Matt

You just don't listen. Typical bloke. That reminds me, do you want to come round for Sarnies, beer and football on the weekend? I was going to turn up, invite or no invite. Is it my turn to bring the beer or the granary bread or both? If you like whisky that tastes like burnt bacon, you can help yourself.

Look - either quit your job and move back to Crammy or pipe down. I don't think anything is worth bearing Manor Walks Shopping Centre on a regular basis.

How is a Monday a better atmosphere? Hour or so drinking beforehand at best by the time people have got back from work and made their way into town- or do proper supporters live and work within walking distance of the ground?

Another twenty-five notes on train travel up in smoke. Ah well, I'll have to put the weekend to some other good use I guess.

Nah, Olivier.

I enjoyed the comment about the 'fat cats in that building' from some guy interviewed on BBC. That's a branch downstairs and though I thought that was all, apparently there is some kind of processing centre, where most people will probably be paid pretty poorly and will have seen massive job cuts in the last year. Good work, Tarquin.

Gareth Gates?

I'm by no means confident... but I think Ashley has played his best possible card by appointing Shearer. Make no bones about it, the task is monumental. In 1992 Keegan had 16 games to save us. Shearer only has half that number. FWIW I think Kinnear, Hughton & Calderwood will all be on their way. JFK is talking about a DOF role but we've seen proof that he's a bullshitter on far too many an occasion. They won't peddle Kinnear because it will seem harsh given his health grounds (not that I'd care that much personally). The others staying depends on whether Shearer brings anyone else in.

Got to be a reason for us filing the mortgage, and these whispers of administration make no sense with the debts as they stood at the last set of accounts. Equally, could be nothing serious- impossible to tell.

Wasn't it an unsecured loan rather than a mortgage? Ashley's loan was, but there's nothing to say this hasn't since been refinanced by secured bank debt.

http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?...2675&st=140

Personally I think this is total nonsense based on the last set of accounts unless something has changed on our creditor position. If Ashley now considers his NUFC adventure as a write off and just wants to get back as much as he possibly can then administration would be a bizarre choice. It takes the power of the directors away and gives a legal obligation on the administrators to get as much back for creditors- not for Ashley, although ashley represents virtually all of the club's debt. Forced sales of players would ensure that we got virtually nothing for them. Man City would offer to pay £2m for the amounts outstanding on Given's transfer and administrators would accept it. The club would have no power over the sale of assets. If Ashley wanted to think about how best to get his money back he could approach the same advisory firms but simply pay them for advisory- not to act as administrators. They could make the same suggestions, but there would be none of the legal obligations around the appointment of an administrator. If Ashley has perceived the likely resale value of the club now to be below the value of the debt owed by NUFC to St James Holdings Ltd, he may see asset sales as they best way to pay that back- after all if the business' equity is deemed worthless then damaging it further won't make it worth less than zero. But again, all of that can be done without resorting to administration. An administration would only occur if Ashley has already refinanced his personal loan into a secured position with a lender- so could this have happened? If he were to refinance a lot of what he had put in by securing a loan on the ground, training facilities and so on he could have got a good chunk of the cash back- could this explain the mortgage filed at companies house with Barclays that peasepud posted when the results were published? That would be a totally different position. Ashley has to a large extent been satisfied as a creditor and would leave the new lenders to worry about getting their cash back, leaving the club to be cut adrift, sold to whoever can plug the debt hole and buy the equity for a quid. Ashley is left counting his losses. NUFC are left in shit creek. Would be very interesting to know exactly what that mortgage obligation is all about.

That will never, ever happen. If he were to trouser all the income, then eventually support will fall away entirely and the club will be worth even closer to zero. His best bet is not to quite while he's ahead, but to get out until he's any further behind.

if I was already loaded and was responsible for a lot of angry people losing their jobs, I would A bit harsh to suggest it was former employees of his fiefdom. That is unless you are presuming that we can pin an inevitable correction in a totally overstreched economy on the actions of a few people. Goodwin and his empire building are in the past and the longer people yearn for some figurative retribution, the longer we'll miss the opportunity to look at the challenges ahead. Goodwin pressing ahead with the ABN Amro deal did not bring down the UK economy- yet it seems to be as if it did. Let's not forget that Teflon Gordon is more than happy to keep the press fed about the evils done by "the City" under a regulatory system that he not only created, but boasted about around the world. Yet now he's off to the states telling people how it should be done. Bit of an about-face, that. This sort of action only helps the sort of yobs who will be 'protesting' against the G20 next week as they wreak a general trail of havoc and interrupt the lives of thousands of workers so we can listen to the same message that has been relayed countless times in the past, only to be forgotten on Monday as we struggle to find glaziers who wil repair this damage out of the goodness of their own hearts.

I'm absolutely renewing if we go down, more certain than if we stay up. The main downside for me is rising travel costs for home games. I actually think that if we saw some regime change and a positive managerial appointment then we'd be shift 30-odd thousand season tickets and get 40k+ gates.

So, this country's woes can be put down to people with unhealthy obessions with the internet?

And that's all it will be. Administration only occurs when a company cannot pay its creditors as they fall due. Mike Ashley is our main creditor and 100% owner, so he would effectively be giving someone else the power to sell the club on an emergency basis in order to repay what he is owed.

The equity in the club is worthless. The best Ashley could hope for is getting something back on the amount on-loaned after the acquisition. He has to face the reality that he massively overpaid in 2007.

Was it in a brown envelope?

TF made a lot of good points about the failings of the prior regime. It became a bit of a publicity gimmick at times but many of the underlying points were still valid. Out of interest, did you just base your summary on the fact it was from True-Faith? And would a sweetness-and-light article really hold any credence in the current state we're in?

Not huge amounts usually, a fiver accumulator at a weekend just to keep an interest when the scores come in. Never won big on one and don't expect to. The overround kills you. Proper money I make is looking out for over 2.5 goals on Betfair. Bit of blackjack at the casino is OK. Only been properly rinsed once, and I've not been back since!

The ST idea is great in concept but struggles badly when we start talking about the kind of numbers involved in the Premiership. £2.5m would pay the wage bill for a few weeks. If we found ourselves a division lower then maybe it could work. Shareholders Utd and Man U was the biggest of its kind in terms of pounds sterling and it was utterly powerless to prevent the Glazer takeover. The only effective Trust takeovers have come following distress situations. If we were a plc again it could work- but we're not and those shares are not feely available. Ashley doesn't have to sell and can name his price for a stake in the club. The relationship between the fans and the board, which is crucial to any club succeeding, is in ruins. We can only hope that we are viable enough as a business to be sold to a more sensible ownership group who would take on the views of supporters as a matter of course rather than through shareholder pressure.

Congratulations guys!

Democracy- it's not about being right, it's about being in a voting majority.

The BoE cannot lend directly. The government have effective control over two large banks and two core mortgage lenders- they can implement broad policy through these institutions who already have all the myriad of systems needed to manage millions of transactions every day. I disagree with this overriding notion that 'banks aren't lending people money', though that is clearly popular sentiment. Towards the end of last year most UK banks were either bust or very close to being bust, so couldn't lend and desperately needed deposits to shore up their reserves which were set for a pounding with bad debts much higher than anticipated. It will take a while to go from complete lock-up to become truly fluid again- deals are now being done and the system is running, albeit tentatively. Banks certainly shouldn't be lending people money on the same basis as in the past, which totally underpriced risk, but individuals and businesses with the right credentials can certainly access credit. The double whammy for the UK is that foreign lenders have legged it and there simply isnt the capacity within the UK sector to fill that gap entirely, even with government assistance. The killer is that banks are de-leveraging (as the whole economy will have to in due course) and this is a painful process. For every £1 deposited, maybe 5p was reserved and 95p lent on, the next bank did the same to the extent that you end up with close to £20 in the system from that £1 deposit. Now that those reserves have shown inadequate, banks are reserving more of their capital so that they are more resilient to economic cycles (as they clearly were not this time last year). As a result, there is less money in the economy and hence the printing of money from the BoE, which they hope will allow the financial institutions to stabilise their own debt levels while carefully reducing the levels of debt in the wider economy. It's a bit like financial methodone, we just have to hope that we get clean and not hooked to the substitute.