stevegrant

I read on Football Ground Guide that the police had instructed pubs not to allow away fans into any pub anywhere near the ground. Whether they've extended that to the city centre as well, I don't know. Certainly, by the look of the layout of the away section outside the ground (with fences segregating it from the home sections either side), it seemed to me to be the "normal" thing for away fans to be penned in there. Surely those minibuses would have been independently hired as well? (the travel club would have gone direct to the ground anyway as usual) We stopped off at a pub just outside Bridgend as one of the lads organising the coach had been told about the "procedure" the police were likely to employ.

The only reason for the group stages in both the Champions (and second, third and fourth placed teams) League and the UEFA Cup is money. Simple as. If UEFA were at all interested in making the competition competitive, they'd scrap the group stages and have both cups as straight two-legged knockout competitions just like in the old days.

One important point to note from the whole "why aren't the banks passing on the interest rate cut to the consumer" debate: Only a couple of weeks ago, the banks were getting slated for lending too much too cheaply in recent years, which has contributed to the "credit crunch" period we're now going through. Now they're getting slated for making a more realistic assessment of the lending risk which involves not passing all of the 1.5% base rate reduction. Surely we can't have it both ways?

If they treat all coaches/minibuses the same then I don't have a particular problem with it (the coach I was on was also subjected to it). The police in Swansea have come up with this fairly draconian method of dealing with away coaches/minibuses presumably with the intention of reducing the number of public order problems. While, as I say, it seems fairly draconian, if it achieves their aim(s) then they'll see it as a good job well done.

My favourite is Milkybar and custard. Bloody lovely.

A huge amount of NR's customer base would fall into the "sub-prime" and "over-extended" brackets. When I was first getting on the property ladder, they were offering me up to 125% of the value of the property at the age of 22. With those sort of deals floating around all over the place at the time, it's hardly surprising loads of people are struggling to afford to either repay or to move elsewhere because they're now in massive negative equity (and of course many of those people will have taken out interest-only mortgages in the misguided belief that house prices would never fall). I eventually went for a similar offer with Coventry BS. In hindsight, a good decision!!

I spoke to Leighton Mitchell about this this morning. Essentially it's not about not being bothered or not believing they'd raise much money etc. It comes down to not having the staff to run it. Because they have alway run the auction in-house, that basically means that at least one member of staff has to be dedicated to running it from an administrative point of view. That person has to continually check each of the auctions for rogue bids (of which there are many more than genuine ones, sadly), field various queries relating to the auctions, and then attempt to contact the winning bidders to arrange payment and postage/collection. I know that ebay offer discounts/refunds on listings that donate a portion (or all) of the proceeds to charity, so I have suggested that it could still be run through that with very little administrative or financial burden. I'm waiting to hear back on that idea... It's worth pointing out that the vast majority of other clubs don't do anything like this, and apparently SFC has raised the most money for the RBL in the last 3 years (more than £20k) out of all of the Premier League and Football League clubs.

Likewise, although only for another 3 years. However, I'm not too fussed. I know exactly what I'm going to be paying on my mortgage for that time, and don't have to adjust my spending habits accordingly.

Also, I suspect any sell-on clause would be based on any profit made on the transfer. If Bridge does move to Man City for the reported £7m, that's the same price that we sold at, therefore zero profit.

Should be sorted. Also, the FA Cup league starts this week - all of the Round 1 fixtures are available.

Celtic do seem to have this remarkable ability to raise their game significantly on big European nights, although only at home by the look of their Champions League record (0 wins and 1 draw in 16 games )! It's not even just the big boys... even the likes of West Brom, Fulham, Bolton, etc, who struggle to score goals at that level don't seem to have even taken a passing glance at him, which is quite surprising. He may yet make it at Premier League level, but I think the right decision was made at the time to release him.

I think the issue at the time was that where we were a fairly comfortably-in-midtable Premier League side, Strachan probably felt that he could do without his attitude when his ability didn't yet match those of the first team, particularly when a proven player arguably with at least twice his ability could be (and was) bought for £3.25m. I certainly saw nothing when he was on our books to suggest that he was as good as what we already had in the first team, nor that he had the desire to improve his game so he would be at that level. It seems he has improved a fair amount, but I still don't see many English Premier League clubs linked with him. While he's scoring loads in the SPL, it's a completely different kettle of fish to the top flight in this country.

I think PayPal's subscriptions are fixed at the amount set when the subscription is created. If we were to change the price (which I'd think is very unlikely given the amount of extra work that it would then entail), we would contact all subscribers and cancel the PayPal subscription (but obviously not the forum one!) so they wouldn't be automatically charged an incorrect amount. Currently there is no mechanism within the forum software to notify users when their subscription is about to expire. However, one of the modifications we'll be adding tonight is that very functionality.

Emile Mpenza?! Now THERE'S a fall from grace! Folly has played a few games this season, but none since the end of September, so it's possible he may have been using the game as a fitness exercise after an injury rather than having been dropped.

Fulham have a proven Premier League goalscorer, Sunderland don't.

It's going to be really wide open this season, I think. At the start of the season, everyone was expecting the three promoted sides to go straight back down. However, Hull have already got half the points they need to stay up and Stoke's home form is excellent (and still nobody seems capable of stopping the Delap throw-in tactic!). West Brom, who most people probably expected to be the most competitive have actually been the opposite, and have struggled to score goals so far while not being good enough at the back to keep enough clean sheets. Spurs and Newcastle have had dreadful starts but with the players at their disposal you'd expect them to be out of trouble eventually. Fulham and Bolton continue to struggle, particularly in front of goal. Neither side have conceded many, but if you don't score goals, you don't win games. Wigan have played well for most of the season and have got the find of the season in Amr Zaki, but somehow they found themselves in the bottom three before Saturday (and would be bottom now but for Heskey's last minute winner at Fratton Park). I have doubts over whether Steve Bruce is the right man to keep Wigan out of trouble, particularly when he keeps picking Titus Bramble... Sunderland have spent a fortune but are still rubbish, yet barely anybody in the media is questioning Roy Keane's managerial ability or his judge of a player's ability/value. Blackburn aren't the force they were last season and both Pompey and West Ham look as though they'll be conducting a bargain basement "everything must go" sale in January, so it's going to be very very tight. For what it's worth, my prediction: 1. Chelsea 2. Liverpool 3. ManYoo 4. Arsenal 5. Aston Villa 6. Man City 7. Everton 8. Tottenham 9. Blackburn 10. Middlesbrough 11. Newcastle 12. Hull 13. West Ham 14. Pompey 15. Wigan 16. Fulham 17. Stoke 18. Sunderland 19. West Brom 20. Bolton So Pompey will be safe, but I think the margin between 12th and 18th will be in single figures.

"And a great source of Omega 3"

This is my main problem. Found that having done some "right-clicking" by using Ctrl+click to pick my team, I was then completely unable to click continue, so gave up. I've said it before and I'll say it again... when are Sports Interactive going to actually go through a proper and thorough testing cycle? Even a basic testing cycle would have found the vast majority of these issues, and I'm sure they didn't release the demo knowing that there were such fundamental errors within the code. They cannot afford to rely on the goodwill of the community of users for much longer as they will simply, like me, get fed up with doing their job for them. At the moment, I won't be buying FM09.

Despite having a ridiculously good week or so, Spurs will be bottom of the table again tonight...

That's one way of doing it, I guess, but even then if someone was particularly interested in seeing what was on there they could probably piece it together. As well as battering the hell out of it, I'd suggest at least formatting it before doing so. I have a feeling that formatting, while it appears to wipe everything, still retains some sort of fingerprinting from its previous states. Someone with more hardware knowledge will probably be able to confirm/deny that...

Although a slight inaccuracy in my comment as we were 3-1 down, not 2-0.

Last time we won when 2-0 down in any game was against Fulham in October 2002 when we won 4-2 (Beattie hat-trick + Ormerod). Last time we won when 2-0 down away from home, I think, was the epic 5-4 win at Norwich in April 1994!

I'm sure a £45 "fine" will really hurt them.

I'd expect the likes of Chelsea and Pompey to hoover up a fair amount of the local young talent at the moment, so you're right in saying that our league position will cost us a fair bit in terms of the talent available, although when the **** inevitably hits the fan down the road they'll be in an even worse situation than us and without the "giving youth a chance" reputation that we've established. Speaking of Ajax, one thing that astounded me when I was watching their game against Villa recently was the "expert" co-commentator (can't remember who it was - might have been Chris Waddle) said he couldn't understand Ajax's long-term strategy of bringing countless technically-gifted players through the youth ranks in order to blood them in the first team and then sell them on for big money. It seems as though some people in football still don't have any appreciation of the real world, even when they've been out of the Premier League bubble for a number of years.

Also, Bolton's defence isn't really much of a problem for them. They've only conceded 13 goals in 11 league games this season, which isn't too bad. Their problem has been scoring goals, they've only scored 10 so far.