City can still ‘earn’ as much as the top clubs through fair means though. The sponsorship deals just need to be a fair market rate. I’d say that irrespective of the size of the fan base City with 6 titles in 7 years could make a good case for as a minimum matching the best deal brokered by any top club. What they can’t justify is their sponsorship deals being 10 times what anyone else is able to raise. And they surely can’t defend the evidence that showed they actively tried to hide where the money was coming from.

The stuff our forefathers did for us cannot, and never will be, forgotten.

Sobering stuff that should put some of our current domestic worries into perspective.

Lovely stuff DHD and John. Thank you. Lest we forget the ultimate sacrifice by these brave souls.

On a slightly separate note I know of a few guys in this area(Philadelphia) who have ventured over this week to pay respects to family/loved ones ....many lives were lost from this region on that day....they are combining it with a trip to London where the local baseball team The Phillies are scheduled to play two divisional games against arch enemies.... the New York Mets..... this weekend

Fantastic story. One of these days I may share some of my eldest brother's experience in 'recon' in Vietnam. That generation of your father's time DHD is really the backbone of the country.

I fear the younger generation don't know enough or care enough of the sacrifice of men like your father.

It’s also worth pointing out Arsenal contributed 7.8 million towards the renovation of Drayton park and Holloway Road tube stations but TFL then used it on Highbury and Islington instead for some reason. Hence everyone having to leg it to that tube after games. The new stadiums seem to be helping the local communities if we are honest though through regeneration.

Levy seemed to do a good job with the spurs stadium by using the London stadium as a stalking rabbit with Haringey council who then seemed to agree to any request they made. Arsenal had a totally different proposition with Islington who refused to comply unless certain specifications were met. The original plans included a new tube station actually in the stadium development for match day use but these were rejected because TFL refused to staff it without owning it. Think about that. Would have made such a difference ! Then there were restrictions on the height of the stadium, attendance etc etc

It’s for this reason that it’s unlikely if not impossible to expand the capacity at a later stage now as local student accommodation is there plus more regeneration planned. Forgetting the technical aspects of the rebuild of the emirates it would involve a negotiation with the council who would demand funding to redo Holloway Road and Drayton park (again) which would probably outweigh the logicality of adding another 10K seats.

West Ham also did a decent job despite the ground being a bit crap it only costs them 1.5 mill a year or something. Boris probably got a few brown paper bags for agreeing that as mayor

Don't know how much veracity to apply to it, but a fairly respected football podcaster said that City believe Arsenal leaked information about them to the press about their charges to affect public opinion. Also, City supposedly has one ally, possibly two, but definitely one ally in all this: Chelsea.

My godfather (an Uncle) shot and killed a German post D-Day.

He was my favourite Uncle. He was a mobile butcher, and I loved, on the odd occasion i was invited to go with him, to accompany him on his 'rounds'. (Non-refrigerated Vauxhall Vivan van). He was also an angler, and I loved to go with him on Sundays and fish for salmon, before disease and over fishing killed them off.

He never spoke about his war experiences; I only found out about the killing after his death. His eldest son (my cousin) said he (my Uncle) never had a good night's sleep in all the time he knew him.

Another Uncle was shot in the stomach; his mate (from the same village as him) went out, captured two Germans, and made them carry my uncle back to a first aid post. (He survived).

My dad's cousin, an Australian, came over to fly Lancaster bombers. Of the 34 lads he came over with, 3 went home.

We don't know we're born.

Well said.