Eddie Hitler

Suggestion (which I can't claim credit for) that to put pressure on the club to rescind these arbitrary and unfair lifetime bans for a whole heap of nothing at Cardiff / the derby that there is a boycott of the FA Cup R1 game and an associated demo is held rather than just staying in the pub. There is a big difference between the club not condoning violence and it banning lifelong fans for incredibly minor offences. The club is not claiming the moral high ground here, just acting like a newly-appointed moderator who has just discovered the ban button. They may have the approval of a couple of mouthy keyboard warriors but to the average fan they come across as petty and vindictive.

No way, you don't get out of it that easily!

Ok, so the unwritten answer is that these are in fact nasty pieces of work who would go on the run if they knew that they were going to be arrested. And that I am wrong to assume otherwise. That's fine, as it is an assumption on my part and these are sometimes wrong. I have no inside knowledge and no axe to grind. If you say this is poprtionate and appropriate, based upon information that you have, then I will accept that. The test will be that these 16 are in found guilty of criminal offences when they come to trial.

Why is that ridiculous? We are not talking about career criminals. How often is there law-breaking violence at a Bristol City game? Six times a year absolute tops. So if any of these are repeat offenders then they're not doing it very often and are not about to go on the run because of it. So you write to them to come in, some will do so. Where they don't then you issue a warrant for their arrest and then you can do your dawn raid. I accept that not every one of those involved is a decent lad who got carried away, there are some nasty pieces of work out there, but when you get up to 16 people being arrested in dawn raids for some trouble on the pitch then the word that you are looking for is "disproportionate". Save those kind of exercises for terrorists and armed robbers where there is every reason to do so.

Well I'm looking at them and thinking "clowns"!

We are not talking about police-murderer Dale Cregan with a grenade and a bolthole in Spain here. These are some local people who presumably overstepped the mark at a local football game. Why did they not just write to them and ask them to arrange a date to come in to their local station for an interview? I hope they get a serious grilling from the local media for this pointless circus and whichever senior officer that sanctioned this gets disciplined.

FGR have flirted with relegation for year after year so it's nice to see their fans finally getting something to celebrate. My loyalties, such as they are*, in that region lie however with Gloucester City (yel-lows) but FGR fans are a decent bunch. * I have just had to look up what division they are in, fourth from bottom of conference north, there were complicated reasons why they went into the north league and I'm surprised to see that they are still there.

But the prospective owner, and it's his partly his fault that they are in this mess, is getting a £15m parachute payment which could easily pay these players who have written contracts saying they are owed money. Instead he wants the money for himself rather than being prepared to give it to people like Tel Ben Haim who is actually owed it. Why is Tel Ben Haim the bad guy here?

Now that hadn't been highlighted! I can see why they're sitting tight. From the administrator's actions to date (breifing against them in the press, not taking them on the Marbella training session) I would have thought they have a very good case for constructive dismissal claims.

Portsmouth fans are very switched on about this, thread on letter to players asking for pay cuts: http://thepompeychimes.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=69030&sid=eec8354ece9286f6120c6a3ecd6ad690

Quite, different times now. The money has ruined the top tier of the game, these players came to Portsmouth because they were offered stupidly high salaries. I don't expect them to have any loyalty to the club, run as it was as a rich man's plaything. Portsmouth's operating company will hopefully fold and these rich men will lose their "investment", then the fans set up a new Portsmouth 2012 FC in Div 3 or the conference. In 1982 players in general had loyalty to their club, the Ashton Gate 8 were exemplary but in many ways typical of their time. You could still see a few of our players behaving that honorably but could you see it for the Man City or Arsenal squads?

Wednesday by a country mile. I don't want to see Palace go out of existence, but I do want to see them go back to non-league obscurity as that may finally make their tremendously irritating fans realise that they are not a big club; they are a very small club who had a lucky streak that lasted 20 years.

Better one for Coventry: http://forums.iccoventry.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=1

Good one Madger, very useful info.

Yes. But wouldn't want him back for the reasons stated.

Let us not. Bad attitude, frequently piss poor, steals things from dressing rooms, will want close to the £1.5m wage Fowler is asking for.

That's a

I will have a drink. Or twelve! I remember getting relegated in the mid-nineties. I was in a pub in Edale having just had to turn back on the Pennine way because one of the party (who had done it before but in summer) was confident he'd be fine without gloves, decent waterproof etc. Pillock. Relegation just put the cap on that. Incidentally why does a discussion about promotion celebrations get shunted to the non-footy forum? How is this non-footy? I've been on fora that have no division between categories, and those that do. I much prefer those that don't have the division. Apart from that the modding here is fairly light-touch, thankfully.