Thetownend.com

.....or maybe this is just collecting windfalls.

   From  Sunday Times.

    Former Swindon boss Paul Sturrock's voice is still being used to greet callers to the club's automated switchboard, despite the fact he left for Plymouth in November. (Sunday Times)

Perhaps they chose Sturrock's voice over the alternative...............................

DAVID BYRNE

I tried to ring somebody at the club and got Linda whatsits voicemail 6 months after they sacked her as part of the 'cost cutting' exercise.

Morale: The staff can't work the voicemail system.

 Its a fair point.  

 This snippet just annoyed me though, mainly as to why the ST put it in their paper, then why  the Beeb put it on their website.

 It does though point up a lesson to Fitton et al, that STFC is viewed as a model of ineptitude and it is getting these small details right that will help to improve the club's image.

Another article from today's Sunday Times:

READING HITS PROFITS GOAL

The move to English football’s top flight has helped John Madejski, owner of Reading, to fulfil a long-standing ambition to guide the Berkshire club to profitability.

The club, nicknamed the Royals, crowned its debut Premier League season by achieving pretax profits of £6.6m for the year to June 2007, against a £6.5m loss in the previous 12 months.

Sales for the latest period were £49.9m, a huge increase on the £17.8m generated in the previous year. The figures are contained in the annual accounts just filed at Companies House.

Madejski has owned the club since 1990 when he saved it from collapse, and five years ago told an interviewer: “I’m determined to make Reading trade in the black.” That has now been achieved after several years of losses. In the introduction to this year’s accounts, Madejski writes: “Our new status has seen the profile of the club increase on an unprecedented level.”

Media income for clubs in the Premier League dwarfs that available to teams in the lower divisions. Much of Reading’s profit is being reinvested in the club. Madejski plans to increase the capacity at its home stadium and is building a new £2m office block and media centre.

After 17 years, Madejski, who made his fortune from Auto Trader magazine and is worth £400m according to The Sunday Times Rich List, has made no secret of his willingness to sell the club should a suitable offer materialise.

I still maintain that Reading's rise up the leagues is a model to follow - it has so much more in common with Charlton than it does with Blackburn or Fulham.

I truly hope Mr Fitton turns out to be our Madejski - an enabler, rather than a benefactor.

Non- italics please, a bit hard to read!

How's this?

Ardiles....we made a profit in the Prem.  

  Madejski has been subbing Reading to the tune of 2 mill a season for a number of years now.   He is both an enabler and benefactor.

And that the national sports media can't tell a proper story about lower league football from the hole in their arse - sum total of Sunday Times column inches about STFC about to go out of existence, zero; yet they can apparently find the space to do a "snigger, snigger" bit about the bloody answerphone. Hope that didn't push out any more important football stories like the colour of Ashley Cole's new Bentley or anything like that

Nevertheless it is this perception of STFC as a serial basket case that the new regime has to address....whilst not expecting to see anything happen too soon, it is important that Fitton et al pick up the windfalls as soon as possible, to start to tidy up the place.

 For example have they contacted the Trust about attending a meeting?

Regarding the column inches point (and I'm not wanting to relegate the other points you have raised in the posts above) - I can remember going down to my college JCR to read the Sunday papers on Sunday mornings in the early/mid 1990s in the safe knowledge that the nationals would have covered our game the previous day.  When you're playing in the 2nd level of league football, the nationals will send their press to the game.  In the 3rd level, they're not interested.

To contradict myself slightly, I also remember reading during the 1992-93 season that certain correspondents used to make the trip to Swindon for no reason other than a Hoddle-inspired side was guaranteed to produce a display worthy of national coverage.  The next promotion is key.  When we're a 2nd flight side again, I think I'll rest easy.  We'll have come home.

Do National paper sports journalists really just go around ringing up club hot lines in an attempt to fill in space?

I know it's a Fitton quote or something, but I was hoping this thread would be about the Low-Hanging-Testicled Zamzubu Tribesmen of Madagascar. From a young age they hang weights from their scrotum, stretching it out until some manage a dangling of below knee level. They have to be very careful of the Madagascan Jungle Sabre-Toothed Marmot; which have become a bit of a testicular menace.

Yes, dex (strood) spends all his lectures learning how to make phone calls

  I thought  the Zamzubu, wedged wooden boards into their sacs on the way down..I must be mixing them up with the Zacdanglo.

They may do. I'd imagine that the Wooden Boards would double up for Marmot protection as well as sac-shaping.

The Zacdanglo haven't been the same since that cunt on that BBC tribes program went there and introduced them to Toblerones. I think their entire tribe is now part of some niche porn market.

 
 Indeed the Zacdanglo had no concept of the triangular prism until their space was invaded by a licence fee funded intrusion....whereas the scented odour of the Anchovi tree has long been known to deter the marmot.

It's amazing how a fashion for Anchovi Tree scented perfumes and notepaper could have such a devastating affect on the everyday lives on some of the oldest cultures on the planet.

What was once a natural food source and testicle protection for the Madagascan Tribespeople has now nearly been harvested to extinction. It's biggest short term affect has been on the Birth Rates of the Zamzubu.

It's something we all need to be reminded of, when you get a whiff of Anchovi on a loved one you've got to realise that you're part of the problem. We have to realise that it's not only Spider-Whales and Albino Tigers that are affected by our environmental footprint; but ancient peoples who's ways have been unchanged for centuries.

 Indeed there are ancient cultures in the shires ...who have been whiffless of the Anchovi for so long that they see themselves not so much part of the problem but more part of the solution.

I have to say that unless they make their voices heard then they can never be part of the solution. It's up all the Anchovi whiffless Shiremen out there to shout about it.

People are too quick to suffer in silence, but as part of an issue like this with wide reaching ramifications, it's not responsible or acceptable.

i feel like I've learnt things this evening. thank you gentlemen.

Glad to be educationamal

i refuse to read this nonsense

and you call yourself a member of the tef.

So, can I presume that the fruit of the Anchovie tree is low hanging then?

   I think you can....however it is the wood of the tree that has deterent powers.

   Your mission.... should you decide to accept it....is to enter the Thai rainforest where the Anchovi grows and harvest a crop of both fruit and timber.

and you can't cheat by nicking it from a locals undercrackers.

Plums?

What a load of bollocks.....or are they cherries.
 :D

god bless uncle google and and aunty wikipedia.

I could just pop down to the huge Anchovi Orchard on the outskirts of Bangkok.

It was originally put in place to help combat the great Sabre-Toothed Marmot plague of 1964. Business is slow for them now though since the Marmot's where all but eradicated by the S.E. Asian Marmot mite, so called because it fed exclusively on Sabre-Toothed Marmot's. Unmistakeable due to it's bright orange and black colouring's the 1 inch diameter mites thrived with so many Marmot's about, and literally sucking their blood dry the Marmot problem was over within 3 months. Not before taking a fair few teste's with them first though.

The insect and reptile house at Dusit Zoo, Bangkok holds a small population of these mite's, ready to be released should the Marmot's re-surface.

i went to cabbages and condoms in bangkok.

and very nice it was too.

The marmot mite, you either love it or hate it.

:Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

Move over, Edward. He would leer (or Lear) at this erudite nonsense.  :)

I can honestly say I'm indifferent to a mighty marmot mite.

Good stuff.   NB prolonged exposure to the mite results in a proliferation of apostrophe usage

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''';;;;;;;;;;;''''''''''''''''''',i got mites!

you've all got the aids

   I've always liked Lear's stuff....also like his art work.   There's a fine collection in Bowood House,  particularly paintings of his travels in the Balkans.  It provides a clear insight as to just how"foreign" these lands were in teh 19th Century, and despite globalisation still are to some extent.

Bowood House is, I believe also where Oxygen was first discovered/identified (By Joseph Priestly) - there is a plaque on the wall somewhere - I noticed it when I was taking a breather.

   Priestley was more of a theologian than a chemist.....he was motivated by Aristotlean ideas of 4 the four elements, earth, wind, fire and water.

  He hoped to find that the soul could be found by alchemy.....unfortunately he was phlogiston a dead horse............. floghorse

I am sure that I once found my soul through chemicals.

Ah, but the soul of the previous Diamond Greek reincarnated and emerged through the Pirate Galleon at  Bowood.... to continue his wicked ways.  :evil: