hutch

******. I got about 5 mins commentary in total tonight, in 2 second bursts. Mainly from the MK link. And it's not IP or bandwidth issues. I'm now streaming solent without a problem. Crap music, though.

Catermole off for Sunderland. 10 a side.

Saints Player really is shyte tonight. I've had about 3 mins of the MK commentary and sod all from solent for the game so far.

Sunderland 1-0 up. Penalty, & Rocha sent off.

I've got the skate game live on the satellite here. They've just come out, so they are still in business at the moment (or if they aren't, Storrie hasn't told Avram yet). Kenwyne's in the Sunderland side. Hat-trick?

But, it seems Mrs. Registrar Derrett is capable of leaning both ways: Chester City FC Chester City FC handed winding-up reprieve – the full story Jan 28 2010 Chester Chronicle THE Blues have six weeks to pay off the debts that threaten their very existence. HM Revenue & Customs wanted to wind-up the cash-strapped club at the High Court in London yesterday. But City were given until March 10 to finalise proposals for a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA) aimed at enabling the club to clear its debts – £26,125 of which is owed to the taxman. Lawyers for Chester said they are proposing a CVA that will allow the club’s creditors to receive 92p in the pound. Registrar Derrett’s decision to give City – who entered and came out of administration last summer – 42 more days went against the wishes of HMRC, whose lawyers argued: “This is the successor company to the previous incarnation of the football club which previously went into administration with large debts outstanding. “It seems that second time around it is failing.” The hearing, which lasted about four minutes, came two days after the Blues were put up for sale for £1. Owner Stephen Vaughan Junior is willing to sell-up for the knock-down price on the condition the successful purchaser takes over all of the club’s debts. Mike Blood, of Manchester-based legal firm Brabners Chaffe Street, has been instructed to handle the potential sale. Former Chester director Paul Baker is one of a group of local businessmen to have shown an interest in entering the due diligence process, while official supporters group, City Fans United (CFU), have been approached via a text message seemingly sent from the phone of Stephen Vaughan Snr – father of Stephen Jnr and former owner and chairman of the Blues. A CFU statement, released on Monday, read: “City Fans United can confirm that earlier this afternoon we received a text message from Stephen Vaughan Snr’s mobile phone as follows: ‘£1 for 100% shareholding. u pay all outstanding creditors. Stephen Vaughan junior’.” The Football Conference is keen to arrange a meeting with Chester’s powers-that-be after the club snubbed their request to send senior decision-making officials to the league’s scheduled EGM at Hinckley United FC last Thursday. “We wanted to meet the club last week to find out how they were going to tackle the hearing and how they are proposing to continue,” said Conference general manager Dennis Strudwick, who learned of the outcome of the High Court hearing from The Chronicle yesterday afternoon. “But sadly insufficient people from the club turned up. “We were very disappointed, but now that the hearing has passed, we will be suggesting another meeting to find out how they are going to proceed from here.” Several other stricken sports clubs had their cases heard at the High Court yesterday. Joining the Blues – listed under the company name Chester City FC 2004 Ltd – on the winding-up list were Crystal Palace and Burscough football clubs, along with rugby league teams Wakefield Trinity and Keighley Cougars. Managerless Chester welcome Julian Dicks’ Grays Athletic to the Deva Stadium on Saturday for a Blue Square Premier basement battle (3pm). Captain Tim Ryan serves the final game of his suspension. The match is the first since the CFU announced an official boycott of all City home matches until there is a change in ownership of the club. And it seems she doesn't hang around listening to waffle. Storrie can have the day off.

It's Mrs. Registrar Derrett. And she's got form: MOVES TO RESCIND KINGS LYNN FC WINDING UP ORDER ABANDONED King's Lynn FC's future looks bleak following moves at London’s High Court this morning. An application to lift the winding up order made against the club last month was today abandoned at the eleventh hour. A hearing was scheduled this morning in which Timothy Coates and Michael Chinn were to apply to Mr Registrar Simmonds to rescind the winding up order made against the Unibond League side by Mrs Registrar Derrett on 25 November, over £65,000 of unpaid taxes. However, counsel for Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, Catherine Addy, told the court that a letter had been received from Mr Coates' and Mr Chinn's solicitors confirming that they are withdrawing their application. She said that the two men were not represented in court, with a view to minimising legal costs. In response, Mr Registrar Simmonds said: "Right, application dismissed." He ordered the two men to pay HMRC's legal costs of £250, to be paid within 14 days. At last month's hearing, Mrs Registrar Derrett resisted the pleas of club chairman Ken Bobbins for one more chance to pay the debt, which at the previous hearing in October stood at £65,209. She granted a request by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to make the "usual compulsory order" winding up the club, finding that it is "woefully insolvent". The winding-up order which she made, and which remains in force following today's hearing, effectively hands over the club's affairs to an Official Receiver. His job is to do his best to ensure that debts are paid off by selling any assets available and then bringing business to a close.

Interesting. 2 references. The ../2009 is obviously the WUP from December. The ../2010 looks like the appeal on the January attempt to have the WUP thrown out on a technicality. Busy boys tonight. Must be why there are so many tickets left for their match.

It's almost 1 o'clock. Never mind tonight, the second half of the second leg is about to kick off now. And one thing's for sure, there WILL be penalties at the end of this one.

At last. Somebody ITK at Pompey.

Next season they will be in the Football League, and subject to it's rules. And if they didn't I expect the other 23 CCC clubs would contest it. I accept that this situation is breaking new ground. But we know from our own experience that the League tend to apply their rules in the spirit in which they were intended, rather than to the letter.

Something caught my eye in the ESPN report. Not the "confidentiality" bit. That's to be expected. I'm sure if I phoned them and asked them for a statement about the progress of their negotiations with John Smith from Acacia Avenue (apologies if he's a member here) over the late payment of his income tax, they would tell me that any dealings are confidential between them and Mr. Smith. But why are negotiations resuming at lunchtime (if that's true)? Given the importance, I can't imagine it's diary issues. By resuming at lunchtime, there will be no time to act afterwards before Court tomorrow. So it seems to me that the outcome is already apparent, and the Parties know what it is. What has been happening this morning? One of 3 things, as I see it. 1. The Parties lawyers have been drawing up some sort of consent order with fixed repayment terms for presentation in Court tomorrow. But if that's the case why would they need to resume negotiations? In my experience you agree these things by e-mail or over the phone. 2. Pompey spun a few yarns at the negotiations yesterday, and HMRC said "prove it", and Pompey said they need time to get the necessary documents. HMRC said OK, but unless we see them tomorrow we carry on on Wednesday. 3. Pompey had something else they had to do today before the Court date, which is even more important. Time will tell.

They didn't lend it. PFC stole it. This isn't about somebody who's a bit hard up paying his income tax late. Pompey received the VAT from other clubs on top of the transfer fees. That was HMRC money, not theirs, and they stole it and spent it on something else. Now they have to give it back, or pay the price.

As long as it's long enough to take them past the (March?) deadline for any points deduction to carry over to next season, it'll do for me.

Unless you're more than 20st, it'll probably go all the way round.

I'm fully expecting Leeds to overturn Carlisle tonight, so therein lies the warning for Saints. Take nothing for granted.

In answer to Phil's question, in commercial litigation, the Parties can settle by means of a consent order, in agreed terms, which the Judge will then hand down, making it an Order of Court. You do that if you don't trust the other side to keep to their side of the deal. Don't know if the same applies to a WU petition. If there really is £1.8m in cash on offer now, the appropriate way for HMRC would be to go to Court tomorrow and agree to accept £1.8m now, with the rest tied to a very short term repayment schedule. If PFC default again then winding up would be automatic, and HMRC wouldn't need to go back to Court. Why on earth would they accept £1.8m now, and an IOU, and withdraw the petition? I can't see Chainrai going along with that. He's there to get his money back, not to oversee the terms where HMRC get their hands on "his" money. I still see admin as Chainrai's fall back position (but not Gayda's). If I understand the various charges correctly, some poor punter could buy the club for 99p from the administrator, and then Chainrai could screw him for whatever he can get to give them their pitch back. They need that. Do they need the adjacent land which Gayda holds? Nice to have, but only if you plan to develop the stadium there. It's been a long time since I was involved in property development in the UK, but I can't see any way that the 2 parcels of land are worth anything like £48m as a development potential. £5m probably. £10m maybe.

Storrie's last play - "It's not in HMRC's best interest to wind up Pompey, because that way they'll get nothing". That will certainly make them stop and think. They can't possibly ever have been in that position before, can they?

Not unusual to find seats with codeshare partners. Used to happen often when Air Senegal (before they went belly-up) codeshared with SAA between Jo'burg and Dakar. There are plenty of internal flights to PE, both from Jo'burg and from Cape Town. But they won't be cheap during the WC, and you should probably book early. Some of the LoCos aren't with IATA, so you need to book direct on their websites. The airlines to look out for are: SAA BA (Comair franchise) Kulula.com (BA Comair's LoCo) 1Time Mango (SAA's LoCo) If you're going to use the SAA codeshare on Emirates, probably best to book right through on SAA. You'll need a car wherever you stay. Public transport's not up to much here. PE is around 1,000Km from Jo'burg. The roads are good, but I wouldn't drive it unless I had to, and then I wouldn't do it in one go. I'd stopover. It's 770Km from Cape Town - about 8 hours drive. Do-able in a day, but not both ways if you stay in CT. There are internal long distance coaches. I haven't used them, but they look OK. About the same standard as the UK. There are a few hotels in PE. I know it quite well. There's a Holiday Inn. And several Protea hotels. I usually stay at the Summerstrand Inn when I'm there. It's not bad, but sadly a bit run-down over the past few years, and needs a bit of a refurb. There's also a brand new Radisson, but I haven't been there since it opened. Or Brookes Hill apartments/suites. There were a few rumours that they were going to sail the QE2 down to CT, to use as a floating hotel during the WC. Is she still moored up in Dubai? I saw her in CT in 2008 during the farewell cruise, and again last year in Dubai. Sad. She seems to haunt me. I was there when she was launched by the Queen in Glasgow. We all got the day off school. There are a lot of guest houses in the Humewood/Summerstrand area, and the general standard of those is good. We went there for a long weekend last year and stayed in one. I'll ask Mrs. Hutch for the name if you want it. Personally I like PE. One of my favourite cities in SA. I spent a couple of years living there 40 years ago, when I was a kid. HTH

Of course they are. The only reason Chainrai excercised his lien. If it fails they will be in admin tomorrow.

Either. They have to pay up before, in which case the petition will be withdrawn, or prove that they can and will pay. Having the cash at the Court, while unorthodox, would probably suffice.

The most realistic outcome on Wednesday, IMHO, is that, if it goes to Court, they will be liquidated. The real question is will it get to Court on Wednesday. I'd say it's unlikely.

Yep. Investment in transfer fees isn't "sunk". I would see that as an investment, which, with the 4 we bought cheap in the window, I would expect to get my money back, and a bit more, in a couple of years if sold on. And in the meantime they're still with us to "walk this league" next season. As long as the income pays the wages, it's not harming the total investment in the club if we don't go up this year, but the investor would just have to be a bit more patient if he wanted to make a killing by selling the club (not suggesting in any way that that is the agenda, just looking at it from an investment perspective). I'm sure the wage bill will come down during the summer.

There are several "unorthodox" routes from the UK to South Africa. The Middle East airlines (Emirates, Etihad, Qatar). They're popular with people from here travelling to Europe on a budget. Or a couple of African Airlines spring to mind (Kenya Airways or Ethiopian). Egyptair, too, but they're usually pretty full. And the Libyan airline has recently started up Tripoli to Jo'burg. Don't know what availablility is like, though. Might be worth a try.

I'm now in the "We're not going to make the play-offs this season" club. I think it was the draw at Brentford that sealed it for me, but still hoped for a bit of a miracle, before Saturday. Time to focus on winning a trophy at Wembley and adding to the Skates embarrasment. This squad certainly has the talent to win this league. Time to use the rest of this season to harness that talent, and enjoy playing football and winning. We'll get automatic promotion next season. And I'm still very happy with what we've achieved, and the progress we've made this season.