dubai_phil

Ouch. I assume then that the nimby moaners have been the ones who bought Delgado, messed up managerial appointments, messed up takeover bids and astonishingly let KJ be sold without a sell-on clause... No my friend, nimby moaners are not the cause of the club's demise. That has been a truly outstanding effort by a succession of "Business Leaders" in the period since May 2003, linked to an outstanding effort to make money from nothing when the reverse takeover occurred. The club is ALREADY dead. This season is like watching the Parrot Sketch on TV. The club's heart was lost ages ago, and fitted with a pacemaker that is now running out of steam. The ONLY thing that will keep it going will be the fans. We've called an ambulance, but it is stuck in the global car crash called the "Global Banking f*ck up". It ain't coming. So in the meantime some of us watch in horror via the equivalent of web cams, whilst the majority of the fans sit around and argue over the diagnosis, and hardly ANY of them are trying to give CPR, because "they can't be bothered" or they are worried they may catch some nasty disease from breathing the fumes. No, the club was pretty much dead long ago, a couple of years of incorrect diagnosis by so called "chosen specialists" have made it terminal. It's the fans that have to keep putting 50p in the meter to keep the Life Support machine going so that MAYBE, just MAYBE a miracle will happen. But you know what, most can't even be bothered to pay out a miserly sum to listen to the death throes on the radio station. Someone must be to blame will be our epitaph and maybe when we finally die, some will try to lighten their souls by using ambulance chasing lawyers to seek legal redress for emotional heartbreak and sue Lowe/Wilde/Crouch/Askham/redKrap etc. Sod all good it will do then

And I must say that rattling one's sabre around some Jenny Foreigners is also an enjoyable past-time

So glad they got one flying again, used to go regularly to Fairford/Boscombe Down/Middle Wallop airshows. Being underneath the Vulcan when it did it's steep climb away always cost a fortune on going to the dentist as the noise and vibrations caused everyone's fillings to drop out. Was lucky enough one year at Fairford to get a photo of a Lancaster lining up on the runway alongside a taxing American Stealth fighter. Still hangs on my wall The Red Arrows come here quite often, there's a great photo of them flying past the Burj al Arab somewhere around the innernet, always makes the chest puff up a bit to see them

Wrong! It will be the big THREE of course. you forgot the richest club in England QPR... :-)

The leveraged debt used to buy Man Utd is apparently attracting an interest rate approaching (or according to the Telegraph ABOVE) 10%. The ever increasing trough of Sky money depends on only TWO critical factors - 1) Competition to Sky for the rights and 2) Income generated from subscriptions and from sale of advertising slots around the games. We are seeing an across the board cutting back by people on what they spend, value is important but they are now starting to spend what they can AFFORD, not what they can get away with borrowing. Pay TV subscription or the Electricity Bill? Anyone in business will know that amongst the first budget to go is the Advertising budget. Value for money, identifiable results and ROI become the watch words instead of "building brand awareness". A double whammy for Sky Setanta have a business model that is highly leveraged and long term, their debt levels may not allow them to increase their bids next time around. How many people have signed up with them? The terrestials aren't going to afford to compete with Sky, leaving probably the Disney owned ESPN as the only competitor. That would be ironic, the PL ends up being funded by Mickey Mouse. If the leveraged buyers of PL clubs don't go down first I think that the concept of not seeing the tv rights value increase by 50% could be the final nail in the "spend and worry later" world that most of the UK population used to live in and the PL still does. The only real issues I diasgree with GM on are 1) whether we actually can get through this season. January becomes critical, with the stark choice being a sale of a Lallana type or admin. 2) whether "regional clubs" will be able to survive outside the large population centres. You don't find the bars in Hong Kong, Dubai, LA, Bangkok exactly full when you only have Bolton v Wigan on the tv, so again, for how long would the "foreign rights" keep going up in value 3) The CL global tv audiences don't like the midweek matches, the games are often on at poor times for the global viewers so the concept of CL at the weekend in order to increse THEIR tv revenue may be the final straw that drags the top four away

BA have been revamping their Business Class cabins and at the same time upgrading their entertainment systems. i went to Miami with them in July, same old squished Jumbo, nothing I could eat as they forgot my special meal but there was plenty of music & movies to watch. Virgin's entertainment is probably about 5% worse than the new BA stuff but BA don't have it on every plane. If you want entertainment and edible food then take a no thrills to Hamburg and fly Emirates (they do Germany-JFK)

Jeez it must have been a great lay..... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7629433.stm Train crushes railway sex couple A couple in South Africa who were having sex on a railway track in Mpumalanga Province have been killed by a goods train, police say. Spokesman Abie Khoabane said it took place on Friday evening and the victims were yet to be identified. He told local newspapers that the couple ignored the driver's shouts as he moved the train into the disused station in Kinross town. "They continued with their business," he told the Sowetan paper. According to South Africa's Beeld newspaper, the area was deserted with no cars or houses nearby. The man died at the scene and the woman died later at hospital, the Sowetan reports. The police have appealed for those with missing relatives to come forward to help with their investigation.

Yep, looking pretty bleak for Spurs & Man U have got to be in turmoil on their fans forums with both clubs facing up to a season long relegation battle. Bet Hull are already looking up to see where their nearest low-cost airline hub is to help them get to all their Champions league matches next year. Will they sack Phil Brown if they only qualify for the UEFA Cup? And what about the sk8te fans, surely they must be up in arms demanding changes at the top and a lack of ambition for becoming a feeder club and only being able to pick up low cost cast-offs

Thanks for that, it's great somebody has finally clarified the solution to the problems. Top Post Out of interest, what would you do at 9:00 am the next day?

I think some closer inspection is needed, one of the Nick's spoke about SLH being handled by a special Barclays recovery team - any idea where they are based? Think we will find that a 28 year old failed investment banker with a degree in accounting aspiring to become a corporate recovery guru working on multi-million dollar deals is now our de facto DoF. A career banker is probably making the decisions to help his career rather than the football club. In one of his (luckily) rare public statements, Rupert did sort of allude to this.

The bloke who washes the cars at the cement works heard a rumour that he may not even be in the country. Sooo - anyone seen him at training lately?

I expect that is irrelevant. It is more likely a case of what do WE have to do to get Barclays bank to ALLOW us to spend 4k on one appearance?..... (and yes I know the obvious riposte to the bank, but do you guys out there expect an ACCOUNTANT to understand!)

But who would pay out something like 30 mil now to buy us when for that money in this recession they could probably buy Bradford & Bingley....... or maybe even an American insurance giant. What we need is somebody who really undertsands our corporate structure to come up with a way of inviting an investor to come in to our operation WITHOUT buying up the shares and WITHOUT diluting shareholder value. It sounds impossible, but IMHO is more likely to be the solution than expecting Crouch & Wilde to lose their overpriced investments. Somehow or another IF they "give the club away" they would need to have SOME hope of getting SOME money back SOMETIME in the future. (If I knew how to do these things I wouldn't be down here, I'd have my own Island in the Carribean!)

Virgin or BA mate. Did AA a few years ago and it was ....... Virgin was funky and the hosties were fun, BA seem to have reached a nadir in their food and interest in serving you, but any flight in cattle class is a good one as long as it lands

Here here. I have lost track of the number of times I have pointed out the fact that in the current economic climate, nobody with any brain cells will take this club over in the traditional manner. I have RSI from typing they should ALL 3 go OR all 3 stay. I have also lost track of saying - stop blaming Lowe for being back, the blame lies with the botched takeover, blame him all you like for what happened before, but then boycotting the club for past evils is like carrying on boycotting Japanese goods because of WWII, good morals but doesn't do YOU any good as a person, in fact you miss out! The club is in a mess, people on here have not found ONE single viable alternative apart from believing JP should have somebody experienced in the CCC around or NP should have stayed. Again, the decision was made but the ONLY way to undo it is to walk up to Rupert and say - OK I'll take over now. It's just nuts. The failure to move Euell, Thomas, Skacel & John means our wage bill is inflated by around 2million pounds a year. Our fans have given up, even IF Rupert gave his shares away for nothing, we'd be left with Wilde & Crouch, who from ALL accounts on here can't afford to lose that money AND haven't exactly covered themselves with glory in their previous spells playing with the train set. Name me ONE experienced Football CEO who has indicated that he (she) has the EXPERIENCE of running a club, the CONTACTS, and the MONEY and WANTS to come in and takeover and I'll join the queue of people lobbying them to come on down - there isn't anyone out there. The UK has bad weather. Saints have the wrong finances and wrong decisions. Unfortunately, at this moment in time neither can be changed, so we HAVE to get cold and wet or get OUT. Exuding hot air and moaning ain't gonna change things. And for the 500 or so people that will be happy to watch an AFC Southampton playing on the common next year, great, but many of us older fans won't be around to see them IF they ever get back in teh Football League, AND what is WORSE, what teams shirts will all those young kids in Southampton, Salisbury, Basingstoke & Winchester et al be wearing while you are standing in the mud and rain holding raffles to buy corner flags. This club is close to dying from apathy and nimby bl**dy moaning. What a dreadful epitaph Here Lies Southampton Football Club, once a noble light for the cause of the underdog, done to death by moaning and apathy, RIP sorely missed by nobody

Russian chicks (real ones, not take-aways)

Shame, I have some mates up there with connections at Donny as well as a gaff to crash in. But of course, I'm stuck here still waiting for the freebie trip I was supposed to do for the Brum & Derby games. sulk Think we'll be short of players but sense a Dunkirk spirit will emerge, should be a good 'un

I recently had a lodger from Jo'burg for a month to help out a friend. She was an ex-teacher who has moved into alternative therapies and healing. This is an area I am interested in as I used Hypnotism & NLP very strongly to drive motivation and behavioural change in employees and customers (works well on chicks in the pub btw peeps) Anyway , she did some of that looking ahead stuff, i was hoping for the Euromillions numbers, but apparently i am going towin some big contract in October And we ARE going to be taken over, almost certainly on a Friday and most probably in April 2009 She may have something there

What would it take for Rupert to sell up? Baldrick. The answer is so simple I'm amazed we keep missing it. We're broke and in debt up to our eyeballs The Shareholders are not all personally able to take a 100% write down on their shares Nobody would buy the club and pay the share price The club needs investment but it is in reality already too late for this season for anything other than survival, so the money needed is more than it was to mount a promotion campaign So my dear Watson, the answer is simple. When you have explored all that is possible, then the impossible is the only answer. We're missing something, a sleight of hand, a forgotten reply to a post on TSF. It may be X Files land but the truth is out there, we just don't have enough details to go on yet Is there another way? Yes, we need a cunning plan hmmmmmm

hmmmm Now there is an idea. Take the 10 point hit, liquidate, set up a shell company, buy the stadium at 10p in the pound, have a 32,000 seat stadium free of charge, build a long term develop youngsters to trade and play our way back up the league... Except it isn't quite that easy, i'm sure the magic word mortgage means they would be a preferred creditor not in the queue and as it is a charge they can decide who they sell it to - so probably would set up their own shell company and charge us 3mil a year rent and stop us ever having enough money to get back up again. We keyboard warrior analysts see the world in black and white. I wonder if there are more greys around than we think.... So do the shareholders only want their money out or have they over time (like in an arranged marriage) sort of developed some feelings for their "life" partner. Could be interesting More to come methinks and it ain't gonna be the way I, or a Steward's mate sees it that's for sure

hmmmm Benji outed as ITK?

Back on topic So - Just how many different independent companies does SLH own?

Lowe turns to daytime Electro-House Raves as a means to fill SMS as the Real Ale festival plan is scuppered by our Pouring Rights contract

The system should always fit the players. When England have tried different styles it has tended not to work as it's been the Lampard Gerrard need to do everything bit that pulls it apart. I get bored saying LM did exactly this many years ago. Simple thing this week is we have no choice or players left - especially as Skacel is nowhere to be seen apparently, and there really isn't much else left in the pot to try and play with that "diamond" 4 up front. Good grief - coach has again been shown to have common sense shocker More worryingly - hope our "much needed motivational cup run" doesn't 1) bring more injuries or 2) end messily But strangely I think we'll bumble a result out of our two fairy liquid bottles, an empty toilet roll middle, some brown paper, string and glue 29 players in squad Unavailable: Svensson, Gillett, Lancashire, Thomas, Schniederlin, Holmes, Euell, Pulis, Skacel and we forgot Gasmi (again) leaves 19 fit players, three are keepers jeez we'll have trouble filling the bench at the weekend if we're not careful! (Aren't we supposed to have 7 on the bench in the Carling Cup?)

Yet........... smiley winky thingy (come on it was too good to miss that opp!)