Football...Foxes and...

...Flowers...

The first is dealt with easily, my team have just had a management buyout.  Well, it's called that with Richard Murray a long time supporter, board member and chairman, taking outright control of the club.

"This has been a critical time for the club. Our future was uncertain, and financially this was potentially one of our darkest hours.


"However, agreement has been reached with my fellow directors for me to take sole control of the club through what is effectively a management buyout (MBO) of the plc subsidiaries. The new money I am injecting into the club will ensure we go into the new season with a competitive team.

"I shall be appointing a new interim board of directors, and we will now go forward and actively seek new investment.
 
http://www.cafc.co.uk/newsview.ink?nid=36314
 
With that...I'm happy...
 
Now, foxes!  My absence (yet again) has been due to visiting my Mum's and trying to get some order into her garden.  Not a huge garden, just a normal suburban one, but one which has had foxes make their home at the end of it, due to the over grown shrubs let run rampant by a "professional" gardening neighbour who didn't like interference, Mum didn't want to upset, and who recently retired from helping.  Now the shrubs are trimmed back...the debris of the foxes home has been cleared, and hopefully we can keep this now tidy.  By all accounts the foxes did come to check, sat and looked awhile, and then trotted off somewhere else.  Now all I have to do is weed, dig...prune and trim the rest of the garden! 
 
...and flowers.  That'd be in my garden.  Over the last few months I've been collecting an array of herbaceous plants, roses and small shrubs, trimming back overgrown shrubs in my own garden and yesterday I, at last, got to plant some.  We'd decided to make a new bed across the garden to break up a sharp slope, this we started to dig.  Then we found some photos of the house and garden fourteen years ago, (behind the old kitchen cabinets we've dismantled)...and lo and behold there was the garden bed full of plants just where we were digging ours!  Stranger still were some other photos showing the front of the house, with a garden just where we had decided to put another one! 

Oh, and my laptop has decided that it's had enough.  Not completely dead, but on the verge of dying...it's power cable is broken and it's virtual memory...it's been telling me for the last two to three years it keeps having to find more!  So I guess that's what I'll be saving for...

Damp...

...at last!


After such scorching weather the rain fell softly yesterday. 


Wimbledon is over...the World Cup is over...and Spain is celebrating.  Of course, we did have winners at Wimbledon with two young men winning the Boys Double title, and we did have representation on the World Cup final pitch with Howard Webb refereeing.  Blame and accusation have started...as has the pre-season friendlies.  My team lost on Saturday to AFC Wimbledon, and won tonight at Welling United, but these are exercises...no clue to the performances to come with so many changes and substitutions throughout the matches...but tonight saw the return of Jon Fortune (yay), maybe only for this...but I'd bite your hand off to get him back, and then there's the forthcoming talk with Christian Dailly...mix those staying with new signings and youngsters, that defence could be stronger than last year. 

I've been looking to go to Kettering, but ticket information seems a little scarce...

I nearly went to Lynn tonight to watch the match between the newly reformed King's Lynn club and a Norwich City XI...I wish I had now...Lynn won 2 - 0.    Norwich put a team of academy and senior players who didn't travel to Germany out.  I'll watch both teams with interest. 

My local team, Fakenham Town, haven't started their pre-season yet...

I know...

...it's almost a month since I've written!  I have excuses...reasons, but I won't bore you with those!

Except, we went to a wonderful wedding in Kent.  The bride was beautiful, and very "princessy", which is what she always wanted.  And we went to my sister's brilliant party...also in Kent, and had a great time!

So, the rest...seems at my team's headquarters things they are a changing!  Some departures have been announced, with second goalkeeper leaving for Motherwell where he's been guaranteed the number one shirt in a three year deal...I'm sure that will help his international aspirations (Ireland), instead of signing a one year contract with us.  Spring(released anyway) going to Leyton Orient...  Stuart Fleetwood off to Hereford...after numerous loan deals with clubs.  The Nicky Bailey saga goes on, with a deal imminent for his move to Middlesbrough...this is money we sorely need.  Jonjo Shelvey already at Liverpool, with a far better manager now than the one he signed for!  I always had a "what if" feeling about Roy Hodgson, us rather than Fulham...if only!!  Steve Gritt is leaving...an unfortunate casualty in the monetary reality of League One football.  He will be sorely missed, by all...he was a Charlton stalwart and had been there longer than some fans!  Another Steve...this time Waggott, who left this week...and redundancy warnings have been announced too, not actuality yet, but it's a nasty feeling having hanging over you!  Yassin Moutaouakil has had his contract terminated...so a weight off our wage bill!  We have signed our youngster Alex Stavrinou on a one year contract...and also, I'm glad, Chris Solly.  Two good young players, and with the new rules of youngsters who signed for a club three years before their twenty first birthday being in the squad, these two are positive news.  It's reported that Frazer Richardson and Jose Semedo both came back to training this week...and it's players of experience in the mix of youngsters we need.  We can't go out and sign a relatively "big name", but if we carefully blend youth with experience we could hold our own next season, and surprise those doubters!  One thing that makes me feel as though I'm chewing feathers is...we're financially tight...squeaky tight, but we're still there...others have gone into administration and bounced out...if not smelling of roses, at least still alive.  You tell me that's right! 

Oh, and I won't be watching the World Cup final, nor either of the Wimbledon finals...ce la vie!  As they say in France!