Did you see that they have their season ticket holders' names printed all over their strip in a slightly different shade to the background colour? Brilliant idea. Make the players wear our names and sell a bundle more shirts into the bargain. If there was anyone with a brain watching that tonight then we should have somebody looking into copying the idea at the earliest opportunity.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Answers

...... safe to say we can consign that marketing idea to the annals of the Imperial War Museum then, Softie.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

There's always "next Summer" I suppose ;-)

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Yeh right - straight after King Harry perform's the official opening of the NUFC Youth Academy on the former site of the Metro Centre, previously an out of town shopping precinct.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Blimey, I hadn't thought they were about to fast-track it clarky. A bit too daring. Apparently they are first going to wait and see what effect going through an Academy system has on players in later life. If there haven't been any succesful cases brought against Leeds and Liverpool by the time their current crop shuffle off this mortal coil then the planning proposals will be brought forward to the "next Summer" file.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2001

Strange - would you not find this a disingenious insult considering your board's usual "kick-the-fans-in-the-bollocks-at-every- opportunity" approach?

Let me know if it does happen. I would happily stump up the extortionate charge for a mags season ticket to have my real name (Mr F.Uckthemags) on your shirt!

ML3

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

In order to fit all the names on, would our shirt have to be twice as big as Sunderlands or just have the writing half the size?

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

Put it this way, I doubt XXXL is an unpopular size on Tyneside, so you may be onto something. As for the writing, if you make it any smaller it would have to be joined up and thus intelligble to all but those with a Mackem friend to translate.

Where would they write the number of match-day ticket purchasers? On your trophy cabinet, I would guess.

ML3

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

Alaves only have about 13,000 season ticket holders so we'd have difficulty fitting out lot on the shirt.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

Think big DeB. Ask people for £20 to be immortalised on this season's shirt. Might pay Shearer's wages for 6 months.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

If they spell the names with the same accuracy you spelt disingenuous ML3, we still wouldn't have a clue who they were, even if there was a whole crowd of makum friends present.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

'As for the writing, if you make it any smaller it would have to be joined up and thus intelligble to all but those with a Mackem friend to translate' So does this actually mean that if you have a Mackem friend reading it for you, it will be read completely differently from what is actually printed, for some reason known only to the Mackem friend. Othewise, it'll be perfectly intelligible to everyone.

Or did you mean 'unintelligible' ? Not wanting to nit pick or anything you understand.

And we'll give you that 'intelligble' was merely a bit of makem, oops, sorry, Mackem, shorthand.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

I'll forgive you being a pedantic tw*t if you forgive my typographical errors Mr Bill.

M3L

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

Well does it ?

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

If pedantry is pointing out that what you typed meant exactly the opposite of what you intended, then you got it in one.

There's nothing to forgive because your abuse would have had to have come as something I didn't expect, and therefore might have had some chance of making an impression.

Looking forward to crossing words with you again some time.

Not.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

"What's disappointed me a bit is that there are contributions on here from people I know and for whom I have a fair amount of regard. I'd have expected that a posting which is obviously deliberately abusive and provocative would be absolutely and completely ignored, depriving the originator of whatever dubious satisfaction might be gained from knowing we've bitten again.

See you've joined the Club Pit Bill! ;-{))

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001

Hey, lets not take the pisss ut of people wot cant spell.

-- Anonymous, May 17, 2001