sidthesquid

Is Rupert that likely to go on a rampage through Barclays Bank branches in the city, and if he is, can somebody make sure they film it

A total re-wriote of history - D&G were appointed till the end of the season, then, when it unravelled he did act, to appoint Pearson. But he was a central part of the bonkers plan to fill our squad with ageing mediocrities on unsustainable salaries. I am sure he is a decent bloke & a true fan - but so am I, & I know I couldn't run a football club. He had a go & messed up & he and we all need to move on

If SLH have ceased to be and they have a mortgage with NU/Aviva at reportedly a fixed 8% interest, will any new owner have to stick to that rate or will it be renegotiated at current market levels? Presumably halving the interest payable on £23m would make a huge difference to the outgoings for any fututre owner

I hope my wife isn't reading this (Highly unliklely, but you never know). For most fans it would be easier to run off with another woman and divorce your wife than switch your allegiance to another club. And likewise, it would be easier to re-marry as a widower than truly support another team. I've thought about it it over the last 24 hours, but I really couldn't do it. (If you are reading this, dear, you will be glad to know I am definitely a one woman/one football club sort of a man....)

There is a sort of beautiful, faith restoring sort of irony in this news. Sixteen I-told-you-so threads posed as inane questions waiting to be transmitted and he's banned. Perhaps he'll be reinstated just as the news that Rupert has bought the club for a pound is announced.....

No - that was why he had to go last summer

Suspension of shares has been announced

Burley

That is the key and Lowe, Wilde, Crouch, the exec directors & Burley etc all share the blame. We have been saddled with a half dozen or more hugely overpaid mediocrities that we have been unable to shift - namely Skacel, Thomas, BWP, Euell, Rasiak, Saganowski all on about £10k/week - because no-one else will offer them a half what we're paying them. (Incidentally, all bar Rasiak were Burley signings, if you want to apportion blame). Our inability to prise them out of their comfy semi-retirement on the South coast is what has done for us

That looks like it, doesn't it? Stan & Alps get their wish fulfilled & we wait to see where we go from here. That empty sensation in the pit of my stomach is not a good feeling, though.......

Hope I'm not breaching any copyright laws..... Net loss on football’s bumper TV deal Monday 30 Mar 2009 21:35:57 by Football Supporters Federation One of the year’s biggest stories crept by last month without anyone paying too much attention. You’d almost think the mainstream media had a vested interest in ignoring it… 0 comments have been left on this story After years of burying its head in the sand the Premier League has eventually come out blinking into the sun and admitted that internet streaming could crush the professional game’s finances. For the uninitiated, internet streaming basically means you can watch football on the net for zip all instead of splashing out on those expensive Sky and Setanta subscriptions. There are amazing parallels with the music industry which has been trying to tackle this problem since the days of Napster in the late 90s. Both music and football have punters who show a type of love and loyalty that most industries can only dream of. Do they work with this and cherish the relationship? Do they hell. They see themselves as having a divine right to cream off every last penny they can from the ‘consumer’ and end up corroding much of the goodwill that got them where they are. The music industry tried to scare fans by saying the major labels would go bust and no ‘talent’ would be found. People knew it was rubbish, the labels are only the delivery systems, the middleman. Article continues below... The net changed all that. Loads of new bands are turning their back on the majors, they can market themselves online, signing to a label is no longer the Holy Grail. Similarly the football industry warns that if TV deals collapse we won’t be able to afford the ‘talent’. Well, most people are well and truly sick of the ridiculous wages they’re asked to fund anyway and understand the contempt with which Setanta and Sky treat the average match-going fan. No sympathy here. Plus, we’re not daft, if TV deals everywhere drop through the floor, it evens out. If English teams can’t afford to pay £100,000-per-week because of free online football, how would the Italians or Spanish? Technology brought football its billions through TV, and it’ll take them away through the internet. Take a look at the music industry. CD’s made the song digital and record labels millions as people replaced their old vinyl with CD’s. But they’ve found one almighty problem with this. You could copy analogue (remember mixtapes?!) but sound quality suffered and it was a bit of a faff. Then digital transformed all those lovely sounds into 1 and 0’s (we know 10 binary jokes and they’re both rubbish) which could be shared with minimum fuss to millions of people, for free, once the internet arrived. Whoops. Football’s experience of this is taking longer but the same is happening. Those lovely satellite companies have gone to the trouble of digitising (and globalising) all their content so that instead of a NASA-approved-two-ton satellite dish in your backyard, all you need is a TV and credit card. Get a laptop and you can share the pictures with millions if that’s your thing. The Premier League will huff and puff because they stand to lose billions in TV deals. But the internet is a system developed to allow the US Government to communicate in the event of a nuclear holocaust. It’s pretty Richard Scudamore proof. Clubs are getting worried but it’s a problem of their own making. Extortionate prices mean the next generation has (largely) turned their back on the live game. A lot of younger fans today don’t need the live fix. They think football’s watched on TV anyway and the average Premier League crowd is now in its mid-40’s and rising in age year-on-year. But what happens when the masses realise they can watch – for nothing – live games on the internet? TV revenue disappears and clubs go bust. This isn’t just a problem for the top-flight either, it goes all the way down to conference level where clubs rely massively on Setanta’s money. Clubs have to drop prices and win back the next generation who aren’t currently hooked on the live game. Relying on the Russian Roulette of TV revenue will cost them in the end. The Football Supporters’ Federation is the organisation that campaigns for you and represents more than 142,000 fans across England and Wales. For more information, or to join, visit http://www.fsf.org.uk or email info@fsf.org.uk.

He never actually played a game for us. Likewise Tejera & Yahia, & Sarmiento never made it past the League Cup

I promise if you boycott this site for five years I will feel suitably chastised and never post again

Right in every respect but one - it was the North-west - ie Lancashire. I seem to remember the old Football League Hq was at Lytham St Annes, somewhere near Morecombe - probably seemed very glamourous when you lived in Burnley or Accrington

Here's a squad of 16 - some may have performed better for other teams than us (& only never scored a league goal - cant be Rsed to go through cup games) GK - Peter Shilton (for scoring against us), RB Gerry Forrest, LB John Beresford, CBs Andrew Davies & Reuben Agboola, RM - David Speedie LM - Neil McCann CM - Terry Hurlock & Peter Reid, Forwards - Scott MacDonald & Uwe Rosler, Subs - Scott Hiley, Garry Monk,Terry Cuuran & Danny Guthrie

How about Peter Shilton in goal - didn't he score against us?

Wilde-ness years, surely

All that may be true, but in the context of the time we had an England international scoring for fun - James Beattie - and Davies justifiably wasn't getting a game. A move was right for him at that time

That is what I love about this site - we can find an opportunity in anything for an argument

Suffering from withdrawal symptoms I went to watch Bognor Regis Town v Newport County this afternoon - dire game, home team lost etc etc, but it got me thinking. Six teams in six different divsions from Prem to Conference South - West to East - Weymouth, Bournemouth, Southampton, Portsmouth, Bognor Regis & Brighton - all in dire financial straits and all fighting a desperate rearguard action against relegation. All the clubs are in a wealthy part of the country and with a loyal fanbase, why has it all gone to sh1te right the way along the coast?

Scored a few goals in a relegation struggle or two? Brett Pitman, plays for Bournemouth - was that the one?

For once I wholeheartedly agree with you, but..... I, like you, want to see all those involved in running or owning the club ousted, but the bit that worries me is what do we replace it with? Unless a 'white knight' comes onto the scene, and they are so scarce he is likely to be riding a unicorn, who is going to own & run the club? Depressingly it will either be another opportunistic carpet-bagger looking to make a living from the club or a Fulthorpe-type consortium, enthusiastic but woefully underfunded & we will be on the sort of desperate merry-go-round that Bournemouth are currently trapped upon. Please don't take this as pro-Lowe - I can see all the problems like yourself, but it's hard to see where the solutions will come from in the real (as opposed to wish-list fantasy) world.

Show me a club anywhere in this country that has money in the bank. Football clubs are not there to make money & they never were

Thomas is another one with a year to go (I believe) on a big wage, too

What is more worrying is Skacel, Saganowski & Rasiak all still have another year to go on their mega-contracts