Chim Chimineeee

No, we want decent football, and pay through the teeth to see something resembling it. we've made it known home and away for months, if we'd applauded the same negative style that we'd been served up for months now and celebrated it on the back of a win against Derby..... THEN we'd be fickle. the league placing is irrelevant.

the driver was Birmingham City, despite what police 'reports' might like to say otherwise.

It was a decent atmosphere from where I was in the away end, plenty of stuff to and fro.

Curbishley will be looking for excuses, because he's under pressure for getting us playing negative football - the stuff about the reebok and refs decisions are just smokescreens, for a large percentage of our fans who are pissed off with his increasingly negative football. I thought the atmosphere was decent, we would get nothing because of Curbishley's blinkered insistence on playing Ashton pretty much up front alone for long periods, and that you deserved the win.

If we beat Pompey tonight, we won't get a thing at yours. Conversely.. We were shocking at Sunderland if that helps any.

Thanks Might make it back for last orders at my local if that's the case!

Always driven to away games at yours before. Reading some of this, how long realistically does it take from the Reebok - Horwich station - Bolton station? After cheapo rail tickets, but want to keep realistic with the times.

Whites, I am. And am under no illusion that the new owner gives a monkeys about the club, other than what he or they can make from it. Just a business thing for them, no matter what they say. Just think that money in the Premiership is so big now, that the days of a local bloke coming in and including things like the fans and traditions of a club being high on their agendas are long gone, no matter where they come from. Foreign investment and ownership isn't the cause of why footballs changed so much, just a sympton. All the money rolling round, inflated wages etc, massive tv and sponsorship deals, doesn't matter what team you support, or where your Chairmans from, match going fans and what they want and expect from going to grounds up and down the country was changing for the worse long before foreign owners got on the gravey train.

It's a grand idea, and I hate all the money and hype in the game. I don't like the thought that my club could just become a cash cow for foreign owners who could cut their losses and leave us in the shit, whenever it takes their fancy. Saying that though, local or not, most Chairmen, owners, boards are 'alien' to supporters anyway. Irrespective of where they come from, how many of them give a monkeys about seat pricing for your average fan, how many stood up for supporters who didn't want all seating grounds, how many complain to Sky and Setanta about grabbing games last minute, and making it more difficult for their supporters to plan away games, how many come up with stupid new gimmicks at grounds, that have np place at English football grounds and are embarrasing rip offs of American football gimmicks? How many bother to listen to supporters, whose families have stuck with their clubs for generation after generation, when it comes to things like ground moves? With very few exceptions owners have lost touch completely with traditional support of clubs, whether those owners come from a stones throw from the ground or Timbuktu.

Quite a few fixtures have already had away fans travelling by official means only rules over the years - think Cardiff City get hit most by it. How the hell does it work for say an away season ticket holder, who lives miles off from the home ground of the team they support though? Are they supposed to travel 100 miles in one direction to get on a coach to take them back 200 miles back in the opposite direction? Another way of raising money no doubt, and guarantee that what will be classed as 'hi jinx' from rugby fans on a train, will be classed as 'rowdyism' if it's a football crowd. Was also under the impression that the rail police are able to ban individual people travelling full stop if they're that worried?

Just going to draw more attention to himself Don't think he was too keen on the "Sol wants Brighton in the cup" and "You're only here for the sailors" songs last time your favourite team in London were down at Pompey, but it's probably some of the other stuff that's he's going on about. Agree with others that it was far worse years back, and reckon he's being a bit OTT, but bit ironic that while fans from all teams have said he should just ignore it and get on with his job, the songs that get to Sol the most come from Spurs. And they in recent times are the first ones to kick up to all kinds of authorities when other similar type stuff gets sang. Happy Christmas

think Harry kind of dropped himself in it years back with the direct quote of *everyone's at it" can you imagine Wenger, Fergie etc, coming out with something like that? been speculated for years that he was creaming money left, right, centre. top dollar bet he still walks from it though, couple of agents will be the fall guys.

Can understand their obvious excitement at meeting Curbishley, but not to the extent of the one on the left pissing himself.

as an outsider I seriously don't understand why your board wouldn't be doing everything in their power to convince Anelka to stay. Apart from the obvious class he brings to your forward line, wouldn't it be sending out all the wrong messages to other players at the club who might be considering their positions? is there any takeover looming? board cashing in before selling up or something?

Not aimed at Bolton, as I hate the match build up at Upton Park also. Bin all of it, PAs before matches should play a few records and dedications, and that's it - give it a rest some 10 minutes before kick-off, and let the fans take over from there - no team needs piped music to add to anything every time they score, if a ground can't create after a goal then it's a lost cause. And they don't need it beforehand either - all that 'You Will Sing At This Point' crap takes away all the build up to games that used to happen, natural animosities, spontaneous chants to and fro that wold last well into the first half, all drowned out by some predictable song blasted out at top volume by the PA. Don't need it before the game, during a game, or as at cup finals after the game. Lot of foreign players/managers mention the intensity of English football crowds across the Divisions, there's no way we need piped music and prompts from PA systems to keep it going - American crap.

To be honest, still don't understand it all. And if I read anymore about it, I'll be applying for a degree in sports law. Don't understand why Ferguson is going for Tevez, given the Joorabchian baggage - ripped Corinthians to pieces, landed us with a record Premiership fine, arbitration panels, the possibility of going down from a points deduction, threatening to take his 'bombshells' to McCabe. Who in their right mind, apart from our idiot ex-Chairman, would want to do business with a chancer like that? I do think it stinks, but so does a lot of things in the money driven Premiership. Also think that we could have been given a points deduction, but it was by no means definite, there'd been no precedent. Hand on heart, we were lucky, but the crux of Sheffield Utds argument, was the third party influence stuff, which coming from a club who'd prevented Watford playing Kabba against them, I thought was a bit rich. But there you go. Roll on the football.

If it's in the Mail, I read from the end of the piece. I got to "By Jeff Powell" He must be busy this Summer, what with his beloved Spurs about to challenge for the League, surprised he's got time to rally against the spawn of satan.

From the Mail. Don't tell me, they've got 'new' 'evidence' that will 'blow the lid off' If the Mail had had their way, there'd be half a dozen managers looking for new jobs now, following the bungs enquiry. Weren't they going to blow the lid off of that every day for 18 months as well? Couldn't blow the lid off a yoghurt that lot.

Agree with all that, don't like the 3rd Party stuff, the likes of Kia involved in the Premiership, and will be glad when he takes his whole circus to Old Trafford. Don't understand how that Steve Kabba stuff has been brushed under the carpet, but hey.. Yep, my money will be on them this season.

Traf, if I'm honest, I don't understand all the technicalities of it. But then neither does Dave Whelan, who admitted as much, after he'd according to him, consulted some of the best sporting lawyers in the country. The same fair and level playing field Dave Whelan, who I read today is seeing his RL team fined a second time, for flagrent breaching of rules. And then McCabe, who in the last couple weeks of the season, said that matters should be decided on the pitch. Just asking some genuine questions. Why weren't Chelsea deducted points (a mandatory penalty), for tapping up Ashley Cole? The whole Tevez thing was about third party influence - why would Kia have tried to have prevented him playing? He wanted to showcase the blokes talents, before moving him on. So Kia rolls up to the dressing room with "Tell you what Alan, Carlos has been playing a few blinders lately, but we think it would suit us if he was dropped for the next couple games, get him out of the spotlight a bit" Sheffield United's case was based around the third party influence thing, yet they themselves were in breach of the Leagues ruling on that, by getting Watford to agree that Steve Kabba wouldn't play against them - it was even in the matches official programme notes. So unless I'm missing something here, they've been appealing against something that we could of been involved in theoretically, but that they've actually been involved in definetely? Third party ownership (which I agree is something the Premiership should get rid of) isn't illegal according to their rules - he was never ineligible to play. The indipendent enquiry into it stated that according to the Leagues rules, third party ownership was allowed, and at no point had he been ineligible, yet the word ineligible still crops up in every newspaper report on the matter! And you reckon that the press favour us - Blimey, hate to think what they'd be like if they had it in for us.

If Man United seriously want to 'rush through' the deal, then given that the set up of it sounds just like the arrangement we had, 'a loan', and the history of what's happened, they'd be idiots. This third party influence business, which coincidently didn't come into play, would it be the same kind of third party influence that Man United and Sheffield United were both guilty of when preventing their ex-players participating in games? If not, please would someone explain the difference? Our punishment was one of five options. Chelsea tapped up Ashley Cole. The punishment for that is a mandatory points deduction, could someone explain that one to me as well? But yep, we stayed up becuase of a breach of a technicality in paperwork, and the incompetence of an idiot who has now been shown the door from the club. Oh, and that one man team Carlos Tevez, who if I remember correctly, was a bit of a laughing stock some months back, with his zero goals in umpteen games scoring record. Crap one minute, a one man magician single handedly taking on Premiership teams the next. And Trevor Brooking had a word with the 3 man panel, appointed amongst others, by Sheffield United.*rolls eyes* If you really think our crime was as grevious as made out, then fair enough, but there's been so many inaccuracies in the press (ineligible players - they were NOT ineligible), that it's beggared belief. That biased Southern based football press no doubt..

Bolty, it's worse since they got Berbatov, a fantastic buy for sure, and got to admit he's added a lot to them. But no guarantee that one of the real big guns will come in for him this summer. One more decent buy, Berbatov stays, and you'll have them thinking they'll be serious contenders for the title! Can see why he'd choose Spurs ahead of us, but if part of it is to win things, he might have a bit of a wait.

Yep, that'll be it, off to Spurs to win the treble, and appearances in the UEFA cup, that's such a holy grail to most. (Is that the same one we were in last September?) Nailed on appearances in cup finals, what with their last one being only 8 years back.

yep, called that one wrong! Off to win the treble at Spurs then... 75K was quoted, but then again some players seem to be on 3 different wages, sometimes differing by tens of thousands, depending on what paper you're reading at the time.

Casino.. He'd verbally agreed (apparantly), was due a medical yesterday, and Curbishley had cut short his holiday to overlook things. Pulled out last minute. I agree, ?18m for Bent is ridiculous money, got a decent goalscoring record, even when Charlton were struggling, but ?18m!! Got to be far better quality purchases abroad.