dubai_phil

Sorry WSS, somebody thinks FF is a decent bloke. He's quite important on here, thought it was worth mentioning as he has had a lot of stick in general, including from me, but then I suppose you don't try and say "I was wrong" that often.

Now that was an entertaining evening. BA hosted a business networking event and had a number of Senior Brass in town. Very low key, some beers and canapes and a general chance to chat with other ex pat businessmen. Then adjourned to a pleasant posh bar and continued the chat. You regulars would have been proud of me, I raised a number of the thoughts raised on here with a VP, ranging from FF's problems through their business model and how their business model works. (OK they supplied BEER or I'd never have had the nerve) Not mentioning names or quotes but interesting they have some sympathy for FF "he volunteered and thought he was doing the right thing to help people" - so he isn't the nasty person he's been made out to be.. They really still don't comprehend how ME airlines can keep ordering planes, although the discussion along the lines of "Well it is Ryanair/Easyjet's fault - it gave regional airports the idea of flying , they did that now want to go further and don't like Heathrow. 56% of Business Traffic has been lost in the recession - ouch - so now looking at thow they can add different value to their client base to get through the recession. Nice event, very PC about the problems they have had and what they have to do to improve, but the highlight was the "We understand what he has to do, and it's a surprise he hasn't managed to get his message across, he's normally so eloquent when he posts on the forum or writes about his club" ah bless TSW taking centre stage in Brit Industrial Relations

No. It is obviously Granty inside the suit so you can't win. But he could

Oh Hammie OK I'm sorry - it has to be somewhere out of country unless it is on a Barge. It's just that it was holiday time and I know Uberfans never leave Southampton and all that. Didn't mean to cause upset. But then you stand feck all chance of winning up against say a pic of the Thread from a stag do in Lithuania or something

Yup, Bahrain are a well known Rugby Nation This is in reality a fall-out from Promoting the Aussies into the Asian Qualifiers. They used to walk the Oceania group and then get stuck in aplay-off with the 4th best team in South America. This time round it meant the Chinese were upset by not making it. Luckliy it also meant no local GCC country qualified... OOps did I say luckily? I meant unlucky honest mr proxy man

Interesting Hypo. My only comment would be that at this moment, the best way to maximise a return is to gain successive promotions. Forgetting the value that they could achieve from "Revenues" that would enhance the "Capital Value" far more. Rumours have bounced around of bonuses for NC in other threads over the past season. The Capital growth would be very difficult to achieve in the current economic climate, but as we progress so the "economic situation" may well improve. Whilst Business & The Public sector are starved of cash at the moment and awash in debt, there are actually huge amounts of Private Capital chasing "Good Investment Opportunities". So, in theory I would agree that you have a good Hypothesis. Also, in tehory I actually believe that AT THIS POINT IN TIME, the aims of a "Capitalisitic Ownership" actually co-incides with the Aims of the fan base. So, while some may (justifiably) feel they are being "ripped off", for the majority of the fans we will see only the progression up the Leagues. Is this a dangerous course to take? Yes, eventually it would all end in tears OR we would end up sold to an Oliagarch or Private Equity Fund. I've expressed concerns about our funding all season and I don't think we should be blind in our support. BUT, while the objectives are aligned, and in the current global climate, hell we are So damned lucky we all want the same thing and have the backing to get it. We haven't done a deal with the Devil like the Skates did, but we should also not believe we are owned by a charity aimed solely at making us feel good every weekend

Not to worry, there'll be a lot of Toasting being done on Wednesday, shame you have detention at Skool :-)

I keep banging on and on about it to my mates here. The World Cup always seems to be won by a team that have a dreaful warm up and then play dreadful football through the group stages and only come together as a real team "almost by accident" to sneak in and suddenly win it. Which means that Italy are probably favourites, and, quite possibly IF we have now had our "nightmare moment" early in the tournament are England. The Germans look superb so they have no chance, but the French are in disarray and hate the coach so they could be likely candidates also...

Or you can read it as a dig at Alpine for his thread "Club have identified targets". Good work Agent Alps - it got a response for us

Perhaps they HAVE to go to America for pre-season training. Nobody in our neck of the woods will rent them a training pitch

Perhaps you don't see it how we do in Canada, or even in the UK. What we have here is not just the Colonials - yes, here we have to add the fecking Aussies & Yarpies to the list, but the biggest problem down here are "Nationals of a certain country" who think wearing an Argentina shirt whenever we play and stand up spit in your face insult your Girlfriend or otherwise try and antagonise you into a "1980's English Hooligan Stereotypical" reaction whilst calling their mate in the local CID on speed dial. The ABE's in UK are just a bunch of football wanabees and easily dispatched with a witty or barbed retort. Your ABP comparison is different, no Saints fan would wear the shirt of another team in a pub and then try and deliberately start at best an argument or at worst a pub brawl while watching Poorsmuff v Wigan in a pub like we see down here.

It's either a Yorke Hotel or a Monty Python joke

40 minutes on hold on an International call to Qatar again FINALLY got English channel working again... Why does Cannavaro wear mascara? Oh bless the Italian fan who sent a letter to the local rag saying how England were an embarrassment. He who laughs first is a ***t and all that

Ah ha Smileys now work, can add the smiley winky thing to complete the my original post

Sounds like someone trying to sell Season Tickets to me

Arrrrrrrrrghhgh WTF I'm blind! Infract yourselves admin. Surely you must know that many regular posters tend to wake up with a hangover, how could you nasty cruel people have made the new forum so WHITE?!?! And also, the red sash is supposed to go from top left to bottom right, not across the page.

Down here we are plagued with these obnoxious stereotyped Bstds. The local papers are full of letters from Angry Jocks & Paddies (their own words) saying how Drunken English Hooligans annoy them. When you go out to watch a game they turn round red faced and spitting bile that their team (ie whoever we are playing) were fantastic and that England were sh*t. The Anyone But England brigade hack me off - many of them haven't been to a World Class Tournament for decades, they haven't seen the changes that have come over England's away support thanks to the efforts of banning orders and ticketing policies and are still locked away in some weird "inferiority complex" world of their own. And yet of course they'll be there extolling the virtues of Gareth Barry, Frank Lampard et al while they cheer on their "adopted PL Team". Down here it gets worse when we see our friends from Lebanon with their Lebansese passports wearing German or Italian shirts and face paint and pledging their undying allegiance to their "Team", which miraculaous becomes USA or Algeria or Slovenia in the next two weeks. They hack me off, and no doubt many on here will have had the abusive text messages from ABE's lolling at Green and not beating a bunch of Baseball players. Anyone else finding these w*nkers around while they try and watch the games?

Meh, have slept on it. Didn't expect us to play well, we are always rubbish in the opening games was what I had been telling everyone yesterday in the build up. We didn't lose our opening game. We've possibly had our horrible mistake/bad luck moment when it didn't actually matter in the long run (Beckham/Rooney sending off's, Seaman/Brazillian free kick) and hopefully he Cappello will pick more than two (alleged) midfielders for the rest of the tournament. Damn glad I didn't go to the pub though, would have probably splatted some obnoxious ABE

I've not got a new shirt. But I will have one on 12th July

No, surely not. Another points deduction? How can that be, he's been telling everyone all along that they are safe from any more Points Deductions. Wow, just imagine the sudden heartbreak and trauma on the skate sites when they read that he may not have told them the whole story...

Interesting gossip. So allegedly Mr Hunt of Griffins has a "Reputation". He sees himself as some crusader for good in amongst the evil of the IP world and will come out all guns blazing wherever he sees wrong..... But, strangely, the same tales seem to indicate that he only does this when it is something that may earn money or promote his own self important ego to be even higher profile. So, while the crusade that appears to have been launched against AA is Manna from Heaven for thread watchers, it could well be that the ulterior motives behind it all are not as we would hope for, and AA may actually turn out to be the lesser of two evils for all of us (the Watchers and the Skates). Like I mentioned, interesting days of discussions ahead down this way, hope I don't run out of beer to ply my source with

The same applies to Corners AND long balls The percentage of corners that have been overhit must be very high (Why have the coaches not noticed this and put a player outside the edge of the box opposite where the kick is coming from?) And as for Long Balls, unless they go straight to feet they just zing off into touch or bounce about 20 yards away from the receiver.

Oi! How DARE you offend Camels. SWP's FAR worse than that

Well, the muppets who go to the "Big Screen Venues" here in Dubai have to be pretty high up the list http://business.maktoob.com/Pages/Media/GalleryPopUp.aspx?GalleryID=262948&ImageID=262948?utm_campaign=Night-Newsletter&utm_medium=PhotoStory-MainLink&utm_source=Night-Newsletter&utm_content=

The head and heart all scream NO. I wouldn't have picked him in the first place. Then logic kicks in. the tournament lasts one month. Disasters and injuries may happen and suddenly having dumped him to not be even on the bench suddenly we need to bring him back for a Semi-Final with his confidence shot to hell. Tough call, perhaps he should be given one game and then dropped? Personally I'd drop him