philipl

Very pleasant- been overcast most of the last ten days but generally lovely. Pretty dry and the brown grass is showing the result. Appreciating not being in the 30-40 range in Malta for once.

Apparently Bentley has done his ankle in a training accident at Spurs and could be out for three months.

...and their debt? Unicredit have effectively foreclosed on Roma's owners' 67% stakes 49% of Roma is owed £271m! Cheri Lunghi/ Karren Brady style Chief Executive there.

La Liga depends on the ability of cubs to blackmail their local communities. It is simple as that. If the Spanish economy goes broke (and it is teetering) the clubs will collapse with it as the folk they use "leverage" with (local politiians and businesses) will have nothing left to contribute to the clubs' coffers. This is not a great time to be E350m in debt and to be looking for another E150m from what is effectively a crippled banking system in Spain. Especially when the TV rights company Mediapro are in "protection from their creditors"- the major creditors being Barcelona and Real Madrid. Methinks Fabregas will only be playing at the Nou Camp as an Arsenal player.

The Economist link . Being debated on Twitter this afternoon.

The Economist has just argued for the complete legalisation of all drugs.

Garry Cook's golden touch with players deserting him? Now there is a surprise!

Poor Inter!

Agreed- it is only three seasons ago Benni was runner-up in the Premier League Golden Boot playing for Rovers

Fundamental problems in La Liga Will be interesting to see what happens when the other Liga clubs tell Madrid and Barca to share the cake.

Is York boss Martin Foley an ex-Rover?

Just seen the wrap-up of the Coca Cola from last weekend and saw Joe Garner, Martin Taylor, Shefki Kuqi and Callum Davidson all scoring with Robbie Savage supplying an assist. Ince went AWOL for the MK home game by the way.

A real blast from the past Easter weekend so far. Treacy, Danns, Walters. Davidson, Kuqi all on the score sheets and I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't more ex-Rovers hitting the net I have not noticed.

Perfect result in Munich- the Mancs are going to be facing a stronger Bayern side than the one that has just beaten them 3 days ahead of their visit to Ewood.

I am expecting Messi to be the standout player in South Africa this summer. The only thing that could stop him is Maradonna's management screwing up Argentina qualifying from their group.

Must admit, it is striking the numbers of ex-Rovers there are popping up all over the place in the lower leagues scoring goals recently.

This is the most important post on this thread. Hopefully it will end all the speculative posts about what happened. 4ever&ever acted with commendable public-spiritedness but most importantly simple humanity. He was and is willing to get involved and assist no matter how awful the circumstances and to follow-through in the way an upstanding citizen should do. Deepest condolences both to the family of the man who died and to Preston Blue for his loss. My heart goes out to all who are involved and traumatised by this incident.

Desperately hope that the injured lad pulls through with no permanent damage and that this is the low point of awful behaviour associated with Rovers. Things clearly need to change and change immediately. The BBC report of this incident of Rover on Rover violence is the number one most read item on the global BBC web site now.

Absolute tragedy. Why so senseless?

I have been pretty clear Benni is far from blameless.

No there are two people to blame- Benni AND Sam. Sam waged a war on Benni over the last two months to make sure he left.

Putting aside my feelings about this transfer, I have read enough about Benni's situation to think the West Ham being have a serious problem trying to get a new work permit for him. An ordinary person in Benni's situation would certainly be struggling but no doubt there is an extremely expensive legal specialist whom I know beavering away as I type this....

Benni has been a player who quickens the pulse and entertains as well as being a very good goal scorer for Rovers. I am sad to see him go but £2m for a fat 32 year old is not bad business. The guy's comments have been infuriating and refreshing by turns but Benni always gave the impression of telling us as it is. Sam's role in all this has been unedifying. It seems he took against Benni from the start and Benni's leaving is the end product of an all out effort by Sam recently to drive him out of the club.