Awww, shucks! Harrow County was a good school. Much too good for me, I'm afraid! I didn't do well in environments where I was told what to do. School particularly. It was a great place to live. My old mum still lives in the area, although I left a long, long time ago. There's almost none of my family left in North London, other than when Spurs are playing. It was definitely a cool place to live and I have a lot of happy memories of it. However, when I suggested to Mrs B that we move north of the river, she freaked out! My best mate's older brother played in goal for Wembley FC and we used to go and watch them train. So, lots of sports and outside areas to go mad in. I hope it's just the same for kids today.
The tweet from BBC Sport was inundated with comments from the owners of North London's second-biggest stadium showing classic signs of emasculation ...or, you know, being the average Nomad on Twitter, which has basically been the same thing the last couple of years
All that remains now for them to cling to is no CL, and the "1 bn" rubbish. We will know about the first come May, and for the second the first (partial) refute of that will be in June (with act 2 exactly a year after that) .
On the subject of financial prudence; I'm not sure if this has been posted elsewhere but this is a fascinating (and scary) article which provides detailed insight into the epidemic of overspending currently ravaging major household clubs as they recklessly gamble everything on a shot at dining back at the PL banqueting table. Blackburn, Bolton, Birmingham, Fulham, Reading and many more big clubs are in serious, serious trouble and could well go the way of clubs like Oldham, Swindon and Bradford in terms of drifting into total obscurity having once upon a dream enjoyed that banquet's cuisine. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/47691385
On the one hand you'd think Fulham would have a degree of protection due to promotion to the Premier League giving them a cash injection (and, by the looks of things, parachute payments) coupled with some of their high-profile signings being loanees, although for me the real worry is they had a deal with some agent acting as an intermediary last summer and that having all manner of hidden fees or crippling balloon payments waiting to rear their heads - with the double signing from Nice (namely Seri & Le Marchand) being the most likely source of these
I'm not sure what the parachute payments look like these days but I remember speaking to a Villa colleague of mine after they went down and he was saying how the payments don't really cover a penny more (usually less) than losses incurred through smaller gates, ticket price downgrades, drop in corporate and commercial sponsorship and less TV money. When you add all of that up p.a it's a huge lump of cash. The payments assume that the recipient club has a sensible and sustainable wage and bonuses structure that can be tweaked and managed without having to offload 15 players in the space of one transfer window, which is fair enough.
Fulham will be due around £100m to £110m in tv payments, plus their sponsorship and gate receipts for this season. They spent over £100 in the transfer windows and sacked two managers plus coaching staff. Then they had the higher wages to pay. Their is s real chsnce that they will go down financially worse off than they were 12 months ago. Huddersfield is the complete opposite with their 2 year stay as are Cardiff (if they go down). Fulhsm could be in deep deep **** after their lack of sensible spending last summer!
Considering the way Cardiff are acting over the Sala fee, it wouldn't surprise me if Willie McKay slipped a few hidden fees in that deal that they're trying to get out of
Them clubs you have named are no way on the level of the top English clubs in any way shape or form. We are ever presents in the PL, youve just named a bunch of extremely average yo yo clubs. We have been milking the PL cash cow every year whilst being top of the net spend stakes ...i dont think all of a sudden if we show some ambition on the pitch that our future as a club is in turmoil.
Didn't mean it as a citation of proof in favour of our lack of spending Dona. You know me - I'm firmly in the camp of: we made a terrible mistake showing little to no ambition over the past 3 or 4 transfer windows, and the odd £30-40m investment here and there isn't going to plunge the club into financial turmoil overnight. I was posting it more as an article of interest although what I will say is that it vindicates Levy's approach to wage structure. Once upon a time there wasn't that much difference between us and Villa in terms of performance level and global support. Leeds too. Yet look where they are and look where we are today. The latter could yet win automatic promotion to end their decades in the wilderness, but the former can only hope for another play-off roulette at best. And if they screw up again, all of the financial problems they had last summer will hit again just harder. And all of that boils down to overpaying dross. Unless you are a billionaire's plaything or have global support equivalent to United or Liverpool, that wage bill has to be sustainable or else you are gambling with the club's future year on year. All it takes is a flash in the pan failure like Juande Ramos to get a good club relegated and the wage bill will cripple you within a season.
