Happy Face

http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?...te=%2Bexpansion Search results show you asking over and over again if people would prefer there had not been an expansion...and literally no-one saying they would. there is clearly a lot more results that are missing. The cost of the expansion [the 1999 one] is a large part of the "debt" that has put the club in imminent danger of ceasing to exist, according to the financial experts on here. Then the onus is on you to quote those people saying it. I can't find something I don't think exists to prove to you that it doesn't. I looked because I'm happy to give you the benefit of the doubt if ANY dimwit said expansion was bad for the club with thousands on the waiting list. The £42m cost of expansion (that's the total from '93 all the way through) even just going back to 99 works out at a cost of £3.5m a year. The extra 16000 seats have brought in at least £5m a season every season over that period. I can't find the terms of that £42million loan though. How much interest was paid on it, when it was due to be paid off, what proportion of the debt handed to Ashley in 2007 was down to it?

http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?...te=%2Bexpansion Search results show you asking over and over again if people would prefer there had not been an expansion...and literally no-one saying they would.

unfortunately, there are some people around who inadvertently advocate this approach. They are the ones who harp on about "debts", "not spending what you don't have", "running the club as a business"...etc. They may not admit it, but this is the core of their warped thinking. They think football is like a high street business, and even criticise the expansion of the stadium, calling it a "debt" - as if attempting to capitalise on the clubs fanbase with an investment aimed at the future is "bad planning", just because it was done by the old owners [i'll try not to go there, so long as people [they know who they are] accept these comments which are in fact the truth]. \lies, again. No-one hs said that yes they have, and you know it. Stop agreeing with me and then making outlandish claims. I get tainted by association. The expansion was 20 years ago. Who off here were you talking to about it at the time? I meant the expansion of the Leazes and Milburn stands. So did I. I was agreeing with you. That's why I quoted it and commented. But it wasn't 20 years ago. As good as. 1993. What we agree on is that it needs some vision and some investment to climb the table. Nobody does it the other way round, climbs the table, then gets a vision and starts pumping money into it. I think that is the same as the high street tbf. You have to invest in premises, stock, staff, advertising etc. That's the risk of being in business, putting your own money up and striving to succeed and possibly going bust if there's a crash, or if other businesses make a better fist of it. All this talk of "how do you pay it back" doesn't interest me, not until the money is being spent year after year without any results to show from it. It's like parents telling a really talented kid they can't concentrate on football, they have to do their school work and get good grades in their exams. A conservative and uninspired approach to mediocrity. Ashley has spent £140m on the club since he got here, that sort of money could have done so much more in the hands of a Kevin Keegan or an Arsene Wenger. EDIT: I don't agree anyone has said the stadium shouldn't have been expanded.

There will be a spell between now and Jan where we will lose 5/6 on the trot. End of November, we'll concede 20 and score none in 3 games.

unfortunately, there are some people around who inadvertently advocate this approach. They are the ones who harp on about "debts", "not spending what you don't have", "running the club as a business"...etc. They may not admit it, but this is the core of their warped thinking. They think football is like a high street business, and even criticise the expansion of the stadium, calling it a "debt" - as if attempting to capitalise on the clubs fanbase with an investment aimed at the future is "bad planning", just because it was done by the old owners [i'll try not to go there, so long as people [they know who they are] accept these comments which are in fact the truth]. \lies, again. No-one hs said that yes they have, and you know it. Stop agreeing with me and then making outlandish claims. I get tainted by association. The expansion was 20 years ago. Who off here were you talking to about it at the time? I meant the expansion of the Leazes and Milburn stands. So did I.

unfortunately, there are some people around who inadvertently advocate this approach. They are the ones who harp on about "debts", "not spending what you don't have", "running the club as a business"...etc. They may not admit it, but this is the core of their warped thinking. They think football is like a high street business, and even criticise the expansion of the stadium, calling it a "debt" - as if attempting to capitalise on the clubs fanbase with an investment aimed at the future is "bad planning", just because it was done by the old owners [i'll try not to go there, so long as people [they know who they are] accept these comments which are in fact the truth]. \lies, again. No-one hs said that yes they have, and you know it. Stop agreeing with me and then making outlandish claims. I get tainted by association. The expansion was 20 years ago. Who off here were you talking to about it at the time?

After buying portsmouth Al Fahim said... http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport....html?print=yes Lucky escape tbh.

http://www.thenational.ae/sport/uae-sport/...le-short-shrift Not seen any quotes from Mansour on it.

Good work Dennis Wise

We do have loads of strikers in the squad tbf.... Shola Ranger Demba Lova Besta Jr Shola Zamblera Barfa (?) Vuckic (?) Mebeez see a like for like change. If we can manage to sell any of those who are over 25 we'll bring in a young foreigner to replace.

All of your understanding there comes from what you've been told by the club. But they tell lots of lies. When he "fucked it up" he was out on the piss wasn't he? Hardly the actions of a man keen to impress on potential buyers the seriousness of his desire to sell. He's asking for £100000 to talk to anyone who wants to buy now. Again, not realistic. I don't believe they've approached anyone about naming rights on the stadum. It was a lie to say Sports Direct was a short term thing. Gotta place more belief in what they do than what they say.

We might have a chance at the league cup or FA cup. When you think Portsmouth, Boro, Birmingham and Blackburn have won those in the last decade it's hardly a ringing endorsement of competent leadership like.

Cheers. Never read it.

I can love Britain and hate Cameron. I can love my job and hate my boss. It's rare to hear chants celebrating the chairman of any club. Part of the joy of the game is marvelling at their incompetence and how we as fans could do better. That ex-pro's biography with a chapter called "what the average chairman knows about football" followed by a bklank page. What we're experiencing with this owner is the norm, not the exception. They're bound to be unpopular if they make financially prudent decisions. I'd celebrate a trophy like the birth of a child, and Ashley wouldn't sour the taste for me one bit.

Not sure it is like. He never wanted to own the club, he only ever wanted to buy and sell it for a quick buck but the buyer he had lined up pulled out after he had already bought it and he was stuck with it. They’ll still come back and 50,000 do every game. Ashley and his cronies had big plans that a brand like Nike or Apple or Mastercard or Carlsberg would wish to have naming rights over St James Park and it would be X brand @ St James Park. They underestimated marketing directors who do know what they are doing who took into consideration angry and annoyed fans who vented their protests over this idea from the start and 18 months later there is no sponsor. Mike Ashley owns a football club he doesn’t want. No evidence for any of that.

Subscribed

http://www.safc.com/page/BlackCatsNickname The Light Brigade!?

Mackem at work was trying to wind me up about having black cats on the stadium (if there's a puma logo going up) the other day. Said i didn't give a fuck about their manufactured identity. He got really defensive and started pulling out fanzines that had old programmes from the 30's in them referring to the Black Cats. Proper raw nerve with them that one.

I'd say Arsenal are more like Everton this year. Does that make it any better?

Pardew is a better manager than Hughton. Easily. NUFC PL records Hughton P16 W5 D4 L7 - Win% = 31% - Points% = 39% Pardoo P26 W7 D12 L7 - Win% = 27% - Points% = 42% Close

Both sentences are horrific, and while Forest's nickname is the tricky trees, nee one ever ever calls them it, and putting Steve McClaren's Trees makes it sound like something at the bottom of his garden. The second sentence proves NEE ONE copy checks what he's written, read it slowly, piss poor from the Chronicle. Aye, just re-read that. I never even knew they were called the tricky trees. I was at university down that neck of the woods and even then I've never heard of them being referred to as that. I understand that as a writer you don't want to repeat yourself too much by using "Forest" or whatever too often but when it comes out like that, it's counter-productive. We know he can't write for toffee but it's his job on a (fairly large) regional newspaper ffs. It's like he wrote a sentence in English then used the thesaurus on every word without reading it back to himself.

It's not as easy as Lee Ryder makes it look is it.

Reading it like that it becomes one hell of a back handed compliment.

Was just about to ask how goes it...and saw PP's name in red. I'm all nervous to see how we're doing

To be fair to Chez, despite his faith that we'd keep Carroll and that we'd spend the money we got, he's only looking at things from a business perspective...and has said he can't see the sense in the more recent dealings which most expected but that he didn't. Terms like "Ashley apologist" are a bit OTT when Ashley is just a bloke trying to run the club to the best of his ability. He's not an evil bastard making decisions based on how it'll hurt the fans most. He's just inept and inexperienced in the world of football and can't see the untapped potential of the area which he could afford to unleash. Polarising the discussion into team positive and team negative, whereby all is rosy on one side and everything is dastardly on the other doesn't give a realistic view from either side. As always it's somewhere in the middle, and Chez gets this balance right more than most. EDIT: Ashley apologist does apply to CT of course, who supports every decision no matter whether he agrees with it or not, usually deciding he agrees with it after stating he disagrees.