Wes Tender

So just to precis your reply on whether MLT fabricated any of those names, you have absolutely no evidence at all, so you make yourself look ridiculous for suggesting it. You are entitled to comment on whether the 40 pages ought to be there, but nothing else. Can we believe anything you say, with your multiple personalities? As for whether MLT is suspended by Sky, who knows? I'm sure all will become clear soon enough, so what is the point of guessing?

Ah! Good evening, 19. Care to answer the question I asked about whether you have any grounds to substantiate your assertion that some of the messages at the back of MLT's book were fabricated?

18 pages and still going strong. It just goes to show the stupidity of placing those original threads in the Lounge, but thankfully this one was worded a little differently and survived. It's now coming nicely to the boil. I wonder whether anybody who voted earlier that they would rather be in the Skates' shoes would change their mind now? Mind you, apparently even some of the Skates won't be in their shoes either.

Mercedes?

Well, those contributors to their fans' forums were obviously not your pupils. Unless you taught some other subject other than English, that is.:smt036

With respect, I took the trouble with certain others to actually go to see the guy responsible for all this on Eastleigh Borough Council. I therefore can say with certainty what they would have found acceptable and what not. The list of acceptable things is as I have stated it and the two things that were not acceptable were the massive out of town shopping one mile away from the town centre and the multiplex cinema complex, as that was already earmarked for the Swan Centre. Why would we not have liked the position? It was perfectly placed with motorway, rail and air links adjacent to it. As you say, as it stood at the time anyway, it was the only option until SCC bailed Lowe out with land that was originally designated for social housing at St Mary's. As I say, we eventually proceeded with the stadium at St Mary's without any external revenue producers, so to have proceeded with Stoneham with those items I listed would of course have been preferable. Lowe was too bloody-minded to have gone back to EBC and change his mind, or otherwise he had already upset too many on the Council anyway.

Yes, respect for the little snippets you added from time to time. They all came to pass. What is interesting is seeing the change of tone on their fan forums, which have changed from euphoria to rebellion within a short time. There is talk of protests, boasts that we were amateurs when it came to mounting a campaign compared to them. I predict that the fake sheik is in for a right royal roasting tonight and that unless he can bullsh*t them into submission, he will come away from the meeting scarred by the experience.

I agree. The impression that I got was that Fry had pretty well run out of options and that had NC (Nicola Cortese, not Nineteen Canteen)/ML not stuck around, Fry would have been hard pressed to complete the deal. NC/ML saved his bacon as far as I'm concerned, although we did hear rumours of some overseas financial consortium sniffing around. Thank God that ML remained interested.

Thanks for posting that link, Delldays. I haven't stopped laughing yet. You did a great job of winding up the little Gobsh*tes.

One only has to look at the poor way that the sop expresses his thoughts, the poor grammar and spelling to know that he is a typical product of the state education system of Skatesville. Apart from not teaching him those things, either the schools have failed to teach him the elements of comprehension, or the genes that he has inherited from his parents' inbreeding has rendered his brain unable to string together a cogent thought process. Sad, really.

Is this some compulsive obsessive disorder? MLT, Crouch and now the Daily Mail. You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that I might subscribe to the rag.

John is not correct about what he says. You say he is, I say he isn't. Both are our opinions, so you are not entitled to say that he is correct as it is conjecture not provable fact. With regards to the remainder of your post, I must say that I do agree broadly with your comments and like you, I feel that AP is not not under any undue pressure yet. I accept like you do, that there have been several factors that have held us back and that despite those setbacks, real concrete progress has been made and will continue to be made. I have not been this optimistic to the club's future prospects for many years.

As long as there are posters trying to rewrite history as you have attempted, I will repeat my response. It was eminently viable financially, with all sorts of add-ons to help make it so, but just not with the two things that Rupert wanted, which were the only two things that the EBC couldn't realistically allow. When Stoneham collapsed, we went ahead with a new stadium with no external additional revenue streams, so yes, I am entirely happy to advocate that we should have proceeded with Stoneham with a 4* Star hotel, a sports and leisure complex, training grounds, fast food outlets, a night club, bowling alley, ice skating rink, sports shop, any or all of those things included.

If it was a 5 year contract renewed, was there additional investment put in by the brewers? Had the prices crept up before or since the re-signing? If before, did it not occur to the board that an increase in prices woud mean that more fans would drink outside of the ground? The whole thing has been badly managed, typical of those on the board who could not run a whelk stall.

If it's up to me, I vote it ends now!

Was I aggressive? You must have a very thin skin. Is not your response as aggressive? Who are these independantly motivated people of whom you speak? Anybody who is likely to have registered an opinion on this forum or previous incarnations, would have had an opinion polarised either towards or against Lowe and the board. If you choose to ignore historical episodes such as the failure to secure Stoneham, the reverse takeover, constant changing of managers on an annual basis, failure to attract serious investment, etc and feel that the club was well run, then that is your prerogative. Just do not try and make out that it was a widely expressed opinion. Even before 2005 there were wide divisions at the club, which thankfully can now heal with the removal of that bunch of incompetents

Carry on deluding yourself about this is you wish. Most can see vast improvements in the professionalism shown by the current incumbents over those charlatans that presided over club affairs pre-2005.

No they weren't. 1) They were that we were strapped into this lousy contract agreed by the former regime but that when that contract is finished something better would be put in place that offered greater choice and price benefits to the fans. 2) Arrangements would be made to reserve spaces on coaches for disabled people in wheelchairs and a helpful explanation of a new national scheme enabling disabled people to park close to grounds if they could not negotiate public transport.

What an archaic situation that beer pourage contract is. It has already lasted 9/10 years, so when is it going to end? They invested a considerable sum of money in us so have been upping their prices to recoup their investment? So the obvious result is that many fans have no real choice of beer, resent the high pricing and drink outside of the ground instead. What commercial sense does that make? Anyway, why is it the case that when the club went into administration, the contract wasn't void? Surely that contract was with the PLC, not the current owners. Anyway, as you say Alpine, how refreshing it is to have a board that addresses fans' concerns quickly and efficiently. With the other lot, it was all window dressing. I often contacted Lowe on "Tell Rupert" and urged him to resign, but he never obliged.

Somebody's going to post a free copy of the Telegraph through my letterbox? Why would they indulge in such an act of kindness and how would they know my address?

*Yawn*

Just think, it's only about three months since the time when we were due to disappear into oblivion and they were going to be taken over by the obscenely wealthy Arab who had arranged the takeover of Man City. How the Skates laughed at Fialka and and our photocopier salesman, how they enjoyed coming one here and giving it large as to what a Mickey Mouse club we had become. It really has been delicious to have the euphoria of not only being saved, but being taken over by one of the richest owners in British football and simultaneously finding out that the lot down the road have unearthed a genuine 24 carat clown, somebody who might yet make even Lowe look like an astute businessman. If the fake sheik isn't going to spend any dosh in the January transfer window, then they are as good as down now. And the blue few must feel increasing anguish that Storrie teller had somebody else lined up who would have been hard pressed to have been less of a clown than this charlatan Fahim. He has postponed the meeting with the fans' groups and they are now accusing him of chickening out and some are even in their usual eloquent manner calling him to depart thence in a copulatory manner. How ironic that there could even yet be protest marches to the ground from angry fans demanding he leave. Contrast that to our Radio Solent forum fans' meeting which was all sweetness and light, all unity and goodwill. Nothing else to discuss but the footballing issues. How dull our club has become in the scene of things on the South coast!

"We have come into Portsmouth because we see an enormous amount of potential here – if we chose this club ahead of others it was precisely because of that potential," How can he say that they have potential when everything that gave them that, has been sold off? I suppose that in a c*ck-eyed logic, the poorer the squad becomes and the more derelict their old shed becomes, the lower down the divisions they fall, the more potential they will have. And who is this "we" he speaks of? Or is there an Arabian equivalent of the Royal "we" that this Walter Mitty character aspires to?

I agree that it is easy to be critical of the football journalists, as like our views, their views on a player, a manager, or a match are mostly just their opinions. Although the National sports journalists have a duty really to print an impartial view because otherwise they might alienate a portion of their readership, I suspect that most of them do have a favourite team. As with most so called News, it is often not the good news that they prefer to print. They thrive on bad news, the players' bad behaviour, the fan's bad behaviour, stories of managers having affairs on the side, their drinking habits, players having orgies with tarts, etc. But when they are reporting on a match as a neutral, fans of one or other of the teams might not agree with what is said as there is not the bias towards their team that they would like, but when the newspaper is being read by neutrals, then often the journalism is good reporting, requiring skill to put it across well.

What are you going on about? Sometimes your ravings are truly bizarre. I can only surmise that you're sulking because your assertion that Lawrie McMenemy wouldn't be on the radar of the top 100 best British managers and without too much bother I produced a survey that had him at number 27. I also see that you've dodged my invitation to you to explain how that led to your better understanding of me as I would be interested in the insight into your thought processes. At the same time, I note that you have also dodged my invitation on the MLT thread to substantiate your accusation that some of those pages of dedications in his book might have been fabricated. Are you going to claim the 5th amendment on grounds that anything you say might incriminate you, or is it more the case that when you're in a hole it's best to stop digging?