shurlock

So on a £350-400 season ticket, you pay around £50 over a season? or whatever they mean by "interest-bearing finance" (from their website). Not cheap. Why would the club recognise and approve this scheme and not any other, especially as there are possibly cheaper ways to secure finance on the market - seems like free advertising for what might be a sh*tty deal. And if people like the convenience and don't want to shop around, why can't they just go to places like Zebra without the club's endorsement as these outfits themselves seem to be promoting? http://www.zebrafinance.co.uk/football.htm

How the f**k then do Zebra make their money with a group of debtors that potentially has a high risk of default? I accept that the club has nothing to do with the scheme, but that makes it even more crazy why a profit-making third party would be in the charity business. The customer pays a premium - an interest rate call it what you will. And no doubt its pretty punitive. Under these circumstances, why would a club bless or advertise one installment plan, scheme, credit provider -call it what you will- over another (that's what they are effectively doing even if they have no formal responsibility under the scheme)? Why give a bunch of backalley shysters easy pickings, especially when some fans are myopic and are blind to the sting in the tail. Don't know the figures but aren't there cheaper deals for fans if they just shopped around. Maybe somebody can do the crunching and come back with a price comparison for different kinds of loans. I doubt the likes of Zebra would come out very favourably and perhaps traditional loans, even though they are not marketed as ST guff (at least their portfolio would be more diversified), would not be half-bad. You would think that some here are on the take...

Don't know how you reached that one but i would be happy to pay slightly more over a season provided (i) if it didnt stray too far from prevailing league prices (ii) it went directly on the team and close infrastructure (iii) I could be assured of the same spot week-in week-out. That's one thing I find pretty odd - that in all the fire and fury, most people have concentrated quite narrowly on the monetary costs, not the fact that without a ST quite a few people would be forced to pack up sticks every week, move and not be able to sit or stand with their mates.

10% is not a small number but its not a massive one either - and who knows how many people within that band actually needed the installment plan because of tight financial circumstances or just happy to take advantage of another buy now pay later scheme because the interest rate was zero or negligible - I've certainly done the latter before (though not for the football). There's alot of apocalyptic nonsense here - yes things could have been handled better but that's a point about process that doesnt justify the fury. Certainly when various schemes have been around ages, they grow to the status of entitlements, natural birthrights not what they really are - perks that are necessarily conditional but need sensitive handling when their terms are changed. Those like me who are relaxed aren't indifferent to other supporters - and that's not because we're loaded (I've got train tickets to factor in on earnings that are pretty volatile). Ultimately they bear in mind the fact ST and matchday ticket prices remain competitive and reasonable by league standards - a bottom-line consideration that is getting forgotten in all the smoke-and-mirrors posturing and mutual recrimination. I don't what know NC's motives are for abandoning the installment plan; but assuming it is to raise more revenue - doesnt it also matter what's done with it? whether its pocketed by the owner or reinvested back into the club? People should take all these things into account before reaching for the noose in their self-appointed kangaroo court. And what about realising that those those who want to have their cake and eat it often end up with bowel-cramping indigestion. You can't get impatient about headline-grabbing signings that shoot us up the leagues on the one hand and want financial discipline and independence that never sees a return to the dark old days on the other. The impossibility of this position seems lost on some, however. Push comes to shove, it seems that quite a few people are more than happy to live for the day -to get dolled up, spread their legs and be doted on like some billionaire's plaything...regardless of the long-term consequences.

And what does it matter that most people don't bother to go to away games? Why should they care all of a sudden?

...I would have said it was somebody's idea of a sick joke

Good post

LOL - meanwhile you still licking your wounds that nobody gave a sh*t about your pointless huff over the 125th anniversary kit? People have a staggeringly short memory and lack of history if they cannot see how positive NC and ML are for the club. I cannot remember a time when I've looked more forward to a new season, challenging for the title and building on the momentum of the last year. And to think only a year ago when most of us would have been content with mere survival. Really some people need to have a word with themselves.

For a team like us, decent full backs are critical. We will find teams coming to SMS next season and sitting back content to turn the midfield into a logjam. Having fullbacks that can take the game to the opposition and give us that extra man will make teams think twice about playing so negative.

Why can't the club just sell quarterly STs - perhaps sell them at the same per match rate as ST tickets or slightly higher with an option to keep the same seat the next period. The club doesn't assume any risk - while fans only have to stump a quarter of a ST every two+ months rather than everything at once. Not as good as an installment plan but better than nothing.

Agree 100% Not even TDD posts this kind of ****e

Was at OT when he nutmegged Stam, though the blinding wizardry of Pahars footwork at the time means that it is only with TV subsequent replays that the sheer quality of the goal has sunk in. The goal also meant much more after the manure cup game in Jan 2009. It was a real low point after the board/management had talked up the game - how our young guns going to express ourselves but proceeded to sink without a trace in one of the most one-sided football games I've ever seen. To top things off, thousands of swaggering, unsympatheic Manc c**ts who have no interest in or understanding of the less showbizzy side of football were quite happy to rub in the pain. Which takes me back to the Pahars goal - days when we could hold our heads up high and routinely stick one in the big clubs eye. Seeing all those complacent, charmless mancs stone-dead in their seats as little Marian ****ed over Stam and beat them at their own game on their own patch remains a highlight and milestone of where one day i hope we'll once again be... great little player, marian

Balls/E. Miliband were special advisors - as special advisors, they work in an unashamedly political and partisan capacity. While employed as civil servants, different rules apply to them - they were certainly not bog-standard civil servants as you imply - they would have been in the engine room of the party machine all the time. See what happened to Damian McBride - once he started overstepping the mark as a civil servant and doing Brown's political bidding, he was converted to a special advisor - to release him from the normal protocols of war.

Just to note that this isn't the first string French under-21 - they are currently in South America.

If the other Surman thread is correct, I would take Chris Iwelumo anyday. Was a beast in the Championship - not only wins everything in the air but also very clever - bit like Nial Quinn in his heyday.

Agree- both AL and JP have decent acceleration but don't have scary pace over 30-40 yards.

You mug- just a shame there isn't a retained list for forum members....

No they're not -conveniently leaves out any mention of the press just like the Echo did earlier today, instead shifting attention to the legends, confident that we will rally like red-ants to defend them. Some poor fools on this forum -SOG etc- have also bitten the bait. The fat-faced dimwit Sale not only takes up the ar$ e from Murray but resorts to the same smear tactics as him - pathetic.

I think NC does as well - long with the comments about the media, I definitely picked up from his statement a greater insistence that we combine results with a more attractive playing style.

Apart from his statements on the media, I thought his points about our playing style were interesting. I get the sense that NC is frustrated by our playing style (as is anyone who's seen us play regularly this season) and wants us to mix the unadulturated hoofball with something more attractive (and productive)- and will be part of the criteria (obviously along with our chances for promotion) used to evaluate Pards next season.

OP - total rubbish. We live in such a kneejerk media culture that Im glad the club isnt spinning and fobbing us off with instant updates that play the transparency card but are really nothing of the sort. Obviously real transparency is better than no transparency but if you think the 'transparency' that is passed off in today's media is nothing but manipulation that adds to the murk and is playing the reader, you're a naive fool. Im glad that Cortese doesnt feel the need to stoop to Lowe-type stunts or have his hand forced by agenda-pushing, profit-chasing opportunists like the Mail or the Echo.

Millwall > Charlton > Huddersfiekd > Swindon

Had heard of some of these: Lambert= some fat scouser whose jammy deflected free-kick knocked us out of the Fa Cup - once a lower league journey-man, always a lower league journey man - 30 a season in a league above L1, you're having a laugh. Fonte = (along with Speroni), the Sarf London gypsy king(s) - always a good, cheap target for abuse and slander when we were flying high in the lower reaches of the championship... Puncheon = lazy showboater, fancy dan with no end product whose skillz, along with some ******-poor R&B/rap track would be invariably used to pad the lower league highlights on Soccer AM. Harding = part of the Leeds factory system that churns out dirty, niggly fullbacks until i found he was bum chums with Hammond at Brighton. Of course, all now walk on water and are the best thing since sliced bread...:smt038

Been impressed with what ive seen of franck moussa this season (and not just his goal today). Would be a decent option at CM.

Hope they get fu€ked- goes without saying.