benjii

iI am so glad that my teachers were, on the whole, not politcally zealous.

They are easily the best team.

:vuvu: "For he's a jolly good pink-jacketed militant, and so say all of us". Etc

Generally, I am a fan of black kits. They make you look well 'ard.

Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio, etc.

Because he's unpleasant, myopic and insecure?

Tell me about it girlfriend! Wow, he is ein uber-stallion.

Richardson is stacked. Glad we're signing beefcakes like him.

No offence taken, Ben.

Red Army is wrong.

Yep. But so what? He also pays more for food as a proportion of income. And energy. And road tax. And tv licence. And beer. And football and everything. That's because he has less income. Unless you want everyone to haev exactly the same as everyone else (which I suggest is a tad unrealistic) then you have to accept that some people will be worse off than others.

Intelligent response. 10/10. Seriously, what could be fairer than everyone paying for an equal share of local services? Why is it fair to make someone pay more just because they have a nicer house? Unless that house is packed to the rafters they will not be producing more rubbish than anyone else. They won't be using the local school more. Or the hospital. Or the roads. Or occupying the police's time Or etc.... The only thing that would be fairer would be to abolish a mandatory tax and levy charges based solely on usage.

Cortese clearly has a strategy that invovles transforming the club on numerous levels. That will take time and is not an easy thing to do. It will involve change. Some people don't like change. Maintaining a healthy degree of scrutiny is sensible; adopting contrary viewpoints and/or being a gobby f-wit purely to get attention is not. How anyone can be unhappy overall with the job done by him is quite simply baffling. If you are then you're probably better off supporting a team like Eastleigh or Winchester which will accord more readily with your old world view of things.

I imagine the benefit of membership will be priority over non-members for matches where tickets are in high demand; the same as it always used to be. There will be some away matches where it will be difficult to get tickets. Maybe also one or two home games where being a member will give you piece of mind and avoid entering a late-in-the-day scrum for tickets, although that will depend on how we're doing/who we're playing etc... It was £20, the last time the scheme existed IIRC. I'm not sure it would be worth £20 but I would probably pay a tenner for suitable away priority. Anyhoo, we shall see when it is announced.

Thanks ART. Think it's been around for a while though?

Moulded studs if you can get 'em definitely. Also, I would go for a traditional soft leather pair as some of the new styles and materials don't seem to offer much ankle support which is probably not great for a nipper. Having said that, kids' joints are remarkably resilient ! I think it's odd that girls are forced to play football though.

I agree that is massively unfair. The council estate dweller no doubt uses far more public services so it is a bit odd that the millionaire should have to prop up his lifestyle.

I've just emailed the ticket office asking when membership details are going to be released. Will let you know what I hear.

Poll tax = fair. Council tax = mental.

Benthelegend! Legend!

I am intrigued to hear more about his experience. Hopefully he's still registered on here so he can give us all an example of one of the successful takeovers he has helped by applying his value add.

We're worth naff all. We are a small/medium business incapable of making a profit without external capital investment. That sort of investment is not readily available in the debt market precisely because the industry we're in has been recognised by many banks as being, largely, ridiculous. People can point at the crowds and pluck various "break-even" figures out of the air but if didn't have the financial muscle to attract the top players those crowds would be down by at least 25%. The only reason we have that finance is due to one person's deep pockets. We may be worth something if we get into the Premiership.

Hardly, although I get your point.

There are some awful teams who manage to stay in the second division. The season we got relegated Watford were absolutely dire. I saw both league matches against them and they were pathetic. Unfortunately we had amateur coaches and so couldn't defend set pieces properly and only picked up one point against them. The presence of that sort of dire team leads me to think we would certainly not be relegated if we were promoted with the current 11. We would also enter the FA Cup later and not need to play in the JPT so squad depth would also look a bit stronger. As others have said, the difficult part is getting promoted to the top division and then staying up. If there really is a 5-year plan and we go up from the third division in year 2, then years 3 and 4 are absolutely vital as our best talent becomes firmly in the Premier League shop window then as well. If we do make it in to the second division then I would not be surprised if we made one or two genuine marque signings at that point because we would be entering an absolutely critical period. In the third division it's a fairly safe bet that our relative size will see us promoted at some point (so long as we continue to enjoy a great executive management team). In the second division there are more clubs of a similar status and the rewards on offer for promotion are bigger - we wouldn't want to be there long.

Am I the only person who has never heard of Joe Garner?