derry

Thanks for that, a well thought out assessment, time will tell.

Provided we are in the Premier we will be able to get a hell of a lot of money in return. Not having to sell and offering regular Premier football could well postpone the inevitable. In the lower divisions it was impossible.

In my view any striker we sign should have a career record of a goal every two games at least, and currently at a similar level.

We were a newly promoted Div 1 club ostensibly expecting a consolidation season in the Championship, not an ambitious Premier club with money to spend and a regular starting place in the Premier. AOC has a way to go to achieve that yet. Any of the clubs will have to pretty much double AOCs fee to buy a regular Premier starter tipped to be England's left back for many years. Most of it up front. Best of luck negotiating with Cortese. In any event none of those teams can offer him the left back slot now. Saints know he will be worth a hell of a lot more in a couple of years especially if he nails down the international place.

Walcott was 16. Signed for Arsenal at 17. Shaw is on a professional contract.

As far as I can remember Shaw signed the max allowable term (3yrs ?) on his 17th birthday. Can't sign longer contract until 18th birthday. There is a 5 year contract for then. Either way he is a contracted professional with the club and he is going nowhere until Cortese agrees.

This has been going on between Woods and Garcia for ten years, the Players was just a continuation. They just dislike each other intensely. I personally can understand why Garcia dislikes him. Whatever the context of Garcia's remark, that thick skinned arsehole Woods just took the opportunity to jump on the racist bandwagon to shaft Garcia with the media. A real man would have just ignored it. Anybody who really believes such an arrogant egotistic person was hurt by what Garcia said in jest is living in cloud cuckoo land.

Tony Godfrey

Three clubs that haven't dealt with our Mr Cortese yet, plus one that paid through the nose for AOC when we were just out of Div 1. Best of luck with that now we are in the Premier.

When I was training at Kidlington I stayed with Wing Cmdr Rupert Oakley DSO DFC DFM AFC in Woodstock, he flew Hampdens, Manchesters, Lancasters and Mosquitoes on 73 bombing raids ending up as a Master Bomber in the Pathfinders. To cut a long story short I was looking at his log book together with a scrap book his mother had kept, in it he was shown receiving his DFC for controlling a raid on the Dortmund Emms Canal. I pointed this out to him and he burst out laughing, "Bombed the wrong bloody place but wrecked it so well they gave me the DFC" He stayed in the RAF sfter the war. After the prototype Vickers Valiant 'V bomber'crashed killing the RAF project pilot he took the job and then was the first Valiant squadron commander. Involved in the Atom Bomb Christmas Islands tests in the fifties. He was a really interesting person to talk to, especially telling stories about crashes always emphasising some funny angle. Les Knight was one of those pilots killed in the DEC raid.

Early in the second half there was so much water at the Northam end the ball was leaving a splash trail in places.

The pitch was watered before the game and again at half time. Shaw slipped for the first goal and several of the others Clyne and Hooiveld included slipped several times.

Interestingly Eric, Bob Knights DSO DFC didn't fly on the dams raid but joined 617 later and flew on most of the raids undertaken by 617 under Leonard Cheshire and the sinking of the Tirpitz under Willie Tait. He had already flown a complete tour in 619 prior to that subsequently joined BOAC in 1944 on secondment from the RAF then stayed on. It was an Australian, PO Les Knight who flew on the dams raid, he was killed on a raid not long after. That must have been a lot of sideslip to hit that pod, presumably scraped the bottom. We were lucky because quite a few of the Captains were ex WW11 when we started out. Did you fly with Tony Liskutin Czech fighter pilot who instructed at Hamble, he used to do the aerobatics there?

Here's one for you Sue a connection between the two crashes. The Captain of the Staines Trident represented the Captain of the Elizabethan at the subsequent enquiry/disciplinary hearings after the Munich crash. A travesty, the cause of the crash was slush increasing the drag by the square of the speed not understood in nosewheel aircraft at that time. The Germans would never admit it and blamed ice on the wings which was proved conclusively wrong in time. The travesty was that BEA sacked the Captain for being the commander in the wrong seat although the training captain in the co pilots seat was fully qualified as he was to fly in either seat. Subsequently when Captains were on occasions on the BAC 1-11 asked to fly together I insisted the Operations Manual was rewritten so that the designated Commander was the Captain occupying the left hand seat so that the pilots could handle the aircraft in turn from their regular seat. They didn't want to do it but we refused to operate unless they changed it.

I knew the navigator on Ken Brown's F for Freddie, they were in the third wave and the second and last aircraft to attack the Sorpe dam. Dudley Heal won a DFM for his part and became a customs officer after the war. That was when I knew him from 1971 onwards when he was the senior customs officer at Southampton Airport. In between flights the customs officers could be found propping up the bar upstairs in the old terminal.

I wonder have they taken his passport. If he is charged it would make a transfer difficult.

There are two things poles apart, Cortese is a bloody difficult taskmaster and very demanding. He has done a very successful job here. You don't have to like him but I sure as hell appreciate where we are now.

I saw Delgado playing for Ecuador in the South American Copa. Ecuador were good and Delgado was awesome. The problem was twofold, he joined us with a knee injury and a world cup coming up. Having signed him Lowe should have sent him for an operation there and then. He didn't and he was pressured by amongst others the Ecudorean President to play, which he did presumably with Cortisone pumped into him but damaging his knee every time he played. He was never the same after that. The same happened with Pahar's ankle if I remember correctly. Liverpool are making no such mistake with Gerrard, having an operation on his shoulder immediately. Clubs know that some international teams don't care, they just want the player to play and damn the consequences. I hope we have learned.

Is that the one with the messages all over a 737.

You are spot on there Eric, sometimes we didn't have much choice. A crew positioning to Cuba in a subsidiary of Air Jamaica Dornier was flown into a Cu Nim, pretty much barrel rolled and lost a lot of height, we dropped them and would you believe went to Cubana, positioning on an An 24 until they lost a F27 and a An 24 the same day. That finished that. A mate from Boorley Green positioned on the Learjet that Payne Stewart was killed on a few weeks later. I refused to fly on a Venezuelan Let 410 after checking the dates on the life jackets and no handle on the emergency exit. It was lost in an accident a couple of years later.

Probably the fastest you've ever moved. Glad it wasn't me.

Can't even get the batteries right on the B787, generators often fail, APUs fail to start, the pilot's unions will kill this one. What price getting insurance.

I was doing a flight into a cat C airport with a Captain who had to do a familiarisation on the jump seat before being cleared to operate. He was in uniform, halfway through the flight he wandered up the back to chat up a hostie. While he was away I went to the toilet. Before I could open the toilet door the nearest passenger in panic asked me who was flying the a/c. I explained the F/O and that the other Capt wasn't operating.

:lol: I bet the 747 glider passengers were glad pilots (and a flight engineer) were on board. My mate says he wouldn't want to have to do it with only two pilots, especially as he wasn't on the flight deck when it happened. I hope they will put ash detectors and lightning avoiders on them, never mind crosswind limits of 15 knots. Autopilots aren't certified to deal with severe turbulence and running out of fuel. There is no autopilot on a current airliner that can do a take off. I can see the news now, maiden pilotless flight cancelled due lack of passengers.

She said it was a matter of principle and gave the award to a Kenyan Childrens Charity that she regularly visits to do voluntary work. The PF were advised that they had a cast iron case but the forces lawyer took a punt on the appeal £50K insured but Hants Police have to pay £100k. Pretty dumb.