stevegrant

As far as I'm aware, the link to merchandising purchases isn't in place yet, the recent refit only just saw them install chip and pin machines

OK, the quiz topic is on the Saints team from the last non-Premier League top-flight season. You are hereby denied your season ticket

Email me at steve@stevegrant.co.uk Given we're playing them on New Years Day, though, I find it highly unlikely a) any game would get played because of the weather, b) any facilities would be open, or c) we'd actually get enough sober bodies together

They're basically trying to entice you to spend loads of money on it... "here, have some more free money, only it's not free really" When they put your limit up, they're supposed to write to you to let you know they've done it. There's usually a phone number to call where you can refuse the increase. Most card companies will reduce your limit at any time you like anyway.

I'll probably have a look at adding a links section on the site, perhaps pulling in links to all latest articles etc.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/pompey-past/birch-fears-pompey-points-deduction-1-3988134 What's that I hear? Is it the sound of the penny dropping?

£17, I believe.

Again, you are taking a drawing and assuming that it is a fact that we will be expanding the stadium. It is no such thing. Of course the club will be looking at all avenues when it comes to growing revenues, just like all good businesses do, but that doesn't necessarily have to involve a stadium expansion at all. It certainly won't involve a stadium expansion if we fail to sell out games this season - our first back in the top flight for seven years - as I fear we might if the club don't get the matchday pricing right.

You'd think people might have learned their lesson by now.

They have a lifelong fan with more money than sense throwing some of his own cash at the club. If we are being run as a sustainable business - as has always been the claim - we won't be doing the same without the figures adding up.

In theory, a club could be shown just 5 times under the terms of the new deal, up to a maximum of 26 out of 38 games. However, in practice even the bottom clubs get around 10 games, simply because a lot of those games will be against the top clubs, who themselves have generally been televised between 18 and 22 times over the past few years. Obviously there are more games in the new deal (worth remembering we'll only see the benefits of it if we stay up this season), but not by much. Only an extra 16 games per season.

Aware that the conversation's moved on from here, but I'd like to drag it back just to point out that the Amex already has the space for the building work they're embarking on at the moment, hence why it doesn't look like much. When we went there in January, it was clear that it was unfinished. Dragging it back again to the more recent points about an "upper limit" that St Mary's could be expanded to, I have vague recollection of the figure being (a completely unrealistic) 55k, with the Itchen being the only stand unable to be expanded due to the weight of the offices, corporate facilities, etc on the foundations. However, stadium design has changed substantially in the 11 years since SMS was built. I'm not entirely sure whether the more modern structures with more curves are lighter or heavier, but I'd say for certain that the 55k figure would no longer apply if any expansion were to be along the lines of a new-look design rather than simply an extension following the more dated Barr identikit pattern. Also, a friend of mine who works in geotechnics was of the opinion that the foundations could be modified anyway - as with many things, it's basically a case of how much money you want to throw at it that will determine what sort of an impact you can make.

Not to mention the fact that the club couldn't even be arsed to put them on their own website

Yeah, that was a fantastic waste of 15 minutes of my time earlier. Lesson learned.

That bit of it looks like the hideous things that have been built at Old Trafford cricket ground:

Without any detailed knowledge of stadium construction I'd only be guessing, but that guess would be that it would be very difficult to do in one go, especially considering the fact that there's only usually 3 months of the year when there's no football being played there, and therefore only 3 months when there wouldn't be tens of thousands of people milling around at a time. That said, I remember when West Ham built their main stand about a decade ago, they built it behind the existing stand, which didn't seem to cause too much disruption at the time. The problem with expanding rather than replacing (as I guess we'd assume will happen - they surely wouldn't knock the whole stand down and rebuild it from the ground up) is that the roof needs to be removed/lifted at some point, and with the current design, the roof is an integral part to the whole stadium's structure. Also, for reasons of working space, they might see an expansion of the two ends as a better starting point.

Anyone can do some pretty drawings and stick them in the public domain, tbf. Loads of clubs have released similar artist's impressions in the past only to not follow through with any building work to that effect (or even so much as a planning application). This particular design would, as Colin has alluded to, also require the purchase and subsequent demolition of at least three sites that adjoin St Mary's in its current guise. If, for the sake of argument, we assume the club proceeded with this, the timescale involved would surely be a minimum of 5 years, perhaps even 10, simply because of the complexity and scale.

Perfect advert to accompany the article as well...

You're all wrong

I wonder if anyone's thought to try to negotiate a deal with the Football League whereby Pompey are allowed to make players redundant (as Rangers have in Scotland), and NOT fulfil the contract as per the Football Creditors Rule, in exchange for a points deduction. At least that way, they'd be in a position to have a viable business plan at some point.

Worth checking out page 43 of that PDF. A hand-written statement of affairs, with the realisation value of Fratton Park having been scribbled out from what looks like £7.3m and hastily amended to £10m to make the shortfall to Chainrai look less The last sentence in section 2.4 is either optimistic or wilfully misleading: "No further points deduction will be applied if this Proposal is approved by the requisite majority of Preferential Creditors and Unsecured Creditors." - we do not know how the Football League will interpret the soon-to-be-confirmed failure of CVA1. To all intents and purposes, the same outcome as occurred as if they hadn't agreed that CVA in the first place. Section 3.3.2 is Chainrai's get-out clause, basically saying that if TBH doesn't waive his right to the remaining money due to him, there's no obligation on Chainrai's part to complete the Sale and Purchase Agreement, and it's down to the administrator to negotiate this.

Suspect it's more likely he'll go abroad as the compensation payable would be fixed at around £750k, he's been linked with a few Bundesliga clubs. Domestically, reports suggest it could be anything up to around £5m.

Because he's under 24 and Blackburn have offered him a new contract of equal or higher value to his previous one, so technically they still retain his registration unless another club agrees compensation with them.

Pick 3 realistic signings from that list (Drogba doesn't count as realistic ): I'd go for Danny Murphy, Salomon Kalou and Craig Gordon.

Still haven't decided, but it'll probably be something along those lines.