spyinthesky

Peel took over the old Mersey Docks Company in 2005 having acquired all their shares from previous owners. The announcement of the £17m grant aid for creartion of a £19m cruise liner facility came in May of that year so Liverpool Council was pursuing the grant application. By all accounts the grant aid terms were quite specific. Only 'calling cruises' only so as not to compete with rival UK ports who had invested their own money in turnround facilities. Within months Liverpool council was lobbying for a change of use but the labour Govt turned it down Now the Tories seem keen to allow this which is odd bearing in mind their 'free market' policies I am sure this is pure speculation but the Chancellor, George Osborne, represents a nearby constituency and thereis some suggestion that the owner of Peel Ports is a financial supporter of the Tory party. Make of this what you will.

Liverpool is a great place (weather not so good tho') but wonder how Southampton would look if it was enhanced by a fraction of the £2.5billion in EU and UK Govt aid given to Merseyside in the past 10 years

Saw him playing alongside Rancine at Totton pre season Both looked solid centre backs at that level

Bearing in mind that Martin and Seabourne are relatively decent in the air but not exactly quick and/or comfortable on the ball then perhaps NA is looking for a nippier, left footed player who can better deal with the small speedsters who are relatively common in the Championship. Jaihidi is on his last legs and will not be here next year but is an ample backup when fit However until this happens and god forbid Fonte is injured/suspended, we are a bit light in central defence

Know it is wrong to bang on about our ex or nearly ex players but notice that young Anthony remains warming the bench at Aldershot (who havent exactly set the world on fire in Div 2) and Tommy has been relegated to reserve GK at Thurrock in some Sunday League type set up. I would really love to know the real circumstances behind their involvement at SFC. How could someone be so wrong!!

minsk that bet is so unfair the gaming board will be after you don't you realise that since the restart of league fixture after the second world war pompey have only exceeded saints average crowds for 17 out of 65 seasons, the majority of the former were during the time when pompey were a top side. Fair play to them for this, of course, but even when they were winning their two consecutive titles their average gates were 37,000 at a time when the capacity of fratton park was 50,000+. And post war crowdes were at record levels they also had the benefit of a large royal naval contingent just after the war and quite a few people from southampton used to go and watch their games so their support has not been as 'loyal' as saints in recent times dont forget also that fratton park had a higher capacity until season 2001/2

About 5-10 yrs ago Simon Clifford boasted he would take Garforth town to the Premiership in short order (5-10 years?) Where are they now?

Understand that Rupert Lowe agrees too He forecasted that young Tommy would turn into a splendid custodian

How many did we take to Ipswich?

I like the article from Swiss Rambler. The comments about the Middle Eastern gentlemen interested in Pompey amongst them Sheik Yermoney, Sheik Itallabout, Sheik Rattelanroll and Sheik Anvac were spot on. Wonder if anyone can reproduce Harrys flow chart of responses to post match interviews contained within the article. Interesting that poor old Harry has suffered with an arson attack on a property on which he was trying to obtain planning permission in Southsea. So unfortunate.

On the Pompey Take over thread dear old corps has resonded to comments on recent poor crowds at Fratton Park Had a quick look on the Wikipedia entry for Fratton Park and it appears someone has altered the average crowd figures for seasons 1994/5 and 1996/7 According to the stats available elsewhere the avearge attendances on these two seasons were 8,269 and 9,406 not the 18,269 and 19,406 shown in the Wikipedia entry. Three possible explanations I. The figures shown independently are wrong and Pompey did in fact average 18k/19k (note that this level was far more than they seem to have recorded between 1968/9 to 2002/3!!) 2. The figures shown on the Pompey entry are right but they declared less for tax reasons for those two seasons 3. A Pompey fan (possibly some porky pie merchnat, similar to whoever made up the SCUM strike story) has altered the Wikipedia entry as they were ashamed that their average attendance was sub 10,000 for three successive seasons. It is worth noting that when Pompey won the 1st Division in 1949 and 1950 their average attendance was 37,000 on both occasions which was only 70% of their ground capacity at the time. This was during the time when post war crowds were booming. Pompey actually averaged less that the likes of Hull City who were in a lower division!!!

Just goes to show how things change We lost 1-0 at home to newly relegated Plymouth who were one of the favoutites to return to the Championship Compare tehm and us now. We are doing well and Plymouth are in all sorts of financial difficulties, tonked 4-1 at home by Rotherham in Div 2 and next year could easily be a Non league outfit!!

Crowd of 16,500 at fratton for a local derby Poor away showing, only 3,000 or so!!!

Away v Swindon or Brizzle City

If you want to support our Tommy!!!, Thurrock are due to play at Salisbury this Saturday

See out youngsters beat the 'Hawks' 2-1 on Tuesday night Anyone go? Interesting that the youngsters did better than the mixed squad did v Easteigh who are in the same league as Havant

Harry wood used to sit near me in the East stand at the Dell many years ago Was always late in Is he still around?

Or have I missed something?

Couple of interesting facts. Liverpool has been given £2.5 BILLION worth of EU and UK state aid over the past 10 years or more Just a small bit of this would have helped regenerate Soton The £17m of EU and UK aid was actually given to Liverpool City Council who developed the Cruise terminal on land they own just up from the Liver Buildings Peel Ports did not benefit. Indeed they have their own cruise terminal aspirations within the actual port area

Didnt the bookies make us early favourites for automatic promotion. I suppose on the premise that we would spend big I would take mid table security

I also have to trust Nigel Atkins but even the best managers make mistakes and believe Forte will be one of Atkins bloomers

I remember the disappointment of watching our first ever game in Div 1 when promoted in 1966 Dell capacity was then 30,000 and only 19,900 turned up v Man City We seem slow starters both on and off the field

How did ther mighty blues do on their high profile tour of the US of A?

Marvin Gaye................. 'Heard it thro the Grapevine'...... v Gladys Knight's original Joan Osborne .............. 'What becomes of the Brokenhearted' ...v Jimmy Ruffin's (excellent) original Mirettes ...................... 'To Love Somebody'.... v Bee Gees original

The whole strike thing was made up ironically just after Portsmouth Dockers, who were part of a South Coast port union group, broke a strike which had been called to protect Plymouth Dockers A big group of soton dockers blockaded the commercial docks in Pompey and police had to intervene to protect the Pompey men Sam Charles, the brother of Bob Charles, was one of the Soton Dockers arrested think this may have been late 70's, early 80's