stevegrant

http://www.football.virginmedia.com/page/southamptonvideo/

I'm confused myself, to be honest, so my answer would be "not entirely sure, but Hone was probably the main catalyst". According to the execs at the time, Crouch, McMenemy and Corbett voted against the idea of the fan on the board in a board meeting, which was brought to the table by Hone a month before it was scheduled, so none of those three actually had any real knowledge about it, and therefore couldn't really vote in favour of something they knew nothing about. Hone of course stated that they voted against it because they saw themselves as already fulfilling that role. Whether that's true or not, I suspect we'll never find out, and it's ultimately irrelevant as none of them are on the board anymore anyway. Hone was ****ed off that someone at the Trust (Steve Godwin, I think) had spoken to Crouch about trying to arrange a meeting with him, despite him saying something along the lines of "you'll have to ask Leon to elaborate on why he voted against it" - there was already a very distinct "them v us" situation in the boardroom at that point, hence no press statements relating to Ted Bates Statue progress being allowed through the OS because that would paint Crouch in a favourable light.

The only person I know on the Trust board who uses forums regularly is Nick, and I also know that he doesn't use this forum and never has done in any of its previous guises. Therefore, I suspect that while your questions and points may have some validity, you're probably posting them on the wrong forum if you're looking for a response from them. I do think you and others massively over-milk the whole "fan on the board" issue, by the way. It was one of many stated aims at the launch to get representation at board level (and it is an aim of every single supporters trust, as far as I'm aware), BUT it was part of a 5-year plan and an aim which was the "lowest-ranked" as far as I'm concerned of those stated on the Trust's website. Michael Wilde then accelerated it when he put it into his manifesto, although we were still working to the original plan when Andy Oldknow invited us in for discussions on the subject. He then insisted on pushing it through as quickly as possible (in hindsight, the Trust should perhaps have just backed off) hence bringing in "affiliate" members from regional supporters groups to bring it up to the 1600 member figure mentioned by Wilde, but then when the Trust had done everything to fit their requirements, Jim Hone threw a strop over the fact that somebody from the Trust had spoken to Leon Crouch and booted it all out. Personally, I wasn't too disappointed, given that it was a long-term plan and with just over 800 members at the time I didn't feel the Trust warranted it then.

Of those listed, only Gerrard has stood out in Europe. You might also remember that Gerrard didn't get a touch of the ball until the 46th minute of the game you're referring to, so I'd hardly say he outclassed them. Terry is far too slow for international football. He can get away with it in the Premier League because none of the referees spot (or they ignore) his blatant cheating and of course none of them ever spot when he decides to take a turn as goalkeeper either. "But he's so brave throwing himself in front of the ball like that". Whoopee-****ing-do. If he hadn't lost his marker two seconds beforehand, he wouldn't have to make such a last-ditch challenge in the first place... Lampard was wanted by Mourinho. Inter wouldn't have batted an eyelid at him with a different manager. Isn't it strange how every time Lampard's contract is a year from its end, he's linked with a top European club... wouldn't have anything to do with his agent trying to secure a ridiculous pay-rise for him, would it? Three years ago he was linked with Barcelona, and he then got a double-your-money pay-rise. This summer, he was linked with Inter, and he's now supposedly the highest-paid player in the Premier League. Not bad work for someone whose goals tend to come from penalties or deflections. Not a single European club has been linked with Rooney. "Typical English playmaker" springs to mind. They're all good players, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't say ANY of them are the "world-class" players the press would have you believe.

It depends on a) the player, and b) the club they're loaning the player to. Bournemouth don't have a penny to spend (9 players on their payroll, apparently), so every loan player they get in is paid by the owner club. They tend to get the loans from clubs who can afford a few hundred pounds a week in order for their youngster to get some first-team football lower down the football pyramid. I would hazard a guess that Richard Wright, who must have been on at least £20k a week at West Ham, was at least paid in part by West Ham while he was on loan here last season. Or at least I'd bloody well hope he was, given our situation!

That is exactly why England don't win anything and won't win anything. We go into matches with an arrogant attitude that because "we're England, the country that invented football", the opposition should just lie down and let us beat them easily. The "bulldog spirit" works against a handful of nations. They are: Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland. The reason being that they have near-identical styles of play, but with vastly inferior players. A large number of nations (much more than the FIFA rankings would suggest) are technically superior to us because we have been stuck in some sort of 60s and 70s timewarp with the belief that we only have to try that bit harder than the opposition and we'll win, regardless of whether we've got any technical ability or not. It doesn't work anymore, and hasn't really worked since 1990. The vast majority of England's "top" players are so inferior technically to their European and South American counterparts, it's almost embarrassing. That's the real reason the likes of Lampard, Gerrard, Rooney, Terry, etc will probably never play in La Liga or Serie A, because they'd get found out. In my opinion, while he may have been lacking in concentration in the past and there will always be that cloud of uncertainty above him from 2004, Rio Ferdinand is the single technically world-class player England currently possesses, and the only one who would get into any top team in the world, either club team or national team.

#-o:smt014:smt046:smt080:evil::smt113:smt035:smt069 :smt102 :vom: Looks like they're working...

:-D:smt092:mrgreen:=P~:smt015:smt047:smt081:twisted::smt114:smt004

:cool: :smt005:smt037:smt0718):smt104:fball:=; :smt026 :smt059

Testing... :mad: :confused:

As has already been said, it depends on the agreement reached between the two clubs. I'm not aware of any deals where the "owner" club has actually been able to force the loaning club to play the player if he's available. That sounds like complete nonsense to me. It's entirely up to the manager if he wants to pick the player or not.

I thought OFCOM and the OFT sorted that out ages ago?

Every England manager has been the same for as long as I can remember. Before their appointment, everyone moans about the "same old faces" in the team who have failed before. Then when the new manager's appointed, he makes a vow that everyone has to fight for their place and can't rely on their reputation and then makes some bold and surprising selections, probably dropping one or two big names "to send out a strong signal". The first game ends in a comfortable victory against normally-decent opposition and all of a sudden a new era has dawn upon us. Then the friendlies are over and all of a sudden the same old faces are drafted back into the team and continue to underachieve based on their reputations and their overinflated opinions of their own abilities and everyone starts moaning again. The key difference between McClaren and Capello is that Capello clearly does have a presence about him and demands respect. McClaren was (and still is, albeit with an amusing Dutch twang) a complete waste of space who none of the players respected. Hopefully that'll be the key difference. I wouldn't get too excited about the prospect of us actually winning something though, it'll be no different to the Eriksson era. We'll qualify comfortably for every tournament and get to the quarter-finals where we'll either come up against a much better team or a team who can actually take penalties.

That would be assuming anyone else in this division would be bonkers enough to pay him £8k a week. The only teams who would be able to afford that already have much better alternatives in their squad.

After the Brazil game, it took an hour and a half just to get into Wembley Park station, let alone actually get on a tube and start moving!

Unfortunately there's no proof of that as he's never tested positive. He "forgot" to attend a drugs test, but it's impossible to say whether that's because he was guilty or not. I suspect that he's been tested many times since then and, considering he's not missed any games, presumably has sailed through all of them. Personally, Ferdinand would have been my choice as he is the only defender we have who is guaranteed a place in the team. If Jonathan Woodgate is fit, I would have him in the team ahead of John Terry.

John Terry. What a rubbish decision. Should have been Ferdinand, IMO.

According to Wikipedia, Goddard works for the Stellar Group.

In one word, no. In many words, people suggested that "thousands" of stay-away fans would return as soon as Lowe was ousted two years ago. In actual fact, attendances decreased despite an improvement in the results on the pitch. Someone coming in and clearing the debts would give a bit of a boost, in my opinion, but at the moment that's not going to be happening for some time yet. Anyone with any sort of business savvy about them would be waiting for the club to reach a point where they felt all seemed doomed, but that they could come in and rescue the situation, i.e. it's not a completely lost cause, but everything is pointing in such a direction.

But I thought that was why we should have kept Pearson, as he'd got the team working hard...

I think it's a file path issue, we're looking into it.

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That is one of the main reasons why the club is not appealing to investors. "Investing" in the true sense would see that all (or at least the vast majority) of the money they were putting in would go into the company, not into its existing shareholders' pockets. I would be absolutely gobsmacked if Lowe, Wilde or Crouch sold their shares for a nominal fee just so an investor would have more money to spend on the club itself. They're businessmen, they've not made their money by giving large portions of it away to other businessmen for no return. The other main reason is the debt. That cannot be helped, we needed to move to a new ground, and in order to fund it, we needed finance in the form of a loan (or a series of loans at the time, consolidated into one larger loan a couple of years later which freed up some extra cash). Events on the pitch are the reason we are struggling with this debt. Agreed. With the club placed as a mid-to-lower Championship club, that situation would deter 99.9999% of would-be investors. The mortgage is about £19m, I think, plus the £6m or so overdraft facility from Barclays gives a nice round £25m of debt. So in order for an investor to wipe the slate clean, he/she/they need to find £25m just to start work (and of course that doesn't include buying the shares). THEN they'd have to invest further sums of money to fund the purchase of players capable of getting us promoted, which let's face it is a complete lottery in this division - how many of Hull or Stoke's teams from last season would you have classed as promotion-quality this time last year? - and then they've got to hope that those players perform to their ability and achieve promotion. At this point, they've probably spent £50m (£10m on shares, £25m on debt repayment, £15m on transfers, wages and covering the other ridiculously large costs we've got) and there's no guarantee of promotion and a return on their investment. The number of people who would be able, let alone willing, to basically **** away that sort of money is very very low. It would be great to be in that position, but it's a pipe dream even for the likes of Spurs or Villa who are seen as the potential challengers to the "big 4" in the Premier League.

But of course in order to do that, the club has to get sorted financially, so their personal goal is directly correlated to the club's goal.

Are you ever going to post anything that isn't questioning me or Baj? The lifeblood of any football club are the fans who turn up every week, in my opinion. However, my point was that while plenty of people claim they're staying away because of Lowe and/or Wilde ("principles", according to some), they're very quick to come crawling back for the big games ("principles, except when there's a big game on", it seems) when the club needs them just as much for the run-of-the-mill games as well.