JohnShaft

Nice layout, well done. Are the old off topic threads still around? Threads like ‘grinds my gears’ etc.

Right chaps, new to your game threads, I'm interested in having a bet on this. The bet is games, over or under 9? I'll figure out the value based upon your thoughts. Thanks Shaft

What do you mean by budget mate?

Irn bru drinking, fried mars bar munching, caber tossing sweaty socks. Whatever next?

Alright, I'll do it but only cos you insist and I'll only want a score (20) a day.

It was a magnificent final, two great sporting warriors slugging it out, bravo!

So he could make more money with a different investment. I don't know the value of your club but lets say he had a hundred million in equity tied up in it and it's returning him say 15% a year without much capital growth or, more to the point, without much hope of real capital growth. Baseball is not getting any richer is it, i.e. its not opening up new markets at any real rate of knots. They also own Liverpool Football Club which is in a market that has huge growth potential with opportunities for negotiating individual tv rights in Asia which is worth billions. If you want gold you go where the gold is and right now in the world of sport thats top premier league teams in England and Liverpool desperatly need a new stadium to increase corporate revenues and that requires investment of circa half a billion dollars.

First I heard of this was reading it in the Sunday Times this morning, I'm not ashamed to say it brought a tear to my eye. It brings back memories of sneaking down the stairs when I was a kid to listen to his fights with Ali when the adults where listening on the wireless (radio). I mourn that era, c'mon smokin Joe, I know Ali is in your corner tonight too.

Well worth going along to see if you get the chance. You wont believe how hard these fellas hit each other when you're sitting in the ground.

Very good Dojji. The game is a lot faster in England than anywhere else, a lot more physical demands are placed upon you. The player you mention is Luis Suarez and is the first player FSG bought, for circa ?24m, we could sell him tomorrow for ?50m. He is going to be a world beater. I should say the ?24m came from money we got from the sale of Torres for ?50m.

Liverpool won last night by 2 goals to 1 playing away to Stoke. Luis Suarez scored the goals. It was a decent result and puts us through to the next round in the League Cup. Thought I'd let you know seeing as we're cousins now

I've just bet on you to beat the twins at a handicap of -1.5 at 5/6.Please tell me thats a good bet.I used the money I won on Liverpool tonight who won 5 - 2 away from home.

I am being offered odds of 5/7 for the sox to win tonight and I fancy a fllutter in a double with Liverpool this weekend. Do those odds represent value in your opinion when you consider your game tonight? Thanks Shaft

Seem to be the real deal which I am pleased to see. They moved quickly enough to get players, good young hungry players, in during the last transfer window and have got rid of Hodgson and put our most famous player and ex manager back in charge after 20 years and our fortunes have turned around. There's a real buzz about the place again. You guys were right about them so far, they're ok. Apologies, for any of you who don't know what the hell I'm on about I'm a Liverpool Football Club supporter.

You going to watch The Coral on Sat night babe?

To put it plainly, he just doesn't get us. LFC manager has to be more than just a job to the incumbent. It's nearly killed 3 of the last 4 managers and this doddering old bastard just doesn't get it. Pardon my French. Liverpool as a city is a city full of fight and no fear regardless of the odds, it had to be, it's different to all other cities in the UK, it sees itself as different and the rest of the country see's it as being different. If abroad somewhere and you meet and you ask someone from Liverpool where they come from they won't say England, they'll say Liverpool. It's that natural pride, the city as a port has always looked out to the world never inland and if the manager doesn't get that then nothing he does can save him. I hope this helps your understanding.

Lifted from another forum, what do you fellas think? Don't take it as an attack on baseball or anything it's just an article trying to articulate what LFC is. The true value of LFC is not the stadium, the players, the TV deals, or even the trophies. It’s the brand and the global recognition and competitive business advantage that goes with it. As the owners of Liverpool FC, I assume you would consider that one of your principal focuses should be to effectively manage brand value. If so, then there are some things you need to understand. Football is not baseball. America is not the world. And Liverpool FC is not Arsenal FC. This Is Anfield. Fernando Torres. Steven Gerrard. They’re all brands in their own right. And they all contribute to the allure of the overall Liverpool brand. But above else the brand is three little letters - LFC, And that brand was built by the supporters. With the help and leadership of a few good men -- men like Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley, we created the brand that is Liverpool FC and we are a vital part of that brand. It simply wouldn’t exist without us. The Twelfth Man. The Kop. The Victims Of Hillsborough. More than anything else, in a weird circle-of-life way, the supporters of Liverpool FC are both its core brand and its core customer base. The affinity we feel for the brand is the brand. We are the tradition and unique selling point of Liverpool FC. Do not under-estimate the importance of this truth. Sincerely, we’re the reason people all over the world want to be part of the Liverpool family, to be part of our "brand community". Because - and you should trust me on this one - we're not the same as everybody else. We're the wild-hearted outsiders. We are Anfield. We can quibble over details, like Cuba and Japan, but essentially baseball is an American game. No-one else much cares. Just like helmetball. You can use all the global media marketing and cross-promotional ******** that you can bring to bear, it doesn't matter. The rest of the world doesn't really care. Those games say nothing to us about our lives. And if rap music hadn't promoted the baseball cap internationally, no-one would care at all. Baseball isn't rock'n'roll or Coca Cola. Here I was tempted to say, by way of contrast, that Liverpool FC is the Beatles. But we aren't. We're Bob Dylan. Think about it. America's favourite past-time is supported by a population of 300M and the world's largest consumer economy. The Boston Red Sox brand has a strong tradition and history. But it enjoys a privileged position in a static market that is protected by a long and close mutualist relationship with the media. And the nearest rival for local supporter's affections is 200 miles away. Do you know how many Premier League football teams can be found within 50 miles of Anfield? I'm not suggesting that local Liverpool supporters would turn their backs on LFC and begin to support other sides. It simply doesn't happen like that. However, the loyalty of the long distance supporter has yet to be evaluated and new football supporters - whether they live locally or in Singapore or Bangalore or Shanghai - are not exactly starved of choice. Meanwhile many traditional supporters have already been priced out of the stadium and others are feeling increasingly disenchanted and disenfranchised -- a phenomenon that will effect merchandising as much as ticket sales and that will continue to eat at the strength of your brand. As they tell us repeatedly, the English Premier League is a strong brand, but it's not the only one. And Liverpool, like Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, and others, is a brand that's capable of transcending petty national boundaries and collective bargaining agreements alike. The LFC brand is that strong. But the brand is in danger, and not because of a few embarrassingly bad performances on the field. The problems run much deeper. Accept for a moment, the hypothesis that the supporters are the brand - you can validate it later, maybe ask Joe Januszewski? Well, the relationship between the supporters and the club has been deeply damaged, primarily by the ownership of Hicks & Gillet. You know this, of course. You've all done sterling work to begin to address it. But not enough. In a curious way, the epic swindle that removed Hicks & Gillet also removed the common enemy that was keeping the supporters largely united. Now the bond of unity between supporters has begun to unravel. Things are falling apart. The centre may not hold. The good news is that as supporters we are prepared to dig deep and remain faithful so long, I believe, as the custodians of the club honour our history and our traditions. The bad news is that in Roy Hodgson, you have a manager who does neither. You said recently: "Liverpool values are well known. What makes Anfield so special beyond the history of the ground are the people who populate Anfield each match. They value the club first and foremost. That is what we have to ensure every person who wears a kit or works for the club at any level has in the their minds first and foremost: the club comes first." While you persist with Hodgson, those words are hollow and hypocritical. There is a story - perhaps a fable - about a very successful football club called Leeds United and a very successful football manager called Brian Clough. Clough was appointed to succeed Don Revie, the manager who built Leeds up to be one of the most powerful in Europe. At his first team meeting, Clough told his new players, Don Revie's players, to throw all their hard-won medals into the trash because they were won by cheating and ugly football. 44 days later, Clough was fired. Leeds has never been a true football power since. The point of the story is that Clough had no respect for the history or traditions of his new club. Brian Clough was a remarkably successful football manager. Following the debacle at Leeds he went on to win two successive European Cups with the far from wealthy or glamorous Nottingham Foreset. If Dan Quayle was no Jack Kennedy, then Roy Hodgson is no Brian Clough. And yet Roy Hodgson is our Brian Clough. We are the wild-hearted outsiders who need to bond with our manager and our players in a battle against the rest of the world. Hodgson's addicted to media and peer approval and considers us to be, at best, an audience and, at worst, a nuisance . We expect to win. He's scared of losing. We love talented, attacking footballers. He prefers effective automatons. We call a spade a f***ing shovel. He calls it a metallicized digging implement with an extended handular leverage structure and will talk for 45 minutes about how he invented it 35 years ago in Sweden. I could go on. And on. And on. But I imagine you are all being inundated with complaints about Hodgson, so I won't. I shall simply say that: - You should listen to supporters, not the media. The media has no love of Liverpool FC and conspired at the appointment of Hodgson. They have a corpse in their mouth. Some of our players are just as bad. - You should protect the value of your brand - the reputation of the relationship between supporters and club. The foundations took decades to build. The edifice can be toppled in a matter of weeks, And rebuilding it - if possible - will be a lengthy and costly exercise. Of course, you don't have to respect our history, our traditions, our supporters and the immense contribution we make to the brand. There are other ways to manage the business that is Liverpool FC. Other ways to succeed. You can rebrand us if you like. But ask yourself, how did that work for Coca Cola in 1985? If you don't want to own Liverpool Classic, why didn't you just buy Blackburn, or Portsmouth? Love and kisses

Edit: the figures mentioned are in Sterling, for some reason the symbol comes up as ? on here To answer the original query our club is rotten at it's core at the moment. It started when Hicks and Gillette got ownership from a silver spooned divvy called David moores who sold "the family silver" to two ruthless LBO merchants who put us in hock to the tune of circa ?420m from ?80m. The club can still afford to operate and pay the interest on the loan. In 2009 a new face became a member on the board, in fact became MD, his name is Christian Purslow. He was a founding partner and MD in a company called Mid Ocean Finance who buy leisure businesses and install members of the executive board in MOF onto the companies board to "improve performance". He resigned his MD position and set up Mid Ocean Credit Partners who's main purpose is to invest in Bank Loans and they have access to a fund of $5b. Purslow could reasonably expect to earn ?10m to ?20m a year in his role but yet we find him as MD of Liverpool on ?500,000 a year. Doesn't seem right, does it? Anyway we had one of the top 5 managers in the world managing Liverpool, he won us a european cup and took us to another final (biggest club competition in the world) and then H&G came along. Initially he fought for money and forced them to find money for the likes of Torres, they started seeing other managers behind his back to quieten him down a bit. We needed money for players to improve and he fought for this but ultimately player investment wasn't forthcomming in line with what was required. Purslow joined the board in Autum 2009 and by January 2010 was trying to sell players but not replacing them and the manager had a right of veto. This happened with one particular player, Babel, and from that point on the mahagers fate was sealed. He had to be disposed of if players were to be sold to reduce salary and get money in from sales, short term profit increase and long term overhead reduction. This leads us to where we are today. All this talk of filling a 60,000 seater stadium is nonsense too, hyperbole by the club and lapped up by some fans. They forget what it was like in the 80's and in the 90's where we would regularly get gates of 38,000. This season for some cup games we've had gates of 25,000. The 60,000 thing is a myth generated by the club saying for years they have a waiting list for season tickets of 50,000 yet if you ring them up and ask them where you are in the line they wont know because it doean't exist. Manchester Utd had 5000 unsold season tickets this season which is unheard of for them (they attract a lot of glory hunters). Building a 60,000 seater stadium would be terrible for us, imagine a stadium with 20,000 empty seats, it would be soulless. On the ownership side I would like to see Share Liverpool and SOS achieve their aim of fan ownership like the German model where fans have to own 51% of the club. That would be the ideal for me and would mean we would out of the clutches of parasites and vultures.

You are really starting to get on my nerves calling our support like you do.

Don't kid yourselves fellas, this will drag on for a very long time, lawyers making greenbacks (to use your venacular) is like Neil Diamonds Love on the rocks i.e. it aint no surprise

We've all got honour medals won by our ancestors mate. We'll agree to disagree as we're both comming from different angles but wish for the same thing ultimately, the success of Liverpool Football Club, for me that success would be fan ownership even if it meant going down a league or two before we came back. I know it's extreme but I want this club for my grandchildren and their children and I'm prepared to wait for our chance. Foreign owners are, for me, only there for what they can get.

a couple of things, 1) I gave up my seasie in my own personal boycott, 2) wtf are you on about sister/brother club and 3) your personal insults show your level of discussion. I really can't be arsed with your type so I'll ignore your further attempts to engage me, you're not worth educating.