positivepete

This Well done Mike

Grauniads take on the saga http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jul/19/the-rumour-mill-chelsea-arturo-vidal Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has "pleaded with Southampton not to wreck his dream of sitting three rows behind the reserve goalie on some overstocked Premier League bench pocketing £55,000 a week for playing a few inconclusive Carling Cup games next season". Sorry. That should read "his dream of playing in the Premier League next season". Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City are all interested in paying £12m to essentially derail his promising career by stopping him playing any meaningful football in return for demotivating amounts of cash.

Corp Ho, the only problem with using Blackpool as an example is that they spent 140% of income on players wages in their plucky underdog promotion campaign

Well done Mike.

My other half had half knee replacements in both knees at the same time last year. She was playing tennis again in six weeks. free of pain now, well worth the initial discomfort

Come on chaps. Have none of you heard of the bears of Bern in Switzerland. The brown bear is a famous symbol of the region

Highly unlikely, the security were turning people away today saying they had enough in the queue to last until 4pm. The security guard had no intention of giving the sales staff the option to stay on and clear the queue past 4pm.

Indeed, an outstanding venue. I have been a few times, and be able to observe legends like Steve Howe, and Nils Lofgren up close, and see their technique is a privilege.

Although we do not know how that £7m is made up, it may be a provision for the cost of upgrading the training ground. P&L is not the same as cash flow.

Lets all give him a good welcome this weekend, as he is in the Under21 squad.

On the plane yesterday, I was reading the international herald tribune and there was an article about air India losing loads of money, poor service and reliability, and of pilots covering the windscreen with newspaper to keep the sun out!

Holloway is already complaining that the salaries of players will be cut by 50% next season, but in the recent Grauniad article on football finance they revealed that Blackpool gambled on getting up last season, spending 140% of income on wages! How they use the parachute money will be interesting, as well as how much their gates drop by. An article yesterday said they have four players on over 1m pa. The same article says will lose a lot of their squad and were the club in most financial danger if they went down. They may go into freefall.

Looks like a sensible list. I suspect that there will be more coming in at youth level as we strengthen that group to provide us the players for the future

The UEFA rules are also framed to stop a benefactor getting one of his companies to sponsor the club for a silly sum to artificially boost income. I am pretty sure there was an interview with NC when the drafts of these rules came from UEFA, where he said he was pleased that the new rules were in line with the principles in our business plan.

In the UEFA rules expenditure on infrastructure is not counted for the P&L, nor is non-football related income (such as radio stations) counted as income. So the break-even rules are related to football activities. So those with higher gate income will benefit. As there is not much television income in the Championship, our gate income will help massively. The UEFA rules also state that the break-even is to calculated over a three year period, and there is provision for increase in capital through owners cash injections, as long as they are in the form of share capital not loans. This is why Arsenal may be the only team left in European competition in a couple of years!

It has been a great opportunity to take my nineteen year old son to see some "real" football grounds, meet some genuine football fans, and watch football at 3pm on a Saturday!

Jack Cork would be a good signing, just the sort of player NA would like, a good passer of the ball, and a "proper" footballer

Blimey, you must be the git behind me

http://stats.football365.com/dom/ENG/LGE/attend.html attendance records to date...........Saints 25th average attendance

YACHT ALERT !!!!! I went to the dark side today, and moored at Gunwharf was a super yacht, apparently owned by the founder of NCP. So there we have it, the new owner of Fratton CAR Park is to be NCP! Makes sense, it sorts out the Gaydamak land issue and what to do with the rest of the wasteland in one foul swoop!

The support during the day plus the fact that we stayed on to applaud Arsenal on their lap of honour. You watch the stadiums empty these days at the final whistle. Did you see the Cardiff fans leaving after twenty minutes yesterday, and they are in the play-offs!

The news is that we are now in the same league as AC Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Man Ure, a select group of five. Not in ways you may think though ................

Well done Mike. Happy to donate. The flag will look good filling that gap behind the goal with no spectators that the cameras always pick up!

Anyone who John Bailey played for (Blackburn & Everton?) because we hate Bailey

My first game as well, I expect there are a few of still around whose first game that was!