trousers

Visited the stadium today. I see the new car park barriers and pay machines are now in situ

Details of the away kit were going to be announced "within 2 weeks" (aka 'soon') according to the OS article that was subsequently deleted, and that was over three weeks ago. If you were a guessing man, what would your interpretation of 'soon' be in terms of number of days? Guesstimate? One? Two? Yours probingly, Trousers

Without revealing details, do these guys know when these major change are due to happen? Within days? Weeks? Months? Cheers

Is it the realisation of the monkey chicken zoo dream?

Moss

Was he with a local football club CEO?

Alas, not quite so conspiracy theory inducing...he was having a mooch around Borough Market, sharp suited, crisp white open necked shirt and a well tanned face. He then went into a bar/club/restaurant for what I assumed was an invite only screening of the England v Algeria game.

I saw Pardew in London last week

But, just to clarify....by "booked" do you know for sure that contracts would definately have been signed more than "a few weeks ago"? What if "99%" of the arrangements and agreements were in place but the actual master contract hadn't been signed? I must admit, it seems more unlikely than likely to me too but I'm endeavouring to rule it in or out as a possibility

Anyone....?

[video=youtube;kXqi2P-bcMI]

Ok. I've worked it out. Cortese is a closet Pompey fan who, on seeing SFC was for sale this time last year, phoned up Markus to hatch a wheeze whereby they buy the club and gradually turn it into a laughing stock. To disguise their fiendish plan they bought the best players in the league in various positions as a smokescreen to their underlying aim to destroy the club.

Does anyone have the exact wording of the Echo piece? Did it say (words to this effect): "the contract was signed, sealed and delivered" a month ago or that "the preferred venue had been selected and contract talks were ongoing"?

How do we know when the contract was finally signed? They may well have been in discussions with the resort for ages but, knowing Cortese as well as we all do... , he may have either been playing hardball with the venue to get the cost down or indeed locked into a price war with a.n.other club(s) who were also in discussions with the venue. No-one would have secured exclusive rights to the venue until the contract was signed, and I have no idea when said contract process was completed.

Maybe it's that very popularity of the resort that has been the hold up? What if SFC were one of many clubs that expressed an interest in booking the resort several months ago and got engaged in a bidding war up until recently? So maybe, just maybe, things have only just been signed on the dotted line with the venue after a drawn out tender process? Two sides to every conspiracy theory....

...

Woohoo.....Farnborough on the 21st July.....another chance for me to see the Pulis lad at close quarters. I also note that the Farnborough game comes 4 days after the Swiss training camp end date so perhaps some of the first team may be involved in that game too if any of them need a bit more match practice. Or perhaps if any new signings are made during the training camp period....

Hmmm....posted the above on 11th June and the news page in question seems to have disappeared.....I make the "within two weeks" date last Friday at the latest. That should keep us conspiracy theorists going for a few more posts.... :-)

I'm on a roll at the moment.... :-)

To be honest, I have no idea. I'm simply reading between the lines. Cortese's actions suggest that there were some 'cost vs revenue' gaps that needed closing to run the day-to-day business side of the club (i.e. the non-Liebherr funded part) to break-even or profit levels.

It depends how you look at it. If the club have been charging you less for the space than it cost them to service then you have been saving £x year on year. OK, you didn't know it at the time so on the surface it looks like a massive price hike but it's not a massive hike if you subtract the 'less than cost' discount price you have been paying up to now. But, once again, it all comes down to communication. If you'd been told in 2002 that the price you were paying for your parking was heavily discounted and cost the club money and that they reserved the right to re-allign the price to 'cost or above' at some point in the future then you'd have been in the picture. So, it's not surprising that someone wanting to run the club on a 'at cost or above' basis has decided to remove this loss making anomally but I accept it's a little disappointing in the general scheme of things that people have been kept in the dark about the true cost over the years.

Me? Articulate? There's a first time for everything!! :-)

Hands up those who would rather see the club run on an unsustainable budget again. edit: but, yes, communication could be better (thought I'd better get that caveat in quick....)

Tend to agree with that. A simple "no pain, no gain" news bulletin from Cortese would close down c.37 threads on here at a shot. I'm guessing that Cortese comes from the school of business thought which says that 'strong management = autonomy not inclusivity'. However, as several people have indicated before, most Saints fans I speak to that don't frequent internet message boards and the like don't hang on every snippent of news coming out of SMS and thus do not share the same level of angst that some regular 'onliners' do. In the same way that I like going to the cinema but when I pitch up to watch a film I have no idea what online debates there have been about the price of a cinema ticket being hiked to 10% (or whatever) more than last year and that it now costs me £2 to park in the multi-story car park compared to £1 last year. I simply turn up, pay the price, watch the film and come back again a couple of weeks later if I felt I got value for money and good entertainment.

Cortese said from 'Day 1' that the club would now be run on a self-sustaining basis. It seems obvious to me that he's discovered (or had it re-inforced) that last season's income did not cover last season's costs so he is having to find ways of either increasing the income streams or reducing costs or a combination of the two. Perhaps if people are unhappy with the income streams he has chosen to maximise (e.g. ticket "tax", car parking, potential hike in concourse refreshment costs) what other revenue streams or cost bases would they choose to focus on instead? It's all very easy to criticise cost cutting and price rises but it's less easy to come up with alternative ways of making an organisation self-sustaining (in good times and bad).