Wes Tender

So what do you think is going to happen in Eastleigh at the next general election, Andy? They have one of the party's high-flyers here and one who achieved ministerial status under this coalition. Surely he'll be certain to buck the trend nationally and greatly increase his majority, a man of his upright probity and high-moral fibre.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/pompey/pompey-past/appleton-s-pompey-work-wins-admiration-of-rivals-1-4304151 After all, this would be the pinnacle of their careers, wouldn't it? Forget that they're in the lower echelons of the third division, in administration, facing a further 10 point deduction, likely to be relegated to the fourth division if they're lucky enough to escape liquidation, only allowed to sign players on monthly contracts, etc. This is a giant club with British Football's greatest supporters. They are an iconic brand with a glorious history, superb facilities and infrastructure, a sleeping giant. Any manager would give his right arm to manage them. There would be a queue of them right around that state of the art stadium of theirs applying for the post, were Appy to depart :lol:

I agree. The arrogant multi-Jaguar owning Labour toff got everything he deserved.

There is an easy solution to this, but it requires the cooperation of many. Pay in cash, but in piffling small amounts of coin and change, rather than in big denomination notes. At some stage a poor minion will have to trudge to the bank with a heavy bag full of coins and the message will soon filter through.

Although nice to have a 20 goal a season man in the team, what is equally important is the number of goals scored by the team. Recently we have been a team with goals coming from all over the pitch, even our CBs and backs. We are blessed with several players currently who could add plenty of goals this season.

Yes, a good article, but apparently according to the comment underneath, this author seems to have held the opinion previously that Lambert would not make it in the Premiership. If that were the case, it would have been nice to have him acknowledge that he himself has to eat humble pie for being wrong.

Yes, I took on board that you said "implication", but then you clearly made up your mind that he had lied, because you didn't want people "like him" running "your" country. I didn't see you qualify your statement by saying "if he has lied". So you maintain that the main reason why the press are going with the story is because Mitchell used the word "Pleb" to describe the Policeman and that word demonstrates his disdain for the ordinary people who are not of his social class? The swearing is not in the news because thankfully we have not yet reached the stage in broadcast news, or reported news in the papers where such expletives are printed verbatim. Personally, I would be more disappointed at the use of such industrial language from an MP, rather than a really quite mild insult such as "pleb," but as I say, that is what came to his mind in the heat of the moment because of his background socially and his education. But that sort of background and education is not exclusively a Tory thing; the other two major parties have several MPs at the top including their leaders, who have similar backgrounds and would probably use similar terminology. Don't I recall Gordon Brown being in a similar situation when he expressed an opinion on one of his party's helpers during the last election? And your analogy that an Admiral wouldn't use similar language towards a guard on gate duty tells me that you don't know much about the Royal Navy.

Mitchell made a bad mistake using the word "pleb", as you say. Had he called the policeman a "c*nt", he would demonstrate that he is one of the masses and they would have accepted him as "one of us". So it was unfortunate for him that because of his upbringing and the education he received, that in the heat of the moment he reacted in line with what came naturally to his mind. All of our politicians should be educated in the public sector, so that when they cuss and swear at anybody that annoys them, they use the language of the common man. But it is gratifying that you have conclusive proof that Mitchell had lied and that therefore you are able to establish that you don't want people like that running your country. Excuse me for being a bit blase about this mountain out of a molehill situation, because I feel that not only are most of our elected politicians capable of such incidents at some time in their careers, regardless of which party they represent, or whatever their background or education was, but neither are the Police force totally and utterly lily-white. At least the electorate have the power to remove any politician they dislike.

What a load of fuss and hot air about an MP getting a bit frustrated and venting a bit of hot air. As for trying to make a connection between this little incident and claiming that it is insensitive in the light of the murder of those two constables, that is pathetic. Sometimes Police officers do act like prats/plebs/jobsworths, etc. Is nobody allowed to voice an opinion on that without being accused of insensitivity towards some totally unassociated incident? And how ironic that the Lib Dems are getting all precious about it. Yes, the issue of whether Mitchell lied or not is a serious one, mainly on the point of us expecting basic honesty from our politicians, (haha) but as far as I'm aware, no crime has been committed. This isn't like their party's MP being accused of lying to avoid criminal prosecution for a driving offence and chargeable with perverting the course of justice if found guilty in October.

I was going to suggest that dad takes little nipper along the M27 to make his first game a Premiership one, as a special treat. He can dress it up as going to watch his Skate hero James Ward-Prowse and to see where his other Skate hero Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain began his professional career. If dad truly loves his son, he'd surely make that little sacrifice to make him happy, wouldn't he?

Left Sky and switched to Virgin on a matter of principle, because Sky don't treat their customers well. Divorced 9 years and yet they still sent stuff to my home addressed to my ex, although I have the Sky equipment here and it has been me paying the direct debit. The contract was in her name, so although all of the utility people happily changed the account info after my divorce just on my say so, Sky wouldn't do it, quoting the data protection act as the reason. (Bloody ironic Sky getting all precious about the DPA, when they are up before the beak for breaches of the DPA, hacking a murdered girl's phone) So anyway, to overcome the DPA, my ex gives them written permission to change the contract into my name, but they still won't budge, stating that she will have to cancel and then they will make me a secondary account. I threatened to switch away to Virgin, but they still won't budge, so I cancel the direct debit and they've lost the business over a small issue they didn't wish to resolve amicably. Now they've written to my ex at my house saying that there is an installment outstanding. I've had the greatest pleasure telling them that it's nothing to do with me; the contract was with my ex-wife and she hasn't lived here for years. Take it up with her.

Sometimes the are OK, but sometimes they act like plebs.

Taken from the News:- What the f*ck has this all have to do with Parliament? Are the football authorities not the governing bodies of what is effectively a private members' club? If she and her Parliamentary colleagues wished to do something useful where Football and matters of administration were concerned, why doesn't she campaign for Parliament to make the priority payments to footballing creditors over non-secured creditors illegal? She could assist her husband and make HMRC a priority payee ahead of wealthy footballers too. Anyway, what qualifies her to assess the administrator's conclusions as to how the best interests of the creditors will be served. Does she not realise what Chainrai's position is as a main creditor? Are his interests to be ignored?

It takes a particularly gormless type of idiot to base their opinions on the fact that last year we played in the Championship, do not have a complete squad of players with Premiership experience, therefore we must be crap. This sort of position ignores several pertinent points which would be obvious to somebody with either more intelligence, or somebody more knowledgeable about football.Those posters will have considered the following:- Adkins is a good manager, having a career record of promotion success, both with Scun thorpe and Saints. Therefore clearly he is no mug when it comes to selecting a team and getting them to win games. We are no longer the Premier division paupers we used to be. If it is possible to imagine the Harry Enfield Brummie character, but in an Hampshire diallect, "We are considerably richer than you." You should accept that as financial muscle is something we now possess, do they really conclude that we are incapable of buying players who will be effective in this division? The purchase of Ramirez ought to highlight our ambition. Ignorant fans make their judgements on the strength of four matches and our position at the bottom of the table. We're obviously relegation fodder. The more sensible observers like the pundits, assess our future prospects on who those matches were played against and how we played them. Nothing was realistically expected of us as a newly promoted side when we had the three top teams in the Premiership amongst our early fixtures. But we gained respect from those pundits when we went 2-1 against City and United. This should have been taken into account by those who wrote us off. We were capable of scoring goals, even against the some of the most expensive and experienced defenders in European football. We have a Championship team comprising Championship players? This is something that seems to have escaped fans of other teams, that although we have retained some players from the third division, those are players who like Lambert have the ability to play at any level, or else they are youngsters with the promise to make it at the highest level, such as Lallana. Just recently, there have been claims from rival fans that not one single player from our team would get into their first teams. This even from Flyer of QPR. :lol: Apart from the very top glory teams like Chelski and Man City / United, this is debatable. At least three of our players look capable of walking into most other teams; Ramirez, Lambert and Lallana. One or two others would walk into several Premiership clubs' teams and some promising youngsters like J-WP and Shaw will soon come into the category of being able to walk into even the top teams, as they are already watching them. We ought to make the most of this underestimation of our potential prowess. It obviously suits us and long may it continue. The longer it continues that rival fans take this position, the funnier it will be as we rack up wins against more and more of them.

It's a shame that throughout the match yesterday, when we were defending our goal, we never had a player upfield, which would have required a couple of Villa defenders on him. Mayuka is just the player to utilise in that way. His blistering pace would mean that any ball cleared towards him on the halfway line and he would be straight through on goal. He'd only have to finish a couple of goals with finesse from this sort of position for defences to be sh*tting themselves if he was left upfield when we were defending our goal.

He'll get 20 at least. There'll be a smattering of penalties in that figure, as we have some very tricky players who will get into the box and cause problems for some defences.

The problem is that your definition of what constitutes a professional is not black and white. The professional footballer is defined as such because he receives a salary from his club and other bonuses from them based on performance. Outside of that, there are other financial rewards such as image rights and other commercial payments. This is perfectly normal and acceptable. But by the definition of a player being "professional", then certain standards of endeavour are expected from him. If he needs to gain additional incentives to play to the best of his ability from a rival club, then it can be argued that he is not a model professional.

A very good point. And you don't have to look very far to have a perfect illustration of this in action. Last season, we're tightening up on grip on the division, with Reading also putting in a late run. West Ham seem to be destined for the lottery of the play-offs. Their position would be further jeopardised if the Skates were to be liquidated and their points re-distributed, putting us and Reading even further ahead of them. So what do they do? Pay a ridiculously inflated sum to the Skates for their goalkeeper on loan for a few weeks, even though they didn't need him at the time. So the Skates survive with this additional money from West Ham and West Ham gain an advantage through laying out some money. This is just as morally reprehensible as the scenario being discussed on this thread. Nobody can reasonably justify either case and anybody who attempts to do so just shows that their own moral code is also open to question.

Will he also be removing Hayling Island? Where will Storrie live then?

And so is corruption in football and life generally. So because it is more widespread in europe, then it ought to be OK over here, eh? The position of a team in the table is already incentivised financially, because they make more money the higher up the table they are. The top teams have the additional incentive of either European football, or promotion. The bottom teams have the incentive of avoiding relegation and the resultant loss of income. The football authorities are able to punish clubs who in their opinion do not field their strongest teams. So pray do tell how this would be regulated, if indeed you would want it regulated? Should a rival team be required to state the payment they have made to another club? Or is it to be just a gamble, unregulated between the two clubs? And what happens when a club has laid out lots of dosh for another team to play to their utmost against one of their rivals and then get tonked? Let's say for example that it is the end of the season and we are bottom with nothing to play for. Manchester United need us to get a result against Arsenal to become champions, so agree to pay us a significant sum to beat them. Then we get thrashed 6-1. If this payments system is common practice, therefore deemed to be acceptable, then what about the ensuing recriminations and legal implications when one club sues another for breach of contract, or whatever it might constitute? The other factor making it an even more morally reprehensible scenario, is the unfairness of the wealthier teams being able to further influence the league positions, beyond their current ability to do so based on their ability to buy the best quality players.

I don't know. But there is a vast difference between a player betting on his own team to win and the people owning a team being "incentivised" to win by another rival team which has a financial reward because of a match result. As I say, morally there is not a huge gap being a team being paid to win by another team and being paid to lose by them.

You had better tell the FA and the Premierhip hierarchy to get a grip then. How can the governing bodies of football get it so wrong, eh?

Agree 100%. And anybody who tries to justify it should realise that if that is acceptable, paying another rival team to win a match is not that far morally from paying another team to lose. They are just two sides of the same coin. It is easily arguable that these so-called win bonuses if paid by a rival team are nothing more than a bribe. But the FA and the Premier League have rules about this sort of thing, thankfully, so no doubt they have marked his card and will be watching him closely.

I think you barca up da wrong tree

Here's another one:- http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/southampton-transfer-news-rhys-williams-1285965 Whatever happened there? Comments say that it was a load of rubbish, because the player would be out injured for months. I didn't follow the posts on this one on here at the time. So did Nixon's insider source correctly tell him that Adkins was after a player to sign before the window closed, even though he was out for months injured? And what's this "twitter" thing you mention?