personally I fully expect that soon Appleton will decide some of these youngsters have matured suddenly and rapidly, and are now ready for first team action after all

Why do you persist in posting in orange? Against the standard background, it makes your message virtually illegible for most readers

I believe there's club just down the road that is short of few players....