stevegrant

Barnsley, while clarifying their position on the speculation surrounding Mark Robins' future at the club, have revealed that a meeting of all (presumably current, rather than next season's) Championship chairmen/CEOs has been convened for this coming Thursday to discuss a proposed "break-even test" for clubs in the division. Clearly, based on last year's financial figures and the likelihood that the position probably hasn't changed a great deal this year, it's going to have an impact on us. The proposal is for a test similar to that being brought in by UEFA for clubs wishing to compete in the Champions League and Europa League competitions, with sanctions applied to clubs who don't "pass" the test, which could include transfer embargos, a competition tax or a fine structure depending on how badly the club fails the test. The competition tax would likely be a system where clubs that fail the test have to pay an amount as a proportion of their losses into a central fund which then gets distributed among the clubs that do pass the test - that then gives clubs an additional incentive to break even, as they'll then be eligible for a payout from this fund. Any thoughts?

And Redknapp's blown the best part of £100m in transfer fees himself since he became Spurs manager, so it's not as if he's been lacking in resources.

Certainly the level of sympathy will be greatly reduced this year as the club set a precedent last season. However, that doesn't mean the club is right not to give supporters a choice as to how they pay for a season ticket.

Amusing. Surrey, captained by KP, have just been thrashed by 10 wickets by Cambridge University

The people actually serving the stuff will have absolutely no input on what they sell, they're agency staff who come in on what's probably minimum wage for a few hours every other week.

I'm liking Stoke to win after extra time at 16/1

I'll be trying out this place (Croydon branch) tonight - should be interesting. It seems to be really popular, I was intending to go there a couple of weeks ago, didn't bother booking thinking "it's only a Sunday evening, how busy can it be?!", and then when I got there, there were 50-odd people in the queue to get in with a likely waiting time of 2 hours

And you know that happened? Last season's instalment plan wasn't done under the direct debit scheme (because of the timing of the takeover, there simply wasn't time to set it up in that way), so they relied on the goodwill of supporters to pay the money. There was a grand total of twenty-eight people who failed to pay the full amount over the course of the season. There were a (larger) number of people who had a payment missed either because the card they provided had expired or because the club kept changing which day of the month they were taking the money, but a quick phone call or email resolved the problem. In previous years, the responsibility for collecting the money fell on an external finance company (which I think ultimately went through Saints Financial Services when it still existed) and it was set up under the national Direct Debit scheme, whereby the company has a signed agreement from the customer and they will keep trying to take the DD until it's successful. I guess there's a bit of psychology involved there as well, if your money's going to a finance company, you're more likely to ensure it gets paid, even though I don't think these schemes are in any way linked to your credit rating.

http://www.soton-chamber.co.uk/index.php/pg/227 £850 for a squad of 7, works out at just over £120 per person. No idea how many games you get for your money though. Two-course dinner after the event included.

While the football creditors rule has its merits, unfortunately all it's done is put clubs in a safety zone knowing that no matter what happens to the club they deal with, they'll get their money in full. It's completely at odds with the idea of the "free market", where businesses worth their salt do due diligence on businesses they seek to trade with before selling their prized assets on hire purchase. If you or I defaulted on a payment on our mortgage, there's a possibility we'd find our house being repossessed. The FA should automatically trigger a ban on any player whose transfer fee payments are overdue - that would then ensure that both purchasing teams and the players themselves take a degree of responsibility in transfer dealings. If a player decides to chase the cash and sign for Pompey who they know might default on the transfer payment, and he ends up not being able to play (domestically or internationally) then that's his own fault for ignoring the problems. It's all well and good saying that the FA, Premier League and Football League have to take responsibility for the position the national game finds itself in, but the players, agents and clubs themselves also have a significant burden to bear.

Surely something like that would have to be in the new Guildhall square? Plenty of space, and I'm sure the council would be happy to build a stage for it. Nothing like getting ahead of ourselves though, eh?

In the first two years in the Championship, the finances were fairly stable, mainly as they were being propped up with the parachute payments, so there wasn't an "apparent" need to save relatively small amounts of money in that way - particularly in a way that was likely to be unpopular among the fans. Unfortunately, by the time the decision was taken to close that part of the ground, it really was a case of saving whatever money the club could in any way possible. When I used to sit in that area of the ground, there were stewards every two or three rows, so would estimate there must have been at least 10 stewards in a static position lining the metal barrier between block 1 and the away section. I've no idea how much stewards get paid, but if we assume a 4-hour shift (including pre-match briefing and then on duty from the moment the turnstiles open until the ground has emptied after the game), multiplied by the 10 stewards, and then add the (much more expensive) cost of having police officers on duty in the ground as well, you can probably imagine the match-by-match cost gets pretty expensive pretty quickly when those parts of the ground are open. I'd certainly agree that having those blocks open (particularly with season tickets available in them) is a massive advantage to us in terms of the atmosphere. However, I'm sure the club would counter that - with a fair bit of justification based on the last two seasons - the atmosphere has been pretty good even without the "stereo" effect around the away section.

Ultimately, regardless of the atmospheric rights and wrongs over the decision to close those three blocks, the fact does remain that it is the most expensive part of the ground to police when it's open (even more so than the Northam, strangely). As a result, I would imagine it'll remain closed (and re-opened on an ad-hoc basis) until there is proof that the attendances can justify it being re-opened permanently.

I think it might work quite well for big away followings, but not so well for teams that don't bring many fans. What I believe they currently do is cordon off the back couple of rows in block 4, so they could easily do that in 1-3 as well, so there's a gap between them and the corporates, and also to ensure standing supporters wouldn't be blocking any views. The usual netting could be used between block 4/5 and the corporate section, where there's already a rail which can act as a natural barrier anyway. The concourse in the Itchen North is massive, which is fine when the away team brings 3,000, but you can't segregate it at all if the away team only brought, say, 500, which obviously can be done in the Northam.

There is not a cat in hell's chance we'll be signing Pratley

All well and good the FA complaining, but they've recently announced that they'll be backing Sepp Blatter in the presidential elections, so it's going to make absolutely no difference.

Yep, of all the clubs with new stadia, I'd put St Mary's pretty high up the list in terms of its atmosphere.

They still can't afford their wage bill, Whelan is still dipping into his own finances to cover the shortfall. Wigan will be in for a nasty shock when they go down.

The BTP will get a dry-run this season with Cardiff v Swansea

They still have two weeks of the season to go though...

There are various permutations when it comes to things like that, for example neither us or Pompey can play at home on the same day. I can't remember the last time there was a proper derby either early or late in the season, so that could be one of the guidelines used. I guess you could make a case for Ipswich v Norwich a few weeks ago, but there were 5 games left after that one.

I'd either want Pompey away to be fairly early in the season, so that this season's away attendance is used for the ballot, or to be quite late so we can get the win that sends them down

With the benefit of hindsight, the Rochdale game wasn't actually as much of a disaster as people were making out at the time. We didn't well by any means, but we'd have won three or four games with the number of chances we created that night. If the rearranged games had been played on their original dates, I reckon we might have pushed Brighton a lot closer - the claims about their great home record were a bit skewed as the luck of the fixture computer meant that they didn't have to play their two toughest games until the end of the season. They wouldn't have gone into the games against Dagenham and Walsall with little to no pressure (as turned out to be the case), and as a result might not have got the six points they needed to a) confirm promotion, and then b) confirm the title.

Absolutely no surprise that the 15-minute period where we conceded the most goals is immediately before half-time 23 goals scored in the 15 minutes after half-time though!

No, the fixtures aren't actually generated until that morning. They have a test run about a week in advance, which is really just checking all the technical stuff is in place, e.g. emailing them to those who receive them via email, posting them via FTP to web servers, etc. The final list is usually sent about an hour or two before the release time, embargoed until that time.