Nineteen Canteen

or understandable bias leads to a narrow mind. Ronaldo , Rooney , Gerrard , or even Fabregas would be far better propositions for any team than le tissier unless you were a bottom half premier league club willing to take on a gifted but flawed maverick .

I think I entered the twilight zone reading these opening posts. Colin where have you been?

Did it not have a sticker or were you in St Pauls?

As I said you should make your voices heard at the council if the system is not working instead of the 'divisive' action some cabbies are taking. I accept your last paragraph but although it doesn't make it right i am assuming you have never flown into New York and caught a cab from the airport? They don't know where to go and their streets resemble the co-ordinates on a piece of graph paper. If our cabbies don't know where they are going then there is clearly a problem with those issuing the licences and not those who receive them and targetting them will only cause division within the ranks and their customers and aleinate the one group you need to meet to resolve this mess - the council. Who can blame the guys for protecting their livelihood? Who can blame unemployed people trying to make a living for themselves after they have been granted a licence through due process? The sticker 'campaign' will do anything but protect the guys livelihood and they need to embrace the changes and then influence updates to the qualification process through less emotive channels and I'm sure the council will be more willing to listen.

If they are picking Winchester up first then it seems you are going A35? Good luck! The A303 is fine outside the summer months and major holdays and you rarely get badly held up even through the Stonehenge / Winterborne section. One final note I will be really pleased when the Pompey game is out of the way and they are settled albeit temporarily as a club with this new owner. Why? Here we are late on the eve of a massive and interesting league game and yet the build up thread has caused barely a ripple on this forum. Apathy or stupidity, I can't work it out but I know where our focus of attention should be.

If he doesn't play him in a middle of a four then I fear he hasn't really addressed our weakness / need for another Hammondesque player. I hope he plays him centrally in a 4 man midfield whilst appreciating your view as I would like to know if he is capable of performing that role in Hammonds continued absence and no real desire to see Wotton or James pair up with Morgan. Going to be an intriguing game with hopefully the right result but given our last two games I fear another draw is on the cards.

Seems a bit a5se about face. I thought they would go M3, A34, A303. 4 hours to get to Exeter is plenty even in worse case scenario on that route as it's only about 110 miles from the 34/303 junction - a 2hr30m drive at most even in a coach. If They are going A35 then 4 hours would seem a bit tight I agree.

That's the line up I would like to see with at least James, Papa and one of Jaidi/Perry/Thomas on the bench for the following reasons: Will Seaborne cope with any animosity and /or pressure of playing in front of his recent supporters? Will Puncheon live up to the expectation of playing in a central role? Will Barnard be able to make an impact with Punchoen and Lallana back and Wotton dropped and as a result a better service from midfield? Not going to the game but really looking forward to listening to the commentary on Solent. Should be a good test and a decent chance for the team to gel and new signings to shine in time for greater challenges ahead.

Maybe they should direct their anger at the council instead of targetting drivers with accents who have received their licences via the same means as those with perfect pronounciation and the stickers to prove it. Who tested them before they could display those stickers?

John, good game you worked unbeliveably hard but please don't shake yourself again when we are talking, I'm drenched.

Perhaps it's because its comparing their prices not the ethnic base of their staff. You like to see an advert like ...'Not only are our baskets cheaper by 200,000 from 2,000,000 compared but we also employ less Asians and east Europeans.' or .....' we also ensure all our staff are fluent in English and will sack anyone that a customer considers not up to their own high linguistic standards' You are displaying the sticker to gain advantage over drivers with accents. As previously discussed if you displayed a sticker saying you speak French then your argument would be relevant otherwise you're a bit like a farmer slapping a branding iron on his dairy cows saying 'produces milk'. Just in case there is any ambiguity. If you are not inciting racist hatred you are inciting hatred which is best served directed at the council and not to undermine those drivers who have ligitamately received their license through the same path as you whether you agree with that or not.

Similar reasons why my Grandad would never eat rice and he would have been 95 this year. Their views are understandable and as he never spoke about it we can only surmise the horrors he saw or went through. Partly thanks to them the world is a different and hopefully more tolerant place and their personal and understandable prejudices will hopefully pass when the last of their generation passes on.

I agree and was thinking more about driving unsocialable hours so they cover the hours more likely to bring in more lucrative work. Its not exactly a 9-5 job and if you are willing to put yourself out the more likely you are to earn more money but the harder it makes the job. Ever tried booking a cab on Christmas day for example despite the lure of double or triple fares for drivers?

I agree with you and as I have said I am not saying I agree or wish to make comment on everything the Echo has said since. The fact remains I don't agree with the way the club handled it initially and the Echo are simply retaliating as their editorial sees fit and that is their right. What we shouldn't be suprised is that they have chosen to fight back in this way given the allegded stubborness of the club. The Echo IMO is operating no differently than any other paper has operated in the past or in the future and although the club no doubt feel subsequently wronged, what did they expect? Bottom line you are 100% correct but given the actions of the Echo on one side and the club firmly entrenched it seems on the other, its hard to see who will be the first to make steps to reconciliation. The situation should never been allowed to happen in the first place and on that understanding the club should lift the ban and then an apology or really positive piece about Cortese and his work published by the Echo. At least that is my opinion but I fear as you suggest the waters are now too muddy to make a clear cut decision.

70% ? Can you validate that statistic? On this issue I am very pleased I have alienated 70% of the bigots because having a sign saying the driver speaks English in England has racial undertones whether you agree or not. Shall he have tattoo on his head saying 'driver' just in case of any ambiguity? IMO this is more to do with Nimbyistic attitude of the more established drivers worried about the competition to their income / lifestyle, probably aware that drivers from other cultures may be prepared to work longer hours.

Why? Can't you argue the point without resorting to the usual predictable mob rule mentality? If you don't like it don't read it but thanks for your time on this occassion.

And you miss the point as to why i included this final point because I was accused of only supporting the Echo because they allegedly supported Rupert Lowe, who I supported solely on the basis he was best of 3 IMO. The day people move on from removing Lowe references from responses to opposing views will be the day I stop responding as I do. I support the ECho ergo I am a Lowe fan, intangible rubbish - what does that make Lawrie McMenemy? Pathetic argument but not one I started, just responding.

Banned? No, bored by the posters like you who think they can score a few brownie points by trying to nail what they believe is an easy target, yes. You don't even understand the word principle and disliking someone for whatever reason does not mean you have poor principles just recognition that some people may act in your reasoned opinion outside of your own personal code of conduct. As I said previously we all have different codes of conduct and therefore different principles and why some people may find the likes of Mike Osman funny and I don't, doesn't question my principles or yours. It is ironic the way some posters have gone to town on the Echo and no doubt will be reading McMenemy's next column in the same paper. Of course I have double standards but probably different to the majority as I support the Echo in this instance but don't read anything McMenemy writes and not forgetting the fact I can recognise my own shortcomings/double standards. Then we have posters like Dibden Purlieu Saint who is a critic of both and therefore truly consistent in his standards but firmly in the minority IMO. Now apart from your smoke screen of a post is there anything of any relevance you wish to discuss in my previous post or do you agree?

I did say majority DPS, you are in the minority but we shall see if more have joined you. You know how fickle fans can be .

Wes, I'm not sure Mr Liebherr gained his wealth from scratch. Was he bought up as part of his father's dynasty which he later chose to leave to start his own company? When we left the family company I am assuming until corrected otherwise he was already a wealthy man with a decent base on which to build a new business. No doubt you have a different take on the term scratch. As for Mr Cortese then IMO he is clearly a very good CEO but they are not so rare a beast as a Mr Liebherr. IMO the former could not be here without the latter regardless of how the actual deal came about.

I have principles and understand that others have theirs. I am siding with the Echo because I believe they are newspaper and should report news and be allowed to make editorial comment as they see fit. As someone has already shrewdly mentioned do we want a local press or the OS Mk II? Fine when everything in the garden is rosy but less fine in not so grand times then we'll be moaning the local press are not reporting what we want to hear. Why would that be? Because they only report the stories at a time the club want them to report them? Is that the way local press through to the FT work? Every paper peddles it's own editorial agenda take a look at the Sun and The Times and how they jumped on Murdoch's bandwagon to shame labour over Brown's hand written letter and just a few days after they annouced they were switching their allegiance to the Tories. Don't like it, then don't buy the paper but don't moan about it either in the future when Mr Liebherr decides to sell up and move on and we end up bought out by a LBO or worse. Hopefully, he is here to stay for many years but you never know what offer he may find difficult to refuse in the future and at that time we'll be grateful for a press that is aligned with the club but not shackled to it. The editorial of the Echo feel justly wronged and fighting back as they see fit. I am not saying I agree with what is being written or their approach but I simply agree with their right to do so. Same as for Murdoch's rags, I just stopped buying the Times and moved to the Guardian, a paper that keeps surprising me and overcoming my previously held prejudices about it as newsagents have sold it to me even though I don't have leather patches on the elbows of my cordoruy jacket. That is the real issue, we all want to defend Mr Cortese because we are all eternally grateful he and Mr Liebherr saved the club but we can't at the same time let that be reason to simply ignore or accept his every decison. No one is perfect and no one gets it right all the time but based on what has been discussed publicly I believe the Echo had every right at first to feel badly treated and not the other way round IMO. What has gone on after that is just childish and it remains unbelieveable an amnesty cannot be found. Regardless of subsequent reports, this club banned the Echo allegedly for not holding back on some positive news for 24 hours that was already being made public and would not look good on the Echo from a perspective of reporting local news or maximising their readership for their advertisers if they had been a day behind other media outlets. This was a good news story and not bad and on the face of it I can't understand Mr Cortese's stance and IMO that makes a free local press even more important. Finally, The Echo are being slated by the majority and no doubt the same majority who passionately idolise Lawrie McMenemy and yet I see he still has a monthly 'feature' column in the paper. Is LM to be ex-comunicated for his continued association with Murray and his paper? Or is LM now a supporter of Rupert as seems to be your fall back argument for anyone who may have a different view to your opinion and ONE decision taken by the club.

They move their head like I was taught to do. Its a burka not a tent.

Quite, drivers will be caught next having sex on their buses.

Good post - if anybody saw the interview with the rep from the fans association who has been given a chance to meet the Premier League on Friday in an attempt to try to find out information on their club , well you couldn't help empathise with him. Seemed a reasonable and worried fan.