Mick

He also says "I've also paid off £100million worth of debt so today this club doesn't owe a buck to anyone."

This from last month mentions only paying off £75 million unless I've missed something. http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-evening-chronicle/2008/03/01/opening-up-toon-s-books-72703-20545643/ One story with quotes about our £100 million debt but nothing to say it's all paid off but it is implied. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/premiership/article3085117.ece

OK, I can't remember that, I just remember two large amounts of debt being paid off.

I've seen the bit at the bottom.

I'm not sure he wiped it all out, I think he put somewhere between £75 million and £80 million in to get rid of the big debts that were costing a fortune to finance and one which he had no choice but to pay off due to the terms of the original loan.

Anyone know anything about this guy? Yes, he signed from Madrid has had a bad time with injuries but is in very good form at the minute.

I don't care who wins, just having two finalists is brilliant for our game, pity they couldn't change the venue for the sake of the fans and it's a pity so many fans will not get tickets because of corporate hospitality. I'm jealous but good luck to both teams.

I'm glad I only commented on the first bit then.

Agreed, for the first time in ages we have a keeper who realises that he can come off his line and defend his area by cutting out crosses.

The biggest mistake I've seen from Harper was a slip which resulted in a freak goal, the biggest mistake I've seen from Given was when he put the ball down and Dublin came from behind and scored, they've both made mistakes.

It just shows where the power lies in football, if a player wants to go to a club he'll usually end up where he wants to go as long as that club is interested. I can't find the original article but have found something on wiki, I know it's not 100% reliable but here it is. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_Rovers_F.C. the fee mentioned is £3,200,000 and I'm sure that's the figure which he quoted. It's just above "Return to Europe."

Yes, I think he did it to take the piss out of us because he went for a fraction of his worth, the article and link was discussed on here at the time.

Fixed.

I'm not bothered about the rest of Europe, he's doing it to weaken the Premiership, nothing else. I think the 39th game that the Premiership tried to bring about has caused this, he's seen the English game trying to expand and is worried that FIFA and UEFA might lose some power if the Premiership gets too strong. With Blatter it's all about self preservation.

I'd rather Harper was in goal for us than Given, Harper hasn't been terrible for years he just hasn't had a good run of games in which to prove himself.

A mackem would see a bar of soap and water as foreplay so be careful with that one.

I hate Blatter, he couldn't care less about our football, he' trying to limit foreigners because we're attracting foreign TV viewers who attract foreign money into our league, Blatter is a grade A tosser.

We got between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000 for Bellamy, I can't remember the exact figure but he mentioned it in a newspaper aticle.

Don't hold your breath waiting for anybody in the media to say they were wrong, they'll just change history and act as if nothing had happened.

Piss off. He loved it when he played against us, he was in the papers about the atmosphere at St James'.

I'd love to see Eto'o come here and I think we'd have a good chance of getting him if he wanted to play in the Premiership and none of the top 4 wanted him.

Sarcasm, it would seem that Ashley is worse than the other two as far as the media are concerned.

Was that the time the tube was shut down because some of our supporters thought that it would be a good idea to save the tube fair and walk along the track?

I'm sure it was a Wednesday, I lived in the midlands at the time and got the train from Birmingham. We were behind the goal and it really was bad. They had allotments behind the ground and had a platform up a tree, they stood up the tree for the full game and threw bricks. The exact same thing happened the only other time I went but that time wasn't too bad as I stood against the back wall, I thought it would be safe the second time as I really thought the police would have worked out a way of stopping them. I got into Cardiff during the day and was on the drink in the city centre then walked up to the ground and went in the Ninian Park pub which was a big mistake although nothing actually happened other than threats. We tried to go that way after the game to get back to the train station and I was stabbed with the metal point of an umbrella then it kicked off for a few minutes until the police came along and took us the other way. We did OK considering I was only with one other person and we got jumped by 5 or 6, I couldn't miss them when I lashed out at them yet they quite often hit each other because they couldn't get at us. The first time we beat them 4-0 and were escorted to the train station, it started with something like 30 of us being escorted but I would guess 70 were Cardiff fans by the time we got near to the station, they kicked off just as we got to the train station, the police didn't seem to do much but to be fair, I had other things on my mind so didn't see much of what they did. To let so many people get amongst us on the way down without asking where they were from was pathetic.