dubai_phil

Bugger. Had this one down as a win in the Prediction league, now he's gone and done the "Commentators Curse" thing and mentioned the W word before we even kick a football.... Still, mustn't grumble, can save my airmiles for The Forum Match 2, Return of The Hamster and of course SA in June:-)

OK let's do some more cultural training shall we.... Not ALL Brits are naive when it comes to foreign cultures Not ALL Saudi's are fanatical Whahibi Al Qaeda funding militants But, enough of each of them are for their to be a totally different understanding of what each is saying. So, developing the club and the community, this can also be clearly interpreted as You are going to ground share at SMS or Havant/Waterlooville while the former club is redeveloped into "The largest Shopping Mall in Europe" and "Executive Style Housing" The community will be developed by building the largest mosque outside of Mecca Alternatively, he now owns the rights to blackmail the local council to give him planning permission to drain the harbour and build a 20,000 unit canal living new town, otherwise he will not invest in the team Go to the local bookshop, get the latest Chris Ryan book and read the bottom of page two about the SAS rules of engagement in Iraq. I ain't quoting it. So, people from down here will have two motives for investing in football. One is based around Ego (ie that includes things like Man City and building a global brand) or it will be for profit and politics (Al Fayed at Fulham gets to stay in Blighty). A property developer - he'll use the politics to make a profit

Do England games still appear on tv somewhere in the world then? :mad: We have Showtime here They had the PL & CCC for US$80 per month. Then they dumped the CCC and got the SPL. They had UEFA cup last year, no idea where that and the CCC has gone. We had Orbit which had sweet FA with a watered down no footie ESPN but now we have to pay extra on Showtime because they merged with Orbit to give 75 premium channels of 3 year old US TV & Litte league Ice Hockey & Baseball Then we had ART who are $80 per month and have the Champions League & FA Cup only but they used to have the PL but no English Language TV series, just some old movies. They had SOME world cup qualifiers and had the WC in Germany so, nope we didn't watch that as you had to take out a one year subscription - $960 something We used to have the "little Indian Chappie" who connected your decoder to the internet so you could watch everything for free including the South African Channels DST, who had PL, CCC and ENGLAND games. But then the Telco regulatory authorities added every web site with the unscrambled links to their list of banned sites because they also allowed you to access all the "adult" channels on Hotbird. Of course THAT happened just after those sites started charging you 50 quid a year for the subscription. You could use a proxy by-pass but the internet here is then so slow that you cannot get a signal fast enough to retune the whatever it is thingy on your decoder. So, you guys have NO idea how lucky you are to have a Monopoly. We've got about 4 or 5 satellites covering this area and STILL nothing on telly unless you want to watch the PL or are able to waste 200 quid a month Unless of course we go down the pub, but at the current exchange rate of just under 6 quid a pint...... I'll simply try and use the "set up an IP address in blighty" trick and listen on I-Player 5 live, failing that Google always works if you like getting swamped by viruses from the streamed video sites in China

Showing my age here but Holmes was as totally one footed as Armstrong - his left - the few times I remember him on the right were not his better days. How about our best ever Sweeper - Reuben Agboola - system never worked before or after and he wasn't the greatest footballer in the world, but it worked while he was there

Shhhhh, was saving that one for next week - you know - the ground share with Havant & Waterlooville while they build a shopping mall with a plastic pitch on the roof (They believe they'll attract more fans if they can go to Burberry's at half-time)

Nope. Never been to that ground. HTH So we thought it was weird and wrong to have 3 managers in one season. Trust the Skates to try and go one better by having 3 OWNERS in one season. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/portsmouth/6263774/Portsmouth-takeover-completed-as-Ali-Al-Faraj-becomes-new-owner.html Life can go back to normal now, although 1) it would be funny if Mark Jacob used to sell photcopiers 2) comments down here questioning how the Al Faraj's don't appear in any lists of Saudi Billionaires http://business.maktoob.com/20090000380218/Saudi_billionaire_takes_over_Portsmouth_/Article.htm .....PFC pray for Faraj as Fahim fails to deliver Oct 05, 2009 at 08:20Oh goody... Another "billionaire"... Funny how none of these "billionaires" ever show up on any list of billionaires! More rubbish if you ask me....but I wait to be ridiculed as you all... MORE

Mark Dennis, David Peach was more reliable IMHO but Psycho gave us that bit extra

Think it will be a lot easier at SMS than it was when I had to do it at the Dell up in the West Stand after ligament surgery... The day MLT scored that goal through the legs over the head and volley - Wimbledon or Newcastle I forget at this time of night Don't make my mistake of leaping up with a cructh still loosely on your arm and watching it sail about 10 rows forwards and clouting someone on the head....

Of course he's wrong. He came to Dubai to find out what this place is all about and didn't call me. He drooled over my mate Neil Petch's pad, but proper ITK celebs coming down here know who to call. No honest, I am a Z list celeb, so obviously Piers is a nobody - it was all in the Forum Match programme complete with photographic evidence

Posted this before & 1 of our Bangkok residents knew the place When we were in the PL there was a shop in Bangkok in Pratunam Market that sold fake saints shirts. I also saw them in the "Tourist market" in Shanghai on a trip They had two quality levels bad and ok, the bad ones were about 2 quid and useful if you wanted to take a friend to the game - it was a simple option and helped to get them hooked - in fact there's one in Damascus to this day!. Never got one myself but used one to brainwash one of my kids when he was much younger, he now has the real thing and travels down from Oxford most Saturdays now Anyway it was a real sign of the times when I went back and found skate shirts instead of ours. I think that hurt more than anything else about relegation

If this is to be the case good job I won't get to many games this season.... Hell I have trouble with rotating doors, let alone wingers

yes, but WE will know won't we US$1,000 a day for that stuff you know However when (if) The Faraj boys do finally kick Sultan Bin Trump into touch I am going to open my specially imported bottle of Aussie Sparkling Shiraz. It's the first time I've ever taken a really firm stand on something on this forum and so far I've managed to be about a day ahead of the curve..... I'm luvin it Once he's gone the skates will be back where they should be - ignored by moi

Oh and for the conspiracy theorists.. Gboy snr being chased by the Israelis, he runs off to Russia.... And then this article appears http://business.maktoob.com/20090000377974/Saudi_seeks_to_kill_Russia_arms_sale_to_Iran/Article.htm?utm_campaign=Night-Newsletter&utm_medium=Main-News6&utm_source=Night-Newsletter&utm_content= Saudi seeks to kill Russia arms sale to Iran no, couldn't possibly be linked could it... lol

Sabic - Saudia Arabian Basic Industries - sort of an old time industrial conglomerate, mainly focused on downstream petrochemichals and obviously linked to Aramco and a major part of the Magic Kingdom's economy. Jubail has seen immense investment and development, the IT projects from there alone helped many of us especially Cisco grow like crazy down here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubail Saudi has it's own "Lehman/Madoff problems" at the moment with the SAAD & Al-Gosaibi group failure - the effects are being felt across the whole Gulf Region http://business.maktoob.com/20090000377990/ADX_orders_banks_to_divulge_Saudi_exposure/Article.htm?utm_campaign=Night-Newsletter&utm_medium=Main-News1&utm_source=Night-Newsletter&utm_content= http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssHomebuilding/idUSN1747433220090717 I have no up to date info on whether Sabic are affected but do recall their name being mentioned. Now, TBH, the reason I laid into Al Fahim is that he was an embarrasment. The whole City of Bling nightmare that we lived through down here with all these property buying freaks p*ssed off not just us old timers but also teh "city elders". What he was doing is simply not the way things are done down here. (If you recall Dubai pulled out of buying Charlton the day after I said they would simply because Charlton went public without involving Dubai Inc. These other guys are under the radar then that is good news. That is the way it should be done. (Oh let Storrie know I am available as a cultural consultant, very fair rates but for you lot, sorry has to be cash in advance. Is there "Royal Family Support"? in Saudi, no idea, however, one little snippet is that high ups in the Saudi FA investigated a number of clubs for potential investment earlier this year, formed a short list and selected one which Prince Waleed bin Talal engaged with. I think however that stalled, as he like many others here took a big hit in the downturn although there was some limited PR on it around feb/March. They (The Family) are now rumoured to be working to buy 50% of Liverpool, that will be different from Prince Waleed. Yes I do know about all of that as hearsay from friends over there, yes there is a story there as well that involves a bloke from oop north and his kid that was posted at the time, and no I won't say any more about it now as it is all ancient history. If the Faraj's keep silent then you will probably be fine, but a lot will depend on their property portfolio and how old it is, I know nothing about them, but property across this region has fallen by over 60% in the past year so they may not be as well off as they were

You'll hate this - they were buying ME dinner.... As we don't have flickr here and I'm a dinosaur I can't Rule 1, but I'll mail you some pics.... As for the other question, you'll have to ask your boss that one:-)

Think the Thread title should be renamed. Oh Happy Day - PFC takeover completes, well maybe it did, maybe it's a new one, maybe it's not http://business.maktoob.com/20090000379626/PFC_pray_for_Faraj_as_Fahim_fails_to_deliver/Article.htm?utm_campaign=Night-Newsletter&utm_medium=Main-News8&utm_source=Night-Newsletter&utm_content= PFC praying for a Saudi Muslim Businessman to resuce them... Is it wrong to see some irony there?

Hence my comment - ooops So it could be that Fahim isn't going to get the money in time (quelle surprise) and yet he cannot move his ownership on to the Faraj's because the Saudi's don't like an Israeli gun-runner or vice versa. This is funnier than watching re-runs of Fawlty Towers, another day another entertaining twist. I'm sure it will be All Right on the Night, but at the end of the day I expect most of Gayman's money was actually simply guarantees to the banks for the loans, so as the loans are paid off so his liability drops, wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't also have a clause in there where his guarantees become invalid if "for other reasons" the club goes bust... Ah ha, suddenly a new conspiracy - it all makes sense - it's just a blame game, Gayman gets out debt free as long as a takeover happens OR they go bust because of a failed takeover. Win win for him, not so good for the Blue few.

http://business.maktoob.com/20090000379626/PFC_pray_for_Faraj_as_Fahim_fails_to_deliver/Article.htm?utm_campaign=Night-Newsletter&utm_medium=Main-News8&utm_source=Night-Newsletter&utm_content= .........Worse, the Faraj offer of a bridging loan of 5 million pounds to pay players has hit a legal impasse between both sides, according to reports. ooops

Not posting that on a public forum, he's a good bloke! meanwhile, without being "Happy Clappy" these two interviews tie in with my gut feeling that we ARE making progress for the first time in about 6 years. http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/4663762.Lambert_makes_light_work_of_being_Saints_goal_ace/?ref=rss The coaching staff have been working on building up Lambert's FITNESS - how often have we commented on that being an issue http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/4663766.Pardew_hoping_for_no_more_shocks/?ref=rss AP himself is not getting "Carried Away" but remains "wary" At the end of the day, since the heady days of WGS and the Cup Final, as fans we have been used to "hanging on" as our demise gathered speed, we tried to get optimistic about a succession of changes in Management and Boardroom but nothing stopped the slide. One of the reasons for our mixed reactions at the moment is simply the fact that it is so long since we were a team that got a BIT better everyweek, having been used to getting a BIT worse every week. Words are obviously cheap, but at least the words match what we are seeing, rather than being the "Churchillian" or "Amateur Spin" that bore no relation to reality of the past. Another few weeks and maybe the corner really has been turned, 5 years of gentle steady improvement ahead eh? Wow, wonder what that would do to our collection of manic depressives on here and in the Stadium on matchdays ? And what happens when we get as far as we can!??!??!

Interesting bringing this back up, reading AP's comments in the past days about rebuilding the Academy again.... (he must have read this thread!) Reading between the lines I think he was implying that we were producing pretty and technical PL quality players and not focusing on teaching football intelligence. Sure it gave us the Walcott's & Bale's, but perhaps a stready stream of capable CCC players for the next 2/3 years as well as the gems might help our development as a club. Boy do we miss old Navyred giving us updates on the latest crop, seemed like noone had ever heard of our sub yesterday, very sad we let this forum go like that

This is a DISGRACE How DARE they change match day to clash with Karaoke night at Rock Bottom

While we're on the golfing topic, my conference in the US had a "Networking scramble" random teams yadda yadda. Our 3rd golfer looked useful, after about 7 holes we asked his handicap - he lol'd - he plays on the Nationwide Tour in the US. Last year was his best, he reckoned he won around $50k and reckoned it cost him around $100k to play. He cut back to 14 events so far this year due to the credit crunch etc. He plays because he enjoys it. Interestingly, he knew an awful lot about Saints and their turbulent year. Nice to hear a Californian ask if we'd got rid of our idiot Dutch coaches... Must be TT's influence

What it also shows up glaringly from last season is that when you have players with certain strengths and certain weaknesses, then you play football around those. What you do NOT do is to have a mantra about how you play and to hell with the skills/strengths/weaknesses of the players. To me that is one area where I see improvement we are building a shape and a style that fits our strengths on the pitch NOT some strange Board Room Strategic Directive. Wotton is a defensive midfileder who has a role to play. He isn't Glenn Hoddle, MLT or Theiry Henry. Expecting him to play their style of football instead of doing what he does says a lot about - well you all know who. Still work in progress, still concerned about the harder winter pitches but happy at the fact things are moving forwards. Oh and agree with St Marco... We need balance in the team and balance on here rather than abuse all the time

Oh that's easy. Gayson sells it to Fahim who sells it to his Investment Company who sell it to Al Faraj All of which happens for a quid but another 5mil debt on the skates for the legal fees and commissions

Sweet, yet another naive Brit who thinks the rest of the whole wide world works just like at home.... Perhaps that's where fahim got his intial stake money from