"I am not a number, I'm a free man," bellowed the Prisoner. Greedy sod, he should have been grateful, because Coventry City striker Paul Williams is remembered in the tomes of football folly by just a solitary letter. Yes, one blessed letter.

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FOOTBALL LAUGHS IN THE EMPTY POCKET OF THE CREDIT CRUNCH... SATURDAY 16th AUGUST 2008
If Gordon Brown really wants to know how to plug the hole in the British economy, he could do a lot worse than rock up at Fratton Park at some point over the next few weeks on a fact-finding mission.

While all of those crusties in the cabinet sweat over a national finance problem that now looks worse on paper than that legendary MBNA credit card bill I received in my final year at university, our fine football clubs are not only bucking the economic trends, but to put it mildly doing something that rhymes with that adjective too, such is their rebellion to the otherwise slowdown of market powers.

Accountancy boffins Deloitte & Touche confirmed this week that the vast majority of our Premier League clubs are either at, or approaching, their season ticket capacities for the 2008/09 season. Director Paul Rawnsley says, "Football fans are again demonstrating their commitment and loyalty to their clubs, despite the current economic climate."

Now unless you support Manchester United or Chelsea, what this effectively means is that you're already subscribing to an almost given outcome. One of the aforementioned will win the league, Arsenal and Liverpool will qualify for the Champions League, and two of the three that came up will naff off back to the Championship. And everyone else will vegetate between 5th and 17th with some mild titillation over a couple of UEFA Cup spots.

It's like saying I know when drunk I'll buy a filthy kebab, have a row, spend too much money and ultimately regret it all in the morning, but hell, I'm up for the ride in any case.

It's bonkers. Even Deloitte recognise the predictability of the whole process, and in thinly veiling the already written 'Story of the 08/09 Premier League season' scriptures, are happy trying to distract our common sense by waving calculators in our faces in the hope that we'll kid ourselves that there are deeper economic conflicts within the game that need to be examined, as Rawnsley concludes:



"Whilst football is not recession-proof, it is recession-resistant,"

...which, let's be honest, is exactly the same thing. And with that kind of spin it seems we have yet another candidate capable of relieving Gordon of his duties.

 

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