madamster

Morning all, not been here for a couple of years but I was looking up something from our (Derby's) 1976 semi final defeat to Utd and this thread appeared on my feed. Buchan, who was the left hand side of the back 3 played Stokes on. Teacher was wrong. I also read the rest of the thread and found reference to that Geoff Hurst 1966 moment of "was it or wasn't it?" being discussed. I can tell you with 100% certainty that the ball hit the bar, ricocheted down and bounced ON THE LINE rather than over it. I have a '66 World Cup DVD. That moment is shown in colour and was filmed by a USA company. I have watched the video and paused it at exactly the point where the ball hits the ground. It should not have been given. Then the plot thickens. Germany had equalised 20 seconds before the end of normal time and forced extra time. Their goal should not have been allowed as Kar-Heinz Schnellinger, the German #3 was, according to the offside Law as it was back then, stood in an offside position. Gordon Banks said, at the time and reiterated in his 2002 book that Schnellinger also handled the ball, something I can neither confirm nor deny with any certainty. Why a thickening plot? Tofiq Bahramov, in England often incorrectly referred to as "the Russian linesman", was a Soviet footballer and football referee from Azerbaijan so not Russian, was the linesman who led the referee to believe it was a goal. He was also the 90th minute man who failed to flag Schnellinger's offside position. I have always thought that he knew he had made a mistake in not flagging Schnellinger and that his role in England's 3rd was an attempt by him to right a wrong. England were the rightful winners but it should have been 2-1 and not 4-2 and Hurst would not have had a World Cup Final hat-trick. One last word, you are not having a happy season, I hope you can turn it round and avoid the drop.

A very enjoyable game and both sides will be happy(ish) with a point. We came out of the traps better and got an early goal. That goal was borderline but I think it stood because a referee's assistant actually followed the instructions he's supposed to follow. Namely, if in doubt give the benefit of the doubt to the attacker. I've frozen the action from 2 different angles. It's very borderline. Even if it was just offside, it's the swings and roundabouts of a season. We lost to Burnley but had a goal not given that was a good foot over the line. We lost at Coventry to a penalty that should never have been given....... hopefully these things will even up over a season. After our goal, the Saints played some good stuff and could have scored more than you did. Once the scores were level we upped our game and had the better of the last 20 minutes and maybe should have nicked it. That would, however, have been an injustice. Over the 90 a draw was probably the right result. If you keep on performing like that you'll be there or thereabouts come May. We lack too much to win the League this year. We have 2 decent backup LB's but no real 1st choice there. Brayford is a cracking RB but we have no real cover for him. We need a good CM playmaker and a striker who can hold the ball up. Whatever happens this season I hope we dont meet in the playoffs again. BTW - now I'm back on here, how's Dan Seaborne progressing. The attack on him was cowardly. I hope he's soon fit to play again.

As many have said, not unexpected but still a blow to Saints fans. In 2003 when Derby's parent company was in admin for 3 minutes, the 10 point deduction rule wasnt in force. that followed the Leicester affair. Even later than the Leicester affair there was still a loophole that both Leeds and Boston used AFTER they knew they had been relegated. they went into admin to get the penalty in a season in which they had already been relegated. Boston actually went into admin at Half Time in the last match of the season. They knew they were down so they took the hit in that season rather than the next. That was what tempted the Football League to amend the rules to stop anybody else doing it. As if that wasn't enough they also gave themselves carte blanche to investigate anything and everything wheneve they felt like it and to aplly sanctions like fines, points deductions, relegation and even expulsion if they thought that a club had tried to use or misuse the rules in some way. Quite how they came to that decision with the Saints I dont know. Having teams like Leeds and Saints in Division 3 is not something I ever expected to see. Stay loyal, that puts cash in the coffers and will help you recover asap.

Empathy from an unexpected source......... Rams fan in peace. Your situation is indeed very similar to the one we were in a few years back. We were £24M in debt and the Coop bank pulled the plug on the holding company. This is a replica of your current situation. Three men, later to be branded the 3 amigos by Rams fans bought the club for the princely sum of 3 pounds. They secured a £15M mortgage on Pride Park (the ground was all bought and paid for long before that), ostensibly to reduce the debts and to satisfy the Coop Bank. The "mortgage" was from the Panamanian ABC Corporation (who also lent cash to QPR and nearly bankrupted them too). The 3 Amigos ruled the roost for some two and a half years, permanently telling us that the debt was declining and that the club was trading at break even. In that time we were forced to sell Huddlestone and Rasiak for paltry sums in order to pay interest on time and the debt rose from £24M to around £54M. Again we were on the brink of extinction. Seven lifelong Derby fans who are also successful businessmen ploughed some £30M into buying out the 3 A´s and reducing the debt slightly. That consortium took the club back to the PL but couldnt (or wouldnt) finance the buying of the 6 to 8 genuine PL class players we needed to make a fight of it. Consequently we had the disaster that was known as the 2007/2008 season. Just over 18 months ago we got a new Chairman of Football, Adam Pearson, who had been responsible for getting Hull into shape. He came in and negotiated with the GSE group to take the club over. It is a consortium of many American and Canadian businessmen, most with a successful background in American Sports as well as in other business ventures, one of them was one of the founders of Yahoo. They took over and we are doing OK. We now have Nigel Clough at the helm who has got us playing proper football again and what looked like a disaster season looks like being saved and we can build from there. The debt will, in June, be down to £15M, the mortgage on the ground, and that debt is manageable. In my lifetime (and I'm mid 50's) I've seen the Rams on the brink in the early 80's, early 90's and again for the past 5 seasons...... it's not nice having to face the prospect of your club going to the wall. Boards come and go but we Rams, and you Saints, were always there before them and will be there when they have long gone. I know some of what you are feeling, I empathise with you. I hope the club survives to fight another day and would love to see you stay up by by getting all 3 points at the Tree Huggers on the last day of the season to send them down in your stead. As one of you said earlier, we are a precedent but...... after the 3 amigo deal there was Leeds and Boston who went into Admin once they knew they were already down. That caused the Football League to plug that particular loophole and to add the caveat that they held the right to scrutinise anything not covered by the rules and still take action against a club if the League thought it was warranted. What happened at Derby hasn't been "outlawed" by the League but they do now have the legal right to act differently should they so choose. I hope they don't break the precedent. Good luck. PS We look like we are properly stable for the first time in donkey's ages. It will probably take a few years brfore we can hope to be back among the big boys and doing well. We know we have to be patient, so do you.