FloridaMarlin

Bloody hell! It took a page and a half of trash before Minty came up with sense. I'm not sure Cortese might not get a bollicking from the Football League for this. As Minty points out, the PL and FL formed Football DataCo to control the licencing of football coverage. I'll say that again slowly, just in case anyone missed it. That's the...licencing...of...football...coverage. They did this for two reasons, one to make the media pay for something they previously enjoyed a free access to, and to control the coverage. Thanks to Football DataCo, football is now an officially licenced product, and every media outlet that wants to report on football - from the Premier League to League Two - has to pay for a licence to do so. That will include the Plymouth Herald who would have paid a not inconsiderable sum for their reporters' and photographers' licences in order to do what local papers have long done; provide coverage on their local team for their readers, who just happen to be fans as well. Strangely enough, that's exactly what The Echo does, and those patting Cortese on the shoulder for this misguided stance might wish to think again when the only pictures available of Rickie Lambert scoring the promotion-clinching goal is a thumbnail on the website. If I was the editor of the Plymouth Herald, I would report Saints to the Football League for being in breach of the League's collective agreement on licencing - an agreement Saints would have signed up to. But there's also a far more insidious side to this, and one I've alluded to before, and that's the issue of press freedom. Those who say they don't care about press freedom as long as Saints win should be thankful they have the freedom of expression to be able to say so. I mentioned at the top of this post about control of coverage, and I think Minty touched on it as well. A significant driving force for the foundation of the licencing of football coverage was a desire to be able to control what is published. Remember that picture of a few years ago of a bewildered and terrified referee Andy D'Urso surrounded by the wolf pack of Man Utd players led by the lycanthropic Roy Keane holwing in rage in his face (yeah, I know, some dimwit will appear and say D'Urso is a crap referee who deserved it)? That was a partial trigger. That picture went all around the world, and like the vile cold sore called pompey, did not portray the PL in the sort of positive light it needs to be able to sell its wares to the Far East. The PL never wanted to see that sort of thing again, so they introduced its licence system. Any photographer taking a similar picture and getting it published can expect to have his licence revoked. Has it worked? Maybe the threat has. Just ask yourself if you have seen a similar picture in the past couple of years. It can also apply to reporters. They run the risk of having their licence and livelihood removed if they write something contrary to the PL/FL's wishes. So big ups to those who think Cortese has done the right thing with this. May you enjoy reading your massaged, sanitised match reports. When Saints get stuffed 5-1 at a bleak northern outpost on a forbidding midwinter evening, I would like an objective explanation of why it happened. But I've no doubt there are those who stick their head in the sand, only emerging to accept an anodyne, manufactured whitewash job that Saints were all over them and conceded five fluky long-range efforts (some people will know what I'm referring to!) And while I'm here, I'm not liking the hypocrisy on this board. For the last year, culminating in the farce that was yesterday's High Court hearing, we have been correctly chastising the scabious pirates for the way in which they habitually stuck two fingers up to all and sundry. Yet when we start to flip the bird to a few select people, it's somehow OK. I thought we were better than pompey as a club, and our supporters a cut above the blue few when it came to being objective and fair-minded, and not self-centered inbreds who only see things through team-coloured blinkers.

It would be rude not to (sorry Lennon and McCartney) Let me tell you how it will be 20p for you, the rest for me 'Cause you're the taxman, Yeah, you're the taxman Should 20p appear too small Be thankful or you'll get f**l all 'Cause you're the taxman, Yeah, you're the taxman We made the PL feel the heat Conned the FL nice and sweet In High Court we lied through our teeth Our whole existence is to cheat Taxman 'Cause you're the taxman, Yeah, you're the taxman Don't ask me what I want it for All our money is offshore 'Cause you're the taxman, yeah, you're the taxman Now my advice for those who whine Justice Mann has done us fine, 'Cause you're the taxman, yeah, you're the taxman And you're working for no one but me

"It has been a frustrating tour for Cotterill, despite winning two of their three games so far. His squad has boasted no fewer than seven teenagers, all of who he is eager to send out on loan to improve their footballing education." Seven teenagers, all of whom he is eager to send out on loan, so he can bring others in. Surely there is no better place for those teenagers to improve their footballing education than in the toughest school of all; the Championship with a team with a squad that ensures they should get plenty of first-team action. You can have no sympathy for Cotterill's bleatings when he is plainly trying to bend the rules by loaning out registered players that he should be using. It is not fair on those other clubs who find themselves in financial straits and have to use their youth team players. But when did p****y ever try and play by the rules. And I find it very hard to believe that Cotterill was unaware of the situation at the club. It's not as if he was coccooned from the news, miles away. He lives in Christchurch, so it's always been on his bloody doorstep.

"The third is Danijel Subotic – the Swiss striker who has failed to make an impact at Fratton Park. Boss Cotterill doesn't rate the trio, while Subotic's reputed £3,000-a-week wage is a drain on finances the club can ill-afford. The 21-year-old has effectively cost Pompey £390,000 since Harry Redknapp brought him into the club in January 2008. He has also never made a first-team squad during that time." Another fantastic signing by the master wheeler-dealer. One from the same mould as Marco Boogers and Paolo Futre. When you see deals like this, is it any wonder Redknapp is under investigation? How or why would any manager want to add such a burden to the wage bill?

The tissue of lies that most of my mates in the media have known that AA has been spouting over recent months is about to unravel. Just about everything he has said has been for one purpose, to talk up the whole sorry edifice in the hope that somebody might be gulled into buying it. It's been one of those strange games where he knows that everyone else knows that he's been talking carp, but he's been allowed to get on with it, as a form of rope-lengthening exercise. It looks like he knows he has failed in his mission to talk it up, and is now bracing himself for the inevitable consequences. And will any HMRC prevent them going after people in the long run? Not sure it stops them if they have evidence. Evidence would always take precedence.

N for Niemi, Antti. Currently keeping goal for the Chicago Blackhawks and having a storming Stanley Cup series.

Hmmm, let me think. As long as a business in administration with £138m debt, having been run by a successive cast of characters as shady and downright crooked as Blackbeard's crew and who have triumphantly stuck two fingers up to every other entity it touches, is allowed to continue trading as if nothing has happened, I know which path I'll veer down, thanks very much.

More importantly, because he gave the media his telephone numbers. He is one of the few (if not the only) Premier League managers quite happy to give out his numbers (even I've got his mobile and home number) and prepared to be questioned and quoted on any subject. What has Joe Cole's future got to do with him (other than the tenuous link that he gave him his debut), or the way in which Walcott learned of his exclusion? Not much, but if you're a journo with space to fill on that awkward day when England are in the air, Redknapp is money from home. Phone him up, and he'll talk. And people wonder why he is manager of the year. It's a two way thing, of course. Without the day-to-day drama of the domestic season and with everbody focussed on the World Cup, Redknapp is in danger of suffocating through lack of the oxygen of publicity. His willingness to be available to the media ensures he is never out of the headlines for long, which serves to keep his profile high. How did the story linking him to a Middle Eastern club get into the media? How many stories have you read about Carlo Ancelotti or Alex Ferguson since the end of the PL season? There's also the handy-dandy by-product that if you have the media eating out of your hand, they're less likely to turn around and bite it.

I was introduced to a production assistant on a popular soap opera in Australia whose surname was Buggy, and whose parents named him after their favourite film star, Orson Welles. Yes, he gloried in the name Orson Buggy. My son has a friend called M A R K C O C K R A M. It's not that his name is particularly funny, but read it backwards...

Couple of inconsistencies in there, not least of which is how the FA can guarantee that p***ey receive the parachute money. Perhaps somebody can enlighten me as to how the FA can force the Premier League to cough up the cash. It would make some sort of sense for the English game's governing body to want to put somebody in to investigate the murk, but I think the FA would do it and announce it properly, and not allow p***ey to portray it as this former high-powered FA official they have head-hunted and attracted on to their board (with presumably a tasty salary to tempt him). Biggest question mark of all is the claim that the FA will take control of and run p***ey. My understanding is that the FA's rules expressly forbid it from running clubs and league competitions. The only thing the FA run is its raft of cup competitions. But if anyone knows any different.

By definition, if Jacob - or more technically, his post - was declared redundant, he was an employee. I presume that was admitted. If so what was that post, and it presumably no longer exists? Which makes the appointment of the chap from the FA look even more superfluous. And don't you just love the ambiguity that can exist in such a statement as "Compromise reached"? That could be absolutely anything, and by the looks of his continued presence at the club, probably is. The only possible reason for him still being at the club is that he knows too much. To paraphrase the immortal General George S Patton: It's better to have him on the inside of the tent ****ing out, than on the outside of the tent, ****ing in.

How many goalkeepers have made a successful jump into management? I can only think of Kevin Blackwell, off the top of my head. Julio Iglesias was a keeper wasn't he? As was Albert Camus.

Ocean Village, RIP, killed by Jack Candy. You might recall Ocean Village was going to be linked to Above Bar and the city centre by the proposed monorail. If built, the monorail could have done for Ocean Village exactly what a similar mode of transport did for Darling Harbour in Sydney. http://www.darlingharbour.com/sydney-Things_To_Do-Attractions-Sydney_Monorail.htm Darling Harbour had similarities to Ocean Village; it was a redundant, run-down former port area, out on a limb, a mile or so from the main hub of the city centre. The development was really given its lifeblood by the monorail, and a similar monorail would have done the same for Ocean Village. But former mayor Jack Candy, in his role of Curmudgeon in Chief of the Southampton preservation Society, put the kibosh on the monorail, and effectively condemned ocean Village to death. Nice one Jack, well done. Still, he did manage to get the rose Garden fountain moved outside the art gallery. Last time I saw it, it wasn't working.

Anybody uhappy at the price they pay for a ticket can and should complain to the FA, who can trace the ticket back to the original source. I think Jim Smith is among those banned from having cup final tickets for allowing tickets they had been rightfully allocated to fall into the black market. Problem is, if you buy a ticket from a tout or on the black market and complain you paid over the odds for it, the FA are not likely to show you too much sympathy as you would be considered part of the problem. The FA do have a fairly efficient ticket compliance unit, and are ready and willing to impose penalties.

I seem to recall the Green Shield Stamp showroom being along Queensway, opposite Debenhams. Connor & Mitchell's also used to have a shop in East Street, back in the days when you had independent sports stores. Wasn't the store in Woolston John Conning, before it was taken over by Trevor Mitchell who changed its name to Connor & Mitchell? Blimey, I even remember walking into Debenhams through the East St entrance and never failing to be amazed by their range of fishing rods and other outdoor pursuit equipment. Not quite as big a range as here, though: http://www.basspro.com/homepage.html If ever you are in the States, you have to visit one. I particularly recommend the one at Opry Mills in Nashville, Tn. Get in the car park around mid-morning on a Sunday, and watch the rednecks roll up in their pick-ups. Having been to church and preached at by a fire and brimstone Southern Baptist preacher they are all fired up to go and kill or catch something. If you look around the firearms section you will spot tomorrow's Columbine killers. They are the 12-year-old boys, with spots, no mates and strange buzzsaw haircuts who are stroking the guns like the girlfriend they wish they had but will never get. All sorts of random recollections coming back now. Patstone & Cox in the High St, next to the Dolphin Hotel. What a fantastic shop, a boys dream. Not only did they sell football boots, cricket gear and other sports equipment, they also sold plastic construction kits. Not just your standard Airfix models, but the Revell ones that everyone really preferred, especially their Mitsubishi Zero. Curry's the best toy shop? What about Beattie's in East Street? Again, if you liked plastic modelling kits, or just the smell of glue, this was the place.

Reporters don't get to make the decision as to whether their by-line accompanies the story or not. The fact that it is bylined 'Daily Mail reporter' tells you it was not done by a staff member, but supplied by an agency or freelance. That would not necessarily be to protect them, but simply because as a non-staff member they would not warrant a by-line.

Depends who you are trying to appeal to. If it's the hordes of oriental scarfers who follow Manure, Chelsea and the other top four clubs who crave the mass television audiences to make themselves world brands, it won't make any difference. Your average Malaysian, Chinese or Japanese Man Utd fan doesn't give a stuff about romance. All he wants to be is on the winning side, to see is ManUre win every times he switches on his tv, or when he comes over onces a year to take pictures at Old Trafford, and have a shirt he can pose around in to show people in KL, Yokohama or Guangdo his undying devotion to his team. They're the people Scudamore is aiming at, which is why the PL have just signed lucrative far eastern tv deals.

Yes it is. 'Inkie' is a big P***ey fan. Started out working for The News years ago and the paper know they have a tame pit bull* to whistle up when they want a big name to defend the club. Not sure that Sky/NewsCorp own Talk Sport. It's ownership structure shows it is primarily owned by a company put together by Kelvn McKenzie, of which NewsCorp are one member of a consortium. Sky's/Newscorp part in the consortium may revolve around a contract for Sky Radio to supply TalkSport's news bulletins. *With false teeth that often fall out through a lack of fixative.

Let's not forget the biggest lie of all. The one told at the very beginning and which is at the root and heart of this vile tale of deceipt and debacle. From day one when Mandaric first entered into negotiations, P***ey swore black and blue that Alexandre (Sasha) Gaydamak was buying the club, and was acting independently of his father, Arkadi, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the club. No siree, nothing; nada, nowt, nitchevo. And yet here in the Daily Telegraph on March 19, we had the Storrie teller admitting it was a lie. "Sacha always said it was him owning Portsmouth and not his father. The reality is that there had to be some backing from him. Sacha's a young guy, where's he got all that money? Maybe he just borrowed it from his father. "I think one of the reasons why they bought Portsmouth was because the Premier League was so high profile. Because the father had had some bad publicity, they saw this as a way of protecting the son and cleaning the Gaydamak name a little bit.'' Of all the lies told in this sorry saga, this is the biggest and the most important It was told because without it, the Gaydamak money would not have come into the club as Arkadi would not have passed the Prem's Fit and Proper Person's Test. Everyone suspected it to be a lie, obviously a few people knew it, but the Premier League accepted it at face value without doing any digging. Storrie blew this lie out of the water, proving that the first requisite of a good liar is a good memory. Not only have P***ey cheated by acquiring players with money they did not have, they have cheated by virtue of the fact they should not have been allowed to have this pretend money in the first place. So have the Prem called Storrie in to ask him to explain why he and P***ey made monkeys out them years ago by lying as to who the true owner really was? Are the Prem minded to take retrospective action against a club that clearly lied to them, and in doing so broke PL rules? The catalogue of lies and deceipt in this story is as thick as the New York city telephone driectory. Yet if this lie had been doubted and some investigation work done at the beginning, none of this would happened. Actually it might have done. At the time Sasha/Arkadi Gaydamak bought the club from Mandaric, the line of parties interested in buying it didn't exactly stretch around the block.

Let's not forget the biggest lie of all. The one told at the very beginning and which is at the root and heart of this vile tale of deceipt and debacle. From day one when Mandaric first entered into negotiations, P***ey swore black and blue that Alexandre (Sasha) Gaydamak was buying the club, and was acting independently of his father, Arkadi, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the club. No siree, nothing; nada, nowt, nitchevo. And yet here in the Daily Telegraph on March 19, we had the Storrie teller admitting it was a lie. "Sacha always said it was him owning Portsmouth and not his father. The reality is that there had to be some backing from him. Sacha's a young guy, where's he got all that money? Maybe he just borrowed it from his father. "I think one of the reasons why they bought Portsmouth was because the Premier League was so high profile. Because the father had had some bad publicity, they saw this as a way of protecting the son and cleaning the Gaydamak name a little bit.'' Of all the lies told in this sorry saga, this is the biggest and the most important It was told because without it, the Gaydamak money would not have come into the club as Arkadi would not have passed the Prem's Fit and Proper Person's Test. Everyone suspected it to be a lie, obviously a few people knew it, but the Premier League accepted it at face value without doing any digging. Storrie blew this lie out of the water, proving that the first requisite of a good liar is a good memory. Not only have P***ey cheated by acquiring players with money they did not have, they have cheated by virtue of the fact they should not have been allowed to have this pretend money in the first place. So have the Prem called Storrie in to ask him to explain why he and P***ey made monkeys out them years ago by lying as to who the true owner really was? Are the Prem minded to take retrospective action against a club that clearly lied to them, and in doing so broke PL rules? The catalogue of lies and deceipt in this story is as thick as the New York city telephone driectory. Yet if this lie had been doubted and some investigation work done at the beginning, none of this would happened. Actually it might have done. At the time Sasha/Arkadi Gaydamak bought the club from Mandaric, the line of parties interested in buying it didn't exactly stretch around the block.

See now, there you have touched a nerve. The British sports media is the softest and most compliant in the world, thanks to a combination of Spanish practices that would have made 1970s shop stewards blush, fear, and cowardice. Of course, the days are long gone when football clubs and papers needed each other and lived a symbiotic relationship. Those were the days when sport lived strictly at the back end of the paper, and never crossed the halfway line into the front unless it was an earth-shattering story (Keegan signing, FA Cup win, etc). Sport was sport, what happened in Vegas, stayed in Vegas. The relationship became a bit too cosy and close, and as the media and football climbed further into bed, it was the press that turned over and stuck its rear up in the air. Football also knows that unlike in the States, there is little collectivity in the British media. Because of the way freedom of speech is enshrined in the US constitution, there is still a ‘touch one, touch us all’ spirit among the US Sports media. If one paper or media outlet is banned, they all boycott the club, thereby sending out a firm message that the media takes a dim view of any attempt to curb its freedom. Hence, the media carries a lot of weight and enjoys the upper hand. Nowhere better does that manifest itself than in the issue of access. On pre-match press days the media can go to the training camp and talk to any players or coaches. After matches, coaches are allowed a 15-minute debrief before the doors of the dressing room are flung open to the media. You can just imagine that happening at Old Trafford, can’t you? But why should Fergie and his ilk be allowed to get away with their attitude towards the media. It’s not simply a case of Fergie being a forceful character. There are tougher and more hard-nosed people in US Sport than Fergie, but they know they have to work with the media. They may not like it, but they know fans would turn on them if they didn’t. There’s no way that would happen in the UK, where the media puts its individual concerns first. If Fergie bans the Mirror on a wafer-thin pretext, are the Sun going to link arms and march in support of the Mirror? Of course not. On the contrary, it will jump in to take advantage. Of course, the media’s cause in the UK has not been helped by Sky, whose bankrolling of the product that is the Premier League sees them fawning all over those involved in it. Sky Sports are not really interested in proper sports journalism as far as the Premier League is concerned. Why should they be? Why would they want to open up huge cans of worms on something that provides the main thrust of their sports coverage and their biggest income stream? Their coverage is based on the 30-second soundbite. Football clubs have cottoned on to this and now gear their media operation towards it. Hence, at media press days, all they do is put the manager and a player up before the cameras to satisfy the soundbite need. Once Sky have got their 30 second soundbites and are happy, the rest can lump it. Football clubs are not stupid organisations (with one or two notable exceptions) and they know they have the ultimate sanction – The Press Ban. Time was when it was a badge of honour to be banned by your local club. It meant you were doing your job correctly and people could see that you were not in the club’s pocket. But now, media organisations live in fear of being banned and denied even the p*ss poor access to managers and players they now get. There have been occasions when the media has had the opportunity to stamp this out. Had they shown a strong collective stance, football would probably have blinked first. Unfortunately, it’s gone too far down the road to reverse it now, and football knows it has got the media where the hair is crisp. And even when journalists do take it upon themselves to ask probing questions which might elicit the right answers, they get pilloried by fans of that club who accuse them of having a go and conducting a witch hunt. And before we get too self righteous, Saints fans are no different and if you want proof, only look back to the Echo banning saga this season. The Echo actually did very little wrong, but they endured seven shades of ****e on this forum from a fair proportion of people for their refusal to kowtow to Cortese’s demands for them to scoff the whole humble pie. So why wasn’t Grant pressed on his monotone, miserable pleadings? Perhaps because they want to make sure they can go back the following week to ask some more trite, soft questions.

You could well be right. If that was the case and it was a regular thing, you might think they had an account with Radio Cabs. Of course, £46 might be the unpaid portion of that account, and while it's some time since I used a Southampton cab, that amount hints to me a single, late-night journey. Perhaps from somewhere like, say, Horton Heath, to the portsmouth area.

The table of creditors’ debts is a shameful and shabby record of a morally bankrupt business with no morals or scruples that has serially stuck two fingers up to everyone it deals with. It has shat upon everyone, from the highest to the lowest, with absolutely no regard for the welfare of the businesses they deal with, their only concern being whether they have enough money to pay for players they patently could not afford. From the amounts of monies owed to similar companies, it is obvious they have run up as much tick as they can before a company has refused them any credit, and then simply gone off to set up an account at another company. Examples; Heritage Leisure Design (who would provide all the badging and club crests on various shirts, products etc) are owed £93,000, so are Hargreaves Promotions, who do a similar thing. There are several catering companies owed money, including county Caterers at £128,000. With a Cosham address, County Caterers are presumably a local business, built up over the years by a family or individual, who thought he was on to a good thing when he won a contract at Fratton Park. I don’t know the size of the business, but I would be surprised if it could take a £128,000 bath, so it’s likely that business will go bust. All for the cost of Utaka’s wages for two weeks. Other examples of them fouling their own nest include Johnson’s Newspapers to the tune of £20,000 (for unpaid advertising, etc) and still The News fawn all over them. Cowplain Community School, at £14,000, head a lengthy list of schools and colleges who presumably rented their premises for p***ey’s academy/schools of excellence, only to have their good faith thrown back in their faces. They owe Portsmouth City council £28,000 in poll tax (and moan that the council won’t come in and buy Krap Nottarf back off Chainrai and make it a community stadium). The Performing Rights Society are owed £19k, but presumably they still play music on match days. They even crap on their own employees. Photographer Dave Jordan (a freelance who has a contract with the club to supply pics for programmes, etc) is owed £4,000, club doctor Nigel Sellars is owed £15,000, former PR guru Gary Double is £13k in the hole. The landladies who put up their academy trainees are owed a total of £12,000. They even owe £30 to press room steward Mick Hogan (who probably re-stocked the tea/coffee/milk supply and slapped in the receipt in the vain hope he would be re-imbursed). I know Mick as a genuinely and thoroughly nice bloke, who will probably shrug his shoulders at the loss of £30, but it’s an indication of the utter contempt they hold people in that they wouldn’t repay him. Further afield, and perhaps dangerously for them, there are several hefty debts outstanding in Southampton, not least of all the £41,000 they owe King Edwards school for use of Wellington sports ground, and Southampton firm TWC Joinery who are owed £54,000. Then there are the intriguing little debts which have you a-wondering and guessing. Who has racked up a £7.5k debt at the Concorde Club, and why? And who took the £46 cab ride with Radio Cabs of Southampton, and from where to where? This is a document of complete and utter shame and sham, a cheats charter and now it is in the public domain, hopefully their appearance at Wembley will now no longer be the tale of a brave club’s fight against the odds, but how they completely and shamelessly reneged on every fiscal obligation they had to pay for a day out.

Debenhams/Edwin Jones may not have been as large as Hudson's in Detroit, but always billed itself as 'The South's largest department store.' Never quite sure where its definition of the boundaries of 'The South' extended to, but although never as big as any of the London stores would comfortably be bigger than anything south of The Smoke. Anybody remember the temporary visiting zoos they used to have occasionally on the top floor? It was probably when Chipperfields were too mean to pay for winter quarters for their circus animals and there was no room in the zoo on the common, so they offered a selection from their menagerie to Edwin Jones. To their credit, they also used to splash out on a half decent Christmas grotto, with animatronic figures and stuff. I used the term loosely, in case anybody should form any idea that they were remotely like anything at Disney World. Again, not a department stores as such, but does anyone remember Vernon & Tear? Food stores, but also butcher and game dealer. Started off in Hanover Buildings, but then moved to Above Bar.

Think you'll find it's Terry Brady, father of Karren and another former p***ey director.