stevegrant

And it'll be our problem if either the current owners want the club to be run sustainably (which I believe NC has said is part of the 5-year plan), or they sell and any new owners want the club to be run sustainably, but when we approach players to sign them, they demand more money than we can afford on the basis of "well, you could afford it two years ago, why not now?". Do we then miss out on the player because we're running the club sensibly, or do we cave in and overstretch ourselves, in which case we run the risk of ending up where we were in 2009 all over again... Ignore the short-term benefits of having a rich benefactor, that funding will not be around forever, regardless of how much we'd like it to be. There will come a time when we won't be able to call upon the Liebherr estate to subsidise us, at which point, once again, it does become our problem.

Would expect so, that was the way it worked last year.

A little from A, a little from B, I think. While many smaller clubs are envious of the situation where other clubs suddenly have loads of money to spend because they acquire rich owners, it does also create a situation where everything becomes inflated and the clubs without that sort of cash feel they have to stretch themselves to breaking point in order to keep up. In a rather perverse way, many clubs have been asking for the FA/PL/FL to impose spending rules for years, because they simply don't trust themselves not to spend more than they can afford in a gamble to gain success.

True, although they had just won promotion back to the top flight a year ago, so had fallen away quite a bit in that time.

I think they're waiting for confirmation of the second game (assuming we're only playing two, like last year) before doing so, which makes sense, I think. Biel is about 100km from Interlaken, where the team was based last year, looks quite easy to get to by train from there as well. I'm glad we've learned our lesson from last year, where we took on teams who were far too good for us at that time, given Thun were 4 days away from the start of their season and in the top flight. Right at the start of pre-season, you don't really want to be playing against teams who are going to give you the run-around, IMO.

I like how good they make us look for a 4-year period at the turn of the century

Regardless of the argument as to whether we will or won't ever have to pay back the £20m listed as a long-term liability in the group accounts, the simple answer is "Yes, we did rack up an additional £7m of debt during that period".

But they also have a legacy wage bill from the Premier League, so they still won't have much (if any) spare cash to spend.

Aldershot or Oxford for me. Hereford at a push, as it's a new ground but miles away.

That's not *always* true, I don't think. This season muddies the waters somewhat as Birmingham got relegated but qualified for Europe, so they'll get a bye to round 3. Also, Fulham qualified for the Europa League via the Fair Play League, which wouldn't happen every year, so there's an extra European place. As a result, it needs a bit of a reshuffle through the whole competition. Having done some working-out, I reckon they're going to have to either have a preliminary round between Crawley and Wimbledon for a place in round 1, or also drop West Ham into round 1. I suspect they'll do the latter, they've only ever had a preliminary round once, in 2002/3. Round 3, 32 teams, made up of 7 European qualifiers + 25 Round 2 winners. Byes to Round 3: Man United, Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Stoke, Birmingham - Fulham can't go here as it destroys the balance of the previous rounds, they would have to play a 2nd round game on a different week to everyone else if they manage to get through all the qualifying rounds of the Europa League. Round 2, 50 teams, made up of 14 remaining Premier League clubs + highest-placed relegated team + 35 Round 1 winners. Byes to Round 2: Liverpool, Everton, Fulham, Aston Villa, Sunderland, West Brom, Newcastle, Bolton, Blackburn, Wigan, Wolves, QPR, Norwich, Swansea, Blackpool. Round 1, 70 teams, made up of the lowest-ranked 70 teams in Football League. From those 70 teams, those who would be split into the "south" section would be: West Ham, Cardiff, Reading, Millwall, Ipswich, Watford, Bristol City, Portsmouth, Crystal Palace, Brighton, Saints, MK Dons, Bournemouth, Leyton Orient, Exeter, Colchester, Brentford, Charlton, Yeovil, Dagenham, Bristol Rovers, Plymouth, Swindon, Wycombe, Stevenage, Torquay, Gillingham, Oxford, Southend, Aldershot, Cheltenham, Hereford, Barnet, Crawley, Wimbledon. However, there's then another spanner in the works because you can't divide 35 teams in each section into ties, as there would be one left over in each. They'll probably then move the southern-most team in the "north" section (Northampton) into the "south" section, to make it a 34/36 split. Of those 36, the 18 highest-placed would be seeded, meaning that we could only be drawn against one of: Yeovil, Dagenham, Bristol Rovers, Plymouth, Swindon, Wycombe, Stevenage, Torquay, Gillingham, Oxford, Southend, Aldershot, Cheltenham, Hereford, Northampton, Barnet, Crawley, Wimbledon. I now need a lie down...

This, basically.

That's what happened when they tried setting up a similar page a year or so ago, it was closed within a day or two because people decided it was an easy way for them to voice complaints about something - probably the removal of the instalment plan - as they couldn't get a response from the club itself.

I am here, work's pretty busy at the moment so mostly a watching brief for me I'd be slightly wary of using the forum to send a bulk email to all users - firstly, we'd be on very dodgy ground as far as the Data Protection Act is concerned, and secondly, when we tried it out some time ago it mashed up the server I've not really kept up to speed with this thread, so perhaps this question has been answered, but why not just get as big a flag as you can with the money available, rather than look to raise more when presumably the idea is to have it ready for the start of the season or rely on Cortese to make up the shortfall to the current target?

Interesting that the new marketing manager used to work for the blue few...

I meant the Premier League proposals, not the building work at the training ground.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the proposals for this new academy structure are just that - proposals. Nothing has yet been agreed, as far as I'm aware.

Correct.

The original article's already been pulled from the OS, but the club relaunched their Facebook page this afternoon, with promises of exclusive content, competitions, etc, the usual sort of thing. The article claimed you could "Like" the page by going to http://www.facebook.com/OfficialSaints - with the URL mirroring the club's Twitter feed - but if you actually go to that URL, it appears as though someone called Richard Watts has already taken that URL for his own personal profile

Rather strange considering Lawrence and Cotterill had a massive bust-up during the season which has led to his agent touting him around to anyone who will listen in the last six months...

For the actual money that the club would have saved, it wouldn't be that cost-effective. A total of 28 people defaulted on the payment plan in 09/10, so that's less than £15k the club would be safeguarding by introducing a swipe card system - a system that would cost a hefty six-figure sum to implement. It's a nice thing to have, certainly, as you can then link all sorts of other stuff into the system (catering credits, away "loyalty points", that sort of thing), but it's far from a necessity.

Even in an industry such as football where loyalty is much stronger, people **** off their customer base at their peril. The club has a hell of a lot of goodwill among the fanbase right now, and rightly so, but most people still won't appreciate being treated like complete mugs. I don't understand the point in saying ST details will be released tonight and then not doing so - it serves no purpose to anyone. Intentionally or otherwise, it's misleading, and clearly plenty of people have stayed up tonight to get the details as soon as they're released. Half-decent communication really doesn't take a great deal of time or effort.

Probably something along these lines: 1. No world cup 2. No international matches, as FIFA members are almost certainly banned from playing matches against non-members 3. Automatic withdrawal from UEFA, as a FIFA confederation 4. No English clubs in European competitions 5. No English club friendlies with European/worldwide clubs, same reason as #2 6. Top players leave England as there's no European competition for them to play in 7. Leading sponsors withdraw (or massively scale back) their support of the Premier League as the top players won't be there anymore 8. Billionaires dump clubs on their arse as there's no exposure or cash to be made anymore 9. The standard of the Premier League drops to resemble the SPL. The leagues below deteriorate in line. The only saving grace at this stage is that the UK market is by far and away FIFA and UEFA's biggest in terms of broadcasting revenue, ticket sales and advertising. Given the headline sponsors have voiced disapproval of the current situation (albeit with rather woolly statements), that might work in our favour, but the risks are too great for such a major step to be taken by the FA. It simply won't happen.

https://twitter.com/#!/TonyHusbandTV/status/76308651610091520 I for one am shocked...

I see Leicestershire confirmed today that they've signed Abdul Razzaq for the T20, so there's one potential replacement gone. What a shambles, and for once, not of our doing.

I was hoping you were going to say FIFA