I love these old videos about players I only hear talked about but have never seen.

Hi TG.....I live in Philly which is an hour from NY and have been there dozens of times.

I am sure you have considered or already done the normal touristy things such as Times Square and Central Park....walking across Brooklyn Bridge.... etc...these below are just a few ideas from me....they only contemplate NYC itself and not day trips to the many attractions within driving distance of the Big Apple such as the Hudson Valley for example

Bryant Park is a small oasis in the heart of Manhattan right behind the big Public Library between 5th and 6th....nice place to get a beverage and watch the world go by.

South St Seaport used to be a buzzy area but I must admit I haven't been down there for a while....it used to have some nice restaurants right on the water where you could get a beer and watch the ferries pouring in from Staten Island and the traffic on the East River

If you (or Mrs. TG?) are interested in some retail therapy nip over to Hudson Yards near Penn Station ....brand new mall built over a railway yard...very clean with a big outside screen showing sports matches....I'm not a big shopper like Mrs. Andy but I like this place as there is a ton of food offerings including a large Spanish market with three or four very quality Spanish restaurants....I ate in Lena which was very good

Bit heavy but I felt compelled to visit ….the 9/11 museum....I was in NY the week before and a few months previously had eaten in Windows on the World which was the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center

It's a moving experience and I'm glad I did it....got a bit emotional tbh....very well done ...quite restrained by US standards.....Anyhow afterwards I needed a bit of light relief so made my way across the street to Le District....excellent French market ....that includes bars, restaurants etc...couple of glasses of Chablis got my equilibrium back

By the way close to there is Eataly....well worth a visit if you've never been to one....not sure if there's one in London but I think the concept would work

Finally find a bar and watch the pre season friendly's !

Thanks Andy. Good on you son I will check some of those out. Not sure how I’ve missed Bryant park before.

Never been to Philly, what’s it like ? I love their cheesesteaks ! How did you end up on that side of the pond if you don’t mind me asking ? I’m in the US quite often as I work for a US companies so always interested in hearing about Anglo US relations. I kind of fantasise about retiring down the gulf coast when my working days are done. Spend my final years down in margaritaville searching for my lost shaker of salt

From Hammers News

Take it or leave it’
Arsenal have been given a 72-hour warning by a West Ham board confidant with Sullivan prepared to ‘walk away’ from the Rice deal.

“West Ham are prepared to walk away from £105m deal with Arsenal if they don’t get their way in the next 72 hours,” West Ham board confidant Sean Whetstone said.

“The Hammers have dug in and made their position clear on payment structure and other clauses to successfully conclude the deal.

“Ball is in Arsenal’s court, take it or leave it.”

Not sure I’d believe this, the suggestion seems to be that he’s due to have a medical this week from many journalists and everything has been agreed.

Timber medical is going ahead, but the haggling over the Rice installment payments seems to be the continued stall. Today was supposed to be an agreement reached. Now pushed to 24 hours.

Talk now of the Xhaka fee to Leverkusen being €25m, a lot more than the €15m first touted.
Only 12 months left on his deal and he’s 30. If we want a midfield revamp that’s not a bad return

A fee of £21.5m would put Xhaka in the top 15 or so most expensive transfers for a player aged 30 or more, and probably top 10 of you take out the buying clubs being Chinese/Saudi/sugar daddy clubs.

https://www.cameo.com/parlour

It may be a tad tacky, but there are very few sports stars who don't endorse products and do adverts for money, no matter how much they earn.

What I read today was it’s all done and Rice was at London colney today plus the club have filmed some kind of welcome video with one of the actors from Top Boy.

"some people claim there's a woman to blame...but I know its my own damn fault"...Gulf Coast is brilliant to visit but before you commit...Hurricane Season over here gets longer every year and they get more powerful. You can't reason with Hurricane Season

In the late 80's I was working for Mecca Bookmakers in London. We had about 1200 shops country-wide.
We (my brother and a few mates) had the expertise and saw an opportunity to open betting shops in the USA and went for it. At that time to legally operate off track betting in any State of the Union you had to own a race track. At that time we identified two options...both in States where off track betting was legal....Pennsylvania (Philadelphia Park Racetrack) and Louisiana (Fairgrounds in New Orleans)
One thing led to another and we sold everything we owned, borrowed a big chunk of money and bought Philadelphia Park. This gave us the exclusive right to open and operate 6 Betting Shops in and around Philadelphia (then the fourth biggest City in America...now overtaken by Houston and Phoenix)

We designed and opened them in a fashion that you would never recognize in the UK....ours were enormous (30,000 square feet), elegant units with a full service restaurant, two bars, food court, comfortable lounges with cocktail service and about a million TV's with live racing from across the globe with all the attendant betting information. They were enormously successful in their day but the proliferation of Casino gaming and legalised Sports Betting in PA and neighbouring states (like NJ and Delaware) did them in. We had anticipated this and got ourselves in the front of the queue for a Casino license at our racetrack and opened 15 or so years ago.....Fast Forward to today........

Parx Casino of which I hold the grand title of Vice President is the most successful casino in this region (which includes Atlantic City)

3500 Slot Machines
120 Tables (Blackjack, Craps, Baccarat etc.)
80 Poker Tables
1500 Seat Concert Arena
Food Court
6 restaurants (Asian, Steakhouse, Pub etc.)
Beer Garden
Sportsbook
Thriving igaming business
Hotel in the design stage
2800 Employees

That's it in a nutshell. We were supposed to be in and out in 3/5 years...make our money and bugger off back to Blighty. Here I am 33 years and counting later ...life got in the way of our plans!

We should ensure we get a large percentage of any sell on fees. He’s got many years left in him as a player.

That’s a great story. Congratulations on a very successful career. What odds are the firm offering on us for the EPL or CL this season.

EPL 23/24

City -135
AFC 500
Pool 800
Man U 1100
Chelsea 1200

CL 23/24

City 200
Bayern 700
RM 900
PSG 1000
Barca 1200
AFC 1400
MU 1600
Farul Constanta 150,000

Xhaka to Leverkusen supposedly for 21.5 million. If true, surprised at the fee. Take the check Edu and run immediately to the bank.

Not unexpected and he will leave on a good note and if he ever comes back in whatever incarnation, I would be surprised if he's not warmly received. I love how he turned around his relationship with the fans.

Thank you Granit!!

Partey is there too, as is John-Boy Walton, Boy George and one of the blokes from Devo. Some good gift options there for the difficult-to-buy-for family member.

That’s a really great story Andy, you must have a pair on you to go over there and set up like that. Pretty incredible really.

I bet there must have been some challenging moments in those early days right. To make such a jump where it’s all or nothing must have been interesting to say the least. Not just a new business but new country.

Whilst being a businessmen I have always worked for companies rather than setting up my own shop. I do wonder if it’s something I will regret in later life.

That is an amazing story Andy. I'm well impressed. Ever thought of selling it all and buying Arsenal instead....?

There are a number of stories in the media that Havartz is our highest earning player by a long way. I hope they are false.

I have a hunch there’s going to be a LOT of egg on faces amongst our fans about Mr Havertz

What a brilliant story Andy.
You saw an opportunity and went for it and succeeded.
Takes huge balls that does.
Nice to see a Gooner doing well!

Cheers david d and others

I aint that smart.......what I didn't tell you in my story is that we lost our original funding (the collapse of the junk bond market scuppered us)....I'm not the one to discuss that with as high finance is way above my pay grade....any event we were right in the nick...we couldn't complete the purchase of Philadelphia Park and were being hit with brutal financial penalties for that failure to complete...we were on the ropes and for a while looked like we would have to go back home with our tails well and truly between our legs....long story short we were introduced to an extremely wealthy bloke who put up the $50 million or so and we purchased the track. However in so doing we ceded much of our equity in return for his money

So the business today is worth conservatively $2 billion.....if things had have gone our way I would own 2% of the Company. That said I've done fine …we got well paid and bonused over the years and I have no regrets. Would've been a better ending if the six of us had held on to our shares but that's life.
I have had a blast.

Currently I am very homesick....time to go home....my love affair with Philly is on the wane (see last nights headlines....5 shot dead)

Next 18 months I'm back....not sure yet where ….I'm leaning towards Hove....my sister lives in Brighton and my eldest up the coast in Rustington...or somewhere Teddington, Hampton Wick, Esher area....my niece lives in Teddington and I've been a few times....its really lovely

Decision time coming soon.

I’m sure he will be near the top. He’d have been on big wages at Chelsea and you don’t earn small money when you move for £65m. I’d expect him in the top 3 earners.
I also saw a rumour that that story about him being on huge wages was from Germany and a very pro Bayern media who like to churn these kind of stories to players deemed to have ‘rejected’ Bayern

Payment structure for Rice is supposedly done. Agreed over 2 years or 3 accounting periods which Arsenal wanted to balance the books. Still the same amount coming out but it works better for the accountants.

I expect Arsenal to make quite the song and dance about signing Rice.

So, that's how you got to my city Andy? Great story. Before lotto, one of the races at Philadelphia Park was used to provide the daily numbers for what mafia movies call 'the rackets'. The 3 numbers need to be 3 numbers you can't create. The last 3 numbers of the Inquirer was one and I can't fully recall which races but the numbers of the first 3 horses to win, place and show for one of the races was used as legend says.

I got out of Philly as soon as I could in HS. My family that's left has moved out to the suburbs of Montgomery county. Best adjective I heard a non Philly person describe it was 'gritty'. My mom moved back after my father passed and now visit the area at least once a year. It's changed a lot in some places. The Fishtown area was once a very gritty, there goes that word again, area and now it looks like South Street with great bars, and places to go. Northern Liberties was very different. Roxborough the most. It was very working class, tough area, now it also has a lot of bars, social places.

In the last 3 seasons Partey has missed 37 games through injury. Rice has missed 0.

The Arteta-type player is more and more clear with every window.
Injury robustness, athletic, flexible, intelligent, mobile, young(!), hard working…..and I’m all for it

Touch wood!

Yes I hope that explains it because if some of the figures reported are true it could lead to some unhappy players at the club. For instance one report is he is on 330k per week and Saka on 190k. That must be false. Surely, Saka, Rice, Jesus, Ødegaard, Saliba must all earn near the same figure, with Martenelli just a little below them.

Really interesting pod on how we’re financing all this activity and the set up the past few years https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/w ... 0619069144

Knows his stuff does nigel Phillips , met him and had a good chat at Bernard’s funeral

.

: I love it ; nice little cyclone in a tea cup erupting in the Ashes

Bairstow lets a bowl go past him ; thinking play is dead he wanders off down the pitch to do the mandatory fist bump or some other inconsequential action

Aussie keeper fires ball back , knocks over the stumps ....... Bairstow run out .

Aussie wins the test

MCC members chanting CHEATS CHEATS .....Rishi Sunak's involved ; Geoff Boycott waffling about the 1932 Bodyline , mutterings about Australia's criminal past .

Aussie media chortling typical whinging Poms .... great theatre

Probably the submarine deal will be cancelled ..... break in diplomatic relations .

Will be an interesting Test in Yorkshire next up .

Where the hell are our cricket aficionados Daz and Old Hoy when you need them

Good to see test cricket being taken seriously! It's dying down here.

Still won’t be the most famous Arsenal Rice though , let’s not forget that

If buying Kai is to replace Xhaka, why couldn't Trossard slot in there? Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about him now after being underwhelmed about the idea early on. That seemingly small tactical change will reap benefits for us I think. Fact is, even though he improved, we should have gotten more out of Xhaka in that more advanced position.

Rice all over the Heighway.

Interesting stuff, Andy. Quite a ride! Respect.

Not sure what all the fuss was about. Bairstow was dumb and Carey was sharp. Because of that, Bairstow was out.

In essence, bowlers win matches and theirs are better than ours. If they had a sharper captain, it would all have been over much earlier.

Gidday Decaf ... indeed anything to spice the game up , the Bodyline , Alan Donald dropping his bat , Bolt stepping on the boundary rope , the underarm to McKechnie and this incident all help spice up the game that sometimes can be pretty hum drum .

Nailed it DHD .... would have been better for Bairstow to say I cocked up rather than bleating about the " Spirit of the Game "

Stuart Broad's tweats about fair play are laughable when a few years back he clearly edged the ball to slip ...and refused to walk .

Really interesting to read Andy's description of setting up a serious book-making / casino operation. I confess I’ve always had a certain fascination for gambling though it has never been something I’ve really indulged in. Few mug punts on the Grand National down the years but not much more than that. Last bet I placed was Patrick Vieira to score up at Leicester – and that went down.

Going back a while, both my grandfathers were obsessed with horse racing and it caused their families real suffering on many occasions. Imagine my grandmothers trying to feed their young families – including my parents – when the old man had blown all his wages for the week.

I met Clement Freud at Lord’s many years ago. Really interesting guy and we had a long chat over a few beers. Amongst other things (MP, Chef, TV personality, Author) he was a legendary gambler. He told me that for him, a bet had to mean something. He needed to bet a large enough sum that it would really hurt to lose. I tried that approach a couple of times and while it did hurt when I lost, I never got any sort of thrill from the process. I just couldn’t see the point. Slightly odd because I’ve taken many risks over the years in my professional life so it isn’t that aspect that put me off gambling. I suppose it’s the lack of control. Might be different if I had any sort of knowledge or understanding of what I was betting on, but I didn’t.

No. Not for me.

https://www.parxcasino.com/

Pretty impressive.