Fowllyd

"When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose" - Bob Dylan or... "I started out with nothing, and I still got most of it left" - Seasick Steve or... "I've got nothing to say, but that's OK" - The Beatles

I think you'll find that the lawyers dealing with this transaction (on both sides - DLA are acting for Begbies Traynor, no idea who's acting for Pinnacle) will have more than just this one piece of work going on. They will have piles of files on their desks, their office floors - all over the shop. It's how law firms work. In any complex legal transaction there are always lulls and periods of manic activity. Generally, from what I've seen of these things (I've worked as an IT manager for a few large London law firms in the past) the great bulk of the manic activity occurs as the deadline approaches. Incidentally, lawyers charge for hours worked on a particular matter, not on how long in days it actually takes to complete. The more hours they have to put in the more they'll charge, but it's a massive over-simplification to assume that a process which takes 20 days will cost twice as much as one which takes half that.

Hardly. The takeover process is in the hands of the lawyers; I'd scarcely expect them to be thinking about players and so forth.

Alan Curtis springs to mind. He was a superb player, but never seemed to be properly fit for long enough during his spell with us.

Why should anybody pay any more attention to this than to the mutterings of ITK types on this forum? The writer claims to know major details of what's happening but offers nothing whatsoever to back it up. It's no better than the Echo's approach of "The Echo understands that...", yet the writer derides the Echo for speculating. Maybe it's a sign of the times, but I feel highly disinclined to take anything on trust right now; rather, I feel highly inclined to question the motivations (and indeed sources) of anybody publishing stuff of this sort.

I've worked for a few large City law firms (as an IT manager, not a lawyer) and the pattern with big corporate deals (mergers, acquisitions, management buy-outs, etc) was always the same. When the deadline for the deal was fast approaching, the lawyers involved would work round the clock like mad things to get it all done - we'd always get calls asking for out of hours support to be available and so forth. There was always ample time to get the details thrashed out, and it could easily have been done without the mad panic at the end, but they always did the whole lot at the last moment - or at least that's how it appeared. So, if it's legal niceties and the like which are now being sorted, don't be surprised if it goes right to the last minute before all is completed. If nothing appears to be happening, that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. If there's a deadline the lawyers will hit it; they just have everybody else crapping themselves in the process.

Fair point - thought Dainty Dave seemed that little bit more irritating than most, but it's a close call..

Hmm, sounds like good advice. In fact, it's exactly what I already was doing. Well, more accurately, I was ignoring all of it. Don't care who he is, but nobody genuine would post such sh1te.

Yes, of course they are. Just how many times have we heard such things? And how many of these times has it proved to be true? Dream on, fishy boy...

That would only be the case if HMRC were a sufficiently large creditor to block a CVA. For a CVA to be agreed 75% of creditors (by amount of debt) have to OK it. HMRC can oppose a CVA all they like, but to block it they would need to own at least 25% of the debt, which they don't. The main creditors are Aviva and Barclays, so they will get the ultimate say on any CVA.

It means shares in SFC, not SLH; in other words, buying the football club from what remains of the plc.

Do they have special keyboards for use with hooves?

And you waited 18 months to post that??

1. Yes, at the moment at least. 2. Who knows? Depends on putative new owners, I guess. 3. Highly unlikely I'd have thought, though also depends on putative new owners. 4. Yes, as of start of next season. All depending on legal manoeuvres though. 5. It would seem so, though others have their own views on that (and nothing is certain at the moment). 6. Buggered if I know... Oh yes - welcome back.

That picture disturbs me. Coppell looks as if he could be auditioning for a part as the Grim Reaper in a film by Ingmar Bergman.

If the club is bought for £8M, that will certainly mean that the buyers own the stadium too, as nobody is going to pay that sort of money just for the football club. Here's how it works (I think - though somebody like Clapham Saint will know this stuff far better than I do): SLH, the business in administration, has various creditors. Principal among those are Aviva (stadium loan) and Barclays (overdraft). If a buyer were to stump up - let us say - £10M, this would be split among the various creditors, proportionate to the amount they're each owed. So, if the total debt is £30M the creditors will all receive 33p for each pound they're owed. So, Aviva would get about £7M, Barclays about £2M, the rest split the remaining £1M. Those are all hypothetical figures, of course, but not a million miles from the actual ones. Mark Fry's job in all this is to get as much as he can for the creditors, whilst trying to ensure that the business (or at least some part of it, in this case SFC) continues to exist. So he'll want as high an offer as he can get.

And as far as I know he hasn't once called anybody 'dear warrior'! Always made me laugh, that one. As it happens, I'm sure I recall Draganov mentioning that he used to post as Orkney Saint (or something like that). Sad that I should recall such things I know, but there it is.

Now, if the petition were to fill all their mouths with cement (and could there be a more effective gagging order?) I'd sign like a shot. More seriously, I'd agree with those posters who'd rather see everything brought out into the open - freedom of expression and all that. But then, judging by the rubbish spouted by all sides in the press, I reckon that, if we ever do get a full and honest account, it won't be thanks to any of that lot.

Were you drinking it chilled? I hear that's very much the done thing these days...

I'm sure I remember Nineteen acknowledging his previous incarnation(s) on at least one occasion. Whilst he was generally a good deal less antagonistic than Sundance, I thought they were one and the same after very few posts. Has he gone then?

He's already composing a letter to Rupert, urging him to keep the faith...

There's a difference though. At that time we had a squad which largely consisted of a bunch of overpaid journeymen; the OP's view is that we should be looking for younger, cheaper - and keener - players elsewhere, not bringing in more players along the lines of Euell, Jermaine Wright or whoever. So the two views aren't as contradictory as you might think. Not sure if I agree with the main premise of the OP though, largely as I have no idea how much it actually costs to run our academy. Without that knowledge it's impossible to say how well or otherwise it's working.

I think you missed my point - it's the same one you've just made!

Two points on this: first, who'll do all this rigorous moderating? If you're going to do it that well it would be a full-time job. Second, I don't believe it's that easy to separate the football and board/politics side of things anyway - if you want to talk about the manager, for example, then the question of who appointed him and how it happened is certain to be hovering close by. Not an easy line to draw, I'd have thought. You're right that many threads tend to degenerate into bickering about Lowe, Wilde, Crouch and so forth these days - but that's just a symptom of where we are at the moment. The more nostalgic threads don't go that way, but then that's simply because they're addressing the past and not the present.

He said that it took three months for him (and presumably Poortvliet) to realise that this is a physical league and that you have to be ready to compete. I guess that counts as owning up. Let's see that bit again: Yes, truthful and to the point. Said point being that the club engaged the services of two people (and I care not one jot about their nationalities by the way) who took three months to figure out that we play in a tough, physical league and that you need players who can cope with that in order to survive. Oh, and that you have to be able to defend set-pieces. Good old-fashioned, blunt, honest talking there then. Wotte's not to like, eh?