1976_Child

Good luck with that strategy! Just hope she doesn't watch South Today on Saturday..!

I'm not complainng. Could do with a full weekend in front of the TV. Still knackered after Christmas and New Year. Think I'm getting old...

Well this bloke is obviously 'well hard' and when the police hand his name to SFC he will be banned from all games at SMS stupid dumb moronic idea.

Basically Pompey are screwed unless they can refinance all their debts (about 90 million). Otherwise they are history. Unless this Arab (who has never even seen the club) stumps up the cash in the next six weeks or so then they are going to be put into administration. Then, just like with us, if the administrator can not find a buyer to take the club on and satisfy the debts within a sufficient period of time then the assets of the club will be sold and the proceeds split between the creditors. However, by that stage the playing squad will be decimated and the only real asset will be the ground. Now I am no real estate expert but given current economic climate and commercial real estate as it is (with further loses expected in 2010) I would be amazed if Fratton Park, the land not the stadium, would be enough to satisfy the debts. From a business investment, the club is an awful proposition. Unless someone wad prepared to invest heavily- and with a long time horizon - to build the club up by moving to a brand new stadium like ours, spend a good slug to build the squad up and accept many years in the lower leagues then their cause is lost. We are talking investing perhaps as much as 250 million over a ten year period - 90 to clear the debts. Then they would have to hope that the unwashed of Portsmouth have a change of heart and start supporting their club. Even after they won the Challenge Cup they couldn't fill Fratton. Our fan base has always been a lot bigger. This new owner is obviously a front for someone else. If he really had the cash why wouldn't he have sorted out the finances on day one of his ownership? It would only require a CHAPS transfer from his account to the club's. Takes seconds. More likely the chap who is really behind it lost his shirt in Dubai and is now skint. Unless they can find someone daft enough to think they make a good business proposition, and someone with very deep pockets within two months at best our local rivals will be Bournemouth instead.

They wouldn't want to come work for us.. We pay our players on time!

I'd definitely get rid of Rickie Lambert. He has been bloody useless all season.

Well actually we have a very deserving sticky for the Tigers' Parade. We then have a discussion about exactly what our 'military strategy' should be. I for one believe that idiots like Gordon Brown do not actually have a strategy. He couldn't give a monkey's that six 18 year olds have just died. Sure, he will shed crocodile tears in public, but he is more interested in being re-elected than anything going on half a world a way. To honour our troops, without discussing their deployment and mission is no honour at all. To wave them through our cities without asking why they have been sent abroad to kill others in our name would be shameful. To them, and their enemies.

thanks. Gloomy indeed. The very fact the Obama wants to raise the number to 68,000 is disturbing. This is following a very similar pattern to Vietnam. The body bags didn't start to stack in ernest until 6 years into the war. It didn't matter then, and it doesn't matter now: whether an Anfield, a Wembley or two Wembley's worth of troops, it will not be enough and we as a country do not have the political, emotional or capital(£) will to do the job. What is the end game? When we lauched D-Day we knew what the end game was. It was the over-throw of a regime (Nazis) who had a brief hold on power in a country and culture which was pretty much the same as ours. And we had factors of ten more troops ready to die - and they did - and a public willing to accept that they had to die in order to secure freedom from very real Nazi terror. Now we are asking a tiny amount of troops to take and hold a totally foreign culture hostage to 'our way of doing things' and we think that six lads killed is a travesty (it is). So public opinion is in play like never before, the politicians try and remind us about the Tube bombings etc and that is why we are in Afghanistan. Never mind that the c*nts who did the 7/7 bombings were all British. The whole thing is a nonsense. Utter, utter nonsense. We will never win. We don't even have a credible idea as to what 'wining' means. Let alone the national stomach to pay for it with tax-pounds and emotional-pounds. Utter nonsense.

sure. good post. But: a) do we have the necessary troop level to do all of this and b) what happens when we inevitably leave? forgetting the other Nato countries involved in Afghanistan, it is only the UK and the US who are there. And combined, all our troops would not even fill Anfield. I believe that we have some 6,000 pairs of boots on the ground? And the yanks now have 30,000? Perhaps someone more in the know can verify these numbers. Just think of Anfield when you watch a Scouser game on tele. Imagine it all full of our and the US troops and then try and think of them dispersing over a country like Afghanistan, and then winning the peace and holding that peace. Through out history invading armies - including Alexander the Great (300BC) - and indeed the British Empire - were only able to win, hold and keep territories because they were far from the public eye and were able to be as barborous as they liked. There is no way our modern-day army can rule over the indigenous Afghans in a similar fashion. There is also no way that they can even secure the territories of Afghanistan. It is utter nonsense. The Generals know it.. but the politicians have no idea that the area of land they are asking the men to win and secure with only an Anfield (or 1.5 St Marys) worth of men is utterly hopeless. Just envisage a map of France. Big isn't it? Then picture Anfield full of our (and the US) troops. Then divide those troops up into just Britanny (Helmand). Do you really think we can bring peace, democracy and the rule of law to Afghanistan? Not a friggin' chance. It is utter nonsense. It is typical politician nonsense. EDIT: I mean, just think how quickly 20K of us disperse from St Mary's. Five minutes before the final whistle we are all concentrated in the ground and then twenty mins after we are dispersed around just one city. Politicians who think that countries can be won and secured - agin the culural grain, indeed - should come and watch a game of football. Not for the footie, but for the way that the cirty very quickly swallows up 20,000 people....

tell them to p!ss off. we have our club back on sure footings - and Fry takes some credit for that. Frankly, any other parties winging about the way the deal went through obviously does not have our club's best interest at heart so they can just go and jump... Markus Liebherr's Red and White Army!!!

I would like to point out that I just got a virtual spanking from SS Marshall Ponty for using the term "rag head". Well, to all the Orwellian Administrators out there: you don't have enough Digital Zyclon-B to purify this forum! Fascists! The Truth Will Set Us Free! We the lucky few! We the virtuous few! Us Silent Board Members who know the truth! Monty is a rag-head.... A damn good bowler (wicket permitting), but none the less someone who wears a rag upon his head. (Note, I have not qualified my remark about his rag. I do not use my post to lend weight to a theory that he might be slightly 'sub-white' for sporting his turban upon his head.. I am merely pointing out that he does indeed wear a rag upon his head...)

where is cheltenham ? edit: seriously?

can't be r-sed to read all these posts. What is the latest on the poopey takeover? Are they or aren't they taken over by a "member of the Arab peoples which like to wear clothe upon their heads". (sorry, but got an infraction from the School Prefect for using the expression "rag head" so must watch my footing here...lest the Gestapo get me....Run Forest! Run! Don't let the Forum Gestapo get you! Run...) But seriously, is that A-Rab going to buy the inbreds our what? What is the deal with Pompey right now?

and as much as I will think them utter turd-like scum for doing so - if indeed they do - I will remind them that they can only give voice to their opinions because they live in a free democracy which is protected by the blood of our troops.

get out. spherical ball V egg-shaped ball. It was a daft idea.

yeah, you is right. We should be top of the Prem by now. I mean... he has got billions after all... (give the chap time to get his feet under the desk!)

As well as supporting our troops who are able to march through our towns, this is the way to support our troops who might not be able to march on the day: http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/ Help For Heroes really does exactly what is says on the tin: To put it bluntly, it helps servicemen and servicewomen who have been injured in battle. and of course: http://www.poppy.org.uk/ This one should require no introduction.

Thanks, I'll be there. And i will be supporting the Tigers and giving them my thanks. It makes me humble that people my age are prepared to be shot at and die for their country, truly. I do however disagree with the whole premise that we can 'win' in Afghanistan; as no one seems to know what that should entail. And the current political consensus is that it is necessary to send our soldiers into battle to 'stop terrorism'. This is an idiotic assumption. So we disrupt the Taleban and the 'terrorists' whilst we still have blood to spill (I say 'we', but it is neither me nor you) and while we have the political consensus to persue this goal - and while we still have cash to pay for it - and then what? Then we withdraw. And when we withdraw what do we honestly expect? A free society? A true democracy? Women alowed to wear bakinis? Nonsense. But my loathing for the idiots who think this is a just way to put our military to work is counter-balanced by the knowledge that our armed forces are exceptional in every metric that one should care to measure. It is this reason that I will be happy to support the Tigers tomorrow and through all times. But I don't, never will, never can support the fact that they have been deployed in the first place into wars that are utterly non-sensical. And Afghanistan shows all the signs of the modern day Vietnam. To truly support our troops we should praise them, give them our up-most respect and then canvass our politicians to get them out of there. Up the Tigers, and thank you! and up The Saints!

I heard this mentioned on the tele... I am going to SMS tomorrow to renew ST, what time is the parade? .. and where?

then off to the land of nod you should go... just remember that it is not a dream.... we really are a safe club with a future!!! Up the Saints!!

Seriously? Shane! Get down here now! You have a whipin' coming my lad...

indeed. my point... but the first summer that Monty was in the team I very much remember a line of 'barmy army' in the crowd at the oval wearing fake turbans and beards in honour of Monty. And while he was relegated to field at the boundary betwix his bowling overs he enjoyed good hearted banter with them. So, my question to you is: were they being racist by impersonating him or just normal beered up cricket fans?

Indeed! Up the Saints! See you in Bournemouth tomorrow?

doff capping to you to sir!

ha! now that is pure quality! bravo! edit: "cultural studies learning goals", is this really part of the curriculum? Perhaps that is the problem! My " cultural studies learning" has been achieved by actually going and living in other cultures. Still, no doubt in NewLiebour ejucation world they truely do think that youngsters can learn about other cultures through black board and chalk alone.