Phone hacking may not be flavour of the month presently, but without such technology we might never have been able to secure the following exchange between Northamptonshire's Chief Constable and his Assistant Chief Constable -
CC: "This is devastating news about Kettering Town being demoted another division!"
ACC: "Quite right sir. It deprives the football supporting Northamptonshire public of local derbies involving three of our senior sides."
CC: "B*llocks to that! We were going to make a killing by policing each of those games to within an inch of their miserable lives!
ACC: "Er...right.
CC: "For the Kettering / Corby games we had riot vans, horses, tazers, and horses with tazers lined up. I had the county helicopter on stand by. I'd even put in a request for water cannons! I was going to be the first Chief Constable on the mainland to approve the deployment of rubber bullets!
We could have charged those bloody football clubs tens of thousands of pounds! But, no, Kettering had to get themselves f*cking relegated into the Southern League! THE SOUTHERN LEAGUE!!! We'll be lucky to be able to charge for a police dog and a bloody PCSO for Kettering's games angainst teams like Bideford and St Neots!
ACC: "Surely we don't exist to extort money out of football clubs? As a Police Service shouldn't we concentrate on protecting the public and solving crimes?
CC: (Big pause) "You've not been here long have you?
ACC (Another big pause) "No, not tremendously long. I transferred here last year from another force"
CC: "Didn't think so. Let me spell a few home truths out to you. Northamptonshire isn't a particularly difficult county to police. There's no air or sea ports. No inner city crime. No history of wanton violence or civil unrest. The last terrorist action we were involved in was the Gunpowder Plot! If it wasn't for Corby at throwing out time and a few pikey's nicking lead of church roofs, we'd all be on the dole!
ACC: "Yes, but -"
CC: "But nothing. I'm talking and you're listening. Alright? Good. As we are a pretty nothing county with bugger all going on we don't get the biggest slice of the national police budget cake. In fact we don't get a slice at all. We get a few crumbs if we're lucky. Barely enough to keep us all in espresso machines and crisp blue uniforms.
One day there was a bit of an incident in Kettering town centre whilst they the football team were playing a game over a mile away. Now, the thugs involved weren't going to the game, or supported either team at the game, but we hit upon the idea of blaming Kettering Town Football Club for the incident and charging them a fortune every time they hosted a game when there might be public order issues.
Since then we've been in clover! Big FA Cup games! Local derbies! Alfreton! We milked this cash cow for all it was worth and there wasn't a single thing they could do to stop us! In the time it took to say Police Intelligence we could name our own price!"
ACC: "Kettering don't average many more than a thousand supporters for home games. Just how much trouble can there be?"
CC: "NONE! That's the beauty of it! We rake in the cash and there's no threat whatsoever!"
ACC: "I see. But should we be seen to be picking on one club. I mean, I'm sure we police all the sporting teams equally? How much do we charge The Saints and their tens of thousands of hard-drinking supporters?
CC: "WHAT! We don't charge The Saints! I've got a season ticket there! My nephew plays for the Under 13's. Police the Saints? I've never heard such an idea! They are the only reason to live in this bloody county!"
ACC "So we just clobber the Poppies then?
CC: "Absolutely - you're starting to get it!"
ACC: "Actually, they are due to play AP Leamington next season, who, according to Wikipedia, they used to play against in the 1970's. There could be some old scores to settle? It could lead to trouble?
CC: "Excellent. You'll go far with that attitude. I won't cancel that water cannon just yet........"
There will probably be more police than away fans next year!
ReplyDeletePolice could charge KTFC whatever they liked, your never going to pay the bill anyway are you.
ReplyDeleteIf a CVA deprives the police of any funds for some of their ludicrous over-the-top efforts in the last few years it would almost be worth it!
DeleteTheir handling of the Poppies could almost be seen as legailsed extortion. If anyone else demanded money from a business to allow them to operate it would rightly be called a protection racket.
100% agree
DeleteI am in complete agreement but I am to lazy to write that.
DeleteNo wonder they charge so much, must have know all along they would only be getting a 10% of the final bill anyway.
ReplyDeleteHow your club has the nerve to then say they'll have a 20k a month budget while so many local companies will be losing out is incredible.
Perhaps the local companies should take their concerns to Ladak, the man who actually ran up the debts with seemingly no intention of paying any bills?
DeleteDo you know exactly how many "local companies" are involved? It has been suggested that most is owed to former directors and others whose investments are later conveniently described as "loans", and under-achieving players.
"Under-achieving players" - well that's fine then. It's ok to not pay them because they were shit, obviously the contracts were performance-based... Or not, in which case it's not their fault if they're shit, you still have to pay them, that's the whole point of a contract!
ReplyDeleteDear Creditor,
I know you're a bit annoyed that you're only getting 10% of the money owed but you see you'll have to contact the previous company owner. I'm a new owner and that means that despite the debts still being valid they're not my problem. I do have £20k a month to spunk on more overpaid players however, I suppose I could only spend £10k a month and pay the creditors more than 10% but... haha, hahahaha, why would I do that?! That's the behaviour you would expect from someone that isn't a crook and has an ounce of respectability.
Love,
George.
It's good to see that axe-grinding hasn't died out with Ladak's reign.
Delete20000 a month divided by 17 players divided by 4 comes in at £300 a week each, so its less than i get which is hardly a top wage.
ReplyDeleteThose owed money, obviously should get it. And a football club director should be reaponsible for the debt he buys.