That pitch

RK. Last season (prior to any Sky moves or International break postponements) we had two scheduled midweek home league matches (Cardiff 19/8/25 and Orient 17/3/26 - there were three scheduled away games (Luton got moved to the Friday night for TV so you can say 4 away). This season there were three before MK got moved (Mansfield 20/10/26, Burton 9/2/27 and Cambridge 13/7/27. (I'm not including the three Christmas and two Easter games in this as they are usually played on random days)

As I have my train tickets etc I’m glad the game is on, but it’ll be annoying if the absences affect the outcome… JJ will need to choose his starting 11 carefully and use the bench wisely (I guess that’s the case every game tbh…).

We had an unfortunate league cup draw which threw at least one fixture into disarray.

Wouldn't be keen on more midweek league games. This season they increased from three to four due to late start, plus we had MK making it five. Doubtless there will be more due to Sky and postponements due to international squads. Clubs like ours lose money, my hunch is £30,000 per midweek game and then there's the blinding Ad hoardings, better but not great

That would be a good solution Airsy.

As before, and whilst I lean toward Spit's take on the matter, (!) I still think that it should be an all or nothing thing (i.e. L1 and L2 get the IB's as well rather than the haphazard situation the leagues are in the weekend and next). Could quite easily put the Trophy games on those weekends to fill the gap and then just schedule an additional two midweek league programmes in place of the 'moved' Trophy games

Wouldn't be fair on those with train and match tickets to call the match off now.glad it's going ahead.at our level it always should,even if we need to play youth players

S tarted at least 50% of the club’s first-team matches, or * Started, or come on as a substitute before the 75th minute, in at least 4 of the club’s last 5 first-team matches.

Sessegnon now called up. Why can’t we get Saturday postponed? We’ve had three players called up. All of whom have featured in at least two first team matches or consistently been on the bench.

The idea of tradable longer term bonds is intriguing but tradable is only useful if a reasonably liquid market exists. If I bought a 30 year bond it would need to be dealt with by my wife or child and if they wanted to sell they might be waiting for years for a reasonable offer. I suspect WIJG has a vastly more optimistic view than me about the availability and size of markets.

If there is anyone with a spare £50K laying around and not sure what to do with I can't see them investing it in our bond for just 20 quid off a match day ticket.

WIJG- agree with that - realistically nobody will invest at 5% as a rational investment when you can get that rate for lending to the uk government. We will have to pay a high rate if we need the money and might as well offer that to supporters as to outside financiers. Even with a high rate we might not attract enough funding but it is absolutely clear that we won’t get close to what we need just be sending increasingly desperate begging emails

Build in a few additional, potentially tax-free incentives (i.e. anyone investing more than £50,000 could receive 50% off the cost of a season or match day tickets for the term of the bond) and all of a sudden they might, just might get some quantifiable interest.

Welcome back JG Laurence has missed you.

Agree with your post Woking. Suppose we might get a quick infusion of bond money but just not a good/safe deal now.

The big issue in relation to cash flow isn’t the level of bond interest, it is the rate of capital repayment. Whether or not the rate of interest offered is 5% or 10% is small change in relation to having to repay the capital over just a few years. I’d suggest increasing the rate of interest to 12.5% and issuing 30-year transferable and tradeable bonds. That way, the club doesn’t have to find the cash flow to redeem until 2056, when in “Real” terms (after allowing for inflation) the amount owing will have reduced by 65%+.

It is clear that we are in a terribly weak position for negotiating with a potential investor - with big losses and cash about to run out due to relying on the survey monkey quiz for our cash projections. Hence we will likely be faced with a choice of a bad deal and/or bad investor or going into administration. This was so obviously the end game all along and yet the DTB wasted our time when we were in a stronger position with years of pontificating that fan ownership was “non- negotiable” (which I suppose ultimately is true as we are going to lose it with no real scope for negotiation)

And the Guardian original: [Link]

Paddington's piece about pseudoscience [Link]

The more begging emails and articles saying please invest in a bond (where your security is no higher than an ordinary creditor and we've got a £3m hole which we think is only £1.7m but we won't know for sure until bonds mature in a few months) the worse it makes us look. Competent investors are not stupid. Will a bit more money in a bond materially effect negotiating strength for either party? The £1m bank facility (which I presume is an unsecured RCF) we have is not enough to cover the likely shortfall. That's the issue. A competent and forward thinking DTB would have taken steps to negotiate a fall back position with a lender in case they can't find a minority investor on their terms (which was always likely). You may have to pay a bit for a larger RCF but at least it's there when you need it and security would only kick in when you draw down on it. They've based their whole financial strategy on a vague flakey high level survey and have nowhere to go. If the leaked Bertrand deal is what is under exclusivity then we'd be better off going into administration and be done with it.

Interesting interview in the Guardian with a doctor who works in football about pseudoscience in the sport. (e.g. the gaffer tape stuff you see on players' legs sometimes). Can't link from my phone but worth a search.

Clear commercial experience says that when three people, who can change every year or even during the year, can overrule your plans on a whim, don't go near the deal. I'm fascinated to hear how people think you can overcome that.

Exiled [Link]

Any one got a link to the email ? I’m a member but I haven’t received it