FloridaMarlin

Nice to see they've signed de Laet on loan from Manure. Wonder how much that's costing them?

And this would bring a tear to a glass eye. "Steve and I were hopeful that they (Brown and Hughes) would not have played their last games for us and that their desire to play football for this great club, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the team-mates who they have fought so hard with all season, would be their over-riding priority." Pass me a hankie....

My god, there's some fatuous nonsense in that, isn't there? Mealy-mouthed platitudes aimed at numpties who know no better. "I don’t intend to put the club's future at risk by pursuing a spending policy that cannot be supported, that significantly increases the club's indebtedness or risks the intervention of the Football League, who oversee and approve all our player trading in line with the business plan." So the FL do have a copy of the Business Plan, and could veto any transfer that jeopardises it? Nice to know. Let's see if the FL have got a pair. "We must learn to live within our means knowing that, by operating in this way, any success we achieve will be hard-earned but untainted." That must be a new and strange concept to them. "We also have to be mindful of our responsibilities to pay creditors under the terms of the CVA which is obviously a burden most other clubs do not have to contend with." Correct, most other clubs do not have to contend with that burden. They contend with a different burden. That of trying to maintain a competitive squad while remaining within their financial restrictions, and not sticking two fingers up at everyone. What a fatuous thing to say. Is he hoping to curry some sympathy by trying to portray them as a club which operates under a handicap which others don't? "...Head office which, I'm happy to say has now been successfully relocated to Fratton Park. Moving the main office and ticket office from Rodney Road back to the ground makes commercial sense – we don’t have to pay rent at the ground." Don't have to? Or can't afford to? What's the truth? "I must pass on my thanks.....NRJ builders who have worked around the clock to make it all possible..." I hope NRJ asked for money up front, "...and to our landlord at the Rodney Road site, Mr Gaydamak, who was very accommodating in the arrangements for our exit." In other words, he kicked you out. One of the finest examples of spun gold in language I have seen for some while. Absolutely brilliant, and masterfully written. Stalin would have been proud.

Former Hull City chairman Paul Duffen (linked with a takeover down the road) was recently shouting his mouth off to anyone in the game prepared to listen that Southampton would be the next club in crisis. He was telling everyone this at the time he was trying to put together a bid to buy p****y.

And that for a club with a Premier League infrastructure, such as decent ground, and training facilities.

Jennie Finch. Retired this summer from women's softball. http://www.jenniefinch.com/index

Normally to retain an ex-employee's silence and to enforce a Non Disclosure Agreement anything outstanding on a contract is paid out monthly over the remaining period. I'm told Saints paid Pardew up all in one hit. Now he's got the money in his bank account, there's little stopping him spilling the beans if he wanted to. The fact that Saints did pay him all in one go hints that they think he either has nothing to sell, or that if it does he won't come out of it very well either.

The Echo know why they are banned. It's a bit ingenuous on their part to say the club have offered no explanation when the club don't have to. It's not the club that have banned them. Technically, Cortese might be carrying out the wishes of Football Dataco, but it's not the club. In the past I've sided with the Echo, and considered their banning by the club as unreasonable and petty. But from what I'm told, they've taken the mickey this time. The photographers were allowed back in, but within a day or so the paper were in breach of their licence by trying to sell pictures they had no rights to. As required by their collective agreement the club informed Football Dataco who imposed the ban. That's my info and if anyone knows definitively differently, then please let us have your story.

The Guardian story is not quite half right, which means it's more than half wrong. The paper's reporters aren't banned, only the photographers, and it has nothing to do with the club. The photographers are banned because the paper breached the terms of its licence as issued by Football Dataco by trying to sell pictures it had no agreement or permission to sell. They are not banned by the club, but by the Football League's licensing arm.

Is that 'invite' in the same way that people are 'invited' to help police with their inquiries?

Eilat in November is very nice. Temperatures coming down from the summer maximums in the 100s, and now around the mid to high 80s. People tend to avoid or not think about Israel for holidays, but believe me, it's a great place. Eilat has some amazing, Vegas-style resort hotels (the King Solomon, The Dan, etc) and you can also get away for some great day trips (Negev desert, Sinai Desert in Egypt, and even Petra in Jordan). People will quite happily go to Sharm-El Sheikh in Egypt on the Red Sea, but that's a bit of a poo-hole. Eilat is much nicer, cleaner, civilsed, European. People somehow think they will suffer trouble in Israel but it's more likely in Egypt, where armed guards have to protect resorts like Sharm from Islamic extremists.

Er...these "no-mark" clubs are in the PL because of what they have done on the pitch. In case you need reminding, Blackpool won the Championship play-off last season. Stoke and West Brom were not relegated, therefore they have a right to be in the Prem. Sheff Wed, Leeds and Saints are not in the PL because there were relegated. Wigan, Stoke, Wolves, Blackpool, Fulham, Birmingham and West Brom are Premier Lleague clubs. In terms of status in UK domestic football's pecking order, they are above us by some distance. When you are talking about crowds and backdrops that's a different matter, and I agree with you. Because of the TV income, clubs don't have to worry so much about the crowds as they did when gate receipts was their prime source of income (a bit like it is outside the PL). But when you're trying to sell the self-styled World's Greatest League to all and sundry around the world, that claim rings a little hollow when they are vast swathes of empty seats. That's what the PL don't like much.

A bit pricey, but for your farewell, blow-out meal have a steak at Smith & Wollensky.

Big Jake McGrath had a unique pre-match preparation. In his kit bag (players had them in those days because they carried their own boots and bits and pieces in them) he had two jars - one with honey and one with Vic's Vapor Rub. Just before he was due to run out, he would dip two fingers in the honey jar, scoop out a handful and drip it down his throat, then he would dip his fingers in the Vic's jar, rub a big handfukl around his tackle, give out a frigthening roar and be ready for battle. Brian O'Neill never owned a pair of football boots in his life. He and Channon would spend Saturdays (or Fridays, if the team was away) rummaging through the boot hamper at The Dell to find him a pair of boots. Years later, Buddha turned up to play for a Southampton Sunday League team, and every week he would ask if anyone had a spare pair of size 8 as he had 'forgotten' his. I think the players clubbed together in the end to buy him a pair. Perhaps the most fearsome competitor to ever pull on a Saints shirt, he cost that Sunday league team a few goals because of his refusal to tackle. A mate who played for them told me that he asked Buddha once why he didn't go in for a 50-50 ball in midfield, which resulted in a goal being conceded. His reply was that guys who play Sunday football didn't know how to tackle properly and that if he went in for the ball, he would break somebody's leg, and he didn't want to be responsible for somebody not being able to go to work on a Monday morning.

Had some amazing press junkets. When companies like Universal Studios open new rides at theme parks they push out a huge boat. Club class flights, five-star hotels, all so you say nice things about them. Went ski-ing in Megeve in France courtesy of one travel company, stayed in a lodge owned by the Saudi royal family. Gastronomic tour of Belgium, where eventually you got fed up (literally) of eating in Michelin-starred restaurants and longed for Moules and Frites. Mexico, California, Kuala Lumpur, Oz - it really is quite obscene what trips travel companies will offer. It doesn't cost them much and unless they foul up incredibly, they're going to get lots of 'free' positive publicity. Never been one myself, but the real junket-monkeys are motoring journos. They get taken to the most exotic locations in the world to test-drive some of the best cars on the road.

Presumably on the basis that it's more economic to pay £12,000 a week to get another £12,000 a week off the wage bill. Is that at last some sort of tacit admission by AA that the current wage bill is incompatible with being able to service the CVA? Or more likely, will the £12,000 saved be used to sign another player.

More than happy to be proved wrong on this. That's the info I was given. I would't mind being paid £500 a day, but then as I said, I have no idea what accountancy firms charge.

Info received, UHY Hacker's fees apparently £500 PER DAY (includes Saturdays, so six days a week). Thay may be standard industry rate, for all I know, but I'm sure some bright spark with a good calculator can work out how much they have coined since Pompey went into administration on Friday 26 February. I reckon around £86,000.

Nobody's mentioned the corner between the West Stand/Archers Road end, under the old scoreboard. Trying to think when that fantastic corner of terracing disappeared to be replaced by that bloody police control box.

This would be the same Bournemouth chairman who virtually invited Saints to come and get Howe. After flogging Brett Pitman, Mitchell probably saw another payday with the compo from Saints as just what is needed to pay off some other Bournemouth directors who are getting very itchy for repayment of loans they made to the club. Looks like it could be more a case of the Bournemouth chairman needing to save a bit of face as opposed to Howe. He probably needed to do some major climbing down after his clumsy attempt to offload Howe on Saints. How wanted and loved do you think Howe now feels working for a chairman who was quite prepared to cash in on him. Aren't chairmen normally supposed to put up a token defence line of: "Our manager is not going anywhere, and we will refuse any club permission to talk to him.."

It's easy to say this set-up works well on the continent at Barcelona, Real Madrid, Inter Milan and other top clubs. But can anyone tell me the name of the Les Reed equivalent at the above clubs without looking them up? Thought not. Barca is Pep Guardiola's team, Real is Jose Mourinho's, Inter Rafa Benitez. Besides, Reed has a reputation as one of the most-hated men in football (Mods - this isn't libel, as it is an honestly held and expressed opinion). Even the nicest man in the game, Roy Hodgson got shot of him pretty quickly. When the Transfer Approval Committe was formed of Cortese, Reed, David Burke and Pardew, poor old Pards had no chance. If you were a cynical person, you might think Pardew's sacking was Reed's revenge for his departure from Charlton.

Well, you know how to count a tree's age. Chop his head off.

And those pictures will be of what?

I'm not as clever as you with the HTML, so you'll have to put up with me picking it up point by point. 1) The PL/FL do not tell reporters what to write, but the point of issuing licences is that by definition they are a control device that can be removed. I'll have to send out a few emails for details but there is at least one instance of a freelance reporter in the north of the country having his licence - and therefore his livelihood - removed at the request of a club. The club did not like what he had written about it, and complained to Football DataCo who upheld their complaint and revoked his licence. Thankfully, removal of licences has been a rare occurence, but the implied threat is always there. 2) While I agree this thread is principally about the issue of photographers, reporters also have to now be licenced, and therefore fall under the same conditions and with it the same possible restrictions and problems as photographers. If clubs are allowed to ban press photographers and insist media outlets take the club-provided pictures, how long before they decide to ban those pesky journalists so that the only match report you can see is the one provided by the club? 3) I think this is the very point I am trying to make. Thank goodness you are able to balance out official and sanitised versions by reading accounts from elsewhere. Long may that continue. Fear the day it ceases! 4) I've always been proud of the way Saints fans are rational, objective and intelligent enough to criticise their club when they see what they perceive to be a wrong. That has been what sets us above the blue few who, with few exceptions, have seen little wrong in what their armpit of a club has perpetrated over the last 18 months. As I said, we have quite rightly chastised them for that myopic, blinkered attitude which has championed the way their club has stuck two fingers up. Of course, in the scale of things, Cortese banning photographers does not compare to the wholesale, serial cheating that p***ey have carried out. But Cortese's actions have provided a cause-celebre for those Saints fans who like to indulge in a bit of "f**k everyone else" v-flicking. That's their prerogative as well and I wouldn't deny them that (it's that freedom of expression thingy again). All I was saying was that those same people can hardly slam p***ey fans for doing it when they do it themselves. That's hypocrisy. I think you might have misconstrued my last paragrpah and quite didn't get it right. The "self-centred inbreds who only see things through team-cloured spectacles" referred to the p***ey fans that we are supposedly a cut above, not those who disagree with me. I think you might have extrapolated a bit there. I've run out of Post-It notes, so I'll leave you free to run riot with a thick pad of them and stick labels on whoever you feel should have one.

You're not being picky at all. You are, sir, quite correct. A dumb-ass error on my part. Thank you for pointing it out, and I really should have known better.