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Branson was obviously offered the "double deal" for shirts and stadium but knew not to touch the ground with a bargepole.

"I prepared a few lines for today......but I snorted them all off the font in the church before you lot turned up"

The last time we played Arsenal in the FA Cup there was 51,023 there, that's what he was up against shame it took him 6 years to realise. He set himself up for the fall by criticising the fans for not going last season. Silly fucker shouldve shut up in the middle of the worst downturn for a generation or two. Crowds are down at most clubs. We only got 30k v Blackburn and it wasnt on the TV. Arsenal at home wouldve ensured 10-15k more than that though and that wouldve been around 25k more than they got on Saturday. Just when things are looking up for them they still cant be arsed to turn up.

Saturdays crowd the final straw then

Sauce?...nowt on bbc. ITK?

£20 to get in yesterday too. That yank must've realised by now that Quinn has sold him a fuckin pup.

Funny you should say that but I had the present Mrs PL (she'd never been north of Birmingham) up visiting my folks at xmas and new year and she was looking forward to seeing Edinburgh Castle, which turned out to be even duller than I'd remebered it as a bairn.She was a bit unimpressed as well. A day or so later we went for a spin down the Northumberland coastal route and she could see Bamburgh Castle from around Beadnell Bay. It didnt really prepare her for coming over the brow of the last hill before the villaige and seeing it sat there, towering above everything in the area.I'd sort of forgotten a bit about it too, having known the area well when I was a kid. We went on to the beach, it was at dusk in late December and the whole place had a completely otherworldly feel to it.The castle looked stunning lit up above the beach with the moon rising above it. We couldnt get in for a look but we're going up in a couple of weeks and are going to visit it again probably the day before we play the mackems. Suffice to say the missus is now in love with the Northumberland coast and is currently being talked into moving to somewhere like Alnmouth if/when my job moves north later this year, which is only a possibility at the moment but looking increasingly likely to happen. KSA , if its history you want just stop off anywhere between Newcastle and Edinburgh and you'll find it lying around everywhere.The Tyne valley and Hadrians wall are worth seeing,Rothbury and Cragside are great, Berwick is well worth a look, follow the Tweed up to Coldstream etc etc. Go up to Edinburgh from there or keep to the river and head further upstream, theres loads to see. Not been to the Beamish Mueseum near Chester-le-Street since I was a kid but if Victorian and Edwardian vilage life in the North East floats your boat then that may be worth a look. I saw Portillo on the TV visiting the Pitman Painter's exhibition a few weeks back and once I'd turned the sound downon the great steaming orange shit head the paintings looked brillaint, all done by the miner's themsleves in the 20s.

Killdozer were monumentally fuckin shite mind. Reckon Gene is a sort of Northumbrian Samuel Peyps for the 21st century. We are truly blessed.

30k for the FA cup game v Blackburn. Crowds wouldve been sub 50k without the half price offer, as they have been since before relegation. Not that it proves or disproves anything. Crowds were dropping off in the middle of the last (3 year) deal from the club too when the ground was still called St James' Park.

Source they got that from Gene?

SouthernMag, perhaps you'd like to share with the board how much sports direct have paid NUFC for the advertising at the ground to date? The massive sign on the Gallowgate is in its 4th(?) season now, how much did they pay the club for that?

Andy if you get a Pulitzer for this blog of yours are we getting top billing in the acceptance speach?

Lineker appears to be handing him his arse on a plate though...that crack about his two world cups etc. Am not on twitter, is there anyway to see Morgan's replies?

The Rangers fan at the desk next to mine has just informed me with a straight face that inside and outside Ibrox on Saturday they'll be 70k "at least". When I remarked that recently theyd got a big 17k (all inside) for a match he mentioned that after selling Jelavich last month and finding something more useful to do with the cash (legal fees?), Whyte "doesnt deserve any more of our money". Righty-oh.

Chelsea last season was colder than anything I experienced on the terracing, Derby as well the season before, same time of year between christmas and new year. Coldest I've ever been was at "that" game at Stevenage. There was terracing there in front of a temporary stand and we ended up being stood next to old Stevie Charlton...we were taking turns rubbing his hands together for him, fucker was near on turning blue.

I think Sir John Hall picked the Town Moor as he knew the reaction it would get, and that made planners let the SJP development go through. Stevie nails it about the increase in capacity. To me though its the passage of time from the Taylor Report. If you weren't brought up on the terraces you (mostly) don't have the "matchday ettiquette" that some of us older ones have. Hence some young shaver, no older than 18, swining punches at me at Brighton last month because I said Ben Arfa had been shite. Honestly, I couldnt fuckin beleive it. In the old days one of us wouldve moved a different part of the terrace. Changed days. Don't think we get the match-long racket of the Keegan years any more and I doubt that will return, mostly as I say due to a "changing of the guard" fan wise. Less old radigies, more fan boys. Many radgies priced out of it too.Shame.

There was a new stadium proposed I think, on the Town Moor, which had the "save a gay whale" brigade up in arms. It almost certainly guaranteed the large scale redevelopment of SJP that we see today. And a fuckin ludicrous scheme dreamt up by the local press about sharing a stadium with the tramps near Gateshead. To be fair the Chronicle sold a lot of papers that night. We're lucky in a way, we can still make an almighty racket and quite often do. I think thats much the same as the old days, but its all reaction to whats happening on the pitch nowadays. We often used to create huge atmospheres on the open Gallowgate just by our own sheer exuberance,pride and of course at NUFC our sense of (black) humour when things were going tits up. Which they invairiably did. We created better atmospheres than clubs with a lot more to celebrate at the time than we did too.

Who would replace him? Thats what I always ask gooners when they say he should go. Its a very short list of possible candidates. I cant decide if the stadium has held Arsenal back finacially despite what their board always says. I can't beleive Wenger virutally lost the plot overnight around 2006-07. What they did lose was, for me, 6, possibly even 7 world class players around then. Any side would struggle with that, but it does look as if he's been digging his heels in the last few years. Maybe it is time to go. But if they get the appointment wrong they may look back on finsihing 3rd and 4th as a golden era.

Gary McSwegan scoring in the European Cup semi finals.....when you think of some of the great teams who won the thing around then (Barca and Milan spring to mind) in a poor year you could get some "slightly more average teams" doing well. PSV Eindhoven and Porto both won it around the late 80s/early 90s. This is the period English clubs were banned and I think the Liverpool of Barnes and Beardsley wouldve won at least one too. Didnt Steaua Bucharest and Red Star Belgrade win it around then too? Half decent sides, but when you look at some of the sides who won it in the era before then as well (Villa and Forest??!!) it makes you think it was a very level playing field back then and a lot of clubs had a good chance, as long as you'd won your own league of course....

I think the Italian FA relegated Fiorentina about 3 divisions when they went tits up sometime in the last decade. Rangers new "derby" would be v Albion Rovers

The taxman's out for blood, becasue of the very example's you state above and their "protected" status as football clubs. Accrington and Aldershot are the only two that went tits up during the season and couldnt continue to fulfill their fixtures. But both their names lived on and the new clubs formed in those towns have both regained their league status. The "companies" may die but the clubs don't because theyre based on civic or regional identity and not a balance sheet. AFC Wimbledon are similar in a way but for different reasons. Reckon you're right about the taxman though. The only club I can think of in "recent" times who didnt come back is the Scottish club Third Lanark who went pop in the 60s and havent resurfaced. Clydebank FC now play in the Junior leagues in Glasgow. Maybe thats where Rangers will end up. Apparently theres a "Mr Big" in the wings waiting in the wings for this all to unravel and then he's going to bankroll them. Wouldnt hold my breath on that though.

Think you've captured his antics to a tee. No quite, he had 2 ribs removed on each side so he can give himself blowjobs.

Nowt to do with the fact he scored 0 in 28 games then. The mad thing is he scored 72 league goals in 3 seasons, came to the toon and couldn't even get one. Maybe he had other things on his mind? Am pretty sure thats right about him, I worked with his cousin in Edinburgh. He said Robertson's missus was playing away in Edinburgh, thats why they came down, new start and all all that. He reckoned she should be buried in a Y shaped cofffin.

Hearts shouldve won it in 86 too.For them not to win it on the last day they needed to be beaten at Dundee or somewhere and Celtic had to win by 5 goals, they beat St Mirren I think 6-1. Dodgy as fuck. Then Fergies Aberdeen beat them in the cup final the following week. Lots of Maroon scaves came out of closets that year. As bad a bunch of bandwagon jumping glory seekers as I've come across. We got their main man John Robertson in 88 and he was fuckin rubbish. And his wife was getting shagged by mackem waste of space John Kay which is why he left in a hurry. Allegedly.

Im sure they are hoping for HMRC to back down. As things stand the tax man would get nothing after other creditors got their share. I believe this is just a lever, to get the Tax man to settle for a much lower sum. Makes sense, although HMRC might rank ahead of unsecured creditors, I can't remember. Apparently in this situation the secured creditor is preferred, and thats Craig Whyte the chairman. I think the radio said the worst case scenario is that it does all go tits up but Whyte will just start a new club called Glasgow Rangers FC and start again. Thats what Leazes was on about I think. Even Aldershot and Accrington Stanley have come back into the lague eventually.