stevegrant

Someone's got to stick their head above the parapet, fair play to him for doing so in what could potentially be very dangerous circumstances. However, for the News to have ignored it was a dereliction of duty as journalists responsible for reporting the facts about the local football club.

If it was true, which we all seem in agreement that it was, and they had the relevant proof, the fear of legal action (which they would win) is not a legitimate argument. More likely, they dismissed Hall as a conspiracy theory fantasist and preferred the situation where News journalists were invited for a tour around CSI's "plush London headquarters" to blow smoke up Antonov's arse.

As you say, a lot of the questions are rather redundant as they try to compare our PL experience this season to last season, when no such comparison can be made. I decided that I'd answer them in relation to the Championship last season, but I expect some will have answered based on "nothing" for last season, which would be equally as valid. I only want a free copy of FIFA 13, to be honest

That tackle by the Bolton player would be a red card these days

0.4%

Definitely, but it was a no-brainer of a deal for the club given the situation at the time.

To answer the original question, Mark Hughes. £850k transfer fee (quite a lot for us back then), £20k a week wages, two goals and about 500 needless yellow cards.

Wrong. We were desperate for cash, so we went begging to Spurs to settle the "conditional" parts of the Bale transfer (the original fee was £5m + add-ons up to another £5m). We settled for around £2.5m of that £5m and they threw Forecast into the mix as well for whatever reason. I suspect Forecast's agent was quite clever here, essentially blackmailing the club into giving him a 5-year deal (we never gave ANY player a 5-year deal, let alone one with no first-team experience) with the suggestion that if we didn't agree to it, the deal providing life-saving cash to the club would fall through. There never was a sell-on clause in the Bale or Walcott deals.

That really is Iraqi Minister for Information territory, isn't it

Neil Allen ‏@pn_neil_allen I know I'm grumpy but those praising Nabil Hassan's #Pompey 'scoop'. For 'scoop' read 'was quickest to react to press release.' @solentsport Adam Blackmore ‏@bigadamsport @pn_neil_allen @solentsport You are ungracious misguided and incorrect as well as grumpy - check your facts before you embarrass yourself :lol: :lol:

Hilarious. After Nabil Hassan of the BBC broke the story this afternoon, everyone's favourite local chief sports reporter Neil Allen has whinged at the unfairness of it all, claiming (wrongly) that Hassan didn't "break" the story, he was just the quickest to transfer a press release into an article. The ****ing desperation

Well another 3-4 months with Birch at the helm is up to £1.4m ****ed away into PKF's swelling coffers.

Now all they have to do is turn those £100 pledges into £1000 cash. Good luck with that...

As good a player as he is, signing him would rather go against our policy of signing players with years of playing ahead of them. And as mentioned, the wages would be astronomical and he'll have better offers from elsewhere.

Not much Burnley could do about it, really. Howe has cited personal and family reasons for wanting to go back to Bournemouth, apparently his wife has struggled to settle up north when all their family and friends are on the south coast, and Bournemouth have almost certainly paid a small fortune in compensation. The talk earlier in the week was a release fee of £1.4m but that takes into account Bournemouth writing off the remainder owed by Burnley for Danny Ings. Still, Howe won't get another "step up" job again after this, so he'd better make another decent fist of the Bournemouth job otherwise that'll be his career over.

Didn't Wiggins finish 4th in the TdF behind Armstrong and Contador a few years ago? I probably feel the most sorry for whoever was 3rd, having to share a podium with those two

I hope all his past sponsors will be issuing legal papers to reclaim the money they paid him in good faith all those years ago. While all this stuff has come out now, he's already made his living from the sport and can quite happily sit back and live the life of a multi-millionaire. Apparently crime does pay...

No, I think everyone's quite clear that it's a shambles, to be fair

There isn't anywhere on the ticket system which shows how many loyalty points you have, and the only way the ticket office staff can work it out is by going through your order history. They've not even quoted a number of points for any potentially popular away game yet, e.g. "you need 100 loyalty points to get priority for a West Ham away ticket", they just said "season ticket holders who have been to two or more away games". Well worth bringing in that system then, they're basically making it up as they go along...

GOAL #Pompey 1-3 Wycombe. Morgan extends the lead again scoring off the rebound of a missed penalty.

Might have to shelve those plans for a return to their "second home" for a while

GOAL #Pompey 0-2 Wycombe. Dean Morgan doubles the lead inside ten minutes. Oops

:lol:

Karma was well served, though, with all three major shareholders and Barclays ending up significantly out of pocket.

The bank's continued support at the start of that season was based upon the business plan of reducing the overdraft over the course of the season down to £4m from around £6.5m. I think it had been reduced to around £4.1m at the end of March when the accounts had to be signed off, but Barclays refused to give the required assurances.