Harry

You couldn’t be more wrong Pops. I’m totally FOR all those things that IamNick mentions. But, as I said, this is not a time for political argument. I’m absolutely certain that, once we are in full swing, full lockdown, no business being transacted, no salaries being paid etc etc, that the measures spoken about will be implemented. No one will be working. No one will be paid. Thus the only course of action available will be for no one to pay any rent/mortgages/bills etc, and I’m even more certain that there’ll be rationing soon that people won’t starve.

Also, just want to add that, no, I’m not ok with it. I’m not ok with any of it. I work in insurance. Private medical insurance to be precise. So on one hand some are saying that I’m a beneficiary of today’s action. But my wife works in a pub/restaurant. So she is on the receiving end of today’s actions. This will end up affecting everyone and every industry. No one is immune to the economic crisis coming our way, and no government will be able to prevent it.

I’m not apologising for him. We currently have no idea, not a single inkling, that the approach taken by other countries will work. You’ve taken your own personal responsibility and isolated yourself and your family. And I applaud you for that. Sadly many others are carrying on regardless and aren’t yet appreciating the vastness of the situation ahead of us. You might be angered about the decision today to not enforce pub closure, but trust me, when all this is over, todays decision will be long forgotten. Politics will be long forgotten. This is much bigger than any of that. Much much bigger.

This is clearly a once in a lifetime event. I don’t for one second believe that the government is purposely taking a course of action that is intentionally screwing people over. They are simply trying to stem the flow of pressure on the nhs by a slowly slowly philosophy, rather than inducing full lockdown, full panic and an overful nhs. I personally believe that every single economy in the world will collapse over this. We are in the very early days of a very long struggle. I don’t believe that any policy is to single out any particular industries - every single industry and every single person is going to suffer. They’re just stemming the flow at the moment. Many people are going to die and whatever course of action is taken will not prevent that. This is not a political game.

You’re actually agreeing with me, in a way. Absolutely. The philosophy at the moment is to just slowly slowly ramp up the actions, hoping that the public realise the seriousness of the situation and take personal responsibility. Some are and lots aren’t. If lots continue to show a blatant disregard for others then the end outcome is full lockdown and martial law. No government knows the right course of action to take at the moment. It’s unprecedented.

Pretty fed up of people having ‘political’ arguments on this. Whether you like Boris or not, I think it’s pretty clear to see that he is taking the advice of the eminent experts of our country - he isn’t making it all up himself! This is a totally unprecedented situation and no one, in any country, knows how to handle this. Our ‘experts’ are attempting a softly softly approach rather than an immediate lockdown. Other countries have done differently. It’s not a political point of view. It’s not Boris making these recommendations. Please, he’s not bright enough. Let’s quit the political arguments. We are in the very early days of a very lengthy and deadly situation and no one has any clue yet what the best way to deal with this is. Let’s just abide by the advice being given. If you don’t agree that schools should be open - you are free to make your own choice and keep your kids at home. If you don’t agree that pubs shouldn’t be open - make your own choice and don’t go to one. If you don’t agree that you shouldn’t have close contact with your elderly relatives - make your own choice and go and see them as much as you want. No government is gonna get this right. However, ours is relying on us, as a general public, not to be a bunch of disrespectful pricks and to act with due care and attention to the situation. I personally have been very wary to keep a distance from people over this last week. I’m amazed that when I took my daughter to school this morning there were people still congregating so close together and happily nattering away in close-contact. I kept my distance, dropped her off and went home without coming within 2 metres of anyone. It’s easy to do, if you want to. Our government’s philosophy at the moment is that people act responsibly - sadly many people aren’t taking this seriously. The death rates will not be the responsibility of anyone on government. We are all able to make our own choices. The continual ignorance of the population is what will cause more deaths than anything the government have decided so far. Quit the political nonsense folks and batten down your hatches. They’re giving you a personal choice to do this at the moment. If you don’t all start acting responsibly then they will have to force it upon you via martial law. And then you’ll really have something to complain about. I find it baffling that people are trying to blame Johnson for a fricking pandemic, accuse him of not doing enough, and then still **** off to the pub of a night anyway. Unbelievable.

Is this anything linked to Section 82? Do I get a refund on my stickers that I now won’t be able to plaster on all the remaining away grounds? It’s so unfair.

We’ll see how serious they are about this later today if they cancel the last day of Cheltenham. If they come out today and say I can’t travel to Blackburn on Saturday then I don’t see how they could let Friday at Cheltenham go ahead.

Exactly this Ralph. I’d have expected information exactly like the family-tree style you refer to. Person A has died. They are connected to Person B who tested positive and attended a business conference in London on 25th Feb. Also present at the conference was Person C who tested positive but has now recovered, who had recently returned from Venice on 20th Feb. Would be good to get this kind of detail so that the general public could understand that you won’t get this just by walking along the street (or by shopping for toilet roll!)

Do we have any information as to the people in the U.K. who’ve sadly died. 6 now I understand. Information such as, how do we think they contracted it? Had they all been to China or Italy or other infected area recently, or had any of their friends or relatives been in such places. It would be beneficial, I believe, for the public to know HOW these people contracted it. We seem to be lacking any true, useful information.

It was the Alpine Lorry. My dad used to drive one. Us kids would always nick a couple of bottles off the back of the lorry when he wasn’t looking. Not the dandelion & burdock though - horrible stuff that! When you made a new purchase you could return your empties and get money back. Great system.

How did this bloke ever pass the “fit and proper persons” test to be able to take over Forest. He’s been widely implicated in match fixing, fraud and even drug trafficking. What a guy.

Didn’t have them on at the time. They were stuffed into the back of his shorts.

Players couldn’t shake hands today but in the tunnel pre-match Maenpaa was high-fiving all the mascots!! ?

I noticed at tonight’s Forest Millwall game there was no handshake pre match but everyone had a really good handshake after the match. What was the point?

Absolutely. I returned from Benalmádena on Sunday. 2 confirmed cases were found in Fuengarola, the next town along. I know 2 people who advised their employers of this and they were advised to work at home for the week. There will likely be lots of people working from home on the agreement of their employers. And that’s of course the best thing to do if you have that facility. I’m certain I’ve already had this anyway. My sister-in-law regularly travels to China. She returned just before Xmas with ailments and was told she had pneumonia. Docs gave her some pretty strong pills. She was ill for a few weeks. I spent Xmas at her house and me and my wife both got ill a few days after. As did my parents-in-law who were also in the same house for a few days over Xmas. Whilst the first ‘coronavirus’ case wasn’t announced until late Jan, I know that there was a significant increase in pneumonia cases in China from November through December. I have reason to believe that this new strain of pneumonia that they were experiencing was in fact corona, but of course only cases after 25th jan will be diagnosed as such. Anyway - all my family have had this and we’re all ok now. Even the 70+ year old in-laws.

Quelle surprise. A Villa fan in denial. Truth is pal, you were very very close to breaching the regs. It was widely acknowledged by the whole football world. You may have just gotten away with it. Just. Suck it up, be grateful that you might’ve just sneaked under, but don’t come here acting high and ******* mighty and that you weren’t pushing the line. Cuz you were. Very close.

But have those small ones had their late teenage growth spurt yet? And can they defend a near post corner?

Redundancy, sadly. But it turned out ok and I’m earning more now anyway ? Was interesting work though, particularly having sight of the player salaries!!

Indeed, had cover not commenced on the Cardiff policy, then there would be an argument that cover was still in place on the Nantes policy (if indeed they had one?). As for continued payments to relatives, you don’t tend to see too much of that nowadays - generally just a lump sum is covered. Many insurers pulled back from such ‘annuities’ a number of years ago - large capitalisation factors (and thus big payouts) were the norm but with years of low interest rates insurers weren’t getting bang for their buck and so had to pull back on offering such large and lengthy sums. Many firms who had ‘annuities’ covered were advised to remove this and instead increase the lump sum cover instead. As for exclusions, with the Life policies the football clubs held which I dealt with, there were no exclusions. Cover was offered to a certain value (ie £2m) with no questions asked. Exclusions would only ever be applied if an individual was medically underwritten for cover (where the insurer could look at lifestyle/hobbies as well as health, and potentially exclude dangerous sports or flying). The cover under the football policies was in place with no exclusions.

On the insurance side of things, if Cardiff had travel insurance for their employees then this would strictly be for business purposes only. I’m sure the insurer would state that a flight to see friends and family would not be construed as ‘business’ purposes. With Life insurance, well in a previous workplace of mine I used to look after a number of Premier League clubs Group Life insurance policies. Generally the cover was £2m, some were a bit higher at £4m. This was a few years ago so the cover levels may well have increased but certainly not to the tune of the £15m fee. The cover on the policy would not have had to be notified and agreed by the insurer, the way it worked was that any ‘new entrants’ are covered immediately upon joining the club (the admin gets done later, but cover is in place on day 1). So the insurer is liable as long as he was a Cardiff player. I guess that is what they’re arguing over, ie whether he was legally an employee of Cardiff on his date of death. Likewise I also looked after the PFA’s life insurance arrangement. So if Sala had been registered with the PFA prior to his date of death he’d also be covered for up to £2m with them.

This bloke (and this Jevons EFL woman) seem to have spent a lot of time on Talksport trading blows - surely they’d have been better off sat in a room sorting it all out, and not come out until it’s done. Seems they are both desperate for public opinion to sway their way rather than sort the problem out. This is not a solution in my opinion. It’s the same principle as Parachute Payments. You’re basically saying to club owners - “go ahead and spend what you want, but it’s ok because there’s a pot of cash to rescue you if you balls up”. Not the way to go, for me. This is the correct solution. I’ve heard Simon Jordan mention this numerous times on Talksport (whilst I know Jordan has been much maligned in the past, he does talk a lot of sense on the ‘business’ side of football, and I like the chap). His suggestion is exactly as Rob states above. Owners have to put up a bond of x amount. This sits as security if the club gets into financial trouble. Basically means a ‘put your money where your mouth is’ to any prospective owners. Had this Bury bloke had to put up £2m as a bond when he bought Bury for £1, then this bond could now be there to save the club.

Not wishing to bring this off topic re the CO story, nor wishing to be disrespectful to anyone, but what was the outcome of the financials surrounding this deal? Last I recall was that Cardiff were saying they wouldn’t pay. Is that still the case or have they paid up now?

Are they playing all the women’s games at Ashton Gate this season or is it just this one? My 5 year old daughter has her first season ticket this year and she’s already asked me if there’s a girls team, so I might take her to see the women’s team. I always thought they played at SGS? Is that right?