stevegrant

Yep, both car parks will be pretty much empty, so take your pick.

Yeah, I'm quite happy with the light drizzle, to be honest! That said, could get a bit murky late in the game again - will have to check if we can have the floodlights on!

Still could have used up the 12 overs before the bonus point cutoff, I reckon. Puts ourselves in a bit of a vulnerable position, I think.

It would seem so, but that's not an Echo-specific gripe, really. All newspapers globally are struggling to come to terms with the spontaneity of news these days, people get so much of their news from free sources that are more up-to-date. However, there is still a significant proportion of the population who first read their news from the local paper. Interesting that today sees the launch of The Times' paid-for news website - I'm expecting it to fail miserably, but it'll be an interesting test case to see if news is actually worth paying for.

I'd say that's probably a fair assessment, actually, particularly with 24-hour news, instant access to news on the internet, etc. The printed press are, 99.9% of the time, behind the times in terms of when the news is actually reported. In the past, you often only heard about something once it had been in the papers.

Which newspapers aren't trying to increase circulation, just out of interest?

OK then, Mr High and Mighty... what would you do to fill the pages of empty space in newspapers (not just the Echo) when there isn't anything you deem newsworthy to go in them? Printing fewer pages is not an option, by the way, for economic reasons.

Believe it or not, there is a world outside this forum I heard the £125 rumour months ago, long before it appeared on here.

To be fair, they've sold more than us at this stage... :mad:

Why not? They've got to write about something, given that there's no news at all right now. Top story on the OS is how Lee Barnard will be watching the world cup. Wow.

Completely different conditions to what he's been playing in for the last 3 months, to be fair. I expect he'll need a few innings to get reacclimatised.

Bowled them out for 415. We were going along nicely at 49/0, but Carberry went c&b to Rashid and now Lumb's gone without scoring...

Today, in fact, in a one-day game. Three-day game to come later in the week.

A surprisingly entertaining game for a friendly. Don't think we learnt anything particularly new. Things that we already knew but were reinforced tonight: Defensively we look pretty ropey Michael Carrick is crap Theo Walcott looks decent enough but then lacks the intelligence to play the right final ball Jermain Defoe isn't good enough against half-decent international opposition Peter Crouch's goalscoring record for England is mental

Ta-da Bit earlier than expected, should have checked the scheduled task list really

I reckon it'll be at exactly 5pm

Messi can actually stay on his feet...

Some people genuinely might not bother - IMO the perfect time to put them on sale was the week after the Carlisle league game, where it was mathematically certain we'd still be in League One next season. That way the memories of Wembley and a good end-of-season run are still fresh in people's minds. I'll be very interested to hear if there is a genuine reason for the delay. Given the pathetic responses that came from the club regarding the Southend programme, I'm not holding my breath.

Football is certainly unlike any other business industry. However, I would totally disagree that it needs propping up - if the clubs ran themselves sensibly and didn't cave in to fan demands and pressure for instant success, there wouldn't be a problem. I think if Gaydamak had invested the time and money into building a new ground rather than the short-term "buy loads of expensive players" option, there could have been the potential to grow organically and then generate the sort of revenues required to run a club in the top half of the Premier League. Greed and a lack of patience put paid to that idea, though.

OK, so according to that article, in 2010, European airlines will lose $2.5bn (roughly £1.7bn). In SIX MONTHS, British Airways ON ITS OWN lost nearly a third of the projected ANNUAL losses for ALL European airlines. Potentially, they could account for approximately 60% of all European airline losses (if current loss rate is maintained). Justification for the strikes if ever I saw it...

Tomlinson's not a one-day bowler, IMO, but he has done very well for us in the county championship in the last couple of years.

I would argue that the club's revenues should be able to cover the running costs, rather than relying on the input of additional funds from the club's owner. The leveraged buyout scenario is a completely different kettle of fish, and I struggle to see how that sort of scenario can be allowed in law, let alone morally. Using the example of Man United, you're taking a well-run profit-making enterprise with a profit/turnover ratio of about 25% (in football terms, that's incredibly high) with few or no liabilities and suddenly plunging it into a whole world of financial pain. Bizarrely, both the buyers AND the sellers do well out of those deals, with the company itself the one to carry the weight. Man United can probably just about do it, but even a club the size of Liverpool are going to find it incredibly hard to survive while they're leveraged up to the eyeballs.

Because they're idiots, basically.

Nor was it ever intended to, on the basis that clubs should not be reliant on handouts from their owners to remain "solvent" (and I use that term in the loosest possible sense). If they want to take the risk of going down the benefactor route whereby the investor(s) put their money in by way of soft loans rather than gifts, that's their lookout, and there's not really much the Premier League can (or should) do about that. The clubs have to take the responsibility for the way in which they conduct their business, that's the bottom line.

I would assume neither Vodafone or HP have many - if any - "rank and file" staff on salaries they couldn't dream of earning for the same job in the same industry for a different company, to be fair.