Matt

Anyone leave a pair of blue adidas gloves on the table at the trent? I picked them up on the way out.

Before and after, sadly during I shall be at the game.

Sorry for misreading your post, but there's no excuse to have a go at me and make me look like a big-headed prick when all I was trying to do was shed light on something. In future I will remember that you are the fucking oracle and keep well clear.

Fuck you very much. It could well be that Ashley never expect the money back. In his head he could have written it off, so when they say the debt it paid off, it would be true in that sense, but should he sell up, the club hit the wall or Ashley suddenly need the cash then maybe that situation would change. So really, 'debt free' is subjective- from Ashley's view we are and it is from that viewpoint that the PR garb has been generated. On your earlier comment, they have paid off 'the debt'. The cockney cunts you refer to say this because they paid off the major stadium loan as they were required to as part of the buyout. Sorry for answering your fucking obvious question.

As we're a private company we have to wait for the accounts to be filed, which means any information we do get will be out of date anyway. The first set of accounts for SJHL will give a good indication of how things were initially set up, but that's about it. As the lads at Anglo Irish Bank showed, you can move a few quid here and there on 30 Dec, file accounts for 31st Dec, then shift it all back on 1st Jan and no-one will even be any the wiser.

Yep, working out how companies are going to refinance is pretty much the day job. Fair to say it's getting busier by the day!

There's no way the club has officially paid off the 'debt'. What will have happened is Ashley puts cash into SJHL, they lend that on to NUFC on a secured basis so that in the basis of NUFC going into administration Ashley would be at the front of the queue to recover what was left. If he simply paid it off he would be just an equity investor and would be left with bugger all. Even Comrade A has a 'loan' in his favovur for everything he has put into Chelsea.

Liverpool should be more or less at the top of the danger list as their bridging loans following the US takeover will not be rolled-over for much longer. Without reasonable evidence that a refinance was on the way, the auditors would not sign off their accounts on a going concern basis. Man Utd at football club level may be OK, but Red Football Ltd (parent co) has a rather nasty 'toggle' which is accruing at an alarming rate. That will in turn put pressure on the club to increase dividends to flow up the company structure.

Jesus wept. I wonder if Neil Monroe could magic up the cash if for some reason his mortgages, car loans, credit cards etc were all called in. Without any evidence or research into covenants (which are commercially sensitive anyway) this research means absolutely nothing- it classes an overdraft as debt the same a 30-year bond. Yet an overdraft could be demanded tomorrow while the bond would only be payable in 30 years time. All they've done is gone on Companies House, got out of date accounts and subtracted one part of the balance sheet from another. A monkey could do that in an hour. It's so much more complex that some pissy index score.

Good research!

Last time I went on a Sunday (for a 4pm) it didn't open till 12. I'm up for one earlier if anyone knows a venue. Send me a text if you can think of anywhere, else we can just go off in search of one somewhere. Can get into town any time.

Just disable new registrations for a few days.

Actually, think the Trent won't be open until 12 anyway, so see you after!

Fucking hell, man.

Maybe a bit early for some for one beforehand, but anyone out either side of Sunday's game?

Harry lives in Bishop Auckland and is from somewhere round there. The idea of Blue Star, a club that gets about 50 people actually paying to get in supporting league football, is utterly mental.

This isn't even a debate. The only people who can authorise a switch of venue are the police and local authorities- that's the FA rule. The meeting to discuss this has already been made and no issues raised, so the FA will inist the game is on at Croft Park. Anyway, it will probably be more profitable that way- Setanta have agreed to broadcast on this basis, generating £160,000 for each club almost cost-free. Bearing in mind cup gates are halved post-costs, you'd need at least 24,000 at £15 a head to make the same revenue, probably 35,000+ after costs. So in fact it will probably be financially beneficial to hold the game in Blyth.

We've got a way to go before our unemployment levels are like Germany's are.

I fail to see how being relegated will make Mike Ashley any money. I reckon it would cost him about £150m on his target sale price and that's why you'll be a bedgrudging sticking plaster effort in January.

If you had to come up with stuff like that on a regular basis in order to keep my retainer with a newspaper, you probably would do too. But Jordan is meant to be a multi-millionaire- where's it all gone?

I think they're just being careful with words. Ashley had to either refinance or repay the remaining stadium loan as he triggered a change of control clause. Money outstanding on transfers may be considered as 'trade payables' and could be classed differently to long-term debt, at least in lay parlance (not sure of the exact accounting requirement). That would mean Ashley cleared the 'debt' rather than all monies owed. This isn't a major surprise- there is nothing to be gained by repaying things early if there's no discount to be gained from it. We might as well just hold onto our cash until those bills fall due. This will be part of any due diligence and won't come as some sort of shock or devestating blow to the procedure- it would have been apparent within about 30 seconds of being handed a copy of the balance sheet. It remains to be seen exactly what happened to our cash position, which IIRC was about £17m in the red at last public accounts.

Testing...

We're worth fuck all in the Championship. If Ashley really wants to get the best deal then he needs to keep us in the division. If we're hovering on the brink no-one is going to buy us, they'll just wait to see if they can pick us up for a few quid the season after. Never mind £450m, I think you are realistically looking at £50-60m if we were relegated. And that's not representative of any inherent value.

Zog has no shortage of faults but he's still ten times better then Duff. To think we'dd be left with one left winger and it's that knacker....

Are Tories recognising society exists now?