stevegrant

When we were last in the top flight, parachute payments were only for two years and were £6.7m per year. They ran out after we missed out in the playoffs in 2007.

Basically they want more money. If the tube drivers can bring the whole of London to a standstill, why not do the same to the nation's roads?

The AA reckon that the surge in panic buying will have provided an additional £32m in fuel excise duty to the government, right at the end of the tax year

Yes, the newspapers should be ashamed of their actions in reporting verbatim what a government minister had to say

SWT don't do seat bookings. That'll be why it comes up saying no seats available.

I'm all in favour of the smart card usage for food in the concourse, but it has to be done right. In my little utopia, all bar one of the tills at the food outlets would be for cardholders, meaning if you can't be arsed with the card and insist on paying by cash, you can do so but you take your chances with what's likely to be a big queue. For me, the biggest problem with the concourse catering is that the staff aren't quick enough at taking money and giving change - the service of the food itself is fine - so removing that responsibility from them would speed things up immeasurably.

The first innings was where that Test was lost. 264 in the fourth innings was a very credible effort, the biggest ever fourth innings score at Galle (previous was 250-something). Also, while we bowled very well again, we seemed to lack the energy to finish Sri Lanka off. Their last 4 wickets in each innings added 148 and 100 runs respectively. That's the sort of scenario where a more experienced bowler like Bresnan would have been of more use than a debutant like Samit Patel. Broad's catch off a no-ball in the second innings cost 50 runs

Smaller and more expensive. Packets of crisps are the same, those Walkers Baked crisps are a massive con, you get about 12 crisps per pack

The potential Pompey bid involves Paul Walsh, although he's not putting any of his own money in (he's not stupid ). From what I gather, there is some sort of consortium (inference: none of the people involved have enough money on their own), and that they're biding their time to be able to get the club at the cheapest possible price, with Chainrai's debenture bought out at a knock-down value using the theory that a percentage of something is better than a percentage of nothing - although arguably the land is worth more than the £2.5m that has been suggested so BC might just tell them to do one and he'll take his chances on the open market for the land.

We were in the same position in 2009. Selling season tickets would have been a surefire way of ensuring the club could survive the summer, but the administrator didn't want to sell season tickets that he couldn't guarantee would be honoured. There would also be the scenario where the administrator would be using that ST money through the summer to pay off creditors, and then when a new buyer came in, they wouldn't have anything to use to fund the running of the club over the course of the season.

Worth remembering that these figures are in no way up-to-date. They are up to 30th June 2011, so already 9 months out of date. In that intervening period, we've been promoted which brings bigger broadcasting revenue (a rise of around £4-5m), season ticket prices went up by 30% with a relatively static number of sales of said STs and matchday sales will have gone up with bigger attendances and an extra few quid on the ticket price (£24 up to £27 in most areas of the ground). I expect the sale of Chamberlain has been balanced out by the signings we've made this season and the new contracts handed out to a number of players. The news that the loans given by the Liebherr estate have been written off entirely is the best news possible. For as long as they were on the books, there was always the possibility (however remote) that they might be called in at any moment. Now that isn't an issue at all.

Saints, Reading and Leeds to go up, QPR, Wolves and Bolton to go down.

I do need to upgrade the forum software at some point in the near future, so that might resolve the problem.

Clearly, but what the Football League do about it is a complete mystery because they presumably never envisaged such a scenario. They've (so far) been unwilling to use their right to apply the spirit of their regulations rather than the letter, but it could be argued that failing to make a CVA payment should be deemed an "Insolvency Event", which would attract another statutory 10-point deduction. Either way, the due date for that isn't until next week, so we'll have to wait and see.

Wasn't that in the Conference though?

Oh god

Would imagine home sales will be database-only. Not even convinced I'd be able to get tickets there with a Croydon home postcode and no previous sales history.

His first goal for them. Not done much since then, tbf

They were, but Cortese was only appointed as a director halfway through. I'd argue that most CEOs of "major, multi-million pound companies" don't get paid nearly 10% of the company's turnover. If/when our turnover jumps to £50-60m, a £1m+ salary for the CEO might be justified.

Trott getting out to a ball even I'd probably manage to hit to the boundary was an impressive effort

As I said, I'm not entirely convinced as to the accuracy of those figures, but they were all in one place rather than having to trawl each of the respective official sites.

Prices according to Football Ground Guide (not entirely convinced they're all accurate, pretty sure QPR charge far more than is listed on that site), with most likely price for us in bold - some of the games where it's likely we'd take big numbers might, for that reason, put us as a higher category than you'd other wise expect (Fulham, for example) - and any upper/lower tier splits shown together: Arsenal - £51 or £35 Aston Villa - £43, £38, £36 or £34 Blackburn - £35 or £29 Bolton - £27 or £20 Chelsea - £59/£56, £55/£52 or £50/£47 Everton - £36/£34/£31 Fulham - £40, £35 or £30 Liverpool - £48, £44 or £42 Man City - £48/£38 Man United - £43 Newcastle - £25 Norwich - £45, £35 or £30 QPR - £55, £45 or £35 Stoke - £35, £30 or £25 Sunderland - £35 or £29 Swansea - £35 Tottenham - £53/£47, £40/£36 or £36/£31 West Brom - £42, £40, £29 or £25 Wigan - £28, £25 or £20 Wolves - £34 or £24 Taking the cheapest ticket from every club, the average price is £31.40. I wouldn't expect us to necessarily be the cheapest category for every away game either.

I suspect most (if not all) of the loan deals were with an *obligation* to buy rather than an *option*. That way, the administrator can guarantee that those wages are off the payroll for good.

Our OS usually shows it in the match report. No idea why they've not done so for this one