stevegrant

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.

No, there are plenty. The main exceptions are the Muppet Show - where certain people would just take the p!ss - and the main board. We might experiment with allow polls to be created on the main board for a short period of time to see how it goes, but I suspect people would just be forever creating them just for the sake of creating them. I'm happy to be proved wrong though, hence why we will probably conduct a trial in the near future (probably around Christmas/new year).

While the idea is an admirable one, with the way football clubs are run as such massive businesses these days, implementing a salary cap now simply wouldn't work. While it would ensure that clubs don't spend beyond their means on player wages, all it would do is increase the gap between the haves and the have nots, e.g. the Premier League and the Football League. If it had been implemented (and maintained) back in the day when gate receipts were also split evenly between each club, it's quite unlikely that we'd have had the sort of foreign investment invasion that this country's had in the last 5 years or so. While clubs would have been free to spend whatever they wanted on transfer fees, they would have been unable to pay most of the astronomical wages, so they'd have had to have a more realistic budget, which would have kept the wage levels much lower than they are now. Things were just starting to calm down on the wage and transfer fee front when Abramovich came in and took it all to a whole new level. A combination of the Abramovich factor, Carlton and Granada scandalously being allowed to renege on the ITV Digital contract and Football League clubs budgeting beyond their means based on that contract has put the game in the state that it is now.

Au contraire. Done now

When we played Newcastle at the height of the petrol strike and beat them comfortably... "What a waste of petrol!"

Get signed by Chelsea for £24m?

Current league ticket prices are £22-28, £16-20 and £9-20 respectively, depending on the area of the ground. I think it's fairly safe to say the prices won't be reduced for this particular cup game. I believe the average works out to be around the £18-20 mark. Let's say £20 for easy calculations. 30000 "ordinary" tickets at £20 = £600k 1500 corporate tickets at £150 (minimum) per head = £225k Total gate receipts: £825k The FA take between 10 and 20%, so they take between £82.5k and £165k, leaving between £660k and £742.5k, which is then split evenly between SFC and MUFC. So that's a minimum of £330k, plus all of the takings from programmes and food and drink sales. If we're on TV, then we get the added bonus of (I think) £265k.

But you're so good at it, Pat Not sure if VAT is payable on broadcasting revenue - for the purposes of an illustration I'll assume it is - but the difference the new VAT rate makes is about £10k on that one match.

It would be interesting to find out how many members we actually have now - I can't imagine there are that many, simply because tickets have been so easy to get in the last few seasons. In which case, we might find that allowing one ticket per season ticket and membership actually leaves some tickets left over for a general sale.

The home or away leg? The away leg went to general sale, if I remember correctly. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate where you're coming from. However, one of the advertised benefits of being a member (and probably the main benefit, really) is that you get priority immediately after season ticket holders for cup matches, regardless of the opposition. If the club were to revoke that privilege for the United game, I dare say they'd be in some deep stuff with Trading Standards.

Realistically, members who haven't been to any/enough games will clearly get priority over anyone who is not a season ticket holder or member, regardless of how many games they've been to. That's what being a member entitles you to. I'd be very surprised if there were many (if any) members who haven't been to any home games this season, to be honest.

It's either 40-40-20 (home team - away team - FA) or 45-45-10, not entirely sure, but it's at least 40% to each club. I think TV revenue is in the region of £250k for each club. As a back-of-a-fag-packet calculation, I reckon we'd be looking at the following: Assuming a sell-out, there's about 1500 corporate seats (including boxes), where you'd expect people to be paying upwards of £150 per head. That's £225k. That leaves about 30000 seats at an average price of about £20 (taking into account junior/senior/student/teen discounts), which is another £600k. 40% of that is £330k. Add a potential £250k for a televised game and you're looking at what is effectively a half-million pound bonus for the club. I won't even go into the million-pound-plus potential of a replay...

Muntari was sold for, what, about £12m? Transfers are generally conducted on a "pay half up front and then the rest in a year's time" basis, so about £6m would have been received initially, and then the rest will be due in the summer. Also, how is it that the bankers have suddenly been able to free up this money, if true? The £5m from Spurs for Redknapp makes sense, and coupled with the £6m from Inter in the summer that makes £11m, but surely that £6m would have been available for quite a while, rather than it being a very sudden thing...

Obviously season ticket holders are going to get first dibs, so that's 9500 of the 27000-odd tickets available (less 4700 for ManYoo and about 1000 corporates) accounted for. Personally, I'd then say that anybody (member or otherwise) who has a recorded purchase history of at least home games this season should be next in line, where is effectively a number that would take the number of accounted-for seats to about 25000, leaving 2000 or so for a mad rush from everyone else. I think it's quite important from a PR and supporter confidence perspective that the club get the balance right here between ensuring it's a sell-out and ensuring those who have offered the most support to the current set of players get a ticket. Edit to add: that's not to say that a "twinning" idea with the Sheffield Wednesday game isn't a reasonable idea, but it's entirely possible that the club could end up selling more tickets for that game than would then be available for the ManYoo game, and what would happen if someone had bought tickets for 5 or 6 of the home games so far this season but couldn't make the game on Saturday?

Definitely interested at that price - can you e-mail me (as you can't send/receive PMs)? My Hotmail address is on my user profile