Thetownend.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/swindon_town/9378506.stm

good luck

Another thread? Really? ::)

are their other threads??? never noticed

more threads than a curtain factory.

Hopefully it'll draw a conclusion to the matter.

Hoo-fooking-ray. Hope some of can now pull ourselves together.  :nod:

Now we can get on with more important matters, the current mire we find ourselves in. Would give everyone a lift if we battered Exeter on Saturday!

Who's gone where?

Is this another curtain factory reference? This one could run and runner

Fine. Move on.

Now, can we have three new players holding up shirts on the OS by 5PM please?

As if I would! I'm way more concerned about the drop.

Paul, pull yourself together will you.

Thanks for your efforts Charlie and good luck.

Lets have a couple of strikers then Mr Fitton.

Good luck Charlie, you exceeded all our expectations. Glad all this is over.

Just spend the money wisley please town.

Time to get back on track!

I'm thinking of hanging myself.

this story will be draped all over the papers tomorrow

Steady on Paul, you might just blackout!

I think we should draw a line now

You bunch of dullards. Someone who we idolised has left, although I can't quite remember his name, and you all start digging out your Bruce forsyth joke books. I despair.

Take all the money we've received and offer it to Bolton, whats the worst than can happen.

Micheal?

Where's Bunley?

Near Bapford

Middle Earth!

He signed because he needed the dough :groan:

Charlie Who?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Luyw5mWV5is

Yah boo sucks

How do you make a venetian blind?

Poke him in the eyes.

Boom boom.

How do you make a maltese cross?

Stamp on his foot

What's a Grecian urn?

About 3 drachmas a week


(I'm claiming relevance to tomorrow's game)

I cant see that picture, been filtered out. I just have to relish small mercies that Neville is obviously having his colostomy bag emptied and can't further make me bang my head on the desk.....Yet.

Hasn't Burnley only got a population of 70k?

At least he won't need to worry about female distractions from now on!

Glad it's over. The whole debacle had been drawn out far too long.

Here here.

I agree, sense of relief he's gone on my part. Onwards and upwards/downwards?

All that fuss and then...Burnley?!

Good luck with that.

Can we now stop talking about him, and maybe discuss a protest behind the Arkells stand because my seat was wet on Tuesday?

Never mind that. I'm guessing a fair few burnley fans will be checking out the forum and will feel obliged to vote for Sonny.

Have they got a linky yet?

Strangely nothing on the O/S yet. Am I being overly optimistic they are waiting to release a good news/bad news story with a new signing or two? Nah thought not.

It's the least they can do. In fact, if we haven't included an obligation for every single Burnley season ticket holder to vote for Sonny in the add-ons, I think there should be some serious questions asked

Off topic but last game of the season away to tranmere could be a big game. Hope we make the right choices from now on

Nice

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12876_6706379,00.html

1.2 million with add ons.......

He will be sharing petrol money with Howe........

Who is sonny and why should I vote for him?

Seriously who is he?

Good luck Charlie, fun while it lasted ! Now can we get someone else in please !

Thanks Austin and good luck in the North....Has there ever been a shorter lived legend at CG...?

Legend my fucking arse

yes jimmy davis

:D

Neither Jimmy Davis or Austin were ever legends... Jesus Christ.

Sorry, but why was jimmy davis a legend?

Great player and all that, but he wasnt our own

When did Jesus Christ play for us....was he good at crossing :D :D

Fjortoft, if you consider that he didn't become a legend until the latter half of the Prem season.

he made a huge impact in our team and with the fans in a short time and considering the home game at notts co was dedicated to him shows how much we thought of him.

Just because he wasnt our own we sure treated him like he was

Sky say CA has signed for 3 an a half years but on the site they said 2 an a half years so they probably got the price wrong too

i think the fans could do with some transparancy about transfers from the board.this will then allow us to argue about whether the fees are good enough or not.

Now on OS......

http://www.swindontownfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10341~2278922,00.html

On official club Twitter it says there will be a 'farewell interview' on there soon.

Great.

cant fucking wait !

Your arse may be legendary Fred, but Austin will be forgotten pronto....I'd put him on a par with Keith East.

Bloody hell - better get the hankies out

who ?

http://www.swindontownfc.co.uk/articles/20110128/video-austin-bids-farewell-to-town_2264290_2279178

And here it is. I won't be signing up to STFC Player straight away, it must be said.

Do we need a farewell interview?

Just watched the interview on STFC Player.

Nicky Coleman - Pens Specialist LB on loan around 1986 ish

I'm not sure why I'd want to watch that. A small piece of me really hates Charlie and the rest of me is indifferent. :)

Hmmm...The interview probably won't endear anyone to him. Not really any mention of the fans, and he kindly points out that we're still in League 1, twice.

[url width=320 height=320]http://www.burnleyfootballclub.com/javaImages/fa/8/0,,10413~9373946,00.png[/url]

Good news, I think this saga was depressing everyone at the club.

Its all been a bit frustrating, but I don't quite get all the Austin anger being spewed everywhere (mainly thisis) - he was bound to go and players like Austin never go early in a transfer window - so why all the annoyance?

Signed for 50k or whatever, scored a load of goals, now sold off for a dirty great profit, whats not to like?

And best of all, we can finally sit back and enjoy the Pericard/Dossevi dynamic on Saturday, its win win.

No mention of the fans, and no individual thanks to either Wilson or Fitton for launching his career. In fact, he seemed pretty unbothered by the whole thing.

Pretty much a kick in the teeth.

I do feel Pericard and Dossevi will play better together than with Austin. I'm fairly sure it's blind optimism, but there you go. That said, I don't think Pericard is fit for tomorrow, so 4-5-1 with Dossevi up front.

The blokes a cunt. Lets move on.

That pic depresses me

Me too mate..

I'l feel better when Dave writes CUNT on it and make it his avatar though.

I'm beginning to hope he fails.

One man's legend is another man's over rated twat. My own personal short term legend for us would be Nestor Lorenzo. World cup finalist and one of the dirtiest players I've ever seen. It was fun while it lasted.

I reckon Ben will do a better job on it.

Yeah, but thats what footballers do when they move clubs, what were you expecting? Him to turn up and suck us off one by one for cheering him on everyweek? :D

I'd rather him not mention us than gush on and on about how great we all were, whilst wiping faux tears from his face - its all made up bollocks. He'll be kissing his Burnley badge when he scores on Saturday.

It would have been better if he'd bought us all a doughnut or a cream cake.

Dossevi hattrick on Saturday. Charlie who?

 :D

[url width=320 height=320]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v488/NemosCMPics/Austinnose.png[/url]

One for the rumour mongers...

He he he.... have you moved Eddie Howe's head as well? - it looks superimposed...

http://www.burnleyexpress.net/sport/football/burnley-fc/burnley_fc_sign_charlie_austin_1_2986122 (http://www.burnleyexpress.net/sport/football/burnley-fc/burnley_fc_sign_charlie_austin_1_2986122)

Interesting choice of photo from his new local paper.

good that he has now gone , and we need to knuckle down and get some goals

shefi kuqi is available on a free lets sign him

Any chance a mod can get all the Austin threads merged?

Then lock the fucker.

Delete, delete

Despite everything, I'll still be giving him a hand when we next cross paths with him, just because I enjoyed watching him play as much as any player weve had in the last 5 years.

Burnley was his no1 choice he says....

what a lying cunt.

If he does score a few and they don't go up, he'll be out of there this time next year.

I think that's probably true, actually, which would explain why he engineered his move such that he ended up there.

And I'm with Spencer, I've thoroughly enjoyed watching him play for us.

Agree. Wish him luck. It will be wierd watching him play for someone other than us though!

I think Eddie Howe was his number 1 choice.

Good luck Charlier and thanks for the memories. Im just glad its all over now. Focus turns to Wilson and the board getting a replacment in on Monday.

Good luck Charlie. He scored some terrific goals. I will be forever grateful that he was part of a great team that stormed up the League table starting with the goal at Carlisle last season.

Now for the scrap. We need to win tomorrow, nothing less than a win will do. 

Sod that article, here's where the real interest is:

http://www.burnleyexpress.net/news/local-news/come_dine_with_me_kissing_over_the_top_1_2961068

Think the one about Burnley girl looking for love might be quite apt too. If she's not a munter she probably won't have to wait too long...

Fuck me, its all happening in Burnley, its obviously the place to be.

Now Austin's there, it makes him sound more like a character from a pre-war boys football comic.

Now that Austin's gone, can we have some of the stories about his personal habits?

Pretty sure he sucked off Mex behind the Arkells.

He voted for Max.

He has a blackberry instead of a iphone

Haven't we all at some time or other?

I'll take the 5th on that one..

According to 2 of his mates they said 90% of it was absolute bollocks.

He was a bit of a show off on a night out though, and according to them, he always was. His dads Brickwork firm wasnt small and he used to throw a bit of wedge around even before he went pro at Town. They said it hadnt changed him, just people paid attention to him, whereas before he was just a gobshite showing off and shooting off his mouth who everyone ignored.

They said he was starting to get a bit paranoid about it all though. Especially the rumour mill on facebook. It will do him good to get out of Swindon because it was becomming a right goldfish bowl for him, too much of a local celebrity.

Reminded me a bit of what Fowler said about playing for Liverpool. That it was the worlds biggest village.

So 10% was real....that's a fair chunk when it comes to misbehaving.

charlie is trending on twitter

There is 1 bad rumour that is definately true.

It was going on before the Leeds away game (when he was actually in absolute top form), and there was a wall of silence from these lads, they still wont say. They said Fitton was properly pissed off about it as well.

In a town in west berks?

probably.

I dont know, like I said they wouldnt tell me.

I didnt swallow

Charlie's being interviewed on Talk Spurt now.

Hopefully they will post a version on the internet where they have edited out the 'you know's, then I can spend a third of my time listening to it.

I really hope that was intentional?

He'll get brought down a peg or 2 in Burnley.

Frightening place for a night out.

Highlights of the interview were that Eddie was a key factor in him choosing Burnley.  His targets for the furture are to play for England and one of the "big 4" premiership teams.

The thing I find most disappointing is that all last season we were told Charlie had kept his feet on the ground and that he loved playing for us. That's a mighty change this season.

I know we will get more money if he's a success, but I couldn't give a shit how he does now. Austin has all the ability but no class. I get the feeling he'll end up being someone like Bellamy for this reason - a gifted player but will never achieve what he's capable of. That said the right manager could tame the attitude.

Part of me thinks that perhaps the squad will be more focussed now golden boy is gone, but that's probably wishful thinking.

Part of me thinks that perhaps the squad will be more focussed now golden boy is gone, but that's probably wishful thinking.
[/quote]

Lets hope so

I agree with your last bit 100%

So how much did we get? I hate all this undisclosed bollock, it looks as dodgy as fuck. Every detail of every single transfer should be made public. How much up front, how much after 'x' number of appearances, sell ons, everything.

I can understand it, as If teams knew when we make an offer for a striker we got say 2 mill, their asking price would double. This way AF can at least keep a poker face and say it was 500k and we paid poole 300k so we aint got no cash etc etc.

link?

Burnley file their annual accounts November/December time. I guess we can find out then (when we've all but forgotten about it).

He's well and truly out of the goldfish bowl now, not even a mention of him on the local news up here tonight.

I don't care how he gets on now, if he went in the summer after keeping us up I'd have probably looked out to see how he got on. Couldn't really care now, just hope to see a replacement come in, or hope Pericard and Dossevi find their scoring boots.

Last season just got better and better, culminating in some real showpiece games. Full grounds, big  exciting games.

This season on the whole its got worse and worse. If we had been up there challenging then Im sure we would have kept his imagination.

Definately correct on the 'no class' analogy. Whatever he's going to get wonga wise isnt going on into hedge funds or stocks. Its going on flashy motors and a good time, which wont add up to much when its all over. I think that was one of the reasons that Fitton's wage offer to Charlie was only marginally up on what he was already on. That and the fact that Charlie was in an extremely weak negotiating position in terms of a new contract having signed a fairly long deal. Any businessman would understand that and tell them to keep his head down, while the agent drums up a bit of business by getting clubs to make offers to the club. Unfortunately Charlie and his agent are not proper businessmen. They had decided they had no obligation to honour their contract because other clubs were sniffing with bigger money. Im sure Austin and Howe have been in direct contact since Howe went to Burnley. Which leads to the transfer request, an utterly useless gesture to the people it was supposed to hurt (the board), but an extremely hurtful gesture to the fans, and a hammer blow to his status amoungst the fans.

Hes not nearly as bad as Bellamy. Craig Bellamy is almost in the same category as Barton in terms of a bad boy. He is a good footballer and if he gets an early break at Burnley then Im sure he will establish himself at Championship level. Just like he got a massive break at Swindon when Town fans sung his name from his very first League game. I honestly think that gave Wilson the confidence to start him the very next game and the rest is history. He's not a bad lad, just a bit chavvy and a bit immature.  

Yeah I wasn't making out he was a bad lad because I don't know or care.

Agree with all of this

Forgive my ignorance, I don't do twitter but what's trending?

http://twitter.com/

1.2......going up to 1.8 with appearances etc.....not bad in todays market really.

Lets hope we get some strikers in.

Press speculation Lee, we don't know for sure

Acording to Sky....who are pretty acurate Dave.

They live for the Premiership, they don't know or care what goes on else where. Unless it's racist or sexist of course  ;D

Sky are about as accurate as leefer's spelling of it ;)

...and 1.2m going up to 1.8m is still a bollocks fee (if true)

It should have been a club record, as he had 18 months more to run on his contract than when we sold Simon Cox for a total of 1.9m over all.

:crash:

Even if it is £1.2m, when you compare it to Brett Pittman, who played a few more league games, it would seem fair on the face of it. I'm not bothered about the actual fee either way, it changes nothing. I just want to forget about him and get on with our season while he makes it perfectly clear his feet are firmly on the ground and he's not in anyway big-time.

Its 1.2 million.....and rising with appearances.....believe me.

Don't think Pitman had anywhere near the sort of scoring ratio to games Barry, and that's just off the top of my head without checking. Besides he ran funny

Just appearances and not goals Lee?

And we've only spent the Morrison money so far.

Not forgetting Scammel from Barnsley who is quality went to Wolves for £500,000......bargain....same as Sinclair at Swansea,same price.
A couple of years back we may have pushed it upwards....but it's a good deal in todays climate.

Not sure about goals Dave.

Neither are our two remaining strikers.

:(

Well thank god for that the suspense is finally over.  If Austin had not gone down the whole handing in a transfer request route and being a complete twat in recent weeks, I'd be feeling pretty distraught right now.  As it is, I actually don't give too much of a shit that he's gone, which is surprising even myself.

I've heard hoards of rumours about him trying it on and more with other player's wifes/girlfriends and so say it's caused a lot of rows internally.  Might be true, migh be rubbish, but as Si said it might do the team good now the 'Charlie Austin Show' has run it's course here.  Let's hope so.

Will be slightly interested to see whether he does make it big as they say, or will he join the list of Swindon Town strikers who go backwards after leaving here?

As for him being a legend - absolute tosh.  He won't be remembered in 10 years time (unless of course he's gone on to be the Premier League and England's top scorer!)  :D

Not total no, but over the last 2 seasons he had 1 in 2 ish didn't he? (I likewsie haven't checked, just remember looking at him around the time we chased that Austen lad.) :)

If true then best rid  :bye:

It's like Worldnet all over again! Maybe we should try Lucas up front?

If someone wants to check the stats, then that would be appreciated. Obviously me and Barry are too lazy

Bollocks are they. Sky just regurgitate any old shite unfiltered. They're right occasionally purely by the law of averages, like the old saying about monkeys at typewriters

Are you suggesting Richard Keys could write the entire works of Shakespeare?

"Wherefore art thou Romeo? Give me a break love."

Austin-another Nicky Summerbee?

Being dragged out of pubs the day before or on matchdays?

Brett Pitman 2004–2010 Bournemouth 173 (59)
Charlie Austin 2009–2011 Swindon Town 57 (32)

According to Wiki

No they dont....they are often the first with breaking accurate news.....just because they had a couple of muppetts on show dosn't mean they are not good on Sport.....they are miles ahead of BBC and ITV.....on and off the sporting field.
They say 1.2 million..........that will do for me :D

I have a deep dislike and distrust of Rupee's network, or should I say monopoly

Where did I read the Nathan Tyson rumour - was it on this site?

Was it total shit-stirring bollocks, or was there some actual substance to it? (Mentioned in local rag, Sky etc)

^

On here I think. I haven't seen it in any media outlet.

Perhaps Wardys coming back as a striker, I heard a rumour that was the reason why Coyle was reluctant to let him come here - because Wilson wanted to constantly play him as a left winger.

Coxy was number 31 and our top scorer, then Austin was 32 and was shit hot for us, so this only means one thing, next in line is number 33, So Jordan Pavett will be our new hero  :sherlock:

Harsh but funny.

Ward isnt comming back now. More likely to go to Burnley now.

I think Austin is a class above Pitman.

I'm a bit bemused by the bitterness on here.  Thank you for the memories Charlie and all the best for the future.  He's a young lad with the world at his feet, so he shouldn't be chastised for showing a bit of ambition.  Loyalty has no place in football - sad, but true.  Its good to see the club has handled the whole situation well, and appear to have got the best possible fee for him.  We appear to have got near enough the £2 million we all were demanding, which, if we look through less ardent spectacles, he probably isn't worth.

It's a good move for all parties.  In fact, Austin has lost out, as he's missed out on his big move to the premiership and moved to Burnley - not exactly a glamour move for him!  It was becoming a case of the Austin show, and its time for him to move on.  If only Wilson gets half of the transfer money I'm confident we can build a better team than by keeping Austin.  I'll reserve judgement until the transfer window closes.  This season must be about staying in the division, keeping the club stable and looking to build a team for next season.  I've every faith in Wilson and the rest of the team - Austin's ambition was becoming too big a distraction, and the team was becoming over-reliant on his goals.

I wonder if Wilson has a Holloway-esque clause in his contract re.: a cut of the transfer fees?!?!   :D

If loyalty has no place in football then why bemused that people don't care if he fails?

seems shit at the minute as we've lost our star player but i have faith in Wilson to bring someone in.
the last few games charlie had just been going through the motions anyway.
we need to get back to playing as a team!!! and we haven't done that all season!

Interesting to see in both adver articles today including interview with Fitton about Austin transfer they say the deal was close to 2 million.So looks like Sky did pluck the 1.2 million out of nowhere.

thought that myself when reading that. £1.2m did seem very low.

15% going to Poole too. lets hope DW gets £1m to play with. I'd still like to see us try and sign Le Fondre. i think he could do a very good job for us.

Back on on the big computer, so can finally spout my irrelevant thoughts!

On the rumoured 1.2M upfront + add ons fee
--------------------------------
- Head: 1.2m for a striker who only cost tens of k 18 months ago is a good price. There is no guarantee he will make it in the Championship and he wanted out. Big factors in assessing worth.
- Heart: With his age, goals-to-games ration and contract length we should have got more for him up front. Out season is completely knackered/relegation bound without replacing his goals and we needed every penny we can get to buy replacements.
- Add ons: Mae sense for Burnley as they de-risk a large part of the investment. OF no use to us unless they get invoked. A complete risk.

On going to Burnley:
--------------------
- Surprised there wasn't a better option. It is a step up in standard, an he's more likely to get game time I suppose.

If he came back to play us
-------------------------
Applause before and after the game. His goals have meant a trip to Wembley last season and not being bottom of the league this season.

During the 90 minuted half hearted pantomime booing. Just for the manner in which he orchestrated his departure.



Impossible to know; 1.2M + 500k add ons = close to 2M.

if it is all cash in the bank then that is a fantastic fee and all we could hope for given he wanted away.

I see what your saying but the adver hasn't put it believed to be an initial 1.2 million and then with add ons getting close to 2 million,it has just said the transfer was close to 2 million.The fact they printed this after an interview with Fitton must add substance to it compared to Sky who I feel just estimated based on earlier bids.

Well as I say, if its up front its as much as we could ever hope for under the circumstances!

I would guess though that any club we make an offer to a player for is going to have a very good idea of exactly how much we got via the football 'grapevine'..i.e players/back room and office staff know people at other clubs, agents talk to each other and so on. I can't really see that it would make a great deal of difference in that respect to disclose the fee. And in any case, any club is going to know that we've got a fair bit of spare cash as the moment and that we won't have paid the majority of it to Poole Town as per your example (I bloody well hope not anyway ???)

Glad he's finally gone and that we've got a decent wedge for him.

It will be very interesting to see how he gets on at Burnley. I would have been very reluctant to pay anything close to £2 million for him. He's had an exceptional scoring record for us, but has never had a significant patch where he hasn't scored and then got back on the goal trail again.

 He's had the indulgent affection of the crowd from day one at Swindon and it's all gone perfectly up until the end of December. On the basis of the last few weeks, it looks like he doesn't handle adversity very well. If he struggles at Burnley and doesn't score for a few weeks how will he react?

I'll give him a hard time from the stands if he comes back here with another team in the same way I would with any opposition player. He doesn't come close to the category of player that avoids that treatment.

£1.75m according to our Chairman. Who I think might be in a position to know. Like I say, they'll report any old shite as news.

http://www.thisisswindontownfc.co.uk/news/headlines/8828899._Is_Carroll_20_times_better_than_Austin__/?ref=rss

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11728_6706379,00.html

Sounds about right to me.....1.2 initially with add ons......yep fairly accurate.

Just because you dont like someone/something dosnt mean they are always wrong.

Took me a long time in life to work that out :D

Just for info. Charlie's granddad was at the B'muff game Tuesday night rather than up in Burnley. Town fan

Is he viable? Maybe we should sign him up?

Another CB. He's a big unit

And because you do, doesn't mean they're right. No mention of add-ons, just Carroll going for 20 times what Charlie did - Carroll was a straight cash £35m, hence implies Charlie's fee was 1/20th of that. Add-ons as extra. And Morrison wasn't on the bench for Reading the other night, either :)

I know it's self-righteous as fuck, but I'm always mystified by how someone can actually defend something as deplorable as the media on any level. I'm even more mystified by how someone can believe Sky over our Chairman. (A lying multinational bloodsucker over an honest person?)

It's like when I used to work in call centre and how many people would side with their banks over us, when it was the bank that had caused our customer's problems.

Although in fairness It wouldn't have read so well if he'd said  "Is Carroll worth 29.16 Charlie Austins (excluding add-ons)"

I like to believe in the truth.....i dont like Sky but there reporting and there coverage of Sport is as good as any(but miles too pricey).....and yes Mr Fitton has done honourable things for the club......but he chose to make the deal undisclosed....which will always lead to speculation wont it.

If we have got 1.75 for Austin.....as Fitton seems to be alluding to then the the original breaking news by Sky was fairly accurate.
You can be self righteous Barry....but dont be mystified...its not worth it.

Now ware is that fucking ignore button :D

:) I'm going to ignore myself if I go round on this again

He can play at left back too.

Can you do that? Would be right handy on a friday night, to save saturday morning blushes When I can't see what rubbish I've posted.