stevegrant

It wouldn't affect them either. The likes of Fabregas have been at the club since they were 14/15. It doesn't make a blind bit of difference whether they're English or Iraqi, it's the age that's the key.

We're fully accepting of our position, we know we're up the creek and have to sell players in January and the summer. If anything, I'd say you were the one clutching at straws for failing to realise the financial position PFC finds itself in (hint: a negative net assets figure on the balance sheet is not a good thing - even we don't have that yet!) - Tony Adams can talk about having money to spend and not having to sell players until the cows come home, but anyone with half a brain knows that you will be selling sought-after players both in January and over the summer. The reason Adams, Storrie and anyone else connected is saying they don't have to sell anyone is because if they were to say "yeah, fair do's, we do have to sell players", the asking price for those players would go through the floor so you'd get less money in that way, and also the morale of a lot of the fans would also deteriorate to such an extent where they say "well the club's clearly got no ambition anymore, so I'm not going to bother paying through the nose to watch them anymore". The reason I know this to be the case? Because I've seen it all happen here in the last three years.

To be honest, I see this rule having very little effect on any club. Basically any player who has been in England since they were 18, whether they've come through their current club's youth structure or not and whether they're a UK national or not, counts as one of the four players. I would hazard a guess that that would actually cover the majority of players in the Championship, not the minority.

I feel dirty sticking up for a skate, but never mind. How many Premier League (or other top foreign league) clubs would pay money for Sol Campbell these days, particularly given his likely wage demands? I reckon you'd be able to count them on the fingers of one hand with some fingers left over. You can't make the bet and then turn around and say "we'll wait and see who you sell and then I'll decide which players are your 'top' players"!

The accounts from summer 07 showed debts of about £60-odd million, which along with assets of about £25m, left PFC's worth at an overall -£35m or so.

I don't see why not. The company would still be a limited company, which means the directors are duty-bound to act in the best interests of the shareholders and to ensure the company is trading solvently, and the debt would still be owed in the same way as it is currently. The only difference in terms of anything that might affect them is a £250k or so annual cost has been removed from the cashflow. Unless I'm missing something...

Treble it and you're closer.

To be honest, Nick, I'd agree with the skate on the overall "top players" list and also the Campbell issue - he's starting to become a bit of a liability rather than a top, top player Redknapp>.

It's a fair point - in the previous years that we've been either on the full LSE or on AIM, there have been tangible benefits in terms of exposure and also the supposedly increased ease with which people can buy shares. However, with the economic situation as it stands now, it would make sense to save the £250k or so it apparently costs to be listed on AIM each year. Whether it would get shareholder approval or not is another matter, although I suspect the major shareholders may actually be in favour of such a move because then there is no fluctuating share price that they can compare to, and as such can pretty much name their own asking price rather than say "well the public share price is Xp, so I think it's only fair you offer X+15p" or whatever. It should probably be added that you do lose a little bit of the finer details from the publicly-visible financial reports.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/dec/17/englandcricketteam-twenty20 Good news for the purists, bad news for grass-roots funding.

Diarra would have been getting regular games at Arsenal last season had it not been for the massive improvement in Flamini's performances. I suspect Wenger was expecting to be able to persuade Flamini to stay, hence not being too worried about losing Diarra.

As opposed to the -£33m yours was worth as per the last accounts?

I'm sure that £15k will really teach them...

Not a case of too much work - I think it would be a worthwhile addition - but more a case of copyright infringement. We would need to pay various licence fees to the Premier League/Football League in order to show goals/highlights, all of which would be well into four or five figures. Without wishing to go all "advert", SFC do offer a pretty decent service along those lines, SaintsTV. Unfortunately, you have to pay for it.

A little from A and a little from B, I suspect. While I don't think we can complain too much about three century innings for our batsmen (particular credit due for those given the complete lack of practice), apart from them there weren't too many contributors. We could - and probably should - have had 400+ in the first innings, and only three players made double figures in the second innings. We bowled very well in the Indian first innings, but made a mess of it with the new ball in the second which allowed Sehwag to get them off to a flyer. A bit more discipline with line and length would probably have put us is complete control going into today's play. While Harmison and Anderson are up with the best of them on their day, they're the complete polar opposite when things aren't going their way, which then piles the pressure onto the other bowlers.

Going to be a close finish, I think. Should be loads of overs for Monty and Swann judging by the turn and random bounce they were getting towards the end of play today.

I agree that it would be a great move if we ever actually saw any overtaking on the track...

2010 - ban on refuelling?! Surely that takes away a bit of the "competition" in terms of the pit-stop/fuel load strategies?

It's a bit of a gamble though, isn't it... in the Premier League, buying a membership was definitely worthwhile as we'd be playing the likes of Arsenal, ManYoo, Chelsea etc every year, and without a membership chances are you weren't going to get a ticket for any of those games. Nowadays, we play a big club once every 3 or 4 years depending on a cup draw, and many would argue that paying £20 a year just on the off-chance that we get a draw like this isn't worth it. I think I'm right in saying that this game is looking like being the only game since relegation that will sell out before reaching general sale. £80 just to give yourself a better chance of getting a ticket (still not guaranteed) is probably not really money well spent, particularly as there's a hell of a bigger chance that we won't draw a big team in the cup each year...

How the bloody hell would Stansted ever get close to Heathrow's capacity?! Surely that would require an extra 4 terminals (probably 5 given the size of the current one), the relevant road and rail infrastructure, etc?

Yep. There are probably as many credible scientists who subscribe to the "global warming is a load of ********" theory as those who go along the Al Gore chain of thought.

This.

To be honest, I know absolutely sod all about the arcade from a technical point of view, so either Baj gets some time to add/remove some of the games or I'll need to spend a bit more time working out how it all works and how I add/remove stuff. I'm off work from 20th December until 4th January, so it may have to wait until then, as I know Baj doesn't have a great deal of time right now due to work.

As far as I'm aware, SFC only ever outsource the ticket hotline when they are expecting large volumes of calls. They only have a handful of people working in the ticket office at SMS, so if hundreds are trying to call in to get ManYoo tickets, it's going to be a veeeeeery long queue, so at busy periods, the 0800 number tries the ticket office and if that's busy it reroutes to the outsourced call centre queueing system. Or at least I think that's the idea, anyway!

Apparently the 0800 number isn't directing calls to the outsourced call centre, so they've released a direct dial number: 01271 335708 There are more than 20 operators (and a queue facility) there, so if you've tried to get through this morning but failed, give that number a go.