dubai_phil

Good grief that's impossible - why Amesbury's even been on Top Gear! Could be argued though that you are one of the lucky ones......

Unless their called Mike Ashley, Abu Dhabi or Man City :-)

You obviously missed the smiley and the fact I was joshing with Thorpie.. In the exact same way that people post about the attendance potential and numebrs at these last two games making a difference, they won't. SIMPLISTICLY some of the key influencers are. How cheaply can a bidder gain our assets? How quickly can the wage bill be reduced (ie our Operating Expenses)? How quickly and at what cost will the underperforming team be rebuilt? What will be the monthly cost structure/targets of the new club? What assets can we sell? What League will we be in - impacting on revenue from broadcasting? What balance between costs and broacasting will they need to achieve from Matchday/Saeson Ticket & Commercial operations? Then somewhere near the end will be = What is the break-even crowd? Only a fool would build a business plan with the level of capital needed around a "hope" or a "possible" attendance figure, especially in a recession They will have to know the NUMBERS first. IF the finances work and the club can break even with around 15,000 average then many bidders should be able to construct a deal. If it rises to around 17,000 it will become a risk - we have NOT covered ourselves in glory all season. If the figure becomes 19,000, then the bidders will need to invest in working capital. That will limit the number of potential bidders to those who want to take a LARGE risk with money at this time At the forefront of EVERY bidder will be one key phrase. What is our Exit Strategy? Namely how to we ensure that this does not become a black hole that we lose our money into, and hopefully MAKE money from. Any bidder who has to hope to rely on sentiment (ie the fans liking what they see) as a primary driver to buy the club is somebody who should not be within a mile of us

OR I reckon that is really bad news as all the prospective consortiums came to watch the Charlton game and ran away screaming never to return...... 8-[

Ditto. It is a very poor "leader" who becomes responsible for the destruction of the (in this case) clubs who he his supposed to be "looking after". (Read our lot as well as Mawhinney) It isn't ever the people who cause the "discretions/mistakes" who get punished it is always the poor bl**dy fans. (Although an evil part of me does also say - serves them right for that plastic pitch nonsense)

I can't remember KD having to make a save says Merrington SHUT UP!!!!!

That just conjours up too many nasty images - so only one question... Why would you want to put Rasiak in your mouth???

Magners on the rocks tonight Saving myself for Moules et Frits night at the Belgian Beer Cafe later, if we keep this up I may enjoy it for a change, plan to start on the left side of the line of beer pumps tonight and work along til I fall over We need another goal it seems to be all us and we all know what that means

Now THAT worked so much better than the cup cakes and weather reports Good shout8-[ DMG you fookin beauty about time

This actually sounds like a good game for a change

A new take on the weather forecasts Went to Rock Bottom last night for a few ales They DJ played Everything but the Girl.... Like the Desert's miss the Rain.. Came out at 1:30 and low and behold it was p*ssing down, carried on all night and most of the morning. Then turned out nice in the end, sunny, wind from the North for a change, quite pleasant

Been on the Old Speckled then have we:-) Meanwhile Skype working well today Merrington talking If Only and at the same time said there are 20,000 odd people at SMS today. Why are they Odd? I thought they were being very loyal Meanwhile trying to understand why did Palace keeper go off is he coming back do they have a sub?

Ha - you don't need to ADVERTISE that over here - why even Leo Di Caprio knows where to go for that! (Body of Lies - great movie) Anyway that was the Magic Kingdom next door not here;)

Living over here in this crazy dog eat dog land, you learn very early on not to trust anyone and to be as sceptical as hell about everything anybody does or says... Mark Fry saud we needed some cash to keep going, but my scpeticism keeps harking back to why Barlcays wouldn't think it was a good idea to give time for the bidders to get their act together. And the only assumption I can come back with is that "somebody's" consortium don't have enough in THEIR bucket to do the deal IF Barclays take on that extra 500k.. I really hope it isn't true but I still think there'll be more dirt to come out in the wash.

hey Arizona - can you merge the two threads. Alps's opener was almost poetry and quite motivational

Euell & BWP up front is the word on the street here Although as it was in Arabic it could have easily said STOP

I honestly think the squad are a busted flush and have mentally bottled it. The fans are up for it, they want to do it, but the pressure is just too much. I fully expect another dismal performance, stress induced mistakes and groans from all and sundry whereever they may be watching or listening. However, this is Saints we are talking about. just when you think you've got it all worked out we are consistently inconsistent so they could as easily play them off the park today. I don't see and a soft 1-3 to Palace

In all these debates/put downs and the like on here of late, we've been missing some final critical pieces of data that help take us back a little and put things into some context. I've just looked back at the '07 report and tried to analyse - PLEASE this isn't a dig at the previous regimes or pro-Lowe, I'm just trying to understand why on earth he even TRIED to save us.... and yes I have really approximated the numbers ok! Historically, empirically or however else we want to judge it, Lowe's return has been a failure. Yes, 19C is fundamentally correct when he says that blame lies with the fans for administration - as admin is simply a consequence of not having enough revenues and fans supply around half of the revenue of the club on matchdays and about 20% from commercial activities. The accounts will not lie we are in admin because not enough CASH has come in to the business. HOWEVER The weakness of 19C's argument that he still fully take on board is WHY the revenue decreased. Most of us have stated our opinions on that. The fans did not go - not enough money = admin. But that is the end result of the disease that has afflicted the club, not the cause nor even the symptoms. What I wanted to really see was the background to the finances when Lowe (& Wilde) decided to return - What were they trying to achieve? It is fine to say they FAILED - the disease was terminal, but what were the symptoms of the disease? In 2007 we had COSTS of 27.2 million, against Turnover of 23.2 million meaning we lost 4million. We were basically kept solvent by selling players for 5million. Now, I tried to extrapolate that into the past year. We seem to have dropped our average attendances by 2,500 - so for maths about 15% so a best guess would be revenue of 19 and a bit mil. But a great deal of our COSTS were fixed.... So what we are really missing is how much Lowe managed to actually cut the cost of sales - if it was by 10% costs would be just under 25mil and we would still have lost almost 6 million. Now ask any manager to cut costs by 10% and they would always tell you in one year it is an impossible dream, but to get to at least break-even we needed to cut our costs by almost 30%..... Now, add to that IMHO that the absolute KILLER in the past year has been the fact that we simply have not had any crown jewels to sell, so there literally was no safety net, if the costs weren't cut, then there was NO back up plan. Looking at this, simply from a "Business Perspective", IF Lowe KNEW these numbers, he KNEW we did not have any crown jewels to sell, how on EARTH could he have honestly believed that he could have turned the club around? Surely we were already a basket case? Forget our whingeing about not playing high earners, or even his ill thought out total football, I just do not understand what drove him to actually believe he could turn the club around in one season. Did he believe he could actually sell the club or get investment? Did he think he could sell the high earners for a fee - missing all the signals that were there as the global economy plummeted To achieve a PROFIT - ie to actually have some money to pay back the bank overdraft he would have had to bring the cost of sales down from 27.2 million a year to AROUND 19million = an 8 million drop. How could you plan for that KNOWING you had players making up the bulk of that cost tied into the club on long term contracts. Was it belief? Was it ego? Was it REALLY a last ditch attempt to save us? Would any other sane businessman have tried it? Obviously, pick your own version, but I posted at the time that I thought Total Football, Kids and Dutchies was one gamble too many, I am starting to think that it all hid an even bigger gamble.... That has failed So yes of course the fans COULD have rallied to the cause early. yes we were told we were in trouble, yes we did moan, boycott and lose enthusiasm. But like many terminally ill patients, realisation often only dawns far too late to make a difference and avoid catching the disease in the first place

Before you get buried under incoming :smt070:smt070:smt067:smt067:minigun::minigun: Might I add look after the first team and have professionals to make sure the back office is managed to support the football operations.... Think there may have been a bit of "run itself" ness in the past year or so - hence the mess!

Like Thorpie, I HOPE we can get through this and out the other side. But excuse me for not voting for a "Fresh" start..... Simply because for the past how many years, we have had revolutions, innovation and new hope just about every godarned season. What i would dream of is a simple "back to basics" approach - no mention of business plans, no knowledge of break-even numbers just - the squad is this, we can/cannot buy anyone else and that is it It starts with the management structure obviously but on day one of the new regime, the primary task MUST be to get the playing staff FIT enough to be able to play competitive football. Anyone who walks in and says they're doing eye exercises, tippy tappy keepy uppy ball work, Brazilian Beach Football, or simply special dietary training I think I'd just about explode Let's just worry about the darned FOOTBALL side of things for a change

Think you have to include some combination of ex-Spurs players in that list somewhere, Vega has been supposed to be sniffing around down the road, not sure if it's a FIRM bid (Vega is the name of the Syrian patent busting Viagra BTW) Someone mentioned Paul Miller in an earlier thread, and my mate in the Chapel End reckons he saw Ardilles (although as hmy mate was on Britannia Road in his taxi at the time how he ever spotted him amongst the bollards I'll never know...)

It is quoted on here that it seems Aviva would accept a discount on the 22.4mil that we owe on the Stadium Bond - in my guess that means it was a toxic debt and probably sold on to RBS.... So, say the council buy it on the cheap, a consortium would save that amount of capital - say something like 5mil on their bid But, the council would in no doubt require the club (in whatever guise emerges) to pay rent each season or game. So the question is how much rent would they want? If they wanted 1mil a season that would soon be a higher burden on the profit of the club (and it's ability to invest in the squad) than the actual cost of paying off Aviva. Others may know the figures better and our guru accountant types could explain the benefits of having it as a capital asset instead of a cost. Also MORE worryingly - the stadium book value is about 30mil in 2008 annual report. Buying an asset at 15% of that would make the club look better IF that consortium wanted to stabilise us and then sell us at a profit when the global economy improved - it will affect their "Exit Strategy". Pay someting like 10 mil for the club and when the good times roll sell it on for the 30mil or so it was supposed to be worth in the good old takeover thread days..... Now THAT could be a worry IF it reduces the return or options for any of the 34 consortia (or 4/5 alleged real ones). It may make buying us a less attractive proposition lots of IF's in that but pretty close I guess - a decision for accountants and deal doers not us but maybe handy insurance

Think there is still a bit more in all that somewhere.. Were there not tales of tommac moving on and finding one other source, something to do with the theatre or Everton or Sheff Wed? Tales even of dinners in London with one or more of the 3 amigos as they were at the time? Seeing as the story is coming out, might as well get to the end. Surely it wasn't simply him being banned on here that led to his mysterious final disappearance? Dear departed Roman had it all in mind to make a TV Movie of it, so there must have been an ending to the whole sorry mess. Friday is always a good day for these stories if you have run out of posts or energy tonight 8-[

That is crass and completely unfair...... Lowe should be judged by the much higher standards at which he aspired to reach.... As a result, I think history will now show that He will be remembered as probably the worst Chairman in The History of English Football With thanks to last night's evening out sponsors Carlsberg.....

Blimey I might have almost been a neighbour of Draganov. I allegedly twice flew solo over Stonehenge - once in an airplane........ ah the piles of rubbish after 19C and the gang moved on every mid June.... Was in Bulford for a while, the ex wife now lives in Amesbury so no, won't be coming back for the meetings......