If he wants a 5 man midfield the sensible thing would be to play a 3-5-2, as any of our forwards would be lost on their own up top. Having Emerton/Neill/Douglas on one side Gray/Gresko on the other as wing-backs wouldn't be too bad. Matteo, Short, Amo in the middle at the back, could work, useful having two reliable if unspectacular players to cover Amo's mistakes and all or nothing play.

Is that all? You better tell Souey quick Airfares, mine cost 894euro Dublin-Melbourne with Austrian Airlines, which is a good deal less than $2100, probably about $1500 You're not trying to fly Qantas or something silly like that are you Dave?

Good idea - I reckon the good Dr Rich should personally visit every potential member and give them all a big welcoming hug.... wow what service! he's just visited me in Southampton and gave me a hug and a peck on the cheek Well I have flown all the way to Australia to give the members here the same service...

ManchesterBlue, if I offended you I'm sorry, and no Tris, I wasn't on the Aussie wine/making use of the free alcohol Diageo gave me from when I worked there. I happen to feel very strongly about not having 'site sponsor' members, this has been discussed in the past, certainly among mods/admin, and I'm pretty sure on here as well, which is why I'm reacting so sharply to what you were saying, I have considered it for quite a while and have only become even more opposed to the idea. I don't think it will be needed, as you say people are happy to donate now that there is a known problem. Honestly I don't care what you or anyone else on here thinks of me, hopefully the words that have been exchanged here will stick in people's minds and help remind them of the need for donation in the future. I'm sure there was a news item on the front page asking for donations on regular occasions, perhaps admin need to have a look at viewing figures for different parts of the site and put the notices elsewhere. I think that's a marvellous idea SAR, I've got a copy of that msn conversation too, anyone who wants to offer a donation to the site to get a copy send me an email, highest bidder wins

I find it ludicrous that now, when there is a message pinned that the site is in monetary trouble again, you could profess to have forgotten and claim that you need a reminder under your avatar(does anyone even look at their own avatar that much?) instead of just donating now, isn't the reminder obvious enough? Of course, then again, I didn't name anyone, certainly not either of you, I only expressed my opinion of anyone who wanted recognition for a donation, touchy aren't we? Nice that you saw the need to unneccesarily quote my entire post btw AS, especially when there is a notice asking for no unneeded posting due to the current difficulties. Funny also how annoyed yourself and MB got at 3 of the 'original 27' being revealed, precisely the action you are suggesting being taken no? Thankfully people are very predictable, I think my point has been proved better than any amount of argument ever could. The site didn't, not anymore than normal anyway, need contributions over the past year, which is why it hasn't been plastered all over the place, of course there are obvious notices about contributing to the site upkeep. Personally I have no problem with northernrover's suggestion of constantly asking people to donate, might start to annoy some members, but it could be neccessary. If the day arrives that this site needs to sell its soul and employ tactics of elite members, pop-up adverts etc, that will be the day it ceases to exist. Ship is becalmed not sinking.

Maybe all of the original 27 want to post their names and we'll achieve what some have been calling for, ie recognition of donations. I also contributed, if Paul ever got the money I posted that is, which is a major pet hate of mine, postal services are terrible for losing the most important things you send, rarely seem to lose bills and the like though. Normally I wouldn't say that I had given money, but I've got to ask how many of those asking that they be named as site sponsors actually contributed the first time!? If you didn't I think you need to take a long hard look at yourselves, because I think you're pathetic. I totally disagree with the idea of giving people something in their profile for their 'donation', it's laughable, how does that effect the contribution the site makes to your life? All it gives you is a tool to try and pretend how superior you are to others. To be honest, admin, I say we promise to give people this recognition, and when they actually contribute put 'I paid when I was getting this line of writing for my money, but wouldn't for the endless hours of enjoyment this website brings to my life' under their avatars. Of course anyone who didn't contribute the first time, but is willing to do so this time without getting some special status, ignore me and my ranting and please go ahead, you're all top people. Likewise anyone who isn't able to afford to contribute, or even just doesn't want to, that's no problem at all, that's how this website was envisioned, don't feel under any pressure to do otherwise, the site will go on.

Ricky, we've just had one last week, we had The Irish Rovers, Bray Wanderers, 2 teams from Kildare County, AFCD and the Northern Irish Branch taking part. From when I was speaking to the lads before I left they had decided that if someone else organised the tournament(not as ridiculous as it sounds, I did one in Blackburn after all) we would have 1 or 2 teams entered, but to be honest the hassle of organising another tournament, a lot of that hassle caused by unneccesary messing around by the other teams participating, wasn't worth it from their own point of view. We tried to convince Bray Wanderers to organise it this time, but they weren't having any of it, refused point blank, which is fair enough, they obviously know what a pain it is. So in answer to the question, no they almost certainly won't be, but if anyone wants to organise something I can get you a couple of teams from ourselves, contact numbers for the other teams who participated in our three tournaments over the past year, and contact details for the pitches in Loughlinstown were we held it last year, send us a pm or email if you're interested.

Well if thats all you want anyone can pm new members to welcome them to the board, including yourselves.

Why would you presume that one pm will automatically make these people abide by the guidelines, it won't, one warning doesn't, not even for the guideline they've broken. Anyway, since admin approve new members they can do it if they want. You seem to be presuming that we are under an obligation to allow everyone who signs up to post, which unlike the official site, we are not, you're all big boys here, time to start taking some responsibility for yourselves, I'm certainly not being anyones mum.

Rathmines is about 3km directly south of Temple Bar, its a suburb on the south of Dublin, have absolutely no problems getting around though, buses are regular, taxi's cheaper than the ones in Blackburn. Could walk it easily enough too.

May be wrong here, but isn't there a sports-only newspaper in the UK called the SP? Maybe originally something to do with horse-racing given the name, but now more general?

We do tend to get quite a number of new members, that 2,500 or whatever the latest figure is, is actually massively pruned down from the total number of members and certainly applications, the majority of whom then don't tend to post, making pming them about posting a bit pointless. The Admin all have jobs, they don't spend all day sitting around twiddling their thumbs and playing with the messageboard. If people don't read the guidelines, the repercussions of that laziness are their own fault, besides it's not as if the guidelines are radical departures from common courtesy, people who are going to be breaking the guidelines regularly aren't in general going to be good for the site anyway.

Officially I think it holds 4,500-5,000 , unofficially of course is another matter, don't have to pay tax on people who aren't there....

Anyone who actually supported Rovers?

Officially was ticket only, but in fact tickets were sold on the gate. The attendance should be less at this one, as its a Saturday evening match, that's from Bray themselves, not my opinion. If you want to be sure tickets will be available from Rovers, Bray, and probably ourselves(if I like you , seriously only as a last resort, we have enough problems for these things without dealing with loads of tickets mate, we may have some extra on the day, of course we wouldn't dream of selling them at the pub )

I've edited the topic title American, it was inappropriate, I presume since it was a recent thread no one else noticed until now.

Not if you're on the database pussycat?

If you're allowed to tell us CLB, what is the amount of money we get based on? I would presume it must be adjusted dependent on some variable, since the whole point of the trust was to ensure the well-being of Jack's companies, and obviously a club in our current position would need more financial support then if we had just won the league.

Guess we should be happy that even though you're still quoting the posts above at least you're editing them to the relevant bits... Quoting, and especially multi-quoting is incredibly irritating, like Paul, I've also been deleting them, but it's incredibly annoying that I have to waste my time doing that because some people are to lazy/ignorant to find the reply button. At first I pm'd people to inform them why I was deleting there posts, but with the exception of a notable few, all of whom were very polite and accepting of my editing (and funnily enough would have been exactly the posters I'd have expected to reply), since most hadn't the decency to acknowledge it, I've stopped doing it. Bob Fleming, like Shaddy I enjoy you're posts immensely, they are genuinely funny, and so are Sox's, unlike those of a lot of the self-styled comediens on this board. I guess a balance has to be reached, we have to put up with the appalling 'humour' of some people in order to be allowed the brilliance of some of the posts yourself and a few others have made. Can't agree with Bryan's word limit idea, a lot of those who make long posts are genuinely good posters, I especially enjoy AESF's contributions, some of his posts I'm not interested in reading because of the topic, so I don't read them, simple as that, generally they are some of the better ones on the board, even allowing for the pointless pictures that can make an appearance. tcj_jones, the system for asking for a thread/whatever to be deleted is to do precisely that, pm/report to moderator and ask as much, generally if you are reporting your own post it will be ignored though as you can always just use the edit button to delete you're own post content, though not the post itself, bit different in the case of a thread though I agree.

Excuse me if I'm being as stupid as usual, but don't the Jersey trustees pay us an amount of money dependent on how full Ewood is, so that our ticket revenue is equivalent to a full house every game, at least for league games? So it doesn't really matter too much in the short term how many season tickets we sell? Of course John Williams and the rest of the staff at Rovers will get worked up about it as it falling season ticket sales would seem to imply they aren't doing their jobs properly, but what does that matter to us supporters? The club probably lose a paltry amount on catering and merchandising money, but I can't imagine that's significant in the grand scheme of things. Now maybe in the long term this may have a major impact on the club if the Trust runs dry, but with Flybe's recent performance I doubt that will happen.

On the plus side FLB, none of those teams you mention have ever won the World Cup, which is an immeasurably greater honour.

Bray? I know a man there you can buy some dags from....

Hope there's going to be some of whatever you're on left for me to try when I arrive mate, incoherence is all good

RealPlayer is a complete and utter pile of irritating crap. It is so poor it's unbelievable. Not a big fan of Media Player either, but it looks the best product ever when compared to anything from Real. And I use Mac and PC, it's slightly less bad on the Mac, at least currently, don't know how long that will last though. Generally use Quicktime myself.

I shall be with you in spirit, the rest of me will be in Sydney