Wes Tender

Yes, you're right; I was a lot slimmer in the summer. But since then, on the proceeds I've been able to dine on foie gras, caviar and truffles washed down with Vintage Krug .

But he wasn't appointed to act in our best interests; he was there to act in the best interests of the creditors. When he almost lost us ML and Cortese, that would not have been acting in the best interests of the fans. For precisely that reason, we as fans are perfectly entitled not to feel any great enthusiasm for Fry getting this award. One almost gets the feeling in retrospect that the end result was despite his involvement rather than because of it. But in the words of the immortal Bard and via some Macchiavellian machinations, "all's well that ends well.

Me too. If people are interested in the goings on from an historical perspective, I still have not been convinced as to the propriety of the other Fry from Barclays, the one responsible for pulling the plug on us, then being appointed by Begbies Traynor. As far as I'm aware, in all probability somebody at his level of executive seniority in an organisation like Barclays would have to serve at least 3 months notice, thus putting him in the time frame for having applied to work for the very administrators who were awarded the contract for dealing with the club as a result of his actions whilst at Barclays. On the other hand, I must say that I'll be forever grateful that he did pull the plug on the board, as I loathed and detested Lowe and Askham and their cronies. All that rankles is the timing that prevented us avoiding the ten point deduction. Otherwise, the deduction is a small price to pay to rid us of all that dross, even if it means that we have to spend an extra season in this division. But even that scenario becomes less likely with each week that passes.

Lincoln extend Pulis loan until January. Yay! And if they pay more than 3/6p for him, they can have him. Seems as if he has finally found his real level.

Dyer was a player who promised much but delivered little. He may have been rumoured to have even more pace than Walcott, but pace is nothing without the ability to do something great with the ball. Dyer is not fit to lace Walcott's boots. As already pointed out, fast as he was, he was lightweight too and Antonio is a far better prospect. Add in the factor of his criminal tendencies and who would want him at our club anyway? When we were skint, playing the kids in the first team, he and B-WP looked like players that we would feel sorry about losing, but a few short months later, you couldn't really make out a case of wanting to sign either of them if they were available and had never been here before. What we have now in a lower division is superior and Dyer wouldn't find his way into the team against either Antonio or Waigo.

I was a small shareholder along with my son, just a token thing, really. But your point is a valid one, I think. As far as I am concerned and I'm certain that somebody will put me right on this, the administrator surely has a duty to notify every shareholder, no matter how small, what the position is with their shareholding. I have not heard a dicky bird. I don't really care about the shares, as I would gladly pay three times the amount if it meant that we had Markus Liebherr owning us, but I wonder whether correct procedures have been followed.

What a peculiar set of circumstances and I don't know whether Pardew deserves credit for masterly strategy or not. Having read an article stating that he was going to field a 4-5-1 formation, (presumably to wrong-foot BRs), we started with a 4-4-2. BRs started with a 4-5-1, although they were the home team, but their exra man in midfield stifled the game in the first half. In the second half though, the quality of our team showed through and what a striker Connolly is, when BRs thought that Lambert was the main threat. And what a contribution from young Antonio, responsible for a great assist and a solo effort starting from the halfway line, showing a maturity and a growing confidence that almost makes his signing in January an imperative. But what was Pardew doing when we were 3-0 up? BRs could easily have evened it up and be pressing for the winner by the end of the game. I can understand putting Wotton on in his role in front of the back four, but we still needed to keep Rovers on the back foot instead of inviting them on to us. And why couldn't Waigo have come on when Antonio went off, to keep some pace and width? Presumably Harding went off to prevent two yellows, but Gobern at LB seems to be a mistake, especially as he immediately gained a yellow himself and then gave away the penalty. Mills at LB might have been better and perhaps Holmes in front of him. But still, as somebody else said, perhaps it was beneficial to learn something from it, whereas we would not have learned lessons had it remained 3-0. We gained our revenge by reversing the last scoreline when we played them comparitively recently. We also learned a little about closing out a match in the final few minutes. Progress continues with the graph still showing an upward trend. Long may it continue, especially given the extra confidence boost that the team will have received.

I'd like to challenge for the snob post of the year. Tattoos might be in vogue for a impressionable sector of the market and if a pile of bricks laid out in a certain pattern, a dead sheep in a glass case of formaldehyde or an unmade and stain-ridden bed can be considered as art, then arguably so can these tattoos. But then fashion is fickle and is prone to change constantly. There might well come a time when tattoos become passe and those sporting them seen to be as much an anachronism as somebody strolling around town wearing flared hipsters, an Astrakhan coat, beads and flowers in their hair, vintage late 60s. As it is, a large proportion of society rightly or wrongly make their own judgments on those with tattoos, piercings, shaven heads and other outward appearance trends adopted by those who think that they are rebellious, when in fact they are are like sheep. Many have them done because they slavishly follow their idols, people like Beckham and Robbie Williams. Others undoubtedly have them because of peer group pressure, or because they think that they make them look hard. Few things make a woman look less attractive than visible tattoos everywhere. Skatesville is full of tattooed women, which just goes to reinforce the impression of it as a deprived area full of pikey chavs, graffiti on the walls and people actually wearing it too.

I think that if I recall correctly, the season before we drew against them at the Dell 2-2. Then followed this 3-1, then the 6-3, then 1-0, meaning that they only got one point from us in 4 matches here.

Such fun in town for weeks afterwards, deliberately bumping into United fans wearing that strip and telling them, sorry, I didn't see you.

Excuse my levity, Saint Lard. You're absolutely right about how the thread has been hijacked.

I've spent the past couple of hours reading what isn't written and I must say that I'm a wiser and better person as a result. The thing is though, if we're not to write anything and people will read what we haven't written, can we expect them to cough up a fiver for the privilege?

Well said, Lee. I would have liked to have attended, but couldn't. I would love to hear a report on the evening from anybody who attended, as I'm sure others would too.

Was I applying for an invite? I said that if I were invited. But it doesn't sound so appetising now, as you will apparently be grilling the food at the table, gruel is on the menu it will be hard to keep it down .

When I was just a little nipper, I can remember being aware as a schoolboy of several clubs who were big then, but whose stars have waned. Clubs like Sheffield Wednesday, Bolton Wanderers, Tottenham Hotspur, Burnley, etc, had good followings many years ago and were popular because either they had one or other of the star footballers of the day, or a great manager. Liverpool or Chelsea weren't that high up in the hierarchy until more recent times and their fortunes improved with the appointment of brilliant managers. To a certain extent a successful club attracts successful players, but in Liverpool's case, their upward spiral began with Bill Shankly. Manchester United really became much better followed when they attracted a lot of sympathetic support after the Munich Air disaster which wiped out the Busby Babes and Busby was capable of producing another good team afterwards. Other clubs' fortunes have improved immeasurably with the arrival of a great manager, like Clough at Nottingham Forest and Derby, Don Revie at Leeds, Docherty at Chelsea, Robson at Ipswich, etc. Currently, Ferguson keeps United right up there, as does Wenger at Arsenal. Liverpool are a bit wobbly at the moment and if Benitez fails, then their big name should attract the best managers available, in much the same way that Abramovich's billions can attract the best managers and players at Chelsea. Manchester City have the wealth and have bought the players, but Sparky isn't in the same league for me as the current managers of the top four. There is potential for a change to the natural order, though. How would Man Ure fare under another manager when Ferguson hangs up his boots? Where would their plastic fans go if they were only mid-table? The same with Arsenal when Wenger retires or leaves. Perhaps there is a great manager out there now, currently learning his trade, but who could yet prove to be the equal of a Ferguson, Wenger, Robson or a Clough and who comes to be our manager. Provided that there is no change of heart from Markus and Cortese, we are set up very nicely for such a manager to blossom here. If we have an ambitious and visionary manager, bring through talented youngsters from a re-invigorated Academy and keep the best of them here, are able to cherry-pick some of the other best players around, we can grow our support. We can then expand and develop our ground and become altogether a much bigger fish than we are currently. But things are very much different now than they were thirty years ago, as the game is very much shown to a World audience because of the media coverage and money. There are certainly opportunities to derive income and a following overseas, as there aren't the traditional loyalties there and it becomes a marketing exercise, something that I am confident that Messrs Liebherr and Cortese do have some expertise in. In the same way that we appear to have bottomed out and are now rising, other clubs at the top might have peaked and are due to begin a decline.

I don't see that as problem for two reasons. Firstly, although not a very big city, at least we do not have two or three clubs here. The nearest rival in the top flight are the Skates and they will probably be back in the second or third division when we are back in the Premiership. We have a huge catchment area south of London and if we were towards the top of the Premiership and from time to time giving the top four a bloody nose, then we would attract a big following in the South and South-West. Secondly, we would start to pick up the support of plastics from around the World if we marketed ourselves properly. You only have to travel to the Far East to see all the Chelsea shirts that have suddenly appeared since Abramovich turned up, whereas they weren't much on the radar before out there. Sometimes it's cool to support the new kid on the block as a plastic and if we were in the top ten again and beating the top four occasionally, our fanbase abroad would grow quite a bit. We could always help that along the way by signing the odd Chinese, Korean, Japanese of Thai player.

You could well be right that with the prowess that Pearson has, his ability to command respect from his players and his undoubtedly good man-management skills, if anybody could polish the turd that is Marlon King, it would be him. The difference is that I can argue that point and it is a topic that could be debated, whereas you meant it either as a joke or ironically and with everybody knowing on here in what high esteem you hold Pearson, most would just consider that you were on a wind-up. So in the absence of any smiley, are we to take you seriously, or assume that you were attempting irony? Before smilies, posters typed LOL or some other explanation. I'm sure that either will suffice for those who do not easily know whether you are trying to be serious, or attempting to be funny. I agree that otherwise we are not far apart on most things, but if I received a dinner invitation, it would have to be strictly on the basis that MLT, Crouch, McMenemy and Lowe were taboo subjects. If that left you enough other conversational matters to discuss, then it could make for an interesting evening.:smt029

Bring back the Saintettes, I say.

Yes, apparently Nineteen called Pearson a rogue manager on another thread and is yet to attempt to substantiate that allegation, despite being requested politely to do so. Unfortunately that thread is closed, so I'm sure that he will be delighted to regale us with an explanation on this thread instead.

Once-Bitter was making his predictions based on previous experiences, which you say is the basis for most predictions. But it is precisely that aspect of things that I take issue with. Intelligent prediction must also factor in changed circumstances affecting the current situation. I did not make any predictions as far as I am aware, but merely pointed out that there is a possibility that because our financial circumstances had changed immeasurably in the past few months, there was no longer the absolute certainty that we would be forced to sell players if we did not want to, just because a bigger club made an offer. I qualified my opinion by saying that if the player wanted to leave, it was better that he went, but if the player did not want to go and we wanted to keep him, we could do so. When we are in the Premiership, we ought to be able to keep most players here if they are happy here and even if one of the big four came in for a player, it may be probable that the player goes, but it is not set in concrete as a certainty. That player might reason that he would rather play first team football with us rather than reserves football for the other club, as I suggested. Anyway, by the time we are back in the Premiership, as others have pointed out, the big four might have left for a super European League. Who knows with any certainty?

You are talking about a situation well in the future where unless you have a crystal ball, you cannot make that prediction. Your thoughts might well have been so preconditioned by your past experiences of following this club, that it has rendered you incapable of accepting some other possible scenarios. It is NOT 100% certain in the future that any player will leave if one of the big four come knocking on our door. Granted that if a player wishes to leave then there is little that the club could do to prevent him leaving, but on the other hand, we are in a position for perhaps the first time in our history to be able to turn down initial approaches for our players if we wish to keep them. We can put silly valuations on them and then the prospective purchaser will either go away, or pay silly money. We have a situation that players will join the academy, be trained by our staff, the better players progressing to play in the first team. We will be able to offer them comparable wages to most other clubs if the player is worth it. That player might well then decide to stay here because he is settled here, has friends and family nearby, likes the way that he has been treated by the club, has a future here. The lesson has already been learned by others that often they might earn better money elsewhere, but spend their time warming the substitues bench, or play in the reserves. This is a serious statement of intent by Cortese that things will be changing and that we intend to keep the cream of our academy graduates for ourselves. It is a very welcome development and I look forward to it bearing fruit in the next five years or so, by which time we will hopefully be back in the Premiership.

Caught me out? How? I said that I'd take the bait, so most would say that I was totally aware that you were fishing. But presumably you have no explanation to justify why you called Pearson a rogue manager. As usual, all p*ss and wind. Unless of course you can come up with an intelligent reason for saying that. If you cannot, then what was the point in saying it? It just makes you look stupid.

It wasn't neglected; it was merely that all of the academy players were playing for the first team.

And yet again....I'd stop digging if I were you. Why don't you ask Alpine, as he's the only person who knows whether he would have still asked the questions. Nobody else is qualified to make an opinion on that, although you obviously consider yourself an expert and if anybody disagrees with your views, they are naive.

Wrong. The second goal might have been soft, but the first was unstoppable and their player showed great bravery at attempting it and had to be substituted because of his injury.