Does Mahwinney think he can turn back time?

The statement today by the Football League chairman Lord Mawhinney paints the possibility of a fairer, more harmonious world for football fans across the nation.

In fact, it’s almost like going back to 1990, before a little thing called the Premier League was born. Money was shared between the four divisions of the Football League, players could move clubs at almost anytime in the season, and footballers weren’t completely out of touch with the fans in the terraces.

Mawhinney’s proposal for the Premier League to negotiate combined deals for both it and the Football League will never get off the ground, as it is the main reason the the 22-clubs broke away in the first place. Why would they suddenly turn around now and decide they want to give their vast wealth back to the clubs that were cut adrift by the schism of 1992?

Allowing players to move domestically at any time of the season seems like an okay idea, although personally I don’t mind the transfer window, it does limit the ability of clubs in the lower leagues to raise cash when they need to by selling players. The likelyhood of FIFA allowing their rule to be flouted though must surely be slim at best.

One of his proposals that I see no problem with is the suggestion that clubs who have fallen behind with tax payments to be banned from transfers. As far as HMRC are concerned, it probably isn’t going far enough, but from a purely footballing perspective it has to be a good move.

Of course, it would seem that Mawhinney is simply doing this at the behest of culture secretary Andy Burnham who has demanded that football clean up its act, and while Burnham’s timing also suggests this is being done for political rather than purely for the ‘good of the game’, at least it’s nice to know something is at least being talked about being done.

Geek-tastic film excitment

Having spent the day at a wedding, followed by an evening getting drunk whilst watching the Eurovision Song Contest, what better way is there to look ahead other than getting excited in the way that only a nerd can by the new Terminator Salvation movie.

I’ve always loved the Terminator films (even T3 is okay, if taken in small doses) but this looks immense. Spoilers ahoy, and all that…

It’s not COD, but I like it

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf-yMFkQDQs[/youtube]

Okay, it’s not due until November but the trailer for Modern Warfare 2 (note the lack of the Call of Duty moniker) has got me excited in a childlike manner. Yes, I’m 26-years-old but I want this. I don’t want to grow up, I want to play my PlayStation.

Problems with paywalls for newspapers

A lot has been said this week about the intention of Rupert Murdoch (and I promise not to rant about how his empire has ruined football. At all.) intends to introduce paywalls for some of the newspaper websites in his stable.

Now, ignoring the failed attempts that have gone before, there is one massive elephant in the room which means it will not work for the news sections of newspaper websites in the UK. Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to say hello to the elephant-esque posterior of your favourite aunty – the BBC.

For right or wrong, Internet audiences trust the BBC and more often than not the news site as their primary source of Internet news (even though it may not be the first to report something, the most in-depth or locally focussed – me, bitter?). Seeing as we already pay for the Beeb’s website, alongside the repeats of Last of the Summer Wine and the televisual feast that is Marry, Snog, Avoid (The Frost is brilliant with POD), the BBC Trust is hardly going to turn around and demand we all cough up an extra 50p every day to get the latest football rumours.

If newspaper websites are already trailing the BBC, just imagine what will happen when they start charging for the privilege. Apart from Daily Mail readers, the British people like the Beeb. They don’t really trust newspapers – just look at any web forum up and down the country and the stories in the local organ will be greeted with some oh-so witty individual saying “Well, it is the Daily Rag – you can’t believe what you read in that, erm, rag” – even though they won’t question the same story 24 hours later when the BBC runs it.

Even in Murdoch’s own stable, can you see Sky News charging for their online news offering?

Personally, I see paywalls for entire sites as a non-starter, unless every single news site in the nation decide on the same day to start charging. In fact, I think there’s more chance of Jonathan Ross doing a weekly profanity-laced podcast for the Mail.

Now that I would pay for.

When will it end for Saints?

The rear of the Chapel Stand, St Mary's Stadium, Southampton - © Dan Kerins 2008

The whole sorry affair of Southampton FC is hopefully moving towards something resembling resolution, judging by some of the things being said at the moment.

While it’s safe to say we won’t be seeing investment of Paul Allen proportions, at least the administration debacle should be behind us and we can start afresh (appeals not withstanding) regardless of who the owner is – although us Southampton fans know that not just anyone should be welcomed into the board room.

However, the new owner certainly won’t be the council – as proposed in a column in the Telegraph. They’ve said they are interested in the stadium, which is not something I have a problem with – but the club itself would probably be a step too far for the electorate to stomach.

But after reading the piece, it brings up almost utopian visions of what could be if British football clubs were run for the benefit of the community rather than the pursuit of profit. Like I said, it’s never going to happen, but the possibilities are certainly worth pondering.

Starting again

Right, well after an evening of messing around I have finally migrated over and now have a new blog. Even if I didn’t realise until the very last step that the method of transferring over content from the old one didn’t work for the version I was using.

Ah well, never mind.

Hopefully having a flashy new blog will encourage me to actually use it again! We shall find out before too long.

Emotional rollercoaster

The missus choose a good weekend to go away for a couple of hen dos – a huge emotional trauma struck me on Saturday.

The R word.

Not recession. Not redundancy. The worst possible R word. Relegation.

There are only two things you can do to overcome the heartbreak associated with your team being demoted – mope and drink.

These are two things that are very hard to do when your better half is around. They just don’t understand, you see. “It’s only a game” or “There’s always next year” and “Well why don’t you do something else that won’t make you depressed?” are not the things any man wants to hear when the overpaid bunch of dinlos whose wages you pay cock-up monumentally and lose to teams from glamorous locales such as Doncaster.

I’ve heard it said numerous times that a bad result can ruin her weekend (and the weekend’s of my mates’ girlfriends) when the Saints fail to hit the arse of a cow with a banjo. The mood such miserable failures put us menfolk in is, well, not the greatest. But as all football fans will tell you, the lows only make you enjoy the highs even more. So surely, in a few years I can guarantee endless weekends of ecstasy pleasure not known by anyone since Venus herself.

I just hope the missus is patient…